La Bise!

  

Did you ever receive a “Culture shock”? Well, I did. I’ve had ample doses of it over the one year and a half I’ve been here, so much so that the “shock” part is missing now Here, I shall focus on one aspect of it, namely “La Bise” (The Kiss), in particular, the French style.This petite little girl, probably in her early teens, got into the same bus as we did and got down at Perettes, where her beloved boy friend, a teenager again, was waiting for her. They hugged passionately, for a few moments, and then they kissed each other, lip to lip. The first time I saw such a thing, I was shell-shocked, to the core! Rajesh gave me a “Akkada choodu baasu! Intha age aina, nuvvemi saadhinchaavu cheppu?” (learn from them; what have you achieved in 30 years?) kind of look. I returned the same to him, and given the average Indian that he was, he had no answer either. Shock on one side, frustration on the other, we continued our journey   

Teenagers back in India would go on a kissing-spree if it were made part of the culture Don’t men and women in India, the land of the Kamasutra, kiss each other? Of course, they do, but only if they are married. An exception is that of a rather intimate couple in love. And that too, if the girl is not the “Ye sab shaadi ke baad” (not now, only after marriage) types . But, in any case, no two people can kiss each other in public! I’m just trying to imagine what would happen if a husband kissed his wife in public, or a college-going girl in India just got off the bus and kissed her boyfriend lip to lip. She would be considered a highly westernized “mod” to have a boy friend in the first place. And second, the couple would be killed the next moment! OK, not killed; that’s an exaggeration, but, surely the couple would be beaten and “moral” police would arrive at the scene; or at least, people would shoo them off and/or say “chi, chi”. Even parents-kissing-children happens mostly at home. Well, if it is part of the culture here to kiss each other and greet them, then it is part of the culture in India not to do so. On the other hand, guys in India hug each other for a warm greeting, an act which may be viewed rather suspiciously in this part of the world  

Comparisons apart, let us get to the core issue-”La Bise”. Actually, the French are supposed to have mastered the art of kissing. A kiss is a rather passionate expression of love, affection, and desire. The most common ones that I have seen among youngsters in the classrooms (yes, classrooms!), bus-stops, metros, shopping malls, sports clubs, and train stations are variants of the typical lip-to-lip kiss. The badminton club is an amusing place in this aspect—a kiss before the game starts, one more for every point scored (does not matter who gets the point), and a prolonged one at the end of the game. On some occasions, I have had the chance to see more passionate versions too—prolonged and intense. I guess there is also some amount of tongue-wrestling and saliva-exchange in the process, which leaves some not-so-lucky spectators salivating  

Yet another flavor of kiss is the cheek-to-cheek variety, often used to greet people. Well, on this one, I have my own share of experiences to narrate I was at this conference in the U.S and during the break, François, a colleague of mine, introduced me to a young lady researcher from Spain. She came forward to kiss cheek-to-cheek. I was first taken aback, given my natural Indian instincts, but very soon adjusted and complied, although a little nervously—nervous because, I never got this close to the cheek of a young lady before. Goosebumps on one hand and coffee in the other, I thought it was over and stepped back. The poor lady thought I knew that I was supposed to give her the second cheek too. I quickly corrected myself and then gave her the second cheek. And then, I really really thought that it was over. Not quite, actually! In Suisse, you kiss four times, once on each cheek. In the Middle-East, if you value your lips and cheeks, you would not kiss/get kissed in public In most of Europe, you kiss three times. So, the lady proceeded to give me the third kiss, by which time I got back to my coffee. “Oops, oops!” she said, as she stumbled forward to deliver the third instalment. Of course, she finally succeeded, much to the amusement of the onlookers I was sorry that I made the whole thing look a little awkward, but, given the average Indian expertise that I have in handling such issues, I could not have done better Also, I don’t know if my stubble bruised her cheeks; I never asked her. 

Actually, the desires of an average Indian are satisfied on the Bollywood screen No? He/she watches his favorite film stars kiss each other passionately on the screen and derives immense satisfaction out of it. Bollywood has specialized actors that can kiss more intensely than act Of course, a kiss is only a small part of the Indian movies. Several “steaming-hot” scenes also add to the whole experience. Remember KAMASUTRA and MURDER? Also recollect the enormous interest in repeatedly viewing some specific scenes? I told this to Torsten when he asked me, “Why did Indians make such a big fuss of the Hollywood actor Richard Gere hugging and kissing Shilpa Shetty on stage”? Appropriate question indeed. Well, at first, the reaction of the Indians in this context appears a little hypocritical, but I think it is mostly a matter of training and culture. Indians are taught that public displays of affection are inappropriate. So, if Richard-kissing-Shilpa was part of the “show”, there would have been no problem at all. The crowd would have paid an extra rupee to watch it one more time, but that wasn’t the case and hence the big fuss—probably. 

The story of the kiss would be incomplete if I did not mention this rather funny incident. This little Indian guy is probably doing an internship here. He seemed to have integrated well with the local culture and even managed to get a girl friend. So far, so good. However, on one particular occasion, three fellow desi-friends caught this guy red-handed kissing his Suisse girl friend in public. The desis slowed their pace of walking, and stared at their friend, on and off. You must see the frustration in their “green eyes”, as if they meant to ask, “Bachoo! Yaha par aakar rangreliyan mana rahe ho”! (Cool! Dude, your internship is indeed interesting!). The poor guy was so shaken that he quickly took his hand off his beloved girl’s waist, rolled back his tongue, and hurried away. After walking a little further, he turned back and gave his friends a “Pithaji se math kehna”-look! (“Don’t tell Dad”-look!)  

Ack: ‘The Kiss’ picture is taken from liquidtheoryinc.deviantart.com/.

Sheep, after all!

After a long day, as I walked up from Cerisae to Villars, I noticed, in the twilight of the Suisse skies, this unusual poster to my left. Normally, I would get to see the poster of a pretty woman advertising for an insurance company. In its place was this poster, largely in white and Suisse-red; within the red region are three white sheep, and one of them is kicking a black sheep out of the territory. There was a message at the bottom: “Pour plus de sécurité. Pour une Suisse forte.” I was too tired to give much thought to it then. I climbed uphill exhausted but came back to life at the sight of my apartment. My happiness didn’t last long though. My block does not have an ascenceur and I live on the top floor! I dragged myself upstairs and reached what they call “Home, sweet home”, this time, twice as sweet because I had some ready-to-eat food .

The next morning, as I walked downhill to the metro station, I saw some graffiti on the poster that I had seen the previous evening. It had some Swastikas on it and some “messages” too: “F*** Racism! F*** Hitler Blocher”. Now the poster made more sense to me. It was the election season in Suisse and this was the poster of the right-wing People’s party which goes by the popular name of UDC. “People don’t learn from history,” I said to myself. Foreigners are welcome to invest in Suisse, to deposit money in Suisse accounts, to come as tourists, but not to work and live in Suisse? Why? It was beyond my understanding.

The poster is also perhaps the most outrageous expression of racism that I have ever come across here. Until the evening before, I proudly used to tell my folks back in India that there is no racial discrimination in Suisse. Well, minus the poster, that is mostly the case. People, in general, are warm and formal, sometimes overly so (which can be uncomfortable for an average Indian , with numerous bonjours, mercis, au-revoirs, bonsoirées et bon weekends, all said in one breath! Don’t bother if you don’t understand what all of that means; they are just being very nice and polite to you. However, if the issue of racism is used as a political agenda, as a means of contesting an election, by a popular party that has quite some political influence, then the idea behind the poster must hold some water; No? You would not think of winning an election by taking up an issue in which most people don’t believe, would you?

The UDC posters were greeted with protests, mostly by black sheep and some sympathetic white sheep. Some members of the international community, as usual, expressed “diplomatic” disappointment. All kinds of explanation was offered—No, it didn’t mean that; the black sheep symbolize criminals; that UDC is anti-immigration; the criminals are mostly immigrants and so on. About the same time, there was also a lot of debate going on in the American news channels about Barrack Obama contesting the US presidential election. “Is America ready for a Black President?” asked time and again in the same tone as, “Is America ready to fight an intergalactic invasion?” Some news channels used more respectful terms such as “African-American”.

“Isn’t this phenomenon rampant everywhere? Caste, race, gender, religion, color, etc.—discriminations galore, at various scales and levels of organization. If you try to wipe out one, another crops up! The world is doomed.” I thought. As I was walking after lunch, in the corridors of the EPFL, I was pleasantly greeted by a nice poster some students had put up. It was very much like the UDC poster but with a difference. This time, the white sheep are in love with the black sheep. A message at the top read “Plus d’amour!” Some solace it was, to see this reaction from a group of thoughtful youngsters. Perhaps such humane expressions make the world a place worth living in, although you have to incessantly fight in order to do so!As for the UDC party, it won with a thumping majority, asserting good old conceptions—white or black, people are exactly that—sheep!

Ack: The picture is taken from hiram7.wordpress.com/ category/switzerland/

Limerick

“Ghosts – lots of money behind them and the tunes to make a good first album, it’ll be interesting to see if they make a second one as good. As it turns out, there are a lot of people who have even more impressive “superbrain”. Far be it for me to promote someone who’s already the top of the grocery pack, but Tesco are the way forward. com is now fresh and new and warm and cuddly. Salt Lake City drew first blood against Nachi, damn. You Park Like An Asshole – dedicated to these people. So I employed a tactic straight from the annals of MoneySavingExpert.
What’s your Cadillac story?

Confused?? Much like other mortals, I keep receiving such emails very often. On this occasion, the subject line ‘limerick’ actually got me reading, very seriously and it got very interesting too. A few more lines and it ended with a link to a porn site. It was only then that I realized that it was SSSS PPP AAA MMMM!! A deviation from the routine ‘you won 100,000 $’, ‘Here are your bank documents’ or a business proposal from a Nigerian, spams now have very interesting content, sometimes like the one above I’m so overwhelmed by such ‘meaningful’ spam that I often begin to wonder ‘Is there some hidden code in there?’ Something of the kind that John Nash believed in, or A La Da Vinci Code – I don’t know!

Would someone care to break the ‘SPAM Code’ please?

Meanwhile, let me look, hmm… hm… hmmm… aaah, here it is! The ‘mark as spam’ flag.

Ack:
The picture has been taken from
http://www.causs.org/images/trashguy2.jpg

Jeans

“I buy jeans to wear, not to wash!” said a great saint!

The saint in question is Mukundh, my former labmate in IISc. I saw him wearing the same black jeans trousers and a blue jeans shirt for a month, without a break. I asked him if he would consider washing it and even offered to wash it for him. He declined the proposal. He not only declined but also resisted it! He replied, “Thank you, but I buy jeans to wear, not to wash!”

“Don’t they stink?” To that, he replied, “No, they don’t. I dry clean them -I mean I put them out every night. The next morning they are ready for use again. When I’m wearing them, they are anyway cleaned by the sun. When I grow tired of them, I throw them away and buy a new pair.’ I asked him how often he gets tired of them, he replied candidly and disinterestingly ‘about twice a year!’

I told him that if I did such a thing at home, my mother would literally strip me off and put it in the washing machine. My mom would not even come close to me if I wore the same jeans for a week. He smiled and said, “Gothu kano. That’s one of the reasons I stay away from home “

My shopping sprees would always end up in a fight with my mom. She would open the pack to find a pair of jeans and remark furiously, “Why do you always buy those gunny sacks? Why can’t you buy better clothes?” I’d reply “Amma, jeans are so coool… you should start wearing them too.”

“Noru muyyi ra!”, she would say and go back to the kitchen. I would go behind her and tell her that jeans are ‘the in-thing’. One month vacation to a far-off place would go just fine with a pair of denims. Jeans are all-weather companions – summer, winter, rains – they’re just fine in any season. They are not street guy’s wear anymore. Amma, they are considered semi-formal. Even MNCs allow jeans. If they get dirty, they look great. If there are holes in it, that is sexy! If it is torn on the knee and the threads hang out, that’s even sexier. Jeans are so so cool amma… so cool that college festivals now have a ‘Dirty jeans competition’ too. Nine-and-a-half people out of ten wear jeans. Amma, even girls wear them!

She never bought my argument, not even to this day. “Sare. Nee ishtam!” would be her standard response.

The last time (and the first time too) I was in Baltimore was to attend a conference. “Im in the US now. So, I must go neatly dressed.” I told myself. I got dressed neatly in the nice piece of Raymond’s suit, that I bought specially for this purpose. I reached the convention center in time and put up my poster. I stood beside it, waiting eagerly for the session to begin, much like the other participants in the room. The session chair walked in with a list of presenters. He is a celebrity in my area of research. He shook hands with me and said, “Ok, so you are Chandra. Nice to meet you.” I shook hands and stood there, hesitantly, thinking, “Should I ask if he’d be interested in my poster?” Apparently he read my mind. Next, he read the title and later said, “Interesting! Could you explain briefly?” “Wow! Lucky me!” I started explaining. It was followed by a minor discussion, a bitter scientific argument and finally ended in a firm handshake and a smiley Thank-you. There I was, again, waiting for the next guy, standing like a buffoon in over-formal dressing.

Meanwhile, the celebrity professor was parading in jeans, a T-shirt and sneakers, moving from one poster to the other.

Ack:
The Jeans image was taken from:
www.stoneisland.co.uk/ clothes/mens-jeans.jpg

Tamburi meetidava…

‘Chandu, wine is a fine drink, come on.’ Nirupa aunty said. ‘No aunty, I dont like the smell of alcohol’ I said. ‘It is port wine and it is not like whisky or beer, it is good for health too.’ Kumar uncle added. Alcohol was something that I considered a taboo. Also, given that I was this very bhola-bhala, studious BE student then, taking alcohol was something that I had never dreamt of – feelings any other first-timer would normally have. Nevertheless, I gave in and finally sipped a little. ‘Woww!!! It’s so good aunty!’ I said. ‘Cheppanu ga…’ she said.

That was the first time I sipped any alcohol at all. From there, to telling fellow teetotallers now, ‘Wine is not alcohol. Wine is the finest of drinks’, things have come a looooong way I’m glad it started with wine. I believe wine is one of God’s finest creations! I don’t understand why beer, whisky and other drinks even exist! Beer stinks and the others – I’m not interested! Genuinely!!

‘One Golconda ruby, please.’ I would order. ‘Zingaro’ friends would say. Sasi would add ‘Vodka… with sprite’. With one peg, I’d be normal but with two pegs of wine, I’d be out! After a prolonged session of drinking along with chicken, would follow a session of ‘lost-love’ tales Somebody would start, ‘She was my heart-throb… I tried a lot… but she settled with another guy. Saala… what has he got that I haven’t?’ It would end with a desi-version of the F word and then he would add: ‘May be it was my mistake! I shouldn’t have taken it too seriously’ And the sagas would flow out of hearts ripped open like cans of beer. Not that the drinks made us loosen up and spurt out the sagas but just that we enjoyed doing it in a relaxed manner, over a peg of wine. The wiser one would add ‘It’s ok dude. Better luck next time!’

We’d never get too drunk to walk down to the hostel. We’d walk late in the night, passing by Sankey Tank, going over the same stories again and again. Finally we’d assemble in F-30. By then we’d all be at the hilt. Then we’d start singing. This was the best part of it all. Our most popular number was ‘Mile sur mera tumhara, sau sur bane hamaara…’ Imagine a group of four guys, none of them sober, singing ‘Mile sur mera tumhara…’ And we’d sing it in all languages, even if we got the lyrics wrong, because we never cared. We’d sing blissfully ‘Daain taraf sain aayi tharaf ikvat baniye daain taraf… Mera sur mile tere sur ke naal milke bane sur sava sur naal… Nimma dhvaniya namma dhvaniya… tene tene kamma dhvaniya… Naa svaramu nee svaramu sangamamai mana svaranga avatharinche…’ The cassette would go on and on and on. We’d continue to crack jokes and blabber until all of us dropped tired and fast asleep.

In no time 1.5 years passed and my friends graduated. The zingaro batch was gone. I was alone in F30 for a few months. It took me a while to get adjusted to it. Work pressure increased and soon things fell into a mechanical routine – seminars, programming, discussions, paper submissions, rejections, lab meetings etc. Occasional campus programmes and debates on students issues was the non-technical filler in our mundane technical lives. Once there was this very nice dance programme by Navrang troupe in JN Tata Auditorium. Mukundh and I wanted to go. Murthy didn’t want to join because he had ‘work’ to do! We persuaded him and told him, ‘Murthygalu, if you come with us to this programme, you will get your PhD degree only one hour late, which is not much; come over.’ ‘Kharma appa… banni hogana…’ (My fate, let’s go!) He gave in finally and we went to see it. Amazing dances (and dancers too Different kinds of dances. Dances to fusion music, dances to classical music… it was a great combination. At the end, there was this group of nice dancers swaying gently to Purandara daasa’s ‘Tamburi meetidava…’ It was a great tune – very catchy tune; melodiously rendered and a stunning dance performance along with it.

After the program was over, Murthy left for his house. Mukundh said, ‘Enallo Chandra, maneli hosa wine bottle idhe, bartiya?’ (Therez a new bottle of wine at home, care to come over?’ Even before he could complete, I said ‘Hogana baa…’ (Let’s go!)… It was drizzling as we walked down to Mathikere. On the way, we bought some hot sizzling bajjis, samosas and aloo bondas with onion and nimbu. ‘Solpa sauche hechu haaki’ (put more sauce please) Mukundh would always add, always! We made it to Mukundh’s place and inaugurated the fine bottle of wine. As the drink sank in, Saint Purandara daasa took control of us ‘Tamburi meetidava, Thaalavannu thattidava, siva enu haadedava, vaikuntakke odedava…’ (Pluck the Tanpura-will you, Strike a rhythm-will you, Sing in the praise of Siva-will you, Run to Heaven-will you?)… Our lyrics were nonsesne. We never got the words right, but we never cared. It was ‘our’ version of ‘Tamburi meetidava…’ and that made us happy souls, perhaps more happy than Purandara himself

Petrichor

As the first rain drops touch the parched thirsty soil, there is a nice smell that spreads all around and tickles our senses. Such a nice smell it is – the smell of the heavenly waters quenching the thirst of the starving soil. These are small little things in nature that are a great source of happiness and joy to us. Just like the nice smell, I think that in every thing we do, the first few moments have a special importance – the first few moments of meeting an old friend, the first few moments of a new relationship, the first few moments of holding a newborn baby in your hands, the first few moments of cooking for the first time, the first few moments in a new place, the first few moments of holding a nice flower… the first few moments of everything are great! There is a special feeling – a mixed feeling in those first few moments. We might have achieved the world after that but aren’t those first few moments always treasured? Aren’t they as fresh as the smell of the first few rain drops touching the thirsty soil?

Ack:
http://www.freefoto.com/preview.jsp?id=16-06-51&k=Rainy+Day for the nice picture.

yahaan ke taare

14 December 2006

I had been an IISc campus bird for about six years. To live in IISc means to fall in love with it. It’s an absolutely wonderful place – perhaps the best that one can get to live in, in Bangalore. IISc is an addiction – for everyone who lives there. Doubly so, for me given that I had lived there for six years. Like many others, the IISc chapter of my life too is filled with myriads of cheerful faces; faces of friends – friends in mess, in gymkhana, in tea board, in classes, in TV room, in lab, the juice center and so many other places. I’d walk on any street in IISc and I’d know at least half of the people walking on it. Hi Chandra, Hey Chash, howdy Chash, hey dude, enappa, eno loafer, ley eno bowshy, namaskara sir, eppadi irrukaenga, namaste anna, baasu enti sangathulu, guru garu baagunnara, hello boss – kaise ho, kemon aacho dada! – a reflection of the diversity of India packed into one sweet capsule called IISc. Alas! All of that is replaced by a monotonous `Bonjour’, from the known and the unknown alike. Kisi ko jaantha nahee, phir bhi Bonjour bonjour karta hoon. Woh bhi karte hain. Lekin IISc mein desi Bonjour ka maza alag tha.

IISc was an addiction. Now, it is nostalgia. Starting from the C-mess breakfast table, to lab experiments, to papers, to discussions and arguments over mean square error curves, to tea board, to campus politics in coffee board, to gymkhana, to Great Indian Laughter Challenges in hostel TV room – every moment was a cherished one. 11-11.30 in the night was the regular coffee time for Pramod and me. Pramod’s Pulsar was a regular companion in our coffee/tea visits and was party to all our gossips while on the ride. Sometimes, he’d ride and sometimes I would. In case one of us delayed or forgot about our appointment with coffee, the other would call up and say `le, maadiddu kelsa saaku… baaro’. And at 11 in the night, standing in the ECE parking lot, and gazing at the sky, I’d show this constellation in the December skies, right above us, to Pramod: `Nodo aa constellation na. That is Orion. Those three stars in a line – that’s the belt. This one is the dagger…’ And I’d go on and on. Orion is my favourite constellation, a fond memory of my fascinating night-sky observation trip while I was at TIFR Mumbai. Orion is also perhaps the only constellation that I remember clearly. He was always there right above us, at that time in the night. I told the Orion thing to Pramod almost every day, night rather, in my last few months at IISc; and whenever I forgot, he’d show it to me and say in typical Kannada `Adhu Orion alvaa?’ and we’d both burst laughing, breaking the silence of the night. Orion had become an integral part of our coffee rides. And whenever the skies weren’t clear and we couldn’t sight Orion, we were disappointed! Pramod would say, `Ilvallo, ello hoythu?’ We’d smile and move on.

I’m miles away from IISc, now, in the freezing Switzer lands… As I walked after dinner yesterday night, looking up at the swiss skies, I found no constellations there. -3 degrees centigrade, mostly foggy skies. Even when the skies are clear, I couldn’t form any patterns. Why are there no patterns in this part of the world? Or am I unable to figure them out?

I looked up at the sky, smiled and said to myself, `Yahaan ke taare bhi ajeeb hai, ajnabee hai.’

My Orion remained in IISc while I moved out!

Ack:
The nice picture of Orion was taken from:
http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/constellations/Orion.html
An e-visit to IISc at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofd1RWm69U4

Observatio!

I don’t read no books, not the non-technical ones. Primarily because my attention span does not last more than a page. I have a tough time doing the book-keeping of characters, their names, relations and who said what and to whom. Don’t laugh if I said that I had to take a paper and pen to do the book-keeping of characters . I tried many times to read a novel fully but without success. My first-ever attempt was ‘One hundred years of solitude’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Two months of regular thirty minutes reading took me only half-way through. Many times, I had to go back and recapitulate to refresh my poor memory. Later on, the book experienced ‘Four weeks in solitude’ ; and then Viswa asked for the book because he had borrowed it from Raghu, and Raghu had asked for it Viswa is an amazing reader and perhaps, he expected me to do the novel in a few days!! Amaranta and the hammock are the only things that I remember of it all. Yet another attempt too didn’t go to the finish. It was ‘It was five past midnight in Bhopal’. I used to read it ‘half past one’, during midday, after lunch , everyday, for a few weeks. Never managed to finish five past midnight. The only one that I ever completed was ‘The vendor of sweets’ by RK Narayan, that too over a few train journeys from Bangalore to Hyderabad and back. It is not a novel but the only book that I can be proud of having read. Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings would be a Nobel achievement for me

My sources of fun, thrill, comedy, suspense, philosophy etc. therefore fully lie in my everyday events and experiences. I enjoy observing people. I enjoy analyzing daily-life situations. I enjoy discussions with friends on such observations. I’ve found many of such experiences/thoughts too valuable (for me) to lose. Hence, I decided to blog. Observational blogs, you could say.