July 16, 2013

We go through life only once ‘one way’ and every day that we leave behind, we become older in our journey from the cradle to the grave. In between, you pass through beautiful and unforgettable moments - both good and bad for tears and joy make the music of life. In this journey, I have come across innumerable instances that have left an everlasting impression of kindness and rudeness, thrills and shrills, slice and spice, beauty and ugliness, the funny and the serious, the lessons learnt and lot lot more that is reserved for another day. For the moment, here are a few clicks of the simple ‘joys of life’ that I have experienced all along life’s way.

The Joys of Life - Having fed the birds with bread crumbs – off they fly in all spendour only to come back a full circle for more food

‘Keep the mouse pending’

While in Abu Dhabi in the Arabian Gulf, I was employed at the UAE Central Bank (the country’s Reserve Bank) for many years. This incident happened in our Department. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank representatives had just arrived and we were kept so busy adhering to deadlines, there was no time to eat so much so we used to have our lunches on our desks while continuing working. Our Secretary was no exception. On the fourth day of the IMF/WB Team’s arrival, she was having her food on her desk gulping morsels and simultaneously working on her PC, when suddenly she gave a frightened shrill and leapt. A mouse was nibbling her food.

The hungry mouse would not leave amidst our cacophony of sounds and in fact got a better foothold inside the food container, chewing its discovery to glory. We were put up on the third floor of the bomb-proof-building and the Governor was on the fourth floor. The message was conveyed to His Excellency, the Governor through the appropriate channels about this menace. Being busy in a meeting with some Embassy officials, he informed his Personal Assistant to relay the message to our Department to KEEP THE MOUSE PENDING FOR THE TIME BEING. We had no time to even laugh. How the mouse managed to get into the airport tight security though, still remains a mystery.

‘Tandoori Chicken’ story

After College, I went to pursue Chartered Accountancy (CA) Course which I never accomplished. But, I completed my Articleship (working under an Auditor for three years, earning a small stipend) that was a pre-requisite to appear for this tough examination. During this Articleship, I was entrusted with four permanent external audits (instead of auditing the books in the audit office, we were sent out to the location of that business in question and have the books audited off-site) in a calendar year – a bank, a hospital, a mosque and a hotel. The hotel in question was Manjarun in Bunder managed by the Welcome Group of hotels those days, now run by the Taj Group. We were given a double room on the third floor for our audit and whatever we require in the pursuit of that audit was free including lunch. Tired of visiting the Restaurant located on the ground floor, for the two of us that day, lifted the receiver and dialled the kitchen and placed an order for six tandoori chickens along with other dishes that included chicken tikka, sheek kabab and butter nan. Very soon our room telephone rang, with the Chef from the kitchen confirming the order - Among other things you have ordered for six plates of Tandoori chicken, Is that correct Sir? For how many of you? The Chef seems to have been mesmerized and he was asking us the auditors thinking some crazy guests have come into the hotel. Within half an hour or so, the delivery boy came in with six plates of whole tandoori chickens, still sizzling among other ordered things. Looking at the two of us, he almost fainted and so did we. I never imagined even in my wildest of dreams that the order was for whole Tandoori Chickens and thought may be a quarter of a whole at the most if not smaller chicken pieces. Cannot forget the scene of the Tandoori Chicken’s sizzling in the white plates in the trolley with the smoke billowing to the ceiling of the centrally air-conditioned hotel even today.

‘Brisk Konkani’ as a useful weapon

Whenever, I used to travel in public transport - rickshaws and taxis in Mumbai, I cannot think of a time when the driver may not have deviated taking a longer route making me look like a fool. This is because he could gauge in my Hindi conversation that I am not a localite with my accent. My cousins always used to have hearty laughs at my expense when I used to take nearly double the time to reach a desired place. It is not the traffic on the road but he has taken you for a ride they used to say and make a point with the proof of the higher tariff charged. I for one, used to get confused with the same roads. This time along with my sister, hailing a rickshaw to the destination were conversing in Konkani when I realised the driver was lending an ear and trying to figure out what was the conversation all about and what we were talking. In between, he confirmed the destination again normally which they don’t do. As we continued our conversation, the driver got a bit inquisitive to know and asked – Kaunsa basha hai? and thud my sister replied ‘Jangli Marathi Hai’ (as colloquial Konkani is close to Marathi). That was the turning point … driver thought we were indeed the janglis or rowdies coming from a strong goonda Maratha region, took us to the destination in a record time without any twists and curves for the first time that I could recollect and then was gracious enough to tell us to keep the change that was due to him which is normally the other way round. He did not want to take risk with us ‘janglis’ perhaps with some underground connection. After that, I had visited Mumbai many times alone and when I smelt that the driver is not going through the proper route, the weapon was to pretend dialling a number on my cell and speak to an unknown person on the other end making it a point to mention Mumbai based political parties name with brisk Konkani and believe me it has worked every time in my favour. Hail Konkani!!

Aapka naam kya hai?

I got my driving licence in the United Arab Emirates in the sixteenth try … sounds hilarious but that is the fact. This is after driving on the Indian roads ever since I was a teenager. Always the Driving Inspectors used to find some fault or the other to deny the licence for that long. Anyway, during this time the Abu Dhabi taxis driven by the Pakistani Patans or Pashtuns from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly North-West Frontier Province) were my saviours. It did not take much time to know them and get used to their stereo-type questions once you were inside the taxi and their reactions of humour or anger based on the answers you give. What’s your name? Where are you from? Where do you work? How much is your salary? were the standard stereo type-questions along the journey until you reached your destination and one had to have patience to listen to their hilarious sermons and pretend to agree to all their opinions.

It was another beautiful day that I hailed a taxi and took the back seat of the cab. After I told him the destination, a little later the driver having looked at me in his front mirror shot first of the stereo-type question. Aapka naam kya hai? I never used to give my given name. This time, sitting at the back and having the driver’s details right in front of me stuck at the rear of the front passenger seat engraved on the rectangular silver metal – narrated his three names and ‘Khan’ at the end. For sometime, there was no reaction. After a couple of minutes, the driver suddenly jumped in his seat, put a bit of a harsh break and turning around looking at me in the eye exclaimed – Yeh tho mera asli naam hai (This is my original name). Wonder, whether he even knows from where I got that from or rather may be he is known by some other aliases so much so it took him a good couple of minutes to react. Anyway, I said – Of course, It’s indeed your name. I thought you had asked me for your own name as you might have forgotten yours. From then on, the drive was smooth, no further questions asked and no problems encountered. I thought, it was an exception with this driver but this modus operandi worked with almost everyone of the tribe with just a couple of exceptions in between.

Likewise, when seat belts were first introduced for drivers and passengers in Abu Dhabi, I queried a Patan driver as to what was the use of this new rule to elicit his opinion. ‘If it is mandatory to put the seat belts in the aircraft while take off, landing and in times of turbulence when virtually you are travelling into an empty space ahead of you, it makes sense for the seat belts to be made compulsory when there are so many crazy Patans driving erratically on the road?, was his extempore answer.

 

Obeying ‘The Eleventh Commandment’

God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai thousands of years ago. On the lighter side, the Eleventh he gave it to us, the Asians at the fag end of the twentieth century. “I have given you five countries – Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, He said. If you have the will and the resolve, go forth and multiply in these countries for I have not done so with the Anglo-Saxons, but it is you that I have blessed.” Following this Eleventh Commandment, we chose the first country mentioned.

 
A ‘Double Rainbow’ on the Melbourne sky

When I was little, I read somewhere Melbourne in Australia has four seasons in a day and had laughed as loudly as I could, for being in India with a single season for quarter a year, I could not comprehend anything else anywhere in the world. But, when we came here the first day itself we experienced not four but five seasons. In India, we used to wash the car ourselves using a bucket or with a water pipe. In the Middle East, the Natur (the watchman) did it for us for a nominal fee. Here it is free - the nature does it for us - first comes the showers (that will normally be for not more than five minutes), then it blows heavily hot and cold putting the drying process into motion and then the sun appears giving a shining touch to the automobile. Not long, it has started showering again and the sun still peeping out from the clouds you would be seeing a rainbow with all its glory and sometimes that comes with a double.

The Power of the Rosary

With due respect to the followers of Jehovah Witnesses who may be reading this piece …

When we moved to Melbourne from Abu Dhabi in October 2006, in about a month or so, someone knocked on the door. I opened and could see a couple of people standing out … with each holding what it looked like a Bible. After the initial exchange of greetings, one of them began ‘Have you of late read the newspapers about this and that. So many bad things are happening in this world … the world is going to end soon and thus we should make the utmost use of what is left to gain eternal life.’ They were the Jehovah Witnesses who believe that the entire world is one family, the destruction of the present world system is imminent and that the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth is the only solution for all the problems faced by mankind. They are best known for their door-to-door preaching and distributing literature. Once your name goes into their database however, they stick to you like a leach – having said that, there were at least a dozen visits by different couples over a period of time preaching the same thing but with difference occurrences each time. The argument used to take place in front of our door itself. Perhaps, the updated database seldom showed any improvement in convincing me to their line of thinking even after a period of time. Finally, in another visit, one of the persons blurted – ‘The next time we come around to your house, you should have the courtesy of calling us inside, offer us a cup of tea and then we shall chat. I smiled and shot back – If you can make a simple commitment that you would become a Catholic right now, you can straight away enter my house without even my permission and be my guest for the next seven days. They were so taken aback that they immediately left and I did not hear from anyone ever since.

Then in February 2009, we moved houses and went to a different suburb. I knew this menace would continue here too and so learning from my past mistakes of opening my mouth loud and prolonging the argument over time, I had my rosary hung near the door, just in case. For over a year, no one came. And then, there was a ‘knock’ on the door one day. The best part about them is they do not press the call bell, though it is so visible but ‘knock’ … differentiating themselves from the sales people, I guess. Sensing these are the Jehovah Witnesses on the prowl, immediately grabbed the Rosary, calmly opened the door, moving the beads and reciting quite audibly the first decade. The stunning looks on their faces cannot be expressed with their heads going up and down looking at the Rosary and my face. Looked they wanted to virtually run away. Breaking the silence after a good couple of minutes ‘Excuse me,’ I said – I have just started my Rosary and cannot stop in between, would you be kind enough to come after half an hour? Without firing a single shot, the needful was achieved. Three years down the line … I am still waiting for that knock on the door.

The ‘lone unoccupied seat’ on Air India flight

Just ten minutes for the flight to depart

All eyes on the lone empty seat …

The aircraft engines were tuned to start

And thus generating noise and heat …

But lo … the unoccupied seat -

Passengers and crew left wondering and pondering

Whether he has made it, or is he running late?

And then, slowly I enter with all around hate!

The poem summarises my onward flight to Abu Dhabi from Mumbai after my annual holidays having come home from the Arabian Gulf. My gulf journey started in May 1991 and in those days until the early twenty-first century it was Bombay (now Mumbai) that was the main incoming and exit airport that was convenient in many ways. Though many of my relatives are scattered in Bombay, always used to stay in Andheri in one of my Uncle’s place who served as a Manager for Air India for many years. The benefit was immense. While flying in, he would meet me at the exit door and would look after the process of making a ‘green exit.’

While flying out to Abu Dhabi, where the flights usually departed at two early morning, I had my ‘Boarding Pass’ ready in the morning of the previous day itself with all the pieces of luggage checked in. No hassles of the queue and no extra-baggage tension. The unique fun would be inside the aircraft. The flights were always running full … there would be only one unoccupied seat left and it was so obvious that someone who has booked the flight was yet to arrive. Just ten minutes, before the take-off time, I used to enter with virtually nothing in the hand with the blue uniformed staff (Uncle) in toe to the stare of over 500 eyeballs, with only one vacant seat visible and to the grunt of my neighbouring passengers when occupying that hitherto empty seat – who all seem to conclude in unison that I was running late and reading their minds what a type of ‘irresponsible person was I.’ That was a privilege however, instead of having to wait for three hours to finish the formalities, thus having the chance to use the time to do some last minute run-around.

Want to have my honeymoon here

In Melbourne, we reside on the south-east of the city. We do have a lot of friends and well-wishers on the western side of the State. So, at least once in a couple of months, we make a trip to the western side and to get there, we need to cross the city and pass over the mammoth Westgate bridge. The bridge built over the river Yarra is a marvel by itself with five lanes in each direction spanning nearly 2,583 metres in length and 58 metres in height with breathtaking scenes of the city skyline. My eldest daughter Fay used to enjoy these long drives that would take us about an hour and a half to reach the destination. On the bridge, she could not help giving her poetic comments of the grandeur. In one such return trip after having attended a Birthday party and passing the bridge at night with the city lit up, she exclaimed – ‘Oh! How I wish I could have my honeymoon here. Mom, sitting at the front seat curiously asked – With whom, dear? With daddy of course came the swift reply.’ She was about five years old then.