31. The little different nose, anyone!

Weird but stylish!

Mark my words, uncanny hair growth in one of the most undesired of places on our body is likely to script a new style statement. No freak idea this, those who may have plucked these protein filaments into extinction will have to pay through their nose to get them back. Get ready to pay the hair surgeon to work overtime to stuff your nostrils. And before you even begin to smell the hairy reality, design studios would have sprung all across to shape this luxuriant growth onto your facial contours. 

If you thought you could do without long nose hair, it is better you get back on your senses because the notion of hairless nostrils is passé. Stuffed nostrils will fetch a premium at the marriage market. A sweet

Wow! Double Moustache

something with a stylish braid dropping from top of the upper lips will hog limelight in most social gatherings. Bridal make-up will look different, and fashion catwalks will feature a hitherto unknown component. Who better than Yunus Parvez (Bade Babu of 'Gol-Maal') to judge such contests! 

If you haven't sensed it as yet, let it be known that the density of hair in your nostrils will henceforth determine your survival amidst city's polluted air. The more dirty air you breathe, the more nose hair you need. Weird though it may seem, the length of nasal hair will help visualize air quality index in your city. It is not entirely out of sync with our polluting lifestyles, the super-long disgusting nose hairs will be the new indicator of each person's air pollution exposure. 

As cities choke in air pollution, growing nose hair will become inevitable. After all, more nose hair will give individuals a three times less likely chance of developing asthma, and the hairy nose metric will demonstrate just how vital hirsute nostrils must be to deal with a dirty air epidemic. Weird though it may sound, nose hair will surely make the difference between life and death in Asian cities where more than 800,000 deaths are caused by polluted air each year. 

Yunus Pervaz: Harvesting protein filaments

In launching its 'Hairy Nose Campaign' a few years ago, Clean Air Asia had backed it up with 'style your nose hair' statement to match the emissions level in the city. It is akin to wearing masks or buy air filters, though pretty cheap in comparison. At the end of the day, all that matters is how indeed we adapt to increasing particulate matter in the air around us. Like 'grow more food' in the past, 'Grow more nose hair' will become the new slogan for human survival. 

Whether or not the odd-even vehicle rationing works to check air pollution on city roads, the odd idea of growing-nose-hair will pave new way of checking this emerging health threat. It may not exactly make up the stuff of Friday Fun, but imagining long nose hair will trim air pollution in the cities.  

This piece has appeared in Deccan Herald on March 4, 2016 

30. Only losers in a war

The actual scene was quite close to this picture

Like thousands of others on either side of the border, I too was caught in the crossfire of the historic Indo-Pak War in 1965. While I don’t remember the exact date, I was a 9-year-old then and was travelling with my mother. On a sunny September morning, we had arrived at the Firozpur railway station, located close to the international border at village Hussainiwala, in time to catch the next train on our onward journey to Bhatinda.

Using the only foot over bridge at the station, we had alighted on the platform where bogies of our next train were lined up. There was time for the train to depart and hence the coal-fired engine had yet to be connected to the rake. Hardly had we finished our meals, when the train was hit by some kind of a thunderbolt, tossing us over as the bogie tilted in one direction. Luckily for us, it tilted towards the platform and rested back on its track.

No one knew what it was, and there was commotion all around. People were screaming and hauling as we ran out of the bogie in the direction in which the crowd was running. My mother  held my hand tightly but I could not resist looking back to see one of the burning bogies of our train. It was an enemy fighter jet that had dropped a bomb on our train. Emergency sirens were blazing as the jet had continued to dodge three Indian fighter planes which were on its hot chase.

There was drama in the sky; someone shouted at us to lie down on the ground. The cockfight in the air was amazing. Two Indian planes were on either side of the enemy jet with the third flying behind and firing rockets at it. As the planes were flying low, the firing was clearly visible. The enemy jet  continued to escape fire by swiftly changing its direction and elevation. If my memory serves me right, the drama lasted for around half an hour.

The enemy jet was finally hit and I could see the burning plane hurtling towards the ground at some distance. As a big cloud of smoke rose at a distance, the victorious Indian planes surged upwards in an arrow formation.  At that age, it was an exhilarating experience devoid of any emotions much like what the present generation may encounter in a video game. I have been wondering ever since at the plight of the jet pilot, and those trapped in the burning bogie.

At the end, there are only losers in any war! Back to my school the following week, I made a humble donation to the families of those who had lost their lives in the war.

(real-life encounter)

First published in Deccan Herald, Oct 2, 2015

29. In Metro, life in a metro

No sooner had I blessed myself for being first in the queue, and had dug myself into reading a noted historian's much-talked about interview on 'past is present', my 'present' was shattered by a middle-age intruder who had unapologetic-ally pushed me into the second place. 

Before I could realize my relegated position, and prepare myself for an unlikely verbal assault, the occupant had blurted.... follow the queue........it seemed to me a calculated defense by him to camouflage social infringement of breaking the queue. Reasonably well-dressed and presumably (re)tired, the intruder had a bag tucked under his armpit. Pushing and shoving the alighting passengers, I could hear him babble......follow the queue..... and found him seated much earlier than most others.      

As luck would have it, I found myself sitting next to him. Once seated, then intruder and now my neighbor had unzipped his bag and pulled out an apple, rubbed it on his trouser like my favorite cricketer Glenn McGrath and quickly bowled it into his mouth. Six bowling attempts later he had fired his canon again.....mein jeena chhahta hoon (have a desire to live)......wondered, if it was some mixture of  insecurity and ambition, pessimistic utterance on plausible optimism in life? Did he fire his cannon accidentally or had wanted to share something but not sure when, where and with whom!

Apparently oblivious of his doing, he had caught the attention of most fellow passengers. Most were indifferent but none could avoid him. Knowing well that the human mind seldom arrives at an objective assessment on any subject before first reaching the extremity of error, I had held myself from making any judgement. My chain of thoughts were broken when he had blurted again ......mein jeena chhahta hoon. Unless I could sense the nature, degree and duration of the psychological stress he might have been going through, it was something that I found hard to delve into. 

'Are you 65?', he had surprised me with his unwarranted query. Without lifting my eyes from the interview I was half-reading, I had responded saying that I had been bad at mathematics and therefore could rarely achieve 60 (per cent) in my life, and suggested instead that I was quite some distance from making the 'senior citizen' mark. Not undone by my response, he had wondered if I was into yoga and regular exercises. My response in affirmative had prompted him to blurt again........mein jeena chhahta hoon......before alighting from the train.

Isolation within families and loneliness in public has become routine, such figures wander the earth like vegetables in the businesswear of their lives. It is happening with such a regularity and is so common that most of us have become blissfully unaware of the serious malaise hitting the underbelly of our society. 

I was left tearing the boundaries of normality in making a sense of his life and life in a metro. 

(based on a true encounter in the Delhi Metro) 

28. The end of rat race

Whether or not you smell them, their presence remains ubiquitous.Think and you will find them, not one but many - here, there and everywhere. Having followed humans to just about every corner of the globe, these creatures have demonstrated their incredible propensity for travel. Rats are as much comfortable on moving ships as in running trains.They may have been cause for grounding flights but are unlikely to miss their big ticket travel on board the space station! 
      
Human-rodent co-existence has indeed been enigmatic. There are rats that are killed and there are lab-rats that are admired. There are rats that are eaten and there are rats that are considered sacred. There are rats that are chased away and there are rats that accompany the gods. Abhorred and adored in equal measures, rats have seemingly been victims of man's changing priorities and opportunistic misadventure. 

Isn't it a strange paradox that these lowly creatures have been part of our collective psyche as Mickey Mouse, Tom and Jerry and Stuart Little?   

Chemical and biological atrocities notwithstanding, rodents have spurned all acts of violence against them. If a global census was ever to be conducted, rodents would easily outnumber humans by a factor of between 4 or 6, if not more. Ironically, all attempts at getting rid of them have helped their numbers to swell. Despite many localities across the world vying for a 'rodent-free' tag, rats have nonetheless remained part of our collective co-existence.    

Rats may have remained small in size but their stature has been taller on the evolutionary time scale, having arrived on this planet some 50 million years ahead of humans and other large mammals. No wonder, a four-month old rat had the audacity to question the age of a baby elephant. 'I am four-months old,' replied the baby elephant. Not to be taken aback, the rat was quick to retort, ' I am your age but have been sick for a while.'          

Not to be read lightly, a day will come when rats will outgrow their size and take over the earth. If rat menace is any indication, rat takeover has already begun. Isn't it? Humans may have been the cause for extinction of many species but are quite unlikely to impact the existence and onward evolution of rats. Palaeobiologist Jan Zalasiewicz contends that one day rats albeit giant rats will become the dominant species on the earth. 

There is no point racing with the rats because in a rat race the one who wins can only be a 'rat'. 

This write-up was published in The Tribune dated Feb 12, 2016.

27. Control, out of control

If you need to spot a diabetic friend on the sprawling lawns at a marriage reception, all you need to do is to stretch your sight to the section serving 'desserts'. Ten out of ten chances are that you will find him savoring one or more of the forbidden 'sweet'. That is how (Indian) men are made of, be it a forbidden apple or an impermissible sweet.  
  
It isn't a chance factor but somewhat of a 'compulsive (dis)order' in men which perhaps cannot be cured so easily. The question, however, is: why 'temptation' is so tempting that it makes it hard for most men to apply 'control' even if they claim to be disciplined? Do men lack self-control, a trait that seems uncommon in women? Don't get me wrong for my gender bias, but I haven't heard anything on the contrary to be dis-proven.

But before the other half resorts to rejoicing for being a shade different, let it be made clear that research has yet to acknowledge a lack of self-control as a deficiency one is born with. The ability to control one's behaviour and adapt it to new situations is something one can learn. That men do not apply it in certain matters is a matter of choice. Women are no different, they let go control out-of-control in matter of shopping for cosmetics and jewelry.     

Some are tempted to spend more; many get tempted to avoid regular exercise; few can't avoid the temptation of cheating; and still others can't avoid being tempted towards women. Temptation to indulge in undesirable actions is considered 'masculine' or 'courageous'. I say this because our society is much more forgiving of men who give into 'temptation' than it is for women. Guilty pleasures are like cheese reserved for men, so they say, because 'temptation' like opportunity may knock only once.    

Not sure if applying 'self-restraint' makes more sense than allowing oneself to be susceptible to 'temptation'. Given that self control is a limited resource that needs to be used intelligently and, to some extent, even economically, it is up to you to make a choice. What must be known is that to practice 'self-control' makes us all the more susceptible to 'temptation'. 

Could market economy survive without 'temptation'? No surprise, therefore, Adam & Eve were 'tempted' to promote market economy. An apple a day keeps 'control' under control!  

26. There is a catch!

Have patience. Fish is waiting for you! 

Fishing is what fishermen do, hydrophobia afflicts the rest. Barring few exceptions, hydrophobia is a common trait among Indians. Uncanny it may sound but canine teeth haven't got much to do with it, though occasional dog bites do add to the numbers. Credit must go to doting parents and curious astrologers instead, who cast fear in the minds of children toward water or more specifically 'flowing water'. It has worked as an inter-generational cognitive trap! 

Hydrophobia has persisted as a social reality, nonetheless. While the elites drive to the golf courses, weekenders head for the hills instead. The idea of 'green' overwhelms popular perception, keeping away from 'blue' plays up sub-consciously. Neither do people flock to river fronts to stay away from noise nor seek the comforting experience of fly fishing. For self-immersed entertainment seekers (other than rafting) river fronts hold little promise.   

Holding rivers in ritualistic reverence once or twice a while has only contributed to their neglect and consequent decline. Since people don't protect rivers, rivers don't save people either. If you don't protect 'blue', you get many shades of 'grey' in return. How disgusting? Keeping distance from what creative writer John McPhee calls 'the ultimate metaphor of existence' has not done much to our being. Our foibles, our loneliness, our boredom, our anxieties, our frustration and our helplessness are products of our isolation from the rivers.      

There is something intriguing, rivers can provide heart-soothing serenity as well as heart-pounding excitement. Try sitting or walking along a riverfront for a while, notice the calm that it provides. By constantly changing its contents and shape, rivers can be as much an avenue for escape as a part of our quest for redemption. It offers natural refuge for disturbed minds. Not without reason, people go fishing to seek everything from solace to a romantic respite. 

Travel Writer Gretel Ehrlich writes that 'water can stand for what is unconscious, instinctive and sexual in us, for the creative swill in which we fish for ideas'. If you are in courtship, ride over your entrenched hydrophobia and persuade your partner to go with you for fishing. You will surely net your catch! 

This was published in Deccan Herald dated June 2, 2015.

25. And, you can't do much about it. Can you?

Why bring me into the picture? 

I suspect if there are many words (or should these be called 'motives') that carry similar or near similar 'sense' across different languages. Given their outrageous meaning, their inter-generational transfer has been through word-of-mouth or at best through graffiti in the privacy of frequented public spaces. Since such words are often part of an oral tradition, these do not fear any threat of extinction as many native languages do, whether spoken and/or written.

In the spirit of a critical inquiry, let a less invasive word find preference over its outrageous cousins. Ladies & Gentlemen, the word under scrutiny is 'asshole' and let it be clear at the outset that it has got nothing to be with an 'ass' but has everything to do with 'humans'. Unless there are exceptions, assholes are overwhelmingly distributed among only one-half of the human population: assholes are mainly men because they (men) have socialized differently from women. Aren't males taught to be assertive and outspoken and females taught to pull their punches?       

Don't rush to enlist assholes around you just yet, your judgement could be jagged. Let subjectivity not guide you in identifying those among us who are full of shit. Come to think of it, assholes are found daily on cable news, where hosts repeatedly interrupt their guests, and on radio programs where jockeys thrive on falsehood and invective. But assholes are not limited to the world of media only, its spread is democratic across all sectors of human existence be it politics, bureaucracy, judiciary, academia, business, sports, films and other facets of social life.     

Various attempts to enlist assholes in public life have been made. If you promise not to get carried away, one such list of eminent (Indian) assholes is just a click away. Surely, your list is bound to be different but the question is how do you identify an asshole in the first place? Piqued by his experience with fellow surfers, University of California Philosopher Aaron James defines asshole as one who allows himself to enjoy special advantages and does this out of an entrenched sense of entitlement and is immunized by his sense of entitlement against the complaints of other people. No wonder, assholes are rightly upsetting people, often morally outrageous.

An asshole will jump a queue without any remorse; interrupt public life without apparent guilt; and, drive out of lane by persistently highlighting flaws in others' driving. The list isn't exhaustive though! The common feature of most assholes is: they harbor a kind of willful insensitivity, however, without any malice. And yet, there are different types of assholes. A boorish asshole is rude; a smug asshole considers others inferior; and an asshole boss issues barking orders without ever saying 'i'm sorry'. Need reckless assholes be introduced!.    

By this time, images of several assholes may have already clogged your mind. Not without reason because global trends indicate that asshole production is on the rise. Boom in electronic media and spread of social networking have acted as powerful incentives for assholes to bare themselves in public. That could be reason enough for asshole production to rise. All said, let us not put a blame on an asshole because assholes are a given fact of life. A friend often remarks: opinions are like assholes, we each have one!   

(P.S. I checked myself on the asshole radar and found that I am not an asshole because 'I lack the ability to drive otherwise cool-headed people into fits of rage' )   

24. The bald and the beautiful

It is no breaking news that the 'bold' becomes 'bald' sooner than the 'beautiful'. Loss of hair on the temples and vertex with a rim of hair retained along sides and rear of the head is common, termed the 'hippocratic wreath'. I doubt if this has got anything to do with the Greek philosopher Hippocrates, though he too had lost hair early.    

The question that begs attention is: why do men lose hair at a faster rate than women? It is not that women don't lose hair but they do hide the exposed turf with their long hair. I have reliably learnt that the theories on baldness that apply to men do not necessarily relate to women. Blame it on testosterone hormone, they say!

Curiously, the hormone that makes men 'bold' turns them 'bald' too. While genetic make-up and diet does play some role in delaying the process, baldness is a syndrome that most men can hardly avoid. Hair restoration or transplant has come handy for those who can afford it. For the ordinary mortals, wig remains a vulnerable option.  

Many of you may have already run your soft hand over your head to check the ground conditions. Still others would have been at the mirror rotating their head on its axis. While some may have been relieved for now, many others have lost so much that they have thrown caution out of the window. For them, it is hair today gone tomorrow! 

All said, mystery of hair fall must be resolved. A new study blames it on the law of gravity - 'the force of downward pull caused by gravity on the scalp skin is a key contributor to progressive hair loss in men'. Wonder, why did it not work on Issac Newton? Much like women, Newton supported long hair and a dense canopy!

Let's not split hairs on the issue any further. A friend offers a comforting but amusing suggestion to those who are victims of receding cover on top.  Says he, 'when the (bald) head is held high, the hair can only fall behind'. 

23. What is not in a name?

'Bhawani Singh couldn't be anything but 'old'   

A rose by any other name would undoubtedly smell the same. Any attempt at equating it with humans is unlikely to work, therefore when it comes to us 'name' does matter - an 'identity' for existence and even beyond. Imagine, if our ancestors had numbered us instead - someone's 'mobile' could have been other person's 'girl friend'. If that were to be so, legendary mathematician and astronomer Aryabhatta would surely have been named or numbered 'zero'.      

Whether short or long, names through the ages have had profound influence of prevailing cultures....gods, deities, creatures, colors, emotions and aspirations featured heavily in varying combinations in giving structure and meaning to names for the newly born. Not all names carry a 'meaning' though. While introducing herself, a little girl had told me that her name 'Ashnoor' was meaningless. It does seem so! 

Meaningful or inert, in each generation a set of names get the hype that we end-up having many persons with similar first names floating around. I had three 'Anil' and couple of 'Pritam' in my graduate class. There was a time when 'Sanjay' were in plenty and so on. Given the generational emphasis on certain 'names', it is indeed possible to figure out the 'age' without having seen the person. In the classic comedy Gol Maal (pic), Laxman seeks to meet the old man 'Bhawani Singh'. When accosted why did he refer to Bhawani Singh as 'old man' without ever seeing him, Laxman quips 'anyone named 'Bhawani Singh' couldn't be anything but 'old'.     

Length of names is another aspect, the genesis of long names has been distinctly acknowledged. Almost like 'geographical indicators', such names harbor multiple identities of individuals - family lineage being an integral part of it. Pronouncing such names might give you a slipped disc but length of names like Vijayendra Kasturi Ranga Varadaraja Rao or Villupuram Chinnaih Pillai Ganesan have had their justifications. Despite names having shrunk in size in recent times, more like brands, some cultures have yet to compromise on the length of 'names'. 

Whatever be the conditions or influences under which new born get their 'names', the Kabalarian philosophy strongly believes that an individual's character is strongly influenced by its name. One may not easily believe it but the order of letters in a name are interpreted as numbers and added up to  get a sense of one's character. 

In an interesting incidence, a local woman read the character of a person much the same way. The story goes like this: to escape from sudden rain showers, a traveler knocked at the door of a house. A female voice from inside questioned: 'Who is there?' The traveler was quick to respond: 'It's 'Julius Nagendranath Wilfred Singh'. 'Sorry', came the reply, 'there isn't enough space for four persons! 

Had Shakespeare been born in this part of the world, he would have ended up saying 'there is lot in a name'. 

22. Give me a break

And there she was, engrossed in reading a book on the deck of the houseboat, oblivious of the exquisite beauty of the Dal lake. Second time in as many days, one could not hold back from intruding: 'Aren't you on a vacation?' Violation to her privacy notwithstanding, she was candid in her response, 'No, I'm on a sabbatical.'  I must confess it took time for me to get the essence of her response and hence our conversation was truncated then.   

Years later I discovered the subtle but profound distinction between a vacation and a sabbatical. The young lady on the deck was on a trip to unwind, explore and regenerate herself. Whether it was employer-supported or not, sabbatical for her was a desire fueled with fantasy. And, all fantasies carry a shadow of uncertainty for which she seemed reasonably prepared over the next three months of her sabbatical.

Sabbatical is considered a Biblical act, when God rested after creating the universe. Present across ancient societies, the idea was to not only ‘take a break’ but allow nature to take a break too. Agriculture activities were given a break for the land to rest and recover, what in modern parlance would be considered an ‘unproductive phase.’ Majority of our present day problems are precisely borne out of over-stretching everything, from the living to the non-living. 

Many forms of sabbaticals have been invented. In some, absence from service is fully paid, whereas in others some companies offer unpaid sabbaticals. Universities do encourage their faculty to avail sabbatical and so are some government offices. In practice, very rare! Given the immense pressure of deadlines and targets, employees run out of steam for randomness, spontaneity, and serendipity — all of which are crucial to creativity and innovation. But rarely do employers acknowledge the need for employees recuperation and regeneration! 

India's youngest Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, is credited for not only cutting a typical week to five working days but for introducing 'leave travel concession' for employees to escape from their daily ordeal to explore the country. It is no secret that the opportunity has been squandered (or misappropriated) to such an extent that a month's basic salary is what most employers currently offer, whether or not one travels! No wonder, a recently retired acquaintance does not know 'what worth he is after relinquishing his desk job at the bank'.  
   
Indians love predictability and continuity, and so are their employers! Rarely if ever, they inspire themselves or the others, status quo suits them the most. In contrast, a `sabbatee' is a different beast, ready to 'go away to assess whether or not s/he still likes thyself'. Ready to explore and reinvent, a typical sabbatee returns home a 'new person' after re-discovering oneself. 
  
Indians often go on vacations, capturing pictures of themselves against important landmarks. but rarely submit themselves for sabbaticals. Rarely do they challenge themselves and hence are bereft of any inspiration. Going out of their comfort zone is a big NO. Consequently, neither do they discover themselves nor the world - remaining somewhat like a lost society.

Wonder if Vasco da Gama had not been on a sabbatical we may have been discovered at all!

This piece was first published in Deccan Herald on Oct 10, 2016.