A deed in turn, deserves another!

This is a strange story of both deceit and honesty.
The other day I misplaced a couple of monetary bond ceritificates at work. Next day when I returned to office they were not there. I strongly suspected the night cleaning staff of being responsible for the disappearance, but I decided it was of absolutely no use to anyone else other than me, so there was no need to worry.
I even arranged for duplicates to be procured, from my agent. No money lost, but some tedious paper work to be redone.
That week I did not make my weekly pilgrimage home. But something else turned up at home instead, travelling 150 kilometers in the process.
Monday morning, a week later, my father called me up saying that a couple of bond papers with my name on it had been posted from a bank in Trivandrum, the city where I work. It turned out some good Samaritan found the bonds by the roadside a few kilometers away from where I work. He saw my name and address on it and dutifully handed it over to some officials at the nearest bank. The bank officials promptly sent it over by mail to the address on the certicate, and woah! the lost was found!
Obviously whoever had come across the bond had decided it was of no use to him and discarded it. But the amazing part of the story was that a government bank official(government officials are notorious for corruption and laziness) had taken so much trouble to return the lost papers.
I was dumbfounded when Dad related this story over the phone.
This was not the first time that a bank official has come to my rescue; call me scatter-brained, but I had the ill luck once to leave my pocket diary in the bank premises after a transaction.
The bank manager noted that my permanent address and phone number were scribbled on the book, and he promptly called home.
That time too, Dad called up saying someone at a bank had called him over a misplaced notepad. I was abashed but promptly went over to the bank office and was repossessed the notepad. Call that efficiency and honesty! Then I had thanked the bank official profusely; but in the incident of the lost and found bond papers I am only aware of some faceless people each performing a good deed in his turn knowing well that no reward was in store for him!
I too have done my share of good deeds. I once found an ATM card on the floor of an ATM kiosk. Without a second thought I handed it over to the bank officer at the bank. And I have no doubt that the bank officer would not have passed it on to the rightful owner.
As they say pass on a good deed, and it will come back to you.

My good friend, Biswas, the Bengali Fisherman

The days I was in middle school, in a remote part of Maharashtra, where a gigantic Cement Factory had grown up from dust and a colony of people from states all over India had settled down in a sleepy village; we had a regular visitor to our house.
Biswas was a poor fisherman, a resettled Bengali who brought his ware of fresh fish caught from the local water reservoir almost once every week.
And since a lot of locals didn't eat fish, we were one of his favorite clients. So this man of moderate means wearing just a dirty cloth across his waist was a welcome sight at our house.
Once watching me play chess with my brother, he politely asked if we could have a bout of chess. I nonchalantly agreed.
I must say that those days I was not a bad chess player myself and easily defeated my brothers, my teacher father, his brothers, and even my father's other teacher colleagues when they came visiting.
So Biswas, placed his basket of fresh fish by the side of the door and became totally immersed in a game of chess with me, forgetting for a while his fare and business.
To my surprise, Biswas was an excellent chess player. The first game he wiped the board clean like an expert would. We decided to go for another game, on my insistence, and this time too he took the award.
That season saw many games being played, and most of the time I turned out to be the loser.
One fine day we decided to visit the reservoir for a picnic. Seeing a couple of tents on the bank of the reservoir I enquired about Biswas from a stray fisherman. And pat, there he was smiling his friendly grin exposing pearly white teeth. He suggested a boat ride for us on his fishing dinghy. We earnestly agreed and we boated free to the middle of the lake and back.
Manners maketh a man and looks are only skin deep, I had to conclude.

The Ones that did not make it to Wiki Leaks!

The recent Wiki Leaks was truly hilarious in some ways.
One that took the cake was that the Saudi King suggested released Guantanamo Bay detainees be implanted with electronic chips to keep track of them, like they do horses and falcons - sounds like something out of a Hollywood block buster!
The other cables seem to indicate that US diplomats are a genteel lot considering what potential secrets could have been passed on through those secure cables! Here are a few that could have made it to the list.
Cable from the Italian consulate in Delhi to HQ: Looks like India has better Italian leadership than Italy has.
Cable from the Chinese embassy to HQ: Looks like the Chinese are not going to have an erection.. er. election any time too soon..
Cable from US Secretary of State to US Consulate in Pakistan: We will let the Pakis continue to support the suicide bombers in India; that way they will be more busy bombing Mumbai and Delhi leaving us alone in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Cable from Kenya to HQ: I strongly recommend that the President rename the White House to some other, for instance, Black House, because Kenyans and many Africans refer to the loo as their White House. It's truly disgusting.
Cable to HQ from the US embassy in Delhi: The Consulate has run out of toilet paper. Please expedite the process of sending the necessary item immediately before the Consul General is forced to use an adult diaper!
Urgent communique from the US president to British PM visiting South Asia: In India the agenda should be to blast the Pakis out of their wits and when in Pakistan give the Indians a good blastng. That's true diplomacy. As they say be a Roman in Rome!
Cable from a US diplomat on tour of Iran: Just found out that the Iranian president has a soft spot for Mickey Mouse movies and wears Mickey Mouse adorned underwear. Recommend that we put an embargo on these two items as well, if we already have not.
US Consul official on hotline from Saudi Arabia: URGENT: Our stock of Bloody Marys destroyed when US fighter jet carrying them over in a diplomatic pouch got shot while flying over Kuwait. Recommend express delivery of the same!

Elegy on the death of a Cow

Once upon a time in the sleepy town of Malkapur a cow died by the roadside. Rumors soon spread all over town. There was one group that claimed that the holy Cow had been poisoned by the Muslim community to vent their disapproval of the Hindus. Another group claimed that it had been poisoned by a Hindu posing as a Muslim to create animosity between the two communities. There was a third group that claimed that the cow had been poisoned by a Hindu posing as a Muslim who had originally been a Muslim. None were ready to believe that a healthy cow could have died a natural death.
In the riots that followed five people were killed, two of them burnt alive in their houses.
The Central Reserve Police Force was deployed in town and a dawn to dusk curfew imposed. The authorities ordered an autopsy on the dead cow, bowing down to public pressure.
The kith and kin of the five who were killed were compensated handsomely by the government. The brethren of the dead cow of course got nothing except for the pride of place on the streets and highways where they strolled around chewing newspaper that told the horror stories of the Hindu - Muslim clashes with commentaries by eminent analysts.
The local veterinary hospital claimed that they did not have the facilities to perform as sophisticated a procedure as an autopsy on a dead cow. So the body of the cow was placed in a mortuary for months before it was sent to Delhi for further investigations.
The authorities realised that the autopsy by itself was not important. If the cow had been poisoned the Hindus would riot. And if it had not been poisoned the Muslims would riot for the injustice done to them earlier.
Finally after much deliberation the result of the autopsy was buried under sheets of red tape and the dead cow was soon forgotten by one and all as everyone waited expectantly for the India Pakistan cricket series to start.

India's "soft" ware power - Reality or Hype?

Much has been made of India's so-called soft power, the loudest vocalist being our very own Shashi Tharoor. I can assure you this is not mere hype as far as my experience goes.
The Egyptian software programmer with whom I worked with in Kuwait (On Kuwait) surprised me one day when he asked me questions about Amitabh Bachchan. I don't know how this guy from a conservative Arab culture came to hear about the evergreen Bollywood hero, but his name seems to have reached far flung corners of the world. Another occasion of Bollywood power reared its head was while watching a popular German TV show on the German equivalent of MTV in Germany (On Germany). The hep female anchor (who I noticed wore a different hairdo at every one of her shows) mentioned "Hollywood-Bollywood" before a racy Bollywood number was shown. The rest of what she said was in German but the word "Bollywood" was loud and clear. I don't know whether Germans are aware of the thriving film industry in India, but it seems they do have some inkling of it ('Dil to Pagal Hai' must have received publicity in Germany when parts of it were shot there).
That rests the case of the hype about the Indian film industry, but India, Indians and the Indian culture are known for other things as well.
I remember the occasion when before I travelled to Germany, my German boss requested me to bring some Ayurvedic herbs. This was, he said for a friend of his who suffered from chronic pain, but it turned out it was at the behest of his German girlfriend of two years who was a pharmacist in town. Ayurveda must not be much popular away from its cradle in South India, but it is extremely popular in the land which gave the world the science of Homeopathy.
Another request was for Alphonso mangoes, the popular export quality mango strain from India; however I could not fulfil this request, the fact being that I could not procure these costly mangoes in Kerala at short notice, without the risk of being duped by some shrewd businessman who might pass off some commonplace mangoes as "Alphonso".
Another request was from the subordinate of my German boss who requested for a couple of pair of jeans, giving me his waist size as well. I could not understand the reason for this request when I believed the West was the cradle of the jeans culture. When I asked this guy the reason, he told me matter of fact that all the high quality clothes that came to Germany nowadays were imported from countries such as India and other Asian countries. This was proved for good measure once again when my brother in the US of A returned last month with T-shirts manufactured in India and Sri Lanka.
The cycle has turned full circle!

A major lifestyle shift

Last smoked on 9/11/2010
Method: Nicotine gum

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

*Reinhold Niebuhr*


QuitMeter Counter courtesy of www.quitmeter.com.

Oh, the joys of being a multi-linguist!

I am sure most Indians who have gone through high school are well versed in at least three languages - English, a regional language and Hindi - the national language. In case of people residing outside their native state, one could add the mother tongue to this list as well. When I say well versed I mean speak, read and write in at least one and at least speak or read in the other two.
I have mentioned that I speak English, Hindi, Marathi and my mother tongue in Malayalam for good measure in this post. I am sure there are many such stories out there.
What are the not so obvious advantages of multi-linguism?
On the lighter side, I would say would be that I can watch a Bollywood masala movie and experience the typical euphoria that a good flick does without caring much for a true depiction of real life. However if I would like to watch a cold calculated, well researched and realistic movie that has a storyline worthy of a novel, I would go watch a Hollywood blockbuster. And I would undergo a totally different set of emotions for either one. It would be like a switch turning off on one set of perceptions and turning on another.
I am sure a monolingual person can never in his life experience that.
A more useful result would be one where a person would be wearing a different thinking hat each time he converses, reads or writes in a different language.
When one converses in English, he would tend to be formal, business like and professional - the language of the work culture. In a regional language one would switch to a more rustic ambience and try to share the bond of the local language. In Hindi one would be speaking the lingua franca that binds all of us together as the most understood language pan-nation. In one's mother tongue, like how this video parodies, he would be striking a bond that relates to nativity, a bond among Indians that binds better than any other. Not only this, when one speak in any of these languages, he would actually become part of that culture, transforming himself for that moment to a representative of that culture.
Any more ideas out there?