Story 1. Life Outwardly Perfect.

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Ramana Rajgopaul

Tej

I met Tej as an adult for the first time at his wedding reception in 1977. He was all of 24 and his lovely bride Usha was all of 22. Both the parents were good friends of mine and I had a small role to play in arranging the match. Both are single children for their respective parents.

Tej’s father ran a one man business trading with just one Munim to assist him. A munim in India is the equivalent of an accountant. Tej inherited the business and since his father’s death twenty years ago, been running it again as a one man show with just one secretary and a peon to help him. His mother too passed away two years after the death of his father.

Usha inherited five small businesses from her father who was into manufacturing rather than trading. He was supplying various components to various big industries in and around Bombay. He his wife tragically passed away ten years ago in an automobile accident.

Tej is now 60 and Usha 58. They are both what in India we call high net worth individuals with large fortunes. They have a son and a daughter, both highly qualified doctors practicing in the West, both married to doctors and have two children each.

You would think that Tej and Usha would be the happiest people on earth. They are but, not in the way you would imagine.

They live in a huge six bed room flat in an upmarket locality of Bombay. This flat is actually two flats on one floor converted into one by knocking off the separating wall. Tej’s father had bought them as residences for himself and Tej and after the death of both the parents, Tej knocked the wall off. The drawing room is huge and the dining area, smack dab in the middle where the separating wall should have been.

Usha lives on the Northern side of the flat and Tej in the Southern. They have not spoken to each other for the past fifteen years. They have breakfast together every morning prepared by Tej’s family retainer who weeps at this situation every time he meets me. After that, they go their separate ways and see each other only the next morning. Their lawyers and accountants are sorting out the cross holdings of the various investments, and both are in the process of winding down their businesses. Their children and grand children do not want to have anything to with either of them unless they become normally married people.

Tej is an introvert with very few friends and tends to be spiritual. Usha is vivacious and extrovert with many friends and interests.

Once all the accounting and legal complications are sorted out, which is expected to take place before the end of this year, they intend divorcing each other by mutual consent.

Tej spends at least one week end every alternate month with me at his farm house where we discuss and debate earth shaking matters and come up with ideas to set the world right. Both of us would like to do this more often, but my own preoccupation with other matters prevent such more frequent male bonding. Hopefully that too should change before too long. Among the adventures that Tej has had, a ship with some merchandise that he had shipped overseas, was hijacked by Somali pirates and for a while there was a lot of tension about that. It is all resolved now, but I can lay claim to the dubious fame of knowing someone who was a victim of piracy.

Tej and Usha use me as a conduit to communicate with each other on personal matters. I have not had much to do with their children and to that extent my involvement with the children and grand children has been minimal. I tried my level best to get the two of them to resolve their differences and failed and since the past seven years have stopped trying.

Yes, Tej is the same friend who I sounded out before I set out on this story writing. He not only agreed to my writing his story, he also encouraged me to start the series.

At the time of writing this post, none of the three of us can imagine what the future holds for them. Since neither of them is bothered unduly about it, I have stopped bothering about it too.

I enjoy my friendship with Tej as does he and as long as that lasts, some updates may be in store in the future.

Posted in Blogging, Family, Relationships | Tagged , , | 15 Comments

The Telegram.

Posted on June 16, 2013 by Ramana Rajgopaul

An important decision has been taken by the Indian Posts & Telegraphs Department. Telegrams will no longer be sent / received as there is just not enough traffic in these days of mobile telephony and the internet.
sh_postman

That is a still from a Hindi film where the Postman delivering a telegram reads the contents to an illiterate lady. They would read letters and write replies to be taken back to the post office for onward despatch. This one service alone earned the postmen in India a high status in rural India. They would do the same in the cities too where necessary. I have blogged earlier about the great relationship that I have with the two postmen who deliver letters and other posted items to me and they are always welcome in my home. Sadly, at least as far the telegram is concerned, they will no longer be necessary. Now they are more important for the money orders that they deliver which too will pass once the plans to make available mini banks in rural India come to fruition.

As a Sales Manager, I once received the following telegram from one of our Travelers. “Gave birth to old lady and missed train. Will come to office day after tomorrow.” You can imagine the mirth that created.

That same Traveler, was sent to find and book a hall to hold an exhibition for us in a town in Gujarat. He sent this. “Found Vyapari Mandal ready to give hole to us. Vyapari Mandal is Merchant’s Chamber and “hole” is how Gujartis pronounce hall.

This Traveler was a resident of Bombay and would go on tours to upcountry markets and would return to Bombay to settle accounts, replenish stock of stationery etc, and take rest before proceeding on the next tour. He was an ace salesman but a timid fellow. We had to organise a conference of Travelers at short notice once, and the only way we could contact him was to send him a telegram. We came to know later that the telegram was not delivered to him because he would not open the door to the Postman. He simply could not believe that anyone would send him a telegram when he was at home. We had to send a person to his home to get him the next morning.

I had a particularly finicky boss who would keep my telegrams till I returned to base and would show me edited telegrams to impress on me as to how I could have saved a few rupees by using lesser number of words to convey the same message. I soon learnt how to be good at sending telegrams.

In India, we had a parallel system called the Phonogram. Those days, the Posts and Telephones were under one department and this worked quite well. One could call up the Telephones and they would call you back to ensure that the number was genuine before accepting the phonogram the cost of which would be added on the telephone bill at the end of each month. Since the clerks taking down dictated phonograms were not exactly masters of the English language, we often had hilarious spelling mistakes in the telegrams received. Phonograms used to be first read out to the recipient if he had a telephone and often what was read out did not make any sense. One had to wait for the confirmation copy to come to understand. Just four years ago, my father wanted to send a phonogram to one of his friends and was devastated to find that the phonogram does not exist any more.

Posted in Customer Service, Humor, Nostalgia | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Stories.

Posted on June 15, 2013 by Ramana Rajgopaul

stories

My young friend Pravin who comments on my posts on and off, but who is in touch with me on facebook and over the phone besides visiting me when he can, has been after me to write an autobiography camouflaged as a novel. When I advised him that I am too lazy to do anything like that, he claims to be devastated. After all I had told him a long time ago that there is a novel waiting to be written by me at the back of my mind.

Oddly enough, last week when I was with my cousin in Vashi, we were exchanging some strange cases of relationships and people and he too suggested that I write about the many stories that I know camouflaging names and places.

On particularly interesting case is of a much younger friend, in a large metropolis of India, whose story is bizarre to say the least. While I was talking to him on the phone this morning, I asked him if it would bother him if I wrote about him hiding his identity and he promptly said that it is a great idea and that he would not mind at all as long as his identity is protected. He further suggested that I use the blog to write a series of stories rather than sit to write a novel as a way of escaping the drudgery of writing a novel and that I could always compile the whole lot after I am through in a book form later.

In the meanwhile, Pravin again suggested that I should explore the idea of writing and using blurb to make it easier.

This post is to ask my regular readers if I should start a series of real life stories on interesting people and situtations that I have encountered over an eventful life. Feel free to be as frank as you want to be. I don’t have to take your advise!

Posted in Blogging | Tagged | 16 Comments

What I Do (Did) For A Living

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Ramana Rajgopaul

I hope that you enjoy reading this post on the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where eleven of us write on the same topic. Today’s topic has been chosen by Conrad The Old Fossil. The ten other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order, Delirious, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Maxi, Maria SF, Padmum, Paul, Rohit,Shackman, The Old Fossil and Will. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, do give some allowance for that too!

living

When strangers meet me for the first time, as I am sure that all my readers experience, I am inevitably asked “What do you do?” Depending on the mood I am in and the importance/receptivity of the enquirer, I answer with one of the following;

A bugger all.

I am a retired hippie.

I sponge off on my son.

I am squandering my inherited fortune.

I vegetate.

Another question that was never asked when I was younger but which now seems to be quite common, is “How are you doing?” I inevitably answer that I stopped doing a long time ago.

You can therefore understand how difficult I find it to write on this very intriguing topic chosen uncharacteristically by our venerable Old Fossil.

Without sounding facetious, I do not believe that I ever did anything for a living. I have blogged about how events kept overtaking me and I just flowed along. I suspect that I just lived a life and the making a living happened as a by product.

Just to give you an idea about the veracity of that paragraph, I take you to my earlier posts:

Success.

Ambition.

Skepticism Vs Disbelief.

The post on Ambition unfortunately does not show the image which I had put in which was this Michael Speller’s sculpture.
ambition

Having said all that, I continue to live my life.  Taking everything as it comes and by and large enjoy myself doing exactly that.  The making a living still happens but that is incidental to my just being alive.

Posted in Blogging, Philosophy, Values | Tagged , , , , | 20 Comments

Democracy II

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Ramana Rajgopaul

Ursula in her comment at my earlier post Democracy, had this to ask.

“Seriously: What do you suggest? Unless you are willing to hand me the scepter. Then we’ll have paradise on earth. I will rule the world and we’ll all live happily ever after: Snakes being turned away at the gate. Fancy being consort or at least adviser to Her Ruling Mighty Highness? I myself had worse job offers.”

I can’t resist the temptation to put this cartoon down here.
CalvinII What do I suggest?  I wish that I had an answer to that, that would make sense in today’s world.  There is only one answer and that is to make democracy work as it is supposed to work.  Wikipedia does a reasonably good job of defining that;

“Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Democracy allows eligible citizens to participate equally—either directly or through elected representatives—in the proposal, development, and creation of laws. It encompasses social, economic and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of political self-determination.”

A pipe dream dear Ursula.

Posted in Blogging, People, Politics, Values | Tagged , | 12 Comments

Democracy?

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Ramana Rajgopaul

I have been maintaining for some time now that democracy is dead. We are all being fooled by elections being held regularly and think that we are democracies where as the truth of the matter is that all the so called democracies of the world are nothing but plutocracies.

Replace America with any other democratic country in the world including my glorious mother land and this is true.

Posted in Politics, Raves and Rants, Sarcasm | Tagged | 8 Comments

The One Child Family.

Posted on June 12, 2013 by Ramana Rajgopaul

Due to medical reasons, Urmeela and I were forced to restrict ourselves to a single child. We never regretted that development and that single child has grown into a fine young man.

My three siblings had three, two and two children each and they too have grown into fine young people and most important, all the cousins are in good relationships with each other and distance that separates them does not seem to matter in this day of the internet and mobile telephony.

I have friends outside the family with one, two or even three children each as also some who chose not to have children at all.

I wrote about my own case of our parents choosing to have four children but they did belong to a different generation altogether. Subsequent to that India went on a massive family planning program that has made a significant impact on our population growth and even the illiterate understand the slogan “We two, Ours two” and access the system to plan for small families.

fp

As a matter of curiosity, when I came across an intriguing headline in a news summary mail that I receive every day, I read the economic justification for single child families.

Many of my readers have single child families or at best two children families and they would find the article of some interest, albeit, now perhaps too late to worry about.

On the other hand, we have a publicly debated problem of a single child society in the case of China that has had serious long term implications on the demographic front vis a vis a growth oriented economy. We also have the case of Europe where societies have had to depend on immigration to balance requirements with population and that has raised other problems.

While the Malthusian disaster has been averted thanks to better agriculatural output and slowing down of populations, I wonder if mankind has to keep on tinkering with ideal family size norms as policies on a off and on basis for ever.

Posted in Economics, Family, Sociology | Tagged , , | 15 Comments

The Guru.

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Ramana Rajgopaul

During my recent visit to Vashi, I attended a lecture on Vedanta by a Swamini, that is a lady Swamy who answered a question from the audience about the Guru appearing when the student is ready. She said that in the olden days, this was very much true as a Guru in physical form was very much necessary. She further said that the guru need not be a person but can be a source of knowledge like a book or a recorded message and pointed out that we live in blessed times because innumerable gurus are now available to us via the internet and the television / radio media. She says that now the Guru comes home to teach individually to learners who do not have to undergo the trials of seeking out a guru.

This is indeed very true and on reflection makes me wonder as to why more people do not take to spirituality now that the guru can come home and teach. Most would rather watch programs that titillate and entertain.

Be that as it may, she directly asked me how I found my Guru and I explained that a series of events starting from 1978 led me eventually to my current Guru. When she asked if I attended his classes even now, I said no and that he has now concluded his teachings and has asked his students to pursue the path by the traditional Sravanam, Mananam and Nidhidhyasanam. (Hearing, Reflecting and Meditating). And that I was following his instructions. She promptly pointed out that here is a clear case of the Guru being available in the form of books, and media to help me along without the physical presence of a Guru.

We are indeed blessed.

Posted in Meditation, Religion, Spiritualism | Tagged , , | 22 Comments

National Healthcare vs Private.

Posted on June 7, 2013 by Ramana Rajgopaul

I hope that you enjoy reading this post on the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where eleven of us write on the same topic. Today’s topic has been chosen by Shackman. The ten other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order, Delirious, gaelikaa, Grannymar, Maxi, Maria SF, Padmum, Paul, Rohit,Shackman, The Old Fossil and Will. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, do give some allowance for that too!

healthcare

I am writing this post well in advance to Friday as between Thursday and Sunday I will be out of Pune visiting relatives and generally having a good time.

In India, there is hardly any choice. Most good health care is in the Private sector and what there is in the Public sector is pathetic though effective for the hordes of poor patients who throng to Government hospitals and clinics. And in most of these places, there is petty corruption and as usual, the poor suffer. The middle and upper income groups do not go anywhere near these facilities and either have their own resources to finance health care or take insurance policies, often on a participatory basis withe employers. Insurers are of both the Public and Private sector companies and though rather bureaucratic and unpredictable, appear to be doing a reasonably good job of reimbursing expenses.

I personally do not have any health insurance as the one most important problem for which I am likely to incur expenses, is automatically excluded for being a pre-existing condition since 1981. Ranjan’s inheritance suffers.

For those interested, here is an interesting article on the current situation and some initiatives on the drawing board.

Not to ignore Shackman who has got this topic off his chest and to show off my international credentials (:-)), here is a startling piece of writing that needs to be read by all Americans. Many years ago, I was privileged to see Sicko by Michael Moore when the group of Indians that I saw the movie with, all Indians, felt that we did the right thing by not emigrating to the USA! Canada and the United Kingdoms still offer better choices to their citizens though the latter seems to be coming under some pressure in the recent past.

The NYT article also mentions the cost of hip replacement surgeries in the USA and that is what actually took me to the article referred to me by a friend from the USA who wanted to tell me how lucky I am living in India. I already knew that, but having been on the table five times for the privilege I know how much it cost here and how hard it was for me to pay for them. That is neither here nor there as, irrepective of whether they were health care financed or private, in India, for me they would have still meant the same difficulty as the state infrastructure would not have done them for me nor the private insurers covered them for a pre-existing condition.

I guess that wherever we live, all of us have to tackle our health issues with difficulty bar in Canada and some European countries besides of course the Oil funded Arabian states where all citizens get just about everything free, including cost of treatment in India or in the West.

Posted in Blogging, Economics, India/Pakistan, Medicine, Sociology | Tagged , , , | 19 Comments

Parenting.

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Ramana Rajgopaul

Parenting

I was struggling with a particularly difficult word during my daily tryst with crossword puzzles when I asked Ranjan to help me. Ranjan simply said, “google for it dad” and pushed off. I said to Manjiri a bemused observer of the scene that it is now the turn of Ranjan to be my parent.

I mentioned this to another friend who had called up for something else and he said that I should now read a book a review of which he had just read. I googled for it and this is what I found.

Apart from anything else, it costs 80 GBP and I really do not need to worry any more about parenting.

Strangely enough, just the other day on Facebook, I had posted this video on the use of English language where Fry talks about nouns becoming verbs.

This post is a classic example. The title is a noun parent that has now become a verb and further, google, a noun too has become a verb.

To revert to the topic under discussion, it is a measure of the times that we live in that serious studies are undertaken about a natural process and tomes are written about, published and sold for 80 GBP! I parented a son who has turned out to be quite a nice young fellow as have many of my relatives and friends with similar outcomes and when we had some problems, we simply consulted an elder parent or a GP if the problem was something to do with the child’s health. Today, I suppose parenting means acquiring some specific skill sets the absence of which can have serious repercussions on our societies!

NUTS!

Posted in Family, Humor, People, Sociology | Tagged , , , | 26 Comments