Of phone calls, letters, telegrams and radios

Development in telecommunications, the evolution of internet and mobile phones has brought the world close. A lot close. Friends and family with whom you had trouble keeping in touch are now in touch with you everyday and sometimes multiple times in a day.

But what this age doesn't provide is the romance and magic of waiting and unknown. My father had a transferable job. Which meant we traveled a lot. Also our relatives lived in different cities. So, I had cousins and friends, growing up in diverse cultures in different parts of the country. I would want to know about them and the places where they were living in, but communicating with them was difficult.

To talk to someone in a different city, we had to place a trunk call. Placing the trunk call was a tedious task - because we needed to wait for ages, before the request for our call was taken and then delivered. Each call costed between Rs. 7 to Rs. 20 per minute (the value of Rs. 20 those days was much higher than what it is today) and hence we had to keep the messages on the call short and crisp. I remember, once when I had got a chance to speak to a dear cousin of mine, she had said in a whisper, (lest parents could hear what she was saying) "Veenakka, I have something to tell you... I will write a letter..."

I had waited in anticipation for ten days before the letter had come. But then that was the magic of letters. We would write long letters to our friends and cousins sharing with them the joys and pains of growing up. I remember coming from school and waiting on the porch for the afternoon postman to deliver our letters at 3 pm. When one of my friends had shifted to a hostel, both of us would write to each other every once in two days. This pattern had continued till she had made new friends in the hostel and got adjusted to the new life. With the advent of commercial airlines, letters within India would get delivered within three days. And if there were messages to be delivered faster than that, there was always the telegram.

On most days, telegrams meant bad news. I remember the time when the telegram had brought in the news of my paternal grandfather's death. The picture of my mother sitting distressed, with the telegram in one hand and tears flowing down her cheeks is still very vivid in my mind.

Talking about death, we had heard the news about the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination on the big black radio box. Listening to the radio was a delight. We would tune in to vivid bharati and love to hear the clear, husky voice of the male radio presenter, or the bubbly, lively voice of the female presenter, taking us on a journey of music and movies. There were only a select few who held the coveted position of being a RJ (radio jockey). Hence very few had the privilege and responsibility of reaching out to the masses. We waited to hear that voice everyday and yearned to know the person behind the voice.

Those days had a magic of unknown, a joy in the anxious waiting, that I guess, today's "google and cell phone" world will find very difficult to understand.

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The daily wars

On the 12th of Feb this year, I woke up to this news in the TIMES OF INDIA (TOI)
I could only shake my head in disbelief. Is "Hubbies set snoops on wives" a front page news in a leading national daily? I put the paper aside to pick up The Hindu. Don't get me wrong - I have been a reader of TOI ever since I have been reading newspapers - which means for a good 20-25 years of my life, I have read ONLY the TOI. In fact, when my husband had proposed to shift to The Hindu - I had protested vehemently.

But as they say, if you are looking at something everyday, you fail to notice the change. And I had failed to notice the quality of news (read the deteriorating quality of news) that TOI was delivering. Last year, for some reason, somebody brought The Hindu home on the first sunday of a month.

I was pregnant those days, and since I wasnt allowed to do anything else, I started reading. To my pleasant surprise, I ended up reading all the columns of the six pages of the supplement called The Literary Review. In fact I thoroughly enjoyed the intellectual invigoration the supplement provided. We did not waste another day - the next day onwards The Hindu was delivered at our door-step.

It has been almost a year now, and I have been reading The Hindu every single day since that day.

The Hindu seemed to have noticed what I had noticed. Because for the past one month, we have been seeing these ads all over Bangalore -
The ads are funny :)

I dont know if they have helped The Hindu gain any readership. But they definitely seem to woken up the TOI. It has been only one week, but the changing quality (this time for the better) of TOI is very noticeable. I do hope the quality stays.

Here's wishing both TOI and The Hindu all the best.. !

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A walk under the moon

Thinking about that day still brings a smile on my face. The day had not been particularly good. It was eight thirty in the night and since I had nothing else to do, I sat with a book.

My nine month old darling was playing on her own and mumbling to herself. At one point I saw her sneaking a glance at me. I put down my book and decided to have a mother and daughter time with the little one.

So I put a cap on her head ( which of course she kept pulling out ), and put socks on her feet ( she thrust forth her little feet to me so that I could put the socks on them easily ), took a small pink handkerchief and much to the delight of the little one, we went out for a walk.

It was a full moon night and the moon was shining brightly. I showed Nishka the moon and she smiled at it. The sky was clear and the stars were all twinkling. Nishka looked up at the sky and gurgled at the stars. And then she looked back at me amazed.

We went a full round in the garden of our apartment complex and then settled down on a lawn chair. The little girl has learnt to stand with support so I made her stand leaning on the back support of the chair. Nishka and me now sat watching the garden path and the people walking on it.

We decided to have some fun. Nishka has just started saying "hi". So if you say Hi to her, her reply will range from "Haaaayyyy" to "Haaa Yeeee" to a simple Hi. Her voice is melodious and is a delight to hear. We thought it would be a good idea to greet the people walking on the lane.

So whenever I saw any person coming near our chair, I would whisper to Nishka, "Nishka, hi! Nishka, Hi" and she would get the cue, look at the person and say "Hhhhaaaaayyyy". It must have been a pretty sight for any onlooker - a 9 month old girl, leaning against a chair, and waving a Haaayyyy to one and all.

There were different reactions to her hi - some of them were nice and some of them were funny. A young couple in their late thirties seemed so preoccupied in their walk that they hardly noticed a beauty of life waving at them. It took them three rounds around the garden and louder Haaaayyys from the baby to pause, look, wave back and smile.

A guy in his early thirties, jogged with a ear phone on his ear. He kept jogging on. Much to our amusement, he did not notice the baby at all. Or if he noticed, he chose to ignore her.

The best reactions were from an old couple. They were walking slowly, enjoying the breeze, smiling and talking to each other. They had noticed the baby from far and as they came near us, they waved at her and the baby responded with a HAAAAYY. They came closer, cooeed to her for a while and then waved a good bye.

At one point we saw a smart teenage girl. She was wearing a red t-shirt and white skirt, sport shoes, had her hair tied up into a long pony and had hung a tennis racket on her back. She was turning towards her home when she heard a hi. She turned back and on seeing a baby wave a hi, giggled and played with the baby for a while before going back home.

We had spent half an hour in the garden 'hi'ing everybody. Nishka and me had fun and made our journey back home talking to each other and hoping that we had managed to bring a smile on a few people's faces.

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Gods must be crazy - Civilization

I am sharing with you all a video I had shared long back in 2009. This is a clip from the movie 'Gods must be crazy'.

For those of you, who have already seen the video on my blog, do watch it again and enjoy the narration. Along with the video, is a transcript of the narration in the video.

Since the video is 15 minutes long, in case you don't find the time to watch it, you could read the transcript below.

§ It looks like a paradise, but it is the most treacherous desert in the world, the Kalahari. After the short rainy season there are many water holes, and even rivers. But after a few weeks, the water sinks away into the deep Kalahari sand. The water holes dry, and the rivers stop flowing. The grass fades to a beautiful blond colour that offers excellent grazing. But for the next nine months, there will be no water to drink. So most of the animals move away, leaving the blond grass uneaten.

§ Humans avoid the Kalahari like the plague because man must have water. So the beautiful landscapes are devoid of people. Except for the little people of the Kalahari. Pretty, dainty, small and graceful, the Bushmen. Where any other person would die of thirst in a few days they live quite contentedly in this desert. They know where to dig for roots and bugs and tubers and which berries and pods are good to eat. Of course they know what to do about water. In the early morning,you can collect dewdrops from leaves that were carefully laid out the previous evening. Or a plume of grass can be a reservoir. If you have the know-how, a clump of twigs can tell you where to dig and you come to light with an enormous tuber. You scrape shavings off it with a stick that is split for a sharp edge. You take a handful of the shavings, point your thumb at your mouth and squeeze. They must be the most contented people in the world. They have no crime, no punishment, no violence, no laws no police, judges, rulers or bosses. They believe that the gods put only good and useful things on the earth for them.

§ In this world of theirs, nothing is bad or evil. Even a poisonous snake is not bad. You just have to keep away from the sharp end. Actually, a snake is very good. In fact, it's delicious. And the skin makes a fine pouch.

§ They live in the vastness of the Kalahari in small family groups. One family of Bushmen might meet up with another once in a few years. But for the most part, they live in complete isolation unaware there are other people in the world. In the deep Kalahari, there are Bushmen who have not heard of civilized man.

§ Sometimes they hear a thundering sound when there are no clouds. They assume the gods have eaten too much and their tummies are rumbling. Sometimes they can even see the evidence of the gods' flatulence.

§ Their language has an idiosyncrasy of its own. It seems to consist mainly of clicking sounds.

§ They're very gentle people. They'll never punish a child or even speak harshly to it. So the kids are extremely well-behaved. Their games are cute and inventive.

§ When the family needs meat the hunter dips his arrow in a brew that acts as a tranquilliser. When he shoots a buck, it feels a sting and the arrow drops out. The buck runs away, but soon it gets drowsy and it stops running. After a while, it goes to sleep. The hunter apologizes. He explains that his family needs the meat.

§ The characteristic which really makes them different from all other races is that they have no sense of ownership at all. Where they live, there's nothing you can own. Only trees and grass and animals.

§ These Bushmen have never seen a stone or a rock in their lives. The hardest things they know are wood and bone. They live in a gentle world, where nothing is as hard as rock, steel or concrete.

§ Only 600 miles to the south, there's a vast city.And here you find civilized man. Civilized man refused to adapt himself to his environment. Instead he adapted his environment to suit him. So he built cities, roads, vehicles, machinery. And he put up power lines to run his labour-saving devices. But he didn't know when to stop. The more he improved his surroundings to make life easier the more complicated he made it. Now his children are sentenced to 10 to 15 years of school, to learn how to survive in this complex and hazardous habitat. And civilized man, who refused to adapt to his surroundings now finds he has to adapt and re-adapt every hour of the day to his self-created environment. For instance, if it's Monday and 7:30 comes up, you have to disadapt from your domestic surroundings and re-adapt yourself to an entirely different environment. 8:00 means everybody has to look busy. 10:30 means you can stop looking busy for 15 minutes. And then, you have to look busy again. Your day is chopped into pieces. In each segment of time you adapt to new circumstances.

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I have always found the narration in God must be Crazy very thought provoking. This particular video, makes you wonder about whom would you call civilized - the gentle bushmen who knew how to adapt to their environment, who would never harm a soul, and who knew how to live in contentment with the rythm of nature. Or the so-called civilized men who fool around with the rythm of nature and try to control their surroundings.

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