Sugreeva,Mr.Bali and the Airhostesses

For those who are yet to be initiated into the awesome epic of The Ramayana, I have a small piece of information to share.Rama,during one of his sojourns, met Sugreeva,a vanara(the same genre as Hanuman) who was tormented endlessly by his brother Bali,upon a misunderstanding.Rama took it upon himself to free Sugreeva from the torments of Bali and slayed Bali after a mini-battle.

By the way,I had gone on a trip to Bangalore last week,partly to relax after a hectic month of work and partly to do some shopping.I had finished my shopping for the day and were walking down Brigade Road,when i spotted a rotund,pot bellied guy,trudging lazily towards me from the other end of the road.The gait and figure was so familiar but I couldn't place him even after racking my brains trying to figure out where I had seen him.But as soon as he passed us,it struck me.A few extra pounds ,a moustache and a straggly beard were the main reasons why I had'nt placed him yet.

"Sugreeva !!", I yelled.

He whirled round,shocked at hearing his college-nickname called out,at the most unlikely place. His shock quickly turned to a pleasant surprise as he saw me(it was four years since we passed out of our college,where we were classmates)and soon we were hugging and getting each other posted with the events which had taken place in each other's lives in the past four years.Our discussion soon veered to incidents at college,which we never get fed up of reciting, inspite of the number of times we do so.

At college,he had been an ardent fan of certain B-Grade magazines which published tiltillating stories mainly aimed at adolescents.Once we had caught him red handed,reading one such book,and the story which he was reading,had the main protagonist with the name Sugreeva.Though he never owned up to buying that book ,the name quickly caught on,even among girls,who fortunately never knew about the origin of the name.It had infuriated him to no end,and he would fume at anyone who called him by that name.

And one day,after we had completed our freshman year at college,we decided to meet up with the new joinees at our hostel.We marched in and out of the junior's hostel rooms,Sugreeva being one of the main scare-leaders.In one room,there was this boy,bespectacled and geekish, his head buried deep into his Mathematics text,and feverishly working out his assignments.I snatched the text from the guy. Our first-year Mathematics text was written by one Mr.Bali.

I had already intimidated the boy with a couple of questions when my Ramayanic awareness was awakened by the author's name.

I said,"Hey,why the hell do you study from Bali's book? It's too tough.You should try Sugreeva's book".

The boy,already about to piss in his trousers,never sensed the humorous side of my question. "Where can I get that text from?",he asked,innocently,his big,round eyes staring at me from beneath his spectacles.

That was when I got my brainstorm. I pointed to Sugreeva,who was already spreading fear throughout the hostel,terrorizing each and every soul who came his way. "You can ask that guy".

The boy hesitated,but one stern glance from me,and he was off to Sugreeva and had asked him for the "Mathematics text by Sugreeva". We watched joyfully as Sugreeva flew into one of his rages,scared the boy out of his wits.He never again could summon the courage to look Sugreeva in his eye, until they met each other time in a less hostile and more professional office environment and a Sugreeva having mellowed down quite a bit by then.

We were laughing at how scared the boy was,when Sugreeva surprised me when he told me that they shared the same apartment as well,as they worked in the same company now.

The mention of the apartment reminded us of another incident involving him.Our apartment,during college was in a posh residential area with its kitchen window facing a house ,which was rented out by a dozen pretty airhostesses.Inspite of repeated warnings from each of us,Sugreeva could never resist the temptation to peek at them from our kitchen .One day, the apartment bell rang.Two of us answered the bell.To our pleasant surprise ,one of the airhostesses was at our door.We weren’t allowed to entertain any new hopes as she snapped angrily.

“Your cook is such a nuisance ! Will you ask him to stop staring at girls all the time”.

Cook ???’’ ,We asked in unison,flabbergasted. We never had a cook at our apartment. It just needed a split second to realize who the cook was.We assured the girl that it wouldn’t repeat again,slammed the door and before the half asleep Sugreeva knew it,we had landed blows on all exposed parts of his body.

We were laughing again,when Sugreeva surprised me once more. He was in love with a girl in his company and they were getting engaged in June. I started jumping up and down for a treat and insisted that I wanted to meet his girl in person. He okayed the idea of a treat,but would never let me see the girl in person.He relented,only when he had sworn me to secrecy upon God , that the above incidents would be kept a secret from her,atleast until they got engaged to each other. I agreed and was rewarded with a sumptuous dinner the next day, before I left Bangalore.

Professors - Unplugged !!!

Last month,there happened to be an alumni meeting at our alma mater ,Loyola School.We passed out of school nearly 10 years ago and I haven't quite been a frequent visitor at school since.The school had changed a lot and while we passed the staff room,there weren't many familiar faces there too.I hoped I could see atleast one of our teachers,but couldn't.They had been real special and the staff room bought with it some memories of some truly magnificent teachers that we had.

The first one has to be Jacob Mathew Sir,our chemistry professor.He was around 60,almost always impeccably dressed,in pucca formals,and seriously,if he gave a modelling career a thought,Raymonds and Peter Englands would be at his doorsteps the next day,vying with each other to woo him.Such was the charm he had,and add to it a level head with a toungue that could never utter something unless it was absolutely necessary and appropriate,he was the complete package - a gentleman,head to toe.And we gave him one of the cutest nicknames one could ever think of - Jams - a short for Jacob Mathew sir.Once he was giving a class test and underprepared as we were,malpractice was a foregone conclusion.The thing was not in commiting the sin,but it was in doing it as stealthily as you ever could.One of my classmates,Shivaji,was not very good at being inconspicous,and in a moment of desparation,resorted to peeking into the book of the guy sitting behind him and could not escape Jams's probing eyes which picked him out almost immediately.Normally in such situations,the guy is made to stand and undergo a dressing down right then.But Jams's response was a classic.He reached over his shoulder,looked at Shivaji and gently quipped,
"Shivaji,dont strain too much .You will break your neck ".
There was a delay while the joke sank in,and then the class roared with laughter.

Then there was Gayathri Manohar,our english professor till class Ten.She was the iron lady,with a heart of gold,and with her stern looks and imposing presence,could glare down even Mike Tyson with ease.The only time I remember her soften was at the funeral of one of our classmates,,while we were in class Ten,during which she was uncontrollably in tears.With her,there was no messing around,no half-measures,no pranks and she was the ultimate taskmaster.Her nickname too,almost went wonderfully in tune with the terror that she generated.Gayathri and Manohar got truncated identically to leave Ga and Ma,and the name GaMa just stuck.Once she was about to teach an act from The Merchant Of Venice,by William Shakespeare,when she asked for a copy of the book from one of us.One guy,Boney stood up in a trice and proudly took his book to her.There was reason for him to be proud,as he was one of the guys who came under constant chiding from GaMa for not coming to class with a proper text book.Moreover the book was neatly covered.But for some strange reason,instead of writing the full name-"The Merchant Of Venice"-on the cover,he inscribed just the first letters of each word.
As a result,the book cover read "T.m.o.v".
GaMa took one close look,frowned,then let out the rarest of smiles and said,
"Boney,I dont want the Russian version.Could you please give me the english version instead?".
A bewildered Boney,all his enthusiasm evaporated,was left struggling for words.

Another incredible teacher was Deepa Pillai,alias DP,our English teacher in the Plus Two course.Pint sized and frail,her appearance belied the energy and enthusiasm which she carried within.School days,dramas - whatever cultural programme held at school- the strings were and had to be pulled by DP herself.I haven't seen a better english teacher,and for each verse from Shakespeare's classic tragedy,Hamlet,she would enthrall the class with its hidden meanings,puns and umpteen connotations.And she was very concerned with the grades that each of us were managing to get in each exams and was particularly exasperated with the performance of one of the boys in our class,Harish.He was a gifted hoopster,the school general captain and one of the top athletes in the school,and had then taken to playing the jazz drums for the school choir.Inspite of being an extremely intelligent guy,his grades at school had plummeted badly,and DP badly wanted him to focus more on studies and less on drumming,and one particular day,while distributing the mark sheets to each student,Harish's grades drove her to despair,and she exclaimed,
"And Harish,will you please STop BAnging away at those BLessed DRums?".
The sentence was so magnificently accented and delivered that it came close to resembling a drumbeat sequence in itself.We all stared,impressed at the verse,as DP acknowledged our open mouthed admiration with a sweet little smile,and nonchalantly continued with the distribution of the mark sheets.

There are still much more about school,about which I could go on writing forever.It is great fun recollecting them,and saves me the trouble of reciting boring events,which seem to have "happened" in every school,every year,every batch like how the chemistry professor asked to "take an iron rod of any metal" or how the drill master instructed to open the windows to "let the air force come in".

Teachers at Loyola,take a bow !!

Glassy Recollections

Last week,taking the cue from one of my friends,I decided that I would undergo laser treatment to my eyes.It was easy,he said,just a half an hour at the doc's,and your eyesight would be back to normal and you could dump your spectacles for good.The talk about the specs took me for a walk down the memory lane,with my glasses by my side.

They had come, the light of my eyes, neatly wrapped in a shiny plastic case with the name of the shop neatly embossed on it, in golden italic letters, and a yellow satin cloth inside to wipe them clean.

They were initially taken off before sleep, carefully with both my hands , wiped clean with the cloth and tenderly placed back into the box. As time went by, I would whip them off and toss them on to my table. The cloth, replaced by the loose ends of my shirts, disappeared first, followed by the box, which ended up covered in dust, at some forgotten corner of my wardrobe. As a result, within weeks of purchase, they invariably end up with one leg pointing towards London and the other towards America.

They made the text on billboards and films on television clearer, and saved me from the wrath of many who would smile at me from far away, only to meet my blind, blank stare. They have emboldened me to look people in the eye, as I know it wouldn’t be very easy for them to see my eyes, through the glasses.

They contrived with my then awkward gait, to give me the geek look, but the competition from my miserable grades right through school and college was too much for them and ultimately the grades won, hands down.

They made me very appearance-conscious, and despite instructions from the doctor to wear them permanently and persuasion from my parents, I always made sure that they rested in my pockets till I crossed the row of shops on either side of the road, which preceded the rather deserted path which led to my school.

They ruined an otherwise good looking photograph of mine--which honestly speaking, is quite a rarity--by reflecting the studio lights with a vengeance. Despite the best efforts from me and the photographer, neither the good looks nor thankfully the glare, repeated itself again.

They once silently rested on my nose, as if mocking at me, while I ran desperately all around the school, searching playgrounds and bathrooms thinking that I lost them. I realized they were still with me, only when, temporarily forgetting that I had "lost" them, I involuntarily readjusted their position on the bridge of my nose.

They have evolved from brown to black, oval to square, from biggish to smallish, the evolutions being triggered by wear and tear or by the latest fashion trends. But the demise of the first pair was the most tragic.
“They were in the pocket of my shirt,
The shirt was hanging on the door,
The door was then slammed tightly shut,
They were smashed and crashed to the floor.”
Nice rhyme, but such a cute piece of poetry occurring to me while speaking of this incident seems quite an anticlimax, as the sight of them crushed to a hundred glass pieces, jammed between the door and the wall, had been too much to bear. I got a sound thrashing from dad that day and a brand new pair on the next.

They have reduced RayBan and PolicE brands to utter irrelevance as far as I am concerned, as sunglasses don’t come with provisions for the visually imperfect, and wearing sunglasses over your eyeglasses isn't exactly what you call sanity.

They haven't been a permanent fixture on my nose of late, and they come up from my pocket only in the event of something interesting (read beautiful) cropping up before me. While at college, me wearing them and looking in a particular direction was a sure-shot indicator of a pretty someone walking past, and scores of hopeful adolescent eyes would soon follow mine. The flip side of the whole thing was that even some of my innocent, unassuming glances were quite often grossly misunderstood.

They get deposited by me, at the oddest of places, on bathroom window sills, on living-room cushions, in trouser pockets and many such unlikely places. I go mad hunting for them, and keep everyone around me on tenterhooks as well. They do resurface at the end, leaving a sheepish smile on my face, but the resultant mess-the upturned cushions,malaligned furniture,rummaged wardrobes- takes at least another hour to get cleaned up.

With the surgery imminent,my glasses wouldn't be staying with me for long.Even with a perfect 10/10 vision,and free from all the fuss which accompanies them,and the fact that I can spot a RayBan without bothering about them,I realize I would miss them ,and miss badly - my unsung companions,their reassuring presence,the desperate spectacle hunts - and the more I think about them,the more second thoughts am I having about letting them go.