I cannot understand how a simple question that we have been in the habit of asking all these years with complete politeness enquiring about another person’s health could be converted to a question of morality.

What does she mean when she says I’m good.? In fact she is lying through her teeth.
The reason I say this is because several people in the neighbourhood would be ready to confirm that she is far from good. ”Wicked” in fact, would describe her best

Why this confusion? Has the English language changed so considerably that people cannot differentiate between “I am well” and “I am good”?

And God forbid a situation in which I am asked how I am doing and I say I’m good.

Which, of course, would again be is a blatant lie any time of the day or night, because I’m not good.

I am bad, very bad. Biblically of course. Because I’m told that even if I look upon a woman with lust, I have committed adultery.

Simply explained, I spend the better part of two hours every evening brisk- walking at the Joggers Park with ample opportunities to look with lust on a whole battleground of liberated women in various stages of undress, running around breathing heavily enough to wilt the beautiful flowering bushes all along the track.

I’m confused at what I should do. I can use earplugs to eliminate the heavy breathing but surely I’m not expected to do my brisk walking with a blindfold around my eyes?

There are other confusions. A friend of mine and I watch two guys on a motorbike groping and molesting a young woman on Carter Road going home from work.

What should we do? Report to the police station with the number of the motorbike or should we report to the police station that a young woman is walking alone at 9 pm, going home from work, and obviously asking for trouble from young men on motorbikes returning from the gym after pumping iron.
After all one of the requirements of their workouts is to strengthen their fingers by groping posteriors of women that pass down the road.

In any case I am like many others confused about the Police Force .Are they a department of the government or some Banana Republic whose writ runs large.

Can they pick up a starving beggar from the road .and beat him to pulp just to clear the road for a visiting VIP? Can they gang rape a female colleague or a neighbour’s wife, with no questions asked, because it has become as routine as encounter killings and the transportation of jeeps loaded with huge quantities of alcohol from Goa to Maharashtra?

Everyday the confusion increases and spreads to a variety of areas in my life..

This morning I was writing a letter thanking the government for exempting me from paying advance tax. This is good news for senior citizens. A brilliant idea. Because by the time the official date of payment of the tax arrives I will be looking for much more serious exemptions talking to St Matthew the ultimate tax collector, at the pearly gates.

I’ve also finished writing a letter thanking the government for the proposed cleansing of toilets and railway stations.

The letter is ready but whom should I address it to? The outgoing Railway Minister Trivedi or the incoming guy called Mukul Roy or something?

There is a story told of vagrant. farm-hand who was looking for a job.. He finally met a farmer who was willing to try him out.

The farmer gave him a whole lot of logs of wood and asked him to cut them to pieces by the time he returned in the evening

By the time the farmer had returned the farm hand had cut all the logs into pieces. The farmer was so pleased that he gave him a sumptuous dinner, a generous payment for the day and asked him to come the next morning

The next morning the farmer pointed out a huge pile of potatoes that had been picked up from his farm.

“All you have to do my good man”, he said “is to sort them out. and put them into three piles. Large, medium and small. This is light work” he said “but I will pay you the same amount all the same. You seem to be hard-working and if you finish the work by this evening I will hire you again tomorrow”

When the farmer returned he saw to his amazement that no work had been done and that the farm hand was very agitated and on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

“What is the matter?” he asked. And the farm hand replied “I have no problem doing manual work but sorting out the potatoes into three sizes. requires decision-making and I have never learned to do this in my life. After all it is a Managerial task.”

Fortunately for me Joggers Park is frequented by a host of Managers, retired politicians, and bureaucrats with whom I have a long chat after my not so strenuous workout.

I told them my predicament about not being able to know whom to address my letters in the Government.

“George”, they said to me” it is all very simple. None of us know who is running the country these days

Some people felt that the correct thing would be to write to the Prime Minister himself, others felt very strongly that Sonia Gandhi called the shots. “Don’t be stupid” said a third person, “you know very well that Rahul Gandhi is making all the decisions”.”Certainly not” said the young thing who had just quit the Indian Administrative Service to look after stray dogs “I would suggest Priyanka Gandhi Women after all are now running the world.” “If that is the case” said Amitabh Mukhopaday “the whole world knows the no decision can be taken except with the permission of Mamta Banerjee.”

The sun was already setting at the Joggers Park and we were ready to go home via our favourite pubs. “If I were you” volunteered a member of the Otters Club “I would write only to the Prime Minister. The only man of high integrity in this country. And what is more the PMO’s office replies to everybody who writes to the Prime Minister.

I thought that would be a good idea so I wrote to the Prime Minister.

“Dear Mr. Prime Minister” I said “I’ve a couple of very serious issues that bother me in the winter years of my life and I’m totally confused about them. But my major problem is that I am confused about whom in the Government to address issues of national interest. Awaiting an early reply.”

The reply was prompt and brief.

It said “I am equally confused. Try Robert Vadra”

“What are you doing these days? “ It is quite different from being asked “what are you doing now?” If I wanted to be funny, which I some times do, I would have said “Well right now I am talking to you” or I would like to have said “you mean right now, well I am doing nothing. Did you have something on your mind?”

“Well not really, but we could have a drink or something” he might say

“Bandra Gym?” I would say quickly not letting on that I was not a member and he would have to foot the bill.

Oh yes I realize that people have read the obituaries and think that I am kind of “foot loose and fancy free” as some Casanova described himself.

But this is hardly the way to describe my situation or condition. It dents my self esteem. It really does.

In fact I am far from “foot loose”. If at all, I am foot tight. I have cramps in my muscles and stiffness in my joints. And as for “fancy free”, I would like people to know that I still get paid for the fantasy that creeps into the stuff I write. Small amounts, sometimes paid in postage stamps, but certainly not free.

A few years ago I used to be addressed as Uncle. “How’s your writing doing uncle?” Or “Still traveling to Goa uncle on your Consultancy assignments?”

I could spend hours together standing on paver blocks on the pavements or outside the Church after Mass waxing eloquent on both the questions.

Does becoming a widower change everything so drastically? For me no doubt.

Living alone, nobody to talk to, no raised voices, no laughter, no tears, no smashing of crockery, no bringing up the past, nobody whom people would ask “How’s the old man?”

Above all no caring for the most beautiful woman in the world. The most patient under pain. The least complaining, the most resigned to the Lords call, no rushing off in your shorts at midnight to the Hospital carrying a dying woman in your arms. Month after month, several times in the same month. Waiting for five hours, four times a week while a dialysis machine embraced my loved one in its steel and plastic embrace?

Yes being a widower has changed life drastically for me but, praise God, it has not severely dented my fitness of body and mind and surely not affected people I meet at the fish market or at the various “take-aways” that are Bandra’s special benediction.

So why are the questions I am greeted with so differently worded than in the past?

Is it different for widows I wonder? Has it got to do with age or the quality of the Botox treatment you have had?

There is an 80 year widow I know who can set a floor on fire with her dancing. I am sure a male friend does not say to her “What are you doing these days?” He would say (if her name is Phil) “Fill my cup of joy, can I take you to the Senior Citizens Dance this Saturday?”

But now I know why widows are not asked questions like am asked as if there was nothing I could do that was meaningful in my fossilized state.

Widows have a Union. If I had not attempted to write this piece I would have never have discovered it. It is called “Hope and Life Movement”. And as we all know Unions create bonding, solidarity and strength and can descend upon you like bees whose hives have been disturbed

I remember seeing a man once long ago sitting on the lawns of a Club eating toast and marmalade with his cuppa “chai” Every now and then he was swatting flies that tried to reach the marmalade.

Out of curiosity I went up to him and said “How come you swat and kill flies that disturb you but ignore the bee that is hovering over your head?” And the man replied “the flies come singly and I can deal with them. If I were to swat one bee the whole hive would descend upon me”

I cannot imagine anyone daring to ask a unionized widow the silly questions they ask me.

And if you want to know, men are not admitted to the Hope and Life Movement

I must see our Archbishop and see if I can organize a Movement for widowers.
Must find a good name for it.

Next time somebody asks me “What are you doing these days?” I can smile and say “I am trying to bring hope and life to widowers. And some movement. Most of them look pretty constipated”

One, of course, is my two granddaughters who fly past me at the Joggers Park despite giving me a generous handicap.

When I look back and don’t find them behind me I imagine, falsely as ever, that I have won the race.

I remember the time when I was invited to give the keynote address at the 75th anniversary of my old college in Dharwar

After the speech, tea and snacks were served to the invitees.

From a distance I noticed a man in a white kurta and pyjama, giving me a dirty look. He sneaked up to me and said softly “Mr George you have an outstanding bill of Rs.200 in the college canteen of which I am the contractor

I apologised, took him aside and paid the bill, tip included, turning around and quickly moving into the august company of retired vice chancellors with no bills to pay.

Another time, not too long ago, I foolishly decided to participate in a Senior Citizen mini Marathon around the residential areas of Bandra. At the end of ten minutes I was feeling faint and dehydrated and decided to knock at the door of a house whose nameplate seemed terribly familiar.

I rang the bell and asked for a glass of water. “You liar” said the lady who opened the door. “50 years ago you promised to marry me during the choir practice of St Joseph’s Church. God forgive you as I have done. Have a cold Pepsi, get back to your running and never return again”

I never returned. I do not want an angry spinster to smash my head with an aluminum crutch.

But let me tell you how even recently the past has come back to stare me in the face.

In order to do that I have to tell you about Janet.

As I write this I remember that this very evening I have to pick up Father Paul from the Retreat House to say Mass at Janet’s place because she’s celebrating her mother’s birthday which she does unfailingly every year.

I’ve agreed to do this knowing fully well that the 10 min walking distance will have to be covered by my car through the chaos of the Bandra fair to pick up Father Paul. I don’t do it everyday but I owe Janet a great deal.

This year is her mothers 92nd birthday and although she’s intermittently bedridden she has the same glow and brilliance in her eyes as she had when she danced the waltz on her 90th birthday and ready to dance again with the redoubtable Alan Noronha strumming his guitar and singing all the old-fashioned music in the world, enough to loosen the joints of all the septuagenarians and above, present at the party

And that is where one more time the past has come back to haunt me

You see Alan Noronha is a great admirer of Janet. I’m not sure where he stands in the long queue of Janet’s admirers but I know one thing and that is that he was recently looking for a gift to give her.

Alan, it seems, was browsing through some shops on the way to the Railway Station where some antiques and a lot of junk is sold. Looking closely at the things in a particular shop he saw a familiar face framed in expensive gilded wood.

It was a charcoal drawing of a man with a beard and a none too flattering nose.
“My god” he said “that is a drawing of our common friend George Menezes obviously done by a gifted artist and indicating that it was done in Paris in the year of our Lord 1985”.

I know how much Janet looks up to George, he thought to himself not realising that the looking up was merely because of the difference in height. That would make a good gift for Janet, he thought. So he asked the shopkeeper for the price.

“Panch hazar” said the shopkeeper. Restraining himself from hitting the shopkeeper on the head with his heavy duty guitar, Alan decided to negotiate.

“Woh antik hai” .said the shopkeeper trying to justify the price tag of Rs.5000.

“Arre baba” said Alan “woh antique nahin hai, woh zinda admi hai aur hamara neighbour hai.”

All this conversation has been related to me by Janet herself. Finally after suggesting that he would produce me personally for the shopkeeper to see, he apparently got a bargain, packed it nicely and gifted it to Janet.

“What a precious gift” she was supposed to have said to Alan before swooning at the thought of finding another place on a wall to hang it.

Finally, to cut a long story short, Janet brought the drawing to my house to check its authenticity and its background.

When Janet told me the whole story I suddenly realised what had happened and I laughed

From time to time the old girl, God bless her soul, took some drastic decisions to deal with clutter and also to confirm a genuine belief that we cannot take our material goods with us when we go no matter where we go, and therefore it is best to get rid of things we have not used for some time.

On the basis of such a philosophy she used to get rid of everything that she deemed “useless” and she did it once a year.

Once, while trying to search for my trophies and medals and sundry awards just to satisfy my ego, I discovered that they were no longer in the house.
A heated discussion revealed that she had handed them over to the “jalipuranawalla” or junk dealer.

In the course of a few years she had got rid of a whole lot of my precious books, bundles of letters from old girlfriends as well as photographs, including her own.

I suddenly realised that this painting done by an artist at the steps of Sacre Coeur church in Paris had also been one of the “useless” objects that she had got rid of with an innocent smile on her very beautiful face.

As I said before, some things come back to haunt me without warning.

That’s what I said to Janet as she stood precariously on a chair trying to hang a useless thing on her wall. Fortunately not on the bathroom wall.

Janet is and will always remain a precious friend. Except that she has poor taste in works of art.

Never mind India. My own personal life has turned all topsy-turvy.

First and foremost I get a personal invitation from the Additional Commissioner of Police inviting me to an interactive meeting with the Police Officers of our Ward.

Something fishy I said to myself. He is inviting trouble if a lot of people from the Ward turn up for the meeting.

Anyway, I decided to go. “Just to be seen”, kind of thing. It was a big mistake.

Hundreds of people had turned up, except the Assistant Commissioner who had invited us.

Senior Inspector Shaikh who has a good personality and is a very effective communicator took over the mike.

But the crowd was not willing to listen to the Senior Police Inspector explaining their grandiose plan of providing security to Housing Societies by making friendly visits to the Societies’ office bearers and owners of flats.

Every member of the crowd had come with his or her own agenda. Quite naturally I thought. Where do ordinary citizens get a chance to interact with the police without being intimidated?

In spite of the valiant efforts of the evergreen and ever volunteering Anita, our honorary traffic cop, to pass the cordless mike around, there was pandemonium.

Although I raised my hand again and again, almost on the verge of doing the hokey pokey dance, I did not get her attention

And when I got the mike nobody wanted to listen to my attempts to bring some order to the discussion.

If nothing else I learnt a lesson in humility. I realised I was a nonentity. A very old man, out of steam and out of sync. With the reality of today.

I sat quietly in my chair for the rest of the fruitless meeting and went quietly home. People no longer know me for who I am, and even worse, I myself do not know who I am.

If I can stay with this lesson, going to the meeting will not have been in vain.

If you think about it, it was at least an attempt by the police to provide some transparency. It is one of the things that are changing. Transparency is the buzzword.

No wonder then that I who had welcomed with open arms the Right to Information Act, received an RTI query the other day.

One of my relatives was asking me to disclose who that attractive girl was I was seen with at one of the restaurants in Bandra.

I think that is stretching transparency too far.

My life is always been an open book, especially because I write very personalised columns in the newspapers.

So I rang up the relative and told her “Betty” I said, “You know very well who she is. In fact she is related to you. And by the way, I could refuse to respond to your RTI query because the person is an elderly woman and not a girl as wrongly described by you”

“I will file another RTI query because I want an answer in writing” she said.

“If you have any suspicion about my will” I said “let me tell you that the meagre Rs.5000 I have in my bank I’m leaving to my Cook woman”

She banged down the phone as only frustrated relatives can.

So much for the transparency of the RTI Act.

Coming back to the public meeting with the police, I had some tea and biscuits on the police account and was walking slowly towards my car when I was accosted by a woman wearing an expensive and gaudy sari with gold jewellery to match.

“Arre, Shakubai” I said finally recognising the ayah who used to look after my kids.

“I become working in BMC she said in the kind of English that my daughter had taught her during her long stint with us.

“Kuch loan mangta hai ?” I asked. “No George sahib” she said “I having lots lots money. BMC wanting your training program”
“Pothole training?” I asked thinking of BMC’s latest crisis.

“No, no” she said “BMC wanting potty hole training for BMC people.
You and memsahib and ‘apun’ were doing this training very well for the children.”

We drove down to the Municipal office. She took me to the toilets.
I almost died with no hope of resurrection. The shit had literally hit the ceiling.

“Two solutions” I said. “All the junior staff should be given leave to go and do “their jobs” over the potholes on the roads. It will lessen the burden on your toilets and it will fill the potholes. Secondly all the shooters and archery Olympic medalists should be immediately invited to come and train the senior staff to learn to ‘aim’ properly.”

Finally the BMC people will be doing “their jobs” productively. I said to myself

“All this I am not understanding” Shakubai said. “Where all slum dwellers going to do their potty then? They will take out the morcha to BMC Office.”

“Don’t worry” I said as I stepped ankle-deep into some kind of stuff that gastro-pathologists are working hard to identify. There are lots of of potty holes still to be filled. Only tell them to wait till the first layer has hardened.”

“Meanwhile I take ‘Imodium’ she said waving her gold bangled hand as I washed my feet under a leaking fire hydrant.

Frankly I can’t tell a C minor from a John Major, one time Prime Minister of England. I don’t even possess a sound system in the house. But believe it or not, there is always a tune humming in my head.

Some lovely woman living in Toronto recently sent me a video that had the music of John Denver on it together with the lyrics.
As I write this, the music and the lyrics

“Come fill up my senses
Like a night in the forest,
Like a mountain in spring time,
Like a walk in the rain”

surround me with warmth and love which unknowingly I suppose gets transferred to what I’m writing.

I don’t know about loving, but I certainly like our Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, the first CM in a long while, who comes across as being open, humble and clean.

My heart went out to him the other day in the midst of the horrific Mumbai blasts when I almost heard him cry “where have all my good officers gone”?

Music once again invades my mind and I hear Joan Baez strumming her guitar and singing the Pete Seeger perennial

“Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone
Long time ago?
Gone to graveyards everyone.
When will they ever learn
When will they e-e-ever learn”?

I believe lots of people in Mumbai including myself are in a position to give our chief Minister appropriate information to his question “where have all my good officers gone”

Many of them have retired long ago. The Kanetkars, the Ribeiros, the Mendonsas, the Sahneys the Somans and so many others whose advice, if sought for, and implemented would help the CM a great deal.

Very many of them, men of competence and integrity are posted in places of punishment. Unknown an unheard of districts in Maharashtra where they are forced to live without their families and send their children to boarding schools because they are not willing to sacrifice their souls for thirty pieces of silver.

Let me tell our chief Minister that this dirty, filthy, dangerously unhealthy, almost unmanaged and life threatening city, has hundreds of really good people. I meet them every day and I get from them a daily dose of inspiration and the resolve to carry on my daily life with a smile.

An incredibly compassionate colleague of mine for 20 years, at the Corporation where I worked, has sacrificed all her time and energy and the use of her talents to look after her aging mother.

A regal, good looking woman in her 60s has given up her own needs both sociological, psychological and physical to care for her 65 year old mentally and physically challenged brother

Together with her brother, who never complains and always wears an angelic smile, they are both a source of great inspiration

You want to find a “good” place where serenity, faith and laughter refresh you like a sudden shower? Come to Shanti Avenda, the home for terminally ill cancer patients.

Say hello to my friend Christina. Warm and chubby like a large teddy bear, her beautiful black eyes lighting up a place where there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

She laughs at my silliest jokes, and when I sit at the side of her bed and massage her feet, as I used to do for my late wife, she sighs, gobbles slices of mango, juice running down her dress, and says “I am blessed to have moments like this”

I say to her husband who attends to her night and day “Dean, you too are blessed to be given an opportunity to serve a loved one. I have walked that road not long ago. Not everyone gets such an opportunity”

Yes, dear chief Minister, the city is full of “good” people, unfortunately, not many of them in the Police Force. And those who are there have been shunted to Training Institutes, Naxalite areas and other punishment areas where their goodness will be squeezed dry out of them sooner or later.

You are reputed to be a good man. Can you make your goodness, your openness, your rectitude become inspiring and infectious like the good people I listed earlier?

Can you tell your Congress bosses that the chief Minister will no longer continue to be a fund collector for the party?

You will either be sacked or good people will rally around you like they have done around Anna Hazare. Good luck and may the good Lord be with you.

I guess I’m hallucinating. How many people have the good fortune to be able to do so?

Hallucinate, I mean.

It is therefore not surprising that I do not own either a tie or a good and fashionable pair of formal shoes.

As I write this I have been chastised by my daughter in law for going to a dinner, down the road, wearing moccasins that I have been using for almost a decade

They are made of suede, once, long ago, nice mixture of blue and gray, but now an undetermined color and a shape that cannot be defined except to say that though they are not handsome, they are extremely comfortable.

Like my Marks & Spencer underwear, too comfortable to ever throw away.

But grand daughters are a species altogether different from daughters in law.

They wear you down. With their love.

I had absolutely to get another pair of shoes they said.

So I started my search for a pair of sturdy, extremely comfortable, no breaking-in period shoes with a weathered look. Stone washed or something similar.

When I lived on Pedder Road, that is before we came to Bandra, our shoe shopping was restricted mostly to Colaba Causeway and mainly shoe shops like Bata and Carona.

Today I can visit hundreds of shops that are shoe outlets on Hill Road and Linking Road.

So holding my granddaughter’s hand I started my shoe tourism with a vengeance.

You would be surprised to hear some of the things I discovered.

Did you know that Reebok, Adidas. Puma and Nike do not market sports shoes without laces? At least not in Bandra.

“I will buy only sturdy all purpose sneakers without laces” I said to the salesman

“I can tie the shoelaces in such a manner” said the salesman at Nike “that you won’t even know that the shoe has laces”

“No can do” I said firmly. “Sneakers without laces, if you don’t mind

“I’m interested to know why you want shoes without laces” he asked, his enigmatic smile suggesting that there must be something wrong with me

“I have an obsession about living in bodily comfort.” I replied “I wear Salman Khan vests even at my age, or maybe especially at my age, walk barefoot in the house, go everywhere and anywhere in my shorts and moccasins without having to bend down and put them on and take them off”

“Above all” I said “I need a pair that I can use to make a contribution to my country and my Jokepal membership”

“What kind of contribution” asked the salesman totally confused by now

I need to take my shoe off at a moment’s notice and fling it at a whole lot of hypocrites who are trying to make a fool of ordinary citizens like you and me

“Oh” said the salesman, as if recalling something he had watched on television, “I understand what you mean, you want to fling your shoe at politicians, bureaucrats, corporate honchos, god men and gurus who are destroying the fabric of our society. And you want to do it at the utmost speed”

He seemed struck by the enormity of the contribution an ordinary shoe salesman could possibly make to the country and its people.

He sat down and said in a sad voice “I am sorry, Sir I do not believe shoe outlets in Mumbai are selling Jokepal shoes.”

“What about your outlet in Delhi” I asked. “Sit down for a few minutes” he said sounding enthusiastic about my shoe flinging mission. He took out his cell phone and dialed a number. No luck in Delhi” he said after the short conversation he had had with someone at the other end.

“Thank you for all your help” I said looking down at the shoes I was wearing. “Do you happen to have a strong cleansing brush for the suede moccasins I’m wearing”?.

He showed me a brush which I promptly bought, more as a thank you gesture for his interest and help, than for its utility.

And so after dropping my granddaughter home I decided to reflect upon my unsuccessful shopping spree.

I walked down to Bandstand on Bandra’s glorious waterfront and sitting on my favorite rock watching the tide come in, I started to think about shoes.

I recalled that the great painter MF Hussain had been denied entry to an elitist Club because he was barefooted. Anyway, I said to myself, the great genius was such a peaceful man that he would have been incapable of flinging any thing at anyone even as a gesture of protest.

And I recalled a painting that I had seen of two people gazing wistfully at the window of a well known shoe shop. The well dressed businessman looking at the other window shopper who was on crutches and saying to himself “I cursed Allah because I had no shoes until I saw a man who had no feet”

Walking home I wondered how because of colorful TV and media coverage about the Lokpal agitation and one incident of shoe flinging and constant flashbacks of other incidents of shoe flinging including one at President Bush, I had acquired this obsession of wanting to wear shoes without laces.

When I reached home my daughter Anjali‘s German in-laws were just arriving from their first trip to Goa.

“How did you enjoy your trip” I asked her father in law, Reiner Kelling. “Absolutely fabulous” he said “except that somebody stole my shoes outside the famous Mangueshi Temple”

“I’m so sorry” I said ” with laces or without laces?”

He looked at me in a manner deserved for mentally challenged people and said “what difference does it make?”

It was a conversation amongst a few young men in their late 20s about one of the local girls getting married. Nice young men some of whom went to join the Army and become Adarsh-living Generals, unless they were killed in battle, others who opted to join the priesthood and become Bishops or church bashers, and even some, who became entrepreneurs and philanthropists.

“She is getting married to a Pilot Officer, wow !!” said one of them. “Lucky devil” said somebody else. “She is the prettiest girl in our entire suburbs”.

“Lucky girl” said somebody else, “it is not so easy to catch a Pilot Officer. Blue uniform with gold decorations, almost 500 rupees a month in salary not to mention perks and lots of travel and excitement”.

“Isn’t it risky to marry a pilot officer” asked one. “Not all of them fly.” said another “There are common designations like Pilot Officer, Flying Officer, Flight Lieutenant and Squadron leader for even those in the ground services. He is a graduate officer in the logistics branch”.

“Only the most competent, the most skilled and highly trained become pilots in the Indian Air force. The citizens of this country can sleep in peace because the skies for our country are secured by our pilots and navigators backed by dedicated ground services

Fast forward to March 2011.

Final year college students sitting at the neighbouring coffee outlet “dude-ing” away instead of attending classes. I sit at the table next to them and over hear a conversation I am normally not used to

“So dude what’s the latest?” “Nothing new, dude except that I’ve applied for a pilot’s job”.

“Pilots job?” says another dude. “You haven’t even finished college. Pilots have to do years of training at a flying school, complete the specified number of flying hours as copilots, get certified by the flying school, work as a trainee pilot, get certified by the government appointed Civil Aviation Authority and go through a rigourous process of being selected by an Airlines.

“Which century are you living in guys” says the aspiring pilot. He opens a thick file full of documents. “See this” he says this is my graduation certificate.

I got it from the Xerox guy around the corner. He told me that if I was worried about the graduation certificate standing up to scrutiny, he would arrange for some smart guy to write the B.Com exam for me”.

“And see this” he said. “A brand-new certificate from the Katrina Flying Club in New Orleans, USA. It is not that easy” he continued “I had to wait seven months till their damaged aircraft were repaired. They had been badly damaged by another pilot aspirant from India, some woman called Gariba (garib as in poor) who it appears always landed without letting down the landing gear.”

“So how well did you learn to fly?” said a woman who had just joined the conversation “Not too bad” he said. I know what the nose wheel is and where it is located. I can get you that ILS stands for Instrument Landing System. I can tell a Piper Cub from the Pied Piper of Hamlin. I actually did three hours flying with the instructor. Except that they had to sedate me when I started screaming and threatened to jump out of the aircraft before takeoff. I had not told them in my application that I had a fear of flying.”

“It must have been tough” someone said. “Around 20 lakhs” he said. As a result my parents have become too impoverished to travel by air anymore. There are other reasons of course.

What happened to Gariba? they asked. She was thrown out of the flying school for damaging aircraft and she took it very badly. She said they would never do such a thing in India where her father was a top gun in the Directorate of Civil Aviation. We became good friends.

“She is now a pilot with our Rational Airways Undertaking”. “Never heard of it” ventured one of the smarter dudes. Why rational and not national?” Oh that’s simple”. Because they have an explanation or excuse for everything that rotten that happens. Undertaking was a typographical error which stayed. The PR department wanted to call it Rational Airways Undertaker but the directors shot the idea down”.

“We are glad for you” said the classmates. “I suppose your girlfriend Gariba with her connections in the Civilian Aviation Authority will organise a certificate for you to become a pilot.

“Well, why not”. he laughed “She owes me. I made love to her right through our stay in the USA. She was insatiable.”

The conversation was now getting hot and exciting.. “How did it turn out in India” they asked with one voice.

“It turned out to be a disaster” he said.” We were trying to make it at the Guest House of the Civilian Aviation Department near Sahar airport.

The bed collapsed in the middle of the act. Months later they discovered that the bed was a fake. The authority had paid 40,000 rupees not knowing it was made of firewood instead of teak wood. They also found out that the screws (no pun intended) used in making the bed were substandard.”

“So when are you ready to fly us to Dubai to find jobs for ourselves?” they asked mockingly

“I have one last hurdle to cross before I become a pilot” he said. “It appears that there are some interesting rules in making the appointment. You have to be certified by a relative. It is called some smelly, stinking thing called “potism”.

“So what are you going to do” they asked, greatly concerned

“No problem” he said. “My father has been able to get a fake employment certificate that he is an officer our Civilian Aviation body and, to be on the safe side, he has also got a certificate that he is a director Of Rational Airways Undertaking”.

Fast forward to Today.

I get a call that a relative in Goa, riding a bike without a helmet, has been run over by a dumper. I rush to the airport with my overnight bag and walk to the counter of Rational Airways Undertaking.

“Can you give me a ticket so that I can fly an unmanned aircraft to Goa.” I ask the woman at the counter. “You mean a drone” she asks with a fake but certified smile. “Yes” I say. “They only fly to Afghanistan” she says “and there is no return flight”.

“How do I get to Goa?” I say “it is urgent”.

“We have a flight that is leaving right now to Goa” she smiles. “The aircraft is on “auto-pilot”, the pilots are seated at the rear of their aircraft with their seat belts on. And there is no service. This is a no-frills flight”

“How much will it cost” I ask. “Not many people are flying these days. I will gladly give you a club class ticket which is fake in returned for a forged cheque from you.”

“When you reach gate B run right on to the tarmac and you will see a whole lot of their air-conditioned taxis taking you to Goa. I am not sure whether the drivers have genuine driving licences or not. Have a safe journey and if you still have doubts I would advise you to walk to Goa”

“Fake you” I said showing her my index finger

Now let me say that these thorns are no different from pellets from a shot gun that are being used by the police on rioters and protesters in countries that cannot decide whether they are tyrannical governments or democratic ones.

The argument is “we don’t want to kill our own people but we don’t mind hurting them.”

So these pellets remain in your system without causing much damage except a niggling pain from time to time.

I have found that the best way to deal with this kind of “time to time” pain is to talk about it .Sharing reduces the pain because you transfer a good deal of it to the listener

One of the oldest thorns I have are people who send me candidates for employment knowing fully well that I no longer have power to appoint people, meaning I don’t have a “kursi”, and regrettably, neither do I have the clout to recommend the candidates to people who are in positions of power.

And when I do, the recommended person becomes a new thorn in my side because he or she keeps calling me at odd times of the day criticising the unwillingness of the “kursiwalla” to give him a job.

“But he has appointed his cousin, no?” says the woman who has stopped phoning and has resorted to turning up at my door during my siesta time.

The list of thorns would cover several of my columns but let me concentrate on the persistent ones.

Take mothers who bring their children for career counseling.

One such mother brought her daughter for counselling and took me aside to urge me not to support her desire to get a flying licence and become a pilot.

After talking to the girl for about an hour and seeing how well-informed she was about a career in flying and her high-level of enthusiasm as well as her very sensible arguments in favour of her decision, I took her aside and told not to listen to her mother.

That was years ago. Very recently the mother visited me with half a dozen miniature bottles of alcohol like the ones served on international flights and thanked me for counselling her daughter about her career.

“I always felt she would make a good pilot “she said “when I saw her going to the terrace with the boys in the building and flying kites with a greater dexterity than any of the boys.”

“She has been now in Jet Airways for a couple of years and is scheduled to fly on the Mumbai -London route very soon. If you need any extra pillows and blankets on your flight do let me know. By the way, I have brought my other daughter who wants to become a belly dancer, for your expert counseling”.

“Help” I said holding my tummy and rushing off to the toilet determined to stay there till she left. She eventually did but the thorn in my side still hurts.

I must share with you that I am a guy who does not take things lying down. Mainly because when I stand up the thorns in my side are less painful.

I have decided to do something about the thorns in my side. As a youngster in Goa I had seen Mafaldina our domestic help, inherited from our ancestors, removing a thorn from the foot of my uncle with the help of another thorn. The bigger one, no doubt, sterilised on an open fire.

Thinking about it I decided to participate in a Minithon. It came to me in a dream. Making me believe that the “thon” in the Minithon would extract the thorns in my side.

The Minithon which is a shorter version of the Marathon is being organised by the H West Ward Trust in collaboration with some other NGOs all for a good cause. In fact there could not be a better cause. They are raising their voices against the closing down of schools run by the Municipal Corporation with the ultimate motive of acquiring the school land for the benefit of corrupt builders and even more corrupt babus and netas.

Age does not deter me. My motivation is high. Not only will I use a thon to extract the other thorns in my side but I will be doing it for a good cause.

The first step, says the notification, is to the register yourself at one of the 12 places indicated by the organizers. I am tempted to register at Macdonald’s. The whole load full of calories ingested while registering will melt away at the end of the run.

The other option is to register at Bandra Medical Stores which might help me to either get recommendations about energizers for the run and maybe also some medication required for an over 80 year-old runner whose blood pressure chart resembles that of the Sensex during the last few months,

On re-checking the list I realised that there was also a registration place called “Springfit, Spring mattresses and beds, Dream-World Shop.” Ideal for me. I would register just after lunchtime and have a good snooze on one of their dreamworld mattresses in order to test their insomania curing inability.

No such luck. So I spent a sleepless night in my good old bed and worked out a strategy to complete the Minithon.

Armed with a chest number or what is called a bib like the one I use at home when gorging on crab curry, I started at the start which was the least I could do.

At St Stanislaus School where the run was flagged off, I dropped in at St Peters Church and made my confession. You never know!

I also managed to get the name and telephone number of a Bandra undertaker which I tucked into the breast pocket of my very colourful sports shirt, just in case.

My strategy involved stopping at the homes of old boozing friends and visiting girl friends who had abandoned me long years ago having mistaken my loss of weight and skeletal looks for loss of virility.

Since these visits were in houses on the designated roads I would not be contravening any rules.

It was a bad strategy. My boozing friends had become alcoholics and the girl friends, without exception, hid behind fortified metal doors, watching the horror TV news of rapists running loose in a lawless city, and refusing to respond to the ringing of the door bell.

So much the better I said to myself completing the Minithon in time while gasping for breath and falling into the arms of an obese volunteer who fortunately did not try mouth to mouth resuscitation, but brought me to my senses with the words “you should be ashamed of yourself George. Is this the kind of thing you’re trying to impress us with at your age?”

The new “thon” I think is here to stay.

Dharwad was a town dotted with magnificent college buildings, and roads with flowering trees and quaint bungalows the finest of which were, and still are, occupied by the Principal and Vice Principal of Karnatak College..

We lived in the Vice Principal’s bungalow and I went to what I consider the finest character building school In the State.

Basel Mission High School had a Junior Parliament and a Senior Parliament and the activities of these two Parliaments were conducted in a manner that the British parliamentary system would have approved

We had elections and hectic electioneering campaigns. Everything was overboard and the whole process was as clean as a pin. Material for the campaigning was provided by the school office. Simple things like chart paper, crayons, pins, drawing pins and plenty of gum.

Scotch tape and marker pens were still not in the market.

Posters were put up, hand written circulars were distributed, and cartoons of opponents made and stuck up on trees or notice boards.

In a co-educational institution girls were very much in demand not only for their artistic abilities but their skills in the spreading of rumours and gossip.

There were no violence and money was not allowed to be spent. It took all of one’s creativity to influence the voters.

In my campaign for the Prime Ministership of the Senior Parliament we spread a rumour that I would ensure that the number of school holidays would be drastically increased.

I was doing, without knowing it at that time; exactly what our “netas” do all the time. I won the election hands down beating my opponent Hargobind Alimchandani, a decent chap altogether, by a good margin of votes.

The celebrations were hardly over when I realised that I had to undertake the difficult task of Cabinet making.

I realise today that you just can’t hire a Carpenter and put together a Cabinet together, with brass handles and matching knobs to go with it.

I made a list of all those who had worked for me in the elections and showed it to my mother who knew all my friends, some of them, better than I did.

When I mentioned that I would appoint Ramesh Kaikini as Home Minister my mother put her foot down. “He is Saraswat Brahmin” she said. “The large number of lower caste students might not take it too kindly”. My sister butted in. “They are not loyal to our family” she said. They did not invite us to their daughter’s wedding.

“What about B G Lamani”? I asked. “The upper castes would ostracise him” said my mother “besides I have heard that he is a kleptomaniac”.

I picked up my list of would-be ministers and walked out of the house in a huff.

I decided to go to Dharwad Restaurant and have a dosa and of cup of tea. The owner, Janardan always had some under the table arrangement about catering with the school Prime Minister.

He said to me “do not listen to all these women in your house. You cannot afford to annoy your friends. You need a balanced team so that nobody will be annoyed or nobody will be unequally annoyed”.

That evening I had a meeting with my friends who had really supported me and were likely to support me if I ran for the next elections. That of course would happen only if I had to repeat the class. And as things were going with my performance in “maths” that was likely to happen

The meeting ended with fisticuffs and I ended with a Cabinet of my most mediocre and my most crooked friends.

I have lessons for Manmohan Singh.

Never consult women, specially “Amma”

Do not agree to become Prime Minister if you are unable to take independent decisions

In matters of Cabinet making there are no such things as friends. So don’t consult anyone except yourself or what is fashionably known as “your conscience”

I remember now that nobody amongst my supporters wanted to be a Cabinet football Minister they preferred to get either the Hockey ministry and specially the Cricket portfolio
In football the only expense is on one ball. Or may be a pair of gloves for the goalkeeper. You can’t make much money on measly purchases

So do not keep the lucrative ministries under your control. Allot them to idiots. After all it does not matter if others are dishonest. It is important to keep your own image as a man of integrity completely protected

Finally remember you don’t have to do the nuts and bolts of Cabinet making unless during your stay in the United States got you hooked on to what is known as “d i y” or do it yourself business.

There are professional Cabinet makers available including PR professionals like Nira Radia more savvy than the women, around you, who bully you.

I am a Catholic by birth and by preference. I realise that Jesus was the son of a carpenter but his Cabinet making skills find no mention at all in the Bible.

So what’s the harm if you don’t go down in history as a cabinet maker?