A Tribute to the Famed Gujarati Hospitality

There were just a few minutes left for the train to move out of Ahmedabad station at around 9.15 pm when the realization struck me that I had to get some food for the overnight journey to Mumbai. At the same time one of persons in the adjoining seat said that there would be no dinner service in the train that night. This was confirmed by one of the vendors who had come into the train. My mind was filled with terror and I cursed myself. I had arrived at the station well ahead of schedule and could have easily ordered and packed the food. But under the mistaken impression that food would be served on the train I had not bothered to stock up on food. As Sherlock Holmes would have said, “Elementary my dear Watson”, or in this case Ravindran. I was now in the horns of a dilemma. I could have got off the train and tried to get my dinner. This also meant that I could miss the train if I did not make it back in time. It was again Elementary. Ravindran chose to play safe, remain in the train and prepare myself for a long night of hunger The train had just started moving and the rumblings were not far from the stomach. “Do you mind having some food, a kindly voice enquired it belonged to an old lady Subsequent enquiries revealed that she was traveling to another part of Gujarat with her daughter in law and two grandchildren Mind! Does one mind Manna from heaven? Soon I was tucking into some typical Gujarati food comprising of Dhokla and Tepla. When I was offered a second helping, I shamelessly accepted it. The rumblings in my stomach were stillborn. A full stomach enables a man to reflect. And reflect I did. On how during journeys strangers were drawn to lending a helping hand to each other. Just two days back on the trip to Ahmedabad from Mumbai a lady had bought me tea when she realized that I didn’t have necessary change. She had later refused to accept money when later I had managed to secure the change. A manifestation of the famed Gujarati hospitality. It was in evidence in even greater measure two days later. After a few pleasantries we all retired for the night. Next day when I woke up close to Mumbai, my Samaritans had already disembarked and nowhere to be seen. I realized that in my joy in securing food I had actually forgotten to aske their names. I wish to thank them as well as the lady who bought me tea earlier for the famed Gujarati hospitality. Thank you friend and let us hope we meet again in the journey of life. This time it will be my turn to return the hospitality.

Goodbye to the old and welcome to the new

August 18, 2013 was one of the most poignant days in my life. For all practical purposes my weekend Executive MBA classes had ended that day. Yes officially there was still one more lecture left and I still had to clear an examination and complete a project. Since my presentation had been completed on that day I had the option of not attending the last lecture on August 25. As I walked away from Welingkar College that afternoon on towards Matunga station, my classmate Ajeetabh yelled out “Is this the last time that we are seeing you?” I don’t recollect what I said. My mind was filled with doubt. Was I doing the right thing by not opting for a specialisation programme in Finance which would have taken another three months? My weekend classes had kept me sane during a trying period in my life. I was jobless (a condition of my own choosing) during the first year of my MBA. These classes had been something to look forward to during that period and had given me the much needed mental stimulus and morale boost. Also interacting with a young class and being part of the college jokes had been fun. Plus the priceless friendship of Rohinton Lala who was a genuine source of comfort during that tough period. In a sense I was walking away from all this. At the same time, the classes had come at a price after I entered formal employment. I had to sacrifice my family life entirely. Although I worked five days a week, I had often been on calls on Saturdays. Added to this was the stress of transitioning to a new career role. Also during this period my father had fallen terminally ill and passed away in April this year. In a sense I had been looking forward to the end of the course. Yet when the moment came I was filled with indefinable sadness. I decided to come the next week for purely sentimental reasons. I didn’t want to miss out one last day with the class. Plus I wanted to attend the last lecture as I had missed the first lecture due to an injury. The last day was of course the time for saying the sentimental goodbyes. I still hadn’t been able to make up my mind on whether the decision to not opt for specialisation was the right one. As I rang the doorbell, my son came forward to open the door. Even before I could come in the question was out of his mouth “What will you do next Sunday”? I said,” I will now be at home on all Sundays”. He clasped me in a tight hug. At that the cobwebs were cleared from my mind. The decision to take a break from academics was certainly the right one. It was tough not to feel sentimental about what was changing. There was also the promise of a new beginning. More time for the family, who ultimately is the single biggest reason for our existence. Goodbye to the old and welcome to the new. A cliché perhaps. But like many clichés, it captured the essence of the moment.

At last, an answer to the chicken and egg riddle !

“Venky’s solves the riddle. Venky’s chicken came before Venky’s eggs,” I said with a laugh. “We will use that”, said my friend Girish and thus was born a classroom ad campaign. But first things first. I and Girish were students of Copywriting (the art of writing advertisements) along with seven others in the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI). The nine of us were divided into two groups and given the momentous task of coming up with an ad-campaign to sell branded eggs. Girish, me, Pravina, Sarabjeet and Vernon constituted one team while Rajashree, Vivek, Sunil and Melroy constituted the other team. All of us of course dreamt of emulating the feats of legendary copywriters like David Ogilvy and the the other bright stars in the advertising firmament. The immediate business was of course to create the ad-campaign. Girish loved what I had purely meant to be a joke and since he was the accepted leader of our group we went about creating the campaign. To the uninitiated Venky’s was the abbreviation for Venkateshwara Hatcheries. Venky’s had first launched branded chicken and now we decided in our infinite wisdom that they were going to be the pioneers in branded eggs as well. If I remember correctly, we zeroed in on a hoarding campaign. The Venky solves the riddle was to be a teaser unveiled on hoardings. I honestly don’t remember after all these years as to what went into the rest of our campaign. Both teams of course had to make a presentation on D-Day before securing a certificate. The judge was a senior representative of one of the well known Indian advertising agencies. He agreed that we had an “interesting” teaser but plumped for the campaign created by the other team. They focused on a campaign which wanted to know whether consumers were buying eggs blindfold. We were of course disappointed but took the decision in good grace. I also personally brightened up for a different reason. True , we had lost out in the eyes of the judge. But we had made the most coherent attempt to answer the Chicken and Egg Riddle. Yes, Venky’s eggs came after Venky's chicken.

Main Har Ek Pal Ka Shayar Hoon

As I see the various tributes pouring in for Yash Chopra on television channels, the heart swells with a welter of emotions. It is impossible to believe that the great man who only recently celebrated his eightieth birthday and announced his retirement is gone. Dengue has claimed an unlikely victim. My mind goes back to a time 20 years back when Yash Chopra was a sprightly sixty and I was a cub reporter with a popular film magazine. I had gone to cover the shooting of one of the great man’s least known films –Parampara-at a location near Pune. The image that I have of Yashji is of a well-built person who spoke English with an accent but came across as warm and transparent. When a pesky journalist queried him about the behaviour of one of the movie’s stars Saif Ali Khan, Chopra replied with politeness. He said that he behaved very well and that you had to make allowances for a boy coming from a well to do family. Yashji also displayed superhuman patience every time Aamir Khan asked for a retake even after the director had okayed the shot. The actor who has a rage for perfection was trying to improve upon each shot of his and the great director was acceding to that request. And Yashji joined the entire crew for lunch. This was as egalitarian as it got. Quite frankly apart from this I have very little recollection of the visit. But the heart and the mind are full with a bunch of memories which will go with me to the grave. Memories of pure pleasure that come from watching a Yash Chopra movie. Whether it is the “Mere Paas Ma Hai” gem from Deewar or the intensity of Amitabh Bachchan in Trishul, the “Dekha Ek Khwab” number from Silsila or the title song of Kabhi Kabhi. While each and every one of these will hold special memories for me and lovers of Hindi cinema, my defining memory will be “Main Pal do Pal Ka Shayar Hoon”. This is not your conventional Hindi film song but poetry of the highest order. It conveys more about life than anything that I have come across from the great movie maker’s works. Especially the haunting lines “Kal Koyi Mujko Yaad Kare Kyon Koyi Mujko Yaad Kare Makroor Zaman Mere Liye Kyon Waqt Apna Barbaad Kare” We cannot but remember you Yashji. For you have now become a part of our consciousness. Something to be transmitted from generation to generation-just like your movies and songs. Just as there is a variation of the song towards the end of the movie Kabhi Kabhi-Main Har Ek Pal Ka Shayar Hoon. RIP but you will live on Yashji.

A Glimpse into Life from the Mahalakshmi Temple

“I have made a mistake by coming on this trip with you people. It is very uncomfortable traveling by car for such a long time. I should have stayed at home with mummy,” said my six year old son Sanjiv with the gravity of a person beyond his age. Sanjiv had chosen to accompany me and my parents on a trip to the Mahalakshmi temple in Mumbai. The trip was to take approximately two hours. “Come on. Your father used to travel by train and bus when he was your age to get to the temple while you have problems traveling by car,” returned my mother. Traveling by bus and train was to Sanjiv taking the road less traveled. Nevertheless my mother’s statement brought back a flood of memories about various trips to this temple beginning in the early seventies. Typically, my family (including my brother) would take a train to Byculla and then the bus to the temple. One of the joys of this trip was that we would get on to a double decker bus. My brother and I would scramble to the front seat and lean over the window just ahead of us as my parents urged us to be careful. The breeze would simply waft on to our face while we laughed delightedly. After worshipping at the temple, the next stop would be at the canteen in the temple premises where we would gulp down some tea and snacks. This would be followed by a foray into the rocks alongside the temple which led into the sea. Also there would be a wonderful view of the Hajiali dargah. This time too after worshipping the goddess of wealth, I took Sanjiv down to the canteen. We skipped the tea and snacks but I badly wanted to take him at least close to the rocks. We found out however that no trip was possible to the rocks as the entire place had been barricaded by a fence presumably on security grounds. I was deeply disappointed as I was keen on taking my son to a place which had given me considerable pleasure in the past. The view of the Dargah was however as good as ever. Nevertheless the disappointment lingered. Sanjiv despite his complaints had been able to travel to the temple in style in a car- a sign of the changed times. I could not take him to closer to the sea thanks to the fence. Alas, this too is a sign of the changed times.

Black Hair and the Art of Parenting

Last weekend I was trying to get my son Sanjiv to get ready for a competition. After his bath, I was trying to get him to apply oil on his hair. He was doing his best to avoid it. That is when I thought that my big moment had arrived. “Look at daddy’s hair. It is still jet black and that is because I have applied oil on my hair all my life. If you want to have black hair you too must apply oil,” I said with considerable flourish.
My son wasn’t to be denied his say though. “If you don’t have grey hair now, you will have grey hair eventually.” Words of wisdom from a six year old which stumped a 46 year old.
Now one of the things of which I am inordinately proud of is my black hair. Naturally black, let me assure you. None of the fancy hair dyes that are available freely in the market have ever found their way into my hair. The truth as they say is as dark as it gets. Except that this time the dark truth is a fair picture of things.
Now I am a person who hates to lose an argument as much as my son likes to win one. “Come on Sanjiv, my hair is not going to grey anytime soon. People younger than me have grey hair but your daddy hasn’t got a single strand. My hair will remain black forever,” I said with considerable glee if not triumph.
Now Sanjiv had an answer for this one too. “Daddy you will have grey hair at the time of my marriage,” he said with conviction. I was again stumped for an answer. Granted that this is a generation on the fast lane. Agreed that we live in the Web 2.0 era which is charecterized by user generation content and interactivity. But a six year old speaking about his marriage and being able to co-relate it with the colour of his daddy’s hair. At one level I was amused. At another level I was stunned and even apprehensive and it also raised questions in my mind about my ability to be a good parent. Reinvention I have realized is not only the norm in the workplace but also at home. The Web 2.0 parent can respond to user generated content by only being interactive. Words like empowerment, delegation which have become a part of the workplace lexicon now have found their way into parenting too. As I steeled myself to be a different kind of parent, I caught my reflection on the mirror. The face may have looked grim with the dawn of new realities but the hair was still jet black. The years of applying oil on my hair-not even subscribing to the fad of dry hair during my teenage days- had paid off. My lips creased into a smile with the realization that Sanjiv’s marriage is still some years away and only at that time we will see as to who has won the final argument. Till then it is back to the next dab of coconut oil.

The Kinder Side of Life:

“Please sit down here,” said the old man at the Bank in a classic case of role reversal. The younger man was being offered a seat by an elderly person. The younger man was none other thane me while the old man was one of many who displayed the kinder side of life to me for about three months last year.

The reason for this was that a fall in my office had resulted in a torn ligament. Thanks to modern surgical shoes I was quickly up and about. While the surgical shoes got me back on my feet quickly, they could not camouflage my discomfort. Add to this the fact that I had to often walk around with a stick and the world had ceased to be a stage and had become more of an oyster as I was largely confined to home.
Indeed the old man was not the only person who displayed this side of life to me during my short travails. On the rare occasion that I stepped out o f my house, the people in my building (mostly the elderly) wondered how I was managing since they had seen me take my brisk morning walk regularly. One of them said,”Tumhe nazar lag gayee,” meaning that an evil eye had befallen me. Even that much maligned species, Mumbai’s autowallas often melted enough to ferry me over short distances or literally go the extra mile.

I have now resumed my walks and my life. As I look back, I am filled with a sense of gratitude to all those who conveyed their good wishes to me during a rather trying period. And who can forget Nimish, Gurdeep and Vidhata the three original angels who ferried me to hospital after my fall in the office or my boss Srini who lent his car for the purpose.

This tribute to the kinder side of life would not be complete without a special reference to my friend Deepak. Early on in my treatment, a decision had to be made as to whether I should opt for the surgical shoes which entailed a sizeable investment or opt for the conventional cast. All of us friends when we have a medical problem immediately get in touch with Deepak. Sure enough, I was dialing Deepak and he had the answer as usual. “Ravi, I know you. You are incapable of sitting still and being in a cast will hamper your movements no end. This will totally demoralize you. Forget the cost, just opt for the shoe,” he said. That decided it. Needles to say that Deepak’s words were prophetic and his advice was based as much on the psychology of the individual as on medicine. Looking back, I must say that being mobile made a huge difference to my treatment. And it was more mental than physical. In the immortal words of Jeeves, Deepak the best doctor to walk the planet without a formal medical degree had grasped “the psychology of the individual.” Thank you Jeeves, I mean Deepak.