Flush

We take this for granted. This is so universal in the USA that if the flush system were to fail most people would not know where to look and what to do. In fact we can mark the year 1907 as year ZERO in the Before Flush, After Flush calendar; anything before that was savagery and after that modern age. I am not referring to any flush system, I am referring to the system where the water goes round and round in a vortex which allows for better cleaning. There were other flush systems before but none that meant anything to the relevance of this post.

As always a brief digression; I feel at times that I chose a little too frivolous in making the toilet more important. There is an equally important item if not more important, namely the lowly Toilet Paper. If people in USA do not know what to do without toilets think how unsure of themselves they would be without the benefit of TP. I like the word unsure to describe people’s feeling. I checked its meaning in the dictionary and here is what it says

lacking or indicating lack of confidence or assurance; "uncertain of his convictions"; "unsure of himself and his future"; "moving with uncertain (or unsure) steps"

The last one “moving with uncertain steps” explains their condition perfectly. I think it is visual enough.

Anyway, enough of this vacillation; Year 1907 is the Anna Flush and the years before that Before Flush and we will defer the merits and demerits of TP over Flush toilet to another post.

Or better yet maybe we will defer forever.

In India flush toilets are pre vortex age. A huge amount of water gets dumped into the bowl in a rather haphazard way. Because of this the water has no coherence and beats uselessly against itself and the stuff. I refuse to name it by its technical term and other not so technical ones, and stuff it will be called thoughout. With this lack of unity shown by the water forces, the stuff insides fights hard and resists to be flushed down. It is like the Indian spirit; refuses to give in despite the conditions around. After a while the water gives up its hope and the triumphant stuff floats mocking at your attempts.

If you wonder why Indians have this extra tap and bucket even in western style toilets, well now you know the reason, they have little faith in the flush actually working first time. No matter the reason, you are merely grateful for this fact. Having a bucket of water is handy. You pour a bucket of water in one fell swoop, even the hardiest of stuff can be drowned successfully.

I never thought I would sully my blog about a post on stuff. I guess I am frustrated with toilets here.

My Parent's Pilgrimage

Yesterday my dad described a pilgrimage he made to Muktinath in Nepal last month.

As usual it started with an argument. My dad is autocratic and my mom who got her BA in Political Science resents autocracy and thinks of herself as a defender of democracy and freedom of speech. The question was how much ID the two should carry. My mom suggested that the newest passport was adequate but my dad ordered “Woman, bring both the old and new”. My dad felt that since the old one carried the US Visa it carried more weight when going to Nepal. Makes sense; if USA itself allowed them access why should Nepal not? After extensive fighting and much bloodshed my mom capitulated. They ended up carrying, two passports each, Voter ID, PAN Card, and Pension ID. The only card they did not carry was the ration card!! Poor thing, once upon a time it was the only ID our family possessed.

This was one extreme, in the airport they met up with the others who were going with them. My father’s friend (henceforth called Mr. S) who was the spirit behind this trip is a bindas person. Nothing bothers him.

To describe him better let me take a detour. Once when Mr. S was traveling from Madras to New Delhi, he saw Oranges at Nagpur station. Now Nagpur is famous for its oranges. So you cannot blame the man for wanting to buy some. So he stepped out of train. Further out he saw some grapes and so entranced was he by the sight that he decided to walk out of the station to buy some. After the mandatory bargaining, he got his grapes and came back to find the train driver did not share his taste for fruits and decided to move on to Itarsi, the next station. Since there was no point in crying, Mr. S coolly went to the station master and explained his situation. The station master, for whom this was not such an unusual incident, commiserated with Mr. S and advised him to buy another ticket and meanwhile called ahead to Itarsi and told them to unload Mr. S bags from the train.

Now comes the kicker, Mr. S did not have any money. As I mentioned nothing fazed him much. He called several people and through them identified someone who used to work for him a while back. Mr. S talked to him and requested him to bring some money for him. Well everything ended well. Mr. S got his money, got another ticket, picked his bags at the next station and reached New Delhi safely. Later as he recounted this story, he commented to my father casually “pretty expensive grapes those were”.

Back to the Nepal trip; Since Mr. S had come to this trip with two relatives who did not have a passport, he felt a sense of camaraderie and decided to forgo his passport too. Now he did not stop there. He decided to come with no identification!! Mind you, although they were only going to Nepal, it was really quasi-international travel. The only piece of ID he had was a driver’s license. Sorry, I am wrong; the only piece of ID he had with him was a Xerox copy of his driver’s license!! Seriously, not even the real thing.

Now the people in the airport would not let him travel with this poor excuse for an ID. So he casually talked to several people in several windows and tried to cajole them in letting him fly. For people in the US this would sound strange. The rule is you have no passport, you make no international travel plans. India is beyond material things, mere ID or lack of one cannot stop one from traveling. If you talk to enough people you can get on any plane. In between my dad, who is a retired bureaucrat, kept telling anyone and everyone, who cared to listen to him, how his son’s classmate is now a Deputy Inspector General in Indian Police Service or DIG in the IPS for short. As proof he would show my friend’s business card. It came as a major blow to my father’s psyche that no one was intimidated. They all knew a few DIGs too, in fact they all had worked with quite a few DIGs. My dad was so used to scaring my mom. By the way, he does not yet know it yet, that she is not afraid either.

Not everyone was as sanguine as Mr. S. Others in the group were very worried. You see no one precisely knew where they were all going. This leads to another detour

Two of the original members of the group could not come due to some personal problems, so two others were roped in at the last minute. One of them was this widowed lady who had been very keen from the beginning. Her children checked that my parents would be part of the group and allowed her to come, since she had a variety of ailments. They thought if my parents were going then it would be safe. When she reached the airport she had to fill out a few forms, she wondered loudly to no one in particularly “I wonder where we are going”. She then cheerfully confided to my mom that her children would be furious with her if they knew that she had no clue where she was going.

They all trusted Mr. S implicitly. My father later told me that most of his plans were on bits and pieces of paper very haphazardly put together in a small bag.

It was so funny, I have not laughed so much in several weeks. It hurt so much to laugh since I have a bad cold and could not laugh without coughing my guts out.

Coming back, like I said, in India you can get anything done if you knock at enough doors and meet enough babus. What is a minor irritant like need for a passport to cross international borders?

Well my parents successfully went to Nepal; there was no stopping Mr. S, he got on that flight; the widowed lady also made it without any hitch. Her children though are still blissfully unaware of the details.

In conclusion, my parents and their friends had a great time in Nepal.

Women - Happy in marriage but dreaming of divorce!!

It seems women seem to be living their lives based on the above motto!! Here is at least one woman's opinion in CNN. Now I wonder if this is universal. I also wonder what an appropriate response would be from a man. In this day and age when it is now accepted wisdom that most problems in marriages are caused by immature men, I wonder if it is even political correct to rebut. More to the point what would it do to my marriage? So I guess I will leave my thoughts where they belong - in my brain.

Sleep eight hours a day and lose weight

I like to sleep. From childhood till now, it has been my favorite activity or as some would say favorite inactivity.

My parents did not take kindly to my sleeping habits. They tried to reform me. They gave me adages like "The early bird catches the worm". I wanted to tell them - nice way to motivate someone who is a vegetarian!!

My school punished me whenever I was late. They make you stand in a line and all the kids grade 1 through 12 would know who the late comers were. It is is pretty demeaning. My college expected me to be in class by 8:00AM which meant I had to be up at an insane 5:30AM everyday (in case you are wondering why I need 2.5 hours - get ready, eat breakfast, catch the 6:40AM University special for an hour long commute). The problem only got worse after my marriage since my better half is an early riser. Now I have a job with employees in US and India which means I now have no defined working hours!!

Now do not be under the impression that I share a curse with Kumbakarna. All I need is 8 hours of sleep during weekdays and 9 hours on weekends. During all these years, I almost had no ammunition to fight my foes namely, parents, school, college, and dear wife. It was clear that working is better and sleeping is a waste of time. All I could say lamely was - if God intended man to work 24 hours he would not have created sleep. This argument carried less weight since I am an atheist.

Recently I read a very nice article on the need for adequate sleep which is defined by at least 7 hours and lists some of the dangers of sleep deprivation such as the obvious one - poor decision making ability and adds weight gain, diabetes, and even a link to cancer this list.

Now you can tell your other half - if only you had slept an hour more everyday, you would have easily taken off those 5 lbs you so badly wanted to!!

Comic Genius

I know the word genius is strewn to lightly, but I would like you to view this video of my friend's son. It is utter nonsense and very funny.

Manama and Bahubali's Bidhi-bidhii-bee

I have a daughter. OK backup, I have two daughters. My younger one was year and half old when we to India.

Her name is Maalini, but she calls her Manama. Well she could not say her name very well at that age and the alternate name has stuck. Sometimes we shorten it to Mana. Finally teachers have given her a nickname and shortened it to Maa.

To return from that digression, while in India we went around Belur, Halebid, and Shravanabelagola. This post is about the Shravanabelagola, Please read the link provided for detailed information - but to summarize, it is an important pilgrim center for Jains and for most others its prime attraction is a huge almost 20 meters tall monolithic statue of Bahubali. I have attached a picture below. As you can see it is very well made in all its proportions and details including toe nails, amongst several other features.


My older daughter is a teenager and she started giggling at the sight of this statue. When asked her what the problem was became red and quiet. Manama on the other hand is very outspoken and immediately pointed at the middle of the statue and said

- Look amma, look at his Bidhi-bidhii-bee!!

Now Manama at that time could not say the word Belly-button but she was always fascinated by it. She would instead call it Bidhi-bidhii-bee.

Thank god!! We were so scared what she was going to blurt.

Now admit it, you and I have a similar dirty mind and we are thinking of something else. I wont say what it is either, let us say we are referring to a nickname for Richard.

I am a Playback Singer and So can you

Disclaimer - I am stating my opinions and not facts

Songs in Indian movies have been a staple since the inception of the movie industry itself. In the Bollywood of 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, there was a holy triad made up of great Music Directors, Great Singers, and very accomplished poets who wrote songs for the movies. This may have been true of times earlier but I do not know much about the music of that time.

Here are some singers from that period who I think were great - Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, Asha Bhosle, Lata Mangeshkar.

Then there are other singers I like a lot but I would not put them in the previous list but who still are very pleasant to listen to Mukesh, Manna Dey, Talat Mahmood, Hariharan, and Shankar Mahadevan. There are I am sure a few others I like but cannot recollect their names at this moment.

After this golden era came the period of 1970s and early 1980s when there were still great singers and music directors. Poetry to be used as lyrics became optional and pretty soon we had songs like Mein Ek Disco Tu Ek Disco Duniyan Hai Ek Disco. By the late 1980s, with the death of Rafi and Kishore and the decline of Lata (again my opinion) singing talent became optional too in Bollywood. Finally and from early 1990s except for a few songs to alleviate the dreary landscape, even music directors became optional. Bappi Lahiri ruled during this era when it became the norm to copy pop songs. So we had songs like Ramba Ho. Not many people can name many other noteworthy songs or singers from this period which I call the dark era of Bollywood Music. There was a total dearth of any quality.

In to this vacuum came Kumar Sanu aka KS

I hate his singing. I detest it. One of my friends does a very good imitation of this mammal who pretends to be a playback singer. Most of you can do it. Simple - hold you nose and sing any song, take particular pains to sound unappealing.

At this point I experienced an epiphany. If KS can sing so can we all. In fact I coined the title of this post at that point.

I am a playback singer and so can you

I know it is not a character flaw that KS brays so well. I am sure he is a good father and an admirable husband. I feel that he was lucky to become a singer during times of turmoil and he used his opportunity well. I just cannot stand his singing much less sit and listen. Here is a telling fact - AR Rahman has never used him for his songs.

For those who believe I am being arrogant in dissing KS - Yes, I can sing but unlike KS, I follow Clint Eastwood's dictum - A man's got to know his limitations from the movie Magnum Force. I know my limitations, but I guess KS does not.

PS: For people who miss the reference, I paraphrased the title of Stephen Colbert's best selling book I am America (and so can you). It is a OMG, I-cannot-put-it-down-funny book.