Of sickness and characters

I recently had the pleasure of another visit by a virus, one that rendered me semi-delusional and running between bathroom and bed more often than I would have liked. I am a frequent home to these viruses, one would think my body and viruses have a good understanding between themselves. I find myself providing a safe bed and lodging to these viruses who only seem to grow in strength while in me and leave once they feel restored enough to take on the world. 

Friends and colleagues often assume my absences for illness even when I am not, such is the frequency of my ailments. Not a very happy thought to be known as a sick person, but as a friend recently put it, I seem to be sick every six weeks. 

Sick characters in books are however hard to find. There are heroes, villains, side-kicks, jokers and many other characters but there is never a sick one. The sick ones usually end up dead at some point in the book. In my case I am quite glad I don't live in a book. Hence I take great pride in the existence of "Stivvings", a character who featured in Jerome K Jerome's "Three Men in a Boat". Given below is the excerpt for reasons why he is memorable:

 There was a boy at our school, we used to call him Sandford and Merton. His real name was Stivvings. He was the most extraordinary lad I ever came across. I believe he really liked study. He used to get into awful rows for sitting up in bed and reading Greek; and as for French irregular verbs there was simply no keeping him away from them. He was full of weird and unnatural notions about being a credit to his parents and an honour to the school; and he yearned to win prizes, and grow up and be a clever man, and had all those sorts of weak-minded ideas. I never knew such a strange creature, yet harmless, mind you, as the babe unborn.

Well, that boy used to get ill about twice a week, so that he couldn't go to school. There never was such a boy to get ill as that Sandford and Merton. If there was any known disease going within ten miles of him, he had it, and had it badly. He would take bronchitis in the dog-days, and have hay-fever at Christmas. After a six weeks' period of drought, he would be stricken down with rheumatic fever; and he would go out in a November fog and come home with a sunstroke.

They put him under laughing-gas one year, poor lad, and drew all his teeth, and gave him a false set, because he suffered so terribly with toothache; and then it turned to neuralgia and ear-ache. He was never without a cold, except once for nine weeks while he had scarlet fever; and he always had chilblains. During the great cholera scare of 1871, our neighbourhood was singularly free from it. There was only one reputed case in the whole parish: that case was young Stivvings.

He had to stop in bed when he was ill, and eat chicken and custards and hot-house grapes; and he would lie there and sob, because they wouldn't let him do Latin exercises, and took his German grammar away from him.

And we other boys, who would have sacrificed ten terms of our school-life for the sake of being ill for a day, and had no desire whatever to give our parents any excuse for being stuck-up about us, couldn't catch so much as a stiff neck. We fooled about in draughts, and it did us good, and freshened us up; and we took things to make us sick, and they made us fat, and gave us an appetite. Nothing we could think of seemed to make us ill until the holidays began. Then, on the breaking-up day, we caught colds, and whooping cough, and all kinds of disorders, which lasted till the term recommenced; when, in spite of everything we could manoeuvre to the contrary, we would get suddenly well again, and be better than ever.

Such is life; and we are but as grass that is cut down, and put into the oven and baked.

Rains in the city

The weekend was one that was truly washed out. The rains struck the city, washing it clean, attempting to drown most of its residents and ensuring that our reputation for having little value for life continues to be true. 16 people died across the state of which five died in Mumbai. Five lives in a city of a crore died on one day. Not a very frightening statistic given the fact that maybe almost two die persons daily due to an accident or crime daily.
What is criminal about these deaths is that they didn't have to take place. It can be argued that neither do those who die of other causes. But then the state doesn't crores of rupees to ensure that those people stay alive. Three of the five people who died were washed away in flood waters. Floods and flooding is unusual to the city. Every year the streets are flooded for at least a couple of days every monsoon, I know since I have been wading through pools of water every monsoon with frightening regularity. But people being washed away by floods to me suggests criminal negligence.
Crores have been spent in widening the Mithi and shifting residents from their homes along its banks. Houses were allegedly moved from near nullahs to prevent them from being washed away. And yet the number rises. South Mumbai is right next to the sea, received more rainfall than the north last weekend and stayed with its head well above water.
We credit the British for their excellent town planning and drainage, then we must criticise our follies in allowing the non construction for the rest of it. For every rule that is modified because money pays for it, for every palm greased and every flouted rule there awaits a death, not necessarily the deserving one.

Aussies will be trounced though no time soon

And the Aussies win yet another World Cup and we go into yet another tizzy wondering over whether we will ever be able to beat them. One can't be too sure about the Indian cricket team given their ability to choke even in the initial stages of a tournament, but the world I am sure will produce a team that will overcome the mighty Aussies. Why do I say that with so much conviction? Because sport like many things in the world is rather cyclical. The Aussies may be having a great time now but for many world cups prior to the last three, they were unable to clinch it. I also look for inspiration to the English Premier League to support my arguments. a few years ago Manchester United (the Red devils for whom no amount of praise is enough ) were on top of the league. They were invincible, ruthless and won almost every damn tournament that they played in. But one year later it was Arsenal that acquired their spot and just two years after that it has been Chelsea FC.
So let us not worry so much about the Aussies' invincibility. It exists and it is not a myth presently (as proven by New Zealand just a few weeks before the World Cup) but then it cannot last forever. If Clive Lloyd and his invincible West Indian team could be trounced I am prettyt sure anyone can be given their industriousness and luck during a tournament.
Also why on earth is the BCCI so concerned about operations in the ICC? With Indian cricket going through a phase that is likely to generate sufficient controversy in the coming days, it seems like a great move to divert attention to irrelevant points. BCCI, with its overflowing cash reserves, has always attracted characters like Jaywant Lele and Niranjan Shah who have the longevity and utility of a World Cup. Now that its over and we have been convincingly trounced let us get the present idiot out and usher in a new one, I would say he deserves the chance to prove his inefficiency and stupidity like his predecessors.

Narcotics, education and the law

280 persons were arrested recently by the Pune police at a rave party near the infotech city. All have subsequently been taken into police custody and we have been reading stories about how all of them were innocent and none of them were part of the group consuming the narcotics that were found at the party.

We have also been subjected to views on how they have received preferential treatment with some being accorded better treatment by the cops than others.

There may be some truths for the police is known to have its own failures and drawbacks. However, while accepting that all of them are not guilty, let us accept that the guilty must be punished and it is not agreeable to consume narcotics. Why then the leniency towards some of them merely because they have the money, education or come from good families? Many of those arrested have been recorded as misbehaving in court, an act that would have fetched any lower criminal a punishment for contempt of court. Others gave false addresses when arrested another act that might have fetched 'special treatment' from the police for their intelligence in doing so.

Many of them as they were released assaulted media persons who filmed their departure from jail, an act that should have attracted sections of the IPC for assault. That mediapersons chose not to and the police did not choose to take action against them for it. And I wonder, why should I feel any sense of sympathy for these people? Are they all really victims of a police force that has nabbed more than they should have? Or are they just people who think that the law is for lesser mortals who do not have the same education as them or the monetary security?

Lets not get into the debate into what is a lesser and greater crime, for a crime is a crime irrespective of who commits it and if found guilty one must pay the price for it. Let the tests come out and the guilty will be separated from the innocent (though money may play an important role in this aspect as well). But let us not get caught in the trap of assuming that all of them are innocent young persons since they are not. Lets hope that justice takes its course just like it would for any other person arrested in a similar case.

Things to think about

Sometimes it takes a conversation to give you a topic to think about. Things that you would not think about ordinarily simply because you would not have to and nothing in the life you lead forces you to think about it (unless it concerns you). So I have decided to chronicle these things for they may be important and might be life saving in some cases while in others may just be interesting knowledge that you could benefit from in the least expected moments of your life.
My topic for the day is: What happens if a lawyer wants to take a toilet break while a case is being heard?
Reliable sources have informed me that nothing can be done and the lawyers have to do something popularly known as "argue and bear it". And its only when the argument is over that they can leave, walk in a dignified manner out of the courtroom and then rush down the corridor maniacally until they find the first loo to empty themselves into. But this has raised frightening possibilities in my paranoid mind.
For I would not want a lawyer who is more worried about his bladder than my case arguing for me. And I can't really blame him/her for it. After all it is human to have a full bladder, a weak one or a bad stomach. Would it be against a lawyer's professional ethics to contest a case while he knew that he might have a full bladder while he was arguing the case? But it does explain why many lawyers after arguing their cases sometimes charge out of courtrooms, ignoring their clients and then vanish and can't be found.
So if you must choose a lawyer make sure he is one that can hold it when it matters. A start would be with gulping multiple glasses of water at your first meeting and waiting to see who goes first. If you go first, and are not a lawyer yourself, you might want to consider your choice.

The Dalai Lama and me

Today was going to be the day they were going to throw it back to me but instead I managed to end up going for a talk by the Dalai Lama. Now obviously it was not a personal meeting, anyone who has seen me would know why, but then it is no less than the Dalai Lama so why would I pass up the opportunity?
For the uninitiated the Dalai Lama is the spiritual head of the Buddhists, one of the religions that has a lot of monks in it and has some pretty soothing music as their hymns. They also preach the usual stuff about truth and being good but with nice terms and they don't ask you to worship any God (at least as far as I know).
The Dalai Lama is an old man who is bald and wears glasses that look like dark glasses. He also cackles like a grandfather, waves to people when they wave to him and laughs at his own jokes which people don't really get. He spoke for two hours and quite expectedly didn't manage to say much. It would be too much to expect anyone to tell everyone how to solve their life's problems in the short span of two hours and he is no different.
And quite admittedly some of the stuff he said was not something unknown to me or many of the people present there. I mean we all know that we should not keep ourselves bottled up, every second woman and study tells us that. He spoke of mantaining inner peace so that you would feel happy in life, but then someone wrote that ages ago in the ancient Vedas. He spoke about tolerance, secularism, AIDS, global warming and everything we read about daily in the newspapers.
So whats so great about this guy? Or what can I say I really learnt from him in two hours of listening to him speak in a tongue as alien to him as his teachings might have been to me? Well that no one knows the answers to my or anyone else's problems. He was asked,"Is secularism dead in India?" and his frank reply,"I don't know! You should know better, you are an Indian!" And he was right. If we can't look into ourselves and know whether we are secular or not, how can we judge society? His answers were not as spiritual as they were practical, he admitted to not knowing answers to anyone's problems and just gave them suggestions. And the best statement for the day? "I once spoke to a religious leader, a friend, and I told him that we need to be less serious so that we make more sense to more people," said the venerable Lama, before cackling happily. I don't know what I expected to see but what was a pleasant surprise was to see an old man, a happy and peaceful old man who could give valuable advice to show you a way and one who knew a few more answers that not many did.

p.s: Though it must be said that the audience of Mumbai was as uncouth as could be. And not the poor who came in their best clothes just to see the Lama but those who came 'dressed down' in their designer ware and sat in the VIP area. They walked off while he was on the stage, they air kissed in the hall before the end and treated it much like they would have a fashion show.
Some may say its Mumbai attitude but its still uncouth and maybe something we could afford to lose.

To war!!! (all for Shilpa)

These are grim times we live in. With the threat of nuclear war looming large over us and the Western and Eastern world very polarized, it is a time to hold your loved ones that bit closer, reminiscence about your life and be convinced that you should have shot your irritating neighbour’s barking dog when you had the chance. If you as usual, have stayed cocooned from the world with the pitiful excuse of work and bettering society, then you my friend have been living in a fool’s world, for a storm has been brewing and it involved a lissome lass from our country who traveled across two seas to be paid to be called a Pakistani and a dog.

Yes, it is to the Shilpa Shetty controversy that I refer. The one involving a foul mouthed woman, a lot of other people, some cameras, and a big house all of which apparently somehow makes up a television show that no one seems to want to watch until a diplomatic issue is created.

Imagine the corridors of the Westminster Abbey on a cold and frosty night, when even the spies grudge themselves a night’s sleep albeit with a bit of guilt. And then they switched on the television where the P-word is put out into the universe and the somewhat weepy Shilpa is called no less than a dog.

Suddenly, phones rang across the UK and the globe, with thousands of Indians calling each other to tell each other that they had seen Shilpa, their own Shilpa, the one who came to see them only when she released a movie that no one wanted to see, being racially insulted. I am sure for a very brief instant the English government feared that the Indians were finally taking over after making them dependent on their now famous curry.

I mean look at it. The mallus have the Gelf, the gujjus have the UH, the sardars have the Kaneda and Africa is to busy fighting with itself and is unlikely to do anything about anything anyway. So I can understand the stab of fear the west felt when they heard of the incident and promptly went into damage control mode by telling us that there was no racism except among common people.

But now as we stand facing each other across two continents, nuclear weapons at the ready, we must wonder, what can we really do? In the words of a villain of a movie starring the incredibly fast Jet Li, “There is a time for diplomacy and there is a time for action…The diplomacy is over.” After that he begins shooting, and Jet Li does his kung fu stuff, and since none of us can do either I say, at least let’s do away with diplomacy. The Brits had the chance and they blew it. Now it’s our turn.

Let us start by calling a British celebrity onto our very own version of the show and put him/her in the same room as our own guys and see how he does. Then when the Brits call to say that they don’t like being called Americans, we can give them the Gabbar Singh laugh. I further say, lets give them a dose of their own medicine by doing the same things that they do. Let us also breed tabloids that publish bilge, breed an attitude of absolute conformism when it comes to foreign policy, be racist to anyone darker than white and have irrelevant national celebrities. The frightening part is, we have done that.