Cat O' Nine Tales - Jeffrey Archer

The author has served 5 years in the House of Commons, 14 years in the House of Lords and two in Her Majesty’s Prisons, which spawned highly acclaimed prison diaries.

When incarcerated for 2 years in 5 different prisons, he picked up several ideas for short stories.
This book is a result of all those days of imprisonment and association with prison mates!

A classic example of time and resource management!

It’s a collection of twelve short stories. Most of them are set in Europe. One is set in Russia. One in India. I might have forgotten any other place.

The protagonists of the story were mostly fellow prisoners of the author (perhaps you should call them antagonists!)
All stories are based on real life incidents and therefore interest you as they reveal the strange ways of people. And since the characters are all involved in crimes of varying magnitude, they are extraordinary (please read it as out of ordinary) on account of their idiosyncrasies and their cunning.

I must say, the book is a classic case of ‘parts being greater than the whole’.

Almost every story, for most part is the stuff banality is made of.
And the supposed twist that makes the story a story is not twist enough. (for me!)

Some of course, stories of theft, deception, stealing, conning are interesting. They always are.

A smart story writer, I must say, solely with reference to this particular book. The stories are eight to ten pages each. The pages are filled with details that actually grasp your attention and fill the pages but have no bearing upon the story itself.
To make my point clearer, I will have to tell you something.
When I open the book today to write this review I don’t remember the stories when I see the titles. I don’t remember even after I read from the pages. Only when I read a certain part that forms a central point, I am able to recollect.
And this, I cannot help comparing with the experience of reading some of those books, the details of which, I so clearly, vividly remember, though months and months have passed since my reading them.

To compare thus is probably not fair because some books simply are not written to make an impact or to inform but to simply entertain, please or amuse.

But then again, even among those books belonging to the latter category, I am reminded of so many, the subject of which is banality, but the rendering of which makes them spectacular, leaving an ever lasting impression.

Do you remember ‘The Last Leaf’ of O Henry or ‘The Eyes Are Not Here’ by Ruskin Bond?

Anyway, let me not compare. For even without making comparisons, I can say in a sentence ‘This is one of those books that you will read very attentively and forget soon after’.

The twelve stories are:

The man who robbed his own post office – a lot of banality with some twist in the end.
Maestro – a case of investigation of fraud, where the fraudulent guy, a restaurant owner, a tax evader, outwits the investigators.
Don’t drink the water – As you sow, so shall you reap. This story is set in Russia.
The red king – I would call this a story – some history, some interesting facts, some conning, … The Wisdom of Solomon – A court trial – a divorce case. The twist in the end is extraordinary but the story that leads up to it is itself not much. Men all over the world would love the ending.
The commissioner – This is set in India. A story of a commissioner of police dealing diplomatically with a prisoner. Good one!

The following have no story really unless i missed something.

It can’t be October already
Know what I mean?
Charity begins at home
The alibi
A Greek tragedy
In the eye of the beholder

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And now, certain lines from the book…the author…

The old cliché that there is a book in every one of us is a fallacy. However I have come to accept over the years that most people have experienced a single incident in their life that is unique to them and well worthy of a short story. –

I agree with this one. So true! I tried to believe in the philanthropic stand that each one of us has a story. But I realized soon that I was pretending to myself. Perhaps some people, as the author says above, are worthy of a short story only.

Whether you are a peer or a pirate depends on whom you share your spoils with-

Here, the author refers to the customary practice of a time.
Those pirates, who robbed ships on seas and kept the spoils to themselves were called pirates and brought to subjection.
But if they gifted the spoils to the King or Queen, they were conferred upon with the title of Peer!

The ways of the British monarchy do not stop to amaze me!

River Rafting On Beas

I had to tear myself away from Manali. Virtually.

I was joined by two friends Pradeep and Venkat in Manali.

After visiting the Hidimba temple (it was the third time for me) and eating some more strawberry and cherry fruit, I said goodbye to Anu Thakur and we left to Pirdi from where Atul’s team would help us go river rafting.

The bus drive from Manali to Pirdi was very scenic as our road was by the Beas River throughout. I took some pictures from the moving vehicle.

You could see the rocky river bed. Quite shallow, I thought. It would be wonderful if I could get down and wade through the waters to the other bank on foot. I was to realize soon that appearances are deceptive especially when you are in the mountains.

We reached Pirdi and waited for some time on the banks of the river Beas.

I am compelled to explain something here. The river Beas is actually river “Vyas”, from Vedavyas or Krishna Dwaipayan, the great sage who divided the Veda into four parts realizing that no individual would be able to study in one lifetime, the Vedas in it’s entirety. So he divided them into four parts and assigned each one to a group or sect of people.

This Vyas river became Byas and then Beas. :-)

As we had refreshments by the vast expanse of the Beas, close to where a hanging bridge had been built, we were joined by Ranjana.

The four of us put on our life jackets and helmets and sat in our raft all ready for adventure. We decided to do the 7 kilometer rafting from Pirdi to Bhuntar.

There were two oarsmen apart from the four of us. Our two guy friends performed the courageous feat of maneuvering the raft, of course with instructions from the oarsmen. But the oarsmen were in ultimate control of the raft and mercifully so :-).

We sailed for sometime on calm waters. And then the rapids began - causing excitement in the beginning and mild cardiac arrests a little later!

What had appeared to be disturbances on the surface of a shallow river, whose rocky river bed could be seen, turned out to be huge waves that threatened to capsize the raft which kept us afloat.

It was only upon riding the first rapid that I realized how cold the water was. Ooooooh! One splash and all of us were drenched.

These rapids I was told were of the order 2 or 3.

The raft wobbled this way and that. Now I thought I would tumble down. Now, I thought the raft would capsize.

With one hand I held on to a rod firmly. With the other hand, I held my camera and struggled to take some pictures. With all the splashing of water around, I had to wipe the water on the lens frequently.

Now, as I look back, what I fear is not the danger of tumbling into cold waters or drowning in the Beas but the thought of what I would do if the camera slipped from my hands! Ooops! I would surely jump after it.

There were trees and much greenery on both sides of the bank. And beyond, there were mountains. On our way, we saw a layer of mist just above a patch of water. This was magical. I had never seen such a thing before.

Calm before storm!

This was a frightening sight. A rock… we were heading straight towards it… the raft was made of rubber and pumped with air. Would it survive this collision? What if???


This is the confluence of Beas with Parvathi. Do you see they are of different colours? Green here and brown at the far end...Didn’t I tell you each water has an identity? Its not just two of hydrogen and one of oxygen...


This confluence happened at Bhuntar. We had reached the end of our 7 kilometer adventure, but we had the option of going further to Bajaura. That would be another 7 kilometers… all of us said YES…and we started again…





This was my first river rafting experience, partly on Beas River, partly on Parvati River and some through the confluence of the two, with mountains and greenery all around, cold water and some sunlight. Perfect.

My Bangalore

The gardens, the greenery, the lakes, the weather, the calm, the peace, the eating joints, the English and Hindi speaking people and the friendly, tolerant, hospitable Kannadigas…

I do not remember how many times, but I have fallen in love with Bangalore, all over again and again and again. The last time was this morning when I picked up my copy of TOI.

I feel so proud as I read…

In 1537, Kempe Gowda designed the city as it exists today.

Cubbon Park : It was developed by Sir Mark Cubbon in 1864 when he was the viceroy.

Lalbagh : It has over 1000 species of flora. It has one of the oldest rock formations, the Lalbagh Rock, which is believed to be 3000 million years old.

Bangalore was the first city in India to get electricity. The first electric bulb was lit up in a shop in City market in 1905.

Stone City : Because of it’s rich granite deposits, Bangalore was also known as the ‘Stone City’.

Oldest Sanitary System : Bangalore was founded in the second century and still has the same drainage and sanitary systems – the oldest in the world.

Flowering trees of Bangalore : Jacaranda, Gulmohar or Mayflower, Parijatha, Moulmein Rosewood, Hibiscus, Tabebuia, Silk Cotton and Indian Coral are seen in Bangalore in abundance.

The more I fall in love with this city and the more I become attached to Bangalore, the more I fear for it.

My father uses the analogy of “yele mare kai” often.

Those fruits on a tree, covered with leaves and twigs are safe. The minute these fruits become exposed to public eye, people pelt stones at them.

Everybody is enthusiastically talking about putting Bangalore on the global map; IT, development, tall buildings, huge malls and so on…

Seeing all the wretchedness that has befallen Bombay and Delhi, I wonder if we were better off living in oblivion.

O God! May your grace bless my city.

I Shall Not Hear The Nightingale - Khushwant Singh

Time – 1942 – 1943

It’s the story of a relatively important Indian Sikh family during a period in history. Such a blend of history with the story of common civilians gives you an improved perspective of history when compared to the perspective you get when you read history merely as a chain of important events in chronological order.

While the story itself is a nice one, its characters serve to provide meaningful insights into the life and thoughts of people of bygone years under uncommon circumstances. I like such books for the insights they provide about specific dynamics of sociology at a time in the past.

There is the sycophant Buta Singh who is a magistrate reporting to a British officer. He has political ambitions and his ideological stand is a fickle one. For most part, he wishes to keep up the ancestral tradition of unflinching loyalty to the British, not without a selfish ulterior motive. All the same, he cannot oppose his son Sher Singh who is secretly leading the youth towards rebellion.

Here’s what he says to his son during one of their arguments “English have treated us better than our own kings did in the past; or the Germans, Italians, or Japanese will do if they win and take over India. We should stand by the English.”
For all the resentment (of the people) that the patriotic movies show us year after year, this is the sentiment that a lot of people had towards the British. And why not?

Sabhrai is Buta Singh’s wife. She can’t be bothered about politics and all that. Like a dutiful wife and mother, all she cares about all the time is the well being and harmony of the family, especially father and son. Much of her time is devoted to reading the ‘Granth Sahib’.

Champak is the wife of Sher Singh. She is an amorous woman having a fling with her husband’s friend.
I have always held that the passing of years sees the dilution of morals, that yesterday’s men and women were purer than today’s. But when I read books like these I wonder if people are people: the same everywhere and at all times. (Although characters of a book are fictitious, they are inspired by reality. Aren’t they?)

Shunno the maidservant is a widow of 50. She troubles the young servant boy Mundoo who in turn causes her real trouble. The solution to a non existent problem is then provided by a ‘Hakim’, a quack, in whom Shunno has more faith than in educated doctors.

There is Mr. Taylor, who is aware of the undercurrents of rebellion, and his sympathetic wife and between the two of them they think, …… “It may be a hard thing to say, but despite the close living, in joint families and the formal respect paid to the elders, there is less contact, understanding or friendship between parents and their children in India than in Europe”… quite true!
And then there are other characters. Madan, Sita, Mundoo, Beena…

The story revolves not just around one or two main protagonists but several characters, all of whom have been adequately sketched. This must be quite a difficult thing to do – to draw the readers’ attention towards all characters – to divide the story equally among many and yet have a certain cohesion between the many threads that makes it one single story.

The language of the novel is beautiful. It is a mix of the right amount of all ingredients – simplicity, standard, imagery, portrait, poetry, historical facts... but the language is also crisp and brisk where necessary.

I loved the beautiful imagery in this para and the observation he tries to make, about what monsoon means to Indians.

To know india’s people, one has to know the monsoon………

Summer – another day begins with it’s heat, it’s glare and it’s dust…………

After living through all this for ninety days or more, one’s mind becomes barren and bereft of hope. Its is then that the monsoon makes it’s spectacular entry. Dense masses of dark clouds sweep across the heavens like a celestial army with black banners. The deep roll of thunder sounds like the beating of a billion drums. Crooked shafts of silver zigzag in lightening flash against the black sky. Then comes the rain itself. First it falls in fat drops; the rises to meet them. She laps them thirstily and is filled with fragrance. Then it comes in torrents which she receives with the supine gratitude of a woman being ravished by her lover. It impregnates her with life which bursts forth in abundance within a few hours. Where there was nothing, there is everything: green grass, snakes, centipedes, worms and millions of insects.

It is not surprising that much of India’s art, music and literature is concerned with the monsoon.

Do read this book.
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Now, some language…new English words…
Do you know the English word for ghee?!!!
Clarified butter :-)

And a noteworthy line…
Vice responds only to vice; it dare not accost virtue.

Resurgence

This was meant to be prose and part of another blog post.
But as I completed the really long sentence, I saw that it deserved to be a poem :-) An instance of serendipity!

Believe not that wounds heal
Merely covered are they
By layers of time inexorable
Until they settle to the dark bottom
Of a bygone past
And the tears have dried.

Forget not the smouldering lava
Beneath the deceptive calm
Of a snow covered volcano

Every fresh wound inflicted,
No matter how slight,
Descends upon a vulnerable heart
Like a sword or a bludgeon
Wielded with all might
It becomes the last straw
That assumes a stone’s weight
And falls upon the tranquil surface
Of a tormented soul
Creating not mere ripples
But waves of an unfailing memory
That carries glimpses
Of that trauma of adolescence
On to the shores of the happy present

Inheriting The Only Bequest

Four Miles
Value Of Pi & Bodhayana Sutra
Quadratic Equation, Algebra And Permutation Combination
Square Root And Cube Root
Lost Treasure
First Step Of The Thousand Miles

Value Of Pi & Bodhayana Sutra

Bodhayana Sutra

This theorem now known as Pythagoras theorem was known to Bodhayana and Katyayana 1000 years before Pythagoras. Bodhayana has written this verse.


This was adopted in the construction of altars of sacrifice. Quadrangular, equilateral altars, bilateral altars and quadrilateral altars were used during sacrifices.

The value of Pi

Aryabhatta had discovered the value of pi much earlier than anyone. The value he gave was pi=3.1416. The value arrived at in modern mathematics is pi=3.1416926.
The verse of Aryabhatta giving this value is


Trigonometry

Trigonometry is one of the most important contributions of India to the entire world. In the field of trigonometry, Indians used ‘jya’ and ‘kotijya’. This word becomes cosine in the European languages.

Aryabhatta first composed ‘Jya Kostaka’. He has designed the lines of a circle from 0 – 90 degree. In order to fix the places of planets in Indian astronomy he was using many theories of Trignometry.

Tuesdays With Morrie - Mitch Albom

Is this a book on self help? Yes and No.

This book is the true story of an old professor dying of ALS or motor neuron disease also known as Lou Grehig’s disease. This is a gradually debilitating disease that eats into the body of man, crippling him everyday, every minute and rendering useless, one by one, all parts of the body until the person is completely paralysed and dependant on another, even to turn their head.

While the professor is spending his last few months at home away from the clamour of the city, an old student of the professor, working for a news paper or magazine, chasing money, fame and success, happens, by pure chance, to hear about his old professor and decides to visit him.

When they meet, after many years, the young man opens his eyes, for the first time, with the help of the old professor, to look at life with a new perspective and reevaluates his own life, his priorities and the path he has chosen to tread.

The two of them begin to meet every Tuesday when the old man imparts his views about various matters of life including death. That’s why the book is called Tuesdays With Morrie.

The discussion that follows is actually nothing new (to the reader). It’s the same old thing we have been hearing in the modern times of rat race, about how to live.

Live as if it were your last day today. Prioritize. People, relationships, self and soul… Wealth does not last long. Happy memories do.

Some really precious lessons and values of life have unfortunately been made base, trite, and hackneyed by emails and forwards that tell you with graphic images and stories about how to live, how to stop chasing the wrong things, how to stop for people who matter, the near and dear ones.

If you have already had a fill of all these, you may not be able to appreciate the book much. And then, there are millions of books on self help. The author himself says “America has become a Persian bazaar of self help”.

The story is similar to the story of Monk who sold his Ferrari – an old successful lawyer goes to the Himalayas having thrown away everything and learns the lesson of life. He returns and imparts his learning to a younger lawyer.

This book however, is different as it is based on the real life experiences of two people, a dying professor and his student. There is some sincerity as it comes from a dying man…
The dignified disposition of the professor, his acceptance of death, his gratitude towards his family for being there for him and his perseverance through his misery move you as you read and bring a smile on your face.

As usual, I made notes of some lines and lessons that made so much sense. The lines in Italics are from the book. The lines in regular font that follow are my thoughts about the relevance of these lines.

Accepting the past as past without denying or discarding it...

Tension of opposites. Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn’t. you take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted.
The tension of opposites like the pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere
in the middle.
Which side wins?
Love wins. Love always wins.

Death is a great equalizer...

Sometimes you cannot believe what you see. You have to believe what you feel... Closing eyes makes a lot of difference...

A teacher affects eternity. He can never tell where his influence stops... – Henry Adams

Fate succumbs many a species. One alone jeopardizes itself – W H Auden
Very True.

Love each other or perish...

In the beginning of life when we are infants, we need others to survive. In the end when we are dying we need others to survive.
In between, we need others as well...

Don’t let go too soon...but don’t hang on too long...

People wanting to gobble up new things. New car, new piece of property, latest toy, “Guess what I got?”
These people are so hungry for love that they are seeking, accepting substitutes. Embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. It never works. You can’t substitute material things for love or for gentleness or tenderness or a sense of comradeship...

If only people realized this, half the shopping malls, all of which, sell the same things to people who don’t need them, would shut down. Bangalore traffic would decrease.

Ignore the lure of advertised values...

ABSOLUTELY.
Softskills : Confidence, dressing, presentation, how to shake hands, assertiveness, smile please, attitude, grooming…there are a million shops selling them for 5000, 10000 and 20000. I don’t deny that they are values. But they are being advertised because there is money in them. Are there any training institutes that teach you honesty, speaking truth, integrity, contentment, humility, good character? No. Why? These do not fetch money you see.

All the above advertised values are a mere manifestation of a deeper quality that comes from within. Confidence, for example comes from knowledge, experience, skills etc. The institutes can’t help you develop those, because they take years. They only teach you to wear a smile, sit in a certain posture or stand with your chest thrust forward, give a tight handshake, look your interviewer or client straight in the spot between the eye and the nose (just in case you become nervous upon looking him in the eye and help him make a correct assessment of your worth) and pass off for a confidant fellow whether you have the skill, knowledge or not.

My stand is, softskills does not have a fragmentary independent existence. It has meaning only when it is combined with education of the mind and soul.

Wasting life over other peoples’ drama.
People spending so many hours on things that mean absolutely nothing to them personally... Movie stars, supermodels, latest noise about princess Diana or Madonna or a dimwit Malaika Arora. People who did not know O J Simpson surrendered their entire lunch hours watching O J Simpson trial...

Those fellows who just learnt the art of surveying the market for opportunities in some B-school (and the B-schools don’t teach them the distinction between the society and the market... the whole world is one market for them) and those parasites living on dead and decaying matter of human spirit, waiting for another sensibility to die and another weakness to be born, the programmers of the social virus, found a way of making money out of this one too. They started Zoom TV!

Why are we embarrassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?...

Detachment does not mean you don’t let experiences penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it.

Agreed. Looking at the same idea from another angle, people chase things and once they get it, they take it for granted and don’t cherish it anymore! House, car, love, friendship!!!

It’s a good book but does not strike me as an outstanding work of wisdom as it would strike other people, mostly westerners (much of the popularity of such works can be attributed to the impact they make on westerners, many of whom prefer domesticating dogs to rearing babies because dogs are cheaper! That should speak volumes about the necessity of such books in the west).
This is perhaps because my encounter with such wisdom has happened many times before. First of all, I am an Indian and have the good fortune of inheriting 5000 years of philosophy even as I come into this world. We Indians grow up assimilating such wisdom without even realising it. Don’t we? How many Harikathas, Bhajans, recitations of the Bhagavadgeetha have I grown up listening to! All of them impart the same learning. And much more than that. Don’t they?

Anyway, read the book and let me know your thoughts.

Manali - Day 2

There is so much to do in Manali.

I decided to try para gliding. Para gliding happens at Solang valley which is about twenty kilometers from Manali proper. If you don’t know anyone then this whole affair can be expensive. The drive to Solang valley and back itself will cost you more than 500. Luckily, Anu’s friend Atul was an organizer of various sports.

Me and Atul drove to Solang valley and we reached there by afternoon. The drive offered views of the interesting landscape around Manali – the Beas river, the snow mountains, Devdars, vast open spaces and mountains.





We reached a clearing where there were several food stalls, cameramen, pilots and people.

It was too late for the 14 minute glide and it was expensive. Since I had reached the last lap of my month long tour, I had to be conscious of my pocket. I would go for the 2 minute glide. Atul told my pilot Ram to remain in the air slightly longer.

From the clearing we climbed a small hillock. Some people were already on the top and there were the others who were climbing slowly.


We clambered to the top. But we would have to wait for the strong winds to calm down. Here and there on the hillock were poles fixed with a piece of cloth tied to them, the fluttering of which indicated the direction and strength of the winds.
We waited patiently. An hour passed. My pilot kept looking at the sky. These guys are trained to forecast certain weather conditions by observing the cloud patterns in the sky. At that time, the sky above us was clear and blue but there were clouds closing in from other directions. He explained that the winds would continue until the clouds had closed in completely and the sky looked somewhat uniform with respect to cloud pattern or distribution. This had to do with winds blowing from high pressure to low pressure areas or so…elements working together to help the atmosphere attain a state of equilibrium.

One more hour passed. I was getting impatient. I told my pilot that we should fly. He told me it was very risky. you would sail with the winds alright. But you might not land safely! I told him I was a brave girl. He laughed. He said he might have to land on a tree in emergency. I said I did not mind as long as I did not hurt my limbs. As the two of continued thus, to the amusement of the other pilots around, the weather condition became favourable and pilot asked me fasten the belts. I did and he too fastened the belt and positioned himself behind me. We ran a short distance and then we jumped…

My heart skipped a beat… we floated…this way and that way…in a zig-zag fashion. And very shortly we were close to landing. There were people below, some seated and some standing. I was certain I would land on one of them. They too saw the danger coming, got to their feet and ran, as I landed in their midst laughing uncontrollably.
As I unfastened my belt and removed my helmet, I was approached by camera men who had photographed me and also taken a video. I paid 100 bucks and got the video.



We returned to the hotel from where I ran to the Hidimba temple, for some more strawberry. But it was already evening and the vendors had all sold their wares and returned home. So I simply strolled some, took pictures and retuned to the hotel.

Coquettish Angels

November. The leit motif of the month is children.

I must confess that I am somewhat envious of anyone who was born after 1984. By the time they had gathered themselves and by the time they could make sense of what was happening around them, the intellectual infrastructure was up and running.

The internet, which has revolutionized the way people LIVE today, had become popular – by the time these kids reached 15.
Google which has empowered one and all, indiscriminately, by providing access to a world of information at the click of a button and has made it so easy for people to get smart, was operational - by the time these kids reached 17.
Cable television. Cable TV had just been born when I was 13 or 14. Anu kapoor’s Anthakshari was gaining popularity. Reality shows were yet unheard of.
But in just a few years, there were multiple news channels, more sophisticated, smarter and sharper than ever before.
The talk shows, the debates like the Big Fight on NDTV, the Discovery and Nat geo were only few of the many stimulants packaged and available already to the 85 borns by the time they reached 16.

It does not matter anymore whether a child today is born with a silver spoon or not. The intellectual infrastructure is incomparable to any other blessing a child has received before.

But,……………But the child of today isn’t quite a child.

Even as I begin, I don’t know if this is pointless ranting, if this is the same old recurring, nagging complaint by the older generation about the ways of the new generation; but the fact remains that there is a huge gap, somewhat blatant, somewhat flagrant and it is but inevitable for the more observant of us to discuss this gap and make those unavoidable comparisons.

Children of today are tending to reach adulthood far earlier than they are meant to. Whether this is fortunate or otherwise, is debatable.

For one thing, they are way too smart and independent. They can operate with ease a number of gadgets like the remote control, the television, the computer, the music system…etc.
The pleasure of teaching the child, all those things it is curious to know, from the very beginning, is no longer savoured by the elder whose privilege it has been to condescend to guide a blinking innocent.

The pleasure of being that all-knowing-big-brother is taken away by a smart kid who already knows more than you.

That shy, apprehensive kid, afraid of unknown people and needing handholding is extinct today.
It renders you, the elder, somewhat useless or redundant.
In some cases, their boldness and confidence receive so much encouragement and praise from proud parents that they become somewhat impertinent. I find this rather irritating.

The very fact that they don’t need you anymore makes them less deserving of your sympathy if not less deserving of your love.
I personally preferred it when they needed me, when they evoked my concern, my protective instinct, when they asked too many questions and knew too little, when they needed to hold my finger firmly in their tiny fist to explore the wide wild world. The assurance, that whether or not somebody else in this world needs me, a child definitely needs me is now taken away from me.

I also observe, somewhat poignantly, that the child of today has lost a certain innocence. Parents are responsible to a large extent. Most of them do not see the fine line that separates smartness from impertinence, exposure from over exposure, ignorance from innocence and independence from detachment.

A colleague, a mother of a 7 year old who had left her kid behind in India as she traveled to the US and stayed there for a few months was telling us all with pride that the child did not miss her or wince about her absence even rarely, that he was taking care of himself very well, that he called her up only to remind her of all the fancy toys he wanted her to bring him and that he did not want her to return to India if she failed to bring him those toys!

Such detachment! I would have been deeply pained if I learnt that my child did not cry for me even once! And the mother found it very convenient as she was spared of a big headache and could move on with her career.

Have you been watching all the reality shows on television? I am talking about those in which children sing and dance.
I can’t stop shaking my head in utter disbelief at the endless pretences, shameless lies and rigged up, staged disputes that are made part of the shows just to help the program get better TRP ratings!
To hell with the director of the show, to hell with the judges and to greater hell with the celebrities whose livelihood solely depends on such lies and pretences and whose most important means of getting visibility is farce.
What about the children? Does anybody spare a thought for them? Lying, pretending,……Is this what we want to teach them? Is this the kind of exposure we want to give them during their formative years? Alright, they have talent and they deserve a platform to exhibit them. But why does nobody, not the government, not even the parents of the children protest against such loathsome practices as staged brawls? Why such effortless acceptance of hypocrisy and deception?

And the dance competitions. Ah! What a gory scene! Have you ever watched this show called Boogie Woogie? A machine of sorts that has an incredible capacity for making every participant – boy, girl, child, man, woman – don a whore like disposition.

I have had the good fortune of watching a few episodes where the competition was exclusively for children. All of them must have been below fourteen years of age. The girls were wearing plunging necklines (already!), performing gyrating hip movements (already), jiggling their breasts (even before they were fully developed!) and giving suggestive looks and winks to the judges even before understanding fully, the meaning of those looks (I hope so…the matter would be worse if they already understood the meaning of those gestures!) amidst cheers from the audience, judges AND parents!

Some of the children were just six years old. Cheeks sucked in, mouth protruding. Coquettish expressions on angelic faces! The younger the daughter, the prouder the parents! I haven’t seen anything as disgusting as this. How can any mother bear to see her daughter trying to look or behave like Bipasha Basu and Mallika Sherawat, leave alone feeling happy about it?

And when a fourteen year old girl consented to have sex with the son of a Goa chief minister, the parents kicked up a big fuss about the guy raping a minor and all that.
What the hell was the fourteen year old doing, consenting to have sex when she should be playing with Barbie dolls?
What kind of upbringing has the mother given her? And why is she accusing the boy instead of whip lashing her daughter for sleeping around?

As I said, the fine line is blurred… the fine line that separates smartness from impertinence, exposure from over exposure, ignorance from innocence and independence from detachment.

Let us keep them away from the race. Let them be innocent. Let them depend on us a little. Let them walk to adulthood at a leisurely pace. Let us not push them towards adulthood. They are not fancy show pieces at display for neighbours to admire. Let them be dumb. It’s alright. Let them know, when it is time for them to know.

Let them be the children of Tagore’s world…the children Tagore’s dreams were made of…

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet.
The children meet with shouts and dances.
They build their houses with sand
And they play with empty shells.
With withered leaves they weave their boats
And smilingly float them on the vast deep.
They know not how to swim, they know not how to cast nets.
Pearl fishers dive for pearls, merchants sail in their ships,
While children gather pebbles and scatter them again.
They seek not for hidden treasures, they know not how to cast nets…

The greatest gift you can give your child is childhood. A prolonged one.

When my friend Pramod, a creative man in the advertisement field, was asked by his friend to suggest a suitable name and tag line for a kindergarten he was opening, Pramod rightly said…

INFANTASY
Because First Steps Last.