A Little “Renaissance” Rant

What is "renaissance"?

You may have come across the word "nee" used as in "Madhuri Nene nee Dixit". That means that the lady is now called Madhuri Nene but was born Madhuri Dixit. “Nee” is the adjective form of the French verb "naitre" or "to be born". The noun form is "naissance" or "birth" and "renaissance" is simply "rebirth".

The classic use of the term "Renaissance" is to describe the movement (mainly artistic) across Europe from the 14th to the 17th centuries which saw the gradual transformation of that continent from the late middle ages to more or less what we fondly call "modernity".

As is true with all history, it is written by the victors and we seldom get to hear the other side of the story.

I have always wondered where the "re" part of the word "renaissance", as used in this context, came from. The people who today so proudly lay claim to this term were, at the start point of this so-called “rebirth”, in the bloody "middle ages". And as you surely know, the term "Middle Ages" is synonymous with "lack of civilization". So, what were these guys being "REborn" into? Are they insinuating that they once had a glorious civilization that somehow decayed into the middle ages and then they clawed their way back via this fabled “renaissance? You bet that’s what they are insinuating. Nay, asserting.

And that’s the tragedy of recorded history - written by the victors to shamelessly propagate expedient myths.

My point is that the Europeans are laying claim, in one fell swoop with this word “renaissance”, to the entire cultural, political and social “golden age” of Classical Antiquity which saw its apogee in the Greek and Roman civilizations - a period that roughly stretched from the 8th century BC to the 5th century AD. This heritage is what purportedly they were being “reborn” into.

I’m no historian but I think that this is not historically, technically or factually correct. Continental Europe, with the exception of Greece and Rome, was never “born” into that heritage in the first place….

Even if Greece and Rome were the epicenters of the “golden period”, the breadth and the vistas of this era were southward (North Africa) and eastward (Asia Minor, Middle East and farther East) looking. This age was the fruition of a complex process of cross-pollination between Mediterranean, Central Asian and Middle Eastern cultures which were already highly evolved at that point in history…

While most of Europe was inhabited by barbarians who still had a long way to go before they could even consider themselves “born” in terms of "civilization". Much less, as the term “renaissance" blithely insinuates, “reborn”….

Am I getting too heavy? Fuck it...we'll get into that in detail again another time, preferably after a couple of stiff ones.

If that’s a tricky one from pop history, here’s one from pop culture closer home for you.

One of the associated terms of "renaissance" is "renaissance man". This was used to describe the eminent personalities of the period like Leonardo Da Vinci (yup, the guy who made the Code, god bless him!) and Michelangelo.



More recently, some rather over enthusiastic, imagination challenged, desi journalists have rehashed the term to describe miscellaneous prominent, contemporary INDIAN personalities. I have no grouse per se with the individuals who have been accorded this sobriquet by our page 3 press. But, I certainly feel that we Indians tend to over-dramatize and thus trivialize the achievements of individuals with our weakness for hyperbole. What sense does it make to compare, say, a retired Post Master General, however accomplished, with Da Vinci and Michelangelo?! Who defines the parameters of excellence that one must achieve to qualify as a “renaissance man” in India? Does Shobha De, for example, qualify? Or, MF Husain?

I’m very interested in knowing what “renaissance person” means to you and if you have ever come across one.

Madras, Nalla Madras! - some images from my last trip

A glimpse of Cunard Lines' "QUEEN VICTORIA" from outside the harbour wall...I read in the newspaper that Cunard describe this beauty as "a sonnet in motion". A classic, sinful cruise is definitely a "must do before I die" activity for me.



A family carrying lit candles at 2.30 AM Easter Sunday on Mount Road, across from the Bata showroom corner. There was hard, intermittent rain that whole night long. On the way back from my friend Apu's house in T'Nagar, I saw several families dressed in their (Easter) Sunday best, struggling across the street-wide puddles and ruined pavements on their way to church. This family stood out for the sheer grace and self-evident devotion with which they slowly navigated their way to early morning mass...



A fully loaded bike on Poonamalee High Road near the Central Station. The guy is carrying a load of waste cloth.



Making friends with a kitten in a "potti kadai" (literally "box shop") in Chetput. There were two of them and, like all kittens, completely adorable.



Che lives! In a North Madras backstreet!!!

I wonder exactly how many people really know who this bearded weirdo on the Communist Party Of India (Marxist) graffiti was and what he stood for.



I haven't seen or read the "Motorcycle Diaries" movie/book as yet, but my friend Chandermouli (Mouli) did a well researched presentation on Che for our 3rd Level course a couple of years ago when we were both learning Spanish in Bangalore. The presentation was in Spanish, but we have both forgotten our "senoritas", "margaritas" and "tapas" since...

After Midnight - An Endless Saturday

It was after 2 in the morning of a Saturday night and MG Road was deserted except for the stray reveler straggling home, like yours truly. The odd auto cruised past with the driver scanning the likely marks.

I was tired and had a deep buzz going. A little nagging voice of good sense somewhere deep inside my head kept telling me that I should go home and sleep. Fair enough, I thought – it had not been a bad Saturday at all!

That’s when this autorickshaw drew up alongside me with a seemingly customer-friendly bandy at the wheel. He explained how he had not had any decent “savari” (fare) the whole day long and how I could pay him anything that I felt was reasonable. This is a standard ploy in Madras but rather rare in Bangalore. He seemed nice enough so I said “ok” and got in.

We were cruising comfortably along MG Road when just outside the Hotel Oberoi, he most politely asked me if I had enough cigarettes for the rest of the evening. When I checked my pack, true enough, I was down to my last 3 or so. I told him yes I needed cigarettes. By this time we had pulled up at a mobile (cycle mounted) teashop.

This hawker and a few dozen others like him are a standard feature at certain prominent spots in the deserted night streets of Bangalore. They sell cigarettes and miniscule plastic cups of hot, sweet tea dispensed from stainless steel containers. All types - from cops to BPO employees to vagrants - make pit stops at these “stalls” and move on.

Asif, the auto bandy, requested me to remain seated in the auto while he went to fetch my cigarettes. We set off again. After a couple of hundred meters, halfway home, just before turning off towards Ulsoor he casually asked me if I felt like one last beer for the evening. I asked him back where we might find beer at 3 in the morning. He replied that there were “places”.

I was intrigued, so I said yes I would have a beer. He made a U-turn and we went all the way back up MG Road and then down some side streets to the corner of Brigade Road. Again Asif ensured that I got "drive-by" service. A lukewarm Kingfisher and a plastic cup were delivered to the auto and the bottle was opened.

As I sat in the auto in a deserted side street sipping my beer , Asif solicitously asked if I were hungry.



On a whim I said I wouldn’t mind a nice mutton biriyani. Pat came the reply that sure it was possible - Sivaji Nagar mutton biriyani was the best in class.

And we set off again through some beautiful deserted neighborhoods dotted with lovely buildings of great character. The sodium vapor light and the still silence gave the streets an unreal feel - as if we were scooting through an abandoned film set.



There are still many, many delightful corners of Bangalore that haven’t morphed into grotesque steel, glass and concrete barrios. The steroidal IT/BPO wave of affluence might wash them away as yet but I’m hoping for the best.



We turned some tight corners and suddenly found ourselves in a street lined with restaurants. There was lively movement on the street. Many of the restaurants were downing their shutters – it was after 3 AM – but a few were still open. Asif enquired in two or three about the quality and freshness of their mutton biriyani before choosing one.

We gorged on fairly good biriyani accompanied by some superlative mutton bone soup. After a round of pleasantries with the man behind the cash counter (galla potti) we headed back towards MG Road.

On the way, on Cubbon Road I think, I made Asif stop the auto to photograph some ancient cannons. An insomniac military guard challenged us and after a half hearted interrogation he bid us goodbye.


It was 4 or so before Asif finally dropped me home. What started off as a fifteen minute, five kilometer trip home had somehow transformed into a two hour, twenty kilometer jaunt.

A couple of days ago when I called Asif on the number he had given me, the first thing he asked was if I had eaten….a truly solicitous bandy, if ever there was one!

If you are in Bangalore sometime and want to go on a fun auto ride, just give me a shout and I’ll give you his number.

Auto Asif and an "After Midnight" romp

Coming up: Cigarettes, Beer and Biriyani at 3 in the morning? Auto Asif is your man for the season....

A Fully Loaded Saturday! With Mani-da, the Williams sisters and Auto Asif….

So it came to pass that for months on end my only and rare excursions out of Indra Nagar were to Koshy’s, the restaurant and Blossoms, the second hand bookshop on Church Street and very little else.

On the second Saturday of March I decided to change all that. There was an art exhibition that I had read about in the papers and very much wanted to see. Also, the Bangalore Women’s Open was on with a cluster of marquee names from international tennis.

I do not play tennis nor am I an aficionado of the sport but if Serena and Venus were playing in your city, and you had a half-way chance of actually going and seeing them do their thing with your own eyes then you would be stupid not to grab that chance, right? The clincher was that the two sisters were pitted against each other in one of the two semi-finals.

I decided to take my chances with auto-rickshaws for the day.

I first went to the exhibition at the Gallery Sumukha near Double Road. The artist was 84 year old K.G. Subramanyam, also apparently known as Mani-da. The paintings were quirky, fulsome and had intriguing balance. They all had the unmistakable touch of a seasoned master. There was a pervasive odor of lust and illicit sex in many of his works. His sense of small spaces, the fractured perspectives and Dahl-esque narratives drew me into several of the frames.

It is a very acute and indefinable joy - mingled with longing - to stand in front of a masterpiece, or as in this case, several masterpieces, knowing that the joy is borrowed and ephemeral. If I had the money, I would buy lots and lots and lots more art. When it comes to art I am unapologetic about my desire to “possess”.

As I strolled through the gallery I became aware that I was under the slightly suspicious gaze of two ladies. I guessed they were the owners. They seemed to know that I was not a prospective buyer and they were suitably haughty.

They were right - I definitely was not a prospective buyer. The bigger works, some 2 feet by 3 feet or so, mostly gouache on paper, were priced at 30,000,00 rupees. The smaller works, about A4 or so, ink or pencil on paper I think, were 150000 rupees.

From the gallery I took another auto to the Cubbon Park where the Bangalore Open was on at the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association’s courts.

There was a crowd jostling around the ticket counters. A couple of morons inside were lording it over, taking a perverse pleasure in telling everyone that everything was sold out. I could see them shuffling bundles of tickets around. They selectively chose people from the crowd and informed them that there were only “Rs.825” tickets available. A sort of “can you afford it?” was implied in their cock-sucker tone of voice. I bought myself a ticket without getting into a pissing competition with them and strolled through.

The stands were crowded but it definitely was not a full house. The first semi-final between Yan Zi of China and Switzerland’s Patty Schnyder was on. The Swiss champ was right on top of the situation and the overall feel was desultory. Everybody was waiting for the “sisters”.

On my way in I had noticed a Kingfisher counter. So I asked the gent in the next seat to hold mine and went out to get supplies. Not sure what the connection is but at the Madras Open too I had noticed a Mercedes Benz display. The 2 sleek monsters on display drew another longing sigh from me (after Mani-da's works) and I consoled myself with a couple of photographs.

The Kingfisher counter was expectedly crowded. I loved the fact that this was Mallya’s turf and that I could legally quaff a pint or four while watching an international tennis match.

The powers that be in Madras are spectacularly blinkered when it comes to rationalizing the politics of alcohol consumption in my beloved home state. I cannot rave and rant enough about the soul scorching, demeaning nature of the drinking experience in Tamil Nadu….I’m working on a piece on that. I elbowed and excused myself to the counter and bought myself a few cans and went back to my seat.

Between sets and matches there were snatches of 70s and 80s pop numbers being blasted on the public address system. The combo of my first, fast pint and “I believe in miracles…you sexy thing, you sexy thing” got my feet tapping and I was ready for a nice evening of spectator sport.

The compere or somebody announced the sisters. He gave a nice intro about their individual accomplishments and shared the fact that they were meeting each other for the 15th time in international matches. The head on head record till date was 7-7. Woweee!!!

I love spectatorship, spectator-hood, whatever - the state of being a spectator. I love the feel of huge crowds, packed auditoriums, stadiums, big ticket entertainers, the sound of collective screaming. I would have made a mean Roman at a circus.

The gladiators finally came on… and man! what fine examples of womanhood they were! I’m not sure if this sounds derogatory and I certainly don’t mean it that way…the Williams sisters reminded me of magnificent, thoroughbred, frisky fillies. They pranced onto the court and their overwhelming physical fitness was a tribute to God’s gift of life itself.

The match was not a benchmark of great tennis but the difference in quality from the earlier semi-final was evident. These 2 girls were from a different planet. There were brief flashes of brilliance that far outshone the high points of the earlier match.

I shouted myself hoarse with chants of “go..OOO, Veeenusssss, GO..oooo” but she eventually lost.





I made some friends in the stand who took turns to go out for replenishments. In the vicinity there was a clutch of cops who seemed a trifle disoriented by all the drinking and screaming. Somewhere, I have read the expression “didn’t know whether to scratch his watch or wind his arse”…kind of describes those cops in the stadium that evening.

When the match was finally over, Serena, the winner, hit several autographed tennis balls into the stands. None came anywhere near me.

I trooped out with the crowd, jumped a low gate and found myself on Kasturba Road. It was exactly 11 and I headed towards St.Mark’s Road. They were just shooing the patrons out of the Hard Rock Cafe and Koshy’s had its shutters already down. Not a problem if you are ever in that vicinity at that hour. Opposite the Empire Hotel at the corner of Church Street and Museum Road there is literally a hole in a wall manned by some polite bandicoots. They can get you your favorite poison till past 2 in the morning. The entire road was packed with people and cars and motorcycles. There was also a very quiet police jeep in the middle of the mess.

I got myself a couple of Kingfishers at an exorbitant price (Rs.100 per bottle) and chatted with some extremely drunk Punjabi IT engineers till about 2.

After they left, a family of Tamil speaking pavement dwellers exchanged some niceties with me and posed for photos. The girl in the photo said she had three children.

Later, as I passed the shuttered entrance of KC Das, she called out goodbye to me from the dark entrance. I peered into the darkness and saw her lying next to a stoned looking guy (not the one in the photo).

I kept walking. I thought I would get back home and catch some sleep.

I avoided the dense pack of auto hyenas on the Church Street corner and strode down a forlorn and disheveled looking MG Road. The scars of the on-going Metro construction were hurtful to the eye and the soul.

As I walked down, heading towards Trinity Circle, an auto sidled up and a very polite auto bandy offered to take me home. My fully loaded Saturday was not over as yet.

I’ll tell you about Auto Asif and the rest of the evening in a couple of days. Ciao and cheers till then.

Empty Weekends

The picture has nothing to do with the post below, except perhaps to remind me of days better spent. The van was parked on Portobello Road, London - The World's Largest Antiques Market.

Last May, I spent a happy, sunny day discovering the neighborhood.




To me Bangalore is a lop-sided city. I live in Indra Nagar and all the galleries and auditoriums and other venues for interesting events seem to be on the "other" side.

When I mentally rummage through the numerous shows and concerts and exhibitions featured in the newspapers I hardly ever find any for which attendance does not involve a nightmarish drive (and a frustrating search for a parking spot) or a tic-tac-toe auto-rickshaw adventure. “Tic-tac-toe” because (a) you might find an extremely decent auto-rickshaw driver or (b) you might stumble upon a complete bastard or (c) meet just about every type else in between. Anyway, the very thought of the journey kills the enthusiasm for a soul uplifting outing.

It is also a curious feature of the Bangalore cultural scene, or so it seems to me, that most of the really interesting events are scheduled in the middle of the week. If you work for a corporate then you know that it is well nigh impossible to leave office in time to go and catch a show or a performance on a working day. You need to tell a truly dark lie to escape and I reserve those for the days of my worst hangovers.

What’s left then is the weekend.

Weekends usually start with recuperation - recuperation from an over enthusiastic Friday night. By the time you are even half-way fit to face what’s left of the weekend the sun’s rays are already slanting in from the wrong side of the sky.

Then there are the myriad chores that you have been saving up (postponing) all week long – washing machine load; ironing man; telephone bill; bust bathroom bulb; state visit by her exalted haughtiness the Maid; shopping at the local “supermarket” for useless junk (just because you still have all those Sodexho coupons); visit to the temple and so on. When you are more or less done with your “to do” list you are so pooped that you need a beer or two to regain your joie de vivre and there goes what's left of your Saturday.

Sunday comes with a feeling of impending loss… loss of a weekend that might have been better spent. A weekend that might have been replete with enriching activities like art exhibitions and dance performances, dog shows and kite flying, movies and monuments…Sunday quickly grows old with the gnawing feeling that you should get out and do something.

CMH Road is the height of "happening" for the BPO and IT employee denizens of the scores of overpriced rabbit warrens from Old Madras Road to Murugeshpalya and Sunday upon Sunday I too mindlessly walked that depressing road amongst the jostling swarm to get a second hand sense of having “gotten out and done something” afterall during the weekend.

And then, just like that, Sunday too is gone and the feeling of loss is suddenly real. You did fuck-all and now the whole weekend is history. Half of the time, on Monday morning back at the office, you don’t even remember what you did since Friday night! So much for soul enrichment.





NEXT: A FULLY LOADED SATURDAY!

An Artistic Bandy

The guy who painted the mural featured in my last post is Natesh.

I’ve known him for years now. I met him at the Alliance Francaise de Madras where I was learning French and generally hanging out. The path breaking Tamil theatre group “Koothu-p-pattarai” used to rehearse in the auditorium on the top floor. I knew most of the gang because I used to dabble in some French language amateur theatre and we all had common friends. Natesh was an occasional visitor at the rehearsals then. Much later I learnt that he is the son of Na. Muthuswamy, the founder of “Koothu-p-pattarai”. (click on images to enlarge)

Natesh is a loud mouth, uses a lot of profanity (“votha” “koo…” f.'s.., b's..., et al), has a refreshing lack of decorum and is a genuine iconoclast.

My favourite story about him dates to the time when he was a student at the Madras College Of Arts and Crafts. As narrated by Natesh, apparently the Lalit Kala Akademy organized a painting exhibition in Delhi. I’m not sure if this is an annual affair, but the Akademy wanted to buy some of the best works on display for its collection. The selectors or judges or jury or whatever, one of whom was the late artist K.M. Adimoolam, decided to buy Natesh’s painting. The prices were usually placed on a small sticker at the back of the painting and when the judges turned the painting over to find out the price they found that it was a little too good a bargain for their “artistic” sensibilities.

Natesh had priced his painting at “3 p” (three paise)!!!

The jury were so offended that they not only did not buy the painting but also kind of unofficially black-listed Natesh. He tells me that Adimoolam did not speak to him for ten years after that incident.

I wish I had been at that exhibition to grab that painting! When I called him last week he said that for his current exhibition, he has priced his canvases at 1.5 L each! I believe that this is still an amazing bargain because, for me, Natesh is a genius.

Another small but not insignificant factoid about Natesh – he never signs his paintings or drawings on the front. He might sometimes sign them on the frame at the back. Now, you tell me what that tells you about the guy.

And, here’s a sub-factoid on the same subject: I once was lucky enough to have the luxury of choosing about half a dozen pencil and charcoal drawings for myself from one of his sketch-books. I had the joy of flipping through almost a hundred of his drawings and picking and choosing what I wanted. And, imagine this - I had the privilege of demanding of Natesh that he sign the ones I chose. He did.

I have posted pictures of some of them. Not sure if you can notice the signatures.

I also have some of his original drawings for poster designs and a wooden "liquor trolley" kind of contraption created by him. I’ll try and get pictures of those too.

If you visit his website there is an article by Sadanand Menon on Natesh and his recently concluded exhibition of new canvases - “Missing Link” (at the very same Lalit Kala Akademi, Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi 110001. From the 5th to the 11th of March 2008. Gallery Nos. 7 & 8. 11am to 7pm.)
.

I accept that Sadanand has described Natesh and his angst-driven existence better than I perhaps ever can. I quote from the article: Here is a youngster who, with his anarchic intuition, has consistently resisted all the pitfalls of career, success, fame and contentment. It is as if he sets out everyday, in his own inimitable way, to ask himself, “What crime or infamy am I going to support today?” and then sets about consciously working against it – almost working against himself, as it were.

That’s Natesh for you, a true-blue, in-your-face, screw-you, “real art, no fart” bandicoot!

p.s. The mural was painted on the ceiling of the foyer at the Alliance Francaise, Madras and easily measured more than 20 feet X 10 feet. It was recently white-washed by "executive decision".

A modern mural... lost forever!

I'm not writing much on this now, because I need to connect with the bandy I want to introduce you to next. Another old friend of mine.

In the meantime, take a look at these pictures. They are shots of a fabulous ceiling mural that this guy did. I have seen him with my own eyes, work for hours on end on it, lying on his back on a scaffolding...he wasn't even paid much for it - just enough money to buy the required materials.

And guess what? They recently white-washed it! Oh, yes, they did! It's gone. You can't see it no more.

I'll leave you with that thought while I collect my thoughts and other material around this original 24 karat bandy....

Staggering Into The Sunshine And Out Of It – an unplanned weekend detour

It had been sometime since I had visited my parents and friends in Madras so I decided to go over for the weekend.

I got on to the Guwahati Express at around 11.30 on Friday night at the Cantonment Station, hoping to catch up on some sleep. I had already had a couple of Cobras and was half-way through McCall-Smith’s “Tears of the Giraffe”.


Just another regular, short train journey home was what I was expecting.

The first sign of something interesting afoot was when I found a guy sitting with his feet stretched out on my seat. He asked me for my seat number. I told him my seat number and he put his feet down to let me sit down. His buddies were lolling at supreme ease on the other seats and one of them was blasting “Hare Ram! Hare Ram!!” on his mobile phone. I broke the ice by asking the seat-keeper whether he and his buddies were going all the way to Guwahati. Yes, he said. They were Air-Force Police personnel. They had attended a “mental toughness” training in Bangalore and were getting back to their station in Guwahati. They would travel almost another 2 days before reaching their destination.

They were passing each other a 1 liter pepsi bottle but the stuff in the bottle didn’t look like cola and I didn’t have to think too hard to guess what was in the bottle.

When the train stopped at Bangalore East or KR Puram - not sure which - I saw the boys get down and ask around the platform vendors for cigarettes. I knew from experience that they were not going to find any so I called them over and gave them a couple of cigarettes. After that, the ice was completely broken and they positively forced me ;-) to have a swig from the pepsi bottle. Just as I had guessed it was some kind of Army issue whisky. One thing led to another and soon we were animatedly discussing the relative merits of the Israeli army and the French Foreign Legion, the Siachen and the Gripen and other things martial. The whisky had a perfumy flavour to it but it went down smoothly enough.

By the time the bottle was emptied and we finally hit the sack it was past 3 in the morning and I had clean forgotten to set an alarm for myself.

I slept well enough and woke up at around 8.30.

Madras had come and Madras had gone. I had slept a little too well! I had slept right through the 30 minute halt at Chennai Central and had continued sleeping for another 2 hours while the train had rattled its way from Madras to Guwahati.

The next stop was scheduled for around noon, God knew where, and it looked like it was going to be a wasted day and a wasted weekend.

I got myself a cup of tea from a one-handed kid and went to the toilet to smoke a ciggy when the train suddenly slowed down and groaned to a halt. Without a second thought I stubbed the cigarette out, collected my stuff and jumped off the train and staggered into bright sunshine.

I had jumped off the wrong side of the train and I was between two tracks. The one-handed boy had followed me to the door and he motioned to me to move away from the other track. A few seconds later a train zipped past in the opposite direction and the whiplash rocked me back on my feet.

My train started moving too and I was soon left standing all alone in what looked like the middle of nowhere.

There was a tiny station - I soon found out that its name was Doravaruchatram - about 500 meters down the track and I wobbled through the station master's office and across a small field onto a national highway. I crossed the road and the first thing I saw was a wine-shop replete with a pictorial pantheon of Hindu deities. I said a silent prayer and asked the wine-shop man for a beer. The only beer available was Armstrong (strong beer). I put the bottle in my backpack and asked where I might find some tiffin. He pointed down the road.

A young share-auto driver was at the wine-shop exchanging all his small notes for big ones from the shop guy. I asked him if he would drop me in Chennai. He said it was a 100 kilometer ride and that at 7 rupees a km it would cost me 700 rupees. I might have almost gone with him. Luckily for both of us, some passers-by who had joined the conversation scolded him and told him it was a stupid idea, what with an AP registered autorickshaw and all. They suggested that I take the "local" (train) from Sulurpet station which was about 10 or 12 km away. The auto guy and I sheepishly agreed that it was probably a better idea but I anyway hired him to find me some tiffin and then take me to the station.

The tiffin place was a small thatched shed and the food was cooked and brought from the owner’s house in the field behind. It took about 10 minutes to find a bottle opener but finally I settled down to wake up properly with my Armstrong (strong beer). The tiffin – 3 dosas, 2 vadas and 2 idlis with unlimited sambar and papulu podi– was delicious. The auto-boy and one of the passers-by who had suggested the train option invited themselves to my table and the 3 breakfasts cost me all of 74 rupees!

The auto ride to the train station was pleasant and I noticed sign-boards for a bird sanctuary - Nelapattu - on the way. I think we also passed a village called Tapa Indlu on the way. Don't know why but it reminded me of Machu Pichu.

At the Sulurpet station, on a whim, I bought a first class ticket – I’ve always wanted to do that on a local train. I still had an hour or so to kill, so I wandered out of the station and asked the lone auto guy where the nearest wine shop was. He said I could go straight and turn left or go straight the other way and turn right, but if he took me there and brought me back to the station it would cost me 20 rupees. I took the auto. At the wine shop, Sanju, the auto-rickshaw man had a 90 whisky while I had myself a slow Kingfisher.

I was back at the station just about in time for the train and I finally staggered out of the sunshine into the first class compartment which was empty except for a couple of gents in lungis catching up on their sleep.

I spent the next hour or so watching the people and the landscape and trying to memorize the names of the stations we passed - Akkampet, Tada, Arambakkam, Elavur, Gummudipundi, Kavaraipettai and so on - and wishing that I had remembered to bring my camera along.

I finally reached Basin Bridge station sometime around 3 or 4 PM and took an auto and reached home about 12 hours late. Ooof!

A "Gomi" Bandicoot

In my lexicon, “bandicoot” is also a term of endearment.

Like I told you the last time, not all bandicoots are bad and some of them are downright loveable. The one I want to introduce you to today is actually quite a chic and resourceful bandy!

My friend Agathe is French and she lives and works in Paris. She did her doctoral thesis on some esoteric, ancient sanskrit mathematical treatise. I am mega impressed by this fact and love introducing Agathe to my friends and talking about her every chance I get. Agathe has traveled in more countries than anybody else I know. The most recent postcards I have received from her were from China and then Jordan. Yes, Agathe is the kind of person who sends hand-written postcards with exotic stamps on them from exotic places around the globe.

Agathe is a bandicoot. A “bandy” in the sense that she loves junk, rubbish.

Some years ago, Agathe lived in Japan for an extended period of time – not sure what she was doing there. She told me that in Japan, just as in many highly economically developed societies, there are the extreme rich and the very poor. And between these two extremes there is a huge middle-class that is the engine that drives consumerism. Some of the Japanese middle-class are wasteful and gadget fixated. These people simply throw away perfectly good things. That’s right. They systematically buy the latest models of just about everything – televisions, fridges, laptops, vacuum cleaners and what have you. They simply must have the latest model. So, out go all the old televisions and fridges and bicycles and telephones and just about everything else. This section of Japanese society simply discard all their junk or “gomi” as is it called in Japanese. And much of it is perfectly good stuff!

There are designated spaces in each apartment block for leaving the “gomi” and this was the network of Ali Baba’s caves where Agathe rooted for treasure.

She first started off by more or less entirely furnishing her apartment with “gomi”. Word soon spread and her (mainly expatriate) friends started giving her wish-lists of stuff they couldn’t afford or didn’t want to splurge on. Agathe would scour the “gomi” dumps of Kyoto and salvage the stuff that her friends needed. She soon became so adept at “sourcing” stuff that one friend even gave her the exact configuration of a PC that he wanted and Agathe helped him put the machine together!

I’m sure that there is some kind of “reuse, recycle, refurbish etc.,” message in there for all of us, but I’m too lazy to bend my mind around it right now.

Or, even a huge potential in a chain of grey market, second-hand stores. Imagine shipping in containers of practically brand-new Toshiba laptops and selling them for, say, 3000 rupees! And charge the suckers another 3K for English key-boards. LOL. Who knows, the Japanese municipal authorities might even pay you to do it. An all around win-win situation.

Agathe is now back in Paris, working for the government, and she is as ardent a seeker of “gomi” as ever. The last time I visited her, she took me on a delightful crawl of wine bars all over that magnificent city. The theme of the day that she had chosen was “cheese and wine”…..The third or so bar we went to was in a quiet side street and we were lolling around a tiny table on the tiny sidewalk, sipping a nice glass of some chilled white wine. The neighborhood was “comfortable” middle-class. Across the street from us there was a gated apartment block. As we watched some Arab kids crawling right in and out of the gaps in the grills of the locked gates, a lady walked out and carefully placed a lamp-shade and a couple of other things in the huge garbage container. A minute or so later, Agathe uncoiled herself like a plump python and strolled across the street. She examined the garbage container as intently as if she were contemplating a bracelet at a Champs-Elysees shop window , then very deliberately picked up the lamp-shade and strolled triumphantly back to our table. The crawl ended sometime well after midnight and I took turns all evening carrying that piece of “gomi” carefully all over Paris.

Bandicoot Biodiversity Hotspots

Bandies thrive just about anywhere, but there are certain ecosystems that are particularly favourable to this sub-species.

The big ones amongst these are (1) Organizations That Are Not Meritocracies like state owned banks, state run colleges, state organizations like RTO offices etc., (2) The Unorganized Sector like "house brokering", or house maintenance services like plumbing and electrical services and to a lesser extent (3) The Lower Echelons Of Just About Any Office.

The common thread in all these environments is that high quality performance is not a prerequisite for success and in most cases there is a lack of a defined or strictly implemented moral code and a framework of ethical behaviour.

In general, bandicoots are bottom feeders who, in their lives, have replaced ethics with greed and excellence with expedience.

Thus, you will find a bunch of bandicoots in a RTO premises who will promise to get you an international driving licence delivered at your doorstep without you even having to get behind a wheel. For a price, ofcourse.

Or, let's say you are looking for someone to fix a broken flush in your toilet. Chances are that you will end up having a close encounter with a Class A Bandicoot. He - it's usually a "he" - will not only make sure that he screws up the entire plumbing fairly well but will then force you to buy a whole bunch of useless accessories that he will collect a commission on from the hardware store. If you insist that you personally get the accessories then he'll hold you to ransom by dissappearing for a day or two leaving your toilet in a state of total disrepair. The bandicoot will stretch a two hour job into a two day marathon and make a mess of it. A bandicoot has no conception of a job well done. Its all about "how much can you hit this sucker for?". The helpless sucker being either you or yours truly or someone else just like you and me.

Ever tried renting an apartment in Madras? Wow! that really brings them on! They'll dawdle and they'll straggle. They'll lead you on endless wild-goose rides. They'll make you hang outside locked doors like forsaken puppies. They'll talk cock. They'll fart. They'll do just about everything but show you a house or an apartment that suits your purpose or budget. And if by some fabulous stroke of luck you do find a home, you will probably end up with three different bandies all claiming that he is the rightful recipient of the brokerage.

You are also certain to spot bandies in and around most offices. Here the diversity ratio is more equitable. The admin departments are particularly flush with bandies. Receptions and finance departments are also quite kind on bandy populations.

Well, I'm feeling kinda drained after reliving some of my tangles with bandies. But before signing off for the day, let me clarify that not all bandies are bad bandies. There are many that are quite lovable. I hope I'll eventually get a chance to introduce those too to you.

Have a great weekend and if you are a beer drinker have one on me - preferably a Cobra!

Bandicoot spotting

I've got PeopleWatching in my DNA and I've been doing it as long as I can remember. It didn't used to be called that in the early days. All that came later with Desmond Morris and suddenly this pleasurable past time of the jobless and the curious became a whole science with a fashionable name to boot.

Anyway...that's neither here nor there because what I want to talk to you about is this fascinating sub-species I love watching called "(human) bandicoots".

I didn't come up with that term to denote this type of person. I first heard the term used by my sometimes friend, total non-philosopher and certified mis-guide, Mr. Sudhakar. More power to him and perhaps more on him later.

In the animal world, bandicoots are large rats. They are nocturnal, urban-dwelling, beady-eyed and adept at escaping harm. They live in those unspeakable places that large rats live in. You seldom notice junior or sub-adult bandicoots. But they are so adept at survival that probably they all live to be quite old.

And bandicoots are fat. All of them.


"(Human) Bandicoots" or "bandies" in short, are much like their cousins the "real" bandicoots. In fact human bandicoots get their name from the fact that they are so similar to their animal behave-alikes. The only difference is that human bandies are not necessarily nocturnal. In fact they thrive in just about any location and situation which supports human activity. And, by jove, do they thrive! (to be continued)