My readers by now are well aware about my fascination with P G Wodehouse writings and I continue to read his compendium of work on my kindle. It’s like a thesis and I am reading it at a leisurely pace.

Apart from his mastery over the use of language and expression to create a situation that’s neither fully ironical nor satirical, his ability to create subtle humour out of day to day situations is really something wonderful. In the process, if there’s a situation with which you identify yourself, it adds a layer of familiarity.

After finishing the acts of Bertie Wooster, I am currently reading another of his popular character Psmith. This is a long winded story about a family of Jacksons having four sons and a daughter and all four brothers are cricket aficionados and good players in their own right. They are sent to famous boarding schools/ junior colleges that are well known for their cricketing abilities apart of academics.

To cut the story short, the youngest of the Jacksons, Mike, who’s playing wonderful cricket and appears to be ripe for county cricket, is summoned by his father to be informed that he has lost all his wealth and that Mike can not pursue his education and cricket further and instead has to join a bank in London.

From campus to brutal professional world of banking, the transition is sudden and abrupt. The young Mike is feeling like fish out of water inside the bank office, where he’s asked to go to despatch section and learn about receipt and delivery of letters. On his way to office in London on day 1, he comes across a college ground and immediately thinks about playing some cricket on weekends and holidays.

The above took me back to the year 1983 when I was going to Delhi university, pursuing my master in physics. The first semester ended on 10th December and the second semester was to begin on 5th January after a short winter break. In between around 15th of December, I got an offer letter asking me to report at a bank’s divisional office at Connaught Place on 28th December. Was I happy? In fact , I was totally crestfallen at the thought of transiting from cool, intellectually stimulating campus life to big boring world of banking. The thought that my further studies were going to end abruptly really sank me to the extreme depths of sadness. And on my first day at the bank, like Mike, I was a fish out of water and again like Mike asked to sit in despatch section. From young, educated, ambitious and disciplined folks at DU campus, the loud, boisterous and invective using bank staff, it was a transition most forgettable that I have not been able to forget till date!

Such is the irony of life; but how you see the lighter side of such an irony is what PGW tells us in his inimitable manner!

This extract of his work transported me to an event that happened 40 years back but whose memory is still fresh in my mind, like it was yesterday. This is the power of pen.

My regular readers know about Mr Malik, a rare personality, as we generally do not come across such personalities very often in our day to day lives.

A simile very often used to describe a person who has a tough facade but a soft heart inside is coconut. A coconut has a hard shell outside but the nut inside is soft. For Mr Malik, I go a step further. He’s like a raw coconut used by us to savour it’s water. It also has a tough shell ( requiring a sickle to unshell) and inside it’s not only filled with sweet nectarine water that quenches our thirst but also soft milky pulp or malai as we call it colloquially that tastefully satisfies our hunger too. Such is Mr Malik’s persona.

Mrs Malik is what a true lady is – a devoted wife, a doting mother, a dutiful daughter in law and a qualified professional who also contributed to family’s welfare!

And together, they have brought up two lovely daughters – educated, talented, professional, homely but fiercely independent! Though they both came from middle class families uprooted by partition, their thought process has always been progressive bereft of any conservatism. And the way daughters and their families bond with Mrs and Mr Malik, it’s enough to break the age old myth of a son’s requirement to take care of parents in old age.

It’s a milestone, a big occasion when two such good, affectionate, loveable people celebrate golden jubilee of their togetherness. And though in these Corona times, the celebration will be low key and restricted to immediate family, we, the friends, well wishers and admirers of this fantastic couple will also rejoice the occasion in our own small way.

We pray to God to give good health and prosperity to this beloved and respected couple so that after golden, they celebrate diamond and platinum jubilees of their togetherness.

Happy golden anniversary Mrs and Mr Malik.

It’s been some time that I last wrote a blog on Mahatria’s Pearl of wisdom. His today’s thought has once again impacted me deeply, inspiring me to share the same with my readers. The thought says:

Anything in life that comes to you should either stay with you, making you peaceful or should leave you, leaving you peaceful.

It should never stay with you, keeping you disturbed.

I think a major part of our life gets wasted on the activities, relationships and thoughts that we are either forced to live with against our will or are so very entwined in our day to day lives that’s it’s difficult for us to overcome them. The message is very deep and requires lots of pondering over, but let me cite a rather simple example. Many of us want to follow a healthy lifestyle, wake up early and do some yoga and meditation. Yet we find it difficult to get up early and in the process this lethargy makes us unhappy, but we are unable to let go off this habit. And this example can be extended to any part – we want to develop habit to read, but don’t find time, we want to get rid of a particular friend or acquaintance, yet we persist with him or her, we could be unhappy with our jobs, yet we continue for want of a viable alternative.

Another way of interpreting this great message by the great man is that we need to live in the present, without carrying the burden of past guilts or future expectations.

And yet another way of reading Mahatria’s mind is to be happy with whatever you have by way of material and relationships instead of being unhappy about what you don’t have. This was the theme of one of my other recent blogs too.

I feel blessed to be receiving these daily pearls from my friend, occasionally sharing them in my own humble way with my readers.

Today I came across an interesting news item on “vaccination tourism”. A Delhi travel firm is arranging packaged tours to Russia for 21 days that will include two doses of Sputnik vaccine, besides normal sightseeing. First dose will be administered immediately upon arrival in Russia and the second on the 21st day on the date of return. The only requirement as per Russian rules is negative RT-PCR report.

The above is packaged differently and I must say, very timely, when everyone wants to get vaccinated but there’s not enough supply of vaccines. Those who can afford to spare a few lakh rupees can definitely avail of the above offer by mixing sightseeing with vaccination . However, medical tourism is nothing new and the fact is that our country has been a beneficiary of overseas patients coming to India fir treatment of serious ailments due to advances medical techniques and comparatively low cost. Many affluent Indians regulated fly to overseas destinations, mainly USA for advanced medical treatments, mainly relating to the dreaded malaise of cancer.

Also, various nations use their strength to their advantage differently. Dubai is flight hub for Indians and all tourists and Indians working abroad use Dubai as transit passengers. In fact, Indians must have played an important part in making Emirates amongst the biggest and most sought after airline in the world. Singapore is financial hub due to its efficiency and discipline. And there are many such instances.

However, we should appreciate the Russian line of thought that has commercialism mixed with compassion as also the Delhi based travel firm that has discovered a business opportunity to revive a sector that has borne the brunt of the pandemic.

Second wave has taken our nation by surprise and exposed serious chinks in our armoury to fight the pandemic – lack of oxygen, ventilators, hospital beds, ambulance service, Remdesivir, non availability of vaccination et al. On the other hand, caution was thrown to winds for playing Holi, doing Kumbha snana and participating in state and panchayat elections. India created new records of daily infections and deaths. With the extensive lockdowns and other measures, the second wave seems to have plateaued and the numbers have started receding almost all over the country. In this context, I had two thoughts or new perspectives on the issue.

First is on the underlying principles of democracy. Democracy is more about self governance- to be aware of our duties and not only rights. Governments under democratic system of governance are not expected to deal with iron hand as it’s the government of the people, for the people and by the people. While government has been rightfully lambasted for its handling of crisis, the people at large – who partied as if lifting of lockdown meant end of Corona, travelled like there was no next day, celebrated Holi and Kumbha and made mockery of social distancing at election rallies and shopping for festival are equally to be blamed.

Second is on the satirical piece by inimitable Jug Suraiya who wrote beautiful on co-relation between our five senses and Corona. As he says, it all starts with us losing our sense of taste and smell. Then there’s constant admonition to not to touch any object – door knobs, elevator buttons or for that matter shaking hands, forget hugging or embracing! Our sight is not affected but it undergoes a change seeing people not as people but as case loads or hospital bed or oxygen seekers! On sense of sound, the author very wittingly says that while we ignore voices seeking Covid help certain other “Mann ki baat” gets amplified to crescendo pitch. However, he sums it up beautifully saying that apart from these five physical senses there’s a sixth sense that can be adversely affected by the virus and all the misinformation doing the rounds. This is generally called the common sense. Ultimately, it seems that it all boils down to people using their common sense or discretion in fighting this pandemic.

We all have to use all our senses, including the sixth one, to get rid of Corona. Mask will protect us from senses relating to taste and smell, hand washing from touch, good literature and thoughts from senses relating to sight and sound and common sense from unnecessary crowding and outing and all this combined with vaccination will give us victory against Corona.

My father would have turned 93 today had he been alive, but he decided to call it a day a month after turning 83, losing his battle to cancer that struck him late in his life.

All of us love our parents and we use expressions such as – “my father strongest or my mother most affectionate” , and thus if I pay tribute to my father on his birthday, there’s nothing unique or exceptional about it! Only aspect of his life that may interest my readers his total apathy to material assets and he hardly owned any assets all his life. He never owned a driver licence or a passport implying he never rode a self driven two or four wheeler and never traveled abroad. He used his retrial benefit to own a property as all through his service life, he lived in quarter provided by government whom he served! Most of his sightseeing happened after his retirement when his ability to walk freely was severely curtailed due to a serious accident that he met late in his life after having lived virtually a healthy life bereft of any serious ailment.

He was an atheist but I have never seen him missing his daily prayers that he used to say to the supreme lord one who had no form, shape or face. He was at his happiest when with children as he clearly avoided politics, especially of the family kind and his best friends were the most deprived in society – the cobbler, barber, driver, vegetable vendor – whom he would give mints and toffees as if they were his children!

His total retirement benefit could be my monthly take home, I have travelled to at least 3 continents, owned cars, houses and other assets he never owned and enjoyed and partied as if there’s no tomorrow but if I could ever become even 1% of the human that he was, I would have achieved at least something worth mentioning in my life.

A prayer for deliverance from Corona

Human beings are counting their breaths
Hospitals are counting number of deaths

Burial grounds and crematoriums are not having a moment that’s dull
For bodies are coming and coming and there’s not even a moment’s lull

And people are seeking safety in vaccination
But vaccination centres are overcrowded destinations

And god has given us abundant amount of oxygen
Yet people are dying for hospitals have no oxygen

And though Remdesivir is no sure shot panacea for Covid
Yet it’s skyrocketing price exposes the human greed

Wave 2 is more fatal and serious than wave one
And scientists say wave 3 will affect children

Death is knocking on the doors of friends and neighbours
Who knows when life will treat us out of favour

Let’s wear mask, stay indoors and pray to almighty
It seems only some unseen force can save us from this calamity!

One sometimes comes across certain simplistic pieces of writing that leave a deep impression. There’s an oft quoted adage ascribed to Helen Keller that reads:

I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet

We also hear another popular quote that says, “ Grass is greener on the other side of the fence.” But today I came across a beautiful piece that’s aligned in its spirits to the above quotes, but exhorts us to value what we already have rather than yearn for more or better. The piece says:

You terrible job is the dream of the unemployed.

Your house is the dream of the homeless.

Your smile is the dream of the depressed.

Your money is the dream of the poor.

Your health is the dream of the sick

And I add from my side:

Your child is the dream of childless

Your friends are the dream of a loner.

Your car is the dream of a traveller using Mumbai local.

Your simple monotonous food is the dream of hungry.

And I invite my readers to further add to this list so that henceforth we all count our blessings rather than yearn for more or better. This is so true in the current pandemic times, when all people like us locked inside our homes without worrying for basic requirements are really blessed looking to the suffering of all those who need to earn daily to eat!

Other day as part of the press briefing, scientific advisor to Government of India opined that going by the present trend, third wave of Corona virus could not be ruled out. More seriously, the third wave could be primarily targeting children. I also read somewhere that authorities are preparing for the third wave by readying ICU facilities for children. This has completely shattered my peace of mind.

How do you save children from this evil? Apart from their natural immunity, it’s very difficult, virtually impossible to enforce any dos of Covid protocol on them. Children don’t understand social distancing, refuse to wear masks and touch all sort of things with their hands! They also would find it very difficult to immediately discern symptoms of Covid such as loss of smell and taste and shall keep on playing till their body refuses to take it any further! Under the circumstances, the prospects of Covid third wave are most horrendous!

If the people of the world unite, they can achieve any mission. Two world wars have been fought so far, the last of which was almost 80 years ago. The threat of Third World War, which will not be traditional but atomic has loomed large, but the prospects of total obliteration of the world as a consequence has played an important deterrent and good sense has prevailed over the powers of the world to obviate such an eventuality. Third wave of Covid is no less harmful, especially if its going to be several times more infectious, lethal and targeting our children. We should all unite to immediately work towards vaccinating the entire world population, including children. Pfizer’s, Modernas, Astra Zenecas should share their technology with other pharma companies so that pace of manufacturing vaccines can be accelerated and further improvement can be made, including manufacturing of broader spectrum vaccines covering all mutants and vaccines for infants and children. Governments can compensate these patent holders through alternate means but the need of the hour is to make these vaccines generic for mass production and coverage of maximum population.

If we resolve, we can do it. For a moment, all differences should be set aside and we should all work with one point agenda of eradicating Covid and ensuring that there’s no third wave!

Sequels are welcomed for super movies

For a super evil like Corona , let the second be the last !

In our school days, we used to celebrate Independence and Republic days with our Principal unfurling the national flag and we being given small packets of sweetmeats. Coinciding with the birthday of our scholarly President Dr S Radhakrishnan, we started celebrating Teachers Day. Of course, the birthday of our first Prime Minister, Pandit Nehru is celebrated as children’s day all over the country.

As we grew older, the trend of celebrating Valentine’s Day started, but as I light heartedly lamented in one of my earlier blogs, by the time the trend of celebrating this romantic day took roots, we had outgrown that age by becoming settled professionals.

And now if you look at the social media and Internet, probably each calendar day of the year is dedicated to some cause or event. There’s environment day, brother day, Father’s Day and whole lot of other miscellaneous days. But how can we have Mother’s Day, when to my mind all 365 days of the year are Mother’s Days only. Yes but there’s one difference ! While for a mother 365 days and 24 hours of each day are dedicated to her children, probably children may require a day to remember their mothers. They are chasing careers, material objects, higher status in society, life abroad et al and in the process may forget to check on the well being of mothers; but mothers never forget their children. These successful careerists would be aspiring to lead mega corporations, but mothers are still worried about these children’s diet, rest, tension etc!

As someone put it very succinctly in the context of our relationship with our mothers-

Yeh hamara farz nahin

Hamara karz hai

The above is loosely translatable as:

We are not duty bound to our mothers

We owe our lives to our mothers!

While the above is a very deep thought and requires an aptitude of a great poet, which I am not, yet in my own humble way I pay my tribute to mothers in the following manner :

We are social animals and have friends and relations galore

But while asleep in mothers lap there’s no requirement of anything more

When something hits us, it hurts us badly

But it hurts our mothers much more, sadly

Because God couldn’t come in person to each one of us

He gave us mothers to be with each one of us

Temple, mosques and churches have gods to whom we go

Yet mothers are at home a fact that we all ought to know

Career, salary, status are all transient

In this world only mother’s love is permanent!

Happy Mother’s Day.