Beginning this day, i introduce a new character, Sam, whose lifes and times are chronicled in the following pages. I would write whenever i encounter this rare specimen. Sam is, in a way, my punching bag. My joys, frustrations, grief, ecstasy, stupidity, creativity.. all find a fountain-head in this imaginary creation.
Sam is no American. He is our very own Sathiyamangalam Atmaram Manikandan, a south Indian for sure but someone who has remained so terribly secretive that even the abbreviated name must have been an adaptation to suit some wily ends. I have heard him tell once that he hailed from a royal clan of Sathiyamangalam and the entire forests in that hilly tract belonged to his great grand fathers, later illegally occupied by that notorious bandit Veerappan. The society's records say he said this while addressing the members on "Old Women and Older Men's Day". It must have been said surely to impress someone that ignored him or he must have chosen that occasion to introduce that unverifiable history about his royal ancestors.
Whatever his intentions, there was something different in everything he did and he had attractive ways about him. Everyone liked to talk to him. There was not a single home in the surrounding locality where he was not treated as a member of the family. He was privy to the inside story of every family. From mediating in and patching up unrelated quarrels to being a self appointed watch dog of that small society he took part in every damned activity and if there was none, he would celebrate the birthday of King Rajavarma Johnson. If asked who this King was, he would say tearfully he was the 47th descendant of a Dutch Emperor and was related to him through his great-grand-aunt. He was fluent even when lying about history to historians.
Sam and the World Cup
"Banish them", a familiar voice screamed. I suddenly turned around to see our own Sam, with the day's paper in hand. Asked him what upset him so much that he should be so rudely angry but yet be so poetic in condemning someone. He said, "They want to make a 'manchuri' of the soothe-sayer Octopus Paul for consigning the Germans to the list of defeated teams. How unfair..". I took some time to realise he was refering to that phenomenon called Paul - that hapless animal caught in the greed and despair of a troubled mankind - which ventured to play probability theory and was unfortunate to have gotten it right at all times, so far. Sam is right for wrong reasons. While the Anands of the world use supercomputers to analyse the moves of Topalovs and Kasparovs, there is a parallel community that still depends on parrots, pigeons, snakes, turtles and octopus to understand the future. How would it look if a Topalov went beserk and smashed the motherboard of his computer after his loss to Anand!!!
Sam meets the Press
"Thirty three, this December" said Sam to the petite dame sitting in front of him all ears and eyes, and expecting Sam to pour out. I paused for a while to realise Sam said that about his age. His range has often been between thirty-seven and forty-eight, but today was a new low. He added, his parents were third generation business tycoons now settled in Trinidad but he had come back to India to study "Vijayanagar Architecture" some fifteen years ago. At eighteen then, but why did the press woman not ask him, i wondered.
He was moved by the poverty and squalor in India's slums and had decided to spend his life here. Continuing further, he said he got his name from that maratha warrior Samnath Topeshwar, who was the most trusted commander of a Maratha king. I was shocked. How did our rustic Manikandan become Samnath and how much more could history suffer in the lips of this butcher. I tried to remember if there was anything that was being narrated to this press-staff true and there was nothing. Sam was a past master in this trade. Why was he doing this, what was his motive , what did he achieve and who exactly was he.. let's wait and see. Meanwhile, he continued his sermons, ".. i trust in my ability to discern the good one from the pulp. I would not buy anything for a brand name. Brands are afterall a premium one pays for ignorance and laziness..".
Samnath Topeshwar concluded the interview invoking some hymns which resembled sanskrit phonetics but i was sure they were not. He had always used History and Sanskrit to great advantage in all his dealings.
Sam on 'Self-Confidence'
"Look at the umbrella. It cannot stop the rains. But it can certainly make you stand in the rains without getting drenched. Self-confidence in yourself is much the same. It cannot give you success by itself, but it can certainly help you to face challenges", Sam started the day this way. Must have been my bad karma that i bumped into him during my morning walk and i had to hear all this unsolicited profundity. Sam loved to speak. He just needed a pair of ears in front of him. He is believed to have spoken to my daughter for 6 hours non-stop on what she should become when she grows up - and all of this when my cute one was just 8 months old.
Sam eats Idlis
Sathiyamangalam Atmaram Manikandan, popularly Sam, arrived a full fifteen minutes late. We had decided to meet for a farewell to a family in the society.
What would otherwise have been a small house-to-house breakfast or lunch or dinner get-together five years ago was today extravaganzaed as a breakfast get-together in a suburban 3 star restaurant. How things change. Man is not respected if he wants to be simple and practical. Nobody trusts my explanation if I don’t do it from a power-point. I can get away with a canard if it comes when I am inside a three-piece while I have to prove my identity with a PAN card if I walk in simple casuals. It’s the era of the flamboyant and the flaunting fosters..
The Senior Navy Officer in the neighborhood was getting back to his native village after a thirty-odd years of distinguished service and his last place of work was our city. After all he has helped many a child drop to his or her nursery or school in his car, has taken most of the society’s population to official parties as his relatives where some of us have become his brothers or sisters in the office muster. He once called me his cousin-brother and on another occasion my wife as his sister.
Well, here we were at the breakfast table to sing paeans of his association with us and how we were to remember the senior sailor for the next many generations. The concept of a breakfast was, as usual, suggested by Mr. Sam, the good Samaritan of the society, and here he was – inordinately late. Sam believed in being a cynosure at all occasions. Either he would come late to make his presence felt or come quite early (enough) to create a ruckus about the importance of punctuality for those that turned in late. He had to be noticed. Talk is even if Sam were to attend a funeral, he would not miss the chance to attract. He would dress up the way the hero of the latest Tamil/Telugu or Hindi movie would have done on a similar event. So much for his need to be noticed..
As is often the case with any Indian get together, we were twelve of us that included four children. And we required twenty-two different items. Sam stole the show yet again. He first shouted why we should not have started earlier and when his turn for choosing what he wanted to eat came, he said he preferred to keep it light and would settle for Cathatori with veil parmesan and wind up with Tortoni. We were all shocked. We haven’t heard anything so atrocious at a dining table. I quickly sensed what Sam was upto. Either he would want to say his Italian friends have introduced him to the healthiest food on earth or he picked this during his stay in Dubai (he would attribute his one week absconding last month to a Dubai trip). In either case, this was way too much for a breakfast and I dreaded the moment. Ironically, Sam had very recently exhorted others on the virtues of eating leaf and grass and how the great Mahatma lived on goat’s milk and peanuts and yet lived for 102 years, which no one contested.
The waiter was shocked beyond recognition and said the hotel did not serve Mexican food, to which Sam angrily asked him to look at the atlas and be aware that a place called Italy existed and these were the delicacies of Italian orthodoxy. My suspicions were coming true. But good luck, he stopped there and again said with seething anger, “get me idlis and saambaazh”. I interrupted to clarify it was ‘sambaar, which was usually served in buckets with large ladles to proffer..’. Others ordered too. In sometime, we all started. Sam did mention about how Italian food was prepared and how he has started admiring global food (world music, global warming, global economy and now global food..) and that Olive Oil was the only liquid that deserved to be consumed.
Sam almost ordered for chopsticks but ended up eating with a knife and forks. Idlis with a knife, my daughter screamed – my wife instantly throttled the kid’s neck for raising another topic. We did nothing but watch him eat idlis and sambar. He ate them as if it was some deadly poison being administered to a recalcitrant criminal and ended up saying, he hated Indian food because it was over-cooked. No one could refute. Everyone realized the blunder of agreeing to get together to celebrate an occasion with Sam as an invitee. For many of us, it was a regret it was not Sam’s farewell. All of us wished Sam would run away again and not be seen for many months.
