RESOLUTIONS 2024.

Time to list out resolutions, I mumbled to myself as I sat before my keyboard-monitor. Sri Husband overheard that—he has sharp ears only for things he shouldn’t be hearing, selectively. Otherwise, he ignores or pretends to be deaf to my voice. He promptly snorted: ‘I hear that every yearend and have not seen you once keeping a single resolution.’ That is not true, he is talking rubbish, as he commonly does, in a dominating, bullying tone, which forces me to fall silent. Hidden in Bhagwat Gita’s chapters is a small verse that implies timidity is a sin. Some other religious text says meekness and giving in is a virtue. Religion confuses me. Whatever, I am what I am and I will make resolutions for the NY, whether or not I keep them. I don’t see why a husband (of forty-five years, poor me) should even be keeping track of what his wife does. Bai Goanna would take my side on this, methinks, if she were around. Where was I? The resolutions: First, I will not cross Chogm Road because I want to die naturally. I don’t want to be hit or run over by a vehicle nor nudged to fall steeply on the leeward side of the slope. Of course, not dying might be a fate worse than death. Lying (pun unintended) with a broken spine, skull, scapula or femur is a horrible alternative. Worst of all, I am certain the driver will get away with a bad dream, not even a penalty. A colleague on a two-wheeler was rammed into by a big, fancy, expensive car. He was accused of getting unconscious instead of inconsiderately making people phone for an ambulance whilst he lay there allowing his head to swell and ear to bleed. That was in Dona Paula, and Chogm Road is getting to be like that locality. ‘No,’ said Bai Goanna making an appearance: ‘Dona Paula has big buildings and is densely populated. Porvorim-Saligao is still not so bad.’ The word ‘still’ implying that we’re getting there; already, Hindi is the local language here and have colonies that resemble a nascent Dubai. Coming back to my resolution of not crossing Chogm road. In the case of an accident, one has to be taken, by kind roadside labourers or the cops, rarely by any gaadiwala, to Mapuca or Bambolim, because even though we now have the Assembly and the Court here, we still don’t have a big government hospital. Gossips say there was one to be built near the Police Station and Sanjay School, but (Sri Husband insists), let gossips gossip, one must not believe them even if their chinwagging is true. For those who don’t know, Chogm stands for CHoG-M Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet, held in 1983. The road existed as a mere path until then. Most part of the official conference was held in Delhi. However, a Retreat for all the attending world leaders was scheduled in Goa, which back then was a destination on the hippie trail and not a full-fledged tourist destination that it is today. Benefits of the event set the ball rolling for the tourism boom in Goa. Thirty-nine world leaders from across the globe attended it. The road, which has grown, been dug, resurfaced, dug again, then hot-tarred, is named after that event. Presently, it is once more in digging phase, to match with Porvorim’s smart sister-city, Panaji. Like happens now, at that time also, Goans had reacted. The Sangharsh Natya Manch (SNM), consisting of student activists from various colleges in Goa staged around 75 performances in towns, villages, market squares and street corners, as part of the campaign against the CHOG-M Retreat, depicting the expenses of some Rs.430 million which they thought was an unjustified, ill affordable luxury for the country and the state. A decked-up, cheerful Goa still follows that routine: crib, complain, comply. Bai Goanna said, ‘Write about the accidents and traffic jams, no.’ To which Sri Husband responded, ‘When there’s no speed and vehicles are crawling, there are fewer accidents. I hate to admit it, but Sri Husband is often correct. The fancy-shancy school on this road, has made deep, cruel cuts in the hillside for its expansion, and cut off the giant tropical trees that stood sentinel in our village. Outside its gate, big cars create traffic snarls at least twice a day. Even if parking space is provided within its compound, each car that enters and exits will take twenty seconds or so to turn and that is enough to make the rest of us crawl. Bai Goanna said: ‘We need a bridge or flyover here.’ Sri Husband and I chorused: ‘Shut up, no more construction.’ We both agreed on something; rare moment. Another reason besides the digging and the school for our traffic to slow down are the eateries. Chogm Road, some say it is now the pride of North Goa, is a glorified khao-gully, (an off-shoot of the NH, considered the khao-main-road). There are small street-food stalls and fancy restaurants selling Goan food, nouveau-Goan food like paneer sorpotel, cuisines from Arabia and Japan, Indianized American pizzas, Rajasthani thalis and more. Interestingly, it has also become an upmarket fashion street. Sri Husband: ‘There’s no place for public buses, autorickshaws or taxis to ply.’ As if, I wondered, they do on other roads in Goa. I mean, who wants public transport? Only losers like him and Bai Goanna. Like the majority, I’m happy with the taxi-mafia and the exorbitant fares, keeps us safely indoors. Of course, that’s because I don’t go out much, and expect that anyone unhappy with the situation must do the same. (Now even walking outside is restricted, refer to resolution at the beginning of this piece, para-3 line-1&2). My neighbours have built rooms (without permission from Panchayat or TCP, naturally/obviously) and let them out to home-deliverers. Two-wheelers with insulated boxes fixed at the back, driven by young men (women’s libbers have entered the military, conquered the medical world, ruled countries, broken sports records, but not yet the world of the online-ordering operational teams) zip across our curvy village lanes at all times of day and night, carrying parcels of groceries and ready to eat goodies. No silencers on their engines, but, mercifully, they don’t use the horns either. Better still, people around me are ordering mattresses, tailors’ chalk packets, underwear, shoes, fans, toys, medicines, fresh meat and whatnot from their homes, to be delivered to their homes. No need to go out and add to the traffic. How to have personal contact, asks Bai Goanna. Pat comes Sri Husband’s logic: ‘No more misunderstandings, no more personal fights. No one meets, no one is unhappy.’ As you have seen, dear Reader, my NY resolution has not gone beyond road-crossing. Wishing you, your families, friends, colleagues, everyone around you and Happy 2024. *** ***

Ponnje.

Ponnje’s sinking streets have stopped making news. There are pictures on Facebook and Instgram showing people rowing through the flooded lanes, possibly in clean, though muddy, rainwater, and not backflow of sewage. Sinking roads and drum-sized holes are so common, it’s no longer surprising. The more optimistic, positive thinking, politically correct lot say that’s a small price to pay for becoming smart. (As I was typing this, the ever-interfering Sri Husband reminded me that the opposite of smart is idiot; he asked whether I have heard of an idiotic city. Ignore him, Bai Goanna advised.) Ponnje, smart or otherwise, might be considered a town or an overgrown village. People think Goa is a city. I’ve heard an airline pilot announce that we were flying over and landing in Goa ‘city’. He either didn’t know or believe that Goa was a state. Most tourists and the powers that be in Delhi-Gurgaon-Elsewhere who want to buy property here think Goa comprises a kilometre wide space parallel to the Arabian Sea where everyone wears long underwear or micro-mini-skirts made of floral cotton and hats to match, drinks beer, parks where s/he feels like and enjoys a frequent traffic violation. If Goa is a city-state, a rural urbania, if you like, is Ponnje a suburb or what? Meanwhile, what does one call the large complexes comprising hundreds of ‘flats’ or ‘apartments’ and ‘villas’ in Dona Paula and Old Goa, Vasco, Assagaon and Porvorim? Are they towns within towns? Each ‘gated community’, as such complexes are called, has its own sub-culture, different from the language, food, music and social habits of the native minority of Ponnje/Vasco/Assagaon/Porvorim. That sub-culture I call corporatese. Management vocabulary, financial inputs, easy expenditure, Reiki, pranic-healing, expensive clothes, domestic-staff problems are parts of the evolution. The addresses are similar, following a pattern, somewhat like government quarters: house and floor and building number with name of group of buildings, usually with the builder’s label, following by nearest landmark, rarely road. House number 302, 6th floor =6/302 or simply 6302. Buildings have alphabets, so C-6302 guides you to the correct unit once inside the big, watchman-guarded gate. (About ‘security guard’ migrants I will write another column).Housing colonies have names like Rio de Marina (to sound exotic) or Gardenia de Velha or Villas Paradiso or simply Jhavier Plaza, Sea Park or the down-to-earth Coconut Orchard. One large and beautiful ‘Casa Familia’, which brought to mind a picture of many siblings, their children and grandchildren enjoying meals together and bickering, too, was inhabited by a single human being and her caretakers. Landmarks are no longer giant jackfruit trees, banyans or peepals. Not even Sai Krupa Bar or Desai Wines and Cashews. Now they are car showrooms, mobile-shops, shoe boutiques (!), pastry stores with fancy names, or restaurants. Sri Husband’s second interruption: ‘Who needs landmarks? We have the GPS and the cell-phone, don’t we?’ Who asked you, I wanted to say. Kept silent. Silence broken: ‘How do you spell the Capital of Goa?’ He peered over my shoulder, making sure I don’t ignore him. Ponnje, which a couple of months ago still had traces of prettiness, is also spelt as Panaji, Panjim, Pannji. Goan pronunciations depend on which language is being spoken. Mapuca, Mapusa, Mhapsa, Mhapshe. Canacona, Kaannkonn. Calangutay, Kal-angoot. And the toppers: Chorao is also Chodne and Thivim is Thiyeim. Then, there’s Parvari and Porvorim. I kind of like different pronunciations and the way we adopt words from other languages. (Aside: an Irish-Chinese boy, US citizen, married a friend’s daughter, Indian, and they’ve settled in the UK. Once, trying to explain something to me, he said, ‘matlab’… ah, I thought, we’ve exported a word that we’d probably imported from the Middle-East centuries ago.) Talking of the new Goanese (see, another new word to replace ‘Goan’) who have followed their hearts and the fashionable trend of spending lots of money to buy homes (called villas and apartments) and very big cars, who live in ‘lifted’, ‘stilted’ buildings with manicured spaces for children to play and seniors to walk in, have brought in many new words to enrich Konkani. I don’t know how much of Konkani they use. The upper-class ones mix with their kinds. Their children play not hututu (kabaddi, in case you didn’t understand), not kho-kho, not coconut-breaking, banana-tree cutting or slow-cycling races. It’s tennis, golf (we will get a golf club with wide, water-guzzling greens sooner rather than later, sure we will. Not just one, maybe fifteen) and skating for them. Migrants who do physical work at a certain rate per day know better Konkani than I do and will enrich it over time adopting words from Bihar, Nepal. On a Ponnje hoarding, I read an advertisement for horse-riding. I believed horses belonged to crisper climes like Rajasthan, the hilly areas of Tamil Nadu and (presently violence ridden) parts of some northeastern states of India or places that had maharajas. “Your beliefs mean nothing”, Sri Husband said. I have seen advertisements for ‘swimming-lessons’, I typed. ‘Swimming pools in many hotels and colonies,’ said Bai Goanna, ‘are filled with water from Sangolda wells.’ She’s jealous of those who have made a lot of money by selling well-water. They own tankers on which is written: ‘Water is free. We charge for the transport only.’ Funny, no? There are those who do scuba-diving, pub-hopping, looking for a fun life in Goa. They are monied migrants, not out to eke out a living. Then there are the still-saving, working-hard types who want to be near Nature, but with good connectivity, home-delivered meals and evening entertainment that is different from classical music soirees; some slog, I have seen, at running good eateries and selling handmade items at pop-up stalls. Goans with Goan DNA, the affording ones, are, to the surprise of the neo-Goans, focussed on academics, careers, even unconventional ones. On 30 June, Friday, at the crematorium in Ponnje, whilst bidding goodbye to one of Goa’s illustrious sons, Adv. Manohar S. Usgaocar, there was a crowd of niz Goemkars. The traffic could have been chaotic because the gods were weeping and the road very rough with all the re-digging, collapsing and bad filling-up. But it was smooth and horn-free. Industrialists and tailors, doctors and drivers, people in big cars and on foot had come to pay their respects to a learned man, courteous and ethical to a fault. They were there to respect a truly learned professional, a ‘good’ man. The gentle behaviour, the voices soft and low, the easy camaraderie that cut across income barriers, that’s what the real Ponnje, the real Goa, is about. Was. Nothing to do with casinos. “Or,” Sri Husband had to have the last word, “Statues.” Grudgingly, I admitted, he spoke the truth. And these events don’t make it to Facebook/Instagram.

The Budget Month

April, start of the new financial year. I have no idea why it cannot coincide with the regular New Year. “You,” accused Shri Husband, “have no idea about many things.” I chose to ignore His Sweetship until I was through with the typing. A quick googling told me the reasons (for the financial year starting on 1 April, not why Shri Husband was his normal, irritable self). One said: ‘The income relies upon the estimation of the yields that are harvested in the period of February and March. Thus, two months of span give government idea whether the revenue is going to increase/decrease.’ But, the mystery remains unsolved, like that of evolution of mankind, because there are other theories. One, the Income-Tax Act came into force from April 1, 1962. Second, it might have been to prevent year end accounting and balance sheet, etc., preparation coinciding with Holiday season of Christmas and New Year. Remember, before computers and emails (seems unbelievable that we lived through paper times), lots of work had to be done with ink and mental arithmetic. Papers had to be punched and filed (that hasn’t changed, hard copies are still greatly valued). Importantly, the files or copies had to be dispatched to a wonderland called Head Office, which often was in England. After that, the comments were written and the documents returned to have responses to comments noted on the files which were re-dispatched by sea to the land of the Rani. By the time the accounting for the year was over, it was April of the following year. Nothing’s changed, really, we’re still going bang into the 31 March deadline year after year, never smoothly sailing through it. Another reason: April coincided with the Hindu new year. This is a weak example, for many traditional businesses begin on Dassera or even the Laxmi Pujan done at Diwali. “But, then,” I read from the internet, “festivals like Navratri and Diwali fall in the month of October and November, followed by Christmas in December. These account for heavy sales for the retailers making accounting complex and time consuming.To avoid the collision of both so as each of the activity gets efficient time and attention, December might not have been preferred as the month of closure of the financial year.” I love Google, I said, as I got this information. The “grrrumph” sound from Shri Husband was best left un-deciphered; I’d rather not solve the mysteries of his mind. Importantly, India is not the only country that follows this trend. We have company: Canada, United Kingdom (UK), New Zealand, Hong Kong and Japan. In Delhi, the FM and the PM and the entire stable of television channels have already gone beserk over the national budget announcements and their repercussions on industry, farmers, tourism and what not. No concessions for freelance humour columnists. No sympathy either. At micro level, in a tiny office in a little Goan school, the accountants bend over ledgers, cash-books, vouchers, receipts and across that wonderful invention called Excel. For some reason, Excel has a quarrel with Tally, the finance software. Both have disagreeing totals. Same person making the entries from the same documents, but something or the other doesn’t match. Frustration means chai is needed. We have a moody electric kettle that refuses to work when we want it to. We budget for a new one and repairing is working out more expensive and getting readymade tea in a plastic bag from a nearby gaddo doesn’t satisfy the chai-drinkers. What follows the Excel-Tally disagreement are: • explanations (‘Vendor send previous full year’s newspaper bill after 1 April’), • digging into memories (‘Remember, the sewage overflowed and we got labour to clean it?’) • discovering scribbles on scraps of paper stuck in diary pages (‘Arre, I forgot to write this in the register, we had got the fire-thing refilled, no?’), • and manual recalculations help to match the figures (‘Better to do like this by hand. Computer must be wrong’). Finally, everyone’s satisfied. The income depressed me. A few parents, even those who are regular salaried government employees, resisted paying fees quoting ‘Covid’. The slum-dwelling, migrant labourers have been better behaved. The teachers—am proud of them—were willing to work for nil if things got worse. “We can’t waste the children’s year,” they said. If there is a Chief Principal in the Sky, s/he must have heard that and made sure we had just enough each month to pay the salaries. To the rupee. “Then,” said Shri Husband, as always looking over my shoulder to read what I was typing, “What was the case for ‘depression’?” Best to keep quiet, otherwise he gets into lecture-baazi mode. I didn’t even feel like telling him that many budget schools have done so poorly that they have either shut down or are on the verge of doing so. We’ve scraped by, thanks to the efforts of the teachers and responsible, decent parents. The expenditure, other than the meagre salaries of a budget school, was on electricity and water bills. Even the telephone didn’t get used. Stationery was hardly used as the summative examinations, unit tests, formative assessments, continuous evaluation (for those not in this profession, these terms are not synonyms) were held online. The lower-kindergarten students had spent an entire year in school without having seen a classroom or their teacher in real life. How to predict for the coming year, I mused, with the virus mutating from avtar to avtar? No one listens to my mumbling. Everyone gets on with the job at hand. We budget for masks and sanitizers. Liquid hand-wash. Floor-cleaning fluids. Disposable gloves in the first-aid kit. I recall a chain-owned beauty-parlour recently opened in Porvorim charged us Rs 100 for a tissue apron worn by the hair-cutting person, a flimsy mask worn by the one getting the hair cut, and blue plastic covers for the footwear (in case the virus energetically jumps from shoe to lip defying all expert predictions). I wonder what their budget looks like. These days I wonder what any budget looks like. Numbers-challenged me is fascinated by such things, like I’m fascinated by man going into space. Same level of difficulty. Second ‘grumpphh’ from Shri Husband, this time decipherable, but not for printing in a public space. The budget exercise is over. Estimates, guesses, calculations will play out in real time as the months unfold. Ruksana, Suhasini and Francis have breathed a collective sigh of relief that all was well. Mistakes were caught, errors rectified. Looking backward, I think, in a country where so much is siphoned off, so many under-the-table transactions happening, it’s a joy to know that there are many, many, many people living honest, transparent lives, where every annual budget is accurate and unchallengeable. Viva to the common man, the woman on the street, the little-folk of India.

Covid Events 2021

We’re unlocking ourselves; senior classes and colleges have tentatively opened, Board-examinations have been slotted for May 2021, more than a month later than the usual times, but we’re still teaching on WhatsApp. Mid-year, who knows, the National Education Policy might jolt Goa into improving the lot of future generations: and make government teachers, well, actually teach rather than punch in every morning to justify getting salaries. Actually, I must add, contrary to expectations, the teaching community did very well through the online classroom phase. Some, who hadn’t known how to handle a cellular phone learnt within seven days to record and air lessons on YouTube and take tutorials over Zoom or GoogleMeet/Team. (BTW, I used the word ‘cellular’ phone because according to Shri Husband, who claims—perhaps rightfully--that his English is better than mine, a ‘mobile’ phone should be able to move on its own or be driven, not carried.) Now that the Calangute hordes have gone back to re-infect folks in Karnataka, Maharashtra and wherever else they drove here from, the traffic has thinned on CHoGM Road. (Note: CHoGM is the correct spelling. Chogum is not.) Familiar local thug fights, over long-festering family-feuds, unpaid rents and scarce parking-spaces, have re-started as the drunken tourists have gone. We’re venturing (“Please write ‘masked, sanitized and distanced’,” dictates Shri Husband, peering over my shoulder) out of our territory, our village home, after three-fourths of the year. One (rare) thing we both agree upon: we don’t take punga with any virus. It took god knows how many centuries to eradicate ‘Devi’, the dreaded and highly infectious small-pox which left people with no eyesight and with ugly pock-marks on their faces even when they survived. Praying/fasting didn’t help, inoculations did. Remember polio? That awful virus which made people get sudden high fever and flaccidity and left them lame and helpless for a lifetime? How many drops for how many children over how many years have now conquered it… do the math to see how difficult it was/is to tame a rogue virus. Again, prayers/fasting didn’t work, the vaccine did. If the above two paragraphs were frightening to read, that was the intention. Covid-19 is no common cold. It’s not a Goan/Indian/Asian thing either. Get used to the idea that it’s a ba-ad infection and the only way to beat it is by taking precautions. “Masks, hand hygiene, distancing,” repeats Shri Husband in his irritating (he’s always correct, that’s what makes it irritating) way. So, with every precaution carefully taken, we chose to attend whatever we safely could of IFFI, and the Kesarbai Kerkar Sangeet Sammelan. IFFI first: I missed three days because although the documents were loaded (‘up-loaded’ – that was Shri Husband’s voice in my ear—‘although in your case, loaded might be correct, too.’), no acknowledgement came through my email. A visit to the (really helpful, cheerful and efficiently staffed) counter at the ESG worked. I got my card in a jiffy. After that, we booked our tickets online and dutifully saw what we were entitled to. It wasn’t the same. No queues, no arguments, no wrappers/tissues or tempers flying around. Some things were unchanged: blimp-shaped women wearing translucent dresses with easily viewed, brightly-coloured, gaily-printed underwear competing with similar-looking/dressed men. Filmy-creative-artsy devil-may-care attitudes are fun and common at such events. Staid old me notices and stores in the memory such things. As well as the soggy popcorn at Inox and cold chai in teeny steel conical tumblers at KA. And announcers with semi-Indian accents (love ‘em). College-student ushering highly enthusiastic cine-philes and time-passing retirees, fingering the micro-keyboards on their gadgets at sonic speed as they multi-tasked, messaging friends, checking our e-tickets/temperatures, chit-chatting as they did so. Guards who didn’t look like they were themselves secure, what to say about keeping us that way inside/outside the auditoria. Inside the theatres, it was a pleasant surprise that there was no national anthem to stand to. Aside: we weren’t the only ones who were carrying tiffin from home, going by the dabbas on the table outside the entrances. Missed the out-of-Goa regular IFFI buffs. The Kesarbai Kerkar Sangeet Samaroha: a big, big treat. If I had the money, I’d visit Salzburg or the Sydney Opera or Broadway. If I had the political clout in this country, I would charge that kind of money for attending these utterly delightful concerts. I read that it’s amongst the ten best classical music festivals in the world. With good reason. The curation, the quality of singers, the backdrop (every year it’s memorable) is of very high standard. Shri Husband says so, too, and we all know how hard it is to get a kind word out of him. In spite of the cheer in my life, cannot end this column on a happy note this time. Reason is the Farmers’ rally in Delhi. Biting cold, injustice, the might of the State on protestors, the goons who may have infiltrated the crowd, the forced-to-forget problems of the ex-Servicemen of this country who are asking for their dues--refer ‘One Rank One Pension’ or OROP-- for the last couple of years. Governments may mean well, may want India to be catapulted into the league of the Developed Nations, but if earlier we were terribly slow, now we’re pushing things through without dialogue/discussion; that means many points get missed, often vital ones. Listening to vox populi is democracy. I read today that in the Andamans, bridges will be built. The pros to the population and the cons to the environment need to be discussed over by experts. Without the inputs of environmentalists, modern town-planners/designers and the local population, there will be cause for alarm. In Mollem, the people let the government know they were serious about what they wanted. See what happened about getting the IIT to Goa? People may be unlettered, but we cannot assume they are unintelligent. Development is necessary, so is caution whilst driving towards it. I benefit from the flyovers and broad roads because I can reach Kala Academy, my Pandharpur for all that’s fine in my world, with ease. But there are no footpaths for me to walk on, to reach a grocery-store. No clean/comfortable/regularly-run, fairly-priced, ticket-providing buses that will take me from my home to wherever I want to go. No taxies that won’t fleece me unfairly. In the meanwhile, the broad roads will take many big cars which will keep burning expensive fuel as they search around for parking space. The fields on the sides that grew food, that made Goa pretty, are getting smaller and drier. The number of coconut trees is dwindling as also the number of climbers to get those coconuts down. The newer, more productive varieties of the nut have a different taste and texture. The beaches, once the pride and joy of Goans, have as many plastic bottles/packets as footprints. Or more. “Now look who’s giving the lecture,” Shri Husband said. Always has the last word, he does.

Spending is an Art or My Heroes 2020

There’s a difference between expenditure and waste. Wonderful words. I typed them on the screen and read them aloud and I was going to expand on them, when I could type no further, because Shri Husband peeked over my shoulder and made a nasty comment. Because he had nothing better to do. Because he is presently partially locked, and it doesn’t matter to him that all of us are. He scowls nevertheless, thinking he alone is being punished for something that is not his fault in any way. He is, therefore, in a permanently bad mood (since it’s a continuing condition, can’t really make out what the triggers are, honestly). When the government says ‘bhiu-pa chi garaz na’ and the doctor says, ‘take all precautions, mask-wash-distance, it’s a bad infection, this corona virus causes’, can’t blame him now, can I? They say, and I have read, that full un-locking (or should I say locking-up?) will take years if not months, vaccine or no vaccine, because the no-one’s sure how the virus will behave and mutate. So, bored in the interim period, he’s (Shri Husband, not the doctor) ready to pick on anyone. Mainly, me. I erased what I’d written. “You mean ‘deleted’,” said my personal, domestic interferon (what an apt word to use in these Covid Times, heh, heh, to describe Shri Husband). “Whatever,” I retorted, typing on, hoping my months-long-grown hair would block his vision. No such luck. “But it’s true,” he said, agreeing with me in a grudging kind of way, “Spending really is an art.” He must have heard this in childhood or read it on a car-sticker or something. Can’t believe he could come up with something so profound. “Means?” I said, hoping to shut him up. Usually, when I ask such questions, he gets up and walks away. He didn’t. Instead, he told me: “Spending, whether of time, energy or money, is a habit. A habit is an acquired behaviour pattern that is followed so regularly it’s almost involuntary. Examples of spending habits might include shopping for trivia on pay-day where money is concerned. Where time is concerned, getting up late in the morning and watching television at night and then panicking when the deadline for the column is very close.” He was getting into lecture-baazi mode, so I kept typing, bashing on regardless, ignoring him. That’s the best thing to do, I’ve learnt. In bygone years, I have known housewives who sorted out the husband’s salary (in those days wages were disbursed in cash even if the earner wore a white collar) and put fixed amounts in envelopes labelled ‘bread’, ‘eggs’, ‘butter’, ‘daal’, ‘soap’, ‘gas’, ‘milk’, ‘vegetables’, etc. Oh, and ‘matches’, for induction and micro-wave cooking didn’t exist even in fantasy stories. Nor did the internet. Or the mobile-phone. It was always a mystery to me what they did if they needed extra salt, sugar or oil in a particular month because the ants attacked a dabba or carelessness led to spillage. Shri Husband felt, still feels, that wives like me “would take out from one envelope some money and put it in another to neutralize a deficit in the latter and play musical envelopes till the end of the month”. Not true, but I don’t protest. I still know families who budget their EMIs, credit-card amounts, birthday-party gifts expenses, Netflix charges, petrol-bills, medical insurance and stuff. As an afterthought, they add school-fees: I should know, have been phone-chasing defaulters since the beginning of this academic year. But I stray… Smart people manage and manipulate their twenty-four hours. Shri Husband snorted: ‘Smart’. I knew he was thinking of, or referring through that snort to those like me, who need twelve hours sleep, some minutes snatched through the day and, steadfastly, many hours at a stretch at night. They also need to chew their food well and sit before, during and after meals/baths or returning from or before going to office/market. How to spend time calls for another column. Some are good at energy-conservation: they peel garlic while the milk is on the boil, run the mixer whilst the pressure-cooker whistles, sweep and mop whilst the washing-machine churns. Wise they are, for they accomplish much through the day. “And,” mumbled the man in my life, “some are otherwise.” Before I could react, he rectified that and said, “You do manage a lot of free time, I must admit. Teach me how to do it.” When he asks a favour like that, I go chup. He believes I’m a creative person. He also believes that lazy people are creative: they think of ways to get out of energy-expending situations. We both appreciate—and you know it’s rare for us to agree upon anything at all-- those who know what gives them pleasure: music, trekking, bird-watching, growing vegetables, collecting mouse-pads (or wrist-watches, which is my hobby, ahem), brewing wine, making jewellery, baking sour-dough bread, travelling, clicking photographs, etc. Those are the people who rule the money they earn. Money doesn’t dictate that it should be saved or splurged upon short-lived joys like buying shoes you will wear but once and then let the fungi and mould feast upon them. “The same,” said Shri Husband, indicating that I should take down what he’s saying, “is true about spending/wasting time or energy.” I have noticed that those who are careful with money are careful with time and energy. I saw Shri Husband nodding. In agreement. A never-to-be-forgotten moment. It was then that the Universe colluded: we both simultaneously heard the news that Mr. Ranjitsinh Disale had won the one million US dollar Global Teacher Prize for being an exceptional teacher who made an outstanding contribution to the profession. There were 12000 applications and nominations from 140 countries. The gentleman is from a Zilla Parishad Primary School in a place now prominently on the map: Paritewadi, Solapur, Maharashtra. That was impressive. We were delighted. More joy: Mr. Disale shared half his prize money with the other nine finalists. Which means half of more than seven crores in Indian rupees. Each of the other finalists will get, thanks to Mr. Disale’s generosity and consideration, fifty-five lakh of our currency. Whew. Shri Husband said, “He’s only thirty-two, and he knows how to spend correctly.” We’ve learnt a big lesson from someone half our age. I thought—Shri Husband all but forbids me from thinking, says it tires my brain, but I think anyway—that just as important was the fact that the person who constituted this award in 2014 was also an Indian, Mr. Sunny Varkey from Kerala, a businessman and long-time resident of the UAE. He heads the Varkey Foundation, which is a charitable organisation dedicated to changing lives through education. Imagine spending a million US dollars per year on a prize. Another man really knows to spend; for once, Shri Husband and I agreed yet again. In this Year that Changed the Planet, at the tail end of the year, I virtually met my heroes 2020. These two men, may their tribe increase, have shown how when time, energy and money are correctly utilized—‘spent, not wasted,’ Shri Husband reminded me--- magic happens.

Engraved in Steel Covid Lockdown.

Covid-Lockdown = Spring-cleaning.

Whilst rummaging through kitchen drawers, something I saw triggered a typical Bambaiyya-Hindi phrase from long ago: “Iss per tera naam likha hai kya?”, commonly said-

• in school by mates who wouldn’t share exam timetables,
• in buses/trains during seat-grabbing,
• by clerks in government departments who took their own sweet time opening a lock/drawer/file,
• by uniformed guards at mall-entrances snapping at loiterers lingering near the luggage-rollers, curiously eyeing bags/packs.
• by acquaintances who wanted to puncture egos of foreign-returned persons who wouldn’t show them imported ball-point-pens (to own one meant you were a ‘someone’).

As I inspected the old utensils in my kitchen, I discovered how ‘naam-likha-hai’ might have originated.
In the old days, buildings and bungalows all over India were often named after a member of the family that built them: ‘Narayan Sadan’, ‘Champa Nivas’, ‘Radha Kunj’, ‘Pethe Nilayam’, ‘Umaid Bhavan’.

Peculiarly, at a lesser economic level, south of the Vindhyas, eg. Gujarat, Maharashtra, brass/steel-ware in bought in the 1930s-‘70s, was always ‘marked’ by names of the owners.

My mother-in-law’s possessions: The handle of every spoon/ladle/spatula/strainer, the side of each vati/ pela/ dabba/ taat/ zhaaknni (=bowl/tumbler/box/plate/lid) had a name/date engraved on it. Every vessel, big/tiny, had a history.

I read one written in English: Sow Savitri Ghanashyam Doiphude. (Sow=Sau=Mrs=Saubhagyavati). Who’s that, I ask my sister-in-law over the phone; ‘might have been a neighbour’, she said. Perhaps she had loaned my mother-in-law sugar in that dabba? Excellent cursive penmanship. The letters flowed.

A big and heavy paan-daan (closed container that held betel-leaves, supari, tumbaakkoo, choona, kaat, dry-coconut-shavings, gulkand) was gifted to my father-in-law, ‘with grateful thanks’, by a certain Advocate Siddhananda Maharudhreshwar Rajyadhyakshya; the names of his juniors and staff – I imagine--have also been included, possibly rank-wise, as they weren’t in alphabetical order. The writing, again, remarkably neat, was at the bottom of the dabba. Complicated names, perfectly inscribed.

A 12”-diameter brass chapatti-dabba, the well-proportioned paraat and the wooden chakli-making-gadget had my grandmother-in-law’s name on it, greeting her on her first post-marriage Ganapati-festival. I marvel that the legible letters engraved close to a century ago have survived scrubbing with abrasive powders and coconut coir.

No spelling mistakes. This ‘writing’ on metal was done by salesmen in steel-utensils shops in Mumbai, sitting on hard cotton cushions with white covers, next to the cashier-owner, using an electric machine with a needle-tip that tapped the metal surface at high speeds. They would have been barely literate, and in the vernacular. There was scope for errors (at least in English); there were none.

The inscriptions on three tiffins, in Marathi, tell me something about Shri Husband and his sisters. Alongside each name is the date on which the tiffin was bought. The small ones were for the primary-school years, for carrying easy-to-eat laddoos and shakkar-parya. The flat, compartmented, rectangular ones with clips on the sides were for middle-school, for chapatti+bhaji+banana. From standards eighth to eleventh (no 10+2 then) they carried multi-layered containers with usal, chapati, curd, the inevitable banana, and possibly a fistful of roasted groundnuts or homemade chakli.

There are drinking-water lotas with ‘sa-prem bhet’ (=with affection) or ‘abhinandan’ (=congratulations) written on them, presented on a birthday or on clearing a Board Examination. Some have tiny, flawlessly executed flowers/leaves drawn alongside. I marvel at the precision of the work.

The most interesting ones are the small haldi-kunku presents:

• one oil-container can pour out a teaspoonful of liquid through a beak. On it is written, ‘Lata-kaki heechya kadoon, sankrantichi bhet’ (=from Lata-kaki, on the occasion of Sankrant).

• a comb-holder from a certain Guna-atya to my eldest sister-in-law. No one remembers this Guna-atya, but the illustration of a baby held up by two sturdy hands and the fact that she was called ‘atya’ suggests she was close to my in-laws.

• Soap-dishes, wick-lamps, kunku-dispensers, sugar-pots, tea-strainers, spatulas, ladles, a remarkable assortment of spoons of all sizes, shapes and quality have at least names, if not dates and occasions, written on them.

Tiny letters, long names, longer messages, all squeezed into two-millimeter-wide, inch-long spaces. We need magnifying glasses to read some of those. I’ve seen men doing it with the aid of only ordinary spectacles.

I don’t know where/how this custom was born.

Correlle, Pyrex, Corning, Borosil, Opal, Khurja, microwave-friendly cook-cum-serve dishes look nice on our dining-tables, may serve as family heirlooms, but are unlikely to arouse curiosity. No Tupperware salad-box or Milton casserole is personalized like this. No name, no date, nothing to differentiate it from any other.

Drums to store water, with taps, before the era of the square ‘syntex’ tanks that now cling to kitchen-ceilings, had bold engravings and proudly occupied precious space on kitchen otas (=platforms). Heavy, grey, no longer shiny, but quite indestructible, impossible even to dent, our steel inheritance gave us a sense of the past, a link to parents/elders/philosophies/attitudes long gone. Many of these items, from homes like ours, have gone to charitable institutions because they are cumbersome to use and take up too much space.

I discover that the word ‘own’ has no equivalent in Marathi/Hindi.

Aadhar cards and passports have our parents’ names on them, but they don’t give a feeling of ‘ownership’.
I had not eaten from a thermocole/foil-coated toss-away until I was well into adulthood. In my parents’ generation, money was spent on education, food and rent, in that order. Every item bought was meant to last forever, hence ‘marked’.

The other markings were on our arms/thighs: to fight small-pox/diphtheria/dysentery/tuberculosis.
We’ve changed our lifestyle and habits, and in the near future, will change them drastically again. Vocabulary and habits have changed drastically and will change some more. Strangely, the phrase ‘naam likha hai kya’ might, I believe, live on.

This compulsory staying put, caged in a comfortable home, thinking about those who don’t have what I have, is a memory forming, nestling, staying put in every human mind alive and conscious today. Across country and race, war and riot, garden and golf, a collective, never-to-be-forgotten part of Mankind’s memory.

Covid-Lockdown=Engraved Forever.

At Delfino 7 Apr 2020

We had stocks estimated to last till 14 April, the last day of the ‘lockdown’ as announced by the PM on 22 Mar. Not that we were running out of daal-chaawal-sugar-oil-soap, but since the news hinted that the curfew might be extended, we went shopping. To avoid a crowd, we went immediately after lunch, the hottest part of the day. Others had the same idea, for there was a crowd outside Delfino’s, our closest ‘supermarket’. All the small grocers and other shops in our area were shut, although the CM had requested them to stay open for 24 hours. Considering that they are usually shut most of the day anyway, didn’t expect anything different. A few did open for an hour or two in the morning, as was the usual routine pre-Covid-19 anyway, to sell milk-bread, onions-potatoes and maybe cigarettes-chai and then pulled shutters down. At the best of times these shops sell wilted, soggy ‘fresh’ vegetables. Except the ‘horticulture’ sheds. These days, hawkers who sell the local farm-produce have hiked their prices. We pay them what they ask for. In the Delfino’s compound, a shamiana had been erected to give shade to the customers waiting to enter. Small white circles were drawn to indicate where we could stand, 1.5 metres away from anyone in front, behind or to our sides. Like chess pieces, we stood, waiting to make a move when the Security chap indicated we should/could, when someone exited from the payment-counter at the other end of the shop. He sprayed the handles of the trolleys and every palm with a lemon-smelling disinfectant before entry. As senior citizens, we were entitled to break the queue. Shri Husband, a stickler for ‘go by the spirit not the letter of a regulation’ said we should go when our turn came, as it wouldn’t be fair to the younger folk. ‘We’re in good health and it won’t take long,’ he said. Strange how he’s patient at the oddest times. Not with me, but I’ll save that for another article. Every time a young person’s turn came, a senior citizen turned up and went ahead. Stay, ordered Shri Husband and I shifted from one foot to another and back, smiling through my mask at a woman standing across the square, who had focussed her spectacled eyes on my huge canvass bag. When she didn’t smile back, I folded the bag and pressed the creases to spite her. Little else to do. When my turn came, I exchanged four cardboard egg-trays for coupons. Two bucks per tray is what Delfino’s takes off the bill. I stuffed the coupons into my wallet. I have a collection of those coupons. For some reason, I do not remember to present them at check-out, so they accumulate. “The lockdown hasn’t made a difference to your memory,” Shri Husband remarked after we went home. Snide. I should never have mentioned the coupons to him. Inside Delfino’s, there was quiet music, air-conditioning, no jostling, pleasant staff. No Amul buttermilk, but milk aplenty. No kurmuras, but poha available. No mutton, but beef and pork looked fresh. No toor or moong dals, but urad and masoor were in stock. Our favourite rice, ambe-mohar, the ponni-rice for idli, rava and the flours we love—jwari specially—were available. We aren’t into insta-foods, but I noticed that the noodles, bottle-can-and-carton shelves were empty. Maybe customer-habit researchers are doing a study? Convinced that the electricity-department wasn’t letting us down, we bought butter, paneer, peas from the frozen section. Oil, soap. Once I’d run through my list, I reached out for non-list items—snacks, sauces. Shri Husband was impressed (rare!) that I had made a list. Like budgets and dusting, it’s on my never-to-be-done things. But these are unusual times we’re living through and persons (being politically correct here) like me in other parts of the planet must be doing the same, I imagine. I saw other trolleys piled high. Were they stocking for six months? Was I doing something wrong by buying for just another four or five days? Influenced by the others, at the chemist, we decide to buy a month’s medicine. I walked out pleased that I had ‘everything’ now. Coconuts, curry-leaves, green chillies, drumsticks and pumpkin flowers we get from our compound. The nustekar blows the horn every alternate day announcing the arrival of a scooter-ful of fish from Betim. Bony, scaly, down-market ones, but they’re a good source of protein when we’re tired of eating eggs. What I can buy at and around my house, I don’t buy from any supermarket. Like leafy vegetables, alsande, chawli, tambdi bhaji, etc. I must admit, and not reluctantly, that Shri Husband is a good house-husband. Sweeping, mopping, washing he does, and happily. Possibly because I’m tidiness challenged. He lends a helping hand in cooking, chopping, clearing, too. Through Facebook and the Whatsapp groups of my schoolmates, ex-colleagues and other acquaintances, I have gathered that many husbands around the world are as kind and supportive. There is no way I will let him read this paragraph, let him know I am fortunate. Might change his persona. This is not the time to disturb status quo. After the Delfino trip, after putting things away, I sit to check messages. I have friends in ill health. One is living by herself and missing face-contact with other humans. One cousin is unhappy to be imprisoned in a tiny flat with unpleasant family-members who are not talking to each other, for twenty-four hours, day after day. One is an alcoholic getting severe withdrawal symptoms. One is worried because she cannot reach her daughter on phone or via the internet and doesn’t know what to do because the daughter fiercely protects her ‘privacy’. Contrary-wise, many are enjoying their solitude, the company of their partners/pets/books/music. A very few, like me, are grateful that life has been, so far, good, that I am able to have excursions to places like Delfino’s. Approaching 14 April, I say, que sera, sera.

A Festival of Scraps and Leftovers.

What’s the word for the last gooey rice-and-gravy slurp of a meal which we Indians 'mop' up with our fingers? I can’t get up from a meal unless the plate is ‘wiped’ clean. Four fingers of the right hand caress the plate in a circular, scooping motion. Some law of physics attracts and holds together near-liquid dal/curd combined with a quarter fistful of rice, flavoured with the last bit of fried fish or dry vegetable. It’s a skill as complicated, but messier, as eating non-filleted fish with chopsticks. It’s childhood conditioning: ’don’t waste food’. How my polishing a plate would help anyone starving anywhere in the world, I didn’t understand, but the mantra stuck. There were more ration shops than private grocers where/when I was a child. In the early days of my marriage, I often cried over curdled milk (no fridge), collected multi-ingredient one-pot-meal recipes (I owned ONE kerosene-fuelled wick-stove), and cooked with whatever was seasonally, locally available (nation-wide transportation was primitive). Erratic electricity supply meant undependable running water. I enjoyed solitude in remote corners of Uttar Pradesh, through bitter Kashmir winters, drought-stricken Tamil Nadu and in Punjab through its troubled years. Cellular phones, cable-television, and the internet were decades away. I learned from neighbours/acquaintances ‘make-do recipes’ with whatever the neighbourhood grocer sold. I became clever at creating recipes out of odd ingredients. Be informed, there’s madness in the methods. I’ve always had a pukka roof over my head and enough food on the table to welcome guests, but because of circumstance, frugality ruled. So, when the lockdown was announced, I went into kanjoos-mode immediately, stocked until 14 Apr 2020. Gas, check. Oil for cooking, check. Milk powder, in case fresh milk was rationed and we had problems with the fridge. Rice, for making idlis and dosas, too. Flours -- wheat, jwari and nachni. Pulses -- rajma, chana black/white, matki, kuleeth, moong, masoor, alsande. Onions and potatoes. Fruit and fresh vegetables that lasted, like gourds and apples. Masalas. Sugar. Soap and scrubbers. Eggs, bread, butter. Done. Since we can’t trust the voltage in our village, I chose to not stock anything that ever swam, flew or trotted. The freezer held icepacks for predictable headaches. Presently, all vegetable trimmings, rinds and peels are used to make stock for soup or dal, or grated to plump up polle. Early every morning, I soak a fistful of a whole pulse. Shri Husband, peering to see what I was typing, said ‘soaking a pulse’ sounded strange. So, to rephrase: I soak a fistful of one of the pulses mentioned above. And not in rum/brandy as Shri Husband hinted; plain water works. After sunset, I strain it and allow it to sprout overnight. The following morning the grains’ nutritive value is increased multiple-fold. (A good way to cheat price rise, too; you get more value per rupee spent when you soak-sprout seeds). A different pulse is soaked each morning, for variety. After pressure-cooking, I add to it cut drumsticks and the odd pumpkin flower, both freshly plucked, and cook again. Salt and dried kokum bring alive the curry, a tiny piece of jaggery neutralizes the tanginess, a pinch of haldi and spoonsful of the impulse-driven masalas are added. Lastly, I temper it with mustard-cumin-methi seeds and some curry-leaves, again freshly plucked. The last sentence is the post-speech ‘Jai-Hind-Jai-Goa’ of every recipe. Mandatory. Occasionally, I garnish with a spoonful of fresh coconut gratings and a few chopped coriander leaves, the metaphorical ‘icing’. There are no restrictions on playing around with ginger and garlic for those who swear by their medicinal properties. Gardening and I are incompatible. But, in times like these, I rise to the occasion like a German hausfrau during WWII. On Day 1, I buried the sliced tops of onions and garlic in soil in a discarded plastic container. Two weeks gone and I have micro-greens for salad. When, in 1969, the Shiv Sena riots to chase away all ‘Madrasis’ introduced me to my first curfew, I was twelve. Cauliflowers, carrots and peas were luxuries, then. Mother used pumpkins and bottle-gourds to make interesting baked dishes. I boil cubes of the gourd/pumpkin flesh, mash coarsely, add salt, pepper, dried herbs, oil/butter, sautéed cashew-nut bits, grated cheese to taste, some milk-powder, blend an egg into the mixture, then bake until set. I don’t worry about proportions unless things go terribly wrong (much like governments worldwide). Retrieving/salvaging takes a lot of imagination. Shri Husband, intruding: “You should know. New mistakes every day.” My Goan genes miss xit-kodi. Unusual times call for sun-dried, gas-roasted Bombay-duck/mackerel, whose smell I love and most non-West-Coasters abhor. My logic: if people can have nutri-nugget korma (ugh!!), no reason why I should not have salted shrimps with brinjal. My stock of dried fish is packed in ten—ok, exaggerating—four layers of plastic bags, each held firmly with a rubber-band. These packets are kept safely in my grandmother-in-law’s heavy-gauged, tight-lidded brass dabba. I removed my virus-proof mask to sniff the stuff before I put it on the gas to roast. Love that raw smell. Shri Husband spent that morning in the balcao. I should do it more often. I was living through an ingredients crisis; the internet told me tomato leaves were edible. We had them as a side dish, lightly tossed in garlic butter: served that plant right for not producing fruit. Snacks comprise fried peels of gourd/pumpkin. Potato, that import by the goras, now beloved of Indians as stuffing in another import, samosas, unites humans from Alaska to Australia. “Other than the Corona virus?” quipped Shri Husband. Lockdown means monotonous meals, a reminder that I have food. Hunger, an indication of good health, unattended can lead to illness, death. I watch in dismay workers trudging home, pockets empty, stomachs rumbling. Curfews are often indefinite. This one’s unrestricted, planet wide, a first. I would kill for mangoes with cream right now. Or a bite of ripe banana. Others would kill for scraps and leftovers. If the virus doesn’t get them first. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sheela Jaywant is a humour columnist and short-story writer who likes to hear from her readers on sheelajaywant@yahoo.co.in

The Corona Virus in Porvorim Goa

I was boarding a Mumbai-Goa flight. As always, I looked around to see if there was anyone I knew, who looked familiar, to chat with. This was at 0300 hours. Everyone around me was wearing masks. I didn’t know nose and mouth masks came in such variety. Plastic ones with punched holes, the usual porous green and white tissue ones, some resembled foxes’ noses in colour and shape and others were triangular-folded handkerchiefs knotted at the back of the head. At the main entrance, I wondered how the guard (masked himself) recognized who was entering with whose identity-card or ‘photo-proof’ as he called it, considering that all he could see was the eyes and forehead of the person presenting it. “Irregular protocol,” Shri Husband agreed. Cheers to the Corona-V, after four and more decades we agreed on something without arguing. The girl at the counter didn’t need to ask me questions more than once because she could hear me and read my lips. Because I was unmasked. The virus was a ‘maybe’ attacker, whilst any mask is sure suffocation for me. I took my own precautions by sitting next to masked persons so that I got filtered air to breathe. If they had germs to share, those germs would get right back into their own nostrils, I reasoned. (“Stupid logic,” remarked Shri Husband. Why he wanted to read over my shoulder what I typed I don’t know. Gave both of us a headache.) The others’ mouths could be made out through the masks. Whatever they spoke was indistinct and lots of guesswork, shouting and gesturing happened before the communication was complete. Sample question: ‘Sir, aisle or window seat?’ Answer: ‘Ju oo half a cee er da aafoo?’ After a couple of frustrating minutes, the mask was momentarily removed, exposing the to-be-dead-if-infected, near panic-stricken passenger to unfiltered air. Passenger quickly spat the words “Do you have a seat near the bathroom?” and before you could say ‘covid-19’, adjusted the mask and elastic to shut the mouth again. No one seemed to mind removing the mask-filters whilst consuming chai and samosas, though. Inside the aircraft, we were all zombies, having spent most of the night awake, a large majority of us ‘faceless’. Back in Porvorim, Goa, following the Centre’s advisory to take precautions against this micro-sized part-living part-inorganic creature that was killing planet earth’s most important biped, the CM announced on a Saturday evening, on television, that schools were to be shut till the end of March. I celebrated. Prematurely. No students to come to school, I read the soft-copy circular on Whatsapp, but exams would be held as scheduled. Confused, my colleagues and I waited ‘virtually’ for another circular from the God of Schools, the Department of Education, or the ADEI. (Aside: my colleagues say ‘Dipaamen’ when they refer to the former. Dropping the ‘r’ and both the ‘t’s, I have learnt, is the Goan thing to do. The long form of ADEI has been long forgotten. We all know that when a notice/ circular/ letter/ anything comes from the ADEI, we must jump and do whatever is ‘ordered’, unreasonably late though it may reach us. Now I find the same folk saying Coyona Viyus. Peculiar Goan thing.) Doctor friends sent scientific facts—I’m convinced by them-- to say:- • we were and have been for a long time more at risk of dying from multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis or plain old diarrhoea than this new pathogen that doesn’t survive at Goan summer temperatures, • that Corona was heavy enough by virus standards to, if exhaled in a sneeze or cough, drop to the ground and not bounce back into another nose, • that we needed to worry only if we were immuno-compromised, old and frail, or plain unlucky, • that hand-washing with soap and water before and after touching suspect surfaces (including other people’s hands) was not inferior to expensive and out-of-stock ‘sanitizers’. • that the collective immunity of the sub-continent was possibly better than that, say, of the Canadian population, as we were regularly exposed to garbage, sewage, pollution and mostly not in air-conditioned environments. Other friends sent other ‘facts’—I’m unconvinced by those—to say:- • cow urine would solve this health problem amongst others. My retort: bull-shit. Why it (cow-urine, not bull-shit) could never stop or cure small-pox, leprosy or diabetes amongst the old-fangled diseases, I don’t know. • that if I suddenly and permanently converted to veganism and additionally cut off onions and garlic from my diet, I’d be protected from harm. Here, there was some confusion on Facebook, because one party insisted that garlic was medicinal and another said it was not sattvic (pure) for human consumption. For some reason, that diet hadn’t saved anyone from renal or cardiac failure or any dreaded illness. Wondered why. • that this virus was created to teach the western world a lesson, etc. Um…we have some organisms that teach us lessons, like the amoebae, the Salmonella typhimurium, the vectors causing leptospirosis, malaria and dengue, etc. India is dealing with them on war-footing, too, but the media doesn’t give it credit for that because the western world might not be interested in those headlines. We, as responsible citizens, decided to self-isolate ourselves. Of course, the poder, the nustekar, the bai who got the bhaji from the fields, the linesmen from the electricity department and those digging our roads were at work. No one had told them they should restrict themselves to their huts. They couldn’t afford masks/ sanitizers anyway. I don’t know whether they used soap or had running water, but that was not the time to ask. The policemen were manning their posts. No shops were shut. Those highest at risk-- doctors, nurses, technicians, taxi-drivers, bus-conductors, were doing their duties diligently, not taking rest, not looking for glory. Whilst Twitter told me the number of deaths due to the C-V, I googled to find out how many died in rail/road accidents that very week, in India. I don’t worry about the planet or humankind. I don’t worry about the country or the state most times. My world is restricted to my home in Porvorim. When this self-confinement to contain a pandemic had to be tackled, my worry was spending twenty-four hours without respite, with Shri Husband and Bai Goanna at home. It was panic time for me. I carefully re-re-heard what the CM had said on television. School would be shut for students, but exams would be conducted. Teachers and the rest of the gang had to clock in. I had to go to school. I smiled. Shri Husband grunted. Amicably, I think.

Free Samples

Come January and sales representatives from publishers come to my office, carrying bundles of books in big canvas bags, or holding them by the tough thread that holds them together. The watchman doesn’t bother about getting their names entered because they’re unable to liberate their limbs from the heavy wares they are lugging, to sign, and he’s illiterate. If they were saleswomen, I think they would have carried the bundles on their heads. “Or,” said Bai Goanna, joining Shri Husband to peer over my shoulder to see what I was typing, “they’d use a second-hand foldable pram to wheel the stuff from their scooter to your office. Women are smart.” I agreed silently about the smart bit, but prams? Doesn’t occur to her that some of these marketing types might come in four-wheelers, mostly the bread-box Maruti Omni that none else wants? Folding prams, come to think of it, are practical solutions to take to the market, a trolley-substitute, see? Then again, anything on wheels would be defeated on the way to my office; like any decent path in India, it is strewn with pebbles, gravel, twigs and every and anything that would rip the tiny metal balls out of a bearing and break a pram into many useless angular pieces. “That sentence,” pointed out Shri Husband, “sounds awful.” He could have used the word ‘inelegant’. I didn’t—never do--- have the courage to say ‘then don’t read it, stay away’. I just ignored him and typed on regardless. Where was I… the publishers send book samples, several per subject per class. Doesn’t sound like much until you do the arithmetic. Take LKG (lower kindergarten, which takes children between 3.5 and 4 years of age, approximately 2.5 feet in height) as an example. The children have to ‘learn’ line drawing. If they are clever, they do patterns and colouring as well. The little ones spend three hours in school, in which, besides doing a page of work, they have to sing a verse, memorize numbers and tell us the names of their grandparents if they have any. How many books do you suppose each child would buy for the year? I have seven SETS of books for pattern writing, joining dots, gluing cotton swabs and reading aloud, each set containing at least ten books. Do we really need so many publishers printing out the same stuff? At nearly the same cost? So many, many ‘samples’ are gifted to each school, with ‘not for sale’ or ‘complimentary copy’ stamped prominently on the front cover or first page. To prevent ‘misuse’. What misuse could one think of for a hundred pattern-writing books? Now, multiply each set by thirty-five students. Go on, do the maths. By the time I see what the teachers are selecting for the fifth standard, I’m exhausted. I’ve watched them go through tables-books, small sums, problems, divisions, decimals and …wait until I tell you about the high school workbooks. The Devnagari script books are, like the script, complicated, with red and blue lines with broad spacing, medium spacing, narrow and very narrow spacing. The mathematics notebooks have squares of varying dimensions: 1 cm square, 1.5 cm square and worse. There are ‘un-ruled’ books, too. Would you believe, there are at least a dozen different kinds of blank-paper books for art. Did I tell you about graph-books? If the government and/or activists are serious about saving the Earth/trees, by law we should be using only slates. Consider this: if a book costs Rs 100, the supplier gives a discount of 30% to the buyer (parent) and another 20% ‘concession in cash’ to the in-between (i.e. school). And schools, the salesperson tells me, do make profit on the sly thus. I’m stupid, he tells me. I agree. Husband and Bai Goanna also agree. For once, we’re on the same page, the three of us. Now, if we dismiss the supplier from the chain and connect directly with the manufacturer, a student can actually buy an item for 40% of the printed price. Nice, no? What is true about books is true about cosmetic products in a more complicated way. When I buy a toothpaste, I’m paying for research done a century ago, plus the cost of the company’s marketing director’s ‘with family’ holiday abroad, the advertisements showing twenty-metre smiles on hoardings on way to the Dabolim airport, the plastic-coated cardboard box and heaven knows what else. Of course, I buy toothpaste for oral hygiene, but that’s not the point here. I need friends who are dentists (or purchase managers in hotels) who can gift me some tubes; am sure they get plenty of free samples. In the hospital where I once worked, receiving free samples was a way of life. The MRs (as Medical Representatives of pharmaceutical companies are known) came in hordes. On days when the patient-footfall was low, MRs occupied all the benches, laptops on their… what else… laps, typing away, resting their bags by their feet. The moment they saw Target Doctor, the computers were speedily put away, the bags swung on backs as they hurried into the clinics. Those bags contained syrups, capsules, pills, little devices to check sugars/salts/whatever was the latest fad. To be given free, of course, with ‘Physician’s sample, not to be sold’ boldly printed across the label. Samples were often accompanied by calendars, pen-stands, watches (now definitely not in vogue), note-pads, mouse-pads, mobile-phone covers and other cute goodies to make prospective prescribers happy and motivated. “What,” asked Bai Goanna, “About foreign trips and sponsored conferences?” “She,” said Shri Husband before I could answer her, “will write about it later, in another piece. That’s beyond the scope of this piece.” Correct for once, I thought, keeping my thought to myself, adjusting my posture to prevent them from reading further what I was typing. Tea-bags, cosmetics, paan-masalas, pickles, choorans and chivda, everything has giveaway samples these days. We pay for them when we buy the actual stuff, never forget. The good quality stuff needs no small introduction. No matter what the marketing gurus say, a Wendell Rodricks (a man I deeply admired, may he rest in peace) product is to be cherished for design and quality. Word of mouth works best. Just wondering, are any free samples involved in big money products like fighter-aircraft, ack-ack guns and submarines? Never read about India getting free helicopters on ‘trial basis’. “You’re ignorant,” chorused Bai Goanna and Shri Husband, adding, “Remember how we damaged the Tejas (train, not plane) seats on its trial runs?” Sigh. Yes. Said and done, I love free samples. Don’t we all?

Mumbai to Goa by Air.

They say experience teaches you much. In my case, I learn everything through making mistakes. I’m quite an expert at that, make new ones every day. Or so saidShri Husband and Bai Goanna once. I’m going off-track. Let me tell you about what happened recently. We were going to Bombay (sorry-sorry, Mumbai… just tells you how old I am) by aeroplane (I refuse to say ‘fly-by-air’ like some people do.)Shri Husband and Bai Goanna were discussing the nitty-gritties of how kitty (rememberlittle ‘Maows?’) was to be taken care of in our absence. Fish had to be bought, cleaned, sliced and frozen in meal-sized packages. Maows eats only fresh bangde, sans innards, heads, fins,tails. A packet of cat-biscuits (dry, stinky stuff that comes in sturdy plastic packets) was fetched from our friendly neighbourhood ‘supermarket’. The latter is neither ‘super’ nor quite a ‘market’, but keeps essentials. These days, pet food (for fish, dogs, cats but not cows/buffaloes/goats) is listed under essentials. We bought it just in case the bangdefell short (growing kitties have surprisingly big appetites). Introducing her to the insta-food was easy. Like humans, cats figure out that all things fresh and healthy aren’t as tasty as the made-from-scraps, full-of-vitamins, dehydrated-first and reconstituted-afterwards, well-advertised titbits. One sniff and Maows fell in love with the ‘niblets’. Sigh. Poor local ‘bangde’. Going by aeroplane is a big deal for me. I recall reading about pilots who bought their licences and were candidates for crash-adventures. My ears pain. I feel like vomiting. If I get a middle seat I have elbow-stabbers on either side. If I get a window, it’s either above the wing or on the sunny side. As for the aisle… either the trolley gets stuck just where I am or the others in my row have enlarged prostates/undersize-bladders. Or the flap of the luggage-bin above my head keeps snapping open, threatening to allow a heavy knapsack or five to descend upon my skull. (“What’s to fear?” Shri Husband wants to know, “When there is nil grey matter to spill? Nothing to lose.” Harrumph, I snort, but only in my mind.) I worry about picking up someone else’s bag from the carousal and (the consequence of seeing a mystery-movie in college) being the innocent victim of a murder. “Paranoia,” Shri Husband insists.“Without reason.” “Crazy,” Bai Goanna agrees. I say nothing. They won’t understand. No one understands. I let it go. Anyway, we didn’t get tickets on the same airlines, but the flight-timings were identical. Considering only one aircraft can take off at an instant from Dabolim… it didn’t take me long to figure out how they worked it. One flight took off on time, the other was delayed, naturally. Also, the timings indicated that the flight-duration was over an hour and a half. Goa-Mumbai, I read, takes, or should take, fifty-five minutes. So, even if the flight is late for technical snags, security reasons, VIP movement, quarrelling crew, when it lands, it’s mostly ‘punctual’ and gets some rating for the feat. Neat trick.(The next time Goa Today’s editor asks me how long it will take me to write a piece for him, I will say ‘six months’. Won’t he be impressed when I mail it in as many weeks? Ha, am I a good learner or am I a great learner.) FYI, Goa airport food outlets can compete with airlines’ meals, so bad is their fare. We didn’t suffer. Like good(read ‘kanjoos’)Goans, we carried with us water (drank it up before Security) and sandwiches (half were finishedon the way, well before we reached Vasco), wafers (same as ‘chips’) and curd (later mixed with aforesaid water and a packet of homemade masala to get instant buttermilk.) At the airport, as we moved towards our respective gates, our ‘cheerios’ turned to ‘oh-nos’ when we realized that although we were headed to Mumbai, one flight was landing at T-1, Santacruz, the other at T-2, Sahar, a distance of 30 mins. (In India, lest you be unaware, we measure distance in the time covered by taxi. We in Goa measure distance by fare; like, my home is twelve-hundred bucks from the airport, and it’ll shock you to know how little that is in kilometres.) Railway stations have no such complications. Tivim or Carmali stations may force you to ‘land’ on the tracks because the platform is shorter than the train (has happened!), but it’s not Mapusa at one end and Margao at the other. My village mind is imagination-deficit; when I heard this T-1-T-2 thing, I gave up wondering how big Mopa airport was likely to be. No connection, just my wandering mind a-wondering. Through the journey, we pondered what Maows might be doing. The moment we landed-- two on-time and one delayed by an hour-- and until we met again, yet another hour later, we phoned our neighbour to check on her (Maows, not the neighbour). Over the weekend that we were away, the ‘wado’ kept an eye not on our property (jungle, really) nor possessions (no self-respecting thief would covet them), but our cat. V, who had the key to the house and access to cat’s food, told me Maows wouldn’t touch a morsel unless she stood by. She had to wait until Maows’ meal was over. In spite of the fact that we had trained Maows to use a particular window to exit and enter, she made V’s life miserable by wanting to use the ‘human’s’ door. Cats have intelligence, don’t let any dog-lover dispute that. Mumbai has its charm. The Metro-digging is going on from Andheri-Seepz to beyond Churchgate, which means more than half the city is semi-paralyzed. The very-slow-moving traffic reminded me of the Mandovi-bridge jams over holiday weekends. But none was seen pouring beer-froth over another’s head in the middle of such a jam: tourists in Goa give us entertaining moments, don’t they? Back home now, with Maows on lap and laptop on table, I’m making a list of ‘lessons learnt in the first month of 2018’. 1. When you leave a cat at home, alone, keep out only those clothes you don’t want shred. 2. When you have forgotten to switch off a light or fan, keep aside extra money for the electricity-bill of the next month. 3. …(word limit up, more next time.)

Ban the Bhiknna

Whilst the rest of the country’s discussing on television whether it’s a good idea to ban beef, in my corner of the village, I’m wondering what to do about the hundred odd ‘bhiknna’ that lie fermenting in the soil, quite literally raising a stink. (For the ‘bhailley’ who haven’t a clue what ‘bhiknna’ means: in Konkanni, we use the same word for groundnuts and some people also use it to describe the edible jackfruit-seed, but here I’m talking about the cashew-nut.) Technically, it’s not the cashew-nut that lies fermenting in the soil, it’s the yellow, pulpy fruit whose flesh is acrid and is the source for the stinky ‘feni that tourists think we Goans drink all day long. In my vado, there are several dozen cashew trees, none intentionally planted by the dwellers. In years gone by, squirrels and other pesky creatures played their role in transporting the nuts hither and thither. The big, bad monsoons encouraged them (nuts, not squirrels) to sprout and grow, year by year, into productive trees. Trouble is, the trees are now adults and giving us trouble, shedding sickeningly smelly fruit over the roads, on roofs and inside compounds. Carefully though I tread, I occasionally step on one, it gets squelched and my nostrils and olfactory lobes suffer for hours together. Nowadays, no one comes to pick the nuts, either, for money or love, and the fruits lie rotting everywhere. Cash crop my foot. Driving taxis for the whites (racist term, commonly used hereabouts) is what parents encourage their children to do. When I came to settle in this village, if there was a heap of cashew fruit sulking in the corner of a garbage pile, cows and pigs would slurp at the rotting mess, clearing it up in minutes. I don’t remember any heady stink. Today, no pigs to be seen and the rare cow that comes a-wandering prefers to poke her nose into any plastic bag that floats her way. I’ve noticed that many cows eat the bag along with its contents. I wonder why any beef-eater would want to eat the meat of an animal raised on such food, but then, as Shri Husband points out to Bai Goanna in an aside, I have a tendency to ask stupid questions. I get unwanted vibes where/when-ever I go to eat in other peoples’ homes. Meat-eaters look at me askance because half my family is vegetarian. Vegetarians keep me at a distance because I have family/friends that eat meat. Flesh on hooves, covered with feathers or scales, inside shells… abstinence from these, for religious reasons, I can understand. But recently, I had guests who avoided all of the above, plus didn’t ‘touch’ ‘masoor-daal’ and mushrooms. Nothing to do with allergies. I was informed that “we don’t eat” the stuff followed by “in ‘ours’ it’s not considered nice”. Comprehend? If you understood what that meant, you’re a true-blue Indian from India. You will then also understand that ‘we’ don’t eat non-veg/onion/garlic on Mondays, that Tuesdays and Thursdays are also vegetarian days, that some people are extra-devout on Saturdays, that food specific to certain days can be consumed on ‘non-God days’, etc. Wednesdays and Sundays are ‘safe’. You annoy none of the million gods no matter what you eat on those day. No, wait, Sunday is Ravivar… if you worship the Sun-god, then that’s not a safe day for you. A true-blue Indian will be unaware that the term ‘non-veg’ belongs to India. In other countries, the concept of having different kitchens/utensils/people for cooking flesh/non-flesh is not understood. I digress. Since most of our local cows have either died of starvation or got killed by speeding vehicles, the stink of the rotting cashew fruit has ‘intoxicated’ my life. Shri Husband pointed out to Bai Goanna: “She talks nonsense without any help.” Bai Goanna retorted : “Writes, not talks.” Shri Husband said: “Same thing.” I spent some afternoons collecting the fallen cashew fruits, separating the seeds from the smelly, soft flesh and drying them. I made a fire with twigs, put upon it a perforated metal sheet, and roasted the seeds. Burnt my fingers, and made an oily mess trying to skin them. Some seeds were barely roasted, others were burnt and fragmented. Yet, all whom I offered them to agreed that ‘this taste’ was incomparable. Everyone who eats off a barbecue sighs with delight about the aroma of smoke. To me, effort-to-enjoyment ratio didn’t match. I won’t do it again, will leave it to enthusiasts who like to eat wood-fire-cooked ‘jevonn’. I’ve been informed by neighbours that the un-picked seeds littering our locality are likely to sprout and grow into trees. In the years to come, I will get ‘gassed-out’ by the smell each summer. But, who knows, some bright minds might decide that, like beef, intoxication is not something India should have… the cashew came from foreign lands, was unknown in Vedic times, etc., … so ban, or at least the fermentation of, the cashew fruit. Don’t know whether that falls under the purview of ‘swatchha Bharat, nitall Goem’.

The Other Female in Shri Husband’s Life.

Shri Husband’s fallen in love. I’m far from jealous. I welcome the lack of attention. My ‘sauten’ has a tail, four legs and a whisper-mew that not even God can hear. How she came into our lives is a story by itself. A co-passenger on a Konkan Kanya journey exchanged phone numbers with me. I fall for the ‘we must meet again’ line and in some kind of stupid ‘josh’ end up doing such potentially dangerous things. This co-passenger was harmless, though, I thought, and once in Goa she really did connect with me. “My neighbour has this cute kitten” she wrote on WhatsApp, the sentence accompanied by a photo to prove it. Shri Husband, who hated felines until that moment, figured that it would be good to have a creature that eats cockroaches and spiders to save on pest control expenditure. Little did he know that the wiles of the yet-another-female in the house would change his life drastically. She’s officially named ‘Maows’, which rhymes with ‘mouse’, confusing people, rodents and the other cats in the neighbourhood when we call out to her. Bai Goanna calls her Chingi and I call her Chicktu… because she’s always clinging to Shri Husband (the other reason is because I’m Chick-one, see?) As practical first-things-first sort of people, we trained her to use a litter-box even before she had her first sip of milk in our house. She took to the cardboard-box lined with newspaper and did her ‘business’ dutifully in it. Till she discovered that there was more drama if she did it in the kitchen sink or fresh laundry pile. She hasn’t done it so far—in the kitchen sink or laundry pile, I meant-- just threatened to, but it was enough to have us running around, ‘koyto’ in hand, wanting to kill her then and there. That she’s still alive speaks much for her agility and the state of our aging reflexes and aching joints. Many are the times I’ve vowed to feed her to the monkey that occasionally visits our plot. Bai Goanna tells me monkeys are vegetarians. One taste of cat-meat might help them change their habits, I retort. When she sleeps or begs for something, it’s heart-melting. That look, oh, that look. Google told us inoculations against rabies and cat-flu were necessary. Getting in touch with a local veterinarian wasn’t difficult as Goa has a good doctor-patient ratio for pets. Astrid Almeida has further confused our cat by calling her MyLittleFriend. The cat doesn’t know what her real name is. Neither do we, although she’s been with us for a couple of months now. We have, within jogging distance, a couple of dog-spas and –salons and one clinic run by a dog-psychologist and –behaviour-therapist. Nothing for cats. My neighbours, ‘niz’-Goemkars all, consider cats as neither pets nor pests, just nuisances to be tolerated, like ‘jalleraan’ (mosquitoes, you know, in Konkanni). The cats that hover around ‘nustemkarnni’ Rose-Marie’s wooden plank when/where she sells fish each evening, are so tough, we could send them for the Olympics. I’ve seen people click their pictures. If ever you pass our village Panchayat in the evening, stop by for a ‘dekho’ where Rose-Marie squats to see what happens. It’s a very Goan activity, feeding fish heads, tails, fins and insides to cats. Dogs are named and called affectionately, ‘Tommy’, ‘Shivaji’, ‘Sultan’. The one in our ‘waddo’ responds to ‘peto’ (Konkanni for pet) or ‘guddo’ (good-dog mispronounced). Cats, poor things, are shooed away and seldom have decent names; ‘hoosh’ and ‘huttt’ are terms snapped at them whenever they come to close. In spite of having thin skins, cats don’t care. You can’t make the tiniest dent in a cat’s self-esteem no matter how many curses you hurl at it. I’ve observed that. Shri Husband, ever poking his nose into my affairs and articles, said: “You have so much time to observe such things. No wonder the dusting, chopping, shopping, cleaning, cooking, doesn’t get done ever… never mind on time.” I didn’t say a word. No point. Men are from Mars, etc. Also, Bai Goanna has pointed out that the lesser I do, the more he helps. I’m using that observational data to advantage. Cat has grown from kitten to adolescent. Lanky, adventurous nuisance. She gets into the fridge/wardrobe and after the door is shut, mews. We can’t make out from where the pathetic sound is coming and a frantic indoor hunt follows. In the compound, she climbs trees and is terrified of looking down. Shri Husband gallantly puts a ladder against the trunk and climbs up to rescue her. She goes further up and hisses and claws at him. Temptation in the form of fish-heads gets her safely back into his arms. Both behave like honey-mooning tourists crossing Chogm Road: disjointedly leaning towards each other, not bothering about what people will say, purring and cooing, petting and cuddling. Pets make people do strange things. Imagine a no-nonsense type A man behaving like this with a whimpering, spineless female. (Famous last words.) Now, cat has found herself a playmate-boyfriend. They chase the hose when we are watering the plants. He comes close to her, she spits viciously, he doesn’t mind. She invites him to share the fish she has for breakfast, he eats it all and she has to spend the rest of the day hunting moths, frogs and little birds for food; she doesn’t mind. She treats Shri Husband as a great big mouse and jumps all over him when he lays himself down to rest after a hard day’s work. Chiding, however severe, doesn’t work. A dog would have shrunk in shame if the Master had raised his voice, and behaved well for the rest of its life. The cat is Goan, doesn’t bother about wrong-doings being corrected, penalties are mere inconveniences. Shri Husband won’t give up. Conscientiously tries to remedy her ways. The government should employ him in the yet-to-be-formed Ministry of Morals and Ethics. Until then, I must share Shri Husband’s energy and affection with a furry, four-legged softly-mewing female.

A Visit to a Casino

            I wanted to visit a casino in Goa. This is just a beginning, I told myself, I’ve still to experience tombola, matka and lottery. Then I told Shri Husband and Goanna about my wish.

“You don’t have the gambler’s instinct,” Shri Husband cribbed. “Even when you cross a road through traffic you don’t take a chance.” Agreed, there have been times when I’ve started a jam by freezing in the middle of two opposing car-lanes, but to accuse me of not having a gambler’s instinct wasn’t fair.

“She married you,” sniggered Bai Goanna. “Some gamble that.”

Shri Husband smilingly said: “Lucky her.” I realized what a nuisance Fate could be about luck and stuff after their dialogue.

Nevertheless, we went to visit a casino near Panaji. No matter what time of day or night, there’s always a parking problem. It (casino, not parking problem) was bigger than I expected. The seats were red, the curtains were red, the walls were red, carpets ditto. The uniforms on the staff glittered. And there were mirrors on walls; I saw my reflection in all directions and each time I saw multiple images inside the frame. I felt I was inside a circus ring, with me being both clown and spectator.

A security team greeted us at the metal-detecting frame. “Why are four guards doing the job of one?” I asked Shri Husband. “Good way to generate employment,” he replied. “Besides, not every paying customer is law-abiding, so they’re a need in this industry.” I recalled aloud seeing guards at malls, theatres, restaurants, even clothes’ shops these days: did it mean many industries have this need? Did so many guards around mean we need less cops? “You’re forever asking questions that have no answers,” Bai Goanna whispered fiercely in my ear. I fell quiet.

I wasn’t carrying a purse into the casino, which made me a suspect of sorts. Apparently men and women go there with bulging bags and pockets. Or credit cards. They (guards and bouncers not people with bulging bags and pockets or credit cards) glared at my non-purse status, were stumped for a bit, then they stamped some glowing radioactive-looking green-yellow stuff on the back of my hand. It had the name and logo of the casino on it.

“It doesn’t go for days,” Bai Goanna scared me. “If you decamp with goodies, they will find you. It glows in the dark, you can’t escape.” I had a mind to take one pretty paper napkin to gift my friend who makes decoupage and other craft, but changed my mind after hearing Bai Goanna’s words. I settled on a toothpick as souvenir. Easy to carry and they wouldn’t miss one of those, would they? Still, I felt like a thief: middle-class morality is the bane of this country, I thought. Why can’t we all learn to bash on regardless, to dominate, to lead, to bully instead of whining about losing our culture/religion? Instead of go-getting, we sit and mumble sour-somethings to each other. Bah.            

“Try the food,” Shri Husband advised. It was very good. He was right. As always.

“People don’t come here to eat,” hissed Bai Goanna, “we have to go where the action is.” I very reluctantly left that wonderful buffet. The entertainment was good, too: girls bowing and flinging around their limbs, dressed in a cross between a wedding-gown and a trapeze-costume, dancing to the latest Bollywood noise.

We sat an elementary level table to learn the ABCs of electronic gambling. Pictures of aces, clubs, spades and hearts flashed on and off on the screens in some way. There was also a real pack dealt out and handled by a real person to show us how the game worked. Reluctant to allow a machine to swallow hard-earned money, I pretended to make myself comfortable over and over again in my chair whilst watching others play.

I thought the name of the game was Under-Bar. It was after a couple of ‘sets’ that I realized it was nothing to do with drinking too much. The term was ‘andar-bahar’, Hindi for inside-outside.  

The staff and customers represent many Indian states, each with its own accent. Naturally, misunderstandings happen, they get laughed off, people take offence, then make up over chai samosa or something else… this sub-continent with all its madness and chaos… imagine casinos, of all places, uniting us?

On another floor sat more serious, ‘advanced’ players. Here the computer was programmed to permute a variety of wins and losses. Mainly losses. For the players. I was told some were regulars. They flew in from cities across India, booking their travel and lodging in advance, hoping to suddenly spike their income. Hope reigns eternally; they keep returning. Most were here for a long weekend. Goa has something Las Vegas doesn’t: casinos with children’s areas.

The concentration on wooing Lady Luck was akin to deep meditation. Total involvement in the present, the moment. A Zen thing, I thought. The silence was broken by the occasional electronic tinkle of a scheduled ‘win’, the clink of glasses and the crunch of potato-wafers. Here, you can’t call potato-wafers ‘chips’. You-know-why.

At a side table, a bejewelled woman tittered over a WhatsApp message.

“Tu-ell carode,” she said to her companion. “That badminton-girl got.”

The latter choked: “Tu-ell carode? You mean twelve crore?”

“Hahn, and the other wrestler-girl and the gymnast, they also got lots, coaches also.”

“Good idea to try for the Olympics, so much money.”

The first woman read out more, about practice sessions at 4 am, no biryanis/desserts/television, sweaty workouts and age.

Number Two comforted her: “If it’s written in your naseeb, you’ll get your money here.”

I turned from them and confessed to Shri Husband and Bai Goanna, “I can’t get myself to feed a machine with cash.”

“Not tempted to get-rich-quick?” both chorused.

“No. Maybe something’s wrong with me.”

“Amen,” they said smilingly as we exited the casino.

Feedback: sheelajaywant@yahoo.co.in

              

A Funeral at St Inez

         The gentleman, a retired colonel, at whose funeral I was had left the planet early that morning. At 0300 hours, he went to use the bathroom and slumped as he stepped out. His heart had been beating 72 times per minute, 60 times every hour, 24 hours per day, into 365 days for 101 years. Do the math. He was born in 1916, a leap year that started on a Saturday (Gregorian calendar). At the time, the Julian calendar, which had thirteen extra days, was still in use. We now take for granted just one calendar for the world, though we have our Hindu/Muslim calendars in India which are used mainly for religious, wedding and other chaotic functions.

         He was one of the few persons I’ve met who fought in a World War. Representatives of the Army came to present wreaths.

I tried to figure out just what the world was like in 1916. The British Royal Army Medical Corps carried out the first successful transfusion with blood that had been stored and cooled. Today, that branch of medicine has come a long way, and saved innumerable lives.

         In February that year, Emma Goldman was arrested for lecturing on birth control in the United States. By September, though, the US had its first birth control clinic for ‘planned parenthood’. In March, BMW, Die Bayerischen Motoren Werke, a German automobile company was founded. The Emperor of China, Yuan Shikai, abdicated the throne and China became a Republic once more. In April, the toggle light-switch was invented. It’s so much a part of my life, I couldn’t believe people once lived without it. I can’t believe we once lived without electricity in Palolem, Canacona. (Just as I’m finding it hard to believe parts of India are suffering from drought, the way swimming-pools and golf courses are guzzling water in other parts.)  

         In July 1916, a shark attacked five swimmers along a 130 km stretch of shore; four died, one had a limb amputation. Half a century later, Peter Benchley wrote ‘Jaws’, changing the scope of horror movies. In August, Lord Baden-Powell established the Cub Scouts movement. In September, a circus elephant in the US was hanged for killing her handler. Animal rights’ activists were unknown then. The word ‘activist’ did not exist.

         As I watched the soldiers saluting the body, I recalled the Colonel’s contemporaries, all gone: Giani Zail Singh, Chinmayanda, MS Subbulakshmi, Bismillah Khan, Kanan Devi, Jagjit Singh Aurora. Do the names strike a bell? They should.

         Religious rituals were replaced by a neat and sombre ceremony. Formally attired soldiers walked in step, saluted smartly, laid and then considerately placed aside their wreaths to make way for those following. At 101, he was old enough to be their great-great-great grandfather. Remarkably, he had nil ailments and he took his last breaths whilst he was still on his feet. Even then, it took him some time to ‘go’. A fighter till the end.

         Beyond one of the crematorium walls is an animal shelter. Barks and mews of puppies and kittens reminding us that life is born anew, punctuated the constant rustling of leaves on the tall trees on the opposite side. At the entrance, a poster declared the availability of a trolley named ‘swarg vahan’ (who coins these words?) that someone had donated. If there’s more than one cremation happening, a traffic jam understandably happens on the road outside. Time to encourage people to either walk to funerals, or have a specially-hired shuttle service to and from a convenient place, or discourage people from attending at all.

Bai Goanna whispered: “I’ve witnessed one with a single person accompanying the body.” Happens. At the funeral of one of my relatives, only his widow and one erstwhile colleague were present.

Contrary-wise, some post-death events have been in halls with sound-systems for speeches, banquet-menus, expensive priests on hire, cheques distributed for charity, mementoes given to those present, etc. Large portraits of ‘the beloved’ prominently ‘graced’ the occasion and newspaper advertisements. Occasions to flaunt wealth and network. Methinks: to each their own.

            Here, at the St Inez crematorium, one frail, elderly staff wearing loose shorts, rubber slippers and thick spectacles picked up the logs of wood to place on the platform. I wondered at what age he’d retire and whether a replacement would be easy to get. These days certain vacancies seem hard to fill. Locals don’t want outsiders to get jobs, but they don’t want to do such jobs themselves. Water sells in bottles, air is conditioned, food-shelter-clothing are provided by private players, even pay-toilets and waste-management are commerce-motivated… only the disposal of the dead (irrespective of religion) is solely the government’s responsibility.  

“Goa still doesn’t have an electric crematorium,” someone observed.

“Why?” another asked.

A third replied: “Because there isn’t enough electricity.”

The first commented: “They can put a transformer for the purpose. Look at the number of trees being cut.”

No NGOs or activists seem to be taking an interest in this subject.

Whilst the elderly staff spilt orange liquid fuel to help the flames crackle and consume, the birds flew helter-skelter, as if making way for the spirit leaving the body. Even for non-believers, this thought comes to mind.

The conversation turned from cremations to burial plots and the lack of space for them. In densely populated cities, small drawers become family vaults as each grave houses multiple coffins year after year.

After the funeral, we went with the family to have ice-cream. The Colonel loved ice-cream. So we had some. Light conversation kept immediate grief at bay.

The 101-year-old’s farewell was dignified and, as befitted a professional of an era when honour and gentlemanly conduct was in vogue, sans superfluities. Even in death he led, as officers must, by example.

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