Cousins brothers, Summer vacation and old clothes

The years we grew up, we looked forward to summer vacations not only for the holidays it brings but also for the old clothes from the visiting cousins from across the country.  Normally, all the cousins living in different parts of the country would make it a point to visit their grand-parents and spend some time with them.  For the people like us, who lived with the grand parents in towns, we really looked forward to the visit of not only the cousins but also their moms.  Why? The simple reason is they brought lot of used clothes of our cousins for which they have outgrown. 

I grew up with one cousin who is exactly a year older to me. So it made it easy for me to get perfectly matching clothes year after year.  My Aunt who lived in North India, (Actually she lived in the West, but for us any place beyond Bangalore, is North India!) brought with her exotic varieties of trousers, shirts, t-shirts, Churidhars, Gowns, Midis and Jeans!  Yes, Chruidhars and Jeans were such a exotic dress 25 years ago for us and we were thrilled to hold a pair of used Jeans or Churidhars. 

My Aunt meticulously packs the clothes in a pillow cover and hems the edges so that during her long 2 1/2 days of train travel she could use it as her pillow and once she reaches the destination, she just has to unlock it and hand over the goodies to all of us who were eagerly waiting for her arrival.  When you have cousins of your same age group, you fight with them to choose your favourite pickings from the list. 

Now, looking at the current scenario, at least in our family, the practice of passing clothes are slowly dying.  I think the overall economic prosperity of our country has made it look like it is below our dignity to accept used clothes.  We all want to give the used clothes only to some unknown charity rather than to cousins. 

Old world charm of Post Offices

I guess I have earlier written about my family connections to Post Office. At least 3 from our family have worked in Post Offices over the last 80 years or so. But the connection seems to have been lost now.

Hardly I need to visit a post office. Today was one of the days where I went to Post Office since I had to "speed post" an envelope. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Post Office has been fully computerised. They have PC's for all the staff, bar code readers et al. It is so different from the Post Office I have known all my life. When I gave the Clerk at the counter the envelope, he put a bar coded tag, used his bar code reader and updated few columns on his desktop and gives me a receipt for the speed post. Thats it! All over in a jiffy!! But the lack of courteousness of the Clerk hasn't changed one bit. Sad!

It is so different from the Post Office I know about. When my uncle used to be the Post Master of New Colony Post Office at Tuticorin, the post office functioned out of a bungalow. It was so huge a house with a big, really big garden as well. The ground floor housed the Post Office with big counters for stamps, envelopes and SB accounts. There used to be a huge sorting hall where all the letters would be sorted for distribution and Post Master (my uncle) sat at the centre of the hall overseeing everything. The PM's quarters is just behind this sorting hall which is nothing but an extension of the house. The first floor was a sprawling 4 room house where the junk postal stationery were kept in one of the front rooms. I really wonder why they had to print so many Money Order and SB pay-in challans. A big supply chain opportunity, I guess!! There was beautiful balcony as well. I think that house would have been demolished now and a ugly looking 4 storeyed flat would have taken its place. Need to check out when I visit Tuticorin next time!! Oh, Tuticorin, when I am going to visit you again???

Coming back to the present day world of Post Offices, I learn that Accenture India has bagged a billion dollar contract from Department of Posts for re-structuring the Post Offices across India. I guess the idea of this whole exercise is to streamline the functioning of the post offices, make it more efficient through use of automation and computers rather than to privatise Postal services. The credit for whatever computerisation of Post Offices should go to whom, Dayanithi Maran? I guess so. What do you say?

Sunday and oil-bath...no..no it is going to be Saturday and oil-bath.. thanks Nagarajan!

I remember my childhood Sundays for the oil bath I had to mandatorily have. My parents used to insist that I should take oil bath without fail every week as it helps to reduce the body heat and add shine to the skin. I was following it till I was Class XII and after that slowly started becoming a fortnightly then monthly and now a Diwali exercise!!

When I moved out to Chennai for job the possibility of having an oil bath started diminshing and it was possible only if I happened to go home once in 3 months or so. As the habit slowly forgotten, I didnt try to revive it even after I took a house and settled down in Chennai.

I remember the Oil-bath sundays particularly when you follow the bath with chinna vengaiyam (small onion) sambar and urulaikilangu (patoto) curry or a Vegetable Pulav which my mother can alone make. (if I say this to my wife, she says if sumptuous coconut paste is added all Veg Pulav's taste good!! ok thats a different story). You finish off the oil bath lazily by 10 or 11 AM and sit down with the whole family for the brunch. Normally it would be a three course lunch consisting of Sambar, Sambar again and thayir sadam. Rasam doesnt interest much on days when you have chinna vengaiya sambar. If it is Veg Pulav, again it was a three servings of Pulav. Now I dont think I would be able to eat that much eveb if I like it. After this haughty meal, you sleep like a log for another 2-3 hours in the afternoon. You get completely refreshed for another hectic week.

After a long time, I took oil bath this sunday. Of course, just like anything else now, it is again a stripped down version. Oil only on the head but not on the whole body. Didn't follow up with either a three course meal nor an afternoon sleep. Now the challenge is to get my son into this routine! Guess, it is ambitious to convince these guys now.

School Intervals

Few days back I was chatting with my colleagues about the snacks we ate during our class intervals in our school days. I have vivid memories of my school interval periods and how the time was spent. It is not only about the snacks but also various other things we all did in that 15 minutes or so.

During my secondary education at Karapettai, Tuticorin the intervals are the most looked forward time. You have variety of things to do in those 15 minutes of freedom!! You play cricket, football with tennis balls in the class corridors or run around chasing your classmates for some odd reason. On few days, when I have a rupee or so in my pocket, I head straight to the school canteen. The favourite snack was a samosa, which costed 50 ps. Immediately after the bell rang, we run like crazy to be the first man in the counter. You never bothered whether the teacher stopped teaching or not. You headed out of the classroom once you hear the bell. There would be a mad rush for the samosas and our Physical Education Teacher usually managed the canteen. I dont know the reason for PET being the Canteen Supervisor. There was no line or discipline and it was all commotion. You need to use all your shouting, pushing and haggling skills to get near the counter to buy the treasured samosa's. But I tell you those samosa's tasted heavenly!!

But this luxury is not on all the days.. only when I get a rupee from my father or I manage to squeeze a rupee when sent to buy vegetables or other miscellaneous things. I used imaginative accounting to ensure that I take my cut whenever I was sent to buy something. No wonder I ended up what I am today!!

During rainy days, the school ground gets water-logged and we used to play flying saucers with stones. You forget about the bell and continue playing and ended up being punished by the Assistant Head Master with a cane. He was a highly respected teacher by the students but at the same time a terror for them. May be thats the reason why he was so respected. But what I admire the most in that generation of teachers is the committment they showed and this AHM used to walk around the school everyday, morning and evening, carrying a cane in his hand, looking for the boys who have strayed beyond the allotted interval time.
The afternoon lunch breaks have a longer time to go around for snacks and eatables.

One of the many things I have really enjoyed in the "Pepsicola" ice. I never figured out why it was called by that name, but it was nothing but a combination of ice, sugar and some colouring liquid packed in a long polythene strip. We also have "nellikai's" (gooseberries) small and big, corn etc., We had a nice bakery named Nigel Bakery just opposite to the school. As I grew old and during my tenth standard, when we stayed in the school for longer hours, I used to go to this bakery to eat the butter bun and thenkai bun (coconut).

Talking of ice, we never ate ice-creams but just ice scrappings. I remember the ice-vendor opposite the SAV School and he used to serve us scrapped ice mixed with some mixture which tasted very sweet and nice. Even after I finished school, I had been there to his road-side pushcart , once in a while. But over the last few visits to the SAV School I have not seen him. May be, he has become very old.....

Who said "Singh" is from Punjab?

Recently, I was chatting with my wife about the names of people. We know people name their kids after great leaders, their favourite gods, parents and even after their ex-lovers!! Different places have different naming conventions. It is a convention in many families to name the first grandson after the paternal grandfather and the second grandson after the maternal grandfather. The same goes with girls as well. But it is restricted to southern districts I guess because in my wife's side they dont name it that way.

The conversation veered towards how names in southern districts of Tamilnadu, combines Saiva and Vaishnavite Gods in one name. Venkateswaran, is a good example. Look at Ramasubramaniam, where there is Rama and Subramanian. There are many more. But I have not seen this in North Tamilnadu.

I know people influenced by great leaders name their kids after them. MK Stalin is one example. I know couple of Karl Marx's and Lenin's besides number of Subash Chandra Bose's, Gandhi and Nehru. One of my friend's name is Bimal Roy. What I find unique and interesting is that these leaders' first names were not given but along with their surnames. Why should somebody named Gandhi or Nehru or Roy in Thisayanvalai or Tuticorin, is it not their surnames?

Likewise, everyone believes that the surname Singh is generally from Punjab and in few cases from North India. But in my home district of Tuticorin, I know many Tamils having the surname of Singh. I had two teachers who were Raja Singh and Sunder Singh. My classmate was Jeba Singh. Never understood why they have Singh in their names, except for the fact that they are Christian Nadars!

Cycling - always a pleasure!

Couple of weeks back I was teaching my son cycling. He has been riding cycle with support wheels for many years now but wanted to move to the next level of driving without support wheels. So it all started on a lazy saturday afternoon and we chose one of the roads with little or no traffic at that time.

Teaching somebody to cycle is one of the best exercises, I tell you. You need to walk, run, sprint and due some weight training as well (holding on to the the cycle with a kid on it). After couple of rounds of cycling he was able to ride it without support but he still wanted me to run along with him. It doesn't end soon as he wanted to cycle indefinitely. As with any new thing we get, the initial curiousity of repeating it again and again made him ride for a good 30 minutes. At the end of it, he has learnt cycling and I also managed to burn a good amount of calories.

For the next 1 week, my thighs were tight and I had pain while walking. But the joy of seeing the kid cycling on his own makes you feel really happy. I keep thinking always how few people could live without knowing how to cycle. I know of few friends who never learnt cycling in their lives because their parents never wanted them to learn cycling or they were afraid themselves. I think these guys missed a lot in their life by not cycling. I always wanted him to learn cycling and I am happy and relieved that he has picked up really fast.

Turning little nostalgic, I dont exactly remember who taught me cycling but I very well remember the days of hiring cycles on rent. It used to cost 50 paise an hour and we used to get small cycles for boys. We used to hire these cycles in groups and go around the locality. When I was 8 or 9 years old, I remember going around the streets of Renganathapuram, Pathirakali Amman Koil street and CM Middle school road in Tuticorin.

Now I hardly get to see cycles being rented in Chennai. May be one or two here and there in the suburbs. I saw cycle hire shops still in operation when I went to Tuticorin the last time around in Oct'8. Myself and my friend Balaji, went and hired cycles and went around the town reminiscing about our college days when we used to go together for our tuitions.

I am a great fan of cycling particularly in towns like Tuticorin. The whole radius of the town itself is not more than 3-5 kms and cycling makes it convenient to move from place to place. I started going to school in cycle from my 9th standard (till then I enjoyed pick up and drop by my father in his Lambretta!!). I cycled to school, college, then to the Auditor's office for my Chartered Accountancy and even I finished my CA, I used cycle for commuting. I would ride the cycle really crazy fast when I have to come back home before the 9.00 PM deadline of my father. On an average I would have cycled not less than 15 kms a day for good 10-11 years till the time I left Tuticorin. Probably, that is showing now with my knees getting pain very often.

Even today I feel tempted to take my cycle out for a ride on the busy Chennai roads. Do you know, when my whole family shifted from Tuticorin to Madras a good 6-7 years back, I insisted on getting my cycle to Chennai. I still maintain my cycle which I used during my college days but I hardly use it. I have spent more money on maintaining it than the price I paid for buying it many years ago. I am going to take my cycle out today and go for a ride. I am sure I will enjoy it.

Post Office - how distant it has become to me?

I have not been to a post office for a very long time now. Yesterday, I happened to visit a post office to drop a set of invitations. How ironic that an institution like Post office has no connection with my day to day life. I come from a family closely associated with Post Offices. My Grandfather was a Post Master and two of my uncles worked in the Post & Telegraphs department. But those days are gone. Off late I have used Post Offices only for encashing my NSC certificates. I have not bought NSC for years now.. may be a good option in a declining interest rate regime.

I dont write letters these days. Everything is on the email and even if I have to write a letter it is usually despatched through Courier. The question of reliability of Postal department for timely delivery of letters still remains. Even in this case I was told to split the number of invitations to two or three batches and post it from different post offices due to avoid any magical "disappearance" of the letters. Postal department have also tried to remain contemporary and now I understand that they offer online funds transfer to most of the PO across India. I haven't tried it yet. They also offer various kinds of savings schemes ranging from National Savings Certificate to PO Monthly Income Scheme (POMIS) to Senior Citizens Deposit which offers higher rate of interest. They have also tied up with Western Union Money transfer for handling incoming foreign funds transfer. They issue address certification which is widely accepted when you move from one city to another. I have also used Speed Post services for few times and and I can say it is efficient. Over the last year or so, Postal department is coming out with full page advertisements on newspapers advertising their products and services.

Talking of Post Offices, I would love to talk about couple of things. First one takes me back to a period when my Uncle was the Post Master of New Colony Post Office, Tuticorin. The PO used to function from a huge bungalow spread over good 6 grounds of land and the Post Master's quarters was attached to the Post Office. We used to have a lovely time playing in the garden ranging from Cricket to "Silly Pandhu" (7 stones in City life parlance). We have used lot of paper and stationery of the Post Office for our paper ball cricket, our rough notebooks and so many other things. Small privilege of being Post Master's relative!! All these were some good 20-25 years ago. I want to see if the building which housed the PO still remains and I enquired with a person from Tuticorin about this. He told me that it still remains in the same condition. I would love to have a look at it when I go there next time.

Second thing is about my Aunt and her daughter who used Postal services very effectively for sharing the day to day events. Letters were the only mode of communication at that time with telephone calls being prohibitively costly, mostly restricted to conveying some very good news or death. They used to write two letters every week and the postal department served them unfailingly. The process works like this. My Aunt would write a letter and post it on Monday and it reaches the daughter on Wednesday. The daughter writes a letter and posts it on Thursday and it reaches my Aunt on Saturday. The cycle would go on and on.

When did you last visit a Post Office for some transaction? If you reading this on the web, I guess not for a very long time!!

Election day at Chennai!!

The voting day has finally arrived at Chennai.. it is a long wait for the people of Tamilnadu over the last 1 month. I was just thinking about the number of times I have voted in my life in either Assembly or Parliamentary elections. As per my count, I had 7 opportunities to vote since I got the right to vote. I dont think I voted in all the seven elections. I voted in 1996, 1998, 2004, 2006 elections. I am not sure about 1999 and 2001 elections. I think I had my vote in Tuticorin but I was working in Chennai at that time and didnt manage to go and vote.

But I remember voting for the first time in 1996, just after my college at SDA School, Tuticorin. It was a very nervous experience!!?? I waited in the queue for 10 minutes or so, then I went into the voting room. I had no idea how the process happens. I gave the name and the voter slip to the polling officer, and he identified me on the voters list. Then he read out the name for the booth agents to mark it in their list as well. I understand that by reading out the names, he is giving an opportunity for the booth agents to object if the person is impersonating. The Polling Officer tore and gave me a slip and asked me to go to and stamp the ballot. Though I was decided to which party to vote, I took some time to go through what all is given in the ballot sheet. Then I stamped my vote and folded it and took it to the ballot box and dropped it. I really felt very happy that I could vote and decide the fate of this country.

Over the years, now ballot paper has been replaced by electronic voting machines. I did vote through EVM in 2006 but I felt something was missing. I prefer ballot paper to EVM.

Coming back to Elections 2009, I am going to vote tomorrow morning pretty early as I have to come to office. Voting early morning has its own charm because the polling officers are fresh, the party activists are enthusiastic to help you and the atmosphere is festive. As the day progresses, everybody becomes tired and it becomes a mundane exercise. In my constituency, the two contestants are T R Balu of DMK and A K Murthy of PMK? Want to make any guesses to whom I am going to vote?

Mobile tailors - are they going out of existence!!

Couple of days back when I was passing through KK Nagar, I saw a street corner tailor stitching something, which made me think about the mobile tailors.  Mobile tailoring is a form of profession which I think is slowly going out of circulation.  They are tailors who used to carry/push their tailoring machines and visit each and every locality in the town. 

The person I saw in KK Nagar is not exactly a mobile tailor but who has managed to occupy a vantage point opposite the Amman Temple.  He need not go around asking if they have anything to stitch but people bring in clothes to get repaired or for small alterations.   

The thought of mobile tailors took me back to my days in Tuticorin.  I remember very vividly the sounds of mobile tailors shouting "thaiyal, thaiyal" on a hot summer afternoon.  I dont know why but it used to be around 1 pm everyday.  We would have been forced to stay indoors due to the hot sun but these mobile tailors keep making rounds of the locality at the same time.  I really pitied them.  

The person who you see in the photo is Mr Solaiappan.  He is now more than 75 years and he lives in Tuticorin.  From the time I could remember he has been a tailor, mobile tailor at that.  I remember my Grandma getting her blouse stitched by him.  He used to visit once a month our house and ask if we have any clothes to mend.  We would definitely have some,  as in those days it would be my cousin's half-trouser I have to wear or pavadai of my cousin my sister has to wear.  So these guys had work to do and it was not considered wrong to wear your cousins clothes.  

Last time when I visited Tuticorin and I just happened to meet him after so many years.  These are some of the characters who are etched in your memory but you are not sure if you ever get a chance to meet him again, once you leave the town.    I was really surprised to see that he is the same old person happily stitching old clothes around Second Gate area in Tuticorin and smoking away couple of beedis.  I tried to introduce myself though I cant expect him to recognise me.  Then I have to use the name of my grandfather and my uncle to see if he can relate to them. After these names he nodded the head in acknowledgement but I am not sure if he recognised me.  But that doesn't matter.  

I was very happy to see him after so many years and did manage to click a photograph of him.  He would have wondered why this guy takes a photograph of him but I just wanted to share it with my cousins who I guess would remember him.   Sweet memories!!

Memories of V.O.Chidambaram College

I am a member of the V.O.Chidambaram College group in Orkut. I have not visited the group for sometime so decided to peep in last sunday to find out whats happening there. Nothing really has changed with regard to the number of members in the group. I am a member of this group in Orkut only for the reason that I would be able to find out some information on my long last college friends. Nothing of that sort happened but the latest discussion topic on the group is the following question:

"What you like the most about VOC (thats how it is popularly called)?"

It made me ponder for sometime what I really liked about the college. It is no doubt that I completely enjoyed my three years of studying (!!??) in VOC but looking back to find out what I liked the most was an interesting thing. I really enjoyed three things in the college, the ambience, student elections and the token strikes.

VOC College has a fantastic ambience. It was a college built in 1950's, so everything was well planned and spacious. The classrooms are big and the corridors wide. On top of it, you have the buildings built in colonial style with huge stones and number of trees to give the students the most important shade to chit-chat. It has a huge library, nestled between two blocks and completed shaded by trees. Library is one of the biggest and best in south Tamilnadu. It had all the books to read but only students were missing.

The most notable feature of the college is the annual student union elections. Student elections are like a festival with lot of preparation and tamasha. The college student elections in those three years I was in, was all closely fought elections. There were door to door canvassing, electioneering going from class to class and threats and counter-threats of kidnapping. Though I would have loved to contest these student elections, I have to work from the back-ground due to the obvious reason that my father worked in the same college. The results are usually declared from the first floor verandah of the Business Adminstration block and the students would gather below waiting for the results. I remember vividly the elections during my second year in the college because it led to some kind of tension among the students after the results were declared. The underdog won the election and the supporters of the losing candidates who have gathered in strength to celebrate the possible victory had a sudden shock of losing the election. I was standing among my friends, when one of the students(!?) suddenly took a sword which was 3 feet long from behind his back and started chasing the students. Students were shocked and panicked and ran helter skelter sensing more trouble in the offing. Police had to be called in and peace was restored after some 30 minutes.

The other thing which kept motivating me to go to college is the frequent token strikes. Token strikes are, for those who haven't heard about this, is a symbolic protest for a cause by abstaining from the classes. This is different from the mass-cuts. In VOC College, token strikes were usually resorted to whenever you have a good film released. There were hundreds of reasons to go for a token strike. It ranges from Cauvery water dispute, Srilankan tamil issue to speed-breakers on the road. It is the responsibility of the Students Union Chairman to conduct the token strike. It would happen like this. The classes for the day would start as usual and the Chairman and other office bearers would enter one of the classes and addresses the students explaining the reason for the strike of the day and ask for the fellow students to come out of the class protesting against the injustice. As the momentum increases when more and more students join the strike, the decibel levels were unbelievable. The good thing about VOC College Professors are that they never interfered or objected these kind of rightful exhibition of protest!! They stood as mute witnesses as the students whistle and shout, as they exit the class. The frenzy dies down after few minutes but if that has not been experienced, I guess college life is a waste. I have to write separately about one of the token strikes and how it landed many of us into a police lathicharge.

It had exotic courses (!!??) like Geology and Business Administration, very rare for a college in a non-metro town. Every college student loves to have the freedom to do whatever he wants and it was in plenty in VOC College. There were no strict supervision and control and the guys enjoyed college as it has to be. Long Live V.O.C!!!