Survival Skill

Some time back my friend Rajeev sent me a forward. About life in the corporate world.  Around the same time I too had been mulling over the days I spent in the corporate world. I have straddled with equal ease, now I realize, Public and Private sector, Banking and Non- Banking.  I found life interesting, worthless, comical, idiosyncratic, meaningless, rewarding …….you name it. It is much the same everywhere.

When I left the protected world of Public Sector Banking and jumped into the unknown Private – Proprietary, de facto, as closely held by the promoters- I was warned by many well meaning friends that I wouldn’t last long. My answer to them was – what choice I had? - and who would have thought I would have to walk out of the safe havens of the ‘nothing will affect’ Premier Government Bank.  In the circumstances that I left the cocoon and jumped into world of the unknown, I was charged with a desire for retribution and determination to prove a point… that there is life   outside the PSU, worth giving a try.

I left the ‘cocoon’ for all the wrong reasons. I had just been promoted to the next higher grade- many a peer fell by the side- which could open to me at least two more promotions before superannuation. I thought that was a great reward for my work but the local higher ups thought otherwise. I was dispatched, as it was the wont, to a distant ‘foreign’ land, the North-East. But I never imagined that I was to be the scapegoat in a three way tug of war of the State Government, the management and the Officer’s Union in finding a person to head a branch in a disturbed capital town.  Parochial considerations would also have played a role. To the utter disappointment (surprise!)  of the contending parties I chose not to play sport. I refused to be the sitting duck and dodged the posting to my best. When I found I had unwittingly become the fourth contending party and there was no escape, I put in my papers.  Back to square one, the other parties, with the onerous task of finding another potential victim.  And me, out into the wild. That in short is the story of my straying out.

During my last years in the Bank I had opportunities to be exposed to new management theories. Consultants were dime a dozen. The sleeping giant was set to wake up. Transformation and Business Process Re-engineering were the buzzwords. The existing organizational set up and business plans were all the works of domestic homegrown consultants. And not suited for a bank aspiring to go World Class. In these times of Globalization only a global name would work…..so came in McKinsey . Everything looked fine till they started tampering with the nomenclature of the hierarchy.  Managing Directors became Chief Officers in their area of responsibility. What a let down!

Meaningless processes and rules-as felt by the consultants- were to be discarded. The Bible of the Bank- the book of instructions, upon which most of us had sworn our allegiance - went into cold storage.  Re-Engineering the Corporation took its place.  The talk of value-adding the customer, value chains, core competencies, paradigm shift and so on were bandied about. It didn’t matter to these worthies that originators of BPR had moved on to Beyond Re-engineering and the peddler of Core Competencies was toying with core incompetencies. As long as they, yours truly included, mouthed these jargons they were considered moving with the times. The others who still swore by the Book and the traditional banking were considered unfashionable. Well, this was the atmosphere prevailing when I left the bank. In my wildest of dreams did I ever think of revisiting the fad management theories let alone be a most willing participant?. No. But that was what it was to be. That’s the story of another post.

My moment of F(l)ame

The flames that consumed the Lokpal Draft finds its match only in the fury of the Australian brushfire. The carbon gases emitted would have been adequate to wipe out all the carbon credits earned by Indian Corporates so far. All the electronic annual reports and direct credit of dividends to bank accounts went naught. Well, the civil society cannot be expected to behave civil always. Bills can’t be torched on facebook or twitter. On occasions they need to express their ire by fire on the streets also.

That brings to my mind how I narrowly missed my moment of f(l)ame during college days.  We were a small group charged with secular progressive ideology; or so we thought during those days.  We could never have won college elections and were an inconsequential minority whose voice never mattered. We lacked the organizational skills of Kejriwal or the dramatics of Bedi to convert a simple villager wearing a Gandhi cap into a cult overnight. We didn’t have the wherewithal to call for a strike and if we did, the consequences could be serious. Those days the Principal did matter. He could rusticate you and that would be the end of your dreams to a degree. Only your parent’s entreaties could make him alter his decision. This in a nutshell is the background information.

Our group was itching to mark our presence in the campus. In academics and extra curricular activities our individual members did make a mark. But as a group we had no voice. It was around this time that the monthly college news paper came out with an editorial which we considered offensive. It was about the formation of the new Calicut University. The editorial cast serious aspersions about the secular nature of the University. This was a Godsend opportunity for us.

Before anybody could take up the issue we decided to act. But how?  A strike?  We didn’t have the strength. Gherao the Principal? We didn’t have the guts. A fast to death didn’t look cool. Gandhiji or Gandhigiri had not become a craze then, four decades back, as it is now.

It was then that somebody came up with the idea: Burn the Paper!  Inside the college campus, with all the fanfare that we could command.  A senior chap, politically correct, suggested that before we do anything drastic we need to exhaust the usual remedies. Make a representation to the Principal. There were dissenting notes as the dissenters felt that the surprise element would be lost. Nevertheless, the senior’s voice did carry weight. We sought an audience, but our reputation was so great that it was promptly turned down.  We then waited for the Principal to make his rounds and accosted him in the verandah. We made our point but the Principal dared us to go with our protest. We claimed we represent “the students” as Team Anna says they represent “the people”. The principal had a Diggy Raja (Singh) trait in him and we were dismissed with contempt.

Back to square one, we made our future plans. Before the opening bell we were to shout slogans and make a bonfire of the paper in the college quadrangle.  And thereafter what?  We were blank. We had no road map or new issues to rake up. Cut to the present there is no dearth of issues to fight for … electoral reforms, right to service, right to food security, right to education…..all unheard of those days. Right to strike work was the only mantra of the times.

The next day with great trepidation the small group assembled outside the college campus. Unlike now , where the visual media directs the show , the angles , the sound bites and the protestors and the police are only the dramatis personae , those days there was not even a beat reporter of the local eveninger to cover our show.  Altogether, a surcharged yet depressing atmosphere in our camp.

It was then to our great relief the anti-climax unfolded. The Principal put a corrigendum on the notice board that an article which inadvertently found its way to the editorial did not represent College view point and was the personal view of the contributor! No word of regret though! We claimed credit and called off our protest with great sense of relief .Did the Principal capitulate to our demand? If he did, he surely overestimated our strength and capacity to carry forward. Or was it a clever move by the Principal to dissipate a budding group.  Well, we made a point, however chimeral it may look now.  But was that what we really wanted? Beyond the issue did we cherish an urge to be counted? What ever be it, we missed our moment of f(l)ame.

The Aftermath

It has been three months since I have been away from my blog. During these times I have had very less access to my comp. A quick check of the mails, a stealthy visit to the face book or a hurried glance of the stories …..this has been my routine. The change has been caused by the onslaught of the hurricane which I forecast a couple of months back.  I have been busy with my grand children, all of 6 years between them. With the rains keeping them indoors most of the time, it has been the responsibility of the grand parents to keep the brats adequately engaged. Not an easy task, as they can be hands full if they so decide. 

 Television is out of bounds …restricted to just one hour between 9 and 10 Pm to get them adequately subdued for the night’s sleep. Mostly, Hindi reality shows, which would not seek to expand their knowledge of curse words.  The X Factor or Kaun Banega Crorepati. They also love to watch the cookery shows.  No surfing the channels, as they love to watch the ads also, much to my discomfiture.  

The outdoors are mostly temples which they seem to like. So much so, that the general refrain on a bright day is…Which temple are we going today?  They seem to be generally outdoor creatures, especially the Hotel lobbies or restaurants which they appropriate to themselves. They make friends with the bearers and charm their way to quick and speedy service. When visiting relatives they expertly make their way to the kitchen and ask……… What can we have to eat?

Between them they fight but would not allow third party mediation. Very often they gang up to extract a story or a play act from their grand parents. The grandfather is made to act as ‘the enormous turnip’, the giant from ‘Jack and the beanstalk’ or the ‘sly fox’             as the story demands. He sees ‘mean looking fellows’ with ‘unruly hair’ all around. Straight from Enid Blyton story he overheard being read out to his sister.

Nik is very reasonable while making demands. The other day I heard his grand mother tell him …    “Nik ! If you start fussing I’m not making Gulab Jamun at all. Stop now and I promise to make it tomorrow.”  No issues for him. Not for him ‘my way or the high way’. He promptly agreed but with a small twist:  “Ok Ammama, I stop fussing, but I want tomorrow, Now”  What do you say to this?

They are at their extreme boisterous behavior towards the night when the whole colony has gone to sleep.   Nothing can stop them from their shouts and shrieks except the fear of the bogeyman, now with diminishing returns. My daughter says, their behavior, at times, comes in handy too when they have an unwelcome late night guest. Not for us, used to the tranquil nights in Manisseri!

  

A week almost now, I have the comp all to myself. The remote is safe in my hands but not the excitement in surfing channels. We have the tranquil nights back but that’s not what we look forward to these days. The silence is deafening.

Season of Protests

I have been feeling slightly down cast these days.  A sense of uneasiness or perhaps an inferiority complex as any Behavioral Therapist would easily point to. Before you jump into further conclusions let me tell you it’s all about my inability (again a contrarian?)  to see eye to eye with many of my friends…..on raging current issues, be it India Against Corruption, Food Security, Money stashed abroad or the Wikileaks. And why I write this now is because I have not been a great supporter of Anna Hazare’s movement. And this precisely is the cause of minor quarrels at home. For, I have not participated in a sit-in or lit a candle. Neither have I joined the Facebook group to support the anti corruption drive.  My wife feels I have missed the bus and when the movement comes to power I would be one in the firing line, hopefully a little away from the point blank range. Some consolation.

It is not that I’m not against corruption. But it is the definition of corruption that bothers me.  From petty corruption to massive swindling. Sleaze, bribery, fraud, petty theft. The list is endless. Would I fall into any of these categories?  Or would some misdeeds be excluded from the purview   so that there will be still some left in the movement? I wouldn’t worry too much as the core group will burn the midnight oil over these minor issues. They will, for sure, come out with some innovative ways of ‘eradicating’ corruption. And not just newer and stiffer punishments which we all know are not effective deterrents. I would keep my fingers crossed.

I never thought corruption is such a high brow subject with many nuances , has class conflict characteristics and philosophical undertones until I came across ,in the internet,  a paper titled ‘The Social Construction of Corruption’ by Prof  Mark Granovetter of the Stanford University. I won’t burden my very few readers with the gravitas of the paper, save quote: “yet it is common in human history that groups with conflicting interests present different sets of standards for what behavior is appropriate, and label behavior that benefits competing groups as illegitimate or more specifically “corrupt”.”

Again it was around the same time that I came across a very novel idea mooted by none other than Dr Kaushik Basu, Chief Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance.  I found this absolutely radical and out of the box.  Make bribe giving legal! Don’t knit your eyebrows too soon… Not all kinds of bribery, but the petty ones; what the Dr. terms as ‘harassment bribery’.  A kind of speed money you have to part with to get a certificate, a tax refund or a bank loan. By making ‘payment of such bribes legal, the giver gets immunity while the taker does not’. Dr Basu avers this divergence of positions could be a deterrent to the bribe taker. The immunity is not to be retrospective and the details yet to be worked out. Make no mistake, this loud thinking by the learned Dr. has already met with stiff opposition from the moral brigade.  I’m, however, an enthusiast and would like to give this a try.

If I were to confess retrospectively on my misdemeanors I would have a few cases to report. These are not bribe taking instances and some are not related to bribery at all.  And pray what are my misdeeds? Obtention of a railway berth through a tout, an unauthorized electric connection, an out of turn gas cylinder and may be a few more similar ones if I rack my brain really hard.  When the matter of my not joining the sit-in was discussed I confessed to my wife I could not be considered blemishless and as such it would be hypocracy if I shouted “Bhrashtachar Murdabad”. Her response: “Only Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion and not Caesar”

Her latest take on the subject is that since I missed the Anna bus I should atleast jump on to the Baba wagon.  Something unthinkable for me.  But I had to do something to buy peace. It was around this time that the “Bodies of the Soil (copy right: my friend Kozhipurath Rajagopal) issue cropped up…. Ivor Madom crematorium won’t take bodies from outside the Panchayat any more. A body blow to many of us who had mentally reserved a nook for our heavenly journey!  Taking up the cause the local Citizens group decided to go in for a ‘Dharna’ demanding construction of a decent crematorium in my home town

Not to miss the God sent opportunity and more so to buy peace than to heed the still, small inner voice, I joined the sit-in in front of the Municipal office. None could fault me for this and there is truce at home. For the time being!

Hurricane NiNa

We have just been warned. About the impending storm. The severity has not been forecast. The land fall is expected in a month. We get daily alerts and   situation reports.  We are brazing up for the event and looking forward to it with great anticipation. The alert is about the impending visit of our two grand children and their parents on their annual holiday.  When we saw them off last, one was a sweet play school girl and the other just about on his feet. Now the elder girl, Nandini, is in her LKG and the younger boy, Nikhil, just made his foray into the play school.  Between them they are a bit of an ambush squad. 

During their last visit, which was a year back, they had not yet teamed up into the deadly duo. Other than pulling down my computer key board, dismantling my small pocket radio, running away with the mobile phone or the remote control or subjecting the walls to their art work, they had not been into any major destructive activity. Not so now, we are told.

A small update:

Nandini would go to sleep only after the usual quota of the same story- alert at pointing out even a minute deviation. She likes it without any change from the original.  She would start a conversation by asking you seemingly simple but profound questions that could shatter the foundations of the universe. What? Why?  The ‘What?’ questions are more or less harmless and are endless. Like what did the pussycat say to the puppy? What did the puppy’s mother say? And so on. It’s the ‘Whys?’ which take the life out of you.  Mercifully she is past the ‘Why’ stage. 

Her brother is not the questioning type. He is action oriented. I understand that he is more into ‘deconstruction’ / reverse engineering or finding innovative ways of playing with his toys.  (Like Derrida, the French philosopher, I’m averse to use the word destruction, and therefore, deconstruction. Similarly reverse engineering for dismantling.  After all, who knows, Nik might even turn out to become a great scientist!)

Nandini is more into arts. She likes to paint. (I’ve preserved her first effort, though the fresco has been painted off.).She attends a Bhajan class every Saturday and knows a few patriotic songs. Her favorite is ‘Jana Gana Mana” which she sings not less than half a dozen times at a stretch and expects us, at the other end of the Yahoo Messenger, to be in attention. She likes to play act her teacher with Nikhil, a reluctant student.  He is often game as he gets an opportunity to handle her crayons. Both have picked up a few words from their Hindi speaking teacher/ friends. They like to utter words such as ‘chup baito’ or ‘shut up’ which they know are a taboo at home. They can be a boisterous, marauding squad as their Doctor discovered recently, much to the discomfiture of their parents. Being frequent visitors they had developed great camaraderie with the Doctor.

Both are keen observers. Nandini liked the white bridal gown of Kate Middleton although she felt if she were to wear it she would like it shorter! Looking at the chorus boys she asked…Why are they looking so sad, Amma?  Nik felt that Princess Anne resembled the child catcher and he didn’t want to look at the TV any more! Nik can identify alphabets, particularly if it happens to be M, written in the manner of McDonalds! Once he told, looking at the Gurvayoorappan photo, “Amma, the Ambatty is smiling at me. Why?”  Another occasion he declared, peeping   through the windows, on a rare bright day with a clear sky-- “Amma, look the sky is falling!  He can become Hanuman or a cricketer, any instant, with the aid of kitchen gadgets usually kept out of his reach.

I have mentioned just a few of the instances from the situation report shared by our daughter during the daily chat. She says these are just the curtain raisers. Mentally and physically we are getting ready for the event. I surfed the net for some information on what people do when they get a hurricane warning. They fortify their homes, stock essential water and ration and keep praying that the storm doesn’t leave a trail of destruction. We are following suit. We have arranged with our carpenter to fix an extra barricade for the stair case railing, wicket gates for the sit out, moved the breakables into the loft and kept our books locked in a glass cupboard with a fervent prayer that they won’t take a fascination for the books.  Well, as the saying goes: Expect the unexpected! Keep your fingers crossed.

The Oracle: a flash back

Nirmalyam, an epoch making film of the seventies won’t be made again, much less shown in the theatres of Kerala. The reasons are two fold: one, the story is no longer contemporary –that’s the subject of my post- and two, I doubt, the present religious (Hindu) awakening will permit such a film being shown without a cut. Kerala society has moved on so much since the seventies, thanks to the dilution of Marxist dogma with liberal ideological moorings, that even the hard core Marxist is temple going and sports the sacred sandal paste on his forehead. In such a revivalist point of time, it is doubtful whether the ordinary Hindu will   tolerate the perceived blasphemy of the Velichapadu (Oracle). Such is the intolerance that has crept into the society that MT, the author, director and producer of the movie would consider it a misadventure not worth taking.

Nirmalayam is the story of an impoverished Velichapadu, set in the backdrop of a village temple in ruins and the people around it, who depend on the meager income of the temple to eke out a living. The temple has fallen on lean days with fewer devotees thronging in. With poverty stalking at their doors, the son of the Oracle turns into a rebel, a deviant; the daughter falls an easy prey to the charms of the young temple priest. Amidst the despondency, all that the Oracle is looking forward to is a resurgence of faith among the villagers which could brighten his fortunes. As if in answer to his prayers or as a result of the wrath of the deity, the village is afflicted by small pox. The villagers turn to their Oracle to appease the deity. This was the moment the oracle was waiting for, his moment of glory!  Fully charged, he rushes home to get his temple sword, only to find the money lender walking out of the house, satiated by his (oracle’s) wife who had sold her body to discharge the family debt. Utterly defeated and shattered, he pours his pent up fury into the ritualistic frenzied dance, slashing his forehead repeatedly with the sword and splashing and spitting the blood on to the deity till he falls dead. A very powerful end which stunned the audience! And for his powerful acting as Velichapadu, P J Antony walked away with the National Best Actor award.

Well, as I said in the beginning this story no longer holds good. The story of Nirmalyam came to me as a flash back, during the local temple festival. The oracle of the temple is a stocky young man who is in business almost all the days of the week.  On Chuttuvilakku (adorning the whole temple walls with oil lamps) days, for which there is a waiting list of devotees,   he performs the ritualistic dance. It is then that the deity speaks through him to the devotee. The devotees, blessed by the deity, make liberal offerings. During the festival season the Oracle goes around the village showering blessings and collecting offerings to the temple and to him. Devotees vie with each other in their offerings and devotion.  No wonder the modern day oracle is a far cry from the Nirmalyam days. He moves around in his private conveyance, has all the modern amenities at home and a happy contended family. 

If MT decides to remake Pallivalum Kalchilambukalum, he might have to change the script a bit, though, to make it contemporary. And sure it will not have a torrid ending!   

ദി പറമ്പന്‍ അടി ( Helicopter Shot)

I have been no fan of the slam bang cricket. I grew up with the test match cricket, the only form of cricket those days. Those were the days of Bapu Nadkarni, Mansur Alikhan Pataudi, Nari Contractor, Faroukh Engineer et al. They played for days together against mighty opponents, very often with no results. Either the rains came to their rescue or Nadkarni produced a mighty spell of maiden overs.

The game was enjoyed on the running commentary of a Sardendu Sanyal, Balu Alagannan or a Suresh Saraiya with statistics provided by the AIR statistician who was known by the name Mama. In the news papers the commentary was very often by Rajan Bala, Raju Bharathan or KN Prabhu. The 5 day match had a day off and the last match in a series had six days to produce a result. You could very often skip a large portion of the game and still not miss the vital action. With figures which read 29 overs, 26 maidens, and no wickets for three runs from Bapu Nadkarni, you could carry on with your daily chores and still be with the game.

Then came the 50 over limited over cricket and the television. And the game changed beyond recognition.  The gentlemen in white transformed into men in blue or orange or whatever colour you chose. The umpires also transformed, some wearing Emirates Air logo. The players have all sorts of corporate emblems on all visible parts of their body. And they come armoured like the ancient Greek soldier. Some with weird hairdos and some with appalling tattoos.  Some sported talismans a la Bhappi Lahiri.

  

The instant variety T20 was soon to follow. Except that they play with a bat and a ball, this fun game, more of an entertainment, has very less to do with cricket. The game is over in minutes and if you perchance dozed off a while, or blinked, you would have missed the turning point in the game.And then the replay of replays, frame by frame, millimeter by millimeter! And the game is analysed ball by ball by experts, some  fully attired and by some who would have their dress precariously held together.

This game throws out unlikely, unheard of heroes and is no respecter of form , style or reputation! Paul (not the Octopus of the FIFA 2010 World cup) the hero, so far, of the IPL 2011 brings me memories of Kunju, my friend and couple of years senior to me in school. I had just joined my village school after a stint in the Town. I had brought a cricket bat, a cork ball and a little knowledge of the game when I landed at my ancestral home to pursue schooling. After a briefing on the nuances of the game, Kunju was invited to play the game in the yard. I bowled the first ball at Kunju expecting a wicket, but to the dismay of the small group of aspiring cricketers, the ball was never to be seen again. And Kunju was not welcome anymore! Kunju would have surely made it to one of the IPL teams if he were to be spotted today. 

POST SCRIPT (2021)

10 years hence ,my grandson Nikhil  (12), a cartoon enthusiast (Mario Miranda fan) was inspired to draw Kunju hitting the helicopter shot and the fielding side looking stunned. Mario's trademark dog looking bored and unmoved.  The 1950s in Nikhil's imagination. Here is his sketch:

Contrarian or Plain Stupid?

“Something is wrong with you” has been the usual refrain in the house. More charitably, with my brain or my thinking. The worry is, even I have started feeling so. The manifestation of the problem has been there for some time but became more pronounced during the last few months. I don’t want to beat about the bush. It is about my inability to see what is so apparent to the vast majority of learned friends, people whom I hold in awe (that includes politicians , retired bureaucrats, the facebookers, the judiciary) , the print and television media . I shall narrate my shortcomings one by one.

To start with, it was the scams, widely reported and discussed threadbare in all the august forums…..the press, the parliament and the revered courts. My problem…I just can’t believe the size of the scam, be it notional or real.  The lady of the house says it’s my inability to comprehend the figure involved, used as I am to not more than the thousand! I tried to write down the figure but gave up half way.  I need to do something about my math….

The second was my inability to pronounce that ex- minister Raja’s letter to the Prime Minister was intemperate. The Honorable Judge of the Supreme Court has decreed so. Only I and the Prime Minister seem to think other wise. I read the letter and the related correspondence between the PM and Mr. Raja in full and found nothing offensive.  Either I have poor etiquette, thick skin or meager grasp of the language.  I can’t, now, do anything about my hide. So I feel I should start afresh at grammar school or be sent to reform school. Not too late, the lady of the house says.

The third charge is I have become insensitive to issues affecting the country or the society. Corruption in public life, Environmental debates, Political mud slinging (Ice cream, golf club etc) no longer affect me. I seem to be more concerned about mundane matters….for example, the cremation ground issue of Aivor Madom.  Where is my idealism and social conscientiousness? Why am I not able to see the larger picture?  Well, I have no solution to this, except to reverse the time machine and go back to my college days!

The final provocation is the Wikileaks in the Indian Press. As I scribble this, it is the fourth day of the leak in the Hindu. I went through all the reports with a fine comb and didn’t find anything which I don’t know already. Do we need the American word to finally open our eyes to the maladies that we know exist in our system?  I know money is spent by politicians to sway votes. What’s wrong? Isn’t it better than doling it out from the public exchequer? A few ‘saries’, a little pocket money? 

We all know that President and the Prime Minister need not see eye to eye on all matters, that we can play real politic when it comes to our relations with neighboring countries (Iran, Burma, Sri Lanka) , we conduct secret dialogues with countries (Israel, Pakistan) so on and so forth. It is common knowledge, or so they would want us to believe, that the so called super powers try to arm-twist smaller countries and their Ambassador’s send exaggerated reports and claims back home. Should we consider these pompous reports as Gospel truth and waste our time and news print? In international relations aren’t Ambassador’s expected to liaise, spy and if nothing works at least sex up their reports? In a democratic country like ours is there a secret?  Some looks like a cut and paste job, straight from some magazine …..the one about Rahul Gandhi’s vision!

Who doesn’t know of the strong presence of Malayali Civil Servants (Mafia is the most uncharitable remark) in the Capital? Perhaps the Ambassador hasn’t heard of the earlier description of the Malayali presence, more specifically of the Menons who held important positions, euphemistically referred to as “Menongitis”.  They wouldn’t be allowed to be pushed; they would rather jump before it came to a shove. 

Outrageous, Outrageous!  Do I hear?   Am I becoming unfashionable when the whole world seems to be hooked on to Assange and his leaked cables!  Or am I just a spoil sport?

A Bridge to Somewhere

View From Ottapalam

View from Mayannur

In an earlier post I had mentioned about the new bridge across Bharata Puzha (River Nila to poets and environmentalists).  This brought me great many memories of the times when there was no bridge to Mayannur.  Though separated by the river into two districts; rather two states, before the formation of the integrated state of Kerala, this natural boundary never separated the people on the two sides. There was a symbiotic relationship between the two villages of Ottapalam and Mayannur. Ottapalam depended on Mayannur for its daily supply of vegetables, milk and workmen while Mayannur depended on Ottapalam for higher education, medical facilities, travel and wholesale groceries. The ‘aadhan pradhaan’ continued uninterruptedly with the help of country boats even when the river swelled.  Now with the new bridge, there will be more traffic of men and materials.

Mayannur was part of Travancore Cochin which merged with Malabar to form ‘Aikya Keralam’ in 1957.  It was ruled by the Cochin Maharaja pre-independence. Ottapalam, in the district of Malabar was part of the then Madras state. Culturally and linguistically the two villages could not be separated. But the geography in the form of the river separated the two villages which came to be administered by two political entities. Though this separation inconvenienced the locals it offered criminals from both sides a lot of leeway. It was a practice for offenders to escape into the other state to get away from the long arm of the State. This was a big head ache for the police force of the two states and continues even now in a milder form.

This bridge is not the only bridge across the river Nila.  I can count at least 4 others, the one in Lakkidi, one in Shoranur (Kochi Palam), one in Pattambi and the latest in Chamravattom in a few days from now. As I write this the local MLA has announced one more to come within a few kilo meters off the Ottapalam Bridge.  Ottapalam literally means Single Bridge in Malayalam but this seems to be an anachronism.  And an oxymoron too, as Ottapalam town is bordered by two small creeks with bridges across.

Bridges have spawned many a book universally. They are not just physical but symbolic of human bondage and the desire to transcend their limitations. Some of these stories have been filmed. Most notable is the David Lean film ‘The bridge on the river Kwai’.  The other books are “A bridge too far” and Richard Bach’s “The Bridge across forever”.  Closer home we have the KG George directed ‘Panchavadipalam’, a spoof on the petty village politics. The story ends in the tragic death of the character played by Sreenivasan when the new bridge collapses on its inaugural day!

Not so for the Ottapalam Bridge. It had a grand inaugural but not without minor controversies.  The only casualty of the Bridge seems to be the boatman who used to make a small kill during the five/six months of rainy season. He should have seen the writing on the wall but hoped it was ‘a bridge too far’. But it is reality now, after many years of waiting. The schools and colleges have a good number of students who use the boat service and now they can make it to Ottapalam without the worry of getting themselves and their books wet during monsoon. The boatman would be cursing his fate though he is not an innocent victim of progress.

I particularly remember one incident in which I had a small role to play. I had some official work in Mayannur while I was working in Thrissur.  After the work I thought I could visit my in-laws in Ottapalam. So I disposed off the car and used the boat service to cross over. I was carrying some important documents (loan revival papers) obtained after much efforts. There were a few youngsters on the boat and as is their wont started making some comments about the rowing. Mid way through the river the boatman stopped the boat. “Who among you is unhappy with my rowing? Will he please come forward and teach me?”…asked the boatman.  I immediately sensed danger, though not to my life, but to the papers I was carrying. A hush descended in the boat and along with it, the belligerence of the boatman. I would have kept quite and allowed the situation to evolve, which is my normal style. But here I could not do that and soon stepped in to douse the small spark with all my persuasive skills and with a liberal appreciation of the selfless   good work of the boatman.  Fortunately, the noisy boys also kept quiet and my task was made easy. An embarrassing situation was averted. Descendant of Guhan or Charon? None of those for our man!

Hindsight Bias

The house is suddenly abuzz with terms such as presumptive loss, notional loss and opportunity loss.  And depending on one’s political proclivity   ‘the no loss’ theory also has been aired with equal felicity. The lady in the house has suddenly taken a fancy to the word ‘presumptive loss’ to get even with her male counterpart. For so long, she has been trying hard to get her point across when ever a decision concerning money was involved. Now with the CAG report to shore her up she has been on the offensive on many of my financial and investment decisions.  She has also dug up incidents of the past and put them under the microscopic scanner. Mercifully she has not cast her inquiry to the pre marital days but in all likely hood, might reassess her losses on her father’s decision to give her in matrimony to a dull wit like yours truly.

She has now found the stick to beat me with for my alleged acts of procrastinations and avoidance. Her stock argument is that I have caused irreparable loss to the family’s financial position by not acting on her advices. The losses are both capital and revenue, and if you may, sweeten it by prefixing ‘presumptive’. (By the way, a loss presupposes a possible gain. So a presumptive loss of 376000 crores means every Indian could have been richer by Rs 3000, which is a nice elevating thought. This logic takes off from a very original idea propounded by VKN: that is, increase the population so that   the ‘per capita debt burden’ of India would lessen!  My acknowledgements.)

Her first charge is that the family (read, I)   has not considered the dirty yellow metal as profitable investment option. By this act of omission, the presumptive loss, according to her, would be the sum of both the scams put together, if you, as much as, ignore the crore tag.  I agree, albeit, with a slight modification… the loss is ab initio, as the investible amount was presumptuous to begin with.

Her second charge …. We could have saved a lot on the house construction had we started it early, courtesy her advice.  The difference in cost of construction between the dates we finished our house and the date of her advice, is a loss we could have avoided, if I had listened to her.  How I prefix the loss, the choice is mine…notional, presumpumtive or opportunity, so long as I don’t emulate Mr. Sibal in claiming no loss.  She will not buy my claim to a whopping capital gain, notional if she insists, considering the sky rocketing realty prices. Her advice: be cautious of the bubble around the corner and do not rejoice in haste.

The third charge is my reluctance to heed to her advice on my stock market exposure. She accuses me that my timing of the market is so amateurish that I have only made losses. Had I listened to her advice I would be sitting on heaps of money, she avers. And pray what’s her advice?  When ever she sees the slightest signs of the bulls taking over the market she wants me to offload all the stocks I hold.  When I tell her that I should stay invested and participate in the rally and see my portfolio grow, her view is that the growth is all ephemeral. Hard cash is all that appeals to her. And when the markets tank she will be the first to point her finger……..didn’t I tell you.  She doesn’t buy the argument, the losses are all notional and as a risk averse investor, it is best go long. Her outlook on the market resembles that of Anil Ambani who says a bear cartel is working extra time.

Another issue on which she smells a rat is the skyrocketing prices of Onions and Tomato. Her expert view is that somebody has played the commodities market in respect of these vegetables. Not the ‘futures and options’ but something like what the legendary Puzhakkare Vettil Chathu Nair did in the epic (will it qualify?) Pithamahan by VKN: the daring act of burning 200 bags of paddy in the Cochin beach, which act earned him the Sir title from Queen Elizabeth. Chathu did this not to manipulate the market but to teach the Dewan a lesson. In the instant case, the prices of onions have come down fast but she smells a scam there also. Luckily, no demand for a JPC!

Slivers of the Failed Experiment

This post is a sequel to my previous post which was mostly in the form of  trivia. Herein,  I place  the few remnants of the experiment, fortuitously preserved by me . Those who were part of the venture may  like to reminisce about the good old days. To those  others, who were not part of the endeavour but love Ottapalam and Good Cinema , here's some thing which will tell them, 'we did our bit'. It is for them to start it all over again.

This post does not purport to be the whole story. There are many others who can supplement my modest effort. To them my request is please share the  memories you  have. Further, I'm aware, the  story is incomplete in one respect at least .... about the 'end ' of the venture.

This (picture on the left) was the model we followed. Chitralekha Film Society Trivandrum Annual Report 1970-71. Look at the great names. Ours , Sathyajit Ray Film Society ,Ottapalam was a  modest affair. We had no great names and worked on a shoe string budget.

An intimation circulated among members.Mukundan's single finger effort. Kesavan chipped in seeing Mukundan's struggle with the type writer.

Most of the films we screened  were 16 MM prints. These films were shown at the NSS Training College which had a 16 MM projector Raman, the operator, was from Mayannur, across the river (after 35 years we have a swanky bridge across Bhartha Puzha) and on many an occasion he would have missed the last boat and had to make it to the other side wading through water. We are obliged to you , Raman, wherever you are!                                                              

Synopsis of three movies:

Hello Elephant(Italy)

Apanjan (Bengali/Tapan Sinha)

A Blonde's Love ( Czeck/ Milos Forman , later well known for his movie

"One  flew over the cuckoo's nest"  )

 

Chaplin movies like The Gold Rush , Modern Times could easily connect with the audience even if  the underlying pathos escaped a few at least . Vittoria DeSica’s   Bicycle Thieves did indeed  receive sympathetic response.

Some of the foreign language films shown. The notice, as you can see, was painfully and patiently typed by Mukundan.  The matter was given by the  FFSI or the National Film Archives. Most of the films were 16 mm. Some were  silent and many had English Sub Titles.

The language , grammar or spellings in the notice were  not of much  concern to us. What mattered was seeing the movies and keeping the cost at the lowest. Remember, we did not have computers or xerox machines. The most advanced technology in use was the type writer and the stencil cutter!

   D W Griffith's  classic silent movie 'The Birth of a Nation' .   Did we create history of screening the first silent movie? For most of us this was the first time.  By the time Ottapalam got its first permanent  theatre,  Laksmi  (then owned by entrepreneurs  EP Brothers), the talkie movies had already come and were in vogue. 

The one film which found a ready acceptance amongst all  was the brilliantly made  ‘The Incident at Owl Creek’ directed by Robert Enrico . I still remember the storyline,  the hallucination and hope of the protagonist, moments after the noose is tightened and just before his fall to death at the gallows. The shock among the audience was palpable.

Ritwick Ghatak’s SubaharnaRekha, a movie set in the backdrop of the partition of Bengal was another movie that  struck a raw chord with many a viewer. I particularly remember a slow trolley shot on Madhabi Mukerjee whose close up almost hits you on the face.Tapan Sinha’s ‘Ankush’ ( based on Narayan Ganguly’s  story Sainik) where the central character was an elephant ,was shown in the local theatre, open to public .That was a decision we regretted later as the front benchers started to show their restlessness on the benches, much to the displeasure of  Sethu. Mercifully they settled down to our entreaties. 

Tapan Sinha’s  Apanjan and Mrinal Sen’s  Bhuvan Shome , Interview , Calcutta 71 and Chorus were some of the other movies we exhibited in the theatre and had smooth passage.

Synopsis of Luis Bunuel's Cannes Festival (1959)Award winner Nazarin.

The Golem  , a milestone silent movie of 1920. The earliest of Monster movies.

Most of the movies had little entertainment value. They were either world classics or milestone movies.Another movie in this genre  was the 1928 movie The Passion of Joan of Arc  with the close ups of Joan that would haunt one for a long time.  

World Classic Akira Kurasowa's Throne of Blood (1957)

How I wish we had more insights and access to critical reviews of the movie then. Did we also get to see Kurasowa's Rashoman? I doubt. 

Memory fails me as to whether we could get Ingmar Bergman (Wild Strawberries) , Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin) or Fellini. There were many who wanted to see these movies. Perhaps , these would have been brought by the new team that took over, before the venture folded up.

One year of existence. The Notice for the annual general body meeting .    Was a tame affair. The statement of  accounts was presented by me . I do not have a copy of the accounts , but I think we had a surplus.The accounts were approved without much ado. Somebody , though, made  a caustic comment ,more in jest than anything else.... we spent more on refreshments!

Well , these are the materials that I have retained. I'm sure some like Mukundan must have preserved a few. I put this in public domain before my memories  fade and the papers disintegrate .
Hopefully , this post would inspire a renewed effort .

A speck in the Small Town’s Great History

 

No one can resist an idea whose time has come.  But what becomes of an idea ahead of its time? A foregone conclusion, as you can see from this post. It is about one such daring experiment which failed to take roots and eventually stifled future attempts. (I’m not aware of any Film Society now in Ottapalam. The latest claim to fame is the talented, young, homegrown director Lal Jose and the outdoor location at Varikkasery Mana) I’m talking about a film society which we cobbled up in the sleepy town of Ottapalam. Way back in the early seventies. 

I don’t remember whose idea it was. My earliest memory relates to a meeting we had in PT Narendra Menon’s magnificent tharawad. We were about five to six people. The agenda was to name the society and get it registered.  It was Narendra Menon who suggested the name Satyajit Ray Film Society. Some of us had other ideas, though. Would it be construed as a fan club? What about the other equally famous titans of the alternate film movement, such as Ritwick Ghatak and Mrinal Sen?  There were some like me who thought Ghatak superior to Ray, not from seeing any of his movies but on account of his association with IPTA.  Most of us had not seen any of the movies of the trio so far. But if I remember right I had seen Pather Panchali and Teen Kanya, screened during my college days, as benefit shows.  

.

To our knowledge there were only two other film societies in Kerala - Chithralekha Film Society of Trivandrum and the Calicut Film Society. We copied their byelaws and mode of functioning.  Our President was Mr. Narendra Menon, a poet and patron of arts. . Mr. Mukundan Nair, a professor in the local college was chosen the Vice-President; Mukundan, my colleague became the secretary and I, the treasurer. As both Mr. Mukundan and I were in the same office it became the nerve centre of the Society. Many of our colleagues -Rajeev, Kesavan and Rajendran helped us in the activities of the Society- the membership drive, publicity, communication, correspondence and liaison with local bodies. With the naming over, the remaining formalities like adoption of a bye-law, registration with the Federation of Film Societies of India and with the National Film Archives were carried out in quick time

We did not want to open the membership to all and hence the membership drive was by invitation. After screening a few 16 MM movies we felt it was time to make our presence felt with a memorable event.  Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s ‘Swayamvaram’, which the local theatre had not braved to show till then, was the unanimous choice for our first public show. And so we went ahead with the arrangements for the exhibition of the film as a benefit show. We had to get the approval of the Local Panchayat to get exemption from entertainment tax. We thought that was easy. But to our utter dismay the authorities wouldn’t oblige. They wanted to know why we wanted to exhibit the film. What purpose? Our memorandum and bye laws were not convincing enough. Exhibit a cinema to exhibit more cinemas? – the executive officer couldn’t understand the logic! Used to giving approvals for benefit shows for raising money for buildings, charity etc. this was something new to him. Somehow we managed to get the approval … in a small town where every body was connected to everybody, the connection works. We were in for another rude shock when we went around the houses for selling the ‘passes’ which we thought would be grabbed up by the discerning Ottapalam elite. It was then we realized that our outrage, at the chicken heartedness of the theatre in not exhibiting the film so far, was out of place!  

Sethu (no more now), our buddy, the operator in the local theatre had only one condition ……we should have the film reels at least two days before the show. Not an onerous job, we thought. The money was paid and we made a solemn undertaking that the negatives would be returned intact in due course. Rajeev ,whom we thought had a remote kinship with Adoor through his previous employment , and our best bet in the circumstances, volunteered  for  the onerous job of getting the print in time for the show. Things are a little hazy from now on except that we did not get the prints as required by Sethu. Trains and telephones being rare luxuries to Ottapalam, Rajeev kept us endlessly waiting.   The anxious moments we spent at Metro (a saloon, the only hang out place in Ottapalam) the previous evening was made more unendurable with Sethu putting pressure by the minute.  Added to that was our worry as how to face the irate crowd if we failed to show the film.  Sethu had already foreseen this and adequately warned us. 

Our endless wait, being made bearable only by the many teas and vadas from Swami’s Cafe and our resignation to the inevitable fate was suddenly broken by the appearance of Rajeev from nowhere, fully drenched in somebody’s vomit. Behind him stood the porter, carrying the print box. Those days the practice of performing pooja to the print box was thankfully not prevalent! And what a relief it was! We wanted to hug him but the vomit kept him at bay.  To cut the story short it appears Rajeev was redirected from Trivandrum to pick the print from some where near Calicut and he had taken the first available bus. The rest was uneventful except that the local public did not give us the thumbs up. Trust this brings a smile to Rajeev’s face if he sees this!

Merchant Ivory production's ‘Savages’ turned out to be an eye opener for us. The story takes off  from the point where a croquet ball accidentally falls amidst  a tribe of primitive  ‘mud people’ .They follow the ball back to its start and land up in a majestic mansion  and slowly adapt to the so called  ‘civilized’ ways of ‘upper class behavior’. The mud people (Indian actor Asha Puthli among them) are nude or partly so.  The film met with serious censor board cuts, but the print that was given to the societies was with out these. Our hand bill mentioned the Censor Board cuts that were retained in the movie for adult viewing. And wow! What a response! The show was fully sold out. But to the utter disappointment of the budding voyeurs, the hot scenes were either long shots or for fleeting moments. The elite squirmed and we rejoiced at the jingle of our cash box. Sweet revenge for the disastrous reception that Ray, Ghatak and Tapan Sinha got.

A little more on some of the classics and milestone movies we saw, in my next post.

The Maverick

(കൂട്ടം തെറ്റി മേയുന്നവന്‍ )

My last post on Abbas set me on to another unforgettable character of my college days. In a way he is relevant to one of the themes I intend to pursue in this blog. The idea that some people endlessly long to live differently…an idea Ibsen (and few others) had propounded through his dramas.

The person that I intend to portray is Venu, my college mate. Venu was   a couple of years junior to me. It is unlikely that he   could have read Ibsen or fashioned his life on Ibsen’s ideas. There were many like him before as there are now, greater luminaries, stuff for many more posts. But, who inspired Venu was anybody’s guess.

Venu looked odd in every sense of the word.  He wore only “mundu”   and had a stoop almost like a sickle. He was not particularly keen about his looks.  You could always see him puffing at a ‘beedy’ near the teashops or the bus stand. He was not regular in his classes.  From what I could make out, he was well read in Malayalam and was a good speaker. He was irreverent and a contrarian to the hilt. His looks, the ‘beedy’ and his oratory made him a natural ally of all left leaning student organizations. Many of us who professed progressive ideas wanted to rope in Venu and capitalize on his bohemian looks. He was almost a cult figure among the girls. That was another reason for our wooing Venu. But try as much as we did, Venu wouldn’t oblige us. Our entreaties miserably failed.   He was a hard nut to crack

Soon we realized he was too independent to toe the line of any organization.  It would have been difficult too, to confine him within the four walls.   Much to our disappointment he contested the college elections as an independent and cut into our votes. He canvassed votes with an epithet 'Manushian (human) Venu'. He lost the elections handsomely like all of us. Only, he would consider it a disgrace if he polled more than his vote, let alone win.

In many ways he was close to our views, be it anti establishment (very fashionable for a youngster), secular, pro downtrodden etc.  We were curious why he wanted to be on his own. To our persistent prodding Venu reluctantly opened his mind… he aspired to be a Radical Humanist. That sent us scurrying to find out what it was all about. We hadn’t progressed beyond Marx, Lenin and the proletarian revolution.  Venu lead us to M N Roy.  And, thereafter, we left Venu to his own ways. Incorrigible, we felt.

It was after many years that I met Venu again.  He suddenly appeared one morning in the lodge where I was staying with a few friends. He sported the same looks. Obviously he hadn’t made it in life. All the other ‘so called anti-establishment gang ‘, including yours truly, had by then cocooned up in comfortable government jobs. Only Venu stayed the way he was. A raw 'Manushian'.  Venu wanted a set of clothes from me. He asked with the same casualness as he would, if he were asking for a Beedi.  Those were the days after the Emergency and I was certain he would have been in the watch list of the police. He did not talk much and I was too embarrassed to ask him how he was engaged.

Again many years later I narrowly avoided meeting Venu face to face. I was in the interview board set up by the District Industries Centre to shortlist beneficiaries for a government assisted programme for unemployed youth. While going through the bio data- before calling in the applicant- I found to my utter chagrin that the next candidate was my friend Venu. I excused myself from the board but not before putting in a word of recommendation.  Venu wanted to start/expand an evening daily in his home town. He had all the answers for the questions the board asked. He had also registered a name for the eveninger. His application was short listed for onward submission to the bank

I don’t know whether he took the loan or started the eveninger.  I haven’t seen or heard of him thereafter which is 25 years now.  But my mind tells me he wouldn’t have been a success or made a life with his venture. For, Venu was such an individual who was set to fail.  Fail, yes, by our standards!

Venu stood alone. I don’t know if he really pursued his missionary zeal or he just wanted to be different.  In my thoughts he comes close to Ibsen’s philosophy… ‘the strongest is the one who stands alone’… as propounded in ‘The enemy of the people’

Good luck Venu! Tread your path wherever you are. Plough your lonely furrow!

The Namesake (with due apologies to Jhumpa Lahiri)

I just finished reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel ‘The Namesake’.  Story of a Bengali immigrant couple in US caught between two conflicting cultures.  More about the book later.  But the title of the book rang a bell in me and took me back by a few decades, to my college years. Here we go.

My earliest foray into writing was an article for the college magazine. Those days, we had a monthly magazine called the College Mirror. Brought out by the English Literature Students, under a club pompously named the English Colloquium. There were many other initiatives for sports and arts as well. All this by the dynamism of the charming college principal Dr NG Pillai. (Pillai died at a very young age in a plane crash). He brought life to an otherwise sleepy college. Pillai was the toast of the town with his good looks, academic brilliance and sartorial elegance. He served the college less than a couple of years but left a legacy difficult to emulate.

As is well known, it is a huge burden to fill the annual college magazine .Imagine, then, how easy or difficult it is to bring out one every month! In their efforts to keep the College Mirror going the English Colloquium used to chase students and staff for articles, poems or any work that could be published. And some advertisements too from the local businessmen to cover the cost. Their efforts proved inadequate, invariably.  As a result, not before long,   the magazine met with its natural end. The club did conduct a few seminars, debates and staged a few English dramas before it too met with its end.

As one who was wooed for an article, I gave my best shot to come up with a topic that could find its way to the magazine. Those days I was greatly influenced by the essays of AG Gardiner (Alpha of the Plough) and decided, short of plagiarizing, my piece should be on the same lines. (Does any body remember Gardiner, now a day? A good read for all aspiring bloggers). So the style was settled, only the topic had to be found. Drudge as I may, nothing worthwhile came to my mind even as weeks passed by. The deadline was fast approaching. With these worries in my mind and not a care for the Physics Lab, I got down from the route bus one morning.

And who else but Abbas, a physically challenged (polio affected) boy, a permanent feature in the bus stop, to greet me. As is his wont he clung on to me calling, Unnietta.   Perhaps, that day he hadn’t had his quarry. My first instinct was to shrug him off as I was cash strapped with the month drawing to a close. But I had a weakness for him and reluctantly shared my slender means with him. It was then that the idea struck me, why not Abbas, for a small write up.  After all, he carried the same name as one my idols of those times.  KA Abbas, film director, columnist and a fellow traveler.  Abbas, a name set to signify the sturdiness of a Lion, in Arabic. And our protagonist, a cripple all on his fours most of the time.  The two Abbases that I was hooked on then, linked by a common name, but placed in vastly different circumstances.  One an idol, the other a bother.

Abbas had enough material for a small write up. He wouldn’t have been more than 10 years of age and some times he used to walk on all fours.  He kept a record of the schedules of all the route buses, a vital info those days, as buses were very infrequent and unreliable. He would run errands for you, pass messages and was a clearing house for   all information and gossip. He was innocent and too young to understand the import of his actions. He was equally popular with the girls.

And write I did, a portrait of Abbas, at times juxtaposing, comparing and contrasting the namesakes.  Only, the caption of the article was not exactly flattering to our Abbas. And that was a disaster I regretted by hindsight. As Barkha Dutt would put it later, ‘an error of judgment’! I hoped Abbas wouldn’t know it. But, to my rotten luck, some body had instigated Abbas about it.  I had a hard time convincing him that the article was not derogatory.  Abbas relented to my persuasion and our relations were back on even keel.

Years later, post retirement, settling down in my home town, I ran into Abbas. He had changed his arena. His new role was that of a time keeper and holler of bus timings in the Town bus stand. He had become sturdier with a smatter of white here and there on his face. Dressed (always) in immaculate white ‘mundu’ and shirt with a scarf on his neck.  A golden yellow watch adorned his full sleeved shirt.  He has only a slight limp, far from the crawling boy that he was.  I too had changed a lot with not a shred of black on my mop.  I wondered if he would recognize me; but as soon as he saw me he called me out. He not only recognized me but remembered my name and the anecdotes of the past. He had, apparently, kept track of my life’s journey.

I now meet him often.  Abbas is the father of four grown up children and a grandfather too. He commands some respect from the otherwise difficult bus employees and has at last lived up to his name.  How time flies and what changes it brings on!