Vices and People..

Some of the most entertaining and likeable people I know smoke and drink. Interestingly, all of them are men. They belong to different generations and some of them have quite a number of other vices as well -- women, gambling etc.. But they're charming rascals all the same! A lot of my strait-laced friends are quite interesting in their own way. But they lack that dare-devil, happy-go-lucky, crowd-pleasing charm of the former category.

Do entertaining/interesting people have vices because they're very open to new experiences and sometimes, these new experiences turn out to be addictive? Or does having vices generally gives you a certain perspective about human life that you become extremely tolerant and well-loved by other people?

The month of goodbyes

February has been the month of endings for me. Faced with the economic slump, my company let go of some employees. My teammate, someone I’ve worked with for the past two years, bid farewell to work last Thursday. It was sad for me to watch him go.

February was also the month when my periappa bade farewell to this world forever. He passed away on Feb 12 suddenly due to cardiac arrest. For many years, our families had been estranged due to various reasons. I had my own resentments toward him. But that’s not how I want to remember him. Life’s all about editing out the bad parts and retaining the good ones. 20 years from now, I know I’d like to remember my periappa fondly.

He was a man of many excellent qualities. Proud and determined, he along with his brothers, rose up in life through sheer hardwork and dedication. My father used to say that he had vowed to either get into the IAS or do nothing else at all. Of course, he got through and was extremely successful at work. He made as many friends as he did enemies and he did both with passion.

He liked his arguments. Equally at ease with politics, religion or current trends, he would argue with Mani periappa for hours on end. It was very entertaining for the younger members of the family to watch them fight passionately about something totally unrelated to their daily lives. Personally, I used to wonder at his oratory, eloquence and stamina in holding onto his position. My love for English literature was definitely fueled by his oratory and command of the language! 

During one of his visits to Trichy, he asked me if I wanted to go eat “good rava dosai and godhumai halwa”.  I thought we would go to some nearby restaurant. At exactly around 4.30 in the evening, we both set out to the “best place to eat evening tiffin”. We ended up at the junction of Big Street and Gandhi Market at a small hole in the wall called “Rama’s Cafe”. And sure enough, the home-style rava dosai and halwa served there were the best in the entire town! He loved his food. During family get-togethers, as we all sat down to eat in the traditional banana-leaf, he would pick the “right” banana leaf that would let him have his fill of payasam. Too narrow and you can’t pour too much liquid in it. Too flimsy and the food will fall out of the leaf. He would have the rich payasam toward the end of the meal (instead of in between courses as is the tradition) so nothing else would taint its taste! :)

He was a towering figure in the family in many respects. He raised my father, educated him and helped him make it in life. He helped countless family numbers financially, morally and in other ways. Ultimately, the qualities that made him formidable at work -- pride and stubbornness-- also contributed to his estrangement from the family. He came to my wedding and the last few words he spoke to me were words of blessing. 

My grandmother used to say that my brother was the exact replica of how Pasupathy periappa used to look in his childhood. B definitely has periappa in his make-up somewhere. He sleeps like periappa -- one leg crossed over the other knee. He loves sweets as much as periappa did and he has the same streak of stubborn-ness in him. Maybe that’s why periappa loved him so much. 

I am glad I didn’t see periappa’s body in the end. I find it very hard to imagine a man of his vitality lying very cold and still. Farewell, periappa, rest in peace.

I think Gunpun was my first "best friend". Whatever "best friend" means these days. Sometimes you find yourself confiding personal things to colleagues, neighbors or just acquaintances because they're available to listen! S, one of my closest friends, is in India and I hardly get to talk to her these days. So last week, my colleague poured out his kids' illness woes to me and I found myself telling him about my visa problems, green card etc...Anyways, but I do think that Gunpun & I would've grown up together as fast friends if we'd been in the same town.

He moved to Stuart school a few kilometers away from home since Bhagavanlu school was only a nursery school with classes only till Preparatory. I was disconsolate for a week and even cried in class. Besides, I was in Preparatory now (next to UKG) and I had a horrible class monitor called Likki. She was a really thin girl and kept calling me "moti" in class. I even believe she secretly made fun of my plump cheeks. To make things worse, she always made first rank beating me by a couple of marks. Suffice to say, we didn't see eye to eye.

But serendipitously, I got double promoted as well after a couple of months in Prep! So I got to skip 1st grade and go to the 2nd grade. And I was to join Gunpun at Stuart school. Yippeee! I threw tantrums and got into the same section as he was in. I think he was also elated to see me. Mrs. Das, the class teacher, made me sit next to some weird girl. I got all upset because I wanted to sit next to Gunpun. My father told me to be a "good girl" and articulate my request to Mrs. Das myself. But I was terrified of being denied. So I complained loudly to my parents and cried so much that my Dad came down to school one day and told Mrs. Das that I had to sit next to Gunpun. I think he was very annoyed at having to leave work and rush to school mid-day because of his temperamental kid. But it turned out that Mrs. Das was my father's colleague's wife and they had a nice chit-chat about me and everything else under the sun.

Everything turned out OK. Gunpun and I remained best friends. I spent a lot of time at their house. His younger brother, Tathu, was a particularly fun kid to be around with! For a change, Gunpun & I could boss him around because he was younger to us by 2 years. Hehe. He was eager to please us both and he'd do anything we asked him to. Apart from all that, Tathu & I had a bond. I felt all protective about him and he was very affectionate to me (called me his elder sister and all that!). He was a bit naughty though and used to get in trouble with the colony dog -- Balu.

Balu Dog was none's dog in particular but everyone in the colony loved him. He was kinda common property and ate at whosever place he wished to. He was also the protector of the colony. He'd bark and chase down any strangers at night and I think, once, he even caught a thief. Tathu, being the boisterous kid he was, would throw stones at Balu or tie tin cans to his tail. Balu was a very, very patient dog and put up with troublesome kids better than most. Once, my brother put one of his building blocks into Balu's mouth and stuck his hand in to retrieve it. Poor Balu still had his mouth wide open when my Mom rushed out to find my brother happily fishing in his mouth. But Tathu drove Balu nuts. He'd harangue the poor thing so much that Balu would bark loudly and chase him madly down the street. Anyways, none would believe Tathu when he complained against Balu. Such was Balu Dog's standing in Acharya Vihar!

The night before we left Bhubaneswar for good, Balu came to our house and slept in our verandah with a sad face. Somehow, he knew we were leaving. My dad gave him food but he refused to eat. He stayed with us until the last minute when we got in a car to leave. As hard as this is to believe, my parents thought he had tears in his eyes as he watched us go..:(

I don't know if Gunpun & I would've been good friends if we'd grown up together. One never knows about these things. But I'd definitely love to at least know where he is and what he's doing right now. So, Devidutta Panda, if you ever land up on this blog and remember me, do drop me a line! I'd love to catch up on life with you!

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Gunpun, Tathu And Balu Dog

'Tis the cold,miserable weather outside that's making me turn to warm memories for comfort. Hence this nostalgic post.

As a child, I'd like to think I was quite independently minded although, Lily Madam -- my LKG teacher -- phrased it a bit unflatteringly as "stubborn and sometimes moody". I don't think I liked my initial school years very much. Mom had taught me alphabets, numbers, colors, animals, nursery rhymes and what-not even before I went to school. And I found it very boring to sing "A B C D" all day in LKG when I knew how to do it quite well. And what was with all the classwork and homework stuff?

"Write A B CD 10 times"
"Write 1 to 100 10 times"

If I could write 1 to 100 correctly 1 time, what sense does it make to write it 10 times? So I refused to do this absolutely boring homework. I was very logical even when I was 3 and my teacher didn't see my genius. She made us write our homework in the calendar book so parents could monitor them. Because I was refusing to note it down in my calendar, Lily Madam did it herself. The next morning when my Dad came to drop me off at school, she promptly complained to him:

"Your daughter refuses to write her homework down in the calendar. So I do it for her now. And if I ask her to write the alphabets 5 times, she does it just one time! Please check her calendar at home and make sure she does it right."

Hmph. None listens to a 3 year old, anyway. So I was forced to actually do my homework with my mom watching me while I did it. She wouldn't let me play if I didn't finish HW right after school. So, I came up with an ingenious plan. If I had to write numbers from 1 to 100, I'd write 1 to 50 correctly. Then, I'd skip numbers in between. Like, I'd skip 53-59 and 71 to 75 etc...This way, no one could find out and everyone would be happy with their stupid homeworks. Hehehehe. Mom and Lily Madam would scan through the first few rows of numbers and the last few rows (I wouldn't blame them. It must be sooo boring to look at the same numbers in 30 different notebooks). And I'd make sure I wrote them perfectly. In between, I had my freedom to do as I choose!

This actually worked for sometime. But then, one day, mom got suspicious about how fast I was completing my homework and she started scanning everything. She was furious when she found out my little scheme of cheating! I whined to her that she knew I knew how to write 1 to 100 but to no avail. She notified Lily Madam of this trick the next day. Of course, I was out of sorts and hated Lily Madam for the rest of the day. I was sulking, didn't pay attention to her and I kept asking for bathroom breaks. So she unfairly commented that I was a "moody child". Duh.

Here's where Gunpun came in. His real name is Devidutta Panda and he lived down the street from us in Acharya Vihar. My mom decided she needed someone to monitor me at school. She made Gunpun sit next to me in class. I didn't like him at first. After all, what kid likes an overseer? I kept pinching or scratching him so he'd go away to some other desk. But he just put his metal, school box in between us so I couldn't do anything without making a lot of noise and the teacher noticing.

I've forgotten the details of how we came to be best friends or how he managed to win my heart. But I do remember that we'd both do our homeworks in the free period at school. We made it a game -- whoever finished last would have to be the seeker in Hide-n-seek that evening. So both of us would scramble to finish first. And then, he would arrange my notebooks neatly in my school box, sharpen my pencils, make sure I'd not forgotten anything in my desk and escort me to my mom or dad after school. I just loved him! :)

After a point, it became so that I'd listen only to him. If Lily Madam wanted me to practice cursive writing between the 2 lines of the 4 line notebook, she'd tell him. And if he promised to write along with me, I'd do it. We would play in the evenings on the street with his little brother. So it was all wonderful until he got double promoted and moved to a different school.

To Be Continued...

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