August 29, 2011
Yesterday around noon, two young ladies in their early twenties, showed up holding Khadi cotton bags and folders. For those who remember the famous 'Chamko' detergent powder bit by Deepti Naval, I would say that these ladies presented a similar image except for the churidaar instead of saree.
"Sir, we are conducting a survey of the educated families in the neighborhood," one of them said walking in through the open gate. My astrologer uncle promptly pointed to me. I asked them to come and sit down. We have plenty of plastic chairs on the verandah nowadays owing to the marriage.They sat down.
"Actually sir, we are from C.R.Y!"
"Oh!", I said, realizing that this was not going to end well. So there wasn't going to be any survey.
"We are from Chennai."
"Where in Chennai?"
"Actually sir, I am from Andhra Pradesh." The other girl only smiled.
"I see. Where in Andhra Pradesh?"
I expected her to repeat the 'Actually sir' mantra and reveal that she is from Chattisgarh. But no. She was from Cuddapah. The other girl smiled again.
"I am familiar with activities of CRY. The university chapter organizes a fund raiser dance night."
I think the girls misunderstood this to be a suggestive remark. I had no intention to make them dance. No smile. Quickly they pulled out more brochures.
I had to diffuse the situation, "I don't like CRY for 3 reasons," I said going for the throat of the conversation, "I have never seen any testimonials from any kids whom CRY has helped succeed in the last 25 years."
"Actually sir, 33 years!". Smile.
"Ok, 33 years! why aren't these kids themselves volunteering now to sustain an organization that made them? Secondly, I have read that over 60% of every dollar raised goes into administrative expenses. Thirdly, I have been to the CRY HQ in Mumbai. It looks like a five star hotel and the top guns are all handsomely paid MBAs. The only sign of any poverty and charity in that office is the ever changing faces of malnourished, mucus dripping children who are featured in the CRY calendars."
If she had given me the clincher argument that something is better than nothing, I would have agreed though I wouldn't have paid. But she said,
"Actually sir, I have had the same questions. This is just a two day volunter work. We get travel and hotel allowance. "
"I see. How much is the minimum contribution that you will take?"
She showed me another brochure. Minimum Rs 4800.
"Why?"
"That is the amount that according to CRY's calculations a family of four would need." I didn't want to know the details of the calculations the MBAs must have put into come to that amount. I wasn't going to pay.
"We are going to help families in 12 villages in the 9 districts of Kerala."
"OK, which villages?"
"Actually sir, I don't have those details." Smile.
"Can I know at some point which family my money goes to?"
"No sir, CRY thinks it is not good for the children to know that they are receiving charity!" "Your brochure says 30% of funds go into marketing, so surely CRY is not a silent samaritan, a dark knight!"
"I am only telling you what we have been told." Smile.
"I can give you may be 200 rupees."
"Actually sir, minimum is rupees 1200."
"Sorry"
"No problem, Sir!"
They went to the neighbor's house where they had more success. Our neighbor's daughter was adopted 18 years ago, so they are softer towards child-based so-called charities.
As soon as the girls left, my astrologer uncle said, "Naveen (his second son) had a job offer from CRY. He thought it would be great to work for a humanitarian cause. I thought so too till we both went to there HQ in Mumbai. The arrogance and opulence was unbearable." CRY should definitely work on projecting a frugal image. Projecting a poor-friendly image is easy. Ask any politician. Ask Team Anna. Ask Arundhati Roy.
Monday's sun rose with the news about a huge accident averted at the Nedumbassery International airport at Kochi. A Gulf air flight from Bahrain totally overshot the runway while landing and came to a halt in the muddy out-fields. Luckily only a handful of passengers had minor injuries. Bad weather and lighting was blamed.
Five houses our neighborhood have together employed a night watchman. I am not sure if I have already mentioned about it disturbing cellphone ringtone. The blaring of "Kiliye Kiliye Manimanimegha Koottil", a hit song from the late 1980s wakes most of us up in the middle of the night. But at least the ring tone means he is not sleeping. Usually he snores away to glory.
Few months back, he lost his watch. Since it was too shameful for him to admit that a watchman's watch was stolen, he kept quite. It was a miserable two days for him. Then he came up with an amazing story: "Poocha kondu poyi!" (Cat has taken it) "Poochakenthina watch, Bhaskara?" (What use is a watch to a cat, Bhaskara)
"pazhaya strap alle, athinu elliyudeyo meeninteyo manam thonnikanum" (The old strap must have smelled like rat or fish)
Next day Bhaskaran recovered the rodential chronometer. It has fallen under the bench on which he sleeps.
Ring tones here are mostly film songs. This is leading to an interesting psychological phenomenon. Beautiful lyrics and soothing background scores by musicians like A.R.Rahman result in frowning faces and pouting lips because the receiver sees the unappealing id of the caller with whom his or her relation is no longer sweet. The sweetness of the music is completely overshadowed by the sourness of the caller id.
Statistically significant number of purdah, hijab and abaya wearing women and their accompanying men at the State Bank of Tranvancore branch office. I was about to make the wrong conclusion about the SBT being an Islamic bank when I saw a lady carry out some jewelry from her locker and remembered that it was Ramzan tomorrow. Or may be the day after depending on the moon. Because I was born to Hindu parents, I have missed out on enjoying festivals like Ramzan to their full extent. They have always remained restricted to school holidays and once in a blue moon Ifthar feast in my consciousness.
Around noon rearranged couple of more racks of the shelf with dusty books. More priceless old school textbooks, collections of short stories, essays, Hindi works of Premchand were discovered and moved to the new book cases.
In the afternoon, I finally got to meet my sister's fiancee. Cool dude. If I had met him in a bar casually, he would easily have joined our friends circle. At his home, I enjoyed talking to his grandmother. "I am an old ESSLC (English Secondary School Leaving Certificate). I have taken part in the freedom struggle and still try to live according to Gandhian principles."
"I was upset that I couldn't go to work. So though I was cooking, I always had my ears open and listened to all the history lessons Sir was teaching." The 'Sir' she is referring to is Dr. A.G.Menon, her late husband, the author of the history book on Padmanabhaswamy temple that I had referred to earlier in these notes. I told her I finished reading that book and would like to do a reprint. "I have heard about some unauthorized copying on the internet," she said, "I alone own the copyright!" She is around 80 years old. She talked a lot more about history of Tranvancore and its royal family and the current political scenario. I told her I would bring a notebook next time to take notes.
Back home in the evening, fewer visitors than yesterday. Tara had henna tattooing done on her arms and feet. She walked around the house like Giant Robot with rigid, inorganic limbs in the evening while waiting for the henna to dry. Two 16-17 year old girls, one of them the beautician's daughter, did the henna designs in a couple of hours. If both sides of both arms are done, then feet are free!
The shamiana tent is done. Christmas lights and halogen lamps now illuminate the home and garden. The road will get a carpet tomorrow morning. 400 feet are expected to walk all over it before night fall.
It rained fairly strongly for a while after sunset. Lot of quick phrases of prayers arose in the house. Since our house is at the end of a steep downward sloping street, heavy rain brings water gushing down. That will make the arrangements a mess. So different mouths were offering prayers against rain. Some coconuts and other non-Lokpal monitored divine bribes have been offered. It is these same folks that were complaining about lack of rain last week. If prayers of all the wedding parties worked, Kerala would have been a dry state. May be that is how the drought that ruined Indus valley civilization started.
It continues to rain as I finish typing this out...
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