Never a dull moment

  "Ting ting" "Ting ting ting... Ting ting ting.. Ting ting ting ting ting ting ting... #&@.. Ting ting.." These two styles of ringing the bell by tram driver has different effects. I will come to thst later. Tram routes in Kolkata have dwindled and on the remaining three routes, the frequency is low. No longer can we ride the tram soaking in the view of Victoria Memorial, sprawling Maidan, Race Course and Chowringher- this best route is part of history. Trams no longer ply on Howrah bridge. The remaining routes are Esplanade-Shyam Bazar, Esplanade- Gariahat and Ballygunge-Tollygunge. I traveled on all the three while Geetha missed Ballygunge leg as she and relatives were in process of wearing silk saree for my nephew's marriage - that is how long it takes to drape silk saree. Since Rashbehari Avenue is full of kiosks, I could hop across and buy several bunches of safety pins at short notice. Esplanade- Shyam Bazar trip was on a single a/c coach tram. The bl

  On the first day of our six day Kolkata sojourn, I was happy to see "NO REFUSAL" sign on the taxi. Four days on , I realised "NO REFUSAL" applied to the customer and not the taxi driver 😢😬😢😬 Local transport is a big pain point for once in  a visitors. Autos ply only point to point with three passengers at the back and the fourth to driver's left on a extended seat. You can take shared auto  from Tollygunge metro to Joka ( just short of IIMC ) but you need to change twice. Yhe autos would not budge a metre from their route. Ola and Uber - minimum four cancellations if you are lucky. Average rate is  Rs 40 plus per km minimum. Yellow taxi guys tell you a "take it or leave it" rate, a few budging a little. Ola / Uber guys would ring and ask where you are headed. If you say you would tell him only after boarding, he would straight away cancel the trip. I found a way out of this. Two / three cancellations on Uber/Ola ( it takes less than ten minutes-

  Nostalgia School day lunch intervals. Taking offence ? No way ! In Malayala medium at Chennai in class VI and VII, I was the only vegetarian.  We, classmates, used to eat lunch together. Mine was always butter milk rice with a dry pickle - a combo easy to swallow without much effort. The tiffin boxes of my friends opened to boiled eggs or pieces of meat nestled in parboiled rice doused with oil. My friends used to kneed rice-oil combo between their fingers and palm into perfect spheres with the rest of action in their mouths - thorough chewing. Pieces of egg/ meat used to go in seperately. One of those days, as I was finishing my lunch, I found a shapeless rubberish brown lump at the bottom and stopped. My friends peered into my cylindrical tiffin box with a bucket type handle ( "chottu patram" ) and felt it was a piece of mutton. Some laughed in merriment saying " Subbu ate mutton curry !" while the rest picked up a quarrel with the merry guys while I sat around

We had a Jersey cow at our home in Venkitangu during my toddler and primary school days. We used to call it Chalakudi maadu ( she was brought from my aunt's place at Chalakudi when she was an year old ). She was a dwarf among Jerseys but the milk yield was excellent.  Though I grew up with her, she would not let me go anywhere near here. I used to feed her banana peels and jackfruit "jackets". She would pluck the eatable from from my extended hand and try to gore me in one action. She had sharp forward curled horns which could really pierce through objects. On the few occasions the upper side of her tongue rubbed against the back of my palm while she "plucked", it felt like rough sandpaper ! She was a friend only of my grandma and grandpa, that too only after a tug of war every time when led out from the cowshed.  The milk yield was good. Grandma used to sell milk, butter milk and ghee. I used to steal small quantities of butter which used to be made into a ball

 That's life  Boarded the metro at Chatharpur, New Delhi. A young girl in a cap and a middle aged man were occupying the senior citizen's two seater. On seeing me, the girl looked at the man ( hmm... dad and daughter) and he got up. "You are getting down All India Institute of Medical Sciences ?" "Yes" I patted him on his shoulder twice. As I got up to deboard the metro, I whispered into his ears," Everything is going to alright. You are going to the best doctors" He said something which I could not catch. He kept looking at me as the doors of the metro doors. I waved at him. Brought back memories of several journeys on the same the route years ago. Like this dad and daughter combo, we were also silent looking nowhere in particular. It will take a while for me to smile.

My Andhra athai's ( bua )  last son Murali fell into viraku aduppu ( firewood choola ) when he was around three years old leaving him with 50% burns.  He was two years older than me. He used to be brought often to Madras for a fortnight's confinement and treatment at children's ward in Stanley Medical College  Hospital, popularly known then as 'kanji thotti'. Superintendent there was a close family friend.   I used to be in Chennai during my long  holiday breaks at school in Kerala. If Murali was admitted during such school breaks,  I used to go and stay with him wearing hospital dress and sharing his cot.  We used to play with all the kids in the ward. Of course, we ate 'sick diet' served by hospital kitchen. I can not think of such a possibility now. This was in 1960s.

 Pull ups, school  days and fitness At high school - in class IX, X and XI, we had physical efficiency test in the first term. Though our SSLC books had columns for entering the results of these tests, I find these columns are blank while in my dad's SSLC book, there are entries of the results achieved. Our class of around 55 boys would spent half a day in our sprawling school ground on an assigned in first term in class IX. We had six events for evaluation.  All of us had to run 100 m and 800m. With severe knock knee and 100 % flat foot ( I discovered these when I joined Air Wing NCC in class IX ), I was not good at running. I performed well in broad jump ( long jump leaping from a stationary position ) and unassisted sit ups with hands behind the head . My effort at cricket ball throw was okay. But pull ups with forward grip left me ashamed. Half the class could do two or more pulls and I could not do any.  I told my dad about my dismal "pull ups" performance.   One of

 Interesting guests A family friend, a doctor moved to Gold Coast, Australia years ago with her daughter. Her daughter got married last year and the doctor married a pundit next day. Pundit is a Fijian of Indian origin who went to Australia at 19 and became a Australian citizen in due course. Pundit solemnises marriages, conducts Janay function etc in the morning and works as driver (on contract) with the govt bus service in Gold Coast. He has opted for afternoon to evening shifts for balancing his dual profession. The couple visited us in February. The doctor belongs to Agra. Being first visit of the married couple to India ( first ever Indian visit for the pundit ), they were fed well daily and  taken to several  temples. The pundit put his foot down in temple visits. Reason ? Pundit said serving God was his profession. Since he was in on vacation from his profession, he would like to be away from God ! We had made masala dosas for the guest. Pundit rolled it , and held it like a flu

 Life is like that... In mid 1990s when our elder girl was born, several people presented a famous double name brand baby toiletries  gift hampers. Before our baby girl was a month old, she got rashes all over. The pediatrician asked us not to use any of a double name brand products on her and recommended some other safe brands. Six months later, some family friends  came calling. I asked them whether there was any visible improvement in my skin tone and appearance. They were puzzled by my query and wanted to know what prompted me to ask. I told them I had been using double name brand baby soap, baby talcum powder, baby shampoo and baby oil regularly for   half an year !

Musing on morning walk Like everything,Panchatantra story - crow and water - can also be revised to be in tune with times😊 Rainy morning today here in Delhi. Went for a walk holding the umbrella. A cup of tea from roadside vendor is a must on the way back Dogs are temperamental. An open pack of glucose biscuits was lying untouched under a makeshift bench. A crow flew in, squatted  and picked up a biscuit. What it did next was interesting. It shuffled forward with the biscuit in its beak and dropped it into a very shallow puddle of water. Few seconds later it started nibbling at the soggy biscuit. In no time it had the company of couple of crows and a mina who took  turns in nibbling.

Can a calendar cause a flood of memories ? Yes, it can. Some days ago on a Whatsapp forum,  a friend discussed the difficulty in retaining mother tongue skills in the next generation. Since attendance at home is “poor” today, I switched on the Asianet  for noise effect and heard the advertisement for Mathrubhumi calendar. It brought up a lump in my throat. The first “brand “ I can recall is “Mathrubhumi” written in a distinct cursive style. This newspaper was very popular in my home district Trichur. Though I learnt to read English much later I can recall Rexona soap, Pond’s powder, Ferrodal tonic, Sybol all purpose cream, Vicks and Sunlight soap. Mathrubhumi calendar was a permanent fixture in all households. All the twenty seven stars and fourteen thithis were listed in it. It had dates as per Saka era, Islamic and Malayalam years as well. We have  never used a Tamil calendar. Outside Kerala, this calendar in a house is a telltale sign that the occupant has a Kerala route even if he

 Oh, the barber of our village ! With balding scalp, haircut these days has become perfunctory. It was a "strict" exercise with the barber at our village when I was in primary school. I had to sit like a statue and turn or tilt and then again "statue" as per barber's instruction. To make matters easy, he would tilt my head by holding my crown like changing gear in the car. He would land a knock with his knuckle if I moved. It was tough to stay still when the barber worked with manual machine shear on the sides and back. Two items in the barber shop always interested me. The barber's knife being sharpened now and then by repeated vigorous swiping of it's cutting edge on a long piece of leather hanging from wall was interesting. The bottom end of the leather piece was pulled tight while the knife's edge was swiped. I can still hear the swishing sound of knife edge being swiped on the piece of rubber. The most interesting item - I would have loved to ca

 A teacher retires - primary school days First image of teacher I have is of Achatu Janaki teacher and thinking of her makes me smile.Our primary school was at farthest point of our village. She called on my grandparents and got me enrolled in her school. She used to fetch some of us on her way to school. We were a flock of fifteen by the time we reached the school. She retired when we moved from II to III standard. A farewell  function was organised. We were told to bring gifts for her. The farewell function was in the open and we were all seated on the ground. Couple of tables were laid out and Janaki teacher was seated with headmaster Anthony master beside the tables. One by one,  we got up, said namasthe to Janaki teacher and handed over our gifts which other teachers piled up neatly on the tables. Nothing can be carried to the nether world. If such a possibility exists, Janaki teacher would still be using the bathing soap cakes we gifted ! She would have run out of talcum powder p

 Change ! Change ! Change ! Where do you go for change ? Now I have become a regular bus and metro traveler. Metro card is a useful a “change” avoider but no such luck in buses. Moe often than not , I am in a newly introduced  bus running through our colony but it has no number- it says STL in the place of three digit route number. There is a provision for buying online bus ticket with DTC app with bus number. But the effort to pay Rs 15/Rs 20 through the app  is a herculean effort with the excellent service of Vodafone. I would value the labour involved at Rs 100 with the prospect of being branded a ticketless traveler if a checking squad boards the bus. Conductors accept Rs 100 notes on occasions but be prepared for more cellophane tapes than currency notes with your Rs15/ Rs 20 tickets. A mild protest would make the conductor show you a partitioned space in his cash bag which will put to shame a museum of cellophane tapes hands down. If you extend Rs 50, the conductor could become c

Boarded the metro at Chatharpur. A young girl in a cap and a middle aged man were occupying the senior citizen's two seater. On seeing me, the girl looked at the man ( hmm... dad and daughter) and he got up. "You are getting down AIIMS ?" "Yes" I patted him on his shoulder twice. As I got up to deboard the metro, I whispered into his ears," Everything is going to alright. You are going to the best doctors" He said something which I could not catch. He kept looking at me as the doors of the metro doors. I waved at him. Brought back memories of several journeys on the same the route years ago. Like this dad and daughter combo, we were also silent looking nowhere in particular. It will take a while for me to smile.