tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-286049342024-03-13T17:45:44.539-07:00Animol PlanetAnihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-80623663829261248842022-09-27T04:57:00.000-07:002022-09-27T04:57:06.995-07:00White khadi and white Innovas<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif",sans-serif;">Why
are Indian politicians and civil servants provided with imported cars to roam
around in for non-emergency situations? Does the adherence to ‘made in India’
go only as far as loud (in signalling, not colour) white khadi clothes, and not
even as far as accessories and implements such as footwear, belts, bags, and
pens? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif",sans-serif;">Imported
automobiles may be more powerful, safe, and reliable than Indian ones, but if
an Indian politician or civil servant desires to roam around in one, shouldn’t
it be at his/her own expense, not the government’s? I am excluding emergency
services, particularly police and ambulances, from this requirement: Clearly if
one is to save lives through emergency medical treatment or check crime before
or while it is occurring, one needs the best possible equipment, not to be
hampered by unsupported notions of patriotism. But what of a routine
office-goer or meeting attender – what’s the need for such a person, on such an
endeavour, to hog the road vrooming past the populace, at government expense? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif",sans-serif;">I
admit that politicians and civil servants are human (at least I don’t dismiss
the possibility), and may, in that capacity, experience strong urges to own
high-end automobiles and articles manufactured abroad. They are welcome to - in
their private lives, at their own expense. The government needs to reconsider
these perks. Indian politicians and civil servants, whether in starched white
khadi or ahimsa silk, on in any of a range of synthetic fibres, should move
around in Tata or Mahindra automobiles driven by reasonable government
employees, cribbing at traffic jams (not cleared for them inconveniencing
hundreds), not roar past in Innovas with entitled drivers at the wheel.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-11209935531400073052022-04-29T09:21:00.017-07:002022-04-30T12:10:25.415-07:00Kashmir: paradise (being) lost<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Four of us longtime
friends made a trip </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">('customised'
package tour) </span><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">to
Kashmir with intentions of basking in nature’s pristine lap, eating delicious
food, procuring a few artifacts, and chatting endlessly. Nature’s lap was not
pristine. The food was rarely good, mostly nondescript, and in one instance very
bad (making the two of us who ate it sick for a couple of days). We had no way
of getting away with procuring ‘a few artifacts’: We had to fight off hordes of
salesmen (they are all men, many of them unselfconsciously goodlooking in our
estimation) before, during, and after our many, not few, purchases. We did chat
endlessly, so <i>paisa vasool</i> there!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The winding mountain
roads and the stretches of highway are frequently beset with traffic congestion
and vehicular exhaust that no tourist blurb will prepare you for. Tourists in
paradise spend more time and attention on the pragmatic tasks associated with
tourism, such as standing in queues for hours and clinging white-knuckled to a
horse’s saddle, than taking in the sights that they are in queues or on horseback
for. Some of the tourism-related occupations are protected by unions: Most
beauty spots do not permit ‘local sightseeing’ in private vehicles or outside
cabs. And there is no public transport to speak of. You have per force to use
the expensive local cabs to get around, and pay per location on the itinerary,
with strict limits on how long you can spend at any location, so that you do
not detain the cab driver at a place whose beauty or sales talent you are lost
in for an hour or more.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">For all the protection
of tourist guides and transporters however, the big lacuna in tourism in
Kashmir is the lack of attention paid to retaining and nurturing the
cleanliness and beauty of the locales. Unlike other areas that see throngs of
visitors, and have developed, and to quite an extent enforced, stringent
policies on disposables and littering, Kashmir seems to have left this to the
inhabitants – locals and tourists – who evidently do not care overmuch. The
beauty spots are dotted with plastic litter, horse dung, and slush, and
swarming with ‘guides’ and salesmen. To approach anything like the Kashmir in
our minds (from the movies of the 60s and 70s), you need to tilt your eyes, and
ideally also your head, up by about 30 degrees so as to be able to view only
distant vistas of conifers and snow-capped mountains, and miss all the litter.
For the <i>haseen vaadiyan</i>, you need to move to ‘faraway look’ mode
from the car/lookout spot since tilting your head up will not serve. The
streams are delightful (especially from a distance, and with the litter-strewn
banks cropped out), as are the sun and moon, and distant patches of green and
white on the mountains. Natural beauty spots cannot stay beautiful in the face
of thoughtless littering, unless they are active volcanoes (which people
generally refrain from littering, so they don’t count).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">With the plentiful
litter and the rarer burning pile of rubbish, we were naturally hesitant to try
the pay-and-use toilets at every tourist location. But to our pleasant
surprise, the toilets were clean, if not odourless.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On Dal Lake, one has
no hope of being able to sing even one stanza of a boat song undisturbed by a
salesboat that will draw up speedily and silently, presenting a pleasant
salesman who will draw your attention to the far cheaper goods that he has for
sale than you would come across elsewhere in your travels. Everything from
so-called saffron to sarees is cheaper on Dal Lake than on land far from
Srinagar. One remarkable experience we had on Dal Lake was that although it was
bursting with weeds that special clean-up boats were scooping up with
lacrosse-racquet like tools, and tons of organic domestic waste and sewage were
being contributed by the hundreds of houseboats every minute to the lake, it
was not stinky.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Guides in sharp contrast
to salesmen are gruff, even rude, and very aggressive about your need for their
services without which you supposedly cannot negotiate the terrain – something
that is proven wrong in minutes after you engage them when you espy others who
didn’t succumb to their haranguing managing quite all right guideless. An
astute observation that Posh made (on this, her second trip to Kashmir) was
that Kashmir seems to be popular only with Indians (we saw no more than 2-3
non-Indian tourists in all our time there), and that that might be at the root
of the non-obsequious/non-unctuous/customer-unfriendly deportment of the
‘guides’. Not that Indians were able to take all the aggressive marketing in
their stride – we heard many fruitless gripes about tourists being ‘milked’ and
hounded, but that is where it stopped. A far cry from the customer-is-king
pampering one sees of prospective and current customers in other
tourism-inclined states of India. On my observation that one transporter (horse
supplier) seemed impatient and angry (euphemisms for rude), his minion
explained that he was neither impatient nor angry, and that this was just how
they conversed. A novel argument that we heard from many guides and
transporters (horse/sled suppliers) was that we had clearly spent a lot to get
to Kashmir (one person even suggested that we had spent lakhs on the trip!),
and we shouldn’t hesitate to spend just a few hundred more on whatever they
were offering.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Everywhere we went,
photographers and their aides showed us albums of tourists dressed in gaudy
velvet <i>pherans</i> and colourful scarves with chunky (faux) silver
jewellery. We did as directed on the third day of our trip, posing for group
photographs and a few singles, but not availing ourselves of opportunities to
pose with fluffy lambs, rabbits, or snowy pigeons, or the ubiquitous plastic
flowers in baskets and empty waterpots. Maybe we will appear in an album in the
future, especially as bait for groups of friends travelling together!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Practically every
hotel and restaurant we went to had artificial flowers for decoration,
incongruous in a place famed for lovely real flowers, and beautiful embroidered
and carved flowers besides. We would appear to have visited Kashmir in a
suboptimal season for flowers though – the tulips had just closed shop, the
crocuses were months away, and we were not in the right zone for the lavender
that we saw posters of right from the airport. What we did get to see in the
gardens we visited were masses of pansies, irises, roses, snowballs, asters, and
daffodils, and quite a few other brilliantly coloured flowers that we couldn’t
catch the names of.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Velvet and
wood-carving seem to be popular everywhere – in hotels, all over houseboats,
and in shikaras too. Papier-mâché of high levels of artistry is another
visual treat and generally affordable. Embroidery can be large and striking, or
fine and beautiful, but does not come cheap. We stocked up on walnuts, dried
fruit, some seemingly magical Kashmiri rajma (that is said to need only 5
minutes of soaking – not yet verified by us), single garlic cloves that look
like apricot kernels, and the ‘sweat of stones’ (<i>shilajit</i>), and of
course, saffron. In the non-edibles category, sarees, shawls, stoles, the
softest cashmere (sweater), embroidered curtain material, and papier-mâché
articles formed all our loot from Kashmir. As dutiful Indians, Kavitha and I
bought cricket bats made of Kashmiri willow – one small souvenir-ish one and
one usable by adults for a real game – from a factory where they were made. We
were also treated (on my request) to the sight and feel of a replica of Sachin
Tendulkar’s bat.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The famed Kashmiri
cuisine is not easy to come by in many places, and where it is available, there
is generally little besides a few mutton dishes. Fresh, local vegetarian dishes
and light, everyday foods are off the table. Chilli powder is of a rich colour,
but not very pungent; salt is easily in excess for health and taste; and sugar
is at a healthy and close to tasteless low. The <i>kahwa</i> is
delicious, and the desserts bland. Menus are crammed with the usual pan-Indian
Punjabi/Mughlai food.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">We had fresh apple
juice (how could we exit Kashmir without) just outside an orchard of cute,
trimmed trees with bottles of sugar water tied to some branches as artificial
pollination promoters. The juice was nice, but the information that we received
of ‘at least 10-15 pesticides’ to be applied to the trees, and several other
chemicals as fertilisers besides was decidedly not nice.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Despite our keenness
to visit, or at least view, the Hazratbal mosque, we did not. Our driver consistently
assigned it low priority on our daily lists of spots we wanted to visit, and
showed no enthusiasm to even drive past it, perhaps deciding for us that four
Hindu women have no pressing need to view a mosque. We barely managed two of
the many gardens in the city, overcoming his reluctance to drive even a few
metres beyond his daily quota. We glimpsed a gurudwara on our way one day, and
a board indicating the way to a temple. No churches or synagogues. The one holy
spot that we well and truly visited was the Shankaracharya temple. For this, we
argued with our driver, who would take us no farther than the foot of the hill
that the temple was on, then with an auto driver who demanded an exorbitant
amount to take us to the gate of the temple, but discharged us a third of the
distance away citing a traffic jam on the hill. We then trudged up the hill,
and proceeded to labour up the 250 steep steps (it seemed like more). The path
to the temple was cleaner than any other place we saw in Kashmir. I cannot be
sure that faith can move mountains, but I can certainly confirm that faith can
move one up a mountain. I, accomplished in neither the faith nor the fitness
departments, made unimpressive progress up the steps, using many of the broad
ledges flanking the steps to catch my breath and sip water, giving me all the
leisure to observe elderly/out of shape/juvenile/apparently unwell people, and
those in uncomfortable footwear forging ahead to worship. Perhaps the strenuous
climb kept the devotees disciplined, and they could express their usual selves only
at the conclusion of the climb: After they got to the temple premises and shed
their footwear, and photographed themselves and companions against the temple
or the view of Srinagar laid out all around the base of the hill, some demonstrated
an urgency in ascending the last 5-6 steps to the sanctum sanctorum, overtaking
others, and sticking on in the sanctum sanctorum, prolonging their communion
with the deity, even photographing the Shivalinga (expressly disallowed). When
asked about the Sharada <i>peeth</i> in the area, the priest used an unexpected
term to indicate its location – <i>Azad Kashmir</i>! An elderly Sikh man was selling
holy(ish) Hindu books, and beads and idols at a table along the steps. All the
taxi and auto drivers transporting people to and from the temple were Muslim. It
was a nice tableau of some of the religious diversity in the place.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It was another story
altogether with gender. There were hardly any women or girls to be seen, outdoors
or even indoors in shops, hotels, and restaurants. Locals don’t loiter - female
locals, that is. This is a huge red flag to me. When I see girls and women
using public spaces with confidence and comfort, for gainful employment or
aimless occupation, I think highly of the place on this count. When the only
females I see on the streets are students hurrying to or from educational
institutions, and women escorting children and groceries home, the place falls
like a stone in my estimation. Kashmir is a clear non-starter in
gender-egalitarianism.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A recommendation to
those dreaming of a lovely vacation in Kashmir: Have a stroke of good luck,
find a pro-active knowledgeable guide and places to stay and visit in offbeat
locations, and use polarised glasses that cull the litter from your vistas. Or
gather your friends at home or at a resort (in a non-Kashmir location) and
watch a pre-disposable-plastics-era Kapoor movie set in Kashmir instead.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p></p><p></p>Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-71419539045111115652021-09-10T00:31:00.001-07:002021-09-10T00:31:32.008-07:00S/o / d/o / w/o; no h/o – Uni-form conformity<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Everyone starts out as a s/o or d/o.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><i>What of people who are neither s nor d? Sorry, they can stay on the
sidelines and not fill forms, or put in the closer acceptable (to society, if
not to themselves) approximation. </i><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Then marriage may occur, taking women to w/o, but not transporting
men anywhere certain. This shift in women’s status is not exactly voluntary.
There are plenty of authorities, and others with no real authority too, who
will insist that a woman, having taken the trouble to acquire a husband, should
distinguish herself indicating her w/o status, and relegate her d/o status to
the background, perhaps to be resorted to in the event of the dissolution of
the marriage. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Just in case you are wondering whose s, d, or w one might be, it is
always a man. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><i>What of people who don’t know their father’s names? No doubt there
are people who don’t know their mother’s names either, but possibly far fewer.
Maternity is far tougher to screen.<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><i>What of women who are married to a non-male? Sorry.</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Any scope for a husband to declare his wife’s name on a form, as h/o,
not as a co-applicant or nominee or the like? Almost none – the Indian passport
stands out as an exception. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">This business of anchoring one’s identity in one’s male relatives is
not new, and is going nowhere very fast. The names of most communities across
the world reflect this bias - father’s name, replaced, if female and married, by
husband’s name for most of humanity. The few communities with matrilineal
nomenclature, and the few women who stick to their birth names, undeterred by
marriage, are generally looked upon as quaint, sometimes eccentric. The ways of
mainstream society, many of which we accept unquestioningly, prioritise males
as persons of action and decision for families. This has such extreme and
disappointing fall-outs as girls in a family having to forego higher education
so that the family’s constrained finances can support the higher education of
their brothers instead; and teachers and administrators in professional
colleges resenting female students for taking up space that would have been
better justified by male students who would go on to do something useful with
their training. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Matters that wedding guests are agog to determine and duty-bound to
report are what the groom does, and how the bride looks. A groom’s good looks,
and a bride’s achievements are bonus, not basic information. In school and
college, and, in fact, beyond, you are often asked where your father works. Not
many enquire about your mother. A woman is quite likely to be asked if she
works somewhere. A man will be asked where it is that he works, without a
thought for the many men who need to be asked if they work somewhere, so that
they can answer no, and close that line of enquiry. One’s children are settled
when sons have jobs and daughters are married. A man is expected to justify his
existence in society by his work, whereas a woman can get by without much
trouble as long as her family has something to say for itself, such as being
possessed of a male member or more.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">After centuries of ignoring facts and finding to our chagrin that
this doesn’t make them go away, we have grudgingly accepted that there is more
than a dichotomy of genders. We have also acknowledged that there are varied
sexual orientations. But the simple steps of assimilating these facts into our societal
interactions are nowhere near undertaken. Our forms continue to lean towards two
genders (consonant with sexes, of course), and one sexual orientation, marriage
to one man, and knowledge of father’s name. The many who diverge from this path
can struggle and modify fields in forms with explanations that may or may not
be accepted, or modify facts to conform. </span><span style="font-family: Cavolini;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p>Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-38574209601337773382021-09-07T12:09:00.000-07:002021-09-07T12:09:06.077-07:00Work life balance - an unbalancing thought<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif",sans-serif;">Work
life balance – the term raises some disquieting thoughts.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif",sans-serif;">If work is distinct from
life, are they mutually exclusive? <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif",sans-serif;">If yes, what a pass we
have come to! “Life” is what we enjoy doing, and aspire to do, and “work”
possibly a means to keep us alive and facilitate the execution of “life”.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif",sans-serif;">Isn’t it ideal for us to
love our work, such that it is integral to life (what we enjoy doing, etc.)?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif",sans-serif;">Or is this a matter of
balance between a subset (work) and the superset (life)?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif",sans-serif;">Is
it work’s role to be tedious, or at least grim, such that if it isn’t, you say,
“This is fun. It doesn’t feel like work at all!”?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif",sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif",sans-serif;">Or
do we abide by “work is worship”, in which case it is to be solemn and
approached with spirituality, or at least tedious and grim, so that it isn’t
confused with fun?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif", sans-serif;">These
life questions may require some working out, not guaranteed to be fun.</span></p>Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-47216106310166722072020-03-20T23:51:00.002-07:002020-03-20T23:51:25.653-07:00Si(gh)lent airports<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Of all the places to keep silent – airports?!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> Are ‘silent’ airports truly silent? The hubbub of conversations, food service, transactions at shops, and translocation to gates eliminates that possibility. The only silent aspect of silent airports is the absence of amplified announcements, which ironically are the only essential sound in an airport. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> Announcements need to be made regardless of the best-laid plans to avoid them, as gate-changes, final calls, and boarding order need to be communicated to passengers. So, after many months of airline staff hollering flight destinations and inviting stragglers to the correct gates, surely missing many passengers in the ‘silence’, silent airports have come up with portable, self-contained microphone sets that airline staff attach to their outfits and use for announcements. This is better than the hollering, but only just, and the main benefits are for the vocal cords of the announcers. Since these announcements take place at the gate, they only reach people who are already in the vicinity, unlike the old-fashioned announcements in non-silent airports that could convene passengers scattered in many zones of the airport.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> What is the need for airports to be silent? People had better not doze off and miss their flights. If announcements annoy some, they can make arrangements to damp the input using earplugs or noise-cancelling technology. As long as additional cacophony in the form of music, movies, or TV shows that may not be universally appreciated is not introduced, the natural level of noise or silence in an airport should be fine, and left alone. Airports should focus on other aspects of pollution (e.g., the use of strong chemical cleaners, fragrances, and material for interior décor; and the massive waste – food and disposables - generated in food service) and not overdo this noise-pollution reduction strategy.</span>Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-21509128176877248042020-02-11T04:20:00.002-08:002020-02-11T04:20:40.962-08:00Single-use soft plastics – an ever-lasting and hard problem<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif",sans-serif;"> The
prospect of a national ban, or at least discouragement, of single-use plastics
is welcome. The obvious targets are disposable shopping bags, utensils
(containers and cutlery), and disposable water bottles. But single-use plastics
have made their insidious way into our lives in other goods where they are not
so obvious. Wrappers of virtually everything ready-to-eat, not-yet-ready-to
eat, and never-to-be-eaten are composed of single-use plastic. Manufacturers,
distributors, vendors, and buyers of most retail products have a huge shift to
make in their thinking and practice if they are to successfully eliminate
plastic wrapping. Another arena that uses single-use plastic to signal hygiene
is the restaurant/fast food industry that generates hillocks of transparent
gloves and caps in food service. The ‘flex’ banners that people print and put
up to announce everything from the birthdays of their idols to directions to
the toilets at a conference are mostly unusable for another occasion. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif",sans-serif;"> The
examples here are all of plastics that are best avoided, but still find a few
voices to defend them in that they can, in theory, be recycled, although the
majority of them are not, in practice. ‘In theory’ because even after people
carefully segregate their waste at home or in offices, they often come up short
against recyclers or scrap-dealers who do not accept soft plastics, as their
trade is not very lucrative. As for the unsegregated waste dumped in public
places, waste-pickers choose among the recyclables to collect the most
lucrative categories of waste, and soft plastics clearly do not make much
economic sense for them to toil over. This leaves the big bulk of soft plastics
to make their adverse journey to water bodies, or animal bodies, or end up in
unhealthy fires. The big question before us on this is how, when the trajectory
of used plastic is not assuredly environment-sensitive, and is on the contrary,
practically guaranteed to be environment-degrading, governments can let the
production and circulation of soft plastics go on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif",sans-serif;"> But,
in addition to these products that are clearly single-use plastic for all to
see are some products that incorporate single-use plastic so seamlessly into a
multicomponent object that they may not be perceived as single-use plastics - a
case in point is the typical commercially produced menstrual absorbent pad.
This is a product that places convenience (not necessarily comfort) above all
else, certainly above ecological health, and in most cases, over economic
health too. Its greatest attraction is that it doesn’t need to be assembled before
use, and disassembled or cleaned after use either. But the price for this
convenience is paid by the environment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif",sans-serif;"> Unlike
in some of the pads in the past where the plastic shield could be removed after
use, and the plant-based absorbent disposed of in household garbage or sewage,
the pads of today are not amenable to disassembling and disposal via
composting, and reuse or recycling. This means that by virtue of being part of
a pad, plastic that could have been recycled, and absorbent material that could
have been composted do not take those routes, but contribute together to
garbage dumps, mass for open burning or incineration, and landfills, and also,
often, to the detriment of wildlife through ingestion or inhalation. This is
undoubtedly too steep a price to pay for the convenience of peeling off and
dumping a pad after use. This holds true for diapers too, the difference being
in the composition of the material contained (menstrual discharge/urine/stool), and also in the compactness of the product (diapers being bulkier than
menstrual pads).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif",sans-serif;"> A
concerted effort is called for to put an end to this dangerous practice: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: Microsoft Sans Serif, sans-serif;">policies
need review and reformulation –- for waste segregation at source; clear and
economically sound pathways for the recycling of all waste that cannot be
composted; and composting of all compostable waste to annihilate garbage dumps
and landfills –- to fully realise the intent of the ban on single-use plastic;</span></span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif", sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;">manufacturers
of one-time use pads and diapers need to develop more environment-sensitive and
user-friendly products, and guide users on post-use treatment; and</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Microsoft Sans Serif", sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;">users
need to contemplate the ramifications of their choices of product and post-use
treatment processes, and resolve to follow less ecologically profligate ways.</span></li>
</ul>
<!--[if !supportLists]--><br />
<br />Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-2006943247054084772019-11-07T22:42:00.000-08:002019-11-07T22:42:33.431-08:00Ssshhh!
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If something is said to
you in confidence, the expectation is that you keep the secret, i.e., do not divulge it to anyone – at
all, and, possibly, ever.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is not
your prerogative to interpret the level of confidentiality as you please, e.g.,
it is okay to tell first degree family members – parents, siblings, and
children; or okay to tell your spouse or partner of the day; or okay to tell
someone whom the secret-generator is unlikely to ever meet.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
keeping of the secret should not be based on your judgement of the need (or
lack thereof) for secrecy either. <i>(“What’s so secret about having a crush? Let
me tell people about A’s crush.”)</i> Thus, if you think the matter doesn’t need
protection from publication, it is not okay to distribute it freely - the
generator of the information thinks otherwise, and that is paramount.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
secret is also not a weapon to be deployed in making a case for or against the
secret-generator. <i>(“You say this because you don’t know that A has been doing
XYZ for years.”)</i></span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If all
this seems like too much of a fuss to you, and you are of the opinion that once
a piece of information has been imparted to you, the imparter yields control
over it to you, at least have the goodness to declare this before any sensitive
information is given to you. People are suffering enough dealing with enemies,
they don’t need loose-tongued friends to contend with, in addition.</span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; margin: 0px;"></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span>Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-31435816446594307482018-07-27T09:58:00.002-07:002018-07-27T09:58:23.395-07:00Aiyya!<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The deity is
celibate. Women in the reproductive phase (WIRP) of their lives should not
enter the temple lest they perturb his celibacy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Assumptions:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -18pt;">The deity’s ambit is confined to
the temple premises. WIRP can roam around outside the temple free from the
danger of perturbing his celibacy.</span><br />2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -18pt;">The deity’s commitment to
celibacy may not be able to withstand remote sensual input from WIRP,
particularly vision, hearing, and smell.</span><br />3.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -18pt;">Anyone other than WIRP, e.g., boys,
men, prepubertal girls, postmenopausal women, transgender persons, poses no
danger to the deity’s celibacy.</span><br />4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: -18pt;">Deities in other temples that
permit entry by WIRP may be risking their commitment to their consorts, what
with WIRP at large on the premises.</span><br /><!--[if !supportLists]--></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shouldn’t the
intervention be on the deity rather than on the devotees? Why not eliminate
temptation by blindfolding, and stuffing the ears and nose of the potential temptee
rather than curbing the potential temptors?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-44003911852539001272018-03-16T04:46:00.000-07:002018-03-19T22:06:56.236-07:00Chill, it’s just a forward!<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: "bell mt" , serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Too
many people forward more messages – text, image, audio, or video – than they
create on their own, many without even the preliminary of attentively reading or
watching what they forward. Often the only things people write are ‘good
morning’ messages (which some others conveniently and labour-savingly forward
as ‘good morning’ images instead). And, the rare images that many people take
the trouble to create tend to be selfies. For the rest, electronic exchanges are
a seemingly endless torrent of forwards, and emoticons felicitating those
forwards, a huge expenditure of bandwidth, time, and effort, with very little
edification to show for the trouble. Except perhaps greatly increased tolerance
for spam. Sending and receiving forwards for want of something for one’s thumbs
to do may seem harmless, but reveals a lack of respect for one’s own time and
energy, and certainly those of others. It also suggests acceptance that one
cannot come up with anything original that merits transmission.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0px 0px 11px;">
<span style="font-family: "bell mt" , serif; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Forwarding
messages can be such an automatic action that some forwarders are surprised to
come up against objections to what they’ve forwarded, often disagreement with
some fine point: That’s where the lazy injunction “Chill, it’s just a forward!”
comes in. This is terrific advice, not for the recipient of these mindless
messages, but for the aspirant sender: Chill. It’s just a forward. Don’t send
it.</span></span></div>
<b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-size: large;"></span>Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-34236100117475098972017-04-04T02:20:00.000-07:002017-04-06T23:31:44.892-07:00Cows, mothers, and cow-mothers<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;">The cow is not your mother. She doesn’t
give you milk; you take her milk (which wasn’t meant for you) away from her
forcibly. Although buffaloes do precisely the same job that cows do, and supply
a good chunk of the milk consumed by Indians, for some reason, nobody
seems to be claiming descent from them. If providing nutrients is the criterion
for motherhood, all edible plants, and animals yielding milk, meat, honey,
etc., should be your mothers. If it is not nutrients in general, but milk in particular,
any mammal should be eligible to be your mother.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook",serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;">Is confinement to a shed or a mostly
dirty circumscribed area; access to garbage as food; extraction of heavy
physical labour; administration of loads of antibiotics (therapeutic or
prophylactic); crossing with quite possibly immoral studs, or cutting out the
work of the studs altogether, and artificially inseminating repeatedly to stack
one pregnancy on another the way to treat mothers? On deeper reflection, maybe
this is why people call cows their mothers, confessing in this roundabout way
that they mistreat their human associates, or at least treat them as cash cows.
Also, 'bovine' is not a complimentary adjective: Try calling a human mother a
cow.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook",serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;">People who do not eat meat may be going
into contortions patting themselves on their backs for their animal-friendly
ethos, but killing is not the only cruelty. Daily milking (by anything other
than the calf’s mouth); robbing colostrum, honey, etc.; shearing; confining
animals to cages, sheds, or dirty, narrow streets; and making them slog pulling
loads, all involve inconvenience at best, and torture at worst, of the animals
in question. And animal-rearing, particularly cattle-rearing, contributes
hugely to global warming, a disservice to more than the animal species in
question. </span></div>
<o:p></o:p>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook",serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 200%;">If you claim to be against
cow-slaughter on grounds of avoiding cruelty, in the first place, you need to
be against the slaughter of any species, at least, any species that expresses
pain that you can perceive, and in the second, you need to turn totally vegan,
since most animal products entail some cruelty in their extraction. Feel free
with the urine and dung though – no cruelty there, and no bullshit. </span></div>
<o:p></o:p>
<div style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook",serif;"> </span></div>
Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-52066732648749128042016-07-17T08:26:00.000-07:002016-07-17T08:26:12.615-07:00Ditch and varied heritage<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif";">I went
on a heritage walk in the Charminar area. It involved picking my way through filthy
streets to avoid litter, garbage, traffic, slush, and shit, and contriving to look
up at intervals to glimpse the heritage structures I was there for. It was
awful. My sense of belonging in Hyderabad may have seen me through some of the
discomfort, but my friend from out of town didn’t have that buoy. I felt a
blend of sympathy for her and embarrassment on Hyderabad’s behalf throughout
the trip.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif";"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif";">How can
we get away with interpreting filth as quaint and cultural, and worthy of
immersion in to get the true feel of a place? All the while, paradoxically, we
get affronted when outsiders call our places filthy. Dirt, as in dust, mud,
sand, gravel, may be mildly romantic. What is not is stinky garbage, poor municipal
sanitation, thoughtless construction of roads and pavements, and bodily wastes
on streets. Roadside eateries where food and beverage spills are wiped up with
the same rag as the seats you are ushered into are not confidence-building.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif";"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif";">Wastes
have changed – in quality and quantity. People’s ways of dealing with them
haven’t. The result is hillocks and streams of unsightly, and dangerous,
garbage all over, particularly in celebrated places bursting with “culture”,
unless the place has been taken under the wing of a foundation that cleans it
up, restores it, and charges a fee to keep it visitable.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif";"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif";">It is too
easy to blame people for littering. But it doesn’t come naturally not to
litter. The environment — physical, and socio-political — plays a vital
initiating and maintaining role in such practices. If there aren’t user-friendly
urban infrastructure designs; good urban sanitation policies, facilities and enforcement of rules; handy receptacles for wastes of different sorts; reminders
at points-of-decision while the new behaviour is learned; and inspiration from
role-models, not to mention pride in one’s home and surroundings, it is too
much to expect people to keep their neighbourhoods clean, particularly when
they have spent years adapting new wastes to old styles of disposal, e.g., flicking
a plastic wrapper away like they used to flick the leaf and blade of grass that
held snacks together in the old days.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif";"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif";">This
is a failure of intersectoral collaboration, preceded, unfortunately, by
failures of each sector’s work. The tourism department puts its resources into
organising visitor-friendly guided routes and schedules to showcase the architectural
beauties of a place, and gets dismally let down by a set of other government departments,
e.g., the local governance, traffic police, roads and buildings. Some more thought and concerted action are needed to make places habitable, visitable, and worthy of their attractive tags.</span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif";"> </span></span><br />
Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-4276495432964441822016-01-18T02:26:00.002-08:002016-01-18T02:55:23.974-08:00The plight of the favourite<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: large;"></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I know someone who dislikes her boss (true, that’s at least
half the world), but is favoured by him. She receives due acknowledgement for
her work, opportunities for more productive work, and some aid in negotiating administrative
hurdles in her professional life. She didn’t seek this special attention, and
doesn’t really revel in it, although the availability of opportunities and the absence
of hurdles are not unwelcome. What’s unwelcome, and not entirely fair, is the inexorable
envy of her colleagues.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I know someone who through chance events (X-Y pairing, and originating
in the family of a particular person) became the favoured grandchild of a
certain grandfather who held a good deal of sway. The grandfather, despite
being well-supplied with grandchildren of either sex, chose to demonstrate his
adoration of this child flagrantly, with visible gifts and special privileges,
in full view of the other grandchildren. The favoured one is reputed (by his
irate cousins) to have had his head turned by this coddling, which, even if
true, lays the blame at the parents’ and grandparents’ feet rather than the
child’s. In any case, he earned a great deal of bullying in his childhood, which
turned to private scoffing and aloofness as maturity intervened.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I know someone who is a decent, insightful, intelligent, responsible
and fun person, deserving of most of the popularity he enjoys. In addition, he
is a light-complexioned Indian male, of a fairly privileged community, and holds
the positions of son-in-law, brother-in-law, etc., which grant him special
status more or less automatically. He has to contend with the annoyance of his
less-advantaged peers, of either sex, who cannot dismiss all the adulation he
gets as unjustified, but chafe, all the same, at the moiety of the adulation
that is (unjustified by his character, skills, or work).<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Persons in power – relatives, friends, bosses – often pick
one or a few of their ‘subjects’ to favour, and to unabashedly and insensitively
shower with attention, gifts, and opportunities. The ones bypassed are
rightfully aggrieved, and often demonstrate their displeasure in resentful
silence, plentiful gossip, complaints through ‘proper channels’, if any, or all
too often, in mistreatment of the favourites. This last is an unfortunate, and
seldom justified, recourse. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Not all favourites are sycophants, diligently sucking up to
the authorities to ensure a smooth and undeserved ride for themselves. Some
certainly are, and this is not about them, the *$#@&%! Others are simple
souls, wending their way through life in all rectitude, neither seeking nor
enjoying the glare of the authorities’ attention. That they do not shun the
opportunities that come their way does not automatically make them undeserving.
And the fact that some of them merit at least some of the favour they enjoy,
making it tough for a fair observer to summarily dismiss their popularity and
detest them whole-heartedly, is not their fault. This is more or less a ‘poor
little rich boy’ situation. Many favourites even experience a measure of
self-doubt at intervals, when contemplating the smooth path that stretches out
before and behind them. It can be tough to negotiate the intricacies of these
social associations, various combinations of fair and pleasant.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Not having had (or at least, not admitting to) first-hand
experience of such favour, but having observed representatives of both the
favoured and the envious subgroups, I speak from a point of detachment and empathy!<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-34253641590720023432015-08-06T02:25:00.002-07:002015-08-06T07:59:52.057-07:00How come you’re in a sari?<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">If
you’re someone who wears saris on and off, you’ve almost certainly heard that
question. And chances are, you’ve answered it quickly with a ‘good reason’,
e.g., I’ve to attend a wedding. / There’s a puja in my cousin’s house. / It’s
sari-day in office. / I have a lecture to deliver. / There’s a meeting with
some (stuffy?) bigwigs. Or the latest legit one – for the #100sareepact. Some
people, sometimes, say, “No particular reason. I just felt like wearing one.
Just like that.” And get puzzled reactions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You’ve
also surely come across women (perhaps you are one of them yourself!) who make
urgent pre-event enquiries among friends about who all will wear saris, in
fact, if anyone is going to wear a sari or not, to ensure that they aren’t
alone or in a minority as sari-wearers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It
would seem that the women of today are sweeping saris off to the sides of their
wardrobes and their lives, lest people get the impression that they may actually
wear them for pleasure, and be at ease in them. Things seem to have reached a
point where a woman who chooses to wear a sari, and doesn’t declare it a chore
to some degree, opens the door to suspicion as not very independent/not very
modern. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Saris
have become something of a symbol of the oppression of women, and true enough,
they may impose certain limits on movement, and may be heavier to bear than
some other garments. A few questions leap to mind: How many of us are engaging
in the full range of motion even in non-sari attire? Don’t pencil skirts,
stilettos, or tight tops restrict range of movement? Don’t many carry off
(literally) heavy jackets, boots and leather garments without breaking a sweat?
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The
widely accepted explanation for the hesitation to wear saris is that they are
not comfortable. At least not as much as tight jeans and synthetic tops on a
hot day, or narrow high-heeled footwear, apparently. And draping them needs
skill, and/or practice, hence the legitimacy of the excuse ‘I’m not used to
them’. We undertake several learning activities, such as driving, which take a
lot of ‘getting used to’ with attendant (ideally reducing) risks during the
process. Sari-draping is unlikely to pose as many risks, or even need as much
attention for as long.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">We are
fast becoming (if we haven’t already become) a society that curbs recourse to
traditional ways for people with professions to progressive thinking. You are
exercising choice if you wear skinny jeans, or hot pants, or palazzos, or
kurtis, or spaghetti-strapped tops, or Pakistani-style parallel pants trimmed
with lace, but not if you pick a sari and an un‘worked’ blouse to go with it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The
lives that women lead today call for multiple roles, skills, and naturally, a
variety of outfits for a variety of activities. No single type of outfit could
do for everything, even putting aside the certainty that the wearer and viewers
alike would get bored out of their skulls with one type of outfit forever. So,
a wide range of outfits it is, or should be. And that range could easily
include saris, without any hesitation or apology.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Isn’t
one of the greatest advantages of being an (unoppressed) Indian the easy access
to the wealth of fabric and sartorial styles that the place has nurtured over
the centuries? And isn’t the sari a star player in that wealth? Why not embrace
that huge variety, try a few saris, ‘get used to it’, and evaluate them then
rather than <i>a priori</i> based on
received notions of comfort and choice? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">To do:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Observers:
Ditch the question ‘How come you’re in a sari?’, and replace it with remarks
(if compliments) on the outfit or the wearer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Sari-wearers:
If you’re asked this question, either don’t bother to answer it, or inform the
asker that you prefer it to going nude in public.</span><span style="font-family: Bookman Old Style, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span>Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-20825104309722008602015-06-07T23:32:00.000-07:002015-06-07T23:37:00.480-07:00<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif";"><span style="font-size: large;">My word... <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bahut lamba hai</i>! <o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif";"><span style="font-size: large;">Many
seem to follow this policy: If a word meets your needs, overdo it. To
illustrate,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Century Schoolbook";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(i)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif";">“Weddings
in Kerala are known to be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">simplistic</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Century Schoolbook";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(ii)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif";">“I
did badly in the half-yearly exams, and decided to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">improvise</i> myself by the time the finals rolled around.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 1in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Century Schoolbook";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(iii)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif";">“I’ve
collected the ingredients. Now, please guide me on the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">methodology</i> of making mirchi ka saalan.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif";"><span style="font-size: large;">By
and large, longer words go with greater scholarship. But merely lengthening a
word doesn’t enhance your erudition. Some words may stay unchanged, very
slightly modified or intensify with the addition of a few more letters, e.g.,
apt-appropriate. Others transform into different entities altogether, e.g.,
beside-besides.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif";"><span style="font-size: large;">‘Why
use a long word when a short one would do as well, or better?’: That’s a question
often asked, but not by me! I am not against the use of long, polysyllabic
words: Quite the opposite, actually. I love exploring the intricacies of
complex words. The horde against sesquipedalianism does not include me. Getting
one’s meaning across quickly is not the only purpose of language. Neither is
language always a means to transmit one’s message to a huge number of people.
Sometimes, words are strung together for the sheer beauty in the configurations,
and some messages are meant for smaller, specialised audiences. The shortest,
quickest, easiest-to-pronounce word is not always the best word.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif";"><span style="font-size: large;">Interesting
and entertaining convolutions find me a willing audience. Not words getting
mauled and becoming ridiculous and unfit for their purpose, though. How do we
guard against this? A simple (not simplistic) method (not methodology) to
follow: Improve (not improvise) your understanding of the meaning of the words
you are considering for use. Then use them carefully and lovingly. An ill-used
long word leads to a more ill-used reader than does an ill-used short word!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-16594015315090871072015-02-10T01:33:00.000-08:002015-02-11T01:17:12.857-08:00Clean? My foot!<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A very pragmatic protectiveness of
footwear may be at the root of people’s clambering all over train seats and
berths without shedding their footwear, regardless of the dirt they are gifting
their neighbours and persons who use the seats or berths after them. Many travellers
go to the other extreme – walking around barefoot in a train, getting their
soles black with dirt before the trip is through. A highly frustrating and uncivic traveller is the parent who lets shod
children loose on the train. Are adults under the impression that kids’ shoes
are untouched by dirt? Or that dirt transforms into something harmless, even
pleasant, by contact with kids’ shoes? That others don’t mind their seats or
clothes being stepped on by kids (not their own)? That’s one kind of parent on
a train. The other is someone who just suspends all notions of kids’
cleanliness once on a train, letting kids move around barefoot, climb over
whatever appears in their arena, and even escorting the barefoot child to the
bathroom, a place where extra foot protection would not be out of place! The
sight of a 3-year old walking out of a train bathroom barefoot, led by his/her
parent in stone-studded sandals ranks very high on my list of disgusting
sights.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What of pets’ feet? Many pet owners
welcome the frolicking of dogs and cats on their floors, furniture and persons.
Many of these pet owners are particular about the cleanliness of their homes,
insisting on a distinction between indoor and outdoor footwear, washing their
hands at intervals, and wouldn’t dream of strolling around barefoot in their
neighbourhoods. Not every one of these pet owners, however, attempts to clean a
pet’s feet when it re-enters the house after an outdoor sojourn. And pets’
feet, just like kids’ feet, do not necessarily attract only acceptable kinds of
dirt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Feet are important for Indians, playing
vital symbolic roles – we touch feet, or at least dive in the general direction
to signify reverence; display photographs of the feet of godmen to stimulate
reverence; recount legends of a prince lugging his forest-dwelling sibling’s
footwear to the throne in the capital; preserve the footprints of a bride exiting
her parental home; embellish toes with rings in elaborate ceremonies; watch
with bated breath as a bride tips over a vessel of raw rice to mark her entry
to her husband’s home; and so on. We also, particularly if female, make a
biggish fuss of the appearance of our feet, colouring the skin and/or nails, ‘curing’
them of calloused skin and cracks, and adorning them with jewellery.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But feet are by no means an exalted
part of the body. In fact, that is exactly why we pay attention to the feet of
respected persons – as the lowest (fig. and lit.) aspects of their body, and
the only ones we would presume to access. Hence, too, our discomfiture when we
step on something sacred, or touch someone inadvertently with a portion of our
feet, and our speedy amends* thereafter (* touch person/sacred thing and touch
own head/heart immediately).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Feet play a starring role in cleaning
procedures. From the mundane washing at the courtyard before stepping into the
house, and the cursory dousing before sleep, to the ritual scented rinse of the
bridegroom’s / guest’s (standing in for God) feet in ceremonies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Footwear is key in the maintenance of
the cleanliness of the feet, and therefore person, and that of the house as
well. Thus the traditional insistence on not using footwear indoors. Thus the
particularly low status of footwear among garb/accessories amongst Indians. The
shedding of footwear, ostensibly the shedding of dirt from the outside world,
before embarking on any activity with even a touch of sanctity about it is
customary – visiting a temple or even a puja room in a house; taking/bestowing
blessings; practising yoga or a traditional dance or martial art form. But,
trust people to follow the letter and skirt the spirit of the injunction: Since
footwear is not allowed in a temple, people routinely make the entire trip to
the temple barefoot, tracking generous amounts of dirt and contributions of
spittle, dung etc. into the very place which is meant to be maintained clean
and hallowed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Why this fuss? Is it such a big deal if
something from the outdoors enters a living space via feet or footwear? Isn’t
the whole of the Western world sailing through life blithely hopping onto
sofas, beds and chairs in shod/booted feet to reach a nail on the wall, relax
with feet up, or for no particular reason at all? Don’t people routinely pack
footwear with their clothes, often without any barrier between the footwear and
the garments, when they travel? Aren’t modern Indians who traipse around the
house in outdoor shoes and prevent guests from shedding their shoes to be
appreciated as free thinkers? Are Indians too stuck up on this matter, like on
many other matters? Do we need to get with the times? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I believe that if Indians are stuck up
on this matter, it is a very valid sticking up. We may westernise ourselves,
our clothes, food, homes, and language, till we go blue, but the world around
us isn’t playing the same game. The spittle, sputum, sewage, sand, dung, urine,
grease, guano, garbage, construction dust, and mud that we encounter on a daily
basis is not the lot of most people in Western nations. A walk outside followed
by a rapid, naked-eye examination of the footwear used should verify this.
Exposure to a typical Indian road will yield a lot more to shudder about than a
stroll on a Western city or suburban road. That said, even the cleaner
appearing shoe doesn’t guarantee the Westerner a clean, non-toxic environment.
We do need to get with the times – and understand that there is a lot more
chemical dust out in the air, and on the ground, than we are aware of, and
certainly much more than we are capable of dealing with physiologically. Here
is a situation in which the Westerner would do well to easternise – segregate
footwear from clothes and furniture, and avoid using outdoor footwear indoors. As
for us, we need to review our attitude towards feet, footwear, and our token
adherence to cleanliness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-6678648766894390732015-02-09T03:59:00.001-08:002015-02-10T03:47:02.530-08:00W(h)ither the lungi?<br />
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Garamond","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The good old 2x1.2 sq m daily staple
rectangle/cylinder is fast disappearing from the Indian landscape, its place
taken by short shorts, bermudas, capris, drawstring pyjamas, track pants, and
most ironic of all, lounge pants made of checked (very reminiscent of lungi)
fabric. Why?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It is odd that as people’s daily lives
have got increasingly sedentary, they have shed lungis/mundus and taken refuge
in more secure cloth cases, fastened at the hip/waist, for their lower limbs.
Compulsory transit and large crowds of strangers being the rule, no one is
surprised at this sartorial segue for professional/daytime wear. But what of
sleep? What of lounging at home of a summer evening? Why the switch to grey
trackpants with a white or red stripe down the leg from the blue-checked or
paisley-printed lungi or the off-white mundu? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Not everyone has the skill to wear a
lungi/mundu securely. It needs to be taught/learnt and practised. And not many
are bothering these days. This is much like the situation with saris and young
Indian women (YIW). Where it differs from the situation with saris and YIW is at
important ceremonial occasions – YIW get some expert or the other to get them
into saris. Increasing numbers of YIM don’t even attempt this avenue. Too often
at a South Indian wedding these days, you will find the bride in a dazzling
sari, and the male protagonist in a chudidaar kurta/sherwani, liberally
supplied with hooks, zippers and drawstrings, and a gorgeous stole to boot to
swathe his body (or lack thereof) in safe layers. Or perhaps he will be in
another kind of suit – the dark, pinstriped one which will next appear at a
professional conference. No space for a dhoti/mundu, with or without upper
garments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Why are Indian men chickening out of
wearing the 2x1.2? Afraid that they will look wimpy? Afraid that they can’t
carry off the style? Afraid that they will be seen to be sticking to a sensible
tradition? All valid fears. Not everyone looks impressive in a lungi/mundu.
Poor posture and lax gait do show clearly in this outfit. Poor physique too, in
some styles, e.g., the folded-up-from-the-knee style, particularly when
topless. All this makes the good wearer of a lungi/mundu a sought-after
exhibit, and now, sadly, increasingly rare.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></div>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
</div>
Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-85378484245471453842014-11-13T04:04:00.001-08:002014-11-13T04:04:57.883-08:00The passport renewal trip (up)<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><span style="font-size: large;">Getting
one’s passport renewed ought to be a smooth and quick affair. After all, the
issuing authority is already supposed to have examined your credentials
thoroughly and found you fit to acknowledge as a citizen. In the past, a trip
to the passport office was (i) never just “a” trip, but necessitated repeat
trips, with additional scraps of paper (some of them currency), and a
photograph that was just so; (ii) nightmarish with long queues and no flow to
speak of among different counters in the same office; (iii) rage-inducing with
the throng of corrupt officials, agents, and hangers-on. Then, a few years ago,
came the Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) - a welcome, welcome change: Appointments
that at least gave you a window, however large, in which your application
submission would be facilitated; the complete absence of touts; a few chairs; a
photocopier that didn’t charge exorbitantly for the precious copies you
suddenly discovered you needed; and rather courteous staff. Or so I thought after
my experience of the Begumpet PSK a couple of years ago, to get my mother’s
passport renewed. Not all PSKs are the same, though.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><span style="font-size: large;">As
an applicant for a new/renewed passport, you will hit the passport application website
early on – to fill the form, pay the fee, and schedule an appointment. It is a
disappointment – a sorry demonstration of TCS’s skill, if TCS is indeed the
organisation that created and maintains it. The website, a frustrating one, is
designed in a far from intuitive manner. You will waste your time hopping about
from tab to tab, and uploading documents that may not make a difference to your
application, because you have to lug along photocopies and original documents
to the office anyway. You also do not have the options you need to reschedule
an appointment if it is not the first one you make with the PSK.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><span style="font-size: large;">I
picked the Tolichowki PSK for my own passport renewal since it is closer than
the Begumpet one to my current residence: not a very good choice, as it turned
out. At the PSK, everyone needs to go through 3 stages of application
submission, through counters labelled (very cleverly) ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’. Some
people need to meet a passport officer type, in addition. The major design flaw
is the way people are funnelled through the stages/counters – a sharp drop in
the number of counters from A to B and another slight drop from B to C ensure
that you cool your heels a good while in the building. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><span style="font-size: large;">There
are 22 ‘A’ counters, staffed by youngish contract personnel, who do their job
fairly quickly and unobtrusively, although the first person I interacted with
spent more of his time flirting with a simpering colleague than attending to my
admittedly dull application. After this, the applicant needs to be prepared to
settle down in the waiting hall. So take a book, and a phone – both are
allowed. Take a snack, or money to buy some in the waiting hall, as well. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><span style="font-size: large;">After
an hour or two (no exaggeration) you will get your chance to go to the B stage.
There are only 6 ‘B’ counters, and these are staffed by passport office
personnel, i.e., graver government employees, who, to give them their due, are
also reasonable and reasonably quick with their examination of your documents. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><span style="font-size: large;">Back
to the waiting hall for another long interval and you finally come up before
the big-wigs (some of them balding) at one of the 3 or 4 functioning ‘C’
counters. The ‘C’ counters are manned by a pompous set of persons who are not
even up-to-date with the policies of the passport office/ministry of external affairs,
and have no idea what makes someone a “government servant” or a “private
employee” or “other”. The official I came up against (I really mean that word)
treated me with aloofness at first, made unnecessarily patronising enquiries
about my linguistic roots and location of birth next, and finally latched onto
certain theories about my employment category and level of disclosure of facts
to the passport authorities. I had an annoying (to me) conversation with him,
in which his colleague chimed in without invitation, and without regard to
facts. Finally the man gave me an appointment for the next working day at exactly
the time that I said I couldn’t make it for I had a meeting in office. He
assured me that I could reschedule the appointment online, but that turned out
to be a vain hope. The link from the website that invited
comments/feedback/requests did not help reschedule either.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><span style="font-size: large;">If
you think that a tweak to your application, in the shape of an additional
document or an “explanation letter” or a penalty, after all your documents have
been checked and found fit, would not take up any more than a few minutes, you
are vastly mistaken. Once you enter the building, you are in the mob waiting
for your token number to show up on the monitor on the wall, no different from
anyone else applying for the first time, and with completely unexamined
documents – if you are “normal”, that is. Tatkal applications move faster, even
in the application submission stage, and senior citizens have a separate queue
too (which is very good, and uncommonly thoughtful for an outfit like the
passport office). If you (if “normal”) have reason to go back to the building
for any other little thing, you can set aside 4 or more hours for each visit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><span style="font-size: large;">The
passport officer type (the head honcho of the PSK Tolichowki) is another
unapproachable and rude person, whom I cannot say anything more critical about,
since he refused to meet me at all! <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">The
address verification process by the police (</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cyberabad
Commissionerate, in my case)</span><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">,
in contrast, was a very faith-affirming (maybe even faith-engendering)
experience. In the first place, I received a text message the day after I
finally submitted my application, informing me that the request for police
verification had been initiated. Then, nothing for a few days, leading to some </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">uncertainty
and hesitation to leave the house for any errand lest I miss the police officer’s
visit.</span><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">
And then, t</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">he police officer who was to verify my
address sent me a text message early in the morning on the day scheduled. This
message advised me on what I needed to keep ready for his review (one set of
photocopies, and the original documents, and a photograph). He arrived in the
window of time that he had indicated in his text message. This text message was
a very useful and courteous move, as was his sticking to the time indicated. He
conducted the review very promptly, and also did not make any suggestion of a
bribe (which is otherwise unfortunately quite common in the police verification
process for passport issuance). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><span style="font-size: large;">To
encapsulate my suggestions:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Bookman Old Style";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Fill
the form on the website. Don’t rack your brains over the documents to upload.
Just upload 4 moderately related documents.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Bookman Old Style";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Pick
a good PSK. I recommend Begumpet, and not Tolichowki. I have no idea about the
others. By the way, there is parking space in the basement of the PSK
Tolichowki building – you don’t have to keep someone waiting outside in an
illegal parking spot.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Bookman Old Style";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">If
you have no choice but to go to a painful PSK, take a book, phone, food, money,
and patience. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Bookman Old Style";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Take
some extra money, a pen and some paper too, just in case you need to pay a
penalty, or write an “explanation letter” for something, and are lucky enough
to be in time to catch the passport officer type before he leaves for the day (presumably
for an early tea and afternoon nap) while you and your co-sufferers are cooling
your heels and hotting up simultaneously in the waiting hall.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Bookman Old Style";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Keep
a photograph and photocopies of the documents you submitted, as well as the
originals themselves, ready for police verification. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Bookman Old Style"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Bookman Old Style";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";">Also,
keep any other proof, such as a receipt from a service provider or a government
outfit (e.g., property tax payment) in the name of anyone from the household, from
about a year ago to demonstrate that you have been living in the house you
claim to have lived in for about the time you’ve lived in it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif";"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span>Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-90280557987580481632014-08-18T02:36:00.000-07:002015-05-02T23:36:17.546-07:00Nominal matters: Issue 4 <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<br />
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
</span><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Witness protection?</span></i></b></span><br />
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">–
on married Maharashtrian women’s names<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></span></div>
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Madhuri Charudutta Joshi potters
about the neighbourhood, goes to school and college, wins championships in
sports and arts, interns and works in government/quasi- government/private
organisations, hoards certificates and documents, collects friends and foes
over the years, and then, one presumably happy day, disappears! Her place is
instantly taken by Asavari Dileep Deshpande, and no one bats an eyelid. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Maharashtrian women take this
business of moving from one phase of life to another, of becoming another
person and making a new start, very, very seriously. Starting with
GivenName-Father’sName-FamilyName and hopping to NameGivenByHusband-Husband’sName-Husband’sFamilyName.
This tradition gives some boys (when men) the opportunity to realise a nominal
fantasy by naming their newly acquired wives. Perhaps it also allows some women
to finally get a name of their choosing, via advice to the husband. But mostly
this complete erase-and-redo just confuses everyone. [And so would be a great
opportunity for someone to commit a crime and change her identity altogether.
What better time to eliminate your enemies than the verge of your wedding and
the beginning of a ‘new life’?]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Confuses because, often, the
name-change is only ‘official’ – what is inscribed in the rice in a
post-wedding ceremony is then inscribed on certain documents (e.g., bank
passbook), and then put aside except for the rare use in official documentation
(official mail addressed to the woman, or mostly on wedding invitations issued
by the woman). So it is that you may discover that rather than the aunt you
have been calling Madhuri Maami for over two decades, an Asavari Deshpande is
suddenly, in collaboration with your Dileep Maama, inviting people to your
cousin’s wedding. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Also to be seen in email addresses
and on social networking sites is a pragmatic compromise, mainly for personal
and social communication. E.g., Madhuri Deshpande, who, notwithstanding her
new-found Asavarihood, continues to be Madhuri in daily life (even called so by
her husband and his family), and is now a member of the Deshpande household.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Two trends in Maharashtrian women’s
names are gaining ground: (i) the NameGivenByFamilyOfOrigin is regiven by the
husband, so Madhuri C. Joshi may become Madhuri D. Deshpande, following the
highway that thousands of her non-Maharashtrian sisters use. (ii) Both the
families – of origin and of marriage – are acknowledged, without declaring the
men representing them, viz. the father and the husband. Thus, Madhuri C. Joshi
now calls herself Madhuri Joshi Deshpande. What the next generation will do
with these compound surnames would be fascinating to observe: Will Girl Joshi
Deshpande marry Boy Kulkarni Tendulkar, and powerlift all those surnames
thereafter – X Joshi Deshpande Kulkarni Tendulkar? Won’t future generations sound
like telephone directories, and develop cramps from filling forms?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Perhaps Harry S Truman will show the
way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Note:
Thanks, Shashank, for the comment: “It’s like witness protection”.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-50352112706115568912014-06-08T00:55:00.001-07:002014-06-08T01:12:43.804-07:00<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<b><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Nominal matters: Issue 3</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Out
of the *<i>ina’petti</i> –</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> on
Telugu surnames</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook', serif; font-size: 12pt;">(*iron
case/ safe/ strongbox)</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Remember the Telugu friends you had in school, even college, if
you count the time after college in decades rather than months? What were their
names? G. Lakshmi, P.V. Vamsikrishna, Y. S. Venkatesh, M. Sravanthi, K.
Yadagiri... What did you know? The handle of the individual, and the initials
that decided their position on the attendance register, especially with the
Lakshmis, Srinivases and Venkateshes, who were always liberally sprinkled in
every class. Not the castes, not the regions their families came from, not the
occupations their ancestors may have practised. In fact, people who wanted to
make a point of their caste appended the caste tag to their names, such as in
N. Srinivas Reddy. When it comes to religion, given names are usually enough of
a giveaway, so that would be one demographic detail quite public.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook', serif; font-size: 12pt;">And what are your friends’ (same people!) names now? Lakshmi
Gollapalli, Vamsikrishna Venkata Pillutla, Venkatesh Sarma Yalamanchili,
Sravanthi Moovala, Srinivas Katikaneni etc… You may not even recognise old
school friends trying to befriend you on Facebook, because you sat next to a V.
Sreedevi, not a Sree Veera (short for Veeramachaneni, but more, </span><span style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook', serif; font-size: 16px;">some other time,</span><span style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> on abbreviating surnames).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Telugu surnames have come out of the strongbox. And I don’t see
any advantage of this barring the extremely rare opportunity to discover
distant relatives. “<i>I saw from that email that your name is Josyula. My
wife’s family name is Josyula too. Where (etc.)…?</i>” </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Or, being identified, at a quiz club in another continent, as a relative
of a minor celebrity: Me: "I am not a very seasoned quizzer. My brother
got me interested in this. He has been quizzing for ages." The
chap:"Your name is Josyula? Is your brother Krishnamachari Josyula, who
was on Mastermind?" Me: (Aiyya baaboi!! Does this indicate that my brother
is not a total waste candidate after all?) "Krishnamurthi, yes."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The main upshot of the
exposure of surnames in a deeply caste-riven society is to make everyone conscious
of such from an impressionable age.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook', serif; font-size: 12pt;">There is a lot to be said for people going through at least
childhood and adolescence oblivious to their friends’ ‘family background’, and
ideally even their own. Surely ignorance of some tags permits more people to be
weighed more on their own merit, rather than on advantages or disadvantages
bestowed by history and contemporary society. Caste has a way of rearing its
head when adulthood hits – in institution-hunts, job-hunts and mate-hunts. I’ve
heard of college boys scanning the roster of incoming juniors to decide which
girl to line-<i>maaro</i>, based on the surname – a distasteful, though
pragmatic move. At least if things actually culminate in contemplation of
marriage, one is less likely to have to face threats of disownment by family,
ostracism of family, suicide or sulking of family members, and perhaps
elimination of self and beloved.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Another significant change in the presentation of the Telugu name
is the order: from surname-given name to given name-surname. It doesn’t sound
all that comical when an initial is placed at the end of the name rather than
at the beginning. But some names sound quite Yoda-esque when the surname in
full is placed after the given name. Many surnames have prefixes that mean
“of_”, as in the Hindi “_ke”. So a full name, modern-style could sound “Lakshmi
Jos.. ke” instead of the smoother “Jos..ke Lakshmi”. [This rearrangement of
the order of the given name and surname applies to any traditional naming
pattern, say the Malayali one, that is turned on its head by the new way.]</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Why did Telugu surnames go from being modestly wrapped up in
initials to having to be used in full in daily interactions? “<i>Thank you for
being on hold, Mr. <span style="background: white;">Chilukapatchanulla. (You
may be sure that I won’t put you on hold again, because I can’t put my vocal
apparatus through another such workout.)</span></i><span style="background: white;">” My thoughts spring to one reason – the computerisation (read
Americanisation) of our lifestyles. Try creating an email/Facebook identity
with the name J. K. Lakshmi – actually, please don’t try this! Even if you did,
you would face a few stone walls. The only way I’ve succeeded sometimes is by
entering “J. K.” as my first name, and “Lakshmi” as my last. Otherwise, I’ve
had to bite the bullet and be Lakshmi K. Josyula. In some fora, I’m Josyula K.
Lakshmi, which is a shade less painful, and serves to bridge the gap between L.
K. Josyula and J. K. Lakshmi.</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-IN" style="background: white; font-family: 'Century Schoolbook', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Note: Names here, except for mine, are made up. I hope they
resemble actual names.</span></i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-73237157960783348462014-06-03T22:27:00.001-07:002014-06-04T01:44:31.704-07:00<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<br />
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
</span><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><strong>Nominal matters: Issue 2<o:p></o:p></strong></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><strong>Sisters [brothers-in-law]!<o:p></o:p></strong></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></span><br /></div>
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Malayali woman’s full name is
changing: For the most part, from X-il Y (say Puthenveettil Meenakshi) to YZ
(Meenakshi Mahendran), where X=name of girl’s clan, more precisely, house;
Y=given name of girl; and Z=given name of girl’s father/husband. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Kerala has, for ages, stood out from most
of the rest of the country (with some exceptions in the North East), and in
fact, from most of the rest of the world, by virtue of being a matrilineal
society. A very noticeable declaration of this is in nomenclature. The mother’s
family name is stamped on children, and it is actually the daughters who
propagate it via naming posterity. The sons just hang on to the mother’s family
name till they hang on to life. At least, this is how it has been, historically.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The trend among women over the past
couple of generations seems to be to assimilate into the mainstream, through
the nearest path – that of the Tamil neighbours. Malayali women are dropping
their family-of-birth names and taking on their husband’s names. And, it’s the
husband’s given names, not surnames (true to Tamil form) that are
enthusiastically adopted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The naming of the children is another
fascinating matter: Often, people append the caste tag to the child’s given
name, granting people a glimpse into the general community, but not the
particular family, to which the child belongs. So, you find a Pallavi Warrier
or a Suresh Menon, and are none the wiser about the clan. That’s one track, but
there is another growing in popularity. In my observation, women of the
previous (peri Indian independence) generation, probably the first to use the
husband’s given name, stopped there, and gave their children the mother’s
family-of-birth name. Their children went the next step to take on their husband’s
given names, and confer this name on the children too. Thus, a K. P. Urmila
converts to Urmila Manoharan, but her children fly the ‘K. P.’ flag for a while
more. The ‘K. P.’ boys are not enabled to perform inter-generational transfers
of ‘K. P.’, and as it turns out, their children get the given names of their
fathers, rather than the family names of their mothers. The ‘K. P.’ girls too,
however, jettison the ‘K. P.’ tag and provide their children with the given
names of the husbands. Subsequent generations barely remember ‘K. P.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Is this an exposition of the dwindling
importance of lineage and the ascendancy of the importance of the individual?
If so, why the importance of only the man? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A gradually growing number of couples outside
Kerala is juxtaposing the surnames of the woman and the man, using this
combined surname themselves, and granting the set to their offspring too. But
this is usually with family names, not given names, and applies little or not
at all to Malayali names. With given names in Kerala, a nascent trend is to
append the mother’s and then the father’s to the child’s. Thus, a Jaya marries
a Mukundan, calls herself Jaya Mukundan, and her children are Divya Jaya
Mukundan, and Varun Jaya Mukundan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span lang="EN-IN" style="font-family: "Bookman Old Style","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Questions may arise about my name now:
Am I shouting the mother’s family-of-birth name out from the rooftops, or
certificates? No, I’m not. I’m a special case (but everyone already knows
that!). My matrilineal-origins mother married my patrilineal-origins father and
promptly sold out, in a very nuanced manner: She took my father’s given name,
and gave us children our father’s family name. When I grew up a bit, and took
stock of all this, particularly the consonance or lack thereof of my name and
those of my cousins, on either side, I asked my father why we were named like
we were. He said I was free to choose my mother’s family name, and could switch
to it if I liked. But by then, I was so attached to my name that it would have
been a wrench to change it. Also, I didn’t want to confuse the Nobel Foundation.
So, I stick to my name, and comment on the alterations in other Malayali women’s
names.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-8732576137302595532014-05-24T23:11:00.000-07:002014-05-25T11:09:24.458-07:00<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Nominal matters: Issue 1<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">“Grand”fathers making a name for
themselves (and family)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Vanakkam. What’s happening to
Tamil names, in particular, surnames / “last names”? In the melee of Indian
surnames which acknowledged profession/caste/place of origin, and placed
themselves before/during/after the first/given name, Tamil nomenclature
stood out as fresh and only need-to-know informative. Your first name followed/preceded by your father’s first name, altered for most women by matrimony to your first
name followed by your husband’s. Caste/ place/ profession, thank you, no
mention. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Celebrities often added the
place, <i>vide</i> Umayalpuram Kasiviswanatha
Sivaraman or Elamanur Madhavan Bhargava. Others replaced the father’s name with
the caste, e.g. Kalpana Iyer, Venkatesh
Iyengar. Some introduced the place and caste, and dispensed with the father’s
name, e.g., Madurai Mani Iyer. Some, free from constraining character-limits,
piled the place and caste to the father’s name and their own, <i>vide</i> </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Ariyakkudi Tiruvengadam Ramanuja Iyengar. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Some name layouts are a little confusing at first. Take Viswanathan Anand,
whose wife is Aruna Anand, and son Akhil Anand. It would seem that he is
distributing his father’s name all over his nuclear family, but no –
Viswanathan is his father’s name. He merely places it before his given name
Anand, which placement is the tradition that is getting somewhat disturbed now,
with the insistence on “last names” following “first names”. Had it been
strapped up as “V. Anand”, nobody would have batted an eyelid, realising
clearly that V was his father’s name.</span><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">In the past few decades, Tamil first names they are a-changing: first, the doors
have been thrown wide open to Sanskrit-via-Hindi names. The Elangovans,
Ezhilarasis and Maragadams are bound for the history books. “-an” has been and
is declining rapidly: Yesterday’s Raghavan is today’s Raghav, and he will pick
Rohit over Senthil for his son’s name. The Divyas and Ramyas of today are
ceding ground to the Diyas and Rias of tomorrow. And slowly (and small-ly) at
the moment, surnames are changing too – in the direction of constancy. The Tamil
grandfather of today’s Tamil baby is bequeathing his name to all posterity,
literally. He getting his name etched in indelible ink/laser print, on
passports, certificates and forms, as the surname of everyone in the family who
follows him – his sons, (perhaps) their wives, and their kids, (perhaps) wives
of said kids, and grandkids… All these perhapses because Tamil women, with all
their non-Tamil sisters, are increasingly not as gung-ho about adopting their
husbands’ names as sticking to their birth names (in this case their fathers’).
So we have a Govindarajan Kothandaraman marrying an Apsara Gopalarathnam, not
catalysing a name change despite the acknowledged chemistry ;), and going on to
name two little ones Vibha Govindarajan and Srinath Govindarajan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I wonder what pressure forms (and form-generators) put on parents who pick
a grandfather’s name, and share and share alike: Perhaps surnames within the
family have GOT to coincide, or else. If your name is AB and your child’s not
–B, it’s not your child!! So we may find that a Mahesh Ramanathan’s wife calls
herself Kamakshi Ramanathan, and their child is a Rahul Ramanathan, whose kids
are Aryan Ramanathan and Akanksha Ramanathan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 6.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<i style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Note: I thank all my friends whose names (and their
fathers’, of course!) I have used here. I don’t need to thank celebrities, except
the ones who are my friends </span></i><i style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-ascii-font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: "Palatino Linotype"; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span></i><i style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">, and that I’ve already done ibid. The other names are made up, and any
resemblance to an actual family is coincidental, though not unintended.</span></i>Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-44420377437587863362013-05-19T09:19:00.003-07:002013-05-19T09:20:42.120-07:00Attn: Incompetent, inaccurate mimics of the Malayalam accent <span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">[on behalf of my long-suffering, eye-rolling,
teeth-gnashing Malayalee sistaezhs and bruthaezhs] <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">No, it’s not as easy as you seem to think it is.
You can’t just replace all Ps with Bs, all Ts with Ds, and all Ks with Gs, and
think it’s done. For the minority among you (incompetents still, but somewhat
less pathetic) who have given this a thought or two more, double displacement,
which is a robust feature of most accents, will not meet the case fully either.
By this I mean that you can’t replace Ts with Ds while cleverly replacing Ds
with Ts, and think it’s done. There is much more to it, so get the wax and the
prejudice out of your ears, and appear silent instead of stupid till you get it
right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There are at least 2 pronunciations of the letter
L, and more than most people can ever train their vocal apparatus to accomplish
of the nasal sounds. I mention L because there are 2 in the name of the
language itself, and that’s where the mispronunciation (by non-Malayalees)
begins. Avoiding all technical words, here’s a description: The first “l” is
soft, and produced with your tongue flicking the back of your upper teeth. The
second is more forceful, and produced by flicking your tongue against the roof
of your mouth. This second will hereinafter be referred to as L. So
non-Malayalees who say maLLu are already violating this rule. The word, if you
must use it, is mallu. While on Malayalam, a word about the land: It is
kay-ruh-La, not K-ray-la.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A few illustrations of the traps that
ill-informed Malayalee mimics fall into, as well as some solutions, follow. Some
of these shoes will fit. Wear them and cringe!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Century Schoolbook";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(i)<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">While in Talk-yoh (not Dock-yoh), the
capital of the cundree (not guntry) Japan, you can dream about the oh-toes in
India.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Century Schoolbook";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(ii)<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">You may well deposit money in a
baang, but don’t expect to see a gangaroo in Australia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Century Schoolbook";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(iii)<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Trousers may be a paand, and briefs
paandees, they are never a baand and baandees.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Century Schoolbook";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(iv)<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Political intrigue may involve
cone-spiracies, there are no gone-spiracies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Century Schoolbook";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(v)<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Kagadiyas may have ruled Warangal,
Gagadiyas never did.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Century Schoolbook"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Century Schoolbook";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">(vi)<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Kyoons wear gault jwellery, aant take
part in kyusses, vuhr bussers have to be pressed within a sekent after the
kostin is asked. [Non-Malayalees, please don’t attempt.]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I have to mention that over-flogged dead donkey –
the pronunciation of MOON. I call it a dead donkey because, contrary to the
popular expectation, it is no horse. Find me a Malayalee who says Yum, Yo, (yet)
Yanuther Yo, Yun, and I will show you a badly imitated Tamil. It’s the old old
blunder that people make of classifying everyone south of the Vindhyas as
Madraasi, and proceeding to make an appalling hash of all the accents. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Kindly don’t make fools of yourselves “imitating”
the accent. It’s good to have the facts in any case, but imperative to have the
facts when you are ridiculing something. So be more observend, and more
skillful, else, you mo-rones, F-oaf.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Century Schoolbook","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-60016828818913011452013-05-06T20:19:00.002-07:002013-05-07T04:32:21.650-07:00Thank you for providing the details, Ms. Lakshmi.<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></b><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">The proliferation of telephone answerers – customer
service agents, marketing agents, relationship agents, activation agents, and
surely many more titles that I am unaware of – has led to everyone’s needing to
talk to these faceless, and unfortunately often clueless, individuals every now
and then.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Calisto MT', serif; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">These people have been trained in smoothness, never mind
how important smoothness is, especially compared to effectiveness, or
efficiency. One tenet of politeness in the contemporary world of high traffic
of goods and services is the use of the name. “Learn and use the name of the
persons you are communicating with to make them feel special/important” seems
to be the guiding principle for agents in their telephone conversations with
customers. Not a terrible idea in itself, and not bad if used very sparingly,
so that, for instance, the customer doesn’t wonder if she/he has been in the
middle of the resolution of someone else’s problem for the past 15 minutes. But
a terrible idea the way it is used by many these days.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><br />
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">Typical experience:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">
<span style="background-color: #ffe599;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;">I (after many minutes of listening to an unnaturally
chirpy advertisement listing the various exciting discounts lined up by the
company for me, or then to some listless music, after punching numbers in
accordance with pre-recorded menus): Hello.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">Agent: Thank you for calling [company name]. This is
[name blurted out]. May I know your [membership/account/telephone] number?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">
<span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">I: 12345678910<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">
<span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">Agent (after a short pause in which the mystery person
behind the said number is unveiled): Ms. Lakshmi?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: large;">
<span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">I: Yes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;">
<span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">Agent: May I ask for some details, Ms. Lakshmi?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">I: Yes.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Calisto MT;"></span><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Calisto MT; font-size: large;">Agent: Ms. Lakshmi, can you confirm your address/email/date of birth?</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: 'Calisto MT', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">I (wondering why they don’t proceed to ask for time of
birth/nakshatram/gotram) recite the answers.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">Agent: Thank you for providing the details, Ms. Lakshmi.
How can I help you, Ms. Lakshmi?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">I: I have @##%^ problem. I called about it before, and
was told that… etc.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">Agent: Very sorry for the inconvenience, Ms. Lakshmi. May
I place you on hold while I look into this, Ms. Lakshmi.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">I: Okay.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">Back to unnaturally enthusiastic advertisement or
listless music, or worse, the call drops!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">I (after many minutes of the rigmarole again): Hello.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">Agent: Thank you for calling [company name]. This is
[name blurted out]. May I know your [membership/account/telephone] number?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">I: I just called, and went through this whole process.
The call got disconnected, and I had to go through this again. You have my
phone number. If the call drops again, can you call me?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">Agent: I understand your problem, mam. Very sorry for the
inconvenience, mam. But we cannot call, mam.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">I: Why not?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">Agent: We are not having the authority to call from here,
mam. We can only receive calls, mam. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">I: Do you have a direct number that I can call if this
drops?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">Agent: No, mam. You have to come through the customer
service number only. May I know your [membership/account/telephone] number?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">Back to the grind, then a transfer to some other
department, more music or exciting offers, more risk of the call going off.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: #ffe599; font-size: large;">Later, a text message asking me to evaluate the
transaction I just had.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">It’s frustrating enough that my problem is confessedly in
the hands of someone who doesn’t have much, or any, authority. Do I need to
have this so-called politeness stuffed in my ears too?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;">If there’s any analyst actually going through the
conversations that may be “monitored or recorded for quality control”, we may
find out that my exasperated guess is correct – that if all the “Ms. Lakshmi”s
were added up, the problem that I called about could have presumably been solved
before the first call dropped.</span>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Customer service agents, please note: There is (almost)
no danger of my forgetting my own name. The danger is that <em>you</em> may forget it, which is not a catastrophe, but if you think it
is, do this: As soon as I utter my name or you get it from the electronic
record that pops up, keep it visible, on a note or on your screen. If in the
conversation that follows, you are unable to find something to fill an empty
second at the end of your assurance that my account is shipshape, utter my
name. Else, let that empty second be. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Politeness is good. Actually, an absence of rudeness is
good enough. The really important need is for the problem to be solved. Icing
in the absence of a decent cake is not only no use, but also severely annoying.
Once you solve my problem, call me Ms. Lakshmi as many times as your supervisor
wants, while I hang up smiling. Till then, place a timer on your table that
goes off every 3 minutes, and call me by name only when it goes off. If you’re
really good, you won’t have to at all. If the resolution of my problem takes
longer, at least you won’t have to say my name more frequently than every 3
minutes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;">All this is not even considering that fact that when you
attach a “Ms.” to my name, you might avoid leaving the name bald. But that’s
another story altogether. For now, just don’t take my name in vain.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
</span>Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-39105917228428100392013-04-29T20:44:00.000-07:002013-05-15T09:23:16.471-07:00Dr., No <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 115%;">–
on the inseverability of the title from certain graduates’ names<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 115%;">What is this (pre)fixation that Indian medical
practitioners have with the prefix ‘doctor’? It is only a prefix, but quickly
wriggles its way into the position of a praenomen, with both the individual in
question and his/her associates taking every care to stuff it down people’s
throats. Witness non-medical, social conversations such as –<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(i)
Caller: “Hello, could I speak to Sangeeta please? It’s about the matrimonial website
profile.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Responder
(Raised eyebrows, (un)fortunately invisible to the caller): “Yes, this is Dr.
Sangeeta speaking.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Caller
(unspoken): Ooh baby! You’re never going to be Dr. Mrs. Me!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>(ii) “Could
I speak to Dr. Anjali*. This is Dr. Sunita’s* father calling.”</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(*both young medical
students, neither even technically a doctor yet)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(iii) <i>Cameraman: “Sir, please say your name and
designation, and then describe the programme.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Interviewee:
“Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Satyanarayana, director of the Board of Pseudohypertrophic
Medicos.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 115%;">Not to mention the innumerable lists of names you will
find of participants in many conferences: Dr. A, Dr. B, Dr. C, Dr. S, Dr. W, Dr.
T, P, Q, F, and H. Evidently, P, Q, F, and H do not warrant any title –
after all, they are not doctors. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 115%;">Granted it is a “noble profession”. If there is any
doctor who hasn’t heard this, obviously he/she didn’t go to medical college in
India. People who fulfill needs are naturally popular, wanted, welcome, or respected,
depending on the urgency and importance of the needs and sometimes the
individual’s skill to address them. So it is that someone who can attend to
your body in its distress is much wanted and more respected than someone who
can design a comfortable house for you, or give you a dashing haircut. The
noble aura of the profession comes from the tacit understanding that
compassionate service will be provided, and ability and well-being restored,
preferably without taxing the poor recipient to despair. This purported
nobility is questionable, if the contemporary state of society and the current
membership of medical colleges are examined. Private medical colleges are
prohibitively expensive. An enrollee may be expected to slog and pass out (in
more ways than one) and then devote him/herself to years of money-making to
redeem the outlay for the course – not the most natural circumstance for a
service orientation. Government medical colleges offer excellent and far more
affordable education, but to whom? Only a sliver of the truly outstanding applicants;
the rest of the places go to those who may not be there on the basis of
“merit”, and could go on to make somewhat indifferent graduates. So, there is a
good chance that many doctors out in society today are not all that brilliant,
or not as focused on nurturing health as on cultivating money. So much for
noble professions. Surely all of us have come across doctors who have surprised
us with their narrow minds, poor observation skills, and suboptimal advice.
With time, even the healthcare system, somewhat uncomplicated in the decades
past, has taken on corporatized, commercial, discriminatory, and confusing
shades, incorporating a complex rigmarole of unfriendly insurance <i>schemes</i>, exorbitant drug pricing, and
medical philosophy hegemonies. To complicate matters further, consider the fact
that the average doctor today is not a health specialist, but actually a
disease specialist. Health is so much more than just a freedom from a long list
of ailments – but this is something that most people, including doctors, don’t
have the luxury of reflecting on, beset as they are by one or more of a long
list of ailments!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 115%;">To return to the wide popularity of doctors, a health practitioner is clearly the only emergency
executive whom everyone sanctions – it is difficult to imagine a socially
accepted call to a tailor / lawyer / carpenter / beautician / architect at 2
a.m. You might call a policeman at 2 a.m., but policemen aren’t generally
scholarly, and seldom eliminate pain. In short, granted that doctors could do
much. Train reservation forms ask for this information for just this reason.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 115%;">From the origin of the term 'doctor' itself comes an
understanding of another reason why doctors are respected – they are learned.
The tradition continues. Through the centuries, doctors have been expected to be
well-read, to remember truckloads, and to correlate concepts promptly. Arguably
every profession has a great deal of knowledge and skill for practitioners to
internalize and demonstrate, but the arenas for most skills are somewhat
circumscribed compared to the arena for knowledge related to the human body.
Not everyone has a mansion to landscape, a feast to cater, or a sibling to
fight over a legacy, but everyone has a body, and most will claim, a
troublesome body. And everyone is curious about its workings – even the
fashion-unconscious stockbroker who doesn’t care about the recipe for <i>mirchi ka saalan</i> wants to know why a
blow to the solar plexus could stun someone. There’s no end to the stage, or
the mirror, for a doctor’s preening.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 115%;">Medical education is expensive – in terms of time and
effort, certainly, and all too often in terms of money too. Students who have
breezed through over a decade of education from childhood to teenage, come up
short at the first set of examinations and face the horror of sleep-robbing
days of study, poring over model question papers, all academic snobbery discarded,
some even turning theistic at this juncture, mentally crawling through the
written, practical and oral trials just to bloody pass, forget first-class and
distinction. Of course, the ignominy of failing an examination in a medical
course isn’t too great – many wonderful people have trod that path. The next
few waves of examinations are never as bad as the first, even if they’re
tougher, because by now the student is tougher too. Anyway, after years of
this, and torturous labs, and horrific hospital rounds, students feel that
they’ve earned the title. So they have. But to use in a professional set up.
Not to attend a wedding in. You may be Dr. So-and-so in a hospital, or in a
healthcare conference. In a recreational club, a movie theatre, or your cousin’s
house, you’re So-and-so, maybe even an insufferable old so-and-so. That’s it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 115%;">Rampant in India is the custom of calling people
Dr./Mr./Ms. [first name], no initials or surname. This is an unintended sort of
name-dropping that people do – analogous to going barefoot while wearing a
three-piece suit. And it is fairly silly – when you take the trouble to attach a
title such as "Dr." to the name, shouldn't you take the next (previous?) logical
step and add the surname/initials too? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 115%;">What about the universally recognized scholars? PhDs. A lot like medicos who go through the academic and clinical grind
for years and emerge with the feeling that they might as well have been named
“doctor” at birth, are the PhDs who once they get the coveted letters following
their name feel affronted if anyone refers to them as “Ms./Mr.”. PhDs should
ask themselves if they really are Dr. So-and-sos at a child’s birthday party,
or just bloody gift-bearing, cake-chomping so-and-sos. Among PhDs is a strong
feeling that only they deserve the title "doctor", or then medicos who have
slogged for a comparable number of years and at least earned an MD. It irks
many a PhD to find bachelors of medicine calling themselves doctors. This
complex is complicated further in countries where there is no bachelor’s degree
of medicine (e.g., USA), and where surgeons were traditionally not doctors
(e.g., England), and therefore not addressed as “Dr.”, but instead as “Mr.”
(female surgeons were obviously hard to come by in those days). However it must
be noted that PhDs are better about confining their airs and affronts to their
academic circles, and refrain from strewing their titles around as
indiscriminately as medical graduates do, perhaps for some of the reasons
outlined <em>ibid</em>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">There are situations in which the title “Dr.” can be
parlayed to good use – such as in a diagnostic centre or hospital (when you are a
visitor, and can have the benefit, and admittedly the pleasure, of being taken
seriously instead of being herded around like sheep). </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">Contemporary society is such that people have a reflex
surge of respect for anyone with the title "doctor" (medical or not), and so it
is a title that can be used to convey respect. Which is to say that if you want
to register respect for a doctor, you can rightfully introduce her/him as “Dr.”
But note that this is strictly one-way: Far from sounding respectful, and
indeed respectable, it sounds pompous and overly self-important when you
introduce yourself as “Dr.” And worse still when you say, “My name is Dr.
So-and-so” rather than “I am Dr. So-and-so”. Surely you cannot mean to suggest
with a straight face that your name is Doctor.</span></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“What’s
your name?”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Dr. So-and-so.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Interesting
name. What do you do?”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“D-uh,
I’m a doctor.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Wow!
Are your parents astrologers?”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lighten up, doctors. Keep your profession in its place,
and your stage name for use when you play the role. At other times, be Doctor?
No.</span><span style="font-family: JasmineUPC, serif; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28604934.post-24799149429972193612013-04-19T12:50:00.004-07:002013-04-19T21:16:53.662-07:00Pay per napkin - the tissue issue<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">“Where do you keep your tissue
paper?” my 10-year old niece asked me.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">“Nowhere. There’s no tissue in
this house,” I replied, and received a nonplussed expression in return.</span></i><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Even though this relatively young
kid had gathered over the years that I was somewhat strange, this was carrying
things too far, her expression conveyed.</span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
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</div>
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">When did paper napkins become an integral part of
an Indian household? And how, and why?</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Arguably the biggest of the contemporary gods,
Convenience is an inadequate explanation. Indians travel greater distances than
ever before – on a daily basis and on longer trips for business or leisure. And
travelling complicates many activities – eating, eliminating bodily wastes, sleeping,
lazing, washing, even falling sick. Disposable cleaning agents come in here for
some of us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">For some others though, they come in even when
there’s no travelling with constrained provisions happening. For “hygiene”, it
is said. Hygiene? In its broadly understood narrow sense, hygiene refers to
physical cleanliness, and implies frequent washing and wiping. Cleansing has
occurred for centuries, in fact, well before paper was invented. So, how this
focus on paper napkins for hygiene? Flowing water, and a piece of cloth, or
just dry air did the job, and did it pretty well, all this time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">A runny nose, and/or watering eyes: (a) An
infection? Some may argue that this calls for disposable towels because real,
enthusiastic germs are at large. I would stick to a couple of handkerchiefs –
one for the eyes and another for the nose – and wash them frequently. (b) An
allergy? Then there isn’t even anything dangerous that could be spread. So why
the stack of tissues? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">It’s remarkable how hand hygiene – all the rage in
the prevention and control of communicable diseases – frankly demands
disposable paper. Campaign after campaign describes in great detail how you
ought to rinse, soap, scrub and rinse again using warm water, and then use a
paper towel to wipe your hands, and another paper towel to turn the tap off!
What’s the fuss about? Why are we treating our (healthy) body parts like
vulnerable convalescents? What’s the problem with dousing the tap with a
palmful of water at the end of the washing session? What’s the problem with the
quick wipe on a personal handkerchief<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>or
a moderately public towel, or even the swipe on the dupatta/ pallu/ skirt/
trouser leg? How do we come to treat everything we are exposed to as a
potential threat, a paper napkin as a neutral agent, and the discarding of a
used napkin as summary freedom from dirt and infection? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">One clue lies in the appearance of the paper
napkin. Carefully constructed to resemble cloth, and almost always white to indicate
purity. But is white always pure? White is not exactly a natural shade for
cloth or paper; it is achieved through bleaching – with strong chemicals that
do not exclude your body from their sphere of influence. Besides snow, salt,
milk, chalk, and curd, I can barely think of anything that’s naturally white.
And even this list is sometimes off-white, or “half white” as some prefer to
call it! Most white substances in daily use, e.g., sugar, cloth, paper, and
certainly disposable napkins, are bleached – with something strong enough to
erase the natural colour of an organic entity. Is your skin or mucous membrane
as tough? Really? Still, if white equals pure in the mind of the contemporary
person, here’s my next question: Is “pure” always the best thing to have? But
this is an avenue for another trip.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Why not use the real thing – cloth that shows
grime in time so it can be cleaned promptly? How do we come to associate
use-and-throw with cleanliness? Why are we unable to use a scrubber or a brush
on a surface and rinse it later? Why this drive to use a paper towel and then
eliminate it from view?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">Going beyond the physical acts of washing,
disinfecting and drying, consider where paper napkins often play a role in
“health” – as an oil-blotter. Too many quick and easy recipes that end in
complex, well-presented, and supposedly salubrious dishes call for paper
napkins to soak up excess oil from deep-frying. Why not ditch deep-frying?
Okay, okay. Why not at least use a colander to let the oil through into another
receptacle?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; font-size: large; line-height: 115%;">How can makeshift sheds on the highway, ramshackle
food carts on busy city roads, and rather more upscale restaurants sprinkled
across every residential and commercial area, all have bunches of paper napkins
on offer, in addition to the blue drum and water jug/used paint bucket and steel
glass/ miniscule wash basin with Lifebuoy soap/marble washrooms with sensor-equipped
taps? The quality may vary, but paper napkins are cheap. Too cheap to have
taken into account the colossal dent they make in the environment in their
sourcing and manufacture. And too cheap to have considered the unaesthetic mess
they make in their thoughtless disposal. If paper napkins were priced in
consonance with their environmental cost, people would discover in a blinding
flash that they could rinse their hands with water from a blue drum, or skim
over a Lifebuoy soap and under a tap, and let their hands dry, without
perturbing either their schedule or their ideal of hygiene.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Back to my niece. I asked why she wanted tissue, so
I could make an offer from a range, mostly of cloth: Handkerchief? Mop? Towel?
Counter-wipe? Dust cloth? My own palm to be washed later? </i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>She complied, for the
moment. She needed a mop, and got it. </i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>I have no hope of weaning her away from
paper napkins though – she’s surrounded by the benighted things at home, at
school, in restaurants, at friends’ homes, at social gatherings, in short,
everywhere but in my house. </i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Palatino Linotype","serif"; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>‘Can’t wash my hands off this one…</i></span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18076139460018242558noreply@blogger.com1