Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie!

Cat chases mouse. Mouse outsmarts cat. Mouse slips away. Always and EVERY time! Cat never ever catches mouse.

Substitute Elmer Fudd for Cat. Replace mouse with rabbit. And lo and behold, the story line is the same.

How long can you stretch this theme? Apparently, forever! Tom & Jerry and Bugs Bunny have been among the most successful cartoon franchises for longer than I care to remember.

My brother, all of 67 years, still watches them, still guffaws in glee! Me, I stopped watching cartoons even before I grew facial hair! Ok, they’re now called Animated Films, and, along with my brother, Pixar and Disney are also laughing – all the way to the bank!

Ok, so what makes a good cartoon?

The first requirement of a cartoon, the sin qua non of course, is that it evoke mirth. It be funny. Even if you don’t actually guffaw or ROFLOL, it simply MUST raise an odd chuckle, or at the very least, bring a smile to your lips. Right?

The next requirement is that it be subtle. It should poke fun with the delicate touch of a rapier, rather than a sledgehammer. No place for slapstick or tomfoolery. None at all!

Also, it should be in good taste. Lavatory humour should stay in the lavatory.

Lastly, it should not be offensive. Of course this is totally subjective, in that one man’s food is another man’s poison etc, what is offensive to me may be side splittingly funny to you. But suffice it to say that all grey areas must be avoided. There’s plenty to poke fun at without stepping on anyone’s toes!

Viewed in the light of the above, do Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons pass the test? An emphatic NO, the more emphatic the better! They are downright vulgar, in pathetically poor taste, extremely offensive and evoke only disgust – with nary a trace of humour anywhere!

I could point out the link where one can view them, but believe me, they’re disgusting and SO not worth the effort! 

Believe me, I have seen graffiti on the toilet walls at Fergusson College that was more artistic, had better taste and was way more hilarious! My favourite being the one-liner some genius had scribbled  `Yahaan jo bhi aaya, gaya haath mal ke’.

Michael Angelo's David

Of course there have been geniuses who have caused offence. Michael Angelo’s nude David, or his fresco The Last Judgement in the Sistine Chappel raised a lot of hackles, and even brought the nature of his own sexuality into question.

Nearer home, Hussain’s depiction of Hindu Goddesses in the nude caused the sort of reaction that exiled him to Dubai.

But these are works of genius. I am tempted to include Rushdie’s `Satanic Verses’ in that category, but good friend Samina will wring my neck and hang me out to dry!

Charlie Hebdo’s nonsensical `satire’, on the other hand, never rises above gutter level. Along with the abominable YouTube movie `The Innocence of Muslims’ it ranks as the most asinine piece of garbage ever churned out in the name of free speech.

But would I kill the cartoonists for their rank bad taste? No matter how offensive I find them? Most certainly not! At best, I’d dump the magazine in the trash can where it belongs.

Free speech is a myth, and all the brouhaha surrounding it is pure bunkum! No freedom can ever be absolute. Will free speech allow a man to yell `Fire!’ in a crowded theatre, and cause a stampede? With freedom comes responsibility.

So the groundswell of outrage and protest world wide, the million strong rally at Paris, that had over 40 heads of state in attendance, was basically a protest to allow people to print the vilest of garbage without fear of life and limb!

Or is it a protest against any form of radicalisation, a cry for reform within organised religion, particularly Islam? That I can agree with, but not at the cost of basic decency and good taste.

The latest cover

As if to remove any lingering doubt from any of our minds, the very next issue of the magazine again had a terrible caricature of the prophet Mohammed on its cover!

So no, as the title of this piece says, I am NOT Charlie!

It was Voltaire who said `I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it!’

He probably hadn’t seen Charlie Hebdo’s cartoons!

Frankly, My Dear..

I don’t do New Year Resolutions. I don’t do Resolutions, period. I made an exception on 8^th August 2011, the day I officially turned senile, the day I `sathiaoed’.

I had spent six decades, `giving a damn’ to people/things I shouldn’t have bothered about, while overlooking people/things that I should have. It was time for some course correction.

I wrote my first post `Resolutions at 60’ on `Mitti Pao!’. Basically, the now senile Harish Puri resolved to:-

·      Stop believing that the world revolved around his magnificent aura

·      Accept that life didn’t have an Undo key

·      Junk all unequal relationships

·      Make his days count

Now, three years later, I realise that I had not verbalised the most important of them all – to stop giving a damn. The world is full of idiots, and most people are not worth the trouble.

The problem is we spend our lives `giving a damn’ about far too many issues, and then feel outraged, angry or cheated when things don’t go the way we want them to.

Reserve your `damns’ only for things that really matter. Family. Friends. Purpose. The New York Cheesecake. The occasional heated argument or two.

But that’s easier said than done. Life has far too many trivialities and unimportant dramas that suck us in, and steamroll us into becoming inveterate `damn givers’. And boy, are we screwed!

So-and-so said such-and-such about you. Really? Aisa bola?? Salay ki toh main.. Your BP sky rockets, you picture dark and forbidding scenarios involving Mr so-and-so, and if he has really pissed you off, his mother and his sisters as well..

We live and die by the side notes and the distractions and the vicissitudes of life that simply don’t matter. We must learn to shrug. Learn to say `I don’t give a damn!’ Or a rat’s ass, Or a f@$k. Take your pick.

By no means am I saying `Be indifferent’. Indifference is bad. The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. Just know who are the people you really care about, and who care about you.

The rest? Just stop bothering about whose toes you’re stepping on, or who you’re pissing off, as long as you’re convinced you’re right.

If you find yourself consistently `giving a damn’ about the trivial shit that life is so full of – a silly pique at one of your posts, how quickly the battery dies out on your new iPhone, how Homeland-4 ended in a damp squib, chances are there’s not much in your life worth a real damn anyway.

And that’s your real problem. Not her pique, not your iPhone, and certainly not Homeland-4! (An aside here. Are all ISI agents as hot as Nimrat Kaur??)

When you’re young, you have the energy and the gusto to really give a damn about any and everything. Did that hottie at the other end of the room return your `look’? Why has that PYT replied to your ardent sms with just a smilie? Is she into you or not??

With age come weariness, if not wisdom. You care less and less. Ok, even a smlilie is a response after all.

And once you’re past 60, you probably won’t even look at the phone. It’s probably an equally weary spouse reminding you to pick up the Toilet Rolls from the Canteen.

Sigh..

Lovers, friends or family, I have been `unfriended’ by all at some time or another - people I care about, mind you - for the silliest of reasons. Back in the day, I would have apologised abjectly, if not actually grovelled. No longer. Now, I shrug it off. I don’t give a damn. The loss, I say, is theirs! And it is!

Unequal relationships have been truly junked. Love me, and I’ll love you back. Intensely. Anything else, and I’ll be Rhett Butler to your Scarlet O’Hara. Remember moviedom’s greatest comeback line ever – Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn!

2014, Be Done With You!

It’s a sombre post I write as 2014 slips into history. Barely ten of the 162 bodies have been fished out of the icy waters off the coast of Borneo. Another crash in SE Asia, another linked to Malaysia. Not just lives, families stand destroyed.

Yet our hyperventilating TV Anchors are screaming themselves hoarse over the timing of Dhoni’s resignation from test cricket. The media is always like a dog with a bone. Wearily, I switch to CNN and BBC.

Earlier, the horrific massacre of school children at Peshawar. We empathised. My own children have studied at Army Public Schools at Udhampur, Bangalore and Dhaula Kuan (Delhi). I don’t think any event affected me quite as much.

Animals! They shouted `Allah-o-Akbar’ (God is Great) as they mercilessly snuffed out young lives. Lives yet to blossom. How great can your God be if this is done in His name?

Islam needs some serious introspection. Maybe it’s not merely the interpretation that’s skewed. Maybe it’s the texts themselves. But oh, it’s not about Islam, is it? It never is!

  

But there have been positives too. We’ve finally rid ourselves of that Italian waitress and her cohorts who have systematically decimated the country. We have a man with vision at the helm, a firm hand at the tiller.

But he is slow. And we are in a hurry. Soon, the promise that he showed may fade. The economy has yet to get the `animal’ instinct it’s been screaming for. Canon mouth ministers continue to make idiotic statements, and remain unchecked.

On the sports front, our badminton stars did well. Apart from Saina Nehwal, we now have Kashyap, Srikanth and Sindhu among the world’s elite.

We won the Asian Games gold in hockey, thus automatically qualifying for the Rio Olympics in 2016.

But Vishy couldn’t regain the chess crown, are his days over?

On the personal front, we made delightful trips to Singapore and the Andamans. While Singapore had mind blowing 4G speeds, there was virtually no data network in the Andamans. Ah, the facets I notice, it’s a digital world after all!

2014 has been brutal. 2015 can only be better.

`Happy New Year’ messages pour in on WhatsApp. I try to personalise each response. I mean every word.

How do I plan to ring in the New Year? Wrapped up in a quilt, watching TV, I suppose. Age has its downside, sigh! I remember the Dordarshan days where the 31^st December programming was special. Now with the proliferation of TV channels that are indistinguishable from each other, it’s one big mish-mash.

May all of us see a bright and fun-filled 2015! May `Mitti Pao!’ flourish, may love continue to conquer!

New Year Resolutions? Watch this space…

The Champions Trophy 2014

Spoiler Alert. If you have little or no interest in field hockey – yes, it IS our national game – then this post is not for you. Am tempted to throw in a few expletives here, but hell, to each his own, I guess.

Me and my son Sid, we’ve always been great sports buffs. Even as a toddler playing `gully’ football, he’d name himself Platini or Cruyff (Pele was far too common for his esoteric tastes), much to the surprise of my fellow officers. Of course I was proud!

Sid's selfie with Dilip Tirkey

At the first match of the Champions Trophy, he ran into Dilip Tirkey during the half time break.

“You recognised him?” I asked incredulously. “Of course!” he replied, “I even clicked a selfie with him!” I was delighted!

But wait. I’m getting ahead of myself.

Field hockey, our national sport, was for years, the only medal hope for India at the Olympics. Between 1928 to 1964, we won 7 of the 8 Gold Medals on offer, losing only in 1960 to Pakistan. Who can forget the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, where we beat Pakistan by a solitary goal scored by Mohinder Lal. Pakistan piled on the pressure, but the great Shankar Laxman in goal stood like a rock. Incidentally, other than Lal and Laxman, all the remaining nine players of that team were sardars!

Apart from the Olympics, the Hockey World Cup was started in 1971, and the Champions Trophy in 1978. The Champions Trophy has the top eight teams in the world competing with each other, and is naturally a treat to watch.

India was to host the 2014 edition of the tournament at the newly built Kalinga Stadium at Bhubaneswar. Since Bhubaneswar happens to be my sasural, I grabbed the opportunity. Sid and I decided to witness all the matches.

We managed VIP passes, courtesy my wife’s nephew, and were all set.

The eight teams were split into two pools of four teams each – Pool A had Australia, England, Belgium and Pakistan, while Pool B featured Holland, Germany, Argentina and hosts India.

The tournament draw was a bit odd. All 8 teams were already assured places in the Quarter Finals – the pool matches were only to decide the placings, ie who would meet whom in the Quarters.

Strange as it may seem, the two teams who finished at the bottom of their pools, ie Pakistan and Germany, were the ones who met in the finals! Naturally, there was a huge criticism of how the whole tournament had been drawn up, as teams received no benefits from the points earned in the league phase!

Other than India, Pakistan was the team that was cheered most – when browns play goras, we brownies tend to team up!

All smiles after beating Belgium!

While the non-India matches were thinly attended, the stadium was packed whenever India took the field. To hear the 7000 crowd sing the national anthem in tandem with the 15 players lined up in the India blues behind the tricolour is enough to give anyone goose bumps!

India were to meet Pakistan in the semis. We reached the stadium two hours in advance, as there wasn’t an inch of space available anywhere. As the Pakistani greenshirts entered the stadium, there was a huge round of applause, only out decibeled by the roar that went up when Sardar and his boys entered, in their traditional sky blue jerseys.

The SF line up India vs Pak

Watching an India Pakistan hockey match in a jam packed stadium should be on everyone’s bucket list. Sid and I had managed to interact with both teams at their hotels the previous day, and were licking our lips in anticipation.

It was a nail biter. We scored first, they equalised. Then they took the lead twice, we equalised twice. Then, in the last quarter, we did everything but score. Then, to our horror, and totally against the run of play, they scored with barely a minute to go. The stadium went into a stunned silence. The final hooter sounded. We had lost 3-4!

The Pakistani players were understandably jubilant. But what they did next shocked us to the core. While two of them fell to their knees in prayer, the others went berserk. Ripping off their shirts, they screamed obscenities at the crowd, showing middle fingers, and gesticulating as if to say `Ab kyun chup ho gaye?’

In a word, it was disgusting. Shahnaz Sheikh, their coach, had to run onto the field to curb them. He even slapped an over enthusiastic Amjad Ali who was doing something unmentionable.

What a contrast to the last India Pakistan match I had witnessed at Bombay in 1976. Then, the Pakistan captain Islauddin had won 60 thousand Indian hearts when he and the team threw rose petals into the stands! Nobody, just nobody had grudged them their 1-0 victory over Bhaskaran’s Indians that day!

“Pa” said Sid to me as we wound our way out of the stadium “I was all set to root for Pakistan in the finals. Not any more!” he shook his head in disbelief.

In the finals that followed, so roundly were the Pakistanis booed, and so heartily did the crowd back Germany, the Germans felt they were playing in Munich rather than Bhubaneswar.

It doesn't get any better!

That nasty bit apart, we had witnessed a great tournament, seen some terrific hockey, met some of the greats of the game, and came away totally satiated!  

The 2018 World Cup, with 16 teams, is once again scheduled to be held In India. At the very same Kalinga Stadium at Bhubaneswar. Will we be there? Insha Allah!!

Hockey rules! Give me Sardar Singh over Dhoni, anyday…

Ravinder weds Ravindar

“But sir,” the nervous attendant at the Check-in counter stammered, “I’ve already handed you the Boarding Pass for Ravindar Dugal!”

“That was for Ravindar Dugal. Now give me the Boarding Pass for Ravinder Dugal!”

“Sir?”

“Check the spelling” Ravi urged him, nary a trace of exasperation in his voice. He’d been through this before. A zillion times.

But wait. I’m getting ahead of myself.

Sikh names, for some strange reason, are gender neutral. So it’s not uncommon to see a neon lit sign in Maler Kotla cheerfully proclaim `Mahinder weds Surinder’, or a garish `Harpreet weds Manpreet’ lighting up the skyline of Kot Kapura.

Or even in Bombay, as in the case of Puja’s in laws, a card being delivered at your doorstep, reading `Ravinder weds Ravindar’!

Ravindar and Ravinder

Ravinder weds Ravindar, seriously?? You’d be forgiven for thinking that this guy called Ravinder was really taking narcissism to a new level. But no, if you looked closely, you’d notice a minor glitch in spelling. An `a’ versus an `e’. And, if you read the fine print, there was also the case of a `Singh’ versus a `Kaur’ 

Of course this only adds to the confusion. Seriously, what on earth were they thinking?

To come back to our case in point. We had just returned from the nuptials of Puja and Sukh at Ananda near Rishikesh, and were trying to check in at Dehra Dun’s Jolly Grant Airport for our flight back to Pune.

So Ravi was being patient. The check in clerk was a meek, mousy little guy, unlike the beefy, no nonsense African-American female at Newark, with whom the Dugals had had a similar altercation. She had almost chucked them into a flight back to Bombay!

Ultimately, the clerk saw the light, and realisation dawned. His eyes, behind their nerdy glasses, actually twinkled! Relieved that he wasn’t on Candid Camera, he notched this incident up as yet another sardarji joke!

And then there are the highly anglicised Sardar nicknames. All Grewals are invariably `Gary’, and anything ranging from a Harminder to a Harpreet to a Harsimran is automatically shortened to a `Harry’.

Check how their conversation goes.

“Hi Harry!”

“Yo, Gary!”

Having exhausted their angrezi, both Harminder and Grewal immediately revert to their roots in Phugwara.

“Hor kiddan??”

The word `Hor’ in Punjabi is loaded. Punju etiquette dictates that when the first `Hor dasso’ comes up in a conversation, you start looking furtively at your watch. By the second, you raise your collective asses off the couch, and you should actually be well past the door when the third one is uttered.

Don’t get me wrong. I adore this community. Anybody who has spent 30 odd years in the fauj will tell you the same. And now that I have a Sikh samdhi, how can I even afford no to?

But gender neutral names? Seriously?? The confusion is best summed up in the limerick

Harminder wed Sukhjinder in Khartoum

And when they finally retired to their room

They spent that night

In one hell of a fight

As to who should do what and to whom!

On Crab Curries and Besan Laddoos..

In the summer of 2012, we planned a family weekend at Dubai. I called my then `net friend’ Samina who was based in Dubai, to enquire about decent hotels out there.

“Why do you need a hotel?” she asked, “I have a huge house here, and you guys can bunk in here!”

Now we had been `net friends’ for about a decade, but had never met or even spoken on the phone. Even this conversation was actually a chat on Facebook Messenger!

So I simpered bashfully (or as bashfully as Fb Messenger would allow). “No, no, how can we bother you?” etc etc.

“Look,” she cut me short peremptorily “Don’t expect any khatirdari. I’m too busy with my work, the kids have their school, so you’ll be pretty much on your own! Haan, I do have a Bangladeshi maid cum cook who you can bank upon, although knowing her abilities, I wouldn’t advise it!”

I was bowled over by her straightforward, no nonsense approach. She had, after all, been the wife of a Pakistan Air Force officer. We faujis are a clan, no matter the colour of our uniform!

The trip turned out to be wonderful. And as Saby (Samina’s delightful daughter), Heena (the ibid maid cum cook) and Puja shared a sofa, it was like a mini SAARC summit – India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, sipping tea together around a coffee table!

So when Course mate Rajeev Khullar called from Bhiwadi to say he and his wife Vinny were making a road trip to Pune, and asked me to book a room at the RSI for them, I pretty much gave him the same no nonsense pitch Samina had given me.

“Stay with us” I told him. To my utter delight and amazement, he didn’t simper (bashfully or otherwise), and immediately grabbed the offer. Even though we barely knew each other! We had been in different battalions at the Academy, and had never met formally.

And there was nary a word of protest from either lady. The Course mate creed, like Barney Stinson’s `bro code’, is sacred. Even to the Army wives. Especially to Army wives!

I had to guide Rajeev to Pudumjee Park once he drove into Pune. I asked Vinny to turn on the speaker phone. “Turn right at Mahesh Lunch Home” I guided him.

“You have a Mahesh Lunch Home out here!” Vinny squealed in delight “Wow! They have the most amazing sea food! Their Mangalorean Crab Curry is simply to die for!! Then in a space of seven seconds, she gave us her take on sea food in general, and Mangalorean crab curries in particular.

“Vinny ji, unko direction toh dene do pehle” Rajeev’s tone had all the resignation that comes from a 40 year old marriage.

Now Rajeev and Vinny are facebook friends, and self confessed fans of `Mitti Pao!’. While Rajeev is the quintessential Infantry officer, complete with handlebar moustache and a deliciously uncluttered attitude to life, Vinny, a Malyali born and brought up in Bombay, is a different kettle of fish.

Trained in classical music, she is a registered singer/performer at All India Radio. She is also a foodie, and apart from having run her own restaurant a few years back, has also helped her son edit a food magazine called `Chef at Large’!

She sure writes as well as she cooks, as this piece by her on her grandma’s minced meat cutlets shows. One can actually feel the smoke, and smell the aromatic spices as they’re hand ground in that kitchen! Do look it up at

http://chefatlarge.in/recipes/grandmamas-minced-meat-cutlets/

 

Sid gets his laddoos!

So when she posted a pic of some besan laddoos that she had prepared, on Facebook, there were loads of salivating approvals! I had dutifully `liked’ the post, while mentioning that these were Sid’s favourite. Matter forgotten. Or so I thought.

Along with some thoughtful gifts that she had picked up for us, gift-wrapped in cellophane and neatly tied with red ribbons, she had also brought a box of the most aromatic, melt-in-the-mouth besan laddoos that she had prepared specially for the ocassion. “These are for Sid!” she smiled.

Vinny and her crab!

As gestures go, this was simple enough. But then, I’m a sucker for sentimentality, and was totally bowled over. To me, this woman can do no wrong. Not in this lifetime, for sure!

PS – We did have that lunch at Mahesh Lunch Home, and between them, Puja and Vinny demolished that crab in a manner any ISIS jihadi would have been proud of! You can take a woman out of Cannanore, but…  

'Phittey Muh!"

My mother had no formal education. Yet her witticisms, in earthy Punjabi, have become the stuff of legend in the Puri household, and have been gleefully passed down from generation to generation.

Here are a few of her pearls of wit and wisdom.

“Phittey Muh!”

Frankly, I haven’t the slightest idea what this means but, depending upon the severity with which it is spouted/spat out, it could mean anything from a plain `Dogone it!’ to a mildly reproving `What the hell!” to a totally exasperated `Holy shit!’

The expletive can also be personalised to a more pointed “Phittey muh tere ehejey de!” which is, of course, “Phittey muh to someone like you!”

“Swaah!”

Literal meaning – Ash!

Mummy’s meaning – Bullshit! Nonsense! Balderdash!!

Usage – When we reported completion of any task she had assigned us, she’d inspect our efforts and exclaim “Swaah keeta tu ne, kakh nahin keeta!”

The more forceful version of this was “Swaah sataan chulyaan di!”

Literal translation – Ash from all the seven chulaas!

Mummy’s meaning – TOTAL bullshit! UTTER Nonsense!!

Why should ash be equated to nonsense, and why should it come from precisely seven fireplaces is something only the Wahe guru can explain!

“Khasma-nu-khana!”

Literal meaning – devourer of your spouse (husband, actually)!

Mummy’s meaning – Idiot! Khota (donkey)!

Used liberally at every slight, even though it totally beats logic, I mean how can a lad of ten actually devour his husband??

“Comkaan nu tusi phooko, agg lao!”

Literal meaning – Burn those comics, set fire to them!

Used when we were buried in books or comics, and refused to surface despite her repeated entreaties.

“Tu keda maklawa lain jane ae?”

Literal meaning – You fancy you’re off to fetch maklawa??

Now I haven’t the slightest idea what a maklawa is (maybe someone more well versed in the nuances of the Punjabi language can educate me), but this was sarcastically intoned every time I tried to `deck up’ before leaving the house.

“Haye haye kar lao tusi pehlan!”

Her reaction whenever her grandkids greeted each other with a `Hi!’ rather than a `Namaste!’

“Gal vi es tarah keeti ae, unth de padh vargi!”

Literal meaning – You words have the wisdom of the fart of a camel!

Pretty self explanatory, I’d say.

A camel? Seriously??

“Chittadan nu goond laa ke bae janda hai!”

Literal meaning – He applies glue to his buttocks before sitting down

Mummy’s reaction to any guest who overstayed his welcome, or refused to leave after a decent interval.

There were plenty more, and while her grand kids will no doubt be ROFLOL reading this post, I’d beseech them to sober up and come up with a sequel.

As for Mummy  herself, I can picture her reaction to someone telling her that her favourite son had written a post on her sayings.

“Hor kee karna si khasma-nu-khane ne!”

What else could I have expected from that idiot, she’d exclaim!