My mom turns 84 today on the 4th of October. Touch wood- she’s superb for her 84 years. Enjoys reasonably good health, is fiercely independent – physically, mentally and financially, sounds mellifluous for her 84 years – probably thanks to her lifelong passion – singing.

She loved singing right since her childhood though it wasn’t considered a good passion and even a worst profession by her family. However, after marriage, she found a supporting husband in my father, who encouraged her to sing, whenever any opportunity came her way. She soon realised that professional singing required learning under a good Guru and practice or riyaaz. And in spite of her familial responsibilities and limited scope, she went on to achieving one milestone after another. From singing at the local cultural programmes to singing in Gurudwara, temple and social parties to singing on AIR and cutting a disc for HMV, she achieved all that was possible given her rather late start and other constraints. And her active career spanned almost half a century till about a couple of years ago, when she decided to slacken the pace and sing only occasionally at the most special request.

However, if there’s get together – whether of family members or friends, it’s not complete without her singing one ditty from the large repertoire of work that she built over the years of her professional singing career. She sang almost in all genres – Geet, ghazal, bhajans, folk songs, film songs, Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Bhojpuri, Haryanvi et al and earned public accolades.

I think her passion for music has kept her young, mentally alert, generally happy and having zest for life. It’s unfortunate that none of her children or grandchildren could emulate her art, though all of us possess an ear for good music.

Happy 84th birthday Mummy. It’s just a number for as long as your voice retains melody and heart love for music, you should live and enjoy life.

Writing is power and sometimes a powerful piece can change one’s perspective. At some stage or other in our professional lives, all of us must have attended leadership talks or programmes or review meetings with bosses, where we are exhorted to act and inspired through pep talk. It is indeed true that what looks very impressive initially does tend to taper off as less effective or theoretical or even rhetorical in due course, but to call it banal and cliche needs some serious pen power. As the writer says, at a recent party, she minced no words in telling a cliche spouter, “ You are the most obnoxious, self-centred, predictable, cliche spouting bore I have ever met in my life.” Of course, she hurried on to add that the above she only said in her mind and not on the face of the mentioned person to whom she instead showed her pretty face with a vapid smile as he went on and on with “mind- numbing cliches”.

What are these self-centred, mind-numbing cliches that the author is referring to? These are actually common idiomatic phrases that can adorn one’s expression in writing but sound cliched and boring when mouthed by a self styled leader in the context of establishing his or her supremacy or dominance. We all must have heard, “ Instead of crying over spilt milk, I am on boarding movers and shakers in my company , capable of delivering results” or “ I need someone who thinks out of box” or “ Let’s get to the low hanging fruits” or “ Come dressed to kill at the office party and let your hair down.”

I am sure that to most of the readers the above expressions would be no strangers, having come across them and many more at various stages of our professional lives. But, as mentioned above, while many of us might have felt sceptical about these exhortations or transmission of Jnana ( Gyana), calling these expressions or phrases cliches is certainly a new perspective. I think the author of this piece weaves sarcasm around the hollowness of the spouters of these expressions! In today’s cut throat competition in professional lives and fast changing skills, the scope of lasting relationship between an employer and employee or a boss and subordinate is rather limited and waning. When these are mouthed sans the sincerity or deep rooted welfare of the audience, instead of making impression, they sound cliched. On the contrary, our parental advice or the advice by our teachers, friends and well wishers come from the bottom of the heart with genuine concern for our betterment and success. Therefore, such advices and exhortations stay with us throughout, without ever becoming dated or redundant.

For a moment I do not mean that we should ignore everything new as cliche ridden and only hold on to age old wisdom endowed by our parents and gurus. We all need to be adaptive, open to re-skilling, working hard like no tomorrow and constantly evolving. And listen to the bores and braggarts with a vapid smile like the author, picking up whatever sounds reasonable and ignoring the cliche!

I distinctly recall- exactly 29 days ago I had heralded the start of September on a very optimistic and pleasant note and had exhorted all my readers to dance to the tune of maverick Bobby Darin’s evergreen tune of Come September! However, even the most optimistic and eternally hopeful chaps like me can also get caught in the sea of negativity when the things continue to worsen but refuse to hit nadir, not raising any hope of reversal of the trend!

Covid tightened its grip on India and both – infections as well as mortality rates went up substantially. On a personal note, Corona entered my home with my wife getting infected having travelled in connection with the funeral of her brother and contacting Corona in the process. Her 3 weeks of self isolation within our home was one of the most painful and agonising events in our recent lives. And that’s not all. On the national front, Sushant’s death and Kangana’s rub off with Maharashtra government became unsavoury to the last t. Entry of Narcotics Control Bureau in addition to CBI has given new twist to Sushant’s case and only God almighty knows where will this mess lead to and quagmire end. China’s PLA and Indian troops came eye ball to eye ball at Pangong Tso in Ladakh and situation remained extremely explosive and sensitive. Economy went into deeper recession and seemed to be in tatters with one green shoot followed by a darker reality! Vaccine remained elusive and so was any comprehensive cure for Covid. International flights remained suspended and people continued to be bereft of their children and other nears and dears, stuck up across continents. Job scenario remained gloomy and ironically more people continued losing jobs than getting them! And we lost one of the country’s finest playback singers S P Balasubrahmanyam, apart from noted economist Isher Judge Ahluwalia. As if this was not enough, our elected representatives, those expected to lay moral code for the entire nation, behaved most irresponsibly and the nation once against erupted in protests against new Farm bill. To tell you the truth, I have not been able to assess till date whether it’s of such great benefit to farmers, especially the small ones and if so, why so much protest?

But let’s not lose hope. Just about while I am writing this blog, pace of Covid infections has come down, my wife has fully recovered, Bollywood has taken Sushant and Kangana incidents in its stride and resumed shooting, india and China have agreed against further built up of forces, rains have been adequate and sowing of crops has been at a new record level, in spite of all bottlenecks, IPL is happening and French open is starting, Delhi metro has resumed service and Mumbai metro is likely to follow suit and from tomorrow, restaurants and bars are likely to be opened in Mumbai! There’s no known song “ Come October” but let’s celebrate the advent of October by overcoming the gloom by singing and dancing to the following created by me:

September came and we celebrated

But it created ruckus and went;

We hoped all would be kosher and well

But stubborn Covid remained hell bent!

Covid attacked communities, nations and the world

But worst it entered my very home;

I was worried, agonised and distraught,

But we fought off and survived the doom!

Tomorrow comes a crisp new October

With cool breezes and blue skies

My hopes are alive again

And I want to sing, dance and eat delicious pies!

It’s the onset of Q4 of the calendar year and Q3 of the financial year, but the biggest cause of celebration is that 2020 is now just a quarter away from its end!

Shakuntala Devi was a child prodigy. Very early in life, as her parents discovered, she was good with numbers. And there have been so many instances of child prodigies who finished their higher studies in early teens, astonishing the academicians with their knowledge and absorption levels that were much ahead of the age of these prodigies.

We also read and heard wonderful stories of a grandma or a grandpa appearing for her or his class 10 exam, sometimes appearing alongside their grandchild. And there are stories galore of someone starting a business, a passion or a mere hobby at ripe old age well after end of his or her first innings.

The readers may be wondering why suddenly I have started discussing child prodigies and old age achievers? The reason is a beautiful thought that I came across on the personal time clock inbuilt into each of the human beings. The question posed was similar – why someone immediately on passing out of the college is picked up for placement by an MNC at an annual package of Rs25 lakh plus, while another superannuates well before reaching anywhere near the number offered to the young prodigy? And this analogy can be extended to any of the examples that we come across each day in our day to day lives! To quote my own example, I learnt cycling when I was 13 or 14, while my elder brother picked up my dad’s big cycle when he was 6 years old! I flew for the first time well into my mid 30s, while my grandson is a frequent flyer at the age of 1! My first overseas visit materialised well into my 40s, while the frequent flier grandson of mine is already a globe trotter. Ironically, my father never made his passport, meaning all his 80 plus years he never had the opportunity to cross Indian borders! And he sometimes jokingly used to mention that what his son earned every month was more than the terminal benefits he received on his retirement to sustain rest of his life!

The question then arises is why comparison! Why we sneer at someone becoming a CEO at the age of 35 and having all the riches of life? Why we don’t sympathise with a young executive burning himself or herself out at 40 and suffering a stroke while still in 40s? It’s all very mysterious and deep and can be simplified for easy understanding based on the concept of inbuilt time clock, as aforesaid. Each one of us work as per our own respective time clocks and it’s futile to attribute any emotion to someone’s early success or late failure or vice versa. There’s nothing “too late in life” and everything comes at the appointed time as set in one’s time clock.

There are several sayings and theories that directly or indirectly bear the essence of personal time clock. We all must have heard “ better late then never”, “ you cannot fight your destiny”, “ one gets nothing more or nothing less than destiny has in store for him” or our very own “samay bada balwan” all mean the same thing. Let’s go on doing our actions and efforts – everything will come at its appropriate time. And it does not conflict with the need to do “karma” or effort, which is everyone’s duty and without which even the time clock stops. Karma is the battery on which time clock runs.

God has made each individual unique and has fitted him or her with a unique time clock. It’s such a powerful concept, isn’t it? It immediately places one’s mind at rest.

Corona has added another name to the list of its celebrity victims – a singer par excellence S P Balasubrahmanyam. 74 years old doyen of filmy music lost battle to Corona.

I clearly remember, I was just out of the school and into college when a remake of a Telugu super hit movie took the country by storm. The movie was Ek Duje Ke Liye that had two new actors introduced to Bollywood fans. One already a super star down south Kamla Hassan and Rati Agnihotri. However, the movie also introduced S P Balasubrahmanyam, who was already ruling the roost in South to Bollywood. As the character played by Kamal Hassan was that of a Tamilian boy, SPB, who in any case was his voice down south, became a natural choice. And Laxmikant Pyarelal, who composed the music for the movie came up with some inspired scores thanks to their favourite Lata and the mint fresh voice of SPB. Tere mere beech main became a sort of national anthem, fetching national award for best singer for SPB, while the title song, with SPB singing his part of lyrics in English became a national rage. And who can forget the genius of Anand Bakshi in writing a full song by using titles of Bollywood movies , mere jeevan sathi pyar kiye ja, sung with much aplomb by SPB. In spite of his immense talent, Kamal Hassan acted in few movies, but SPB found his strong foothold in Bollywood, singing not only for LP, but also R D Burman ( Sagar) and Raamlakshman, whose compositions in three blockbusters – Maine Pyar Kiya, Hum Aapke Hain Koun and Hum Saath Saath Hain became a rage and were mainly sung by SPB. In fact, he became the voice of an upcoming Salman Khan.

Born in a Telugu family, he ruled the roost in South for decades singing in all the four languages. And whatever work he did in Bollywood became etched in 24K gold. He was not the first singer from South – before him P Sushila, Vani Jairam and K J Yesudas and later on S Janki also made their mark and but repertoire of Hindi songs sung by SPB is unmatched.

While we speak of damage by Corona to businesses, economy and jobs, the collateral damage in the form of lives of precious gems like SPB, a Padma Bhushan awardee and six times national award winner, is priceless.

Of course, legends like SPB always remain alive in the memory of their millions of fans through the work they leave behind. Even 40 years after his death, great Rafi is alive in the hearts of his fans and in fact, his popularity seems to be only going up. Ditto for Mukesh, Kishore and now SPB.

Rest in peace sir!

She Is Gone (He Is Gone)- A poem

You can shed tears that he is gone
Or you can smile because he has lived
You can close your eyes and pray that he will come back
Or you can open your eyes and see all that he has left
Your heart can be empty because you can’t see him
Or you can be full of the love that you shared
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday
Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday
You can remember him and only that he is gone
Or you can cherish his memory and let it live on
You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back
Or you can do what he would want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

We always say that behind each and every ritual and tradition, there is a solid background or purpose. Much of the rituals that we observe on our festivals or other occasions such as birth and death, have deep ideology behind them. However, over the years rituals have taken a precedence over the ideology or deeper significance. People of Ayodhya lighted lamps to welcome their beloved King Ram who returned after an exile of 14 years and undergoing lots of trauma. Lighting of lamps is symbolic, but bursting fire crackers and polluting the environment is an example of ritual taking precedence over the purpose.

Similarly in Christian traditions, there’s a ritual of Month’s mind, which is a requiem mass in which friends and relatives of a dead person congregate one month after the death of the person. Actually for relatives and friends of the deceased, the bereavement of a beloved is a life long trauma, though nature has miraculous healing power that heals each and every wound over a period of time. However, a month is too short a period to get completely off the grief and therefore, this congregation or mass has a great significance of applying healing touch on the wounds of the immediate family. In our tradition, we have a ritual of 13 or 17 days, though in this modern life and especially in this time of pandemic, all rituals have been curtailed and simplified.

The reason for me suddenly remembering this important Christian tradition is this morning conversation with my wife. As she woke up looking groggy and restless, I asked her the reason. She confessed to not having slept the whole night as one month ago, this was the last night of her brother, who had breathed his last in the wee hours of 23rd August. That makes him dead for exactly one month today and hence this sudden trigger in my mind for Month’s mind. As all rituals and traditions are similar and their objectives are exactly the same, I quote a prayer from a requiem mass of a friend’s wife, who died young a few years ago. It reads as under

We have gathered here today to celebrate the Months mind / Death Anniversary of our dear Jasmit (I have replaced that lady’s name with my BIL’s name). Let us thank God, for all the joys that he/she brought into our lives and also pray for the grace that we may be strong and carry on living our lives as Jasmit would want us to.

We will now give praise and thanks to the Lord and Saviour for by dying, he destroyed our death; and by rising, he restored our life. With our dear Jasmit let us praise God saying:

Your steadfast love O Lord never ceases.

Father, we give you thanks because of your love for Jasmit. You have called him/her to live with you in your heavenly home in the fullness of your love, peace and joy. Though we grieve his/her going, we accept your will no matter how hard to bear. We thank you for the love he/she lavished on all of us during his/her life and for all the good that he/she accomplished in this world.

And then everyone sings this prayer:

Father, help us to see death for what it really is:
The end of pain and the beginning of joy
The end of frustration and the beginning of fulfilment

The end of weakness and the beginning of strength
The end of fear and the beginning of tranquility
The end of poverty and the beginning of riches.
We make this prayer through Christ our Lord

Isn’t the above prayer echoing the feelings that my wife, his sister, his other sisters, his wife, children and above all his mother that they all would be undergoing today? And on a philosophical note, aren’t all the religions showing the same path of mercy, compassion and pragmatism?

This month will become an year and year will become years and everyone will get immersed in day to day chores , but on special days , his memories will continue to come back to haunt his immediate family.

The Kapil Sharma show is a light hearted comedy show mainly aimed at providing easy and slapstick entertainment to its viewers. However, sometimes inspiration for a blog can come from something as light and unserious as TKSS!

In today’s episode, two highly talented individuals and a made for each other couple, Renuka Shahane and Ashutosh Rana were guests. Kapil Sharma and his gang kept the mood light and humorous by their sheer timing. However, even in this light hearted banter, the depth of the thought process of Renuka and Ashutosh was obvious. Renuka, fondly remembered by her fans since her Surbhi days, left an indelible impression on the audience in her side role as Madhuri’s elder sister in all time favourite blockbuster Hum Aapke Hain Koun, while Ashutosh is an accomplished actor and a versatile writer and poet. Yet they are like chalk and cheese. She’s Mumbai bred urbanite from traditional Maharashtrian family, while Ashutosh is from small town who has made it big on the strength of his sheer talent and resolve.

While the episode of TKSS was replete with some super gems, expressed in jibe and humour , keeping in mind the mood of the show, one thing that especially struck me was the response to the question posed to them by Kapil on the married life. Question in itself was very light that why the girl friend and boy friend change after becoming wife and husband. While Renuka gave a very sweet reply that while the man eternally likes to play the part of a boy friend, the lady has to play so many roles – of wife, mother, daughter-in-law et al. But Ashutosh’s response was superb and probably a key to any happy marriage. He said, “ marriage is not about change, it’s about exchange.” I think this quotable quote embodies in it the very essence of a successful marriage. It’s refreshingly different from the much cliched view of the need for the girl to change after marriage to adapt to the new culture, way of living and lifestyle.

Hats off to this made for each other, progressive and talented real life couple having an equally successful reel life!

In my student days, I was quite good at general knowledge, especially current affairs. I used to spend lot of time reading newspaper and news magazines.

I think either my interest in current affairs is waning or simply I am not updating myself adequately. My readers are wondering what’s wrong with me and how I claim myself to ge a blogger strongly interested in the events happening around me?

And there’s reason for me to make the above statement. I am still stuck up in Covid pandemic! What’s so grave if India is almost touching 1 lakh fresh cases per day, may cross US as the nation having largest number of cases worldwide, vaccination seems still some distance away and world economy is in tatters? I am still concerned about Chinese aggressive posturing on LAC! With winters shortly setting in, the harsh Ladakh climate will test the mettle of our bravehearts? What then? Isn’t it part of their duty? What’s so serious about natural calamities? Don’t they strike mankind every now and then? I think I am not aligned to the nation, where the priority is not Corona, volatile Indian borders, unemployment et al ! You tune in to any news channel – there’s no mention of any of the above ? The most important national agenda currently is Sushant Rajput, Divya Salian, rave party, drugs, conspiracy theory, politicians, film stars, groups, lobbies, Kangana and so on !

It was unfortunate that two youngsters purportedly committed suicide. One jumped and other hanged himself. Two of them were connected in some way. There was relationship angle in the second suicide. And investigations are leading to new revelations.

Don’t we trust our law enforcement agencies and our judicial system to unravel the truth and bring accused to the table? Are these so called investigating reporters licensed to undertake media trial of all those connected with the case – accused, witnesses, related parties? Isn’t it a known fact that a truth is not a truth unless proven? Is there no other issue pressing enough to merit even oblique attention of these channels and media? Is film industry any different from other industries that it should be absolutely clean, meritorious and neutral? Weren’t some of those who reached the apex and became hearth throbs outsiders to the industry who earned their position on the strength of their talent and versatility? Has Bollywood embraced no outsider except those with the roots or connections in the industry?

It’s all highly exaggerated. As a nation, we are falling into this trap of saucy and sensational journalism where all the trials henceforth be happening on the news channels and impressions be formed, heroes eulogised and villains condemned even before law takes its own course!

Even if we don’t trust our administrators, we should not forget our teachings? Truth always prevails though justice at times can get delayed? But there’s a process and it can be a matter of life and death for an innocent and therefore there’s no room for conjecture and sensationalism. Drug is an evil- but addict is a victim and not a culprit! Lovers do fall apart, but if it leads to any partner ending life it’s tragic! Film industry is a glam business and some unscrupulous people do surreptitiously enter the industry and vitiate it! There is no omnibus rule. Let the law takes its course and justice be dispensed! Till then it’s just a case with new revelations and contradictions each day enroute the final destination of justice! Let’s worry about lives, safety, jobs, businesses, economy, external threat and above all freedom from Corona.

There’s a video clip doing rounds in social media in which a group of burglars is lamenting at the grave loss to their business as a consequence of the current Covid pandemic. They are shown complaining as everyone is talking about all businesses coming to a screeching halt but nobody is sympathising with them. As everyone is locked inside his or her home in the prevailing lockdown, where’s the opportunity for burglars to find an uninhabited home to break into for burglary?

While the video is made to humour the audiences, the fact is that an epic of this magnitude cannot be not making a deep social impact! We have many a times attributed the increased instances of crimes such as chain snatching, Eve teasing. Kidnapping etc to joblessness as youth without jobs are sometimes compelled to take unlawful activities when driven by the extreme circumstances. Of course, there’s no justifying such acts – no circumstance licenses a person to become a law unto himself, but society cannot be totally isolated from the evils of a sinking economy and it does cause misery, whatever it’s form may be.

This lockdown, of course, has forced people to stay indoors and increasingly indulge in e commerce. People have been ordering goods on line and making payments electronically, using mobile or internet banking or debit or credit card. This is leading to unprecedented increase in cyber crimes where a fraudster under the pretext of helping a person extracts personal details such as account or card details, PIN, OTP etc and then siphons off large sums of monies from the card or the account of innocent person. In fact, these are such cyber experts that they are able to take full control of the user’s device and then clean off balances in the account or card. Banks and the regulator are trying to educate public at large to be aware of these cyber fraudsters, but they sound so helpful, genuine, empathic and friendly that one ends up sharing all the details with these dangerous operators. And such cyber frauds are not restricted to financial loss; these operators are always on look out to find out ways and means to compromise your and mine personal details and misuse them in creating fake documents to be used for unlawful and unauthorised usage. In fact, physical crimes hurt us then and there; cyber crimes can hurt us deep and wide with long term consequences.

Let’s protect our hard earned money and hard earned reputation by ensuring not to fall into any kind of lure of short gains, unbelievable offers, money back, 48% return, crypto currency, befriending a glam doll or a rich guy, offer to work in foreign etc . Nothing good in this world comes easy and we should not fall for such easy offerings. And as nothing comes easy, it should not be allowed to go out easily!

Burglars are lamenting

For in lockdown there are no places to break into to commit theft

But where’s the respite for a commoner

Cyber fraudsters are weaning our money away making us bereft!

So to end this piece with my favourite catch line

Corona Corona go away

You have already come a long way

I first lost my freedom then health

And now you eating into my wealth!

Continue reading “Covid – one more suffering” →

My readers know that I have written a lot on Covid pandemic. How it has been the biggest tragedy and disruption faced by mankind since the World War 2, the way it has impacted the way we lived our lives and the way we are going to live in future, new terminology associated with it such as lockdown, social distancing etc, plight of immigrants and the new normal, but as far as it’s impact on the global economy is concerned, I have generally been a little evasive in the absence of concrete figures. Now I have come across this article that first gives the size of the world economy in 2019, impact of Covid in the first two quarters of 2020 and its forecast for 2021. I found the impact to be much more severe than what was originally estimated and therefore, thought of sharing with my readers.

The above voronoi-style visualization relies on gross domestic product (GDP) data from the World Bank to paint a picture of the global economy—which crested to $87.8 trillion in 2019.

The United States continues to have the top GDP, accounting for nearly one-quarter of the world economy. China also continued to grow its share of global GDP, going from 15.9% to 16.3%.

Rank Country GDP % of Global GDP

1 🇺🇸 U.S. $21.4T 24.4%

2 🇨🇳 China $14.3T 16.3%

3 🇯🇵 Japan $5.1T 5.8%

4 🇩🇪 Germany $3.9T 4.4%

5 🇮🇳 India $2.9T 3.3%

6 🇬🇧 UK $2.8T 3.2%

7 🇫🇷 France $2.7T 3.1%

8 🇮🇹 Italy $2.0T 2.3%

9 🇧🇷 Brazil $1.8T 2.1%

10 🇨🇦 Canada $1.7T 2.0%

Top 10 Countries account for $58.7 trillion or 66.9% if the total.

According to the World Bank, the global economy could ultimately shrink 5.2% in 2020—the deepest cut since WWII.

See below for World Bank projections on GDP in 2020 for when the dust settles, as well as the subsequent potential for recovery in 2021.

Country/ Region / Economy Type 2020 Growth Projection 2021E Rebound Forecast
United States -6.1% 4.0%
Euro Area -9.1% 4.5%
Advanced economies -7.0% 3.9%
Emerging economies -2.5% 4.6%
East Asia and Pacific -0.5% 6.6%
Europe and Central Asia -4.7% 3.6%
Latin America and the Caribbean -7.2% 2.8%
Middle East and North Africa -4.2% 2.3%
South Asia -2.7% 2.8%
Sub-Saharan Africa -2.8% 3.1%
Global Growth -5.2% 4.2%
Source: World Bank Global Economic Prospects, released June 2020

The above figures are scary to say the least. A 5% plus shrinkage is apocalyptic and can hurt economies such as India very deep. Rebound in 2021 will much depend upon how soon the world gets rid of pandemic through either vaccination or cure – both looking slightly hazy and distant at present.

Let’s look heavenly and hope for a miracle! After all miracles do happen and there’s nothing very miraculous about a miracle happening when the mankind is facing its worst crisis in years.