Water and Milkman mix well

 Most of our cities in India these days get their milk supplies from their local Cooperatives. In Odisha it is called OMFED (Odisha Milk Federation). It was not so during my growing up days back in India. We had to depend on our local GAUDA meaning "The Milkman", a caste or section of the society who are primarily milkmen - in the business of raising cattle, supplying and distribution of milk. Sometime it could be the GAUDUNI or the milkmaid.

Either way, there was no concept of getting 100% pure milk. If you are lucky you might get it in less adulterated form compared to others. Even the most honest milkman or milkmaid would mix some water. Like gold, the milk would never be 24 carat, its purity depending upon the person's degree of honest dilution.

Adjacent to the BJB Flats (now called Apartments in India as British legacy has changed to Pax Americana, so Flats are called Apartments these days in India) in Bhubaneswar where we used to live were the government quarters of the class IV employees. Most used their front yard to fruitful use - farming fruits, vegetables and kept cows in sheds in their backyard to supplement their income. 

I was 11 or 12 years old at that time. After finishing my regular gully cricket, my task every evening was to trudge a furlong to one such dingy residences to fetch our daily quota of milk. This particular Milkman was known to be well versed with our ancient scriptures. With an impressive voice he could readily recite couplets from BHAGABATA and PURANA from tip of his glib, loquacious tongue. Rumor had it, he was blessed by Lord Krishna, the Hindu God from his own caste and his black cow delivered the sweetest milk in the town.

 

My mother had immense faith in him, flattered by him addressing her as MAA (mother) and touching her feet most mornings when she would venture out to pluck flowers. He would tell her how privileged and fortunate was he to serve a SASAN Brahmin from Puri, regarded as the best among the Brahmins of Odisha. It was impossible for my simple mother to have an iota of doubt on the milkman of such impeccable, lily white character.

A pious man of such stature would never do the mundane act of diluting his well accrued good Karma by diluting the milk with water while he sold to his gullible customers. Even thinking on those lines would be a sacrilege. 

Or so we thought. One fine evening as usual I reached the cowshed, swinging the classic white, metallic cylindrical container by its thin metal string tied to the top. In the twilight hours inside his shadowy cowshed, in dimly lit lantern light our milkman showed me his empty bucket to me to remove any iota of doubt from my mind that it contains any water. He placed his bucket under the cow's udder and started milking. To the unsuspecting me, it still didn't go unnoticed that he was surreptitiously tilting his milk bucket and stealthily pouring water into it from a dirty LOTA (pot) hidden in a dark corner.

After I got back home, I narrated this to my mom who dismissed it as a figment of my imagination. A few days later I contacted fever and wasn't in a position to go, fetch milk. My uncle who substituted me also saw the same and almost got into a fist fight with the milkman, who never admitted of any wrongdoing and resorted to the usual GALUAMI (The Odia term for stubborn refusal to admit). His hypocrisy exposed, we eventually switched to another milkman. But this incident reminded me of what the American President Ronald Reagan said - "Trust but verify". I learnt it the hard way.

It explains the popular Odia idiom KETE PANI MISICHI (how much water is mixed) to ascertain the degree of manipulation made. It is best seen in gully cricket matches where at least 5% score is added by the scorer to the ultimate tally. If a team scores 100 runs, it could be actually 95 or even less.

Like milk a little bit of adulteration here and there never hurts. I have heard how tiny pebbles were ideal mix for rice, grinded brick granules for Chilli powder, dried Papaya seeds for Black pepper and so on. It probably explains why Gold is 22 carats.

#autobiography 

Never borrow, never lend

 These days I am getting a lot of unsolicited solicitation for money. It is very flattering for someone who is far from being rich. However I enjoy my two cents and two minutes of attention. People think I have a Dollar tree in my backyard and harvest $100 bills like I harvest veggies every summer. In reality I am rather a frequent visitor of Dollar tree store in my neighborhood.

There are occasional posts on Facebook about people borrowing money and never returning. Not quite an uncommon phenomenon, something most of us at some point or other in our life have gone through this agony and ignominy of lending money only never to see it returned. In Odisha it is called HATHA UDHARI (hand loans), i.e., money normally passed from hand to hand at 0% APR interest purely based on faith. Invariably no kind of paperwork is involved. But as usual promises are made to be broken - especially in matters of heart and money.

There was this guy who came to my place in 1992 asking for Rs.5000 for his sister's wedding. He literally cried in front of me. Wrapping his arm around my shoulder he said " MO BHAITA PARA (you are my dear brother). You have sisters too, so you can understand my pain and plight. I will return the money in 2-3 weeks." We are champions at expressing fraternal love at the time of need, which  rarely stays the same after the deed. His gesture melted my heart like butter on a hot plate, as I get emotional especially when it comes to sisters as I love them to the innermost core of my heart. Without hesitating further I grabbed whatever I had and settled for Rs. 3000. It was a substantial amount for me then which was pretty much equivalent of my monthly salary.

More than three weeks passed. Months and a year rolled by. The promise of returning back my money was never kept. The money was never returned. One day I decided to storm by his place and demanded if he can return at least a part of his hand loan procured through his expression of filial love in a sibling related matter. I could instantly sense that his overflowing brotherly love during our last meeting has considerably dried up, like river MAHANADI bed during the peak summer.

Needless to say I returned empty handed with one more promise to return it in few days and the solace of recovering Rs. 7, Rs 2 for the price of two ALUCHAPs (Potato cutlets, a popular snack in Odisha) washed down with a bottle Limca priced at Rs. 5, fully paid by my debt owning friend. Rest Rs.2993 assured washed down the drain. I returned back gasping like the Cheetah on National Geographic Channel after a failed attempt to catch its pray.  

Here in US, I haven't heard of any story of hand loans gone bust, but some use hand guns to procure them. In that case there is hardly any expectations for getting it back. A la back home, when money is lent purely based on trust and emotions, there is hardly any barometer to measure it. The lure of easy cash can easily turn a person of trust to BHRAST (spoilsport), ruining the goodwill and eventually relationship. I wish I had listened to my father who said and these are the lines I repeat to those who ask me for money -

"If you want to keep a friend,
 Never borrow, never lend." 

RIP Mohammed Shahid

Do you remember Mohammed Shahid. Most of us probably don't. Following hockey was one of my childhood passions and Mohammed Shahid was very much a part of it. A dribbler of par excellence, stick work extraordinaire, he perennially posed threat to his opposite team. 

Along with Jaffer Iqbal and Merwin Fernandez, the troika would often dribble their way into the opponents "D" - the scoring zone of field hockey. Sadly India lacked a striker like Hassan Sardar of Pakistan to convert his art into goals. For Legends Ric Charlesworth of Australia, Michael Peter of Germany, Akhtar Rasool and Hanif Khan of Pakistan of that time - Shahid was the player to watch. But lack of quality penalty corner specialists like our Dutch and German counterparts prevented us from going Semi finals of major tournaments those days. 

Still the credit to most victories we had in Hockey during the late 70s - mid 80s goes to this man from the city of Varanashi. A gold medal in 1984 LA Olympics, would have been a fitting finale to a marvelous career. Sadly, his hard work and Indian dominance in that crucial game against Germany couldn't translate into goals, costing India a semifinal berth, forever sealing India's medal dream. 

It was a sad day for hockey and sad that arguably the greatest dribbler of our time succumbed to ailments at a young age of 56 exactly 9 years ago. May he Rest In Peace.

The tragic suicide death of a girl in Balasore

News about crime against women is nothing new in my home state back home Odisha. Few days back a 20 year old girl named  Soumyashree in the Balasore district of the state killed herself by self immolating as a protest against being sexually harassed by a college teacher. It's not just that, a plethora of news coming from Odisha on media, social or otherwise regarding crimes against women including rapes and molestation is not only disgusting, disturbing as well. Disgusting - can't think of a better word to depict these incidents. Disturbing - coming from a state where the folks are known to be laid back, docile and mostly law fearing, though not necessarily law abiding (fear of law enforcement authorities, the police keep their libidos in check). Not the case any more, if recent incidents are to be believed.

Every person has right to live. It hurts utmost when someone commits suicide by taking his or her life. And it hurts more, if that person happens to be young. Like every man and woman of their age, they too have a dream, but unwisely decide to procrastinate their unfulfilled dream by killing themselves.

When does a person decide to end life ? It's not just because of the frustration with life, it's more due to their lack of care or concern for rest of the world, which includes their near and dear ones. If I feel suicidal for some reason, I may resist that thought for a moment, if I think of my family, my wife, my son or cat, if not me. Apparently the person ending his or her life don't care about the loved one and go for it at the spurt of the moment, never getting a second chance to regret it later.

Suicides in college campuses are not uncommon. Surging teenage hormone gone wild can create havoc in heart and mind, which can be due to failure in romance, academics or bullying by others, or as this case alleged sexual harassment by teacher. It reminds me of this scene from the iconic movie 3 IDIOTS where a student kills himself due to his frustration at his creative and innovative project being pooh poohed by the Principal of the College. The student Rancho played by the actor Aamir Khan complains about the mental stress the students undergo, leading to such avoidable tragedies. As the Principal gets defensive and refuses to take the blame, Aamir Khan replies - "I am rather blaming the entire system, not you Sir".

My first memory of one such heinous incident, a crime though not suicide, goes back to 1980 when as a 11 year old, I was not old enough to comprehend the depth it - yet old enough to recognize its evilness and impertinence to any civil society. It was the rape and murder of Chhabirani, the wife of a journalist who went above and beyond his job to expose the nexus of a cabal of crooks of petty politicians, local officials and small time businessmen in coastal Odisha's Jagatsinghpur, then part of the undivided Cuttack district. It was an unusual bold step for a journo from a state where his fraternity's ethics can be judged by the paens of praise they can heap on you for a bottle of liquor. (Khushwant Singh once wrote that Indian journalists are suckers for freebies and champion consumers of alcohol as long as someone else paid for it. Usual disclaimers apply).

The tragedy happened when chased by criminals, the journalist accompanied by his pregnant wife and child were trying to flee his village in the middle of night. The moon was pale as they tried to cross the BILUAKHAI river, one of several river distributaries criss crossing the vast Mahanadi delta in coastal Odisha. Here is where the details get sketchy. Some say the pregnant wife along with her little kid could not cope with his faster walking husband and fell behind getting separated for ever. Another version - the man had to attend his nature's call and took time to relieve himself near the sandy bed and wash clean with the river water as many villagers do. He lost some valuable time only to come back and regret later - for his wife was nowhere to be seen. We don't know which one of these versions is true.

But what we know, the men on chase took their turns to rape Chhabirani to death along with her yet to be born child. Her semi buried body from the sands of river was recovered later in a decomposed state. But this incident survived the sands of time to become a folklore of the area for a long time to come. It was the age sans social media when internet and cell phones were strictly fantasy. TV was non existent. "The SAMAJA", the only widely circulated vernacular newspaper of the time with some reach to the interior parts of Odisha carried the news. The brutality of the crime against a pregnant woman raped and killed in cold blood caught the imagination of the common man of Odisha - at least in its thickly populated coastal belt. A local JATRA (Folk Troupe) made a lot of money acting an episode named RAPE and MURDER made out of this ghastly incident.

Laxman Mallick, the contemporary MP of Jagatsinghpur from the Congress parry was accused of shielding the perpetrators of this inexcusable act. It is said he was made a scapegoat, the fall guy as the entire chain of the higher ups, including the contemporary Chief Minister J.B.Patnaik allegedly tried their best to protect their political turf by containing the fall out of the crime.

Time flew. Years later, I read the news of the berieved journalist getting remarried, becoming a father again and leading a low profile life. Was justice ever delivered to Chhabirani then and those who commited the crime got punished ? Your guess is as good as mine. Nearly 50 years later will justice delivered to the deceased girl Soumyashree from Balasore. Again your guess is still same as good as mine !!!

Trip to a Dentist's

A man and a woman were traveling in a train. The woman said to the man - Every time you smile I feel like inviting you to my place. Man, excited - "Are you single ?" Woman - No, I am a dentist.

Recently I had a trip to my Dentist's office. Though no big of a deal, invariably a dental visit has a mental syndrome associated with it. Glad the trip went well. Sad, I still had to come out of the habit of touching and feeling the filling's coating 1001 times a day using my tongue tip.

During the fancy dress competition in our school a guy playing dentist would try to uproot his patient's tooth using a hammer and chisel. The scene was hilarious. That impression of a dentist lasted in my mind for a while as the childhood memories tend to linger longer, shaping one's character. When I watched the scene from movie CASTAWAY where Tom Hanks takes off his aching tooth using a skating ⛸ shoe and a coconut, like deja vu I instantly remember this fancy dress competition.

The apprehension of visiting a dentist's probably has to do with my growing up days when dental hygiene was not given a priority. Flushing in between the teeth and professional dental cleaning was hardly heard of. When I had occasional dental pain my mother would give me some clove oil and it stopped it. I never saw a mouthwash until I was into my 20s. Brushing and KULUKUNCHA, the Odia word for rinsing the mouth post eating was the best dental care we used to do. A POKA KHIA DANTA, the Odia term for germ eaten worn out tooth warranted a visit to dentist. Fortunately for me, so far I have encountered only minor dental issues. 

Rather than fluoride coating most people in Odisha had black coated teeth due to chewing of tobacco filled PAANs (betel), with the GUA (betel nuts) giving them first a red coating which over time turns into a brown crust. The accompanied tobacco gives the teeth a dark hue. The parents of a nubile girl who got into this bad habit of chewing ZARDA (a popular scented tobacco brand) PAAN received a marriage proposal for her. She was paraded in front of the Candidate (local lingo for a prospective groom) - a salient feature of the parody of the arranged marriages in India. 

Before being paraded, the visiting groom's side were served warm "cold drinks" (as soda is called in India), followed by chilled Singada (Samosa) and piping sweet and syrupy hot tea, claimed to be made by the prospective bride-to-be. However throughout the evening she deliberately kept her teeth clenched while serving the food and drink to groom's family. But no sooner she opened her mouth, than the proposal was doomed as the closely observing groom's mother (the prospective mother-in-law) opened her mouth with this snide remark - "JHIA TI RA RANGA JEMITI, DANTA BI SEMITI" (Like the girl's dark complexion, so goes her teeth). Fair complexion rules the rule in India. The point was well taken.

Many eventually score 32 all out (all 32 teeth gone) in their 2nd innings after their first innings of "32 all out" happens around 10 years of age old when all the milk tooth come out. But the 2nd innings can come way too early if you don't take any dental care. The tooth gone the second time is gone forever.

Back in those days there were a few dentists in Bhubaneswar, only one I knew was a man of Chinese origin who had a dental clinic in Bapuji Nagar. Folks would visit the dentists only if a toothache gives them sleepless nights. These days many dentists are doing flourishing business in Bhubaneswar. May their tribe thrive. A "32 all out" exposing the phalanx of white teeth is a far better sight than uneven tobacco stained blackened teeth.

Reminds me of a funny incident, how bad we are at following personal safety as far our DANTA (tooth in Odia) and it bears a lot of similarity with the English word associated with Dental). One of my friends from Berhampur, Odisha just day before his interview, in order to hide his betel stained teeth told me - "Interview AGARU TUPAZZA BLADE DHARI DANTA KURIBARA EKKA (using a topaz blade, I will clean my teeth). He was quite a smart guy, but still did it in spite of me advising him not to do so. Not only this action can damage the tooth enamel, there is danger of severly hurting the gum and making it septic. Still he went ahead and did his "DANTA KURIBARA EKKA".

It is said that in old paintings you will rarely find people smiling as they were reluctant to expose their teeth while sitting for the artist because of their bad teeth. Those days people didn't take care of dental hygiene and many lost their teeth in their early days of life. Not anymore. Dental hygiene, dental care, wearing of braces etc has gone up, so also business of the dentists. We live in changing times.

Trump’s Humiliation of BJP MP

US President Donald Trump still continues to hyphenate India - Pakistan to the chagrin of his supporters back home in India. He doesn't care about the adulations and accolades he received from his fans in India, especially from supporters of Modi/BJP/RSS. Mr. Trump is no more our Fraand Dolaand (it was purely an one sided love affair as it was never reciprocated with my friend Narendra). Fraand Dolaand has left his supporters stranded in hot water, utterly disappointed. 

In this context we would think the sulking Trump fans in India learnt their lesson and would hold on to their horses, but if several recent news reports to be believed, they suggest otherwise. A young, unnamed BJP MP (the finger points to Tejaswi Surya of Karnataka) was reportedly humiliated during a meeting with Donald Trump. The MP allegedly sought a meeting with US President after other individuals, including Milind Deora, an old Indian hand with close business links met with Trump's sons. Failing to secure a meeting through official channels, the MP reportedly arranged a separate meeting via a personal US-based contact. He reportedly traveled to Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate and was introduced as a "close associate of the Indian head of state". 

Sources suggest Trump was unimpressed and made his trademark blunt, harsh insulting remarks during the interaction, leaving the MP embarrassed. We say in Odia - "AJA GA GHA DEKHI HUENI KI DEKHEI HUENI", closely translated - "The wound on your ass could neither be seen, nor shown". The humiliated MP reportedly kept the details of the meeting quiet upon returning to India, but the news leaked out nevertheless. He was later reprimanded by the BJP leadership and issued a warning not to venture beyond protocols, for our MP wasn't on the US soil on a personal trip, rather as part of a mission sanctioned by Government of India. 

Most of Trump fans in India who are mostly supporters of Prime Minister Modi and BJP were upset when cold shouldered by their Mahaprabhu's Fraand Dolaand due to the later's stance during the recent skirmish between India and Pakistan. Fraand Dolaand not only chose to stay neutral, he proclaimed and took credit for stopping the India - Pakistan war from escalating into a nuclear conflict, he followed it by mollycoddling the Pakistan's Army Chief by inviting the Chief architect of the belligerence directed towards India to lunch with him in the White House. 

Many Right wing leaning folks in India saw American Conservatism and Donald Trump as their natural ally. Just because their Mahaprabhu held Trump's hands proclaiming "Ab Ki Baar Trump Sarkar" (next time it's Trump government) taking Trump's reelection in 2020 for granted, they thought that Trump will make America tilt again to India and declare Pakistan as a terrorist state. Nothing close to that happened. A few had even gone to the extent of requesting me to cast my vote in favor of Trump in both 2020 and 2024 US elections. Don't think Trump knew or even cared about his fans back in India. 

During the first few months of Trump's Presidency his foreign policy has been whimsical rather than strategic. He has hardly initiated any kind of pro India foreign policy beyond the perfunctory optics and succintly followed America first foreign policy. When Modi was gleeing with joy by exposing his phalanx of 24 teeth holding the hands of the American President in Houston, Trump's body language showed that he was clearly uncomfortable. It needs to be understood that American administration, regardless Republican or Democrat, always follows a deeply self centered foreign policy in a world where there is no permanent friends or enemies. Only permanent interest thrives. 

So much about Fraand Dolaand is our Fraand as perceived by members of Mahaprabhu's party. The perception is in ebb, but as this incident indicated we behave more like a jilted, jealous lover who still wants to impress her beau after getting slighted. Apparently the one sided affair hasn't ended yet !

Happy birthday Sanjeev Kumar

 If he were alive today, he would be celebrating his 87th birthday. He is Sanjeev Kumar, arguably the most versatile Bollywood actor of all time, born this day in 1938 in Surat, Gujarat as Haribhai Jariwala. A la his other brothers with congenital heart disease running in family, he couldn't complete 50, nor he could become a star like Amitabh or Rajesh Khanna. But he was an awesome actor to whom acting and his characteristic smile came naturally. Give him any role - old, young, comedy, tragedy, father, husband, brother or a leader, he would bring the best out of the character. His smile, his style of smoking, whether a Bidi of a slum dweller or a pipe smoking business tycoon was unique of its kind, perfectly fitting to the milieu and the role he chooses. 

The other day I was watching the movie KOSHISH, where Sanjeev Kumar and Jaya Bhaduri played the role of a deaf and dumb couple who stammered, communicating using broken words and sign language. Stellar, emotionally choked performance from both actors moistened my eyes. Watching him one never feels that he was ever acting, he was just the next door man having a casual look with a harmless smile just leading a normal life. In that movie Sanjeev Kumar was paired with Jaya Bhaduri, an actress with whom he had great on screen chemistry. Both of them excelled playing all different combinations of relationships between a man and a woman to perfection - Lover and Beloved (ANAMIKA), Husband and Wife duo (KOSHISH), Father-in-law and Daughter-in-law (SHOLAY) and so on.

In the movie LAKHON KI BAAT, a wonderful family oriented comedy movie Sanjeev Kumar played a comic lawer fighting a Worker's Complenation lawsuit for his brother-in-law Farooq Saikh. In the same movie, Utpal Dutt played the role of a Private Detective with a skull cap. He doesn't laugh at all, but can't stop you from laughing by occasionally winking his over enlarged eyes, swinging around his eyeballs - no actor has ever made me laugh more. 

Sanjeev Kumar's personal life was turbulent. He remained single all his life. Actress Nutan slapped him when Sanjeev Kumar proposed her at the set of movie "Devi". He had proposed to Hema Malini in 1973 which was rejected too and they remained in touch even after he suffered his first heart attack in 1976. Dharmendra who later married Hema Malini was so insecure that during the shooting of the iconic movie SHOLAY ensured that Hema Malini (Dharam was chasing Hema and later took her as his 2nd wife) and Sanjeev Kumar were not seen together in a single frame in any scene in that movie. During the shooting of Gulzar's "Aandhee" Sanjeev Kumar got drunk and knocked the door of actress Suchitra Sen's hotel room in the middle of night during the shooting. An insecure and insulted Suchitra Sen almost left for Calcutta after this incident but for the intervention of legendary Gulzar stopped her. The movie which had resemblance to Indira Gandhi's personal life was banned before getting released, but was a huge success afterwards.

The singer and actress Sulakshana Pandit later recounted been in love and having proposed marriage to Sanjeev Kumar who politely declined her proposal. It is speculated that as a result of this rejection, Sulakshana Pandit chose to remain a spinster. It is said that Sanjeev Kumar grimaced and famously told Sulakshana Pandit in his distinctive soft, lyrical voice - "Mein Kisi Aur Ko Pyaar Karta Hoon, Aur Toom Mujhe aur Wo Kisi Aur Se. Zindagi Kuchh Ajeeb Si Hai" - "I love some one and you love me, and she loves someone else. Life is somewhat weird". He wasn't far from truth.

Sanjeev Kumar's smile, expression and sarcasm filled dialogues came naturally to him. In one of his movie he is held hostage by a big, burly man. In order to escape he pretended to go to pee and showed his little finger to his captor. The big guy asked - YEH KYA HAI (What is this) ? Sanjeev Kumar says - "PEHLWAN JEE, AAP SCHOOL-WOOL NAHI GAYE THE KYA" (Mr. Bodybuilder. Didn't you ever go to school) ?

In movie SHOLAY he answers a puzzled duo Amitabh and Dharmendra querry about hiring them post a staged fight - TUM DONO KO YAHAN BULA KE KOI GALTI NAHI KI (I have done no wrong by calling both of you here). "LOHE KO LOHA KAT TA HAI" (only iron can cut iron).

Sanjeev Kumar was eqully deft in both comedy and tragedy, until tragedy struck him as he died of heart attack on the morning of  November 6, 1985 at the young age of 47. It was reported he Sanjeev Kumar was drinking till the wee hours of morning when he had a heart attack and breathed his last. 

What a multifaceted actor he was. He was a good man too, having helped many in Bollywood, an industry full of selfish folks. Satrughan Sinha mentioned about how Sanjeev Kumar helped him with money during a phase when the Bihari actor was going through a rough financial phase in life and Sanjeev Kumar was one of the highest paid. In the movie SHOLAY Sanjeev Kumar was paid Rs.1.25 lakh, more than any of the other actors in that movie.

Happy Birthday Sanjeev Kumar. You will forever be remembered for carving your niche in Bollywood and beyond. But you have done wrong to the Hindi movie industry by leaving too early when a lot was still left in you. Rest in Peace where you are.