Ramana's Musings

Our young lawyer friend Ashok and I had a brief exchange earlier this afternoon. He has to study for an important examination, and I shooed him off to study with the admonition that a lot of us expect him to be our lawyer sooner than later. I added that I may even commit a crime to give him some chance, like bumping off one our Politicos.

His response, in a flash, and I quote verbatim -”In that case you would be guilty of social service, which is not yet a punishable offense under the IPC. (Indian Penal Code)

My post on bicycling has generated another picture.  This time from Bikehikebabe who, simply could not resist the temptation, I suppose.  To the best of my recollection, her driving license has not been taken away by her children.  I wonder if this has happened to any one else.  How about you Mayo?

Biker and his Babe

One of course can get completely addicted to it!

An elderly couple, my neighbours, who had been away visiting their children in the USA the past six months, have just returned to Pune and came to know about Urmeela’s passing away. They came to pay a condolence call on me this morning.

I was busy cooking for lunch and must have looked every inch the lndian version of the professional domestic cook. They must have been surprised to see me in the role but did not say anything. After the usual condolence conversation, the old man asked me why I was cooking. I joked and said that I am now the house husband and professional cook for the household. He probed further as to how long I had been cooking, how I learnt to, and whether it was after Urmeela’s passing away, etc and was quite amused when I said that it was an over rated talent and women kept men away from the kitchen to exercise control. I also pointed out that almost all chefs in hotels and restaurants were men. The old man sagely nodded and turned to his wife and said that perhaps it was time that he too entered the kitchen!

Guess what the good lady said?

In the most powerful Indian idiom, the equivalent of “Over my dead body!”

The moment she said that she knew that she should not have said that, bit her tongue and was most contrite and for the next few minutes apologized and berated herself for being so insensitive. Nothing that I could tell her would pacify her.

Anyway, they left after a while and after complimenting me for the tea that I had given them, satisfied that I was not offended.

I had been mulling over this little conversation and decided that I should post about it to convey this message. It is this. We often use commonly used phrases and idioms at the spur of the moment without considering the context and the situation. We can commit such faux pas and land up in embarrassing situations.

Has anything like this happened to you too?

Having got that out of the way, here are some other kinds of MURDER. Murder of the English language which I love.

We all know who those Murderers of the English language are, don’t we?

For the Pièce de résistance,

MURDER AT THE CONSTRUCTION SITE.

A workman was killed at a construction site. The police began questioning a number of the other workers. Based on past brushes with the law, many of these workers were considered prime suspects. They were a motley crew:

The electrician was suspected of wiretapping once but was never charged.

The carpenter thought he was a stud. He tried to frame another man one time.

The glazier went to great panes to conceal his past. He still claims that he didn’t do anything; that he was framed.

The painter had a brush with the law several years ago.

The heating, ventilation and air conditioning contractor was known to pack heat. He was arrested once but duct the charges.

The mason was suspect because he gets stoned regularly.

The cabinet maker is an accomplished counter fitter. The autopsy led the police to arrest the carpenter, who subsequently confessed. The evidence against him was irrefutable, because it was found that the workman, when he died, was hammered.

Now, to tie Murder with last week’s post on love:

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

PS. This is one of the Friday consortium posts and the topic was chosen by Grannymar. Please visit, Conrad, Ashok, Grannymar, Magpie and Mariana for their posts.

I have just been given this link to a really funny blog site. I do not know the writer, but, it is among the craziest and zaniest that I have ever seen.
http://www.27bslash6.com/overdue.html

Tags: Humour

I am sure that most of my readers would have knowledge about the latest spat between two determined ladies. One blogging defamatory posts about the other, a professional model. The model successfully got legal succour which forced Google to disclose the identity of the blogger. Once the identity was revealed, the model sued the blogger for defamation.

The matter has reached a very interesting stage, with the model forgiving the blogger and dropping the lawsuit, but the blogger suing Google for revealing her identity.

Very interesting insights about this case and a few others can be read in this very crisply written article by Kathleen Parker in the Washington Post.

Tags: Defamation online, Online identity, Online privacy

“Good taste is the first refuge of the non-creative. It is the last-ditch stand of the artist.” – Marshall McLuhan.

I may be making myself vulnerable to attack from all corners of the world with this post. This is a subject that is capable of being interpreted in many ways, but post this I must lest I miss sharing a very significant mile post in my life.

As my regular readers know, I went to a sort of school to learn how to dress properly, how to use a fork and knife, how to choose the colour of the socks to wear, how to tie a tie/bow tie etc. These were thought to be necessary for a young Indian in a profession where he was meeting people with good (read WOG [Westernized Oriental Gentleman]) taste, besides hobnobbing with visiting Sahebs from the UK. Much later in my life, it certainly helped me pass the final hurdle in getting selected for a Management Trainee position with a Scottish company, when, as the final test, I was taken to lunch by a Scot after the morning interviews were over. Till to day, I do not know whether it was the interview or the lunch that enabled me cross the last hurdle, but cross I did.

Subsequently, I had many occasions to pass on such invaluable lessons to many youngsters impressed with my “good taste’! In some cases, they came to me voluntarily and in some, I had to tactfully guide them so that they did not goof up in critical situations.

Some few weeks ago, one of my mentees had come to me to learn some tips about dressing as he was going overseas for the first time and wanted to make a good impression. I was teaching him with a lot of humour and patience, when one of my other friends, like me, retired but from the armed forces, came to visit me and threw his few bits in too. (My readers may not know this, but the Indian armed forces, till today follow the British protocol in all that they do.) Some of the idiosyncrasies of these worthies deserves a separate post by itself. But luckily for me, my friend is not the Colonel Blimp type.

After my mentee left, my friend suggested that I read “To Buy Or Not To Buy” by Keith Thomas, which I duly did. For those that are interested in such trivia, it is an absorbing read and I recommend it. But if you, like me, likes to savor whatever life dishes out to you in the form of people coming into your life, you can safely give it a bye.

If you would like to relish some really interesting information, please do spend some time on the links that I have given here. They are priceless.

The read however made me reflect on how far I have traveled in my journey of this life. Today, I can truly say that I have given up the superficial and meaningless values and behaviour for more warm and genuine ones, in which “good taste”, does not find a place. Not that I do not appreciate it, but it no longer is an obsession, which it was in those days when such things were more important for corporate success than genuine humanness.

I shall now go and wear my Kevlar vest and get ready for all that will come my way.

Tags: Colonel Blimp, Good Taste, Keith Thomas, To Buy Or Not To Buy

“I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift,
Nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet
Riches to men of understanding, or yet favor to men of skill; but
Time and chance happeneth to them all.”
-Ecclesiastes.

William James said that religious belief is “the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.”

Why am I suddenly writing about this subject? Let me give you some background.

Since my post on ‘Ambition’ was published, a dear atheist friend of mine, who has known me only the past few years, has been arguing with me about atheism and theism; Natural Selection and Spirituality, and as atheists are wont to, has been trying to convince me to convert to atheism. As I had posted in my later post, we Indians are very argumentative and this topic is as good as any to get two good friends to argue about.

Indian Shastras (Sanskrit Scriptures) say, that in order to be successful, six qualities are required – udyama, proper effort; saahasa, perseverance; dhairya, courage; buddhi, knowledge; shakti, skill and resources; and paraakramaa, the capacity to overcome obstacles.  The absence of any of these qualities can stymie our efforts and produce unexpected outcomes. And, it is a very big ‘And’, there is no guarantee that even if you have all the six qualities and take action, the outcome will be as per your expectation.

That brings us to the stage of taking action to succeed.  When we take any kind of action, we expect an outcome to that action.  That outcome can be exactly what we expected; less than what we expected; more than what we expected; or completely different to what we had expected, perhaps even opposite of what we expected. We can never know before taking that action as to how the outcome will turn out to be.

It has therefore been taught to those who are willing to learn, that when you consider the two paragraphs immediately above this one, there is something working behind the scenes that influences the outcome. You do not have to be a religious person, or a spiritualist to accept this reality.  This can be proved by simple observation of all that we do.

When I pointed out the contents of the two paragraphs to him, his reasoned reply was that ‘chance’ has nothing to do with the outcome, but the outcome being different from what was expected is due to one or more of the six qualities listed in the first paragraph, not being present in adequate measure.  My response to that is; why does it happen that what is lacking is lacking? His response is that it is because of inadequate preparation or overconfidence.  This answer too can be taken to the next level and the next level ad infinitum.

Since writing the post, I ‘chanced’ on Looney’s post which is poignant. Please do read before you comment on this post.

Samuel Johnson, the great lexicographer, when a reader confronted him on why he defined the word ‘pastern’ as “the knee of an horse” (instead of the part between the fetlock and the hoof) his reply was, “Ignorance Madam, pure ignorance.”

Who is ignorant?  What is your answer to this conundrum?

Tags: Atheism, Chance, Ecclesiastes, Grace, Ignorance, Samuel Johnson, Serendipity, Shastras, William James

We have Bikehikebabe, who we know from her name and some of her comments to be a biker. Now, I discover that Maynard is another, who goes off on long bike hikes.

Grannymar’s new post led to an unexpected exchange of comments. I quote my last comment here:

“Maynard, have a heart. You get a woman like that and you will need to dance with a crutch. Can’t prop her up on the cross bar of your bicycle can you?”

Maynard is sure to imagine something like this:

What I had in mind is something like this with Maynard pedaling.

Since however, his bike is unlikely to have a rear carrier as bicycles in India have, I suggested that the crossbar be used. This is done quite often in India when the carrier has got some luggage or a child or something like that.

For those of you who have not seen Maynard, this is his latest photograph. I requested him for one and this is what he has provided me with.

There is a sequel to this post and that is, on seeing this post, Grannymar has sent me a link to her post written in June of last year. For those who are impatient, here is her photograph!

Barath’s comment – “Funny thing is Annie now states that she can never come to terms with my relatives as all nieces and nephews get referred to as my kids and she gets really worried about the number of children I have in India!!!” in my post, “Ramana Sir”, has inspired this post.

Family ties in India traditionally have been very strong. I distinctly remember from our childhood, our home being forever filled with visiting uncles, aunts, cousins, grand parents, family friends and some of them staying on for long periods of time going to college, taking medical treatments etc. In return, we used to go off to small towns and villages where our relatives were located for vacations. In all such situations, we never felt as though anyone was intruding into the privacy of the host. Our home was in a city and was used by our relatives from villages and small towns as a place to stay. It was taken for granted that such hospitality will be extended.

Things have changed now. Most of my generation cousins and relatives stay in cities and are spread all over the world though, the strongest concentration is in Chennai in South India. Each of my father’s siblings set up his/her own unitary family as did my parents. Within each such unitary family, the ties are extremely strong with the exception of two drop outs from among perhaps a hundred or so members.

In my immediate family, presently consisting of my father, we four siblings and our children and grand children, the ties are very strong and we still follow the old fashioned tradition of treating our children as being from a common pool. This is what has puzzled Annie, a Southern Belle from Louisiana. For all of us siblings, all our children are “my kids”.

With increasing dispersal of families, this tradition is on the wane. Sad but, I suppose, inevitable. With modern telephony, the internet and FaceBook, perhaps some bonds are getting stronger, but nowhere near what I believe was the case when we were growing up.

In the Northern parts of India, this tradition takes some odd hues. Let me share you a story to illustrate.

In 1980, I was posted as the Regional Manager for the Northern Region. As was the tradition, I had to go to many farewell and welcome parties with my predecessor Jagdish, who had held fort there for ten years. There was one particular party which has become company lore and is still talked about. It loses quite a bit of flavour due to translation from Punjabi but, is worth sharing nevertheless.

Jagdish and his wife Asha are Punjabis, as was the host for the evening. When, Jagdish, Asha, Urmeela and I landed up at the host’s traditional home with a very large courtyard, we found two parallel rows of our host’s family waiting to receive us with garlands. This is traditional and every thing went off well. Jagdish turned to our host and requested him to introduce all the waiting sons, daughters, daughters in law etc to me, no doubt due to not knowing all the names. Our host, in typical Punjabi, declined to and requested Jagdish to do the honours. Jagdish, being well versed in these politese, said -”They are your children, you should introduce them.” Much to my amusement, our host said – “How are they my children? They are your children. You introduce them.” I am not one to let opportunities to pass by. In an aside to Jagdish I said – “Part of the perquisites of being RM North? No wonder you stuck on for ten years!”

Unfortunately, our local Manager, standing just behind me over heard this and the story went all over the world.