One thing I have to thank the government for is their constant endeavour to increase the size of my family unit. In 2007 as I went to the electoral booth, I found that I had an invisible lady, same age as me, same middle and last names as me, living… surprise surprise … at the same address as … ME!  I am still not done with needling my husband on that one!!!!

This time the authorities that be have been kind to hubby and not given me additional ammunition. But, come election day while some cribbed about not finding their name in the voters list I found that I was twice-blessed, literally, with my name appearing on the list in TWO constituencies!

Law abiding citizen that I am I ignored the incorrect one and reported at my allocated polling location a good hour before closure time. Thanks to the many SMS’es and postcards that hopeful candidates had sent me I had a good grip on my Election Id and even the exact room I was to vote in. Candidates are epitomes of helpfulness until after the elections aren’t they?

Well, registering formality over I proceeded to the EVM cubicle and punched my vote in for one of the candidates. Then for the next selection I tried to figure out how to register a `no choice’ . The electoral officers who had been helpful until this point suddenly turned belligerent.

“Madam you have to vote two candidates” one said. I replied with,” No, I don’t. Please tell me how to make my ONE vote valid”

“Cannot be done” (that the `Madam’ bit had been dropped did not escape my notice) he replied.

“It can. Please tell me how” I persisted.

Officer: “Unless you vote for two your vote is invalid”

Me: ” No, I WANT to vote but only on one panel. Not the other. Make it happen please”

Officer: ” I told you it is not possible. Now please move on, there are others waiting”

Me:  ” Sorry they will have to wait. I am not leaving until you show me how to make my one valid vote count”

Another Officer: ” You will have to give it in writing that you want to cast only one vote”

And I thought.. what? we don’t have pens that write here? Or am I supposed to be scared about recording my intention? But I meekly say instead, ” Sure, I even have my own pen”

All officers glare at me in exasperation. The commotion is beginning to attract others. “Arre.. Mr..xyz la bolva re” says one. ” Saang, ajoon ek kat kat karnaari aali aahe”

Ah, me thought, I am not the only one. So there IS a way to make this happen. (frankly I had not been sure up to that point. But now it looked like there clearly was a way)

In a bit a young officer turned up, came over to the cubicle and as I explained to him that I could not see any button to indicate my non-vote he gallantly rrripppeed off a piece of masking tape at the bottom of the EVM.  And lo and behold there was a red button hiding behind the tape!

He then told me to press the one I wanted to, register it by `enter’ing then press the little red button to to indicate `non-vote’ for the other panel.

And so I did. Did it do what I hoped it had? I sure hope so.

Was there really no way and was this was just a gimmick to get stubborn souls like me out of the way? I really don’t know

But I had done my best. I had voted. I sashayed out with a triumphant look …

I wished I had my camera.  It was a timeless shot – the low, crumbling stone wall, the two of them sitting side by side, watching the world go by. One with uninterested eyes that talked of having seen it all a million times before, the other hungrily soaking everything in.

They had probably been bundled out of the way by a family rushing through the morning rush. Grandfather and grandson. One having paid his dues to this chaotic world already, the other as yet too young to make a difference. “Go, get some sun, it will be good for you”, someone must have said. Sitting there, together, the past and the future.

Genesis: Touch of Life

I see them everywhere. And they warm my heart. Each time. These grandparent & kid sets. Little hands holding on to the gnarled fingers as they take uncertain steps, happy squeals at being raised up to ring the temple bell together,  keeping each other tired company on the mall benches. And for as long as they continue to be together, the world can go about its work, content in the knowledge that tomorrow is in safe custody.

It has no proper structure or reasoning, beginning or end. It is like many things in life. It just happens.

As I drove the road at night and automatically dimmed my lights so as not to blind the oncoming driver I realised I was the only one being understanding and gracious.

The vehicles I was dimming them for did not, not ONE, reciprocate my gesture – leave alone dimming first.

That’s when it struck me that this was like some macho ritual. On Indian roads one knows well that Might is Right is the rule. Whoever blinks first loses right of way. And this dimming of headlights is some extension of the same thinking. Being gracious, understanding, accomodating is a sign of road inferiority, or a character flaw at the very least.

Dim your lights and you have announced your subservience to me! I shall pass by in blinding halogen glory whilst you grope to stay on track! Ha!

The end. This is it. My blinding halogen insight is over. Grope for meaning. Ha!

Today morning, though, my quiet reverie on the road was broken by a long queue of people standing patiently bundled in sweaters…  `monkey caps’ .. a number of them were folding away blankets, newspapers, waking up sleepy others. “Huh?” thought I, ” When did pavement dwellers sprout in Aundh or is this some new Anna’esque protest?”

A quick q elicited that they had indeed spent the better part of the night waiting outside the  locked gates. For admission forms. Of the school they were waiting outside.

I was stunned. In this day and age, with the tools of the connected world being so easily available and accessible, at least in urban India, do people have to spend nights waiting in lines for FORMS??? What makes it even more a kolaveri moment is that this is for a SCHOOL admission form. Educational institutes that are supposed to be the beacons for transformation in society.

Are those in charge ignorant of where the world has moved? Ignorant of the difficulties they are putting people through? Or are they plain apathetic? Is it a display of power – `I can so I will’ on the part of the school? Is there such a dearth of alternatives that parents are willing to put up with this??? And we talk of education being a primary right.

Many questions… few answers…. my morning sense of well-being has been replaced by a deep dis-quiet.

The lizard was on my window pane. It was doing what all lizards do. Stalking a moth.  It crept, it waited, it side-stepped, flicked its tongue out. By all counts the moth should have been a goner.

But, surprise, surprise, it did not move an inch and yet the lizard could not get at it.

Because it was on the OTHER side of the glass pane.

Poor lizard. I could hear it think, ” #*^#, what just happened here?”

It amused me. Until I realised I was not much unlike that Lizard sometimes. Spending much time, energy and thought on stuff that is `on the other side of the glass pane’ as in, stuff that is a figment of my imagination. Like `should I have done that’, `what if this happens’, `what if that does not happen’, `Gosh, did I hurt her with my words’. You get the drift.

Chances are, it matters to nobody and all that agony is yours alone.

Why not just stick to what is on my side of the pane. That I can actually DO something about. Instead of building worry bubbles that don’t really matter to the moths at all?

Come to think of it, one thing I would like to learn from the lizard is its ability to leave its tail behind in dire situations. And grow another one. To let go of stuff and heal oneself. Now  THAT’s a challenging goal!

Many many moons ago, as a little kid, I went to the theatres dying with anticipation. To see `My Dear Kuttichatthan’ the Malayalam original of the Hindi `Chotta Chetan’. This movie was special. We got these little spectacles to put on that suddenly made the screen come alive and made the ice-cream cones and pastries shoot right out so you could alllmooost touch it. The two-dimensional world suddenly had added depth! And I loved it. It made the experience so much more realistic. And I remember thinking.. wish I could smell it too. That would have been so great.

In the intervening years a number of advances have been made.. surround sound, digital images.. and each time I see something new that brings alive an experience by engaging the senses a little more the thought keeps re-surfacing in my mind .. wish we could have smell.

I find that my instinctive like/dislike reactions to places, people, things is many a time traceable back to some extent to the smell. Its effect is subtle but strong nevertheless. Have you endured `relationship managers’ with smelly socks? Have you been happy giving them your business? Have you said `Ok. Never again’ at a restaurant when the delicate aroma of your continental order was completely drowned in the Mughlai order that stopped at the adjacent table? Or chosen to sit beside xyz at that long meeting simply because he/she smelt nice?! That’s our nose thinking J

I am sensitive to smells. For me smell is an INSTANT communicator. It has the ability to kickstart thoughts, emotions and re-create very specific feelings. And it’s much faster off the block in doing so as compared with sound, light, touch or taste.

Why is smell so much faster? The answer lies in the way smell is processed. All other sensory inputs reach the relevant processing centre in the brain via the thalamus. Whereas, olfactory inputs go direct to the amygdala – the emotional information processing centre of the brain. And the amygdala is right next to the memory centres of the brain – so smell leads to emotion leads to memories – in one short path!

Ability to invoke an instinctive emotional response! How powerful a tool is that when we are seeing more and more that decision-making is driven to greater extent by emotions than was previously thought?!

If we could effectively add smell to the other sensory inputs we could make our marketing communication that much more powerful! And therein lies the rub. IF we could use smell effectively.

Scent marketing is now an evolving field and understandably industries that are first off the block in applying it are in the hospitality and retail sector. Scent is being used in fairly obvious ways to acquire and retain customers – ranging from the rich, warm smell of coffee at Barista to the Westin using the smell of apple-pie to give customers a `home’ feel.  This news article talks about the Net Cost supermarket in New York is using piped smells to drive up purchases of groceries and food items – and they are already seeing results in the form of a 7% increase in sales!

There are yet others who are going further and adding scent to our digital lives. Like the Scent Sciences Corporation (www.scentscience.com) that markets personal scent delivery devices for consumer use in applications from home videos to the internet to games, movies, and TV. So, as their banner ad shows, you can share the smell of the delicious pizza you shared with your friends even as you play the home video!

I am so excited. It seems like my long wait for scent enhanced movies will soon be rewarded! Sensory explosion here we come! Customer Experience – you are in for a nose lift!

A cousin the marriageable age says, “ I will NEVER marry someone who isn’t taller than me”

“I would NEVER say that kind of thing”

“ I will never wear such clothes”

“If I were that fat I would never step out of home”

“I would never eat that kind of stuff”

The `never’ list goes on. People so sure of what they will never do, never say, never think. And I want to ask them .. Are you sure? NEVER? Lock kiya jaaye? Life is strange you know and you are being very bold (and maybe full-of-yourself and boring too :p) in tempting it. Twisting Shahrukh from `Om Shanti Om’, “Kehte hain ki …… Agar kisi cheez ko dil se NEVER chaaho toh puri kaynaat usey tumse milane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai” !!

Me… I can never say for sure. Maybe I am not one of those who have very clear minds and value systems and absolute views on right and wrong. I tend to be context-driven and unable to see things in black and white.

Guess I am one of those `Never say never’ people!!

I had observed with an element of amusement (and many a time gnawing hunger) how breakfast was a `might happen’ in the new family, how an entire meal could be composed of what I earlier classified as dessert (e.g. modaks), that rice is eaten before rotis in the meal sequence, that plain cooked arhar dal without any garnishing or chaunk is an accepted, integral part of a home meal and so on. But four months into married life I came up against a shocker. The family that worshipped a thousand deities like most Hindus abandoned all of them in favour of paying obeisance at the altar of just ONE God.

Come morning, noon and night this God spread its tentacles to every nook and corner – hiding in straw under the bed to occupying significant shelves in the fridge. It was truly omnipresent in our home. It manifest its presence in various hues – from green to reddish tinted to yellow to golden. It permeated our spirits in various forms – from firm to soft to liquid. It was demanding – it dominated all conversation and significant energies were spent in ensuring it was cared for well. Routines were established for its care, responsibilities farmed out to family members – who would go out to identify the best ones, who would ensure it was well `nested’, who would pick the ones for special attention each day and so on.

To my utter dismay slowly all cooking was abandoned and the kitchen counter tops too were  relinquished to make way for its increasing tribe.  The Ratnagiri Hapus (Alphonso) ruled over us and for three months of summer we became a family that ate, drank, talked, walked, dreamt mangoes. Now I liked mangoes too. Maybe more than liked .. a little love. But what I saw here was sheer madness. My saying `No thank you’ to a fifth mango of the day begot me incredulous looks and I could almost hear the cries of `Infidel’ `Traitor’ and suchlike that remained unsaid only because at four months of marriage I was a bit of a novelty too.

Now with fifteen years of this under my belt and exposure to many other similar zealots I am beginning to appreciate some of the positive aspects – like locking away the kitchen for three months. But I am yet to succumb to being snooty enough to turn down any mango other than the Hapus! My son is on his way there though – the Ugandan one we had yesterday barely got an appreciative nod and the Raaywal’s I once tried to tempt him with met with a `why not just sip on the Mango Slice bottle’ look L

As for me – the sight and smell of raw mangoes sprinkled with red chilli powder still makes my heart skip a beat (for reasons that don’t all quite fit in with the subject of this post ) – and the Hapus can wait for its turn on MY table.

For a significant length of my corporate life I have been the object of envy among friends and colleagues. You would be forgiven for thinking it was possibly for meteoric vertical movement or  amazingly juicy assignments or a rapidly swelling paycheck. But No. It was none of these typical reasons. But the envy was there all the same.

It had become almost painful for me to answer their question “And how far is your office?”  I would say, “.. er… 10 .. 10 minutes away”. `Wow. That’s lovely’ would be the answer. “And is the traffic bad?” and I would say, “ Well, depends, sometimes if the kids around are late to school I am in mortal danger of tumbling down the stairs as they rush past. Also I have to watch out for the neighbour’s friendly dog as I pick my way to office thru the flower beds.” Yes. I was amongst those who strolled to office and back and I never heard the end of `how LUCKY’ I was!

Human nature being what it is I managed to find some negatives to my lucky situation in life. I am always the person who heads turn to if there is some urgent work to be attended to on weekends, I told by boss sulkily. I can’t let my hair down and be generally crazy (thanks to living in the company campus). It is boring to see the same people in office and out of office. I don’t want to run into colleague’s wives and parents and pets all the time. It drains my meagre reserves of social niceness.  But, most importantly, I don’t get to transition.

You are in a high energy high momentum zone as you rush about getting breakfast and lunch organised, cajoling the kid to wake up and get ready, shout instructions to the maid, keep the garbage out lest it is forgotten, get the milk to thaw, then boil, then cool all in the space of half an hour, pull out something ironed, something co-ordinated from the wardrobe.. and rush out hoping you haven’t forgotten something time-critical and you-dependent. The echoes of argument you had with your mom/maid/husband/child are still reverberating. You need to sort things out in your mind. Arrive at a place of (resigned) peace, dwell in nothingness for a bit and then begin to think about the work to-do list, deadlines and then have an inspired `next big idea’ for the team. In the same manner at the end of the day you need to move from the work zone frame of mind to a twilight zone and then into picking up the home and family thought threads once more.

This transition from home role to work role is ESSENTIAL to being effective (and retaining ones sanity). It cannot beaccomplished in a Maggi 2 minute style. Or if it can, I have not been blessed with the temperament / skill /knowledge for it. Or, as the bard put it

” All the worlds a stage

And all the men and women merely players

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts “

.. and a trip to the green room in between can help delay the final curtain-call!!

I was lucky to have a workplace so close to home but I missed the forty-five minute train ride I’d gotten used to in my Mumbai days. That commute did more for my mental and physical health (or should I say agility) than I gave it credit for in those days! Come to think of it now, those public transport rides were nothing short of character-forming. Like…. but let’s not get into that one right now! Let’s have some `transition time’ from this post

Shobhaa De writes about Liz Taylor and her violet eyes… ok more than that but this is what stuck to my mind. She thanks Vijay Mallya for giving her the opportunity to sleep on the same bed as Liz and her beau of the time Richard Burton (Not all at the same time (un)fortunately else we would never have heard the end of it) – in the yacht Kalizma which he now owns. “As you can imagine” she writes,`it was an overwhelming experience’

No. I CANNOT imagine! I mean one assumes these two events are many moons separated  and so the bed linen and possibly even the mattress and pillows have been changed, not once but multiple times. That Liz and Burton’s spirits do not haunt the bed for posterity. WHAT, pray, made this an `overwhelming’ experience?

I can quite relate to feeling overwhelmed standing at Jallianwala Bagh or on Normandy beach or being in any place for that matter where something momentous had occurred or which were witness to the heights (and depths) of human emotion, be they individual or small group or all humankind. Or feeling reverence for an object that belonged to someone you admire and was important/central to that person – say Sachin’s bat or Picasso’s brush. Or having goose-bumps on handling Aurangzeb’s sword as it tumbled out of the long-forgotten AMU cupboard. Or even feeling emotionally charged on seeing any object that belonged to someone very close who one misses – grandfathers watch, mothers perfume and so on – even if these were not all that important as objects to them they acquire a symbolic value in our eyes.

But why does a bed slept in for some days by a star couple or a tea-cup used by a famous politician inspire so much reverence or a dress worn by a famous actress in an award ceremony be much-coveted?!!!!! Beats me!  Sigh. Either my understanding is severely challenged or strange are the ways of the world and its denizens. Possibly a bit of both – less of the former and loads of the latter

Today’s newspaper also informs me that this strange world had better make hurry with its plans cos it is all going to end on 21^st May at 6 pm sharp. Yes. Harold Camping, preacher from Oakland, California, hath made this declaration of doom. Quick, let’s bid for that towel used but once by Liz (so it has much wear left see?) so our ka can find peace and we are properly equipped for our afterlife journey!!!