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\twocolumn[\centerline{\large
{\bf COLLECTION OF STORIES BY MAHADEVAN RAMESH I}
}\bigskip]


\centerline{\bf \ACOUNT\ \ \    AJAY'S HOMECOMING}
\centerline{by Mahadevan Ramesh}

Ajay Palvayanteeswaran, like a zillion other desis before him,
discovered one day that he too was afflicted by this incurable
itch to visit India and be with his family and friends. He was
just about tired of not working on his thesis. He needed a
break. Heck, he might even interview some girls and get married.
Besides, that would wipe out the massive debt he owed India.
>From his wingmate, he learnt that there is actually a small
village in the middle of nowhere in Mexico called Los
Maramarimos, where unbeknownst to anyone and SCI in particular,
an American Consulate has been functioning since the days of
Mayan civilization. He drove down there non stop from Pittsburgh
and looked straight into the eyes of the Consular Officer and
asked him "When you have the in-field fly rule and a runner runs
from the second base to the third, does he have to be tagged to
be out ?" And while the officer was trying to figure this out,
he thrust his visa documents at him and got a multiple entry
visa for a lifetime. Of course, Ajay had to fly into Pittsburgh,
because some desparado had cannibalized his two hundred
dollar steel beauty of a car into two bicycles and sold them
off.

Ajay made about twenty three reservations in all the airlines
possible. The cheapest deal he found stipulated that he would
have to go standing, (giving a whole new meaning to the term
'stand-by') clutching his luggage and yes he would be allowed to
peek into the first class cabin about three times during the
entire trip. He was told that a Hindu vegetarian meal will be
provided once the airlines figured out what a true Hindu is. His
bank balance took a free fall after he paid for his tickets and
he was left only with a few hundred bucks and a new visa card to
buy gifts and momentos. In the Palvayanteeswaran family even the
thirteenth cousin matters and he was already going crazy trying
to think of appropriate gifts that would annoy his relatives.

He bought the most massive suitcases when K Mart had them on
sale. He bought Simpsons T shirts for his brother and mother,
Docker pants for his dad, a plastic walking stick for his
grandfather and a lovely, cheap, tantalizing perfume called "Le
Savage", for his grandmother, to bring out the animal in her.
Unmindful of the cultural imperialistic implications, he even
bought a Barbie doll for his niece and one for himself. He
bought a hundred ball pens, two hundred sewing needles, a
five-in-one, three hundred jelly beans after feeding the machine
with his lifetime's collection of pennies. With every shopping
bagful of goodies, his adrenalin got pumped up some more and he
was counting days.

The last few days were so hectic he almost never slept. The
travel agent had mispelt his name. 'God, these guys have trouble
even with such simple names.  Wonder what he would have done if
I had a Russian sounding name'.  And his suitcases wouldn't
close. His trick-accounting of writing checks against his next
month's paycheck somehow backfired and now, he couldn't find his
toothbrush.  In the middle of everything his friends and foes
stopped by to give him those little parcels with microwave ovens
and washers to take home to their folks. His beer buddy finally
arrived - an hour past the appointed time, grabbed everything in
the living room, from carpet up, including Ajay, piled them into
the trunk of his car and deposited the mess at the airport, just
as they were pulling off that large earthworm connecting the
darned plane and the terminal.

Ajay sank into his seat and closed his eyes. "Aarti, beti, apni
seat mein nahin baitogi to mummy maaroongi" ('Aarti, daughter,
if you don't sit down in your seat, your mother is going to beat
you up') said a rather huge mother in the adjacent seat,
lovingly to her five year old, as the kid stepped over Ajay for
the umpteenth time, trying to get out of her seat. Ajay smiled
philosophically. He knew right then he was heading off to India,
nowhere else. He was hoping a Madhuri Dixit or Sridevi would
surprise him by appearing in the aisle dressed as a stewardess.
In his wildest dream, he even fell in love with the stewardess
as the plane was touching down in Madras and promptly caught the
return flight with her, ignoring the desparate, tearful pleas
from his parents. But reality hit him hard in the form of a hulk
of a steward who spoke with a confusing British accent, which
seemed so phony and put on.

After several dreamy hours, during which the kid in the next
seat went to the bathroom about two hundred times, the plane
landed in Madras. He tried to rush through the green channel at
the Customs when the Customs guy caught him by his shirt collar
and made him declare that Chunky Pandey is a better actor than
Brando Bakshi. It was hot and humid and there were millions of
little brown people everywhere. They were seemingly very busy,
but in reality not really achieving anything significant. Boy,
how many people does this country have, almost as many as there
are cars in the US of A. He suddenly discovered that some of
those brownies were actually his family members and a tearful
reunion followed, and his psychological energy soared to new
heights.

The first week in India was fantastic. Everything was romantic
and cute - grown men chasing buses with dhoti in one hand and
tiffin carrier on the other hand and jholas on their shoulders,
old, rusty Ambassador cars, large 'Muniammas' with even larger
bindiyas (dots) fighting each other in street corners using the
kind of obscene words that he had only heard in his IIT hostel,
his ex-little neighborette who has now blossomed into something
else. This really was seventh heaven. And the food ! Whoever
synthesized sambhar must be given a Nobel prize in chemistry, he
thought. Imagine, they even named a whole species of deer after
the dish, called sambar deer. Tell me, have you ever heard of
any species, let alone deer, being called 'subji' or even
'aviyal' ?

He even visited his IIT. God, was he living in these tiny little
prison cells for four years? He drank a cup of tea at the dhabha
by the gate at Tarams for old times sake and for the first time
observed how dirty the place actually was. He was a sensation
in the Jamuna hostel. He gave a pep talk to all the aspiring
NRIs, who still have a couple of more years to go before heading
toward the US.  "It is cool. Write to me for info about univs
and schol shols".  Another time he would say "Turbo C is easy to
program in.  Imagine, if Pondy can do it, you guys too can." He
savored every minute of the attention and the open-mouthed awe
that he elicited from his juniors. He even took an auto rickshaw
(scooter rickshaw) to get out of the jungles of IIT Madras to
show off his new found affluence. God, these cute machines !
Whoever invented these rickshaws must have had a sense of humor
to fit them with a funny sounding horn. The way they slime
through the traffic. Maybe I should import one to the US. These
can also double as golf carts when I eventually become a yuppy.

Back at home, his mother was pressuring him to get married. "You
remember the doctor who was living in the next street. You used
to call him Doctor Uncle. He would always give you those pepper
mint candies. His daughter has done BA in Tulu literature ... or
this other girl whose father is an IAS officer and he even owns
half an acre of land.."

"Only half an acre ?"

"Yes, but that is in Saudi Arabia and has an oil well"

"But mom, those are the wrong kind of Saudis. Did you check with
Sridevi's parents"

"Son, but have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately ?
Your grandma is pushing ninety three and she would go happily if
she sees you married and in fact that would be good for me too."

"I am not ready for it".

"I know son. Even if you get married now, it will be years
before the dignity of marriage ever gets to you. Your father is
already retired and we need the dowry money to see us through
our sunset years"

Within a week the pressure was slowly starting to eat into his
cool personality.  Ajay realized that it is a no-win situation
with mothers. They are on the offensive if he goes on the
defensive and they get very defensive if he raised his voice.
Besides he knows that he would say 'yes' to the very first girl
he would meet and might later regret it. He might even end up
being henpecked, just like his dad. And yes, his dad has become
so mellow and friendly that Ajay was actually missing those
intense fights he used to have with him.

Ajay is a product of two cultures - Madras and Bangalore. He was
really hoping to go to Bangalore also. But his Indian Airlines
flight to Bangalore was cancelled and he wasn't even told about
it. In a nutshell, that explained to him what kind of crisis
India is facing these days. 'India should get out of its Third
World mentality' he told himself. And the politicians are making
an even greater mess out of it. What this country needs is a
benign dictatorship, somebody sensible at the top, like himself.
Imagine the plight of India if the only unifying force is
Joachim Martillo.

Suddenly he even felt the heat and humidity of India. He was
craving for the airconditioners. He found the place very dirty,
very crowded. He had to deal with a million crude, rude,
ill-mannered people, all at one time. The traffic was so chaotic
he had the feeling that his next step would be his last. The
food was too spicy, the relatives too nosy. His friends had
drifted too far from him and now every session with them seemed
so artificial. And they were too busy to be with him, most of
the time. With what, he wondered. Lastly, he was even missing
the usual creature comforts like orange juice, deep dish pizzas
and the TV shows. India was also improving, he conceded, after
all, they do telecast Oscars and Emmys these days. But he really
wouldn't be able to stand one more episode of Mahabharat
depicting the Kurukshetra war. He found himself strangely out of
place, all alone. Oh, yes, his mother was always around.

Not that life was too much better in the States. He had his own
pet peeves.  The food for one. His inability to blend into the
culture and learn the rules of American football and never being
able to find out who or what Pat Buchanan was. Did he really fit
in ? Or was he in Limboland ?  Where does he belong ?

He looked up. The old Sri Ganesh Provisions Store, a reknowned
landmark in his neighborhood, had now become Sri Ganesh Computer
Centre. A cow was starting to nibble at his shirt. He pulled
away. He was trying to make sense out of all this.

And it suddenly hit him. Like a thunderbolt. He wasn't unwanted.
He realized that there really was a place where he belonged. His
own place in the sun.  Where he was no longer uncomfortable
about some of the things going on around him.  Where he was
surrounded by people just like him. The world of
Soc.Culture.Indian ! He resolved that the first thing he was
going to do upon getting back is to read a whole month's
postings that would have piled up. The air suddenly seemed to
have cleared and Ajay started humming "Ek do teen char panch
....", unable to figure out where to stop.

Man, isn't he in for a pleasant surprise when he sees his pet
topic, IIT vs Non IIT discussed on the net !
\medskip\hrule\medskip
\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf \ACOUNT\ \ \ MRS PALVAYANTEESWARAN CONTEST}
\centerline{by Mahadevan Ramesh}

It is back to the future. We are talking about year 1999, give
or take a few months. Ajay Palvayanteeswaran is still working on
his Ph.D in Computer Sciences, only all his computer codes
written earlier in 1990 in Turbo C are now being rewritten in
Fuel Injection C. I was just flipping through the archives of
Soc.Culture.Indian. There was this extremely hilarious and
flippant article by Subbarao Kambhampati on Arranged marriages
that sparked a big debate and there was also this serious,
poignant article on a boy interviewing a girl, written by Asjeet
Lamba, which moved me. Anyway, Ajay is now on yet another visit
to India, vowing that he will come back with a wife this time,
even if it is not his own - come what may.

Life was quite difficult just more than a decade ago. Finding a
life mate used to be like searching for the meaning of life.
Now, thanks to 'Indo-American Marital Bliss Inc." (IMB), a new
organization with franchises everywhere, things are absolutely
streamlined and plenty of 'b.s' was cut from the whole process.
Only a few days ago, Ajay called their 1-900 number and they
told him up front what his 'market value' and his going rate
are.  Then he sent his photo and although they quickly lowered
his value, they were eager to serve him and find him a mate.
(One time there was a Halloween Party in Pittsburgh and one of
the gorillas in Pittsburgh zoo attended it, dressed as Ajay
Palvayanteeswaran) 'Don't do dumb impulsive things like suddenly
falling in love and jeopardizing your megachances', a fine print
in the brochure warned him. 'We will assist you. 30 days free
trial.  If not completely satisfied, your money back'.

True to their professional commitment, the organization had
arranged for a massive Swayamwar in Madras for him. His
advertisement drew over three thousand responses, not only from
his community, but also from other neighboring countries such as
Karnataka and Assam. They shortlisted the number of potential
wives to five outstanding 'girls'. Since this went beyond
everyone's wildest expectations, Doordarshan decided to televise
the whole proceedings and thus began the once in a lifetime
"Mrs.  Palvayanteeswaran contest". In fact, if the show proved
to be a hit, they were contemplating about having it every year.

The videotape started rolling. Ajay and his entourage entered
the hall.  Everyone was aware that Ajay has been doing his Ph.D
for a while now and that desi students in the USA in general age
prematurely. But they hadn't quite expected to see a gentleman
with so many grey hairs walking through the thresold with
tentative steps.

The host of the show welcomed him anyways. "Gee, Mr. Eeswaran, I
didn't realize you are such an elderly gentleman ..."

"Move over, you moron. This isn't the 'boy'. This is grandfather
Palvayanteeswaran, the patriarch of the family. We know he looks
pretty young for a ninety seven year old and that it is hard to
tell him from Ajay.  and by the way, he is no gentleman." said
the color commentator, "Hi I am Lala Amarnath, Good evening
listeners, Grandpa has seventy six grandchildren, but Ajay is
his most favorite. They both sit down and play teen patha all
day and smoke cigarettes together"

Now enlightened, the host continued. "Grandpa, This must be an
exciting evening for you, like it is for all of us and the
viewers. Would you like to say something ?"

"Let me see. It was wrong on the part of Sardar Patel to cowtow
the Maharaja of Travancore and force him to leave his kingdom"

"No sir, you are on TV and millions of viewers want to know what
you have to say about this contest."

"What is the point, the Indian cricket team isn't what it used
to be. All these Nissar and C. K. Rangachary are good bowlers
and C. K. Nayudu hits some boundaries. But we will never see the
likes of Duleepsinghji."

"Hee hee, grandpa is sometimes very absent minded. Grandpa, we
are here for the televised arrangement of Ajay's marriage"

"What, that pimple faced, snotty, no good grandson of mine ?
Who in his right mind would want to marry into our family
anyway. I will have two spoons of sugar with my coffee."

\medskip\hrule\medskip

"And don't go away folks, we have a lot to come. This contest is
brought to you by Nirma washing powder and Woodwards gripewater.
The second runner up will receive a hard copy of all of Ajay's
programs. The runner up will get an all expenses paid vacation
to Badrinath and the lucky winner, and girls girls, one of you
will be that fortunate one, will be ... Mrs
Palvayanteeswaran...! There will be several segments to this
contest such as the talent show. The entire brood of
Palvayanteewarans is out there judging the candidates. Just at
this moment, his maternal uncle, the reknowned veterinarian, who
used to judge the camels in the Pushkar cattle show, is looking
into the mouths of all the candidates to check their teeth. And
now folks, 'Let the show begin, Take it away, Lala."

"Thank you. Only a decade ago, the girl hunting process used to
be so inefficient. People would solicit responses and would see
the girls one after another in a serial process. Now thanks to
modern technology, we have a parallel process, all the girls
lined up in one room. Why even in the case of Mohinder .."
ds
"Thank you Lala, Here we are, just about to start our 'Horoscope
matching' show. The first candidate's horoscope is fed into the
Cray supercomputer and it is spitting out the results -
personally supervised by Pandit Lallu Maharaj - the Guru is in
the third house, Sukhra is moving to the fourth and the
horoscopes are matched wonderfully, like dosa and coconut
chutney.  Remarkable. The second candidate is born on a full
moon day and Ajay on a new moon and the Pandit tells us that
this is amazing. The third candidate is a libran and wait, the
computer is printing out a Chinese fortune cookie statement "She
who born under Ribla, wirr mally Cancel, if no mally, wirr
become Mothel Supeliol. Peliod." Wow, this is a close contest
Rara, I mean Lala. The next candidate, wait, the computer is
going crazy.  Folks it has never seen a perfect match like this.
The last candidate, well, it doesn't matter. She has a Green
card"

\medskip\hrule\medskip

Outside the auditorium where the Swayamwar was taking place,
some fools, three women to be exact, were protesting the whole
event.  Passers by were mocking these spoilsports with comments
like "This Madhu Kishwar babe will never learn. What does she
know about exploiting women ? And she thinks she can take on a
multinational like IMB"

\medskip\hrule\medskip

"Thank you Lala, Here, the candidates are being introduced.
Don't they all look great ? Given a choice, Ajay would like to
marry all of them. Here we go."

"Hi, I am Candidate number one. Dr. Anita Anantharaman. I am a
neurosurgeon. My favorite brain surgery is removing the frontal
lobe. I am also equally good at cooking. I use the scalpel to
chop onions. Ha ha. Seriously folks, brain surgery is not much
different from cooking. Today I am trying to be a cardiologist,
wanting to do an open-heart surgery on Ajay and be his wife. I
fell in love with him the moment I saw his cute chest xrays."

"Let us meet the second candidate. Aha, what a lovely, large,
impressive child bearing hip. What is your name, dear?"

"Hello, I am candidate number two, Nerdni Satpathy. I did a B. E
in Bijlee (Electrical Engineering) from MuzzTech (Muzaffarpur
Institute of Technology, MIT) My favorite operating system is
Ultrix. I am here to change Ajay's coordinates into curvilinear"

"Namaskar. I am candidate number three, Muniamma Maniratnam. I
am an M. A in English literature and therefore I look the best
compared to the other non-artsy girls. I am doing a Ph.D on "The
contribution of Stardust magazine and President Bush to the
richness of English language". My favorite sociologist is M. N.
Srinivas. I need no identity except to be Ajay's Missus."

"Candidate number four, you look slightly older, but you claim
to be only nineteen. What is your name and what do you do for a
living ?"

"By the way, don't crack these jokes about old age. This is the
second geriatric joke in less than five paragraphs. Ladies and
gentlemen, I am candidate number four. My name is Madhuri Dixit.
I am a bit actress these days. I acted as Amitabh Bachan's
mother in his latest movie 'Quaatil kaa dil mein aag'. I can
sing and dance. Here is a digitized version of my old hit from
the movie Tezaab, 'Soonya, Ek, Ek, Soonya, Ek, Ek, Ek..', see
didn't I tell you I was a 'bit' actress, hee hee."

"Hi I am a candidate number five and I have a green card".

\medskip\hrule\medskip

Then the hosts grilled Ajay on various matters.

"Mr. Pal, Is it true that the only impressive thing about you is
how quickly you metabolize food? And the only thing you know
about the Iraqi crisis is the Iraqnaphobia joke ?"

"No, no, Lala" Ajay replied, "I am also very good at cracking
weak jokes.  Did you know there is a Richard Nixon library in
California and they only have works of fiction out there. Ha ha,
do you know what is Devi Lal's favorite vehicle ?, the 'Tau
truck', ha ha .."

The prospective father in laws were also allowed to interview
Ajay, as a comic relief. One of them told Ajay.

"Listen Mr. Pavalayatsetaran er Mr. Panvalstewrn er Mr.
Palvan...., I am a vegetarian, underlined, and I don't tolerate
any smoking and absolutely no drinking.."

And Ajay interrupted, "Sir, Question, how about pre-marital sex
?"

Then there were also these human interest soundbites. For example,
the father of yet another candidate told Ajay, "Mr. Ajay, I
guess at some stage or the other, we need to discuss the dowry
terms"

"What dowry. No, no. Dowry is a strict no no in our family"

"No, Mr. Ajay, we absolutely insist. Dowry played a major role
in the marriages of our other older daughters too"

"Please try and understand. I am a modern man and we are almost
in the twenty first century. I refuse to accept dowry"

"Who said anything about us giving dowry. We need dowry from YOU
if you want to be anywhere near our daughter"

\medskip\hrule\medskip 

The talent show was absolutely impressive, to say the least.
Anita performed a wonderful Bharatnatyam-figure-skating on ice.
Nerdni ripped apart the Cray computer with her bare hands and
assembled it in front of the whole audience. Muniamma recited a
very emotional and sensitive article from the Stardust, called
'I am not a bimbo, I am actually quite intel type' by Kimi
Katkar, set to music by the Musician of the Century, Bappi
Lahiri. Madhuri Dixit danced till she almost dropped dead. The
part where she lifted Ajay and swung him around produced a
thunderous applause. Lastly, the final candidate flashed her
green card in a very sensuous and seductive manner that made the
audience go dizzy.

The next act was the State Your Dowry Amount contest, where the
contestants wrote their respective dowries, cash and kind, on a
hidden chalkboard and displayed them later. It was such a close
call that the air was filled with an extra measure of suspense.

Then there was the final act, the swimsuit contest. Ajay had
insisted that his wife should be sexy enough to be featured on
the Playboy centerspread, but should be old fashioned enough to
never even think along these lines.  The 'girls' looked like
goddesses from some old telugu movie, in their pathbreaking
swimsuits - the newest bikini-dhupata combo, micro saree,
diaper, the Swimpsonsuit, ad nauseum.

Then the appointed moment came after yet another commercial
break. As millions of desi viewers waited with bated garlic
breath, grandpa Palvayanteeswaran handed over an envelope
containing the name of the winner. All eyes were moist, the five
'girls' were veritable nervous wrecks. And the winner is ....


\medskip\hrule\medskip
\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  A Rose for Palvayanteeswaran}
\centerline{  Narayan Raja}

\centerline{  (This story is dedicated, with admiration, to Ramesh Mahadevan.}

"DisGUSTing!" mutters Ramesh, but without much conviction.  After
all, he's almost getting used to little snips of moustache float-
ing in his tea.  Palvayanteeswaran shaves on  Saturdays,  leaving
the  bathroom  door  open  without fail, and usually finishes up,
with many grimaces, by carefully trimming the hair  in  his  nos-
trils.  On such occasions he takes a little water in any mug that
is handy and uses it to moisten the tip of his  scissors  between
snips,  casually  rinsing  the mug afterwards.  It used to madden
Ramesh, but no longer.  When Palvayanteeswaran  first  moved  in,
fresh  from  India, coffee mugs had a habit of being found in the
bathroom suspiciously often, and Ramesh more than  suspected  him
of  indulging  an  Indian's natural distaste for paper at the ex-
pense of irredeemably defiling the drinking utensils.  "My grand-
father  used  to say that nothing purifies like water", Palvayan-
teeswaran had said defensively when confronted.  And  later,  "Do
you  know  that  Ganges  water  destroys  germs?  Scientists have
proved it."

Not surprising, then, that Ramesh  nowadays  lets  mere  whiskers
pass  unremarked, especially when it is Palvayanteeswaran who has
made the tea.  They both prefer coffee, but that special stock of
Peaberry  from Ramesh's uncle's recent trip to India is all gone.
Palvayanteeswaran's friends ( a pack of louts) will drink no oth-
er.   They  are  connoisseurs of good South Indian coffee.  Today
Palvayanteeswaran is up early.  He has been scurrying  round  the
house  since nine.  "Ramesh, can I borrow your iron?" "A pressing
appointment"  Ramesh  jokes.   Palvayanteeswaran  bustles  about,
irons  his  clothes  (putting a sharp crease in his jeans), has a
bath.  "Palvayanteeswaran, why do you iron your  underwear?"   "I
always  do".  You idiot, I know it.  The question is, why? thinks
Ramesh.

Someone at the door.  It is Palvayanteeswaran's crude friend  Ra-
jiv, Mr. Macho himself.  They both arrived in Fall and are taking
a lot of courses together.  "GOOD  MORNING,  HOW  ARE  YOU?"   he
says,  playfully  poking  at  Ramesh's newspaper. Ramesh hates it
when loud-voiced visitors arrive early on Saturday  mornings  and
prod  with  thick  fingers at his newspaper.  Why does this Rajiv
always talk in capitals?  Now he has picked up some pages.  "LAZY
BUGGERS",  he  remarks,  looking  at the photographs.  There is a
sit-in in the Administration building.  "Did you  bother  to  see
why  they are protesting?" asks Ramesh sourly, "the campus is ab-
solutely unsafe for women  after  dark".   "IT'S  STILL  A  MEN'S
WORLD, HA HA", Rajiv smirks.

Rajiv is eager to tell them about the  movie  he  saw  yesterday.
"YAAR, IT WAS CALLED "DO THE RIGHT THING".  ALL THESE BLACKS BURN
DOWN A PIZZA HUT" he says.  Get it over with.  "Did you  like  it
or  not?"   "SO-SO.   ONE GOOD CHICK".  If you ever make a movie,
thinks Ramesh, it will be called "Say the Wrong Thing".  You nev-
er  fail.   Now  Palvayanteeswaran is polishing his shoes.  Rajiv
notices the pile of ironed clothes.  "KYA BAAT HAI!  KISI KO LINE
MAARTA  HAI  KYA?"   "I'm  supposed to teach someone statistics",
says Palvayanteeswaran, not looking up.  Silence. So  you  polish
your  shoes  to  discuss statistics?  Iron your underwear?  Don't
give me that, Palvayanteeswaran.  "It's  this  girl  from  my  AI
class",  Palvayanteeswaran  explains.   "We  are  just  friends".
Silence.   "Her name  is  Linda.   She just wants to discuss  the
homework.   Bayes  rule".   Yeah.  A  posteriori,  thinks  Ramesh
lecherously, surprising himself.  Am I becoming a Khushwant Singh
in   my   old  age?  Palvayanteeswaran combs his hair.  That hair
oil is a  mistake,  Palvayanteeswaran.  Too  late.    Now   Rajiv
has to go.  There is an important program on  the  Playboy  Chan-
nel.  "SAALA, HEADS OR TAILS?" he leers.   Palvayanteeswaran   is
leaving too.

Six in the evening, and Palvayanteeswaran is back.  Looking gloo-
my,  he  rinses out a shampoo bottle and carefully puts a rose in
it. Ramesh leaves him alone.  "Tell me, Ramesh, what do Americans
do  when   they   go on  a date?" Palvayanteeswaran finally asks.
"They go dancing or to see  a  movie".   "What  sort  of  movie?"
"Americans  always  go  to horror movies with their girlfriends",
explains Ramesh.  "Simple.  You tend to cuddle up more if  you're
watching  "Nightmare  on  Elm Street"".  Another silence.  What's
bothering the boy?  Ramesh feels somehow  responsible   for  him.
"She  wanted  to  kiss me!" says Palvayanteeswaran  agitatedly at
last.  "I told her, I'm not that kind of person.  She said I  was
sweet and bought me a rose".  Even Ramesh is impressed.  He makes
tea for both of them.  As the sky grows  dark  they  sit together
in  silence,  companionably watching TV.  The news from Berlin is
interesting.   A   momentous   day.    Palvayanteeswaran's  first
date.
\medskip\hrule\medskip
\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  AN ALGORITHMIC APPROACH }
\centerline{\bf TO MODERN TAMIL VERSE}
\centerline{  by Mahdevan Ramesh}

I was sitting down with a bottle of booze, with my good friend
Chiddy and we decided to 'test drive' the latest craze from
Madras, Raghuman's latest musical hits from the movie 'Pudhiya
mugam' (?).  There was a very catchy song that went 'Kannukku mai
azhagu, kavidhaikku poi azhagu'.  The words sounded very
interesting and so we tuned to the words more than the tune
itself, as we listened on.

As the song progressed into very pedestrian extension of the
first line, I was shocked to find a line that went 'Avvaikku goon
azhagu'.  (Stoop beautifies Avvaiyar, the ancient tamil poetess)
I wonder if Avvaiyar should have a say in the matter or would
find her osteoporosis cute.  Then there were more inane lines
like 'Thayukku sey azhagu'.  (Kid beautifies a mother) The
bottomline is, the whole thing was very predictable and quite
algorithmic !  So, if anyone out there is desperate to make
verses, here are some simple algorithms, based on the Vairamuthu
formulae.

Algorithm number 1 is very simple.  Just take any object.  Think
for a second and discover one of its attributes.  It doesn't
matter if there is anything creative or poetic about the
attribute and the object.  You simply say 'Object-kku attribute
azhagu'.  For example,

Rasathukku uppazhagu, vishathukku warning azhagu
pazhathukku juice azhagu, kizhathukku thadi azhagu

(Salt beautifies rasam; 'warning' beautifies poison;
juice beautifies a fruit and a walking stick beautifies
an old person)

You can carry this one step further and compose the next stanza,

Wire-kku current azhagu Vaigaikku karai azhagu
Vayatrukku thoppul azhagu, vairathukku muthazhagu

(current is cute for the wire
bank is cute for Vaigai river
bellybutton is cute for the belly
and diamond is cute for pearl)

Here, the 'Vaigai' line is important - so that old fashioned,
conventional guys are satisfied that you are not Picasso-like
modernist when it comes to crafting verses.  And 'vairathukku
muthazhagu' is one of those phrases you quietly slip in, hoping
that no one would analyze it, because it sounds 'meaningful' and
cute itself, even though it doesn't mean a damn thing.

Even the name 'Vairamuthu' (the name of the poet who came up with
'kannukku mai azhagu' and thousands of other songs) seems
extremely phony and nonsensical.  It probably sounds very poetic
and senthamizhish.  It is highly likely that the poet stumbled on
this one fine day and decided it was better than his
mom-pop-given name of perhaps Ananthagopalasanthanasubramanian,
especially if he were to make his bucks in the film world.
'Vairam' is diamond and 'Muthu' is pearl.  And I can't see
anything common between them, except that both are used in
jewelry and that too, perhaps not in the same jewel.  I can't see
any material parameters common to both of them.  And here, the
poet uses Vairam as an adjective to Muthu, that is, he is looking
for Vairam like qualities in Muthu (could it be hardness or
surface electrical conductivity ?)  and for the world of me, I
can't decipher this name.  I am sure, Vairamuthu can quickly cook
up some etymology for this name.  If there is actually a kind of
pearl called Vairamuthu, I will eat my words and take all these
back.

In creating nonsense phrases, Vairamuthu is probably a man
without rivals.  Its almost like the Japanese car companies
coming up with meaningless names like Altra or Sentra for their
cars, which somehow sound genuine.  For example, during one
period, he was using 'Paadhame Suprabaatham'.  ('Your feet are
Suprabaatham') It sounds very nice and rhythmic, except, when you
try to figure it out, you go nowhere.  Again, I am sure, the poet
has a long winded explanation for such usage.  But then, if it is
so tough for us people to dig his poetry and we always have to
rush to him, what is the point writing something like this ?

I know 'movie songs' are not exactly vehicles for writing
creative poetry.  Even Bharatiyar might compose songs like
'Lovunna lovuu, man ennai stovuu' if twenty five film producers
were chasing him with money.  But, lets quickly take a look at
Vairamuthu's magnum opus, 'Ilaya nila pozhigirathu'.

First of all, what is 'ilaya nila' ?  Is it the moon right after
new moon, lets say the third or the fourth phase ?  or is it moon
at the beginning of the evening ?  And what does it 'pozhinjify'
?  Isn't pozhigirathu a transitive verb requiring a noun or a
noun clause (direct object) ?  If Vairamuthu had his way, the age
old song which went 'Amudhai pozhiyum nilave' would be simply
reduced to 'Pozhiyum nilave, nee arugil varaadhadhu eno ?'

The rest of the song meanders around disjointedly from one
subject to another and at one place he writes, 'Mugilinangal
alaigiraTHU, mugavarigal tholaindhanavo'.  What exactly is
'Mugilinangal' ?  'Kinds of clouds' like Cumulonimbus and Cirrus
?  All occurring simultaneously in the sky ?  Or was he simply
implying a 'lot of clouds' ?  In which case, why is he mixing
singular and plural ?  Isn't it 'AlaiginDRANA', especially when
the plural also goes with the tune ?  Why didn't he mix singular
and plural in the second part of the line ?  If this can be
accepted as simple 'poetic license', I guess, he will not get his
poetic license in the state of Colorado.

Now lets go back to Ilayaraja-Vairamuthu era.  Here is algorithm
2, to compose 'old' Vairamuthu songs.  In the following section,
just choose one word each from columns 1, 2 and 3 and bingo, you
have an early Vairamuthu song.

\begin{verbatim}
Column 1         Column 2        Column 3

Raaja               Mullai         kaathirukku
Deva                Idhazh         poothirukku
Raathiri            Roja           paathirukku
Pesiya              Maan           vizhithirukku
Azhagu              Jeevan         sethirukku
                    Boogambam      sirichirukku
                    minnal         pozhinjirukku
                                   verthirukku

For example,

Azhagu minnal kaathirukku
Deva mullai sirichirukku
Pesiya jeevan paathirukku
Raaja idhazh verthirukku      and so forth.
\end{verbatim}

Remember, 'Vervai' is one of Vairamuthu's favorite words.  One
only presumes the poet does not refer to an athlete's
post-marathon sweat, but something sexier.

I have read a lot of his prose and I found it to be excellent.
He is certainly a talented person.  So Vairamuthu fans, no
personal insults, please !  But, like most of us, he too has sold
his soul for money.  He is just an emperor without clothes.  But
instead, we simply call him the greatest of modern day poets.  At
any rate, it is always easy to make fun of someone else.

This reminds me of that story (shall I say 'fictional story',
just to invent a new phrase, a la Vairamuthu ?)  about this old
Pulavar whose name was Anonymous.  He was probaby the first poet
to use algorithmic approach to tamil poetry.  He went to the
Pallava king in Kanchipuram and sang 'Nagareshu Kaanchi'.
(Trans:  'Of all cities, Kanchipuram is IT !') The king was
tickled to death and awarded the poet four hundred gold coins.
After a few days of Pallava hospitality, the poet went to the
Chola kingdom and had an audience with the king and sang
'Nagareshu Tanjai' (Trans:  'Of all cities, Thanjavur is IT') and
the Chola king was very thrilled and gave the poet a lot of money
and made him his Arasavai Pulavar for a whole month.  After
which, the Pulavar went to the Pandiya kingdom and sang
'Nagareshu Madurai' and later, went on to became very famous in
history for having composed similar such poems about many other
cities.

\vfill\eject

\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  AALOO MATTAR MADE EASY}
\centerline{by Mahadevan Ramesh}

Folks, in this post I will give you an alogrithm to make your
very own pot of Aaloo Mattar, with a slight variation on the
main recipe. For those of you who reckon Indian dishes in
western terminologies, this is the same as Curried Potatoes and
Peas in a creamy sauce with tomatoes and fresh coriander. It may
sound a little odd for a South Indian to give the recipe for a
typically North Indian dish - sort of like males trying to sing
Meera Bhajans. But let the finger-licking results speak for
themselves.

Let us start with chopping about five medium sized onions. My
grandmother always told me that you can tell a lot about a
person by the way he or she chopped onions. I mean there are
those machisimos who shed no tears while chopping them by the
dozens, the impressionists-cubists who refine it to an artform
and the messy ones. Hold the onion by their non-bushy end, chop
the hairy cap off. Oops, you should have kept your finger
slightly away from the knife. It is always easy to peel off the
skin once the onion is cut into two halves. Make those
longitudinal incisions first and then while holding the onion
firmly and gently, make perpendicular cuts. Make sure the
pieces are finely chopped. Then chop about two tablespoons of
fresh ginger and about five cloves of garlic. Chop fresh
coriander and set aside a third of it for later garnishing.
Don't forget the tomatoes. Take about three of them and chop
them finely.

It is potato time now. Nothing seems so commonplace and lowly
like the potatoes. (Well, actually there are tinda, louky and
parwal - I apologize to people who don't know hindi, but the
names of these vegetables defy any english translation) In our
lifetimes we would have consumed about two tons of this bore.
But, folks, remember to treat them with some respect.  It may
come as a surprise to you, but in the ancient times, potatoes
were considered to be aphrodisiacs in India and were cultivated
everywhere. This can be evidenced from an ancient sanskrit
couplet:

\begin{verbatim}
       Aalookam svetam, maha subjikam
       Kaamam agnim, sampoorna nirvanam

(Translation: "White potato, great vegetable
               [results in] firy passion, joy unimcompletable")
\end{verbatim}

You don't believe me, right ? Have you ever stopped and wondered
why there are so many Indians in this world ?

Well, chop about five potatoes to bite size pieces. Saute them
in medium heat in oil or margarine or a little butter, turning
them every once in a while. Set aside when they are browned.
Indian cooking is always done at low to medium heat and you take
all the time in the world about it. One wrong move, you would
have already made a gravy error of gastronomical proportions.
Self, for example, is a slow cooker, not a 'pressure' cooker.

Now heat some oil in a pot and when slightly heated, add a
teaspoon of jeera.  (and don't pronounce it as 'kyoomin', it is
'cummin') When the seeds crackle, add the onions and fry in
medium heat till they almost become brown (about five minutes)
add the tomatoes and fry for a while (about ten to twenty
minutes) till the whole thing becomes one solid glob with oil
separating out on the sides. When it is almost on the verge of
getting burnt, add ginger-garlic, coriander. Don't forget to
keep stirring.  Add also ten cloves, about six cardamoms (or one
black elaichi) two teaspoons of coriander powder and about three
(broken) two-inch sticks of cinnamon and cook for additional two
minutes. Cinnamon always has a special place in a tamilian's
life. Ajay Palvayanteeswaran, for example, uses the cinnamon
sticks to pick his teeth. Cinnamon stick was also an election
symbol for one of the kazhagams. Anyways, once all this is
fried, set aside and let it cool a while.

Then blend this mix in a blender, in two installments if
necessary, to a coarse, but homogeneous pulp, with an 8 Oz of
whipping cream. (you can find this in the dairy section) For a
change, you can add ten almonds while blending. Then return the
blent glob to the pot. Heat it to medium low, add water, 6 Oz of
tomato paste, about a teaspoon and a half of chili powder, salt
to taste and stir it to homogenize. Add water to make your gravy
watery or thick. Add the potatoes and also a cup of thawed
frozen peas. Cover the top and let it cook and stir every once
in a while, with tender loving care.  Don't stand too close to
the pot, my dear, or you will get those little red spots
splattered all over your white shirt.  You will see that the
gravy changes color from a dull rose to an appetizing brown.
When you think it has cooked enough, take it off and let it
cool.  Check for spicyness. Since this has a lot of cream and
tomato paste, it may taste a little weak for some bold people.
In that case, add some more spices and let it cook some more.
Garnish with chopped coriander.

This is also a generic gravy to which you can add other things
and make other dishes. Instead of potatoes, you can add
bite-sized chicken pieces shallow-fried in butter. Or, you can
bake riccotta cheese in a cookie tray at 250 degrees for a half
an hour and cut it into small paneer cubes and fry them in
butter and make mattar paneer. See, it is simple.

It would be splendid if someone chronicled the greatest moments
in the history of Indian cooking. Like the time the prototype of
an Aaloo paratha was made in that unassuming dhabha in Ambala
district, or when a gentleman of unknown origin thought of
adding a layer of silver foil to badaam barfi.

There was also this story associated with the great Mughal
emperor, Shahanshah Akbar. One autumn day, the emperor was
getting bored.  There were no more wars to be fought, his
subjects were more or less happy and he was growing tired of
discussions on religion. So he convened his royal court and told
Tansen to compose an utterly new Raag, his court jester Birbal
to come up with a new joke and his royal Chef, Munna Lal to
create the most exotic dish - all within twenty four hours. The
next day, Tansen enthralled the great emperor with his new
creation, which has later come to be called Raag Miya Ki Todi.
Munna crafted a fine pot of Rajma.  And, that by the way, was
also Birbal's joke. Of course, it is only a minor historical
footnote that Munna was summarily executed the next day for his
affront.  His recipes are lost forever, except for some in the
hands of his descendants, who form the famed Kanpur Gharana,
some of whom work as cooks in IIT Kanpur.

And friends, like most Indian dishes, Aaloo Mattar too tastes
better the next day, after a little fermentation. Reheat it
slowly, since the dish would have become quite solid after
sitting in the fridge overnight. And as always, remember to
share it with your friends. Enjoy !
\vfill\eject

\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  Another Desi Legend}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}

We live in curious times. There was a post right here on the SCI, claiming that
Rig Veda was rigged. The Times of India reports that there are two 
Lexus cars in Bombay. One is owned by, (as of a few months ago) by Harshad 
Mehta and he loved his Lexus the most of all the cars in his fleet of 23 cars. 
My cousin Mahesh, who just recently came to this country from India, has
settled down admirably in Philadelphia. In fact, he told me that one of his
classmates, who also came here about two weeks ago, has already applied and
got a Citibank Visa credit card. Trust these IIT Madras guys to do these
things. And do you know that by 1994, all non-desis entering New Jersey will be
required to obtain a visa ? 

But this post isn't about all these. It is about a piece of history.

\centerline{\bf ANOTHER DESI LEGEND}

The year 1973 was some kind of a wonder year in history. It was somewhat
similar to the year 1972 and was a precursor to the year 1974. The Vietnam war
was coming to a climactic finish. Nixon was shakily administering a second
term. Eating salads had suddenly become a rage. And Pooja Bedi's parents were
contemplating about making Pooja Bedi. 

Meanwhile, somewhere in a smelly, steamy TV factory in Illinois, Mr. John Smith 
had just finished tightening the last screw on a massive console TV set. He
caressed the set affectionately and put a sticker which said 'Checked by 
Inspector \# 9'. He then turned the TV on. Satisfied, he muttered "She ain't 
goin' to sound better or look better. No sirree, I'm telling you". He lit up a 
cigarette and then went home to a cold bottle of Pabst beer and high cholestrol
dinner. He was laid off a couple of years later when the USA stopped 
manufacturing TVs.   

Which is how the TV was shipped to Pittsburgh and displayed prominently in an
appliance store. Mr and Mrs Brown, who were expecting their first baby in a
few months, fell in love with the TV set the moment they looked at it. The
salesman told them how wonderful it was. "It can do everything except
washing dishes" he told them." Next year they might not make these beauties.
And even if they do, the price will go up at least by a hundred dollars."
Convinced, they hauled the TV in their father's truck and set it in the living
room. Mrs Brown would watch 'General Hospital' and Mr. Brown would watch 
baseball games. In a short ten years, the Browns felt that the TV had served 
them well and wanted to get a new set. Realizing a ten year old TV probably 
had no resale value, they donated it to their church. Which is how the TV 
ended up in the 'Rummage sale' in the corner church, organized especially to
help the new International students. 

Ajay Palvayanteeswaran had just arrived from India to join school in 
Pittsburgh. His uncle, who is a 'Mayflower' desi and president of the Greater 
New York Tamil Association, had advised him over the phone to watch out for 
such Garage Sales and Rummage Sales. So, at the crack of dawn, Ajay and his two
roommates showed up at the church, waited till they opened the 'sale'. One
look at the huge 25 inch console television in the far corner, they flipped
for it and doled out ten dollars per head and bought it outright. They carried
it on their heads to their apartment complex, affectionately known as 'Daravi'
(Pittsburgh guys, how is Daravi doing these days ?) and gently crept through
the rickety staircase. After much debating, they set it up at the most
central spot, plugged it in and after three minutes of 'warm-up', the TV 
sprang to life and there was much joy in Ajay's apartmenthold afterward. He 
called his classmates, wingmates, hostelmates and told them about the wonderful
purchase he had just made.

The TV altered their lives immensely. All their twenty odd years of learning
about the world, years and years of IIT education - were nothing compared to 
how 
much they learnt through the TV. It seemed like there was a whole wide world 
outside and the TV was the window to it. Everyday, after 5.00 PM, all the fresh 
desis would congregate in Ajay's apartment, occupy vantage points in front of 
the TV and spend quality time together. Being a harmonious group, they took 
turns cooking and sitting on the best seat in the house.

They got hooked to the Channel 6 local news. They liked the woman anchor
especially and realized that she changed her hairstyle every two days. Also,
when all the news guys suddenly started cracking PJs and kidding each other,
the new desis realized that weather report would be coming next. The fresh
graduate students laughed in unison watching 'Cosby Show', were mesmerized
into watching 103 consecutive hours of synchronized swimming, David Letterman
and the hostage crisis in South West Pennsylvania. They loved the commercials
and sometimes, they watched some shows just for the commercials. Some days 
they wouldn't even answer the phone if an interesting show was on. 
Occassionally, when there was a show on India, they would call all their 
buddies and organize that evening into a cultural event.

On weekends, Ajay's apartment would transform into the epicenter of paradise.
The other desis who lived in the other apartments of Daravi, would cook spicy 
subjis and
take them to Ajay's place. Someone else would rent a video player and they
would sit down and watch 'Sholay'. The apartment complex would reverberate
to the sounds of twenty odd people shouting 'Teenon mar gayen'. In the middle
of everything, the 'Lakshmi Talkies' would have an intermission and Ajay, who
made the best chai this side of Mississippi, would proceed to make two dozen
cups of tea. A fun time was had by all. On special evenings, 'Lakshmi Talkies' 
went XXX and dirty movies were shown. 

Life moved on. After three years, the three roommates split. It was time for
the TV to go. They sold it to a bunch of freshies for twenty bucks.

\medskip\hrule\medskip

Which is how Srini and his three roommates got the TV. They moved it ever so
carefully, one floor up. It brought paroxysms of joy to the four of them. Two
microseconds after the TV was plugged in, they called their hostelmates,
wingmates, classmates and told them about their new purchase. 

Somebody conned them into buying a cable connection and a remote control.
The joy of watching TV got multiplied twenty folds. Unfortunately, around this
time, the roommates realized that the TV was finally showing signs of old
age. One day they noticed that almost all the football teams looked like
Washington Redskins and there was an orange glow all across the screen, like 
in the movie 'Parindha'. One day, the picture suddenly died. The roommates let
go a pitiful scream and panicked. Instinctly, Srini gave a gentle tap on 
the left side of the TV. Miraculously the TV came back to life. Pretty soon, 
the picture started disappearing on a regular basis, especially at the most 
interesting moments of TV watching. It was quite annoying to say the least.
The four dudes had by now become experts at hitting the TV and resuscitating 
it. They knew exactly where the 'sweet spot' was and how hard to hit it. 
Srini would lie spreadeagled in front of the TV, with the TV between his legs.
When the picture disappeared, he would give it a violent kick and bring it
back to life, without losing any time. 

Occassionally the roommates fought and they would stoop low and criticize each
other's TV watching habits. 
 
"You, nervous, channel flipping, psychotic son of a ..." one would say.

"And what about you ? Discovery channel-watching, girraffe-mating-watching-on
public TV. Its like pot calling kettle black."

"Oh ya, who watches golf on TV and who watches saturday morning cartoons and
'The Sound of Music' three times a year." Ad infinitum.

Finally, when it was time to finish their Masters, they handed over the TV to
their juniors Bala and his roommates, who had just arrived from India.

\medskip\hrule\medskip

Which is how Bala got the TV. By now, the video was completely gone and if
lucky, they would see a line horizontally across the screen. It still provided
audio.

"Bala, what I am giving to you today is not just a TV" a tearful Srini said, 
as he handed over the TV.

"I know" replied the newest student, Bala. "I know I can use it as a desk or
maybe even as a large cutting board."

"No, idiot" Srini corrected him. "This TV is like a family jewel. You know
the Desi
community is like a whirlpool, a blackhole and it sucks everything into it.
TVs, cars, bicycles, you name it. Once it is absorbed into the community, it
never escapes the desi circles. Hindu theologists would call this 'Karma' and
history dudes would call this history repeating itself. Take this apartment 
for example. It has been handed down from one desi generation to the next, 
without a break for the past two decades and the landlord hasn't cleaned it 
even once. We guys are the biggest conservationists. We cycle and cycle and 
cycle and if anything is left after that, we even recycle. So, machi, I hereby
hand over the baton to you. Treat her well. Let the TV be handed over to the
future Balas and Srinis and Palvayanteeswarans. Enjoy."

They wiped their tears off. Bala called his classmates, wingmates, hostelmates
and told them about the free TV. He called a local friend also. "Why don't you
come to my place tonight, Machi ? We can both have dinner and LISTEN to TV."

\medskip\hrule\medskip
PS: Since this post is based on a true story, does anyone in Pittsburgh know
where this TV is at present ?

\vfill\eject

\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  AT LEAST PRIVATIZE IIT KANPUR}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}

What a great idea ! Privatizing the IITs. Why not ? The
government will be able to get rid of this white elephant, (with
due apologies to elephants) and can actually redirect the money
saved toward more productive and welfare-oriented programs, such
as implementing the use of hindi/tamil numerals in high school
algebra or erecting statues for every politician that ran our
country.

Seriously folks, someone in Delhi actually listened to the
bboard suggestion and during one of the National Front
in-fighting sequence, somebody actually slipped a legislation to
privatize the IITs. Some members were horrified at the thought
and so they decided to do it step by step - privatize the least
productive and most boring IIT first and see how it worked.
That's how IIT Kanpur went private.

A NRI group purchased IIT Kanpur for an undisclosed amount, a
sum which was still smaller than what they pay the basketball
players. They promptly renamed the premier institution as Indian
Institute of Software Technology to reflect what it actually
does for most parts. It was estimated that by the year 2010 AD,
the entire population of India will be writing software for
Indian and American companies. This NRI group had a tie-in with
several corporations and universities in the US to supply the
brains (unfortunately with the bodies as well) that are always
in demand. This same NRI group was also going to build the
Indian Disneyland.

JEE entrance exams were substituted by Advanced SAT exams and
the Agarwal and Brilliant Tutorials ran special coaching
classes. The exam was administered only in English and Bhojpuri.
The english too was more American than British; for example the
application form asked if the candidate was a 'dude' or a
'babe'. Rich kids with even richer parents who could show a
proof of possessing \$ 100000.00 only were considered and not
surprisingly, this did not affect the usual bunch of people who
would apply anyways. This was waived for most students since the
NRI group would get a hefty commission for placing the students
in the USA and that would more than compensate for the expenses
involved in running a behemoth like IIT Kanpur. 

IIT Kanpur, like any other coroporate entity, was administered
by a new management, with MBA types running the administrative
building instead of Bhaiya Lals and Munna Lals. The new style of
management could be evidenced from the way these 'Financial
Assistants' would say 'Have a nice day' after collecting the \$
4000.00 per semester fee.

Several infrastructural changes were implemented. The food
service improved greatly. Rajhma was banned from the menu. The
green slimy daal Mughalai, Louki sambhar and tinda subji were
removed. Hamburgers and pizzas were introduced. Women hostesses
instead of thug looking, insubordinate mess servants were
employed. The traditional 'night milk saaab' cries were replaced
by a town crier shouting 'Night cap saaab'. The canteens gave
way to trendy pubs where ideas and home assignment solutions
were exchanged. The all purpose departmental store run by the
Mahir mafia family was finally closed shut, replaced by a Seven
Eleven store. The two or three paan shops were replaced by paan
vending machines. The State Bank of India, IITK branch, which
has hitherto been untouched by the modern electronic banking
techniques and which was closed down for three hours in the
afternoon everyday for the workers to take a nap, was also gone.


Stray dogs which used to migrate from the Kanpur city toward IIT
in search of plentyful food and wayward monkeys which used to
have sex outside classrooms on hot afternoons, were dealt with
severly. But they had to stop this cruel act because they
couldn't tell the students apart from these creatures. NCC and
NSS were wiped out, although the students could join the Peace
Corps and RCA music club. The Student Films Society was one
thing that even the powerful corporation could not clean up and
they still kept showing the eighteenth century movies to huge
crowds of students.

The NRI group was going to build a huge wall around the campus
with moats and control towers, but then they realized that there
exists a great insulating wall between the IITs and the rest of
India, anyway.  Cultural festivals were replaced by Software
workshops. Dress codes were introduced.  Anybody wandering into
the mess hall in underwear, which used to be the norm earlier
on, were summarily punished.  Three pieces and earrings were
'in' and brief cases replaced the jholas.  Professors were
brought from all over the world and were paid for in dollars and
with the promise that the students wouldn't be allowed to ask
any questions to which they don't know the answer. The students
competed fiercely with each other as always, breaking into each
other's codes and not telling their real GPA to their friends.
The good students were rewarded with positive reinforcements
such as hot water during winter and preferential seating in the
mess hall. The bad students were simply laid off. Students
wasting time and resources on useless activities like studying
Indian history or philosophy or music or social problems in
their spare microseconds were promptly chastized and sent to one
week reeducation camps dubbed 'Know your parent corporation'. 

The NRI group came upon an interesting idea to increase the
productivity of its students. They established an all female
Fine Arts College on campus to inspire the students. The female
Fine Arts students were admitted only after a strict physical
examination. They even had cheerleaders to egg on the IITians
during some crucial final exams. Healthy interaction between the
sexes took place between quizzes, all around in the picturesque
campus by the Ganges. Nearby idyllic villages of Kalyanpur and
Nankari proved to be the settings for some teenage romances. At
last, the ghazwalis (women who cut grass) from the nearby
villages were able to do their job in peace without being
harassed by the IIT students.

Those of you who attended IIT Kanpur know that the IIT is the
number one tourist spot in Kanpur. The parent corporation was
aware of this and quickly cashed in on this. Flashy tourist
brochures were issued touting it as Kanpur's vacation paradise.
Tourists could actually spend a week there and visit the
computer center and the labs, the Fantasyland and the Monkey
Jungle. They could hobnob with the Assistant professors and
feast in the gourmet mess kitchens. IIT Kanpur was well known
for its night life and nightspots like the library got a face
lift to tap those extra tourist dollars.

The impact of the new, privately managed IIT on India was
tremendous.  Everyone was happy. The Indian government never
heard the complaint about breeding elitism and even Devi Lal
could not accuse it of promoting urbanism using government
money. In fact, the tax revenue generated from the NRI run IIT
was so large that they were thinking of privatizing other IITs
and to make them 'Export Only'. The corporation that was running
the IIT was obviously quite happy and was already negotiating
with the USSR in their privatization of Moscow University. The
earnings after taxes were growing so fast that they established
a permanent Mochi (cobbler) shop for Gangu Mochi under his tree.
The professors were happy, the dry cleaners were happy, SCI was
happy and Joachim Martillo was happy. And the students, of
course, were the happiest of all, envy of the world, apples of
the eye. Some of them were even featured on a TV ad, with
jingles like 'IIT Kanpur, good to the last dropout'.

\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  OVERHEARD}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}

Ring. Ringgggg. RRRRRING.

"Hello, this is Ram Shandran speaking ..."

"Ho ho ho, Abhey Sidey, this is Ajay Palvayanteeswaran. So you
might as well cut out that American accent"

"Mama Miya, PJ, you sonava gun, how the hell are you ?"

"By the way, don't call me PJ any more. These days people call
me AJ or Pal.  I am doing fine, of course, and I just talked to
Srini"

"Ohhhhhh. That bugger ! What's that bugger up to these days"

"That bugger is now a great debugger. He has already written a
software that the FBI, IBM, CIA and AAA are interested in"

"This reminds me of Pondy. That bugger has built an antenna that
you plug onto your car and that would transmit all the gaalis
you give to the car in front very clearly to the driver in
front. And they won't know where it is coming from. There's a
solid demand for it in LA area"

"Talking of Gopal, this bugger Gupta ..."

"Which Gupta, Sexy Gupta or the other one"

"I mean the nonsexy Gupta. He is going to quit after his
Masters. He is completing his masters in just eight months, a
record in our department and he already has 68 job offers. He
was always a smart-alec. Remember he would put all our
professors to shame. He had 922 scholarship offers. Even here,
his advisor is going to quit and become a hamburger flipper"

"You know about this bugger, Chengy, the guy who made his own
mobike in Madras from scrap aluminum cans, he bought a car for
just two hundred bucks, an old Ferrari. It is giving him about
forty miles per gallon and that is within the city. He did some
body work on it and now it is worth over thirty grand"

"He must be getting a lot of chicks then. Talking about chicks,
this guy Prakash is dating three of the cutest women on campus.
In fact, he is so much in demand that he switches off his phone
and screens his calls. He took out five different babes just
last week, including Tammy Faye Bakker"

"Machi, that's so interesting. By the way, Ranga from Ganga,
Ramana from Jamuna and Chandaks from Mandaks are now roommates
and they have a deadly stereo system. It is rated at 22000 watts
and their CD player even washes dishes and they bought the whole
system for only \$ 202.99 because the electronics store was
restocking goods. Chandaks lagaoed so much fundas the stores
manager was hazzaar impressed and gave him the CD player away"

"Wow, talking about bargains, Sam Bansal got a fantastic deal to
go home to India. He got it from Air Somalia and he has a
stopover at Haiti and Borkina Faso and N. Yemen. His travel
dates will be finalized as soon as the rebels reopen the
airport. But for three hundred buck round trip, you can't beat
it. That guy from Hyderabad, he looks like a waiter in a desi
restaurant, I forget his name, yes, Hitler, he went home to
India and managed to take with hime five suitcases by doing some
golmaal. He had two IBM PCs, a fax machine, three VCRs and a
camcorder and managed to walk through the green channel in the
customs. By the way, even I am thinking of going home this
summer. I want to stop by in some European capital. Can you
suggest any cities ?"

"Machi, if you really want something different, maybe you should
try Tirana, capital of Albania. I am told they have old world
values and they still have bullock carts and stuff"

"Machi, talking about Europe, did you know the German wall has
come down? I didn't even know they had one. These Lithania
buggers are doing some agitation, shegitation. I hear even the
Kashmir buggers are doing some demo shemo"

"What can I say. All these guys in India, they have no work,
nothing. They always do things like this. I am tired of
listening to these things. You want real news from India, Rekha
got married machi. I actually observed a day of mourning and
downed a bottle of Scotch. Her hubby looks like the backside of
a water buffalo. There you go machi. Only idiots get sexy
chicks. You are going to marry a stunner."

"Ha Ha. That Reddy guy used to go around with her. He was going
around with everyone in Bombay film world."

"Machi, another news for you. This bugger Rags, he invested two
hundred bucks into this small penny stock and that has now
mushroomed into half a million bucks, all in pennies. That guy
always finds all these good deals.  He had MCI and then told the
Sprint guys that he will switch over if they gave him a good
deal and they gave him a special discount and then he got an AT
\& T discount also and the bugger uses email anyway. He was on
the CBS world news."

"What is this CBS world news Machi ? I don't watch much TV. Only
funda shows like Cosby Show and Who's the Boss and Geraldo. And
machi, did you hear that deadly song by Janet Jackson ? I've
even put it in my plan file"

"Before I forget, you know what this Sandeep bugger did last
week. He was giving making a reservation in his name and he had
to spell his name out"

"I know what you are going to say. He said 'S as in Subramaniam,
A as in Allahabad.. That's an old one"

"No. He said San as in San Francisco and Deep as in opposite of
shallow and the female at the other end was hazzar confused."

"Machi, some of these secretary and operator dames are just
dumb. Can you believe my advisor's secretary doesn't even know
the calculus of variation."

"My boss's secretary doesn't even know where Coimbatore is. Do
you read Soc.Culture.Indian machi ?"

"I used to. But now I don't, because it is full of crap notices
like this one that some people are reading. Some guy from some
univ used to write pages of crap about this high funda psycho
bugger, kya naam hai, Freud and there was another guy who would
talk about Sankara and Upanishad crap. Who cares machi"

"Machi time up. I have to go to this opera thing with my friend.
The songs are kind of lousy, but the subtitles flashed over the
stage are great. Its by this fellow, what's his name, they even
made a movie shovie about him, I was told, yes Amadeus guy. I
will write to you the other details by email"

"I will look forward to it"

"Abhey, can I ask you for a favor ?"

"What Ramchands ?"

"Just for old times sake, I want to call you PJ once. Byyyyyyye
PJ"

"Bye Sidey"

DISCLAIMER: Before you send flames or letter bombs, just realize
that this is an imaginary conversation. (of course, two pieces
were narrated by two friends of mine, who would probably kill me
if I quoted them) I feel funny even writing disclaimers like this,
but there exist some people who let their lives be dictated by
bboard posts.

\medskip\hrule\medskip 
Please contact Ramesh at mahadevan@stortek.com.

\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  STORY OF DUTTA}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}

Most universities in the midwest have a sizable Indian student
population, which is loosely knit into some kind of a community.
Like entropy, the size of this community keeps getting larger,
people go in and out and very soon you only happen to know just
a handful of people. Others lose their identity and become
another pretty, albeit anonymous, Indian face - unless they
happen to run your Indian Associations and in our case, they
happen to be a Tominath Dutta.

Allright, next you are going to ask me who the heck was Tominath
Dutta anyway and how come all desis in town knew him ? Let me
try to answer you, but it is impossible to get the gestalt of
Tominath, maybe some components, but no, never the whole story.

He was the kind of guy who never went to the IITs, never had any
pretentions of any sophisticated westernization while in India.
He was here for a Ph. D in Math, which is very difficult for
most people to do, and that was why people thought he was so
naive with the ways of the world, its street-smartness. He
couldn't even buy a bag of onions without goofing up in a major
way. Many IIT nerds would dismiss him as a silly geek. He was
your and my version of the village idiot, only he also happened
to be a genius in mathematics. A darling of the crowds.  Also
known as the bakra, murga (goat, rooster) who was the source
material for a number of real and some made up, desi community
legends. Even the most stupid guy would feel compelled to harass
Tominath and feel superior and most of the time Tominath
wouldn't even realize he was being the butt of all the jokes. He
believed in the general decency of all human beings. And despite
others' perception of him, he was perpetually happy and content.

Somewhere, somehow, someone christened him 'Bong' and the name
stuck to him like a scotch tape. Like other terms of endearment,
such as Surd and Southy, this was also more a tag and his
Bengaliness was never an issue. Even Arunavo Majumdar called him
Bong, perhaps to distance himself from Tominath.

"Bong, what does your name Tominath mean ? You Bongs always have
exotic names" Some curious person asked.

"Tominath means 'the moon'" replied Bong.

"But Bong, which part of your name then means 'the' ?" asked the
same curious guy. As if on a cue, everyone burst into guffaws
and laughs in various octaves. A good punchline. A new 'Bong
episode' is thus brought into the world.

We don't know how true this incident is, but some people swear
by it. It seems Bong had wanted to go to the Niagara Falls once
and someone convinced him not to go that day because the Niagara
Falls is closed on sundays. Bong was told that he could go if he
wanted to, only they would have stopped the water from flowing
and he would only see the barren mountain wall.  Naturally, Bong
went only the next day.

Every two weeks or so his fly would be completely open and
janata would go into paroxysms of joy. There was even a betting
pool regarding when next he would walk around with an open fly.
But Bong didn't care. His work was what was supremely important
to him. Sale at the Penney's or the Cosby Show or Indian
Association diwali dinners, open flies can all go to hell.
Sometimes he skipped dinners. Some people were jealous of him,
but rationalized it as "He is so dumb. His slavedriving advisor
must be sucking his blood. I will never do this, because I want
to have fun too".

Another time, a gang of fresh desis had stopped by at our place
where Bong had also made a pit stop. We discussed all pertinent
topics ranging from applying for credit cards to snow and how
long it stays on ground and of course, girls. Then Bong told the
new students. "O, There was a cold babe last year and we had a
few tough nights. We thought it would get better and we would
get some sleep. We couldn't even go to work. The cold babe was
around for a whole week."

"Maybe you should have tried out some foreplays or massage.
Sometime women are cold and men have to stimulate them and they
will be more responsive".

"No no, I was talking about cold babe, like heat babe that we
have in summers". Bong explained.

Then it rained one day in Pittsburgh. It rains everyday in
Pittsburgh. I was crawling along in my father's Oldsmobile,
fighting with the fogging windshield when I spotted a human
sponge, soaked to the bone. It was Bong. I gave him a ride.
"Bong, you forgot your umbrella ?" "No, I don't have one.  I
have been meaning to buy one. One of these days". Soon, this
became the joke. Everyone who met him would ask him if he bought
his umbrella yet. No, he did not.

"Bong, are you going to wait till winter and snow ?"

"No, I think I will buy it day before tomorrow, mane kol, mane
parson, day after tomorrow"

And he did, at the most expensive store, for twenty dollars.
This quickly made the desi gossip circles. "Did you know Bong
finally bought a chattha for twenty bucks?" "Nahin, I heard it
was more like thirty bucks, that too on sale, I think it is a
lady's umbrella" followed by more laughs.

On the fourth day, Bong lost his umbrella, unable to remember
where in the world he left it. A few hours later, he gave up
looking for it. It is okay to be drenched in the rain, he told
me. After all, desis are more resistant to cold and rain. Pretty
soon the 'Bong ka chattha' story was told and retold with great
relish and every visitor to town or entering desi student was
informed of it.

Another time, in one of those zillion desi pot luck dinners,
guys sat around in a circle with beers and told jokes. It
generated a really congenial atmosphere. Bong was having a time
of his life, like most of us. I hadn't heard some of those jokes
since my high school days. Then Bong spoke up. "Do you know
Maarphee's Golden Rule ?" "No, Bong, tell us". "He who has gold,
rules" said Bong, splitting himself laughing and when he laughed
it was like a volley of machine gun fire. Everyone tried to see
what was so funny about it. Soon another urban legend was born.
Bong's Murphy's golden rule joke.  Folks would ask him to tell
the 'golden rule' joke repeatedly and he would willingly oblige,
till one day he too caught on and felt that the reaction was not
justified, considering it wasn't a bad joke, after all.

"Poor guy, you are all so mean, picking on him all the time"
Mrs. Desi Student would say, in mock sympathy to the victim,
while all along feeling quite proud of her own provider-husband
and his smartness. "Yesterday I saw him in McDonald's. He looked
funny trying to eat a Big Mac".

Then one day we just stopped seeing him around. "I am too busy
bith research bork" he confessed. His roommates announced to the
world that he had not done his laundry in several months. And
then he moved to a one bedroom apartment and just disappeared.
"Did you know Bong left town" someone told us "He got a job
shob. He must be raising hell somewhere at this very minute. But
there is a Bong junior who has joined Civil Engineering. His
name is Arvind. Someone told him to open an account in the World
Bank because they had better interest rates and he actually
called them up. It was so funny. The other day Raju sent him a
computer mail as if it was from one of the girls and he actually
called up this girl. It was a riot and the other day ....."

Epilog: A few years later I happened to go to the Big Apple
because a friend of mine had to do 'India shopping'. We had just
entered a store in Jackson Heights with a name like 'Sabzi
Mandi', which had a million VCRs, the typical Indian grocery
store smell and of course, milling crowds haggling over things.
I was browsing through a bunch of cassettes with generic titles
like "Sitar Concert II" and "Dard bhare geet" when I looked and
saw who else but Bong ! It was a big time deja vu !

"Hi Bong, Kamo nacho ? What in the world are you doing here ?"
"Hi Romesh, I am just bisiting my sister-in-law. By the bay,
meet my wife Sushmita". The extremely beautiful and hep looking
woman by his side shook my hands and said a very cheery hello.
Bong, marrying this woman ? Does she know that he would go
around telling his Murphy's golden rule joke ? "Romesh, remember
Maarphee's Golden rule ? Ha ha. Mita, I told you. We used to
have a lot of fun. These days I am in the Silicon Bhalley. I
started out teaching at Cal State. Now I work for a desi
softbare company. But I might move out if they don't give me
good stock purchase option. Don't tell anybody, but I might even
go alone and do consulting.  Bisit us sometime."

"Yes, you must visit us. We just built this new house with
jacuzzi and all.  You should visit the Bay area while it is
still there. Tomi and I are really looking forward to having
people around." said his wife, in chaste english, coyly clinging
to his side. I was still trying to grasp the enormity of the
situation. How did Bong transform ? Could it be that the moment
he stepped out of the womb-like university environment and into
the real world his personality changed for the better? After
all, he had a tremendous native intelligence. Or could it be
that his charming wife, bless whoever that arranged their
marriage, has been micro-managing his every move smartly ?  How
could one figure this out ? Then, suddenly, Valleyboy Tomi,
the new incarnation of Bong, turned around and asked me, "By the
bay, Bhaat are YOU doing these days ?"

\vfill\eject

\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  EASY AS PI }
\centerline{  (Based on true incidents)}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}

 A few days ago I met Rajan Mahadevan. No, he is not related to me. In fact,
there is no one even in my extended family who would do things he does. For
about five years he was featured in the Guinness Book of World Records for 
memory, spitting out the value of pi to about thirty thousand and odd decimal 
points. For the uninitiated, the value of pi is a standardized memory test 
that many psychologists use in evaluating long term memory. Fans of 'e' and
other irrational numbers might want to lobby for their causes.

Rajan is an unassuming, rather thin, bespectacled guy who generally has a 
good time in whatever company he is in. He is the sort of guy who speaks his 
mind off, no matter what others think about of him. The sort of guy who would 
relapse into Kondkerian slips even in mixed company. (For those of you who 
don't know, the Kondkerian school of philosophy is founded by our Indian 
metaphysician Dada Kondke, through his hindi movies filled with double, triple 
entendres) In fact, he is so crude, that I could actually relate to him
and become friends with him.

After a couple of years of doing engineering at MIT (a.k.a Manipal Institute
of Technology) Rajan dumped it in favor of psychology. Now he is doing a Ph.D
in cognitive psychology at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

I couldn't control my curiosity. I asked him "Is it true that you are a wiz
in remembering numbers ?"

"That is true" Rajan admitted. "For example, what is your A. T \& T Calling
Card number. I will remember it for at least twenty years"

"Nice try" I said, watching him light his cigarette.

"I derive a lot of my strategy from Vedic mathematics" Rajan said "I can show 
you the book I use. The sanskrit poems are interesting. The same poem can be
interpreted to be in praise of Shiva and also Krishna and it is also
simultaneously a bunch of mathematical techniques. There is an approximation 
to pi to about thirty eight decimal places. There are solutions to quadratic 
equations. Now I hear, it is even being taught in high schools in India."

From what I understood, these verses are statements of problems and
solutions, without much actual derivations, in the sense of present day 
formal logic. 

Then it was time for show and tell. He asked one of us to write fifty single 
digit numbers at random. It was then read aloud for him. And he repeated it 
pronto ! Not only that, a couple of hours later, he repeated the list of 
numbers one more time. Not contented, an hour later, he recalled the list 
again, reciting it backwards this time. It was utterly disgusting. He said he 
would remember it for even up to twenty years. (He always mentioned twenty
years as some kind of an upper limit for the volatility of his memory)
 
"I guess I have become a sort of a celebrity. One guy (American) even called 
me and asked me how one would get a vision of Kali." Rajan said.

"Can you memorize a phone book ?" I asked him, my curiosity perked up.

"Sure I can, provided that it is the phone book for a village, with a name like
Basavannahalli, with just two pages of three digit phone numbers. I am not
good at remembering words - words confuse my system of memorizing. Numbers, I
have no problems at all. I put away huge numbers in something similar to a
computer file and I can recall them even after decades."

He continued.

"I was featured in Larry King live on TV, Readers Digest, in about four
hundred newspaper stories, such as Washington Post, press from Italy, France,
UK, Germany and so forth. People ask me how I am different from a Rainman. I 
don't figure out how many toothpicks fall off. I simply memorize numbers. It 
is only now psychologists are trying to study these savants, especially the 
so-called idiot savants. We have a long way to go in our understanding of human
capabilities. I do my research on memory and cognition. There is always this 
endless debate on how much is 'natural' and how much can be learnt."

"Is it true that memory is the second thing to go when you get old, Rajan ?"

"Which is the first one to go ?" He asked me.

"I forget." I replied, with a silly smile on my face. He laughed perfunctorily 
at my weak joke and continued.

"They have my picture in Las Vegas. I can't go anywhere near there. Even if I
win a few bucks in the slot machine, the mafia is going to catch me."

"Can you do my taxes for me ?"

"You must be kidding me - I can't even balance my own check book, but then
that is because of monetary reasons. Actually, I am quite absent-minded about
a lot of things."

"But seriously, how does one improve one's memory ?" I asked."Any food habits
?"

"There are several bio theories about nutrition and memory. Eat more bindi
says the conventional desi wisdom. I think some research points to an
increased brain power with increased consumption of carbohydrates. It may have
something to do with glucose in carbohydrates. Eat rice and pasta !"

"Being a true blue southie, I consume more than my share of carbohydrates. I
don't know what it does to my brain, but it certainly induces a blissful sleep
later. I guess the only recourse for me to improve my memory is to buy a laptop
computer with hazaar hard drive and extended RAM. What do you think ?"

"Everybody has talents" he continued. "Different people have different domains
in which they are very, very smart. Most of us (!) wallow in mediocrity,
refusing to believe we can do things and look for those special areas where we
are gifted. It is not enough to recognize these areas, but one should actually
develop skills. My talents are not just gifts. I had to practice. I honed it.
It is like when you are starting to play the violin or learn to ski, the first
few times, you are analytical and learn the technicalities. Then these things
become like second nature to you that you can't even tell someone how you do
these things. The US government, (National Institute of Health) commissioned
a study on me at the cost of \$ 176 000 and concluded nothing about why my
memory is good or how I am special."

"Finally, Rajan, can you suggest any easy Guinness Records that mere mortals 
like me can break ?"

Somebody butted in. "Sure, if you keep writing your trashy posts for another
ten years, you would have broken the record for the most noise generated on the
network."

Rajan went on.

"When I have nothing to do, I memorize a thousand or so digits of pi. I lost
the world record a couple of years ago and I plan to break it over again.
The present record is forty thousand odd digits (He
told me the exact number, but being no math wiz, I am truncating it to the
nearest round figure) I plan to beat it by memorizing up to ninety thousand
digits, once I am done with my Ph. D qualifiers. The interesting thing is the
present record is held by a seventy eight year old Japanese. It took me nearly
three hours to recite the thirty thousand odd digits. It took the Japanese
guy over eighteen hours to recite the digits. This Japanese gentleman had
an interesting algorithm to memorize the digits. In Japan, each number is also
associated with a word, like 'hen' etc. So instead of remembering the numbers he
memorized the sequence in terms of words, then made a story out of it. Of
course, it will be a ridiculous story and you know that the more ridiculous it
is, the more easy it is to memorize. When he recalled, he converted his story
into words, then to numbers. He will have a tough time extending it to beyond
his present capabilities. I plan to recite the digits in less than nine hours."

I wished him luck. We have become friends since then and try to out-eat
each other in all the dinners we get invited to.

But fellas, isn't it amazing ? A whole ridiculous story in just ten words, 
plus associated pronouns propositions and simple verbs ? By a man who is 
seventy eight ! At that age, my grandfather didn't even remember his own name.

At any rate, let me try my hand at a 'story' with only ten words.
 
(Ten words used in the passage:
Rape, woman, might, right, all, self, demolish, pen, sword, dude)

MIGHT IS RIGHT

Dudes, might is right. Allmighty is allrighty. Self-mighteous is
self-righteous. Dude rape woman. Might is right. Dude demolish. Might is
right. Pen mightier than sword. Pen right ? If dude has sword. Then sword
mightier. Because sword demolish pen. So sword rightier. So rape all, dude, with
might and be right. All woman not might. So woman not right. But right pen might
demolish sword and be might and right. Dude self demolish, not right. So, dudes,
pen all, might is right, demolish ! 
\medskip\hrule\medskip 
e-mail: gt6060a@prism.gatech.edu
Tel : (404) 873-0555


Namashkaar. The following is the latest offering from farceur par
excellence, Dr. Mahadevan Ramesh. Please flame him via email at:
mahadevan@stortek.com.

                                   By

              		   MAHADEVAN  RAMESH


First, a short personal note. Thanks, Rangaswamy for re-posting all 
my old bboard posts. My god, I can't believe there is so much 
enthusiasm for my old posts, some going back almost six years. My 
mailbox now is more flooded than my bathroom and old friends have 
been jumping out of the woodwork, left and right. (Hi, Paul 
Chemanoor !) Thanks, folks. 

As you can tell, I do exist - in a biological sense - in the Denver 
area and I can be reached at mahadevan@stortek.com. Sorry, I don't
work for the World Bank, though I wish sometimes that I worked for the
IIT Kanpur branch of the State Bank of India, given their relaxed work
atmosphere and the phenomenal dowry money that entitles one to. And 
beware of anyone trying to pass off as my relative, because I disown 
all my relatives - just kidding. But I do read SCI as often as I can 
and don't miss posts by Prem! or Fafat or Theo - congrats, Theo on 
Ram Lakhan's poems, they were awesome.  

However, my last bboard post was way back in January. The reason for 
my silence is that I have been busy getting back to good health. Some 
of you may remember that I had a major heart surgery last July to fix 
my defective heart valve. Now, I have recovered completely and my heart 
has healed so well that even cardiograms are not been able to tell it 
was repaired. I guess I have been incredibly lucky. Since my surgery, 
new avenues, which have thus far been closed, have suddenly become open 
for me. Such as, being able to do physical activities and exercises. So, 
since January, I have been spending almost all my spare time in just 
running and cross training. Just to brag some more, I even ran in the 
Boulder 10 KM race in May and finished with a decent timing. Now, time 
has come for me to post on the SCI again and bore you all to death. 


\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  MIGRATION, EMIGRATION }
\centerline{\bf AND TRANSMIGRATION}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}

I was in Amsterdam a couple of months ago and somebody promptly picked 
my pocket a few hours after my arrival there and took my Indian passport. 
Panic-stricken, I located a police station - my first tourist sight
in Amsterdam and lodged a complaint to a doughnut-eating policeman.

"Where did you lose it ?" was his first dumb question. Darn ! How do I 
know ? If I knew it exactly, I would have taken care not to lose it in 
the first place ! I pointed my finger vaguely in the direction of the 
large window in the office.

'Red light district'. He wrote down. By the way, the prostitutes in 
Amsterdam accept even traveler's checks, I was told. Oops, I am 
digressing.

"Officer, is there any chance of my getting it back ?"

"You never know. There is a racket in American passports. If they 
realize it is an Indian passport, they may even toss it in a garbage 
can. If we find anything I will call your hotel or your Consulate."

"Oh, don't think lowly of Indian passports, sir. A whole bunch of 
terrorists are after Indian passports. In case of my passport, they 
don't even have to change the photograph, because I look like a 
prototypical terrorist - Ha ha." I told him, as he gave me a dirty 
look and a police report in the highly incomprehensible Dutch language.

I never got it back and somehow managed to reenter the U.S.A. (Can you 
believe, they asked to see my driver's license at the Amsterdam 
airport ?) Now I have found out that the Indian government charges a 
merciless two hundred and twenty odd dollars to issue a new passport. 
At prices like this, it makes sense to shop around and find a country 
which issues passports at a cheaper rate. Anyone knows what they are 
charging in Borkina Faso or Antigua ? 

Also, for some unknown reason, the desi consulate asked me for seven 
or eight or nine photographs, depending on which paragraph of the 
application form you trust. I have a good mind to send them seven 
different mug shots of mine. Am I in for a long haul or does anybody 
know how long they usually take to issue a new passport ?  
\medskip\hrule\medskip

Now that someone stole my passport, I am hopelessly grounded. Of 
course, I still have my Hyatt Gold passport. Hee hee. But nonetheless, 
I can't go to Mexico or Canada or even to India. Heck, without my 
Indian passport, they are not even letting me into the Indian grocery 
stores any more. Okay, okay, no more such PJs.

The Desi demographics here in the Boulder-Denver area is undergoing 
a sea change, with desis landing here like it is a D-day invasion. 
The number of desis who have relocated to this area just in the last 
couple of months alone exceeds infinity. Add to this, the one-shot 
arrival from India of about fifty or so spouses, to reunite with a 
battalion of pre-existing software types, who in the first place, 
were contracted in a body-shop deal from India. And now, even Shridhar 
Bhartulwar is going to move here. Don't know who he is ? Doesn't matter. 
At any rate, the last bastion has fallen and the West too is won - by 
us, desis.

This has profound ramifications. And maybe we will learn something 
from this about the Aryan migration. For a start, this has crowded 
up the usually poorly attended Indian Association functions. Now, 
if you don't get there in time, the odds are you will be forced to 
stand in the far corner, stepping on the feet of a totally unknown 
desi and surrounded by a pack of desis with ticklish clothes. When 
you reach the front of the gulab jamun line, all you are left with, 
these days, are a few drops of the syrup. There are more 
IIT Madras Alumni associations in this area than McDonalds'. And 
enough Balas and Srinis crawl around everywhere, making up their own 
substratum of society. These days, you go to a Mishra's place with 
another Mishra to meet a third Mishra. 

Most of these folks work for U.S.West, the phone company. In fact, it 
was suggested that they might even change their name to DesiWest or 
something equally sexy to reflect the new employee mix. The U.S West 
cafetarias are supposed to even serve dosas. The corporation observes 
a 'dress down day' every friday, when the employees wear casual 
clothes and reports claim that some of the nuevo employees show up at 
work in their dhotis and lungis. 

And this influx of desis into Colorado has also affected a venerable
social institution of America, namely, the Indian Grocery Store.
For centuries, in the Denver area we only had one Indian
grocery store, serving all states this side of the Continental Divide. 
It was run by a very friendly Indian woman. She was ably assisted by
a guy, who is either her husband or her sex slave. He would single-
handedly carry and dump twenty five pound rice bags (a. k. a the 'Ph.D 
bags') as if they were inflated baloons. He always looked like a 
circus clown with twenty things dangling from him - there was that VCR 
remote sticking out of his back pocket (he perpetually clones hindi 
videocassettes in a back room of the store), a pencil poking out of his 
ear (to provide stability to his ears), a long string wound around him 
for no reason. (the conjecture here is that the woman rides him home 
after work each day) A sign on the store refrigerator would proclaim 
that 'All cokes are 55 cents'.

On hot summer days, he would prop the store door open with a massive 
tin of 'Dalda'. He would preview the hindi movies and thrust them in 
our hands telling us "You must see 'Rudaali'. Nice comedy." When 
occassionally they ran out of Indian sweets, he would reassuringly 
tell us that "You can have that last piece. The green color is not 
fungus, the mithai itself is green. But if you would rather wait, we 
are expecting a fresh shipment from New York just tomorrow". Of course, 
as my friend and a long time Denver resident Deepa Mishra discovered 
one day, a local old desi woman made all the sweets and surreptitiously 
delivered them through the back door.

Now, all of a sudden, two more desi stores have opened up, triggering 
a new price war. One of the new stores is barely a hundred feet from 
the ancient desi store. My mailbox is flooded with competing brochures 
advertising such exciting events like sale on udat daal and so forth. 
Prudent desis even do comparison shopping in all three stores. The 
samosa market has already crashed around here. And the merchants are 
going at each other's jugular. One new owner, one of those unnecessarily 
tall guys with a generic mustache, even accosted me in the gripe water 
aisle and told me "I sell clean stuff. I was told the others sell udat 
daal with worms". Since I neither buy udat daal nor worms for that 
matter, his  point was lost on me. Our circus clown cum sex slave is 
in total battle gear these days, with an extra piece of armor, made 
entirely of gunny bags, to ward off potential competitors. I don't know 
where all this is going to end. 

\medskip\hrule\medskip

The flip side of this wave of migration of desis is that you don't know
anyone any more. Just a few miles up the road from where I live, a 
few more new Indians had moved in and one Indian guy shot and killed 
his wife and his cousin and then killed himself. Its a pity that none 
of us could do anything about it.
\medskip\hrule\medskip

If you are a self-respecting desi, the odds are you have never been 
to a dentist in all your life - unless the tooth fairy decided to play 
ball with your wisdom teeth or if you regularly extract venom from 
your canines. I had my first encounter with my dentist recently. Since 
then, I have nicknamed him 'The Butcher of Boulder'.

I don't know what kind of job satisfaction dentists derive. Imagine, 
having to look into dirty mouth after dirty mouth, day in and day out. 
My dentist hasn't gone high tech yet and his tools are probably 
inherited straight from Marquis de Sade himself. Even my car mechanic 
has more teeth-friendly implements than my dentist. He firmly believes 
that if it didn't hurt, you won't respect him. The only good thing about 
him is his luxurious chair, which defies gravity, with twenty four 
degrees of freedom - all of which are useless when he's got you by 
your teeth.

"How often do you floss ?" he asked me, as he stuck his elbow into 
my mouth.

"Oh, about once a day." I lied through my nose. (remember, dear, you 
cannot lie through your teeth to your own dentist)

"You know, you guys from India - you have strange dental patterns. 
I can already see calculus build up due to years of use of Indian 
spices".

"Oh, really ? How bad is it ?"

"I think it is either curry powder. Wait, it is actually yellow."

"My god, doctor. Don't tell me. It is 'haldi' or turmeric. So, I 
have been using Vicco Turmeric Ayurvedic Cream on my teeth instead 
of the Vajradanti.

Jeez ! This is what happens when the same company manufactures both
the creams. Would you mind looking at my pimples and tell me if they 
have become rock solid due to years of application of Vajradanti ?"

"Aw, open up ! " he told me (I guess 'open up' is the dentist equivalent
of 'shut up') as he crept deeper into the inner recesses of my mouth. 
"Also, for cosmetic reason and for better bite, you need a bridge on 
the right bottom."

"Oh, really ? How much money are we talking ?"

"I think about fourteen hundred dollars."

"At that kind of money, doctor, that bridge better be a Golden Gate."

As he stuck his staple remover into my mouth and scraped my teeth, he  
asked me one more question. "I am also an admirer of Mother Teresa. 
She is not an Indian by birth, is she ?"

"No doctor, I think she is from Albania."

"Albania, that is interesting. That is a communist country. Isn't 
it ? How did she manage to get out of there ? And why did she decide 
to emigrate to India of all places ?"

"I don't know doctor" I managed to say, as I endured some more pain 
"But I can take a guess. In the visa form, she was asked what her 
profession was and there were categories like 'doctor', 'engineer', 
'lawyer', 'teacher' and of course, 'dentist'. And she wrote 'nun of 
the above' and bingo, they let her emigrate to India." 
\vfill\eject

\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  AN OPEN LETTER TO THE }
\centerline{\bf FIRST LADY, HILLARY CLINTON}

Dear Srimati Clinton-ji,

News reports say that you are planning to go to India for a visit 
one of these days. Very good. As a well wisher, I have some suggestions 
for you. Pliss to contact me for any help you may want.

First of all, send an internet posting to Soc.Culture.Indian about 
your trip so that you can find out the best deals in Gulf Air etc. 
Get the Travel Agent Survey so that you will know best agent who will 
charge your credit card and give you ticket by Federal Express. If you 
get your tickets through travel agent Geeta Pradeep in Detroit, you can 
also eat idlis at her place if you go to Detroit itself for ticket-
picking. If you are going via west coast, make sure you go to San 
Francisco airport well in advance so that you can grab a seat in the 
door-way row - this way you can get more room for your long legs,
before the short, fat, short-legged desis inappropriately occupy those 
rows. You will make a long journey over water (and you will also long 
to make water over journey, ha ha !) to India and so it makes sense 
to quickly go to the airplane bathroom and steal a few soaps for later 
use in the plane. In Singapore, you may wish to deplane and check out 
the Mustafa Shop and buy some 220 Volts appliances if your friends or 
friends' families have requested them. Pliss to inform air hostess for 
vegetarian 'thali' meals. If Sri Billa Clinton can get holidays, he may 
also wish to accompany you. In which case, enroll also in a frequent 
flyer program. Don't worry about future scandals, madam. When you reach 
Bombay Customs - those are the blokes who wear funny white pants - ask 
your hubby to try to go through the green channel. But ask him to 
practice Indian english a bit, because if he declares "I only have my 
sexyphone" they might think it is a 'sexy telephone' - if you don't 
understand this double meaning, Mrs Hillariji, I am pliss to 
explain via email - you don't want Customs double duty. Otherwise you 
can write to S.C.I and find out that the duty on a used Saxaphone is 
only 235.4 %. If baby Chelsea is also coming with you - you see, she 
can also see all these elephants and camels - but be warned about the 
'black booger problem' in Bombay and Delhi due to air pollution and 
take a lot of Kleenex to clean Kumari Chelsea's nose as often as is 
necessay. In doubt, consult Prem! of SCI or Susan Chacko.
Have very good time. If you go to Delhi, try Anarkali Kulfi or Roshandi
Kulfi with Narasimha Rao or the desi president...When you come back, 
write your memoirs on SCI for everyone to read.

Namaste

Ajay Palvayanteeswaran and Viru Varma

\medskip\hrule\medskip

For your plan file:

Behind every successful desi immigrant in this country, there is a
heart-wrenching visa story.

A prominent and senior NRI is a guy who would want dual citizenships;
not satisfied, he would also want triple and quadruple citizenships; 
yet he would complain about all his citizenships and wouldn't want to 
pay taxes in any of those countries. 

\medskip\hrule\medskip
\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  BHARATIYA GYMKHANA}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}

Yaar, I am back. I am presently standing inside the Bharatiya
Gymkhana - or Desh Mahal - a dilapidated edifice, rented out by
an unscruplous slumlord in a generic Midwestern City. It is
somewhere between two and three stories tall. An American flag,
an Indian flag and several striped underwears are fluttering on
the outside in response to a gentle breeze. At least twenty
three Indian students are living out there, of whom at least
eighteen are from IIT Madras, of whom at least three are named
Palvayanteeswaran and all of them are addressed as 'Machan'.
There is always a floating population of five IIT Madras guys
from Ohio State University visiting them. There are atleast
three guys in any room you go to, including the bathroom, where
the community toothbrush forms the centerpiece. All this was
made possible by an annual grant of \$ 7.62 from all the
professional Indians who at one time or another passed through
the 'gymkhana', sometimes because they failed to stop at the
stop sign in front of the building.

The atmosphere is very Indian. The aroma of Indian tea brewing
permeates the building, only occassionally overwhelmed by the
smell of 'Aaloo sabji' being cooked in a bottomless pot. The
walls are a bright red from all the 'paan' spat out. To simulate
the atmosphere better, a million flies and Chotu, the chaiwalla
in a local dhabha were imported from Central India. In one
corner, guys were playing kabbadi, carrom, chor-police, pittoo
and teen patha. Books of Indian origin, including the Bhavan's
journal are juxtaposed with Raswanti and Mastram, with all their
smudged reproduction of sexy half tone photographs and are placed on
the three legged coffee table for the sexually active Indian
graduate students. An old Rafi song from the silent movie era is
blaring from a n th hand tape recorder which does not fast
forward or rewind, much to Dorai's chagrin. The weekends are fun
when you watch Sholay for the twentieth time or watch the new
Rajnikanth english movie which is listed under tamil movies in
the local Indian stores.  About twenty guys are smoking one
beedi with gusto in another corner.

In the sprawling backyard, an ex-swimming pool is converted to a
'kuan' to give one more desi touch. Two students, Parvati and
Gomti Devi (their real names) go there every day to fetch water
and trade gossip. A holy cow named Lakshmi (not to be confused
with Lakshmi who looks like a cow) is standing in the middle
like a large dot, ruminating nonchalantly and listening to Bappi
Lahiri songs. A bullock cart is double parked on the street,
which is the sole means of transportation for the gymkhana folks
and that too might be grounded if they don't pay up the highway
speeding tickets they have accumulated. There is a romantic side
story about this bullock and Lakshmi, the cow, but then I am
digressing.

The tall, gawky desi, in the far corner, who is looking like a
quadrilateral, is the fresh arrival, Pal, alias
Palvayanteeswaran. He is about 99 % libido, with brains making
up the remaining 99 %. He is still evolving into a human being.
His leather shoes look like snow tires. He is very amused when
people say 'Have a nice day'. He 'fags', eats 'grub shrub' and
goes to the 'bogs'. He calls his best buddy on the phone and
confides in him "yaar, yankland pahoonch gayen". He has half a
million questions like which is the best place to get Pepsi or
how much is the subscription to Playboy.

There is romance too in the gymkhana. A sliver of a moon is
hanging particularly low over the gymkhana and two shadowy
figures, Pinky and Lovely, are holding hands and talking. They
are discussing if one can make dosa in the microwave, especially
in view of India's nuclear program. They met purely by accident,
on a rafting trip over the Niagara Falls. She lets him beat her
in Anthakshari and he lets her put elaichi in his tea.

The fat, hairy guy in front of the TV, sucking on a beer can and
shouting "Vanna, give me an R", is the 'caretaker' of the
gymkhana. He is a tenured graduate student who has a reportaire
of dead baby jokes. He is considered a wonderful gentleman ...
and a fine lady.  He used to date the Indian quintuplets, all of
them, Reena, Meena, Tina, Leena and Beatrice. He is majoring in
textile engineering and is designing a banian for the Siamese
twins. He calls rolls everyday. One time when he was cleaning
the simulated fireplace he discovered that two gymkhanites have
been sleeping there. He puts fleas and ticks collars on all the
residents.

Got to be going folks.

All alumni of any kind, who have been to any college or high
school, please send me mail. I am compiling a list.

CONTRIBUTE GENEROUSLY TO MY DOWRY FUND!

\medskip\hrule\medskip
\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  A BOUQUET FOR SRIDEVI}
\centerline{  Mahadevan Ramesh}

(This post is based on real life incidents.  All characters,
including self, Sridevi - yes, the Roop ki Rani of hindi movies -
and their names, are real.  This is dedicated to Narayan Raja,
whereever he may be these days, in honor of his fine sense of
humor, even when it came to the RSS and Palvayanteeswaran.)

When a bunch of us decided to splurge one afternoon and pig out
at the Residency restaurant of Madras Sheraton hotel, who would
have thunk that even Sridevi, the drool-inducing perfection of
female specimen, the Nagina of several male hearts, the Miss
India of Mr.  India, et cetera et cetera would have thought of
the same thing ?

It was unbelievable as she walked in, with a bodyguard in tow and
with absolutely none of the 'sahelis' and 'chamchas' hanging on
to her churidar.  She sat down just three tables away - it may
have been five tables away, but as I tell and retell this story,
she seems to be getting closer and closer to me.  The bodyguard
sat on an adjacent chair, avoiding peering at her, just trying to
be functional.

"Ramesh, why don't you walk up to her and tell her that the
Chicken Tikka today is really terrific and that today's lunch is
on the house for the madam.  Tell her that you are the owner of
the restaurant.  After all, my friend, this restaurant probably
has the best buffet in Madras and this is the best chance you
will ever have in striking up a conversation with her."  My
friend egged me on.  My mouth was still open ajar.  It was truly
unbelievable.  It was like many, many of my dreams coming true.
Somebody, just anybody, please pinch me.  Hasn't she been always
on my mind?  Heck, I had even mentioned her name in some of my
posts.

"What if I walked up to her and introduced myself and then she
says, 'No, I am not Sridevi, although people often mistake me for
her'.  That would be truly embarrassing."  I asked my friend.

"No sweat" replied my friend "In that case, all you have to say
is 'Madam, actually, I am not Ramesh Mahadevan either, although
people mistake me for him.'"

It didn't sound very funny when my own male ego was involved.  By
this time, the waiters, who were all dressed like minor kings of
yestercenturies, were beginning to whisper that Sridevi was
around.  Whatever little crowd there was in the restaurant was
staring at her pointedly.  Fortunately, there was no one sitting
in the beeline between her table and ours and I had an
uninterrupted vision of her.  She got up and loaded her plate
with Tandoori this and Tandoori that, perhaps still fresh from
her Afghani memories.  She still had the 'Khuda gawah' hair,
shampooed the heck out of, glowing with a phony brownness.  She
was dressed in a beautiful blue churidar-top, with a silk shawl
around her.  Beautiful, very beautiful.  And she had a remarkably
young, baby face.  I could swear that she looked hardly a day
older than twenty.

"That's all because of the heavy make-up."  dismissed one of the
women in our group.  "Look at her.  She is so big, she must be at
least 5' 9" and over a hundred and forty pounds.  And she has
such a disproportionately small head she looks like some kind of
a dinosaur."

I dismissed such uncharitable comments.  I summoned our waiter.
I thrust two hundred bucks (rupees, that is) in his hand.
"Quick, get a bouquet from the Florist.  I want to give (it) to
Sridevi across the hall and introduce myself."  My heart was
pacing very fast.  My buddies, Rajeev Jayaraman and his wife
Barathi (of Silicon Valley) who were with me, were tickled to
death by my impulsive behavior.

Sridevi came for seconds and perhaps even a third and a fourth
time, but time stood still.  The bodyguard followed her two steps
behind, each time she got up.  He must have done a hundred years
of penance in the Himalayas, hanging upside down, in his previous
birth ...  I was getting more and more disoriented and stared at
her cute eating self.  She must have eaten almost twice as much
as I did and relentlessly chipped away at the desserts and cakes.
When she came around the dessert table one more time and shoveled
a chunk of cheescake on to her plate, she was within five feet of
me and her halo almost knocked off my beer mug.

We waited and watched, savoring every minute of it.  The bouquet
took horribly long to arrive.  Who knew that in India bouquet
makers took their job very seriously and made bouquets into an
expression of art ?  And then the dagger pierced my heart.  Very
suddenly, without even flushing down her lunch with a coffee or
tea, Sridevi got up and left with her bodyguard.  I rushed out of
my chair and tried to catch her on the way to tell her that a
damned bouquet was coming, especially for her.  But she just
disappeared, too fast for me to catch up.  I became just one more
in the meaningless statistics, one more in the long list of males
in real life and in the movies, to have been jilted by Sridevi.
Story of my life and deja vu all over again.  And the worst part
is now she would never know, ever, that I had taken such troubles
of ordering an expensive bouquet.

My friends consoled me.  I tried to make a joke out of it.
Ironically, the bouquet too arrived five minutes later and looked
really pretty.  What could I do with it now ?  I could always
take it home, but my mother might kill me for splashing money
around, especially if I told her the whole story.  I mentally
went through the list of my friends.  I could always drop in on
one of them and present them the bouquet.  I hadn't visited many
of them on my current India trip and it was almost time for me to
return to the US.  It was around the New Years time.  So a
bouquet would be really appropriate.

I finally decided on Chakravorty and his wife Preeti.  They are a
sweet couple with two really adorable kids.  Ironically, they too
are in the movie industry.  Chakru is a director, with a clutch
of TV serial episodes and minor movies to his credit.  He even
used to teach Direction at the Movie Institute and is still
waiting for that 'big break'.  He is the kind of guy who would
analyze Satyajit Ray or Bergmann, frame by frame.  His wife
Preeti, is a dancer, dabbling in everything from Odissi to
Bharatnatyam.  Unlike Sridevi, they live barely above the poverty
line, moving from project to project.  More than anything else,
it was the unsteady nature of their occupation that weighed them
down.  The income was always good one month, bad two months.
Never enough money to feel comfortable.  Despite their struggle
in a dog-eats-dog industry, they are still fun people to spend an
evening with and I always prefer to hang around with people who
are in a vastly different profession than I am.  It would be fun
telling them about Sridevi and the bouquet.

When we entered their house the littlest one opened the door with
loud greetings.  Chakru and Preeti were just hanging around and
when I gave the bouquet to Preeti, she was simply speechless.
She had not seen such a beautiful bouquet in a long time.
Perhaps never in her life.  "Thanks Ramesh" she managed to
mutter, still staring at the bouquet in disbelief.  "You need not
have done this.  I am sure this bouquet would have cost you quite
a bit.  Thank you all the same.  How are things in old Yankland
?"

She quickly went into the kitchen, got a pot and converted it
into a makeshift flowervase, unwrapped the bouquet ever so gently
and arranged the flowers in the pot.  She still couldn't get over
the wave upon wave of her joy.  "Thank you."  She whispered one
more time, not even taking her eyes off the flowers to look at
me.  Suddenly, I didn't have the heart to tell her the Sridevi
story and that the bouquet was actually meant for Sridevi and not
her.

Chakru told us that things were not going too good for them.  He
was fired from a TV project due to 'artistic differences' with
the producer and he was replaced at the last minute in a Telugu
production (incidentally, in India, you don't need to know the
language to be able to direct a movie in that language) and a
relative of a friend of the producer bagged the contract.  "It is
who you know that matters" Chakru complained, lighting up his
cigarette, while Preeti had quickly managed to get us chai.
"Fortunately, Preeti's role in theatre is putting food on the
table.  By the way, she and I are also writing movie reviews and
so forth.  Did you read her review in the Frontline last week ?"

I was still in a daze.  Just moments ago we were at the Sheraton
and I was ogling at Sridevi.  Now I am listening to somebody's
life struggles.  God, where is reality when I need it ?

The seven year old came up to Preeti and asked "Mom, can I have a
rose ?".

"Sure Malavika" replied the mother "Ramesh uncle has brought such
a huge bouquet it is filled with roses."

"Mother, can I have a rose too ?"  asked the three year old.
"Sure honey" replied the mom "And don't forget to say thanks to
uncle."

I got a baby thanks.  I never realized that a simple gesture of
bringing a bouquet to a family would bring so much of joy to
them.  Perhaps, given that they were going through hard times,
such acts were highly therapeutic and added cheer to their to
lives.  I guess we all occassionally manage to touch other
people's lives in our own small ways.  Maybe next time, I should
learn to do such things on my own and not because a Sridevi ran
out on me in a restaurant.

After the tea and the usual discussion about movies and life, in
India and in America, (and after a mandatory reading of a highly
technical movie review written by Chakru) we got up to leave.  As
we were exiting, Malavika, the seven year old, thrust something
in my hand.  It was just a New year card she made herself with
crayons.  "Happy New year, Ramesh Uncle" it said.  Following that
line, in equally kiddish, scratchy handwriting was a heartwarming
"Thank you for the Rose - Malavika."


\medskip\hrule\medskip
\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  BRINGING UP BABIES}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}
              

Hello Friends, 

Me, Ajay, writing again. What is all this debate, I say, about bringing up kids
in this country vs bringing them in India ? What is the big difference yaar ?
Take case study, my son, Munna for example. If he grows up here, we will put 
Pamper diaper and dispose it in landfill. If he grows up in India, we will put
loincloth. Here we don't have nannies or ayahs. Only my wife Malini Ammal
and that grouchy old lady. (I forget Malini's mom's name) In this country, I
am very scared of leaving my dear Munna with the babyshitters because a lot of
them self-immolestate children, although I confess, whenever my father in law
carries Munna around, he is probably introducing all kinds of weird, traumatic,
psychological complexes in the poor child. 

When Munna grows into a fine two year old, we will have a Christhmas tree,
with ornaments. He will sit on Shanta Claus's lap and we will
have Sear's take photographs. We will send one one to each of our relatives in
India. If he grows up in India, we will buy him a bow and an arrow. Yaar, when
Munna become three or four, we send him to pre-school and develop his left 
brain. If he is in India, we would have sent him first standard. Here, we will
give him IQ tests and then send him to a special school even when he is only 
four. If he grow up in India, we send him to Agarwal IIT class at that age. 
What is the difference yaar. 

When Munna five or six year old, he ask us here, 'Mommy mommy, why are you
having this little dot on your forehead and why does pappa wear lungis at
home'. I give Munna a big kiss and teach him about our Hindu philosophy and the
airiness of lungis under non-turbulent air flow. If on other hand, Munna is in
India, he won't ask those ridiculous questions.   

When Munna is about five year precocious old, he will want coke all the time
and when we drive and he see yellow arch, Munna say 'McDonalds, Mommy, Daddy
McDonalds'. Then we stop car and buy French fries. What we can do in India,
yaar. No McDonald's in Peddapuram. So we go buy dosas and parathas. Still
Munna get the same protein. 

When Munna seven or eight Munna want to play games. If we are here, in the
same Gurgaonville, we keep wondering 'Shall we, mommy and daddy, buy
non-sexist toys or say, chuck it, and buy GI Joes' Munna may ask us, why did
god make me brown skinned when all my friends are white and I won't go to
school. Very fine dilemma I say. Kids grow up intelligently, yaar. We tell
him, brown is beautiful. In India, the same Munna will ask 'Mommy, daddy, why
did god make me brown skinned instead of wheatish complexion'. I told you, the
same dilemma, even in India. India has one advantage yaar. When Munna begin to
ask too many questions or act too smart like children in movie, me or Malini
Ammal can give one very fine slap. Here we are worried about child abuse. 

When Munna become a fine eleven year old, Munna learning everything fast. He
will want to sit in front of the TV and watch football, baseball, cartoon
pictures and not do homework. This is number one problem in this country,
yaar. In India, no problem. I will have a private tutor who will do the
child's homework for him. 

Then one day right in front of our eyes, Munna become a fine teenager. 
Then Munna go to junior high and he will want to be
in the 'chic crowd'. He will want to do drugs. This is major problem yaar.
Even his being embarrassed to be seen with us, Indian parents, is nothing,
machi. I have no plan except to say 'Just say no to drugs'. He might say 'Just
say no to Nancy Reagan' and go on. In India there are no drugs are. Good place
to bring up kids. And yaar, here, he may be sexually curious. What with all
this AIDS ka chakkar. I don't know yaar. How we will control Munna's libido.
In India, it is better. We will put him in an all-male college and he will
grow up with healthy celebacy and very fine attitude toward female chicks like
I have. 

Then Munna will be called ABCD if he is here. It is shame yaar, that we use
such acronysm. In India nobody will call him that. Yes, sure, he may be called
PJ or something obscene. But that is still better. Imagine, a nice name like
Munna Palvayanteeswaran being corrupted into all kinds of names. Of course,
when he gets married he will change his last name to his wife's family name.
Wouldn't you yaar ? And yes, yaar, question of marriage. Munna will date left,
right and center and will be hit with girls of both sexes, just like his daddy
who was damn successful with females even in IIT times. But marriage is an
Indian tradition yaar. What we as parents can do ? Most Americi women don't
even have horoscopes to match and they divorce even before they get married.
We very worried. But Munna in India will have arranged marriage with a rich
man's daughter and produce little baby Munnas every year. The daughter in law
don't dare divorce or I will kill her father. But Munna will have to deal with
Indian corruption, poverty and Madhuri Dixit movies.

As we are putting Munna to his baby sleep, wrapping him gently in onion-like
layers of diapers and clothes, we watch his pretty face light up in smile, as
if Munna reading PJs. I sing little lullaby song of Gita Dutt. But questions
loom large, yaar. Munna grow up here in Yanki culture or Munna return home
with us to India in the desi culture ? Very big question, but no answer. Only 
SCI and god help Munna, his mommy and daddy, yaar. Many thanks.

Respectablefully

Ajay Palvayanteeswaran

\medskip\hrule\medskip 
Chronology according to Hindu Fundamentalists (by Ramesh) - 9




              CHRONOLOGY ACCORDING TO HINDU FUNDAMENTALISTS

Warning: This post is intended to be a satire.

\medskip\hrule\medskip

March, 3452 BC: Shri Ram is born in Ayodhya, at the very spot
where a mosque would be built later to cause much controversy.

Circa 3000 BC: Several fools start writing vedas and upanishads
and try to give a philosophical basis to the Hindu religion.
These morons should have realized that when eventually Hinduism
becomes an organized religion and a social institution, it has a
force of its own and very few would care for such philosophical
basis.

Circa 2920 BC: A very learned Guru gets frustrated while
teaching a moron of a student and invents zero while grading his
test.

A few years later: Hindu scientists formulate the General Theory
of Relativity and the Unified Field Theory. Much of these
theories are hidden in complex sanskrit slokas and a good part
of it was smuggled out of the country by the Germans and the
British and lost forever.

0 AD: Christianity, an offshoot of Hinduism, is born.

N + 1000 BC to N BC: A hindu golden age, known as Ramrajya, is
established over the entire subcontinent. There are temples
everywhere. Everyone observes the caste protocols. The cows are
happy. Ghee is available in plenty. All computer programs work
without any problems.

Breakaway cults: Some non-conformists form cults called Jainism
and Buddhism. Rational people put these iconoclasts to shame, so
much so, the Buddhists are driven out of India. Understandably
many Jain and Buddhist literature and culture had to be
destroyed by peaceloving Hindus.

Chandragupta Vikramaditya's period: Another great 'Golden Age'
according to most historians. Manusmriti was the law of the land
and women were rightfully treated as 'untouchables'. In his next
birth, Vikramaditya Chaudhuri joins Oracle Systems and writes on
SCI.

Sometime before 10 th century: Islam, another offshoot of
Hinduism is born.

The only known episode of hindu atrocity: A Jain was slapped in
the wrist by a Hindu in Nalanda University when they were
fighting over a girl. The Jain later apologized to the Hindu for
provoking him.

Babar's rule: Enormous atrocities are heaped on peace loving
Hindus. Even granting that war and stuff like that generally
make people irrational, Babar went too far and to top it, he
demolished Ram Mandir at the Jhanmabhoomi to make it the
pinnacle of his career. He also left about fifteen hundred
pieces of irrefutable evidence about his act of demolishing the
temple.

Akbar's rule: Commits Hindu atrocity by marrying a Hindu woman
and by formulating his own brand of religion called 'Teen
Elahi'. Secret service agents suddenly discover that Akbar had
failed to renew his visa and that he is actually a citizen of
China - he retained his Chinese citizenship because of his
Chengiz Khan lineage. The Muslims impose their inferior culture
on the hapless Hindu citizens. And a thousand years later they
won't even apologize to the Hindus for what their ancestors did
many hundred years ago.

Sometime during the Moghul period: Some Hindus start calling
themselves Sikhs.

Discovery of Krishna Jhanmabhoomi and other bhoomis : Krishna
Jhanmabhoomi was discovered - to be at the exact same spot as
the present day Taj Mahal.  Shiv Jhanmabhoomi is discovered to
be the same as Jamma Masjid and so forth.  Hindus rightfully
fight for these temples.

1947-48: A fool of a hindu-basher, Mahatma Gandhi, actually
organizes fasts to promote amity between the Hindus and Muslims,
instead of asking all the Muslims to pack up and go to Pakistan.

Modern India: Muslims start countless, unprovoked riots in India
and every time many, many more innocent Hindus die than Muslims.
This is despite the Muslims becoming so dominant in every aspect
of the society such as in education, civil services and politics
- all these gains obtained by systematic exploitation of passive
and nice Hindus and the special treatment given to the
minorities in general. Hindus sacrifice a lot to the point of
self-destruction.

1958: Rekha, a Hindu goddess of love is born.

RSS and VHP emerge as major schools of human thought: Guru
Golmalkar emerges as one of the greatest stinkers, I mean,
thinkers of the twentieth century. A whole nation follows his
footsteps and organizes his thoughts into action. In fact, the
RSS philosophy completely replaces ancient outmoded philos such
as the Vedas and the Upanishads as the mainstream Hindu school.

VHP grows in strength and status: Vishwa Hindu Parishad becomes
a premier secular organization in India and has a number of
projects for Muslims as well, including helping out one poor
Muslim family in Poona. Muslims, impressed by the compassion VHP
has for them, join VHP in millions and even those parochial
Muslims who don't join this secular, peaceloving institution,
support it unconditionally. Only some idiots on SCI write
anti-VHP stuff.

Sikh Overreaction: Many Sikhs overreact, instead of condemning
the Punjab terrorists, when only a mere few thousand Sikhs are
randomly killed in India by people just venting their anger.

Ajay Shah replaces Joachim Martillo as the bboard bigot: A
breath of fresh air (gas ?) on SCI as Ajay Shah enters the SCI
and represents Hindu Vishwa Oarishad. (sic) He simplifies many
things about our society so that ordinary folks like you and I
can understand it. For example, the world has two sets of
people, one a true secular hindu and the other pseudo-secular,
hindu basher, Marxist Leninist, undemocrat.

October 1990, Kar Seva begins: Several peaceful volunteers want
to do Kar Seva at Ayodhya. They only want to 'move' the mosque and
not 'destroy' it. If civil engineering can't do it, the Sevaks
will.

November 1990: Goonda Gehani, a well known member of the
Maryland community exchanges his views with some students at
University of Maryland eloquently by beating them up. Ajay Shah
posts his hilarious joke on Stalinism. It went roughly as "I
couldn't pass it up. You had said the only 'ism' that does not
lead to fascism is communism, but how about Stalinism ?" He was
going to extend the joke to include Maoism, Subbaraoism and
prism. But checks himself so that SCI folks won't laugh
themselves silly and develop hernia.

November 1990: Chandra Sekhar, the Millie Vanilli of Indian
politics, takes over as the next Prime minister.

December 1990: Guru Alok Vijayvargiaji publishes his treatise on
Hinduism, titled "What is Hinduism" on SCI. Though generally
hard to comprehend by mere mortals, it essentially said that
Hinduism is like a thousand infinities, it is infinite and
infinitesimal and it is a he as well as a she. The readers'
response was overwhelming and many of them publish  their own
essays titled "What is Alok Vijayvargia ?"

December 1990: I write this post and have a cup of chai afterward.

\medskip\hrule\medskip 
Hindi movie one liners and phattas (by Mahadevan Ramesh) - 26


\medskip\hrule\medskip
\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  HINDI MOVIE ONELINERS}
\centerline{\bf AND PHATTAS}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}

Ladies, jantalmen and Joachim Martillo..ha ha..myself Ramesh,
your good name? Yaaron, last few weeks, Soc.Culture.Indian full
of jokes, phattas, I was laughing, laughing, laughing. S.C.I
becoming friendly like one happy family with uncaljis, mosijis
and auntijis. Everyone posting one one one liner. It eej bery
enjoy. Yaar, I am having one liner too, only it eej two liner!
(magar, you doubbal your pleyyar, ha ha) Eej about liquid
oxygen.

Ajit: (to sidey) Abhey Sidey, (it eej already funny) ise liquid
oxygen me daal do; liquid ise jeene nahin dega aur oxygen ise
marne nahin dega.

Yaar, you were talking funny movies. You see funny movie
'Mughal-e-Azam' ?  Prithvi Raj giving dhamkees and Lata
Mangeshkar giving counter-dhamkees singing "Pyaar kiya to karna
kyaa". It eej very funny if you had never been in love. Yaar,
there was funny movie with Amitabh; Amitabh talking to mirror
imazh and imazh not back talking..and yaar, 'Padosan'...Kishore
Kumar sings and two donkeys come! ha ha and yaar, 'Saccha
Jhoota', remember dog Moti?  Biting and chasing villain. He was
'hot dog' yaar, ha ha. I don't know yaar.  Why all movie dogs
Moti? Remember 'Dil Daulat Duniyaa' Rajes Khanna first fishing
in swimming pool (thirne ka talaab, ha ha) and then trying to
take Moti dog inside temple and everyone telling 'No way
Jose'..except god. Very touching. And yaar, ha ha. this movie.
When I am thinking about this movie, khoob hassi aa rahi hai.
This movie yaar... ha ha..Tun Tun, she appears in one scene...ha
ha. It was very funny. Yaar, apna zamane me to, there were many
good comedian actors like I. S. Johar, Keshto Mukherjee, Balraj
Sahni..These days everyone becoming charractarractor. Only good
actors Johnny Whiskey and Coca Cola. Yaar, bees saal baad, SCI
full of Johnny Whiskey jokes. Yaar, I have one more joke.

Ajit: (to sidey) Abhey Sidey, ise liquid oxygen me dal do.
Liquid ise jeene nahin dega aur oxygen ise marne nahin dega.

Yaar, someone talking oneliner from commercial. When I was in
Bombay working and surfing (surfing my kapdas yaar, ha ha) I
accidentally finding out ki Vicco Vajradanti same as Vicco
turmeric Ayurvedic cream. By god, kah raha hoon. Joke eej on
conjoomers. Yaar, yesterday my jigri dost Asok come to my
appament. Asok telling me, "Yaar, Ramu, my head eej eating
cirraccals".  Myself telling "Bhaat?". Asok again telling "Mera
sir chakkar kha raha hai" and myself and himself telling "Ha Ha
Ha". Two minutes later Asok telling "Eat your promise" and
myself replying "Drink your cigarette". Very funny.  Asok masth
bandha hai. Sampoorna sheetal billi, ha ha. And yaar, when
myself and Asok go to D. A. V College (one next to Tiwari paan
shop) we had Prof.  P. C. Nigam and we calling him Param Chutiya
Nigam. Ha ha ha. Yaar, Southie log bahut chillate hain ki
'translation de do', especially Jaykrishnan. But, hindi
rastrabasa. Anybhay, how one can translate Param Chutiya yaar.
And yaar I remember oneliner about liquid oxygen.

Ajit: (to sidey) Abhey Sidey, ise liquid oxygen me dal do. Saala
Super Conductor ho jayega. Gaadi me ticket dethe dethe saala mar
jayega.

Ha ha ha very funny yaar. Yaar, I am habing good plan. So many
jokes from Illustrated Weekly magajine I have yaar. Why not
start discussion? Or one liner from cricket commentary yaar,
Faroukh Engineer and Lala Amarnath yaar, we can go on and on and
on and on and on and on.

Yaar, der ho raha hai. Venus already crossing jupiter. I have
class in few minutes. Bye. Now, now, I am going class. Jai Ramji
ki.

Bonus: (a real phatta quoted to me by an anonymous source)

Ajit: (to sidey) Abhey sidey, ise (meaning the hero) varnish me
daal do - finish acchi hogi.

(Translation: Villain - Throw this hero in varnish - the 'finish'
 will be good)
\medskip\hrule\medskip
\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  IIT, THE GARDEN OF LOVE}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}

What is this IIT bashing that is going on, folks ? All this talk about IIT and
no sex. You must be naive if you think that the only sexual activity that goes
on in an IIT student's life is, getting screwed in exams. 

Maybe it is true, maybe it is not. But let me transport you to another age, way
into the future, when there are as many women students studying in IITs as there
are men these days - and as few men students as there are women these
days. The gender ratio is reversed. Engineering, the last bastion of men, has 
finally fallen. The women have taken over.

Year, N thousand AD. Place, a nameless IIT campus near a large Indian city.
Row upon row of huge, concrete buildings, all hostels, housing the thousands
of women students, stand out of the landscape. It is slightly after dinner
time. The residents have just finished a healthy meal of rajhma and tinda
subji. To show the world they are sexually repressed, one of them is singing
an obscene parody of a hindi song loudly, from the third floor corridor. Three
other liberal fools are discussing the present day female dominated society. 
Boyie magazines are spreadeagled in most rooms and sexy jokes vitiate the
atmosphere. Outside, in the moonlight, Sunita Agarwal and Ajayeeta 
Palvayanteeswaran (the great, great, granddaughter of our famous Ajay) are 
sneaking a smoke. Their mothers' monthly checks haven't arrived yet and 
strapped for liquid cash, they share the cigarette. 

"Ajayeeta, dudette, where do you think you are going this late ?"

"Not too far, machini, just to the Boy's Hostel."

"You lucky bum, I know that cute male Srini has his heart out for you. I bet 
you are going to let him 'cog' (copy) your assignment."

"You girls always have this dirty mind. You are always thinking of boys and
sex. Don't you ever think of anything else? Me and Srini are just friends. 
Bye, now."

Saali, haraami, lucky woman, thought Sunita, jealously, as she watched Ajayeeta
turn the corner and disappear into the darkness toward the isolated, Boy's
Hostel. 

\medskip\hrule\medskip

A cosy room in the Boy's Hostel. Ajayeeta had somehow hoodwinked the
fortress-like security of the dorms and the oppressive looking chowkidars 
and is now alone with Srini. She tried to interest him with several topics, 
while transcribing the assignment for him. Srini yawns in disinterest.

Ms. Palvayanteeswaran tries just one more time.

"You males here at IIT are darned lucky. All these male-starved girls are 
willing to even do your assignments for you. Wait another fifty years. The 
situation will change. Maybe then in the IITs there will be as many boys as
there are us girls and who knows, we girls may even be in minority. Then you 
males will no longer get this kind of attention. The situation now is 
disgusting. Every IIT male is wooed. Every male is even asked to act in plays 
and skits whether or not they can act for nuts."

"Tell me about it, Ajayeeta." Srini replied "You girls don't even know how it
is to live as a minority, just us fifty boys to about two thousand of you 
girls. We are always stared at and people are always trying to 'line maro' us. 
You girls give us all offensive nicknames. It is repulsive to even go to the 
movies, with all you girls yelling and screaming at hulks like Ajit, Govinda 
and Jackie Shroff. Even the ghazwallaas are not safe from you."

"Oh, yaah,  even the professors treat you males with extra attention. You
don't have to join the NCC. No wonder we lost in the inter-IIT sports meet. We
girls played hard and annexed the kho-kho and tiddlywinks titles and you males
lost to IIT Madras guys pathetically in volleyball. Okay, let me make peace. 
How about grabbing some parathas at the dhabha tomorrow night. Its a date."

"I'm afraid I can't make it. Several girls have already pestered me about
going out with them. Besides I have been invited to the Hostel Day function in
Hall 2. I have also been asked to participate in the Kampus King
beauty contest."

"Okay, have it your way. You males get invited to all the hostel day functions.
But you wait, Srini. Next week the Cultural Festival is going to start and 
there will be an invasion of all these cute males from all over the country, 
from such colleges as Vivekananda College and Delhi College
of Home Economics. You will eat your heart out."

"That suits me fine. You IIT girls will only be gaping at them like goldfish
and you don't have the guts to approach any of them. You will try to be hep
and take them to your computer center and act cool. They will only laugh at you
for being the bumpkins you are. After the Cultural Festival you will be back 
to square one, thoroughly humbled and chastized."

"Amen. So be it. What is the point ? Why lead us girls on ? I am just wasting 
my time with you. You boys are anyways going to marry a rich dudette from the 
States right after your IIT days. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a library
to go to."

A disappointed Ajayeeta exits the hostel and disappears through the rows of
neatly parked Men's Bikes towards the silent library.

\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  A LATE EVENING IN INDIA}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}

PJ and self are good friends. We have known each other since we were this
small.  Whereas I had decided to go abroad and lust after money, PJ decided
to stay put in India and lust after money. I always hang around him every
time I hit Madras and he gives me those insightful 'state of the nation'
summaries.  "These days, it is fashionable in India to get married early in
life, like when you are in your early twenties. Bart Simpson is already
well-known here" he would update me. We were walking down a major
thoroughfare in the city.  Because of a strike by workers at the milk
processing plant, which was now a couple of days old, we couldn't get our
customary cup of chai and were walking like zombies deprived of their chai.

Just then there was a big commotion. Some volunteers belonging to some
political party, who could easily be mistaken for some goondas, were gently
persuading (with minimum force) the shopkeepers to shut their shops.

"Oh, those are the DMK people. They all have a tattoo of river Cauvery on
their left ear lobe. They are organizing a bandh in support of Mandal
Commission". explained my friend.

"But isn't DMK the ruling party ? How can the government go on strike."

"You don't understand. Tomorrow the Opposition party has called for a
bandh in support of the Mandal committee. So this is a preemptive bandh."

After the shopkeepers shuttered down their shops, a bunch of thugs from the
opposition AIADMK party appeared from nowhere and requested the shopkeepers
to open the shops and not observe the bandh. After they left, the newly
created MMK party grassroots appeared and forced the shopkeepers to observe
the bandh. Then AnnaMMK party cadres eventually appeared and forced open the
shutters.

As we were watching this bandh of wits, a bunch of kindergarten kids were
trooping out in a procession and we nearly got trampled. I stopped one
of them and asked them why they were marching.

"We are marching in support of Ramjhanmabhoomi."

"Aren't you kind of too small to be doing this kind of things, Pappu"

"God, don't tell me you are one of those who is always insensitive to the
Hindus and treat us like step children. Don't hurt Hindu sentiments. Guru
Sri Dalmiaji zindabad. I even attended the Kar Seva. We won't rest till we
find Balaji Jhanmabhoomi in Andhra and Kali Jhanmabhoomi in Bengal."

"While you are at it, you must also fight for Manasarovar and Mount Kailash,
which are also very holy Hindu places. Get them from the Chinese. I am sure
you can do it."

The air was filled with "Mandir Banenge" "Masjid thodenge" as the children
filed past, much to the chagrin of their teacher. Just hastily, they beat a
retreat, when a huge crowd of who seemed like high school kids were marching
in from the opposite side, shouting slogans.

"Release Baba Amte, Don't build the dam" said the loudest one "Save the
ecosystem. We won't attend classes unless the globe stopped warming."

I was very moved by the heightened awareness in my own country to all the
environmental issues.  As if by coincidence, another massive procession
appeared from a side road, this time made up of what seemed like college
students. Some of them appeared to have been students for a long time. "Stop
the atrocity of the police and down with the Principal."

I looked at my friend for explanation. He said "Maybe these are the kids
protesting the Principal because he didn't let them copy in the exams. (By
the way, this really happened) It can be also against the police for being a
little too harsh during the Samantha Fox concert held in Madras recently."

An enthusiastic student was just about to set fire to a bus to convey his
grievance eloquently. The conductor and the driver ran out of the bus. In a
jiffy there was an altercation between them and the students. The bus crew
then stopped all the other buses and thus began a 'wild cat' strike of the
city buses. The auto scooter rickshaws were already on a strike to protest
the mounting cost of diesel and weren't going to ply their machines till the
government subsidized diesel.

We moved away from the scene to relative safety. As we crossed one of those
monstrous office kind of building, a sea of humanity was gushing out. "We
are on strike" said a loud voice "Government, be fair to millions of
telephone workers."

I managed to talk to that 'worker'. "Sir, with due respect to your
grievances, don't you think it is unfair to hold an entire population at
ransom and cut an essential service like telephone. When you had your last
strike, my friend's mother had died in India and they could not reach him
for weeks."

"I sympathize with you. But you only see inconveniences to a few people and
not government's atrocities and the welfare of downtrodden workers."

"You workers are paid a lot of money and you want to exploit the fluid
political situation for even more gains. India is the only country where the
workers demand their rights without caring about their responsibilities.
Workers who screw up essential services with random strikes should be
punished very severly" I managed to say, before he started getting
uncontrollably angry. The mob would have killed me had it not for the neon
lights suddenly dying down all around us. "They are having a strike in the
atomic power plant, saar, because the staff cafetaria raised the price of a
cup of coffee" said someone. (By the way, this episode is true) Stumbling in
the approaching darkness, we reached a post office to mail a letter and the
postman inside told us "Don't mail any letters sir, we are on strike. It is
all the fault of the government. They employed pensioners temporarily to
clear the huge holiday backlog. Our union doesn't want efficient outsiders
to do our work.  We will work overtime and get that money and clear the mail
rush over the next few months." (This is also true, by the way)

My friend then gave me the first lecture of Strike 101. There are several
kinds of strikes and agitations. There is 'go slow' and 'sit-in' strikes and
'work to rule'. And flashy 'wild cat', 'sympathetic' strikes. There are
dharnas as opposed to 'gheraos'. There are 'calling in sick' and strikes
where workers actually sabotage installations. The 'rasta rukho' strikes are
different from 'rail rukho'. The 'Jail bharo' kind of agitation is different
from 'courting arrest' in terms of who gets arrested.  The lawyers were on
strike and the doctors were on strike. Some of the strikers can get very
novel. When the bank tellers were on strike, they doled out money only in five
paise coins to customers to protest something or the other. The vegetable
vendors went on strike and made their point by selling onions with extra
pungent aroma, driving everyone nuts. The musicians went on strike and only
sang Malkauns for a month before the government intervened.

The farmers were on strike as well. "The government is going to give us free
electricity. And a lot of our loans are written off and a lot of us don't
pay any income taxes. But we need free fertilizer and seeds and water and
this agitation will not stop till our demands are met. We belong to the
'channa daal sowing' caste. The government should stop the repression of our
caste and improve our lot". The rural areas were anyway turned into near war
zones by the sympathizers of People's War Group and their Naxalite
counterparts. On tuesdays, thursdays and saturdays there were dharnas in
sympathy of LTTE Tigers and on other days there were dharnas against the
LTTE. The BJP and the other organizations are already on a relay-hunger
strike. This is an interesting concept. You go on a hunger strike for eight
hours and then someone else will take over your spot.  This way you go on a
hunger strike and still don't kill yourself.

"At least the South is insulated from a lot of goings on." said my friend
"In the East, the ULFA (United Liberation Front of Assam) is on a war
footing and life is paralyzed. They have a nexus with LTTE and AP naxalites.
In Punjab, at least a dozen people are killed everyday. Kashmir is another
story. Then there are movements for a separate statehood for Jharkhand. The
hindi heartland is terrorized by VHP. Add to this other assorted caste and
communal violence. India is one big jungle, like it used to be, eons ago."

"I have visited India so many times since I moved to the US." I remarked in
response "I have never seen so much civil strife any time. I think the
quality of civil life is probably the worst since independence. The next
time on, you people should vote for some strong persons to power who would
control the situation and get the country running, whatever maybe her
political ideology. I don't know how you guys even manage to live and
maintain your sanity."

"Thanks for being condescending. You know, NRI guys like you expect miracles
in India. You guys can't stand Indian conditions even for a few weeks of
your visit even though millions of us are having to put up with this
throughout our lives. And you lived in India only a short while ago"

"No no, my point was more in the sense of ...."

My friend wasn't listening. He went on. "You are greatly inconvenienced by
train delays, people not standing in line, corruption, people not being
punctual, offices not working efficiently, traffic not moving smoothly and
so forth. You have a ready solution for everything .."

"No no, you misunderstood me. We too discuss these things at length on
bboards and Indian problems are foremost in our minds."

"How can you be sensitive to all this ? After all, you come here to cleanse
your guilt and do a lot of shopping, be it shopping for spices or wives. You
flash your dollars and green cards and then go back home to your Honda
Accords. We don't need you and your pathetic sounding American accents. Down
with NRIs."

His clarion call immediately attracted the attention of several youths,
which progressed into a large crowd chanting "We don't need escapists" "Down
with NRI unpatriotic dogs". The shops closed their shutters one more time.
The traffic came to a standstill. I quickly hailed a cab, (the cheaper
auto-scooter richshaws were on strike, remember ?) promised him a hefty tip
and rushed to my concert, to which I had a front row ticket.

\medskip\hrule\medskip 

\medskip\hrule\medskip
\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  LUNCH TIME CONVERSATIONS}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}

The place - a quiet Indian restaurant in Pittsburgh. Four amigos from India
are waiting for their lunch, nursing their Taj Mahal beer. The restaurant is
lit with just one candle at a far corner and the friends were having 
difficulty in
the low lux environment, trying to figure out if they are drinking their beer or
somebody else's. There are six simulataneous conversations going on between
the four of them. Ajay Palvayanteeswaran, an ex-IIT Madras product, has just
been introduced to Sexy Jainee, a. k. a Anurag Jain from IIT Kanpur, currently
on a visit to Pittsburgh, looking up an old classmate who is a friend of
Ajay's. (You got the picture, right ?)

"Acha, you are from IIT K ? So, when did you pass out ?"

"Me, I passed out in '87. And you ?"

"I passed out in '88. That is interesting. Then you must be knowing Rajeev
Gupta. He passed out in '87 "

"Wow, How do you know Rajeev Gupta ? That bugger is in Wisc-Mad. Then you must
be knowing Ramesh Ramachandran"

"Of course, how do you know him ? He is in his fifth year Mechanical
Engineering ...."

"But he must be in the four year batch ..."

"Yes, yes, I know. In IIT Madras, if you are in Mech Engg, then the entire
batch also gets to go do a fifth year - at the Ohio State University."

"Acha Acha. Did you then know Deepak Sundaram ? I think he was in bijlee. I
think in Ganga Hostel"

"Oh, yah, that bugger is from Bombay. Did you go to school in Bombay ?"

"Yeah, You know that bugger is now in New Jersey. I haven't talked to him in a
year. Actually it is kind of funny. Last year, my parents were coming from
India and I asked him to receive them and put them on a plane to Columbus and
this bugger sent a wrong set of parents to Columbus and it was total
confusion. Acha, did you know Prafulla Shah. He was doing Civil and I think he
is somewhere in Texas .."

"You know PJ too. God, it is a small world and is fast shrinking into a
singularity. That guy is total 'Kaat' bugger, a complete village type and
'dehaat'. Do you know what he is up to ?"

"Not much yaar, I heard ki he has joined a country club and now likes country
music. Acha do you then know Shashak Moitra."

"God, this is like going back to the future. How do you know Potto ?"

"We were in kindergarten together. Great bugger. Slightly muggu type. I heard
that he is married to an American chick."

"That bugger ? Marrying an American chick. God, he is the last person on the
earth who would do such a thing. I wonder what that woman saw in him that we
didn't see. Oops, never mind. Acha did you know Radhika Venkataraman, then.
She was in IIT K."

"Oh yes, we used to call her the Mobike Female. I think she is still in IIT K.
Quite hep. One bugger Prashant was despoly after her..."

"Prashant, you don't mean Prashant Godbole. I know him. What the heck is he
doing ? I must talk to him. Do you have his phone number shone number ?"

"No yaar, But I can find out. Do you know Manjit Ahluwalia ?"

"Yes, of course ! Then do you know Charles Gunaseelan ?"

"Oh Why of course ! Then you must be knowing Sanjeev Sharma"

"Yes, yes, then do you know Rangarajan Parthasarathy ?"

"He was my classmate in high school. Acha then do you know K. V. Rao ?"

"Rao bugger, of course. Then do you know Arvind D'Souza ?"

"Of course, do you know Sharada Iyengar ?

"Yes, do you know Tushar Patel ?"

"Yes, do you know Javed Mohammed ?"

"Yes, do you know Chetan Palsule ?

"Of course, do you know Amitabh Bacchan ?"

"That bugger, sure, do you know P. V. Narasimha Rao ?"

"Yes, do you know this dumb guy called Ajay Palvayanteeswaran ?"

"Abhey, moron I AM Ajay Palvayanteewaran, and don't ever call me dumb".

Presently, the waiter arrives with sizzling orders of vegetarian thalis and
the friends continue on to demolish them and make more such friendly, small 
conversations.
 
\medskip\hrule\medskip
\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  MATING PATTERNS OF CERTAIN}
\centerline{\bf HOMOSAPIEN DESICUS MALES}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}

ABSTRACT: In this paper, we analyze the habitat-specific mating
patterns of certain male members of the said species, focussing
especially on the nonlinear behavior during such occurrences.
Our theory contradicts the findings of Prof. Ringo
Rangoopadhyay, who conjectured that there is nothing interesting
in such mating, even to the specific members involved.

                           PAPER

Homosapien Desicus are small, delicate, two-winged insects found
predominantly in the Indian subcontinent. They can be
distinguished from other such species by a drooping proboscis
(jaw) loose due to perpetual talking. Some of them also talk
through an air tube at the posterior end of the body. Its
mouthparts consist of seven elements: a food channel, three
saliva channels, a labium and two channels for talking. There
are more than hazzaar of these species, which can be divided
into 31 or more genera. These are found worldwide, in all but
the most extreme habitats.
Large colonies of these species are bred in special habitats
called the IITs across India. During this larva stage, these
creatures are cocooned from external environment and this is
where the anatomical development of body parts like mustache,
ego, programming ability and lust takes place. While still at
the IITs, the species make tentative jabs at sexuality,
primarily during the cultural festivals which are marked by the
arrival of the Queens of the species. The primitive fertility
rites include producing blood-curdling obscene yells at
appropriate intervals and occassionally wooing the female of the
species with such offers as "Do you want me to explain the Unix
operating system to you ?".

After the pupal stage, certain advanced members of the species
tend to migrate to other habitats, called American Universities.
These young adults have crumpled polyester pants, shirts with
flowers on them and are directly interfaceable to computers.
They usually follow the money gradient. At first, the adult
males tend to congregate together in the same ant hill for
greater security and survivality. Less charitable members from
habitats other than the IITs would complain, not untruthfully,
"Look at them. IIT se keede makode ki tarah aa jaaten hain".
Initially, the male sublimates its libidanal energy into
academic work, till one day, when virgo rules the firmament, the
energy flow is reversed in direction.

After watching some adult movies and visiting topless bars, the
insect exerts blood pressure on its body, the abdomen soon
expands and very soon the exoskeleton becomes darkened and the
male is ready to mate. The mating season lasts approximately
twelve months a year, during which the male comes to heat many
times, and stays in heat for any time between a few hours to a
few years. While in heat, the male exudes an odor due to the
sudden use of deodorants.

The males usually refer to the females simply as 'females' or
'chicks' or 'dames' and have breathing difficulties in presence
of one. It tries to attract the attention of foreign females by
flapping its wings and shouting "Coochikoochikoo". By sheer
persistence, the male would ultimately take the female for
feeding, at first to a cheap place but eventually to a
virus-free environment. After the first outing, the male would
experience elevated levels of ego and would tell its friends
"Linda and I are just friends. Its not what you think". "But,
Palvayanteeswaran, we don't give a damn about what's going on
between you both". "No, some people are already gossiping. I
have to make important decisions about whether I want to live
with an alien member for the rest of my life". If lucky, the
male stays in courtship for a few more food sessions, after
which it is ready to write a cross-cultural treatise on human
courtship in general. At some point during this process, the
male also developes several tentacles with which it would
attempt to grab the female. For a while, the male would draw its
nutrients only from alcohol. It would also attempt to be 'cool'
and would do things like skiing, take the females to movies like
Gandhi and in a known rare case, even play its latest compact
disc over the telephone to the female.

Some other males would try to go for the desicus females in the
USA. In this context, males with mobility due to cars have a
slight advantage. Purring in the same language is a plus too. It
would start by first finding out from the foreign student
advisor which females are going to arrive, pick them up from the
airport and generally do peonic services. Once the situation is
stabilized, the courtship continues for a while and the couple
would shop together, find out and celebrate the respective
birthdays and give small gifts. However, the only fluids
exchanged between the male and the female during the courtship
are some strong smelling curries. Sometimes the male can be an
incurable romantic, volunteering to do ridiculous dumb charade
acts to impress the female. Usually, the male would procure food
for the female and they would watch hindi movies together, often
with eyes closed in ecstasy.  Finally, the female signals its
submission, by letting the male do her computer assignment.
Cross-mating with the subspecies ABCDcus is too complex and will
be dealt in a subsequent publication.

In a variation to the main theme, sometimes certain fortunate
females can attract several males, which leads to a severe
competition. Even the weakest male presumes that he stands a
good chance and spends much time and money in courting the
specific female.

Then the insect reaches the final stage of its evolution into
adulthood, known as 'Permanent Residency', which greatly
enhances its chances at breeding. When this stage is reached,
some members grow a special tail-like appendix. The homing
instincts of these species are phenomenal. A male then quickly
migrates to its old habitat and tells its parents "Enough is
enough, Even though I had been in the US for so long, I am still
Indian at heart and I can't give up my Indian culture. And how
can I say no to my own parents. I will marry anyone you suggest.
So help." The parents, very happy that their progenies did not
succumb to the vicious mating attacks of foreign women, quickly
search to locate the most suitable and strong-gened female of
the native genre, in terms of looks and money-making potentials.
Elaborately videotaped rituals occur near fires and mating
follows immediately.

Due to certain natural laws of transmigration, only the male
returns to the new habitat, telling his fellow drones that it
wasn't really an arranged marriage. They kind of knew each other
even when they were only eggs, he would point out. After two
years of marathon phone calls and short visits for the purposes
of consummating the conjugation, the female arrives one day to
join the male. And they continue on to live a happy life of
reproduction.
In conclusion, the author would like to say that such dating
habits are extremely personal things and discussing them on the
bboard amounts to mere chitchatting. Also, the author would like
to warn that this article is intended to be satirical, with no
malice toward the IITians. Heck, the author himself was an
undergraduate in an IIT.

\medskip\hrule\medskip
\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  MY AUNT, THE 'MATUNGA MAMI'}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}

"Mr. Mahadevan Ramesh, I have been a lawyer for twenty five
years. Of all the clients I have had, you are the strangest and
your case is the weirdest. Sure, that twelve year old boy in
Florida sued his biological parents and 'divorced' them, but I
don't think you have a strong case when you say you want a total
'divorce' from twenty of your uncles and aunts."

My lawyer told me with finalty. But I am not the type that gave
up easily. I tried to beg with him and even told him that maybe
we can use the 'Cruel and unusual torture' clause. I was even
willing to shell out all my hard earned few hundred dollars of
money saved off my stipend. I even appealed to his professional
ego and told him my case could be a benchmark. He was unmoved.
Well actually he moved, pushed me out of his office and slammed
the door shut.  Now I can never be free.

Readers, you may have read many of my rambling bboard posts
about my uncles on Soc.Culture.Indian. Don't you think I have
been tormented enough by uncles ? I have documented every uncle
of mine and their dysfunctional behavior. In fact, the Bronx zoo
has a separate enclosure where they house some of my relatives.
If uncles are so stressful, how come I am trying to break from
my aunts as well ? Aren't Indian aunts charming beasts ? And how
come I never wrote about them, aunts ?

Maybe I should write about my aunt in Bombay. You see, wave upon
wave of South Indians migrated from the South of India, in what
historians now refer to as 'Reverse Aryan migration'. Some of
them settled down in Bombay and carved a niche for themselves.
Some of them are well known, like the Palvayanteeswarans,
Varadaraja Mudaliar, Haji Mastan - and my aunt, who is popularly
known throughout Bombay as the 'Matunga Mami'. Yes, sir. She is
in the same league as the others. Right from the stinking slums
to the peripheral suburbs, the mention of the name 'Matunga
Mami' would quieten wailing kids when Gabbar Singh no longer did
the trick. Screaming mother in laws would pipe down and hug
their daughter in laws at the threat of being fed to 'Matunga
Mami'.  Oh, yes, she is the shrewdest woman that ever lived in
Bombay. And equal to two shrewd women, if I can exaggerate a
little for emphasis. Yes, my country folks, she is so shrewd she
could easily smuggle the shirt off Haji Mastan if he blinked. 

She is some kind of a 'South meets West' type , enjoying the
best of both worlds. She is a quintessential Southy who is
perfectly at ease with the Bombay culture. She lived in the
Tamil area of Bombay in a handkerchief sized flat in which she
had packed every known junk. Her knowledge of tamil is so great
she is an instant hit with the senior citizens that often come
from the South to visit their folks. But she is equally well
versed in Marathi and her Gujarati was reasonably good to glue
herself to the grapevine for any gossip in the Gujarati circles.
She knew so much english she even read the Reader's Digest. Of
course, all this was even before she was known as 'Matunga
Mami'.

The other day, when Ajay Palvayanteeswaran's aged grandmother
came from deep South, my aunt immediately conned her into making
a zillion pappads on the terrace. My aunt dried the pappads in
the summer sun for several days, shooing off menacing crows,
while maintaining a 'small talk' with the old woman. The next
week, my aunt had started a tamil bhajan class with the
grandmother and extracted all the bhajan verses from the older
woman. The third week, Ajay's grandmother called my aunt a
'Capitalist pig' and quickly retreated to Madras in disgust.

My aunt is a born shopper. Whenever she landed up at the Dadar
market, the merchants would go into the 'Red Alert' mode. 'That
Madrasi memsahib is coming, quick.' They would close down their
shops rather than risk her walk into their stores and steal the
whole store, thanks to her oily tongue and power of bargaining.
Oh, yes, I had been with her once or twice. She would always
stop by for a sugarcane juice afterward. She would give hell to
the juice guy and force him to extract the purest juice without
any water diluting the taste. But none of these equalled the
episode for which she was known to be the 'Matunga Mami'
throughout Bombay, even in Ghatgopar and Chembur.

About once a year she would visit us in Madras. It was like a
civilized person walking into a primitive culture. Her suitcases
would be loaded with the latest in handbags, wire baskets,
sarees, plastic nothings. My mom would be in total ecstacy at
the state of the art in plastics and especially after realizing
that my aunt had paid next to nothing for them, given my aunt's
superior haggling power. In return, she would pack one year's
worth of pickles, masalas, coffee seeds. She is an avid coffee
drinker - she would do the standard South Indian coffee trick of
pouring it from tumbler to the bowl to tumbler. She would know
exactly when to stop and how many meters to stretch the coffee.
With every sip of coffee, she would acquire an immense dose of
energy and after drinking the entire cupful, she would transform
into a bionic woman.

She is also a very 'modern' woman. We as kids would watch her
apply make up, when my mother would consider it a sin to use
even lipsticks. She would knot her hair into a knot that no boy
scout could make. Her high heels slippers were so tall she
looked like some kind of a ballerina, albeit a fat one. She once
admitted that she would go 'ballroom dancing' with her loving
husband on occassions and even sip wine and alcohol. It was
almost unreal for kids like me. 'Mom, if this is the case, do
you then think she also smokes cigarettes ?' I would ask my
mother. At which point, my mother would give me a tight slap.
My mom was in awe with my aunt. In fact, my mother would even
acquire a minor 'Bombay accent' for a few days after my aunt
left. Why my mother, all the South Indian women in Bombay, young
and old, identified my aunt as the perfect role model. After
all, she is the 'Matunga Mami'. 

One summer my mother sought relief from me by sending me away to
Bombay to stay with my aunt. Bombay dazzled me. The tall
buildings, fast lifestyle, alien culture - it was antithetical
to the sleepy life in Madras. I even commandeered an elevator
for the first time in my life, although I was in high school. My
aunt and cousins showed me a good time. However, my aunt
'managed' me with relentless enthusiasm. "Take your 'banian' off
this instant and give it to the servant maid 'Tai'. Otherwise
she will go away and you will have to wash it yourself. Bombay
is not like Madras where you can get servant maids at will" She
would tell me. "Later we can go to the market. Your mother
wanted some wire bags. And you don't even know what colors she
likes. Don't you ever pay attention ?"

I also noticed that she never rested even for a moment. And she
was always buying and redistributing things to her friends. "If
you bought 'banians' wholesale in Parel it costs less than half.
You should be prudent with money" She would tell me, despite my
nagging lack of interest. "And for heaven's sake, don't lean on
the balcony bannister. I had a 'paying guest' last year - he is
also an Iyer boy. In fact, you should tell your mother about him
so that we can try to match him with someone in our own family.
He is an engineer and earns big bucks. Anyway, he was leaning on
the paraphet like you.  It collapsed and he fell down one floor"

"My god, he must have been hurt."

"Yeah, he broke a bone. But I collected money from him to
rebuild the bannister. These are ornamental things and not meant
to take on your weight" I realized my aunt was ruthless. 

And then it happened one day, the incident for which she is
famous as the 'Matunga Mami'. One afternoon I was dozing off in
front of her fish tank, when the doorbell rang. I rushed and
opened the door. "We are from the Income Tax office" announced
one of them. "We have a search warrant to search your
apartment". I was stunned and looked at my aunt, who by now had
rushed down to the door. I was hoping her usual shrewdness would
dispense them off and cool my nerves. She took charge -
protested mildly and told them perhaps they got the wrong
person. Could she see their identification ? Then she told me in
tamil to show them uncle's desk, while she had to take care of
some kitchen stuff. 

They ransacked her living room. Then went inside and inspected
everything.  They even opened her huge almirah and safe. After
half an hour, it was obvious they were not getting any
incriminating evidence. They asked her to sign something, made
notes about her bank passbook and left. My aunt regained
composure in almost no time.

My aunt made herself a coffee and inspired by it, pounced on me.
"You should not open the front door and let people in just
because they pressed the calling bell" she admonished me.

"How do I know who they were ? They looked like authorities."

"Why, even thieves can walk in like that. It is easy to get
phony IDs. It is not enough to get good grades in chemistry and
physics. You should be street smart. I don't think you have that
yet. You don't have an ounce of your mother's smartness. These
darned income tax people. They don't go after the Tatas and
Birlas and instead chase neo-rich people like us. Just because
they uncovered a fraud in your uncle's company, they are
targetting everyone who has been working there. Your uncle had
already warned me about it last week."

By now, the entire building had heard the news and slowly one by
one, the neighboring women walked in. There was Chandra Auntie
and her great grandmother and Rukmini Auntie who lived
downstairs from my aunt. And yes, the sexy Auntie from the next
building. All of them were sympathetic to my aunt. They all
cursed the Income Tax raiders in chorus. Then another auntie,
who also lived downstairs walked in, handed a small package to
my aunt. "Here, take your jewels back" the woman told my aunt."I
have seen so many people, Mami, but nobody has your cool and
smartness. How did you even think of stuffing your jewels in a
pouch and tossing it down to our apartment ? That too under the
very nose of those tough income tax thugs."

My aunt smiled modestly. "Well, that's another story. I am not
going to tell you the details. Who knows, some of you may be
working for the income tax department. I am only kidding. Thanks
for helping me out and being a good neighbor. I guess my nephew
Ramesh will remember this summer holidays in Bombay. I only wish
he learns a trick or two from his aunt. He is actually smart,
but he needs to prepare for the cruel real world ....."

From that day forth, my aunt came to be known as the 'Matunga
Mami' and me, a very small, negative footnote in the whole
episode. I still don't know how my aunt managed to pull the
trick. But the rest of the world just doesn't care as the story
spread from Matunga to Sion to Borivili to even Poona and now to
the USA.

                                              - Mahadevan Ramesh

\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf \ACOUNT\ \ \ MIDLIFE AND OTHER ASSORTED CRISES}
\centerline{by Mahadevan Ramesh}

It has been almost two hours since Ajay Palvayanteeswaran and the other two
potatoes in his apartment had seen David Letterman. In fact, he even called
his friend long distance and discussed the latest Top Ten list. But he still
could not sleep. He was tossing around like bhujiya in a frying pan. The sad 
truth is, finally, even Ajay has been bitten by Midlife crisis.

Ajay Palvayanteeswaran is in the seventh or perhaps the eighth year of his
young graduate student career. With every passing year, the tunnel seems to get
longer and he has no idea if there is that proverbial light at the end of it.
He seems hopelessly trapped. In these years, he has seen the IIT vs
Others, Love marriage vs Arranged marriage, Hindu mothers are better than Muslim
mothers debates occur on SCI about twenty six times already. SCI always made
him think. But those thinkings were nothing compared to the present intense
brooding he was subjecting himself to. He tried to smoke himself to sleep. But
the topics kept coming at him - life, midlife, marriage, Ph. D, superbowl, you
name it.

It all started with his dad's phone call from India the previous day. The call
started innocuously with the usual inquiries about Munna, Pappu, Pinky and
Lovely. Then he told his dad about the prevailing weather, at which point, the 
dad incongruously called him a bumbling idiot. If he didn't wrap up his thesis
and do something useful to the society, his dad threatened to cut him out of 
his Will and send Uncle Venkat to visit him in the USA. His dad was always 
patient and kind. Why did he lose his patience ? 

Those were the days when calls from home used to be so tearful his ears used to
get wet. He remembered the time when his father asked him to bring five
kilos of gold with him the next time he showed up in India, instead of the
usual plastic junk. Ajay remembered telling his dad that with his savings, he
could barely afford to buy five kilos of potatoes. However, if his dad was 
willing to pay, he would buy the gold, but at the airport he would look his dad
in his eyes and tell him, 'Boss, maaal laayaa hoon'. In fact, following this
exchange, they also exchanged several other forgettable PJs and had a great 
time. Is this the same dad or what ?  

Ajay's father turned quite illogical, heaping verbal abuse on Ajay.
"Look at your other classmates. They are your age and they have each had three 
midlife crises by now and you still haven't gotten over the euphoria of
getting into IIT. Do you remember Parvati ? The girl who was in the adjacent 
crib in the hospital when you were born, she is now a mother of five. Have you
even thought about your marriage ?"

That hit a raw nerve in Ajay, for he had thought that only others got married.
When the hormones did their job, even Ajay had occassionally tried to acquaint
himself with some women. But none of the women cared to fathom the most
interesting personality that is hiding inside Ajay. Occassionally, egged on by
the SCI, he would try to intellectualize marriage and see if arranged
marriages are beneficial to the ecosystem. "Abortion is immoral" he wrote on
SCI "Personally I won't have one. But if women want it, it is their
choice." 

His dad also lowered his voice and told him "Listen son. You have to 
produce a son and I have to live to see it". That was the closest the father and
the son came to discussing sex. Children ? Yikes ! He could never visualize 
himself being a father. In fact, if he ever got twins, he would name them both
'Minnesota' and intentionally lose them in Kumbh Mela after teaching them a
reunion song. He would monitor them closely and see if they reunite after
twenty years and if one of them is 'bad' and the other one is a police officer.

Marriage ? Is he marriable ? His dad had given Ajay's horoscope to the family 
Punditji, whose ancestors have been Ajay's family Pundits since the days when 
everyone's ancestors were just dinosaurs. His dad even placed classified ads 
in 'India Abroad' and got replies from several innocent divorcees. 

Ajay stopped pondering and started thinking. He compared himself with his 
other classmates. He has always been too slow, too late, too short of money. 
When he was a mere child still eating toothpaste, his friends were already 
flying kites. While he is still a closet 'Sound of Music' fan, watching the 
reruns every Thanksgiving, his friends were discussing Kurosowa's Japanese
version of Sholay. While he is still as virgin as some Amazonian rain forest, 
many of his friends had already fulfilled their American dream and owned a 
suburban home and produced 2.2 kids. And while Ajay rode his brakeless bike 
to do grocery and had Anthakshari party each weekend, his friends drove their 
Honda Accords and had Anthakshari party each weekend. Maybe he too will get a 
job someday, he too may marry someone. And maybe he too will buy a house with
a nice carpet instead of his present mousetrap, with a carpet which looks like
somebody just dropped several very large three item pizzas on the floor.

But first he will have to finish the thesis. He decided to dedicate his thesis
to 'Amma and Appa' despite his dad's harsh words. He will also thank his
grandmother Abigail for teaching him about computers without which he would be
plucking future Tandoori chickens in the Star of India restaurant. Did his 
grandmother ever have a midlife crisis, he wondered. His grandmother is like 
the mother of all grandmothers. She got married when she was five. She became 
a football widow at the age of twenty two and a real widow at the age of 
seventy five after mothering approximately thirteen kids. (In fact, Microsoft 
Corporation is going to introduce a software in her honor called MS Widows)
Even she was beseeching him to get married and threatened to die if not. 
The next opportune time he gets, he was going to talk to his 
adviser about wrapping up and maybe leaving out the 'Results' part of his 
dissertation. And he vowed never to crack the 'Adviser, Budweiser, Apartment,
Department' joke ever again, unless forced at gunpoint.

He was still tossing and turning. He cursed and then smoked another cigarette.
Suddenly, on an impulse he logged in. There was an email from Ranga from
Ganga ! Ajay's day was immediately 'made'. Ranga had written about the summer 
time in Ohio State and all the women and their skimpy bikinis and what he, 
Srini and Bala thought about the 'Dream Team's Olympics performance. Ajay 
immediately darted off a reply, discussing the women of his town and their 
bikinis, David Letterman's Top Ten list for that day etc. He felt lighter
and sleepy. Midlife crisis ? What Midlife crisis ?
 
                                               - Mahadevan Ramesh

\medskip\hrule\medskip
\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  MONEY MATTERS}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}


Between your massive telephone bills and saving up for a trip home to India, 
you may perhaps find yourself with a little leftover money - a small 
foundation toward your life savings. You have probably put it in a 
neighborhood bank where it is earning a miniscular 3.5 % interest rate. And 
then you turn on the TV and see the Stock market hotting up 
or the gold prices go up. You find yourself wondering "Yeh Wall Street ko
kya ho gaya hai ? and how do I invest my money in stocks ? I too want to 
become a true blue capitalist." Don't despair ! Here is a gentle introduction 
to the American Stock Market for the uninitiated. (Experts, especially Satya 
Prabhakar :-), please skip this post)

Q: Can Indians on student visa invest in stock market here ?
A: As nearly as I can tell, the answer is yes. Only, you have to pay the taxes
on any profits you may make (only after you sell your shares and realize the
gains. There are no taxes on the 'paper profits'). Some investment companies 
might withhold 20 % of your profits automatically as taxes. Keep meticulous 
records of all financial transactions.

Q: Isn't investment in Stock Market risky ?
A: Absolutely ! Money in a federally insured bank is mostly risk-free. That's
why you get measly returns in banks. On the
other hand, if you invested your money in high stake lottery tickets, you 
have taken a mega risk. The Stock Market is somewhere in between - there are
risky stocks and there are very, very risky stocks - there is no extra
gain without associated extra risk - you have to decide on how much risk 
you can tolerate and invest suitably. 

Money in the stock market is not like money in the bank. You have to 
watch your investments and how they perform and if the fundamentals are
changing. But you don't have to spend your afternoons monitoring M1 money
supply or yields on T Bills. Just some minimum attention to details. 

On the average, over the last several decades, the stock market has been 
returning more than 10 % a year. Note however that in any given month or year
or day, the Dow Jones and the other averages may go down. So it is better to 
stay in the market for the long haul, unless you are smart enough to time the 
major market moves. This kind of return of 10 % a year beats inflation 
handily. In fact, if you have a lot of money and NOT invested in stocks, 
you are just missing a nice chance to build some wealth.

Also, if you are going to be in the market for the long term, it doesn't matter
a whole lot WHEN you enter the stock market and when you get out, since day to
day fluctuations are going to be averaged out.

Q: How do I invest in the stock market ?
A: There are essentially two ways of doing it. One is buying individual stocks 
and the other possiblity is to buy into Mutual funds. Unless you have a lot
of money, stick to Mutual Funds.

Q: What are Mutual Funds ?
A: Mutual funds are where the money from all the participating investors is
pooled in and with the resulting cash, investments like stocks, bonds etc are 
purchased by professional money managers. There are many, many Mutual Fund 
companies. Each Mutual Fund company in turn can have several 'Funds' with 
various philosophies. For example, Fidelity Investments is a Mutual Funds 
company (actually they have other services also besides Funds) and has a 
variety of Mutual Funds - they have funds which only invest in Europe or in 
Pharmaceutical stocks or in Aggressive Growth companies. All Mutual Funds
companies will also have a Cash or Money Market Mutual Fund (with bank-like
yields) where you can decide to park your money in case you want to be out 
of the market temporarily.

Q: How do I know which Mutual Funds are good and which are bad ?
A: Usually magazines like the Consumer Reports or Forbes will rate them every
year. Again, the past performance is no guarantee of continued future returns.
Make a trip to the library.

Q: How much money can I invest ? I don't have a whole lot.
A: Some Mutual Funds will let you invest as little as a few hundred dollars.
If you promise to invest a fixed amount every month, some of them don't even
have any set minimum. However watch out for a sales commission some of these
companies impose. The technical term for the commission is 'Load'. A lot of
the Mutual Funds companies don't charge any loads ('No-Load' Mutual Funds).
Research after research has shown that there is hardly any performance 
difference between Mutual Funds with loads and without loads. So stick to
'No load' Mutual Funds. 

The best thing to do is to call some of these companies and ask for their
brochure. The following are some Mutual fund companies and their phone
numbers: Fidelity Investments (Only some funds are 'no-load' phone: 800 544 
8888), T Rowe Price (phone: 800 638 5660), Janus (phone: 800 525 8983)
and Twentieth Century (phone: 800 345 2021). The last three companies, I 
believe, are 'No load' companies. THIS IS ONLY FOR YOUR INFORMATION.
I AM NOT ENDORSING ANY OF THESE COMPANIES.

Once you get their brochures, see how their funds have performed over at least 
the past five years, especially in 'down' years like 1989 and 1987.

Q: What if I suddenly need the money for some emergencies ?
A: Your money is more or less liquid. It may still take nearly a month to
get it back from the investment company, but often sooner.

Q: How do I know how well my investments are doing ?
A: The Mutual Funds performance is tabulated in newspapers every working day.
Also, most of these companies have toll-free numbers to check on the Funds.
Be patient. Don't expect your money to double or triple in months. Take
off those dollar signs dangling in front of your eyes. Think of your
investment as an informed participation in the economic growth and not some
kind of a gambling. 

Q: How do I buy individual stocks ? How much should I invest at a minimum ?
A: In principle, you can buy even one share of a stock. For example, if IBM
is selling at \$ 55 a share, you can buy one share. But you have to pay
a commission to buy and sell stocks and there is a minimum commission of
about twenty to fify dollars to buy even one share. So your IBM
share will have to go up by forty to a hundred dollars for you to even
break even. In reality, shares are bought in hundreds and occassionally in 
'odd lots' in numbers like fifty, thirty five, seventy and such.

In order to trade in stocks, you have to open a brokerage account in one of
the many brokerage companies. There are 'Full service' brokers who even give
you financial advise and there are 'Discount brokers' who only do the
transaction - it is better to use just the discount brokers since you can do
the stock market analysis yourself and that is half the fun. There may be 
a minimum imposed by these brokerage companies to open an account.

Q: How do I find out which stocks are good and which are bad ?
A: Aha, a million dollar question. If you go to your library (reference
section) there is a publication called 'Value Line'. This lists a profile
on nearly two thousand companies and their financial performance and what 
these companies do etc. Also, you may want to read the business sections
of newspapers. Picking the right stock is either a fine art or plain dumb
luck. Monkeys throwing darts and picking stocks at random probably perform not
much worse than professional stock pickers. However, if you do want to
develop a philosophy about picking stocks, do some reading. 

One of the good books on stocks and Wall Street in general that I would 
recommend is 'One up on Wall Street' by Peter Lynch, which should cost
you about ten bucks at a local bookstore. The author was the manager of one 
of the highly successful Mutual Fund (Fidelity Magellan Fund) which returned 
nearly seventeen times the original investment in fourteen years. He has 
outlined some of his stock-picking techniques. This is a non-technical,
entertaining book.

(And how am I qualified to make this post ? Because in the past, I have 
helped several desi students in getting started on their investments. This is
just a synopsis of their usual questions. Also, I have a portfolio of 
several Mutual Funds and stocks.)

\medskip\hrule\medskip
\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  PROFILES OF SOME }
\centerline{\bf SOC.CULTURE.INDIAN POSTERS}
\centerline{  by Mahdevan Ramesh}

(all names used in this article are imaginary - my first ever post
some five years ago !)

\underline{(1) Very Late Bloomer Esiason}

He is tickled to death by some hackneyed offensive 'joke' that
most people would have heard a million times by the time they
get out of high school.  While laughing hysterically, he pounces
on the terminal and mails it to s.c.i.  Periodically, he will
also post the liquid oxygen joke and some joke about the Pope
and Reagan and for the n+1 th time, the X+1 syndrome article
that he just came across. When serious, he will wonder why
Indians don't date or why there are so few Indians in ballet.
Other frequently asked questions by him are what ABCD means or
if sardars are called surds.

\underline{(2) Know-it Alli}

This killjoy knows everything. Just when a discussion is heating
up and when you thought you could post your opinion for the
first time on the net, this guy will finess it with an
all-encompassing post on things like the reign of Samudra Gupta,
including the names of everyone in his harem. He is the only one
who knows the date when zero was invented.

\underline{(3) Thiruvengadu Opinionswamy} 

This guy has an opinion on everything, from tiger's mating calls
to stuffed parathas. He has to mail at least one post a day and
carry discussions on three or four topics simultaneously. Most
of the time his opinions are bland and non-controversial. His
high point comes when some sensitive person actually gets bugged
by his opinion and starts a jihad, which Mr.  Opinionswamy wins
by attrition. He is a eleventh year Ph.D student in Computer
Sciences.

\underline{(4) Joacim Martillo}

This baffling prehistoric mutant, a member of the brontosauraus
family, is an interesting subject for several psychologists and
medicine researchers alike, who are trying to find a cure for
his rabies. He alternately pukes over his terminal or sits on
the keyboard and sends the pollution to the bboard.

\underline{(5) Contro Contrapadhyay}

He makes statements that are so controversial that once even the
editors of The Hindu found it fit to respond to s.c.i. He would
say, for the heck of it, that Amitabh Bachchan is a woman or
North Indians don't take showers or I am, therefore I am not. He
then has a lot of fun watching the others fight it out.

\underline{(6) Kiran Bore}

He writes at least three screenfuls (or six if he is awake) on
some topic that is very interesting to him. It could be on the
inflation in Tanzania or the effect of planet's positions on
house plants.

\underline{(7) S.E.L.F P.I.T.Y Rao}

He gets defensive and explains himself even if nobody cares,
like why he is not a bigot and how he is broadminded. He
indulges in an unwanted autobiography, with gory details of his
pitiful childhood, of course without any punch lines.

\underline{(8) Ned Mithaiwala}

This is the kind of guy who is disgustingly sweet. He wishes
everyone a happy this or that. One time, so as not to offend
anyone, he posted a whole message with nothing but smileys all
over.

\underline{(9) Sunil Controversy Extender} 

He starts it all over again, just when we thought it is over.
Just last month his post begged to find out if it is true that
Smitha Patil indeed died and who the father of her child is.

\underline{(10) Alumnus Sinha}

He is the kind of guy who is born to be the president of the
local Indian Association. He perpetually looks out for his
Kindergarten classmates and the addresses of their sisters.
Since his last year's year book is already obsolete, he is
compiling a brand new one this year. Even if you never lived on
the same planet as he does and don't ever want to meet him, send
him mail That would certainly make him happy.

\underline{(11) Joe Confucious}

He usually posts under the name John. Q Public. He has two or
three points of view depending on who he actually is, who you
think he is and whose computer account he is using. His favorite
sentence is "This is not what I meant".

\underline{(12) Ajay Superindian}

He typically asks the net people about the best place to get
Rolls Royces or an Indian Ayah. He would go to India and is
offended by people begging on the streets and the hot climate
that almost killed him. He would then post a heartbreaking
article on trains being not punctual and how inconvenienced he
was in a third world country such as India. Next year he will go
to Brussels and wants to know what to see there.

\underline{(13) Srini Testaverde}

The highlight of his life was when he posted a test message
successfully and saw his name in full glory on the net news.
When he was slightly less nervous he even added a cute one liner
with his test message. The clincher was when he got so bold he
sneaked in a second test message just to see if anyone noticed.

\underline{(14) Ramesh Morpholojeeth:} 

He is the kind of guy who wastes his time trying to categorize
s.c.i posters. Since he tries to be funny, he can also be
characterized as an 'attempt\_at\_humor\_ist' along with people
like 'good enough for the GIs' Bob Hope and Pat Sajak. 

Of course, I haven't included other minor characters such as the
Trivial Objector, Guess-my-genderji,
IIT-M\_Cunning\_linguist\_Machan, Test Message Respondurangan etc.
Maybe next time.  
\medskip\hrule\medskip
\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  AN IMAGINARY TALKSHOW}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}

This is only a test message. Skip this one. JJJJJJust kidding.

Actually this is a post about locating a dear friend of mine.
Her name is Parvati Devi Venkatanarayanaswamy. Her nickname is
also 'Fridge'. She used to be the defensive linesperson for the
University of Northern South Dakota football team. She is an
alumnus of Jawahar Kindergarten school and then was in IIT
Madras, 'passed out' in '83 and twice in '84 and graduated in
'86 with a B. Tech in Levitation. I was hoping she would be my
girlfriend and yaar, yesterday I took her to this Indian
restaurant with my assistantship money in my pocket and we
shared one vegetarian thali. After dinner she said "Wait a
minute, I will be back" and has been missing ever since.
Finders please let me know. My email address is given below.

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SOME EXPLICIT REFERENCE TO SEX.
IF THIS OFFENDS YOU, PLEASE SKIP THIS POST.
\vfill\eject
\medskip\hrule\medskip
\centerline{\bf \ACOUNT\ \ \ A TALK SHOW ON A BALMY EVENING}

"I am Dr. Ruthless and this is Sexually Sneaking. Helloooo, You
are oooooon the aairrr. Okay"

"Hi, Dr. Ruthless, (a shrill responsive 'Hi' from Dr. Ruthless)
I am calling from the Boston area, my name is Ajay
Palvayanteeswaran, not my real name. But you can call me Jock
Careless Satan Masskillo, my real name. I have a few
problems..."

"All sexual problems, I hope, hee hee"

"Well, not exactly. I have over two or three billion problems.
That is how many Muslims and Chinese and Hindus and Muslim
apologists and Muslim apologists apologists there are and if
only they would embrace the Western civilization.."
"Hindus - yes, yes, they produced the Kamasutra, very erotic"

"But actually my problem is with the Muslims. I have this thing
against them. But I try to invent reasons to justify my
prejudice. Yes, now I know why this religion is so horrible. In
the year 1843 a Muslim in West Africa killed a non-Muslim. Isn't
it terrible ? So, everybody should hate all Muslims"

"Ah, Come on Mr. Masskillo, don't waste my TV air time. Come to
the sex problem"

"Actually see, I am an open minded person. I know the King of
Jordan personnally. The prince of Saudi Arabia and I would ride
the same camel, till the camel objected to my bboard postings. A
small Sheikdom even asked me to be their princess. But I told
them that the Western civilization needed my thinking, ("I don't
think so" - Dr. Ruthless) although I would love to have
cliterodec-whatchamacallitomy done on me.  The late Ayatollah,
may he languish in peace, always addressed me as the 'Great one'
and sometimes as the "Grrrrrreat one".  Boy, I loved stroking
his beard. You see, I have relatives in all the countries of the
world. I can't help it, my ancestors were quite promiscuous. I
had many dates when I was in Arabia and they were not all palm
dates ("Hee hee" - Dr.  Ruthless) See, when it comes to girls, I
don't discriminate.  Actually I was quite surprised to see that
the West really had some influence on this backward race. These
barbarians actually wear clothes and eat cooked food."

"One moment Mr. Masskillo...Hi MOM!! Let's see, and so this must
have affected your sex life, then. Freud would have said that
you are still in your anal stage, stuck up in a very serious
way. "

"Yes, I am aware of it. The problem began when I started
memorizing some Persian dictionaries while I was in China. This
way, all I had to do was say something in Arabic and follow it
up with a lot of filth about the Muslims and fool everybody into
thinking that I knew what I was talking about. Also, if people
refute my gibberish with logical arguments, I always tell them I
am from Harvard and then they have no argument"

"Wait, I think I just discovered an interesting sex therapy. In
fact, they should make all the rapists and other sexual perverts
read your postings over and over and very soon they will become
nauseous, neurotic and soon get over their perversion and start
tearing their hair. But then, you might brand me as a
rapist-pervert-apologist and post a ton of crap on the bboard."

"I am not finished yet. Nehru was a liar. Gandhi was a
wife-beater. Jinnah used to belch loudly. Everyone in the middle
east is a moron."

"But your problem is well-defined and ..."

"Shut up, you Muslim apologist, you know nothing. I know
everything. No one knows anything. I know everything. East or
West, home is best. East meets West. Westside story. Therefore
Muslims are all bad. By the way, why don't you personally
discuss cliterodectrorotoxicologicadermy with your viewers, you
coward cow? I dare you. Let them decide about which of the four
types is ...."

The line is cut. "Mr. Masskillo, decorum please. Okay ?" Dr.
Ruthless is too embarrassed and shaken for the first time in her
life. "You might want to go to the Geraldo show or Morton
Downey, if you promise to be at least as civilized as these
gentlemen are. We will perhaps return after this commercial
break and I am Dr.  Ruthless and this is Sexually Sneaking. Okay
?"

\medskip\hrule\medskip

DISCLAIMERS

All characters and situations in the above post are imaginary
and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely
coincidental. All views expressed above are my own and my
employers have nothing to do with it. Narayan S. Raja's
hilarious Dr. Matrix articles inspired me to write this,
although he is not responsible for the way it turned out.
(What the heck, everyone is entitiled to some bad posts)
By the way, my lawyer is one of the best in Pittsburgh.

\medskip\hrule\medskip
\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  VEDIC HINDU MEN WERE }
\centerline{\bf GOOD AT COMMUNICATIONS}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}

According to the 'Michigan Daily', the ancient Vedic Men had already reached a
very sophisticated level of interpersonal communications. "The Veda is a 
veritable source of verbal and non-verbal communication skills." commented 
Miss Manners, a leading authority on such things. "For example, the 'Shashanka
Upanishad' devotes an entire Sutra on things like when your ex-wife leaves 
her present husband, what kind of greeting card is appropriate for the 
occassion to communicate your feelings. What the Vedas say about 'Aswamedh 
Maha Yagna' has direct relevance even today, for social skills one needs to 
attend a backyard barbecue party. Satya Prabhakar might want to know this."

PETER PRINCIPLE FOUND IN THE VEDAS !

"Amazing but it is true." said Tom Peters, a Nobel Prize caliber management
expert "It is all there in the Sama Veda. in fact, the Western management 
owes a lot to the Vedas. Why do you think we call them Management 'Guru's and
not Management 'Apostles ?" he asked us with a twinkle in his eyes. "And
if you don't believe me, all you have to do is just read the latest 'National
Enquirer' when you do your grocery shopping next, to find out that even
'Taguchi techniques' are mathematically derived in some hidden slokas and was
used extensively for Quality Control when Nuclear bombs were made during the
Kurukshetra War."

RELATIVELY SPEAKING

It is old news to seasoned SCI readers like you that simple Upanishadic verses
like 'Asadho maa sadh gamaya' (such as what is found in Virendra Verma's
signature file) would lead to direct deduction of Einstein's Special theory of
Relativity. Except that the ancients had predicted E = mc to the power 1.998,
which is not a bad approximation, you know. Every weatherjock on TV stations 
know that Shiva's cosmic dance meant exactly the ozone depletion in antarctica,
which the Vedics referred to as 'Antara arctikam'.

VEDIC MEN WERE MORE BORING AND MORE OBNOXIOUS !

Scholars and other SCI types studying the Vedas have unearthed some
sensational passages in the Atharva Veda detailing the Top ten excuses for 
Vedic men to turn down a prospective 'Vedic' date.

(10) I have to create slokas explaining the 'General Theory of Relativity' 
and 'Quantum Gravity', not tonight, Dave. (short for 'Devi', a la 'Babe' for
'Baby'). Next, I will have to come with signature
files for Virendra Verma, Jairaj et al.

(9) I am asymptotically discovering 'Infinity'. Also, gazing at stars to do
some Astrology homework. Go away.

(8) I already have a girlfriend from my previous birth.

(7) I am sore from all the Padmasana and yoga.

(6) I am not that kind of a Vedic scholar.

(5) I am trying to find out whether I am Dwivedi or Trivedi or Chaturvedi.

(4) I am celebrating the 100000 th anniversary of the birth of the first
Sri Ramapithecus, the ancient man evolved in India.

(3) I am going to fatten the horses for the Yaga.

(2) I am Vedic, I don't believe in post-marital sex.

and the top one is,

(1) I don't go for Desi women. I prefer American women.

\medskip\hrule\medskip
\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  THIS AND THAT }
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}

Remember my Uncle Venkat ? He made his hundredth visit to the USA this summer.
After the initial euphoria and jetlag wore off, he was back to getting bored
again. "It is like being under house arrest" he confided in me, between his
belches "My son and daughter-in-law go off to work. I can't even step out of
the house and go for a walk, because dogs roam the streets or cars come
dashing by. And there are so many bad characters stalking the area. Everyone
in this country is so huge. Even the children are so well built I can't tell
them for sure. If a huge guy rides an undersized bike, then I conclude that it
is a kid. The only interesting thing that happened was the Boston Tamil
Association's annual pot luck lunch last week. Of course, the chief guest was 
Norman Schwarzkopf."

He went on. "I am no longer sure if I want to get my green card and settle
down here. In this country, husbands divorce wives, there is homosexuality,
sons don't take care of parents. Ramesh, don't forget the Hindu way of life. I
can't even talk to my grandchildren because they don't know any tamil and they
don't understand my english. Look at those little devils, they don't sleep in
the afternoon and get very 'kirrannki' in the nights"

He continued.

"Give them pissas with pepperoni, they'll devour them with a pazzion. Give
them rice, they won't touch it. Give them French Fries, they will go for it.
Daal, hmm hmm. Give them pawncakes or what is the other thing that looks like
a table tennis racket, yes, waffles, they will eat a dozen. Give them ..."

"Uncle I get the idea"

"Come here, granddaughter, let grandpa tell you a story"

"Story ? I love stories. Tell me one"

"You heard about the 'Rabbit and tortoise' story "

"No, but what is a tortoise, is it like turtles ?"

"Yes, which one runs faster, a rabbit or a turtle ? Tell your grandpa."

"Turtle, of course"

"Are you sure the turtle runs faster than a rabbit ?" My uncle asked
disbelievingly.

"Yes, Ninja turtles"

"Shucks, too bad. If only you told rabbit, grandpa would have told you a 
nice story. Ramesh, see what I mean ?"

\medskip\hrule\medskip

As a desi in this country, my English has been corrected, both the grammar and
the pronunciation, quite a few times by the natives. "It is pronounced 'sord'
and not 'sword', the w is silent" some kind soul would one-up me. Many a
times, I would simply lie, claiming that that was the British way of speaking
English. Now, I have 'sorta' gotten used to the local english. And most
of the natives I interact with, have no problems with my brand of english. 
After all, we Indians speak gooder English than most immigrants and our
English continues to be influenced by great literary minds such as Shakespeare,
P. G. Wodehouse and Bart Simpson. 

Then I moved to the Denver area,
the Wild West Country. Everyone is mucho macho, especially the males.
They all have mustaches, drive a Taj Mahal sized truck, wear jeans and Goodyear
blimps for hats. And they always say "you bet !" no matter what you say. You
say a
polite thanks and the response is a loud and emphatic "You bet". "Isn't it a
wonderful day ?" "You bet !" "What do I do in Las Vegas ?" "You bet !" "What
do YOU do in Las Vegas ?" "You bet !". "Ah, I caught you there, didn't I ?"
"You bet !" And so on.

Several American usages have always intrigued me. Never mind that they use
'flammable' instead of 'inflammable' to mean the same thing. Apparently (so
the story goes) not too long ago, gasoline trucks used to be labeled
'inflammable' till one day, someone thought it meant flame-resistant, threw a
matchstick, burnt himself real bad and sued the signmakers for a trillion
dollars. Then you have child bearing women who are termed 'very pregnant' as
opposed to having a
touch of pregnancy; there are football players who know their 'basic
fundamentals' well; then, there are people who 'own their OWN homes or
businesses' as opposed to owning someone else's. 

Also, most unknown processes are 'automatic'. "The bill will be deducted
'automatically' from your account" or "I assumed 'automatically' you would be
in your office" etc. There was a time, when I had to teach undergraduate
Physics lab for a living. A woman walked in half an hour late, found herself
without a lab partner and set out to do her experiment alone. The experiment
involved rolling a block down an inclined plane and determining the value of
g, the accelaration due to gravity. She was all flustered and asked me "Should
I keep pushing the block down or would it go 'AUTOMATICALLY' ?" That was
almost surreal. 

\medskip\hrule\medskip

Folks, remeber the time you all just arrived, 'brand new' to this country, 
with some other fellow desis, aboard a
nondescript plane, clutching your suitcases filled with recently made suits
and useless textbooks ? Remember those days when food, cigarettes and booze used to be
community property and when we all had all the time in the world to do everything
in life. When advisors were only paper tigers and a McDonald's meal was a
treat. That's when I discovered that almost every Indian, to a person, 
seemed to have had a fulfilling undergraduate life, no matter where they went
to college or how exactly they had their fun. And remember the first road
trip ?

Someone suggested that we checked out New York City. It was the most exciting
thing we ever heard and pretty soon everyone and his roommate wanted to join
us. Despite rejecting many potential fellow passengers, we still ended up with
six in a car driven by the only driver, Rajan, a year senior to us. 

It was a rental car and a thing of creative perfection. Like five blind men,
we groped around and discovered its various components and knobs. Lele even
kissed it. 

"Abhey, guess what, this car doesn't have a cigarette lighter."

"Move over. You guys don't smoke. These Yanks will never build cars without
one. Look at the bottom panel."

Then I remember Lele quickly running to the front seat and grabbing it,
leaving the four of us to do the turf battle on the back seat. We were like one
continuous mass of flesh constantly trying to reach some kind of an equilibrium.

If one guy felt itchy, the next guy scratched. But watching the super duper 
highway go by at warp speeds, for the first time in our lives, was something 
else. "This highway system is fundu. Shit. Look at how many flyovers they have."

"These roads are nothing" Rajan would say. "You should see the roads in
Illinois."

We lapped up his immense experience. This was quickly followed by derisive 
comments about desi highway system, if one could even classify it as a 
'system'. "Buffalos would roam all over the four
lanes" someone said "Dhabhas would crop up every hundred yards and 
there will be 'Rasta rukho' strikes everywhere"  This obviously produced
loud, smug laughs. Someone else would read the atlas every two minutes and 
inform us that we would pass a small town called Zanesville and West Virginia
was less than eighty miles away. "I don't know yaar, why do they still have
miles here ?"

Rajan, the sort of guy who would find inner peace in New York Times and for most
parts wedded to the computers, was a totally different person behind the wheel.
He would explain his every move to us, the uninitiated.

"Look at that 'aarssehole'" he would tell us in his heavy accent "He thought I
would pass the Mazda on the right and then move in. Instead, I passed the
Chevy on the left and then the red Beetle and moved in before the other Chevy
moved into my lane" 

And then the time when the entire back seat yelled "Mammu !!' in unison when
we sighted a cop car at a distance. Rajan slowed from fifty five miles to a
respectable fifty miles. We all watched the Police car glide by from plus infinity to
minus infinity. What do you think, Cop, we are all desi dudes. We don't get
caught easily. "I think the Mammu has caught the red Porsche" Lele shouted
excitedly, although nobody believed him. We were still mad at him for grabbing
the front seat. 

Finally, after hours of exhausting back seat sitting, we arrived at Some
Place, New Jersey. A shadowy figure of an Indian grad student in baggy pajamas
could be seen on the second floor of an apartment building. It was Lele's
friend. In a trice, Lele gushed out, and as if triggered by some primeval urge,
they both yelled loud shrieks of reunion, peculiar to their IIT. It was like 
two love sick fax machines, emitting their high pitched mating calls. 

After two days of unabated fun in the Big Apple, during which almost nothing
unusual happened, we got back. On the way back, we had fights in all
permutations, swearing never to talk to each other, at least to Lele. We were
just desperate to get back to our crummy apartments. 

The next day on, we were all friends as before, almost as if nothing happened.
Now, after so many years in this country and having set foot on almost all the
states and driven in several major cities, I have probably had more
exciting and eventful trips. Howver, the first trip is always memorable,
isn't it ?  

\medskip\hrule\medskip

What do you do if you just moved to a godforsaken place like Colorado and the 
there is only one other desi for miles around ? (My friend is also a Ramesh
with Sundaram for his last name) We took this as a great chance to view the
'transplanted desi life in the USA' from the outside and make a number of 
sociological theories concerning our unique lifestyle. We also decided to 
catalog a list of myths (or factoids depending on who you are talking to) 
concerning all the desis in this country.   

Being desis in this country, we try to understand it all. We have figured out
the best way to fit in without losing our cultural background. We analyze and
criticize the way the 'other desis' behave, almost as if the 'other desi's
are afflicted with some kind of a psychological malady. (for example, look at
what I am doing in this paragraph)
We all feel good about ourselves and the tremendous adjustments we made (and
the others are striving to make) to the dichotomous lifestyles of India and the
US. This is almost to the point where every desi in this
country feels a wee bit superior to the others. Sort of like a Lake Woebegonne 
syndrome where all the children are above average. This probably explains the
myth (can't remember who said it) that whatever is true about India, exactly
the opposite is also true - because the 'opposites' only apply to the 'others'.

Here is one from our grab bag of such 'controversial' statements. 
"Indian males would make great second husbands for women in any cross cultural
marriage, because Indian males are rich, family oriented and above all, too 
chicken to fool around with other women". This statement has the potential
to generate gigabytes of SCI discussion.  And how about this one. "Even
the most westernized, 'pseud' desi would regress into talking in his mother 
tongue after he or she comes over here." (Especially the 'Western' Ghattis, ha ha)
Anyone wanting to take this on and analyze it in terms of identity crisis and so 
forth ? Here is another one. "Any desi who comes to this country, leaves an 
India frozen in time, when he left its shores. No matter what went on India 
since he left, he doesn't see it, but sees only what he was used to seeing. 
Hema Malini is still a heroine for him and he doesn't register any of the new
names or any newness. This statement has enough potential for a few Ph.D
theses.

Another sweeping comment is that desis are ill-educated about money. Some of
them hoard it after figuring it out in rupees, live frugally to the point of
going under the poverty line. Others spend it like there is no tomorrow and 
live on the edge.
Money was something our parents used to send us every month
when we were in college and thus maintain a healthy family relationship. 
Money is something to be saved or borrowed to go on a trip home to India. 
Exactly half of us clip coupons and after a well calculated break-even point, 
buy a 'standard' item like a Sony TV without any kind of consumer research.
The other half would spend a tidy sum on long distance phone bills, buy the
best beer and buy a 'standard' brand like a Sony TV without any kind of
consumer research. Either way we are no money gurus. None of us
views money as a dielectic material that can be sowed to reap higher returns.
We are utterly confused and frightened by it and simply stick it in a lousy
bank if we have it, earn a piddling interest and pay taxes on it. Now, before
someone shoots me down, off I go to the next one.

More than sixty per cent of all desis in this country find the term
'desi' truly nauseating and offensive, WHEN IT REFERS TO THEM. (No problems
when referring to the other 'real desis' as 'desis') So Indologists are 
working overtime to come up with a 'politically correct' term to substitute 'desi'.
Various names ranging from Asian Americans, Brown Sahibs, Snakecharmers to 
Occidental Orientals have been bandied. An official name will be proclaimed
after the usual lengthy debate on SCI.

Here is one of Ajay Palvayanteeswaran's pet theories - that no two
Indian girl graduate students can get along as roommates. Sometimes, he would
extrapolate it to all Indians in general or any two women. "It is not a sexist
statement" He would add. "In fact, it works in favor of all Indian males. We
should divide and conquer." And Sunita was a very important data point for him.
(Not her real name, actually her roommate's name)

Sunita was a branded person, like some cattle. She was the most roommated person
in known history. She has had more roommates in three years than Zsa Zsa Gabor
had husbands in her lifetime. It wasn't always her fault. Once she had an
'ABCD' roommate whose mother moved in with her dog for months. Another time,
another roommate would have her boyfriend over for days on end and Sunita would
build up a rage. Yet another roommate, named Kathy or something would get up and
leave the apartment before Sunita and come back late in the night, dissecting
insects all day long, boring the hell out of Sunita. Before her next roommate,
Sunita actually consulted an astrologer and matched horoscopes. It started out
fabulously, but when her roommate accidentally scratched her teflon non-stick
pot, it was war time. (By the way, she decided to get married to Clark Gable
with a zillion dollar job - no love marriage, she just responded to his ad
in India Abroad. Although she promised to stay in touch we never heard from
here again. Wonder if she is with the same roommate still)

Want one more myth ? Here it is. Every second person graduating from IIT
Madras is named Srini or Bala. The only exceptions are in cases of Srinivasan
Balasubramaniam and Balasubramaniam Srinivasan. And here, Why did an IIT Madras
guy cross the road ? Because Bala from Ganga was on the other side of the road.
Not funny, ? It is funny because, the guy on the other side of the road was
actually Bala from Jamuna and not Bala from Ganga. Still don't think it is 
funny ? Here, Bala from Ganga was actually standing on the same side of the 
road. You still don't think it is funny ? Listen to this. The guy who was 
crossing the road was also Bala from Jamuna. What ? you really don't think it 
is funny ? I guess, it is funny only if you happen to be Srini from IIT Madras.
\medskip\hrule\medskip
\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  THIS AND THAT - A CELEBRATION }
\centerline{\bf OF FOOD}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}

It was the Minneapolis airport - the Taco Bell stand at their departure
level. It was a self-serve place and so I grabbed a couple of things on
a tray and walked up to the cashier. She rang the simpler ones and then
picked up a crumpled thingummy wrapped in a paper and dangled it in front
of me.

"Sir, is this a Soft Taco or a Soft Taco Supreme ?" She asked me.

For the world of me, I could not remember. "Err, Umm" I stupidly
mumbled and she repeated her question one more time, feeling quite 
aggravated, having to deal with someone from a third or fourth world
country.

"Jeez, I don't know, I just picked it up"

By this time, half the people at the airport started queuing up behind me with
their lunch trays. There were pilots, co-pilots, captains and businessmen. 
And I was actually delaying them ! It was only a matter of time before my
stupid mistake lead to flight delays and possibly, an eventual shutdown 
of a well oiled machine like the Minneapolis airport. Everybody around me
gave me their dirty looks. I felt like I was the only criminal in the whole 
world and the entire rest of the world was watching me on Dan Rather news. 
All because I goofed in picking up a sandwich.

"What is the problem, Karen (or some such)" asked the restaurant manager to
the cashier, seeing how quickly their system collapsed. The entire problem
was explained to her, while the long line grunted and growled. The manager
just picked up the sandwich, unrolled it, examined it, counted the number of
tomato(e) pieces and declared it a "Soft Taco Supreme" and solved the problem
and relieved me and my country of an even greater embarrassment.

\medskip\hrule\medskip

I am a compulsive cauliflower buyer. When I wander into the store, pushing
my cart, I have to impulsively reach out and grab two cauliflower heads like
a Pavlovian dog. In fact, the last time I had a girlfriend and the last time
she had a birthday, I sent her a bouquet of cauliflower, especially because it 
was selling for 79 cents a pound. I think if the whole vegetable section were  
a kingdom, then cauliflower is its King. By the way, I don't touch a
broccoli with a ten foot pole, (a la George Bush) even if it is juxtaposed 
near the cauli lot. When special people are invited for dinner, some gracious
hosts might butcher a goat or a chicken, but I kill my cauliflowers and make a 
mouth-watering subji out of it. Here is the recipe:

(1) Carefully hand-pluck the delicate florets from a cauliflower. You can
include some part of the stem, but not the thick crusty base. The pieces
should be bite size. Put them in a microwave oven at 'high' between fifteen 
to twenty minutes. 

(2) On a saucepan, heat enough oil, crackle cumin seeds and shallow fry the
already cooked cauliflower with a teaspoon of chili powder, half a teaspoon of
turmeric, one teaspoon of coriander powder and salt.

(3) Don't keep turning it around and break the florets. Gennnnnnnnntly turn 
the cauliflower around once in a while. Let it get burnt slightly. After ten 
to twenty minutes a very delicious subji is ready !

\medskip\hrule\medskip

Being desis, we all grade other ethnic foods into 'like', 'don't like' and
'okay on rainy days' categories - all perhaps referenced to the Indian food
baseline. In my hierarchy, the French food (in France) is somewhere at the 
very bottom, even though during my trips to France I always made it a point 
to eat mostly the French cuisine. Perhaps, years of eating at IIT Kanpur mess 
killed my tastebuds.

We were at this restaurant near Cannes, in Southern France, which was run by
a guy whose family has been chefs since the time of King Louis XIV, give or
take a Louis. Can you imagine ? Generation after generation trying to cook,
but still could not master even 'Poulet Roti' (Roast chicken). 

The place was elegantly decorated, with real tablecloths. A smiling hostess
seated us. Even though there were about fifty tables, we were seated right 
next to the only other occupied table. (I guess the owner had visions of 
crowds flocking to his restaurant that evening) I ordered a 'Beef in red wine 
sauce and Provencal herbs' and waited for the usual two hours it always takes 
in classy French restaurants for the food to arrive. I was playing with the 
fork and knife, when the waitress walked up to our table, gave us a big 
smile, suddenly grabbed the knife and fork from me and set it in the perfect, 
symmetric pattern that was meant to be, gave us one more 'don't do it again'
kind of weak smile and disappeared. 

We drank an expensive, vintage wine, which the chef personally selected from 
his secret, exotic 'cave'. It tasted very flat. After my French visits, I
always have wine with my meals. I found that the red wine goes with aaloo
mattar, the white wine with raita and Chablis rhymes with chutney.

The main dish I ordered was exactly identical to the 'Beef stew' we get in 
our cafetaria, especially on those days when our company stock price goes 
down a half a point. And it cost us nearly four hundred francs per person. 
Of course, the French pastries and the 240 odd kinds of cheeses one gets in 
France are delicieux !

One of the best 'value' meal in France is at the local McDonald's, 
even in small towns.  The one on Champs Elyssee is supposed to be the second
busiest in the world (after Tokyo) and we saw beggars right inside the
restaurant. You have to 'buy' your ketchups and mustards, unlike here. (In
Burger King, you can even get 'curry sauce' instead of Ketchup) The French
abbreviate it to 'Mcdo' and flock it to drink 'Coca' or 'deca' (decaff. 
coffee).

By the way, one more digression. Talking of French abbreviation, the French 
always write 'K7' for a commonly used item, in their advertisements and in 
general usage. What does it stand for ? Ans: The letter 'K' in French is 
pronounced 'Kah' and the number '7' is pronounced 'set', so 'K7' is 
just 'cassette'.  

\medskip\hrule\medskip

Eating out in India is always a pleasure. I have eaten in the filthiest 
restaurants, such as the ones outside Old Delhi station, to the most 
expensive five star hotel restaurants like 'Machaun'. 

The 'hostel food' in India, of course, is universally bad, with the exception 
of perhaps IISc Bangalore (oh, the glorious B mess !). Equally impressive was 
the TIFR canteens, if they can be considered under the 'hostel mess' category.
The TIFR canteens were run by a professional caterer, who could give technical 
lectures on catering. Besides the National Defense Academy, the TIFR was the 
only one with a 'modern kitchen' at an academic institution those days. Wonder
if it is true still ? (I spent a summer at TIFR, eons ago, working for Dr. S. 
Ramani, who posts news on this net from India)

Given how bad the college food is and how enterprising the restaurantwallahs
are, it is no wonder that some of the well-known dhabha construction activity
has been taking place near college campuses. Take the multi-restaurant 
complex at Tarams outside IIT Madras or the shacks that literally sandwich
IIT Delhi. The best dhabhas I found in India were in Chandigarh, near Panjab
University, which were open almost round the clock, with the 'chefs' beckoning
you with a maha polite 'Hahnji'. The official dhabha of IIT Kanpur, Chungi,
comes a close second, even if it meant a long bike ride on the nondescrept
Grant Trunk road from the campus. Here, you hobnobbed with the toughest truck
drivers and tempo drivers and other drivers. Here again, like in elegant
French restaurants, the food takes hours to arrive, even if you personally
knew the 'Chotu'. The Chicken Curry has a million red chillies in it and the
post-meal chai literally removes a layer off your tongue and you are never sure
if it was really chicken that you ate or some old martyred bird. But then, you
didn't go to Chungi to eat. You went there for the experience.

\medskip\hrule\medskip

Astoria, Oregon is a great place. It is the last point for the explorations of
Lewis and Clarke and the Columbia river there is almost as broad as Ganga in
Kanpur. We entered a diner kind of place and ordered coffees and breakfast.
Little had we realized that we would be under a massive attack.

Even though I am a South Indian by birth, I am not a big coffee drinker,
making do with just one cup in the morning. But before I downed my first 
cupful, the waitress around the corner quickly came over and re-filled the 
cup. When I reluctantly started sipping the second cupful and set it on the 
table, out came another waitress and said something evil like 'more coffee 
?' and filled it up before I could respond. She finessed her attack by
cluster-bombing our table with about two dozen creams. 

>From then on it was a total war. Us vs the 
coffee-pot weilding waitresses. We were swatting our hands around to ward 
them off. But nothing worked. They came in tag teams, in droves. When the 
foot soldiers tired themselves out, the Generals (some really hefty looking 
women) came out of the kitchen with fresh, hot coffee. Some of them even 
armed themselves with two coffee pots, with decaff. pot in the other arm. 
One of them tricked us into believing she was serving the guests at the next 
table, but actually bent over backwards and filled our cups, surreptitiously.
There were wicked, victorious smiles on their faces, as they coffeed us into 
utter defeat. They were merciless. The putrid coffee stench spelt out the 
gore and blood in that dining room. We felt nauseous. A mere \$ 0.50 got us 
this miasma of endless coffee. What price one has to pay for modern life.

\medskip\hrule\medskip

At the first glance, Desi restaurants in this country seem as varied as 
desis ourselves. There are these pricey Bombay Palaces, where the waiters are 
much better dressed on an average than the patrons, where a Gold Visa card 
can get you several pellets of Tandoori lamb. At the opposite end are the 
'desi diners', like the one in Jackson Heights where a heavy set, non desi 
woman carries a huge tray with twelve orders of dosas and tries to 
explain to you what a 'dosa' is. By the way, it is said that after working in 
desi restaurants for a while, some of these non-desi women begin to look
like Iyengar women - just kidding.

But actually, I think, all the desi restaurants in this country are owned by
just one guy, the godfather of the desi mafiosi ('mafiatva ?'). Look how 
similar all their menus look and how identical their foods taste. They even 
fight with us patrons with identical discourtesy. Just to confuse us, they 
close down every desi restaurant after two years and pop it open in another 
shopping center under another name. They know that If it is not 'Star of 
India' or 'Tandoor' or 'Taj Mahal', somehow a certain authenticity is lost. 
But these days even 'Gandhi Tandoori' is also chalta hai.

Even though the New Jersey area, Silicon Valley and Toronto boast of
some of the best desi food I have eaten, I think the desi restaurant capital 
of North America is Vancouver. What do you think ?

\medskip\hrule\medskip
\vfill\eject
\centerline{\bf  \ACOUNT\ \ \  much more of THIS AND THAT}
\centerline{  by Mahadevan Ramesh}

Good news if you are doing your Ph. D or if you are already a 'doctor'. Should
you ever get arrested in India and put in a jail, your Ph. D degree entitles
you to a First Class prison treatment, according to Indian laws. No need to
break stones and sing a song about Ram with Amitabh Bacchan and other
jailbirds.

\medskip\hrule\medskip

We are living in some kind of a strange period. Country after country has a
record number of ex-leaders in retirement. The USA has Nixon, Reagan, Carter,
Bush and Ford, Russia has Gorby and India has V. P. Singh, Chandrasekhar and 
Morarji Desai - all old heads of governments, now in retirement. Morarji must
be nearing the century mark and although it wasn't publicized much, he has
also won his defamation case against Seymour Hirsch who had accused him of
being a CIA informer. It seems Morarji was a little pissed off that the courts
awarded him only a small compensation. (although, perhaps, when it comes to
Morarji, a phrase like 'pissed off' could be an expression of joy rather than
an expression of disgust)

\medskip\hrule\medskip

Indian Airlines, perhaps the only airlines in the world without a single
satisfied customer, is once again plagued by a strike. (It is considered to
be one of the most 'strike-prone' airlines.) The traveling public has very 
little sympathy for such strikes. This time, the pilots are striking
for, among other things, 'increased food allowance' for the food they have
already eaten since 1989. Apparently, food allowance is one way to get around
the federal tax, since it is given in 'Bearer's cheque', whatever that means.
For example, when the Airbuses were grounded for inspection following the 
Bangalore crash, the pilots still got their 'food allowance', in some cases 
more than Rs 50000 during that period (of several months when they didn't fly 
an inch). Another interesting statistics - Indian Airlines has a 
worse 'on time arrival' record than Indian Railways (which is claimed to be 
around 80 % for major long-haul trains) despite carrying a miniscule of what 
the railways carry. 

\medskip\hrule\medskip

Also, the airfares determined by the Indian Airlines is subsidized by the
government and do not reflect the costs of operation or any profit motive. Do
you know that every time the Indian Airlines wants to hike its fares, it will
have to get the fair hike approved by the Ahmedabad High Court ? A consumers
group filed a class action case against IA a few years back, which they won
and as a part of the settlement, the court now has to approve all fare
increases. The consumer movement and the consumer courts are present everywhere
in India these days, resulting in some very frivolous cases. Some examples:

A mother and her kid were riding in a bus in rain. The tarpaulin in the bus
was obviously not leak-proof. So the woman sued the bus company for her
and her child's eventual fever (caused, of course, by the rain) and the 
'mental anguish' and won Rs 1500.

Another time a group of school kids were returning from a picnic and tried to
stop a bus at the scheduled stop to go home. The bus did not stop and 
eventually the teacher sued the bus company and won Rs 50 per kid for their 
'mental anguish'.

Yet another guy won thousands of rupees, when a bank draft he got was not
properly signed by the bank officer, which prevented him from writing a
'competitive exam'. The money, of course, was for his 'mental anguish' and
lost potential wages.

\medskip\hrule\medskip

I don't know how many of you saw Dheeraj Sanghi's post about Tamil Nadu
Science Forum and the request made by Dr. Ramanujam of the Institute of
Mathematical Sciences, Madras. (where the famous SCI er Pramath and his wife
Swathy currently work) This guy Ramanujam is a true hero. Besides being a top
notch theoretical computer scientist, he is a consummate social worker. Just a
few years ago, he would walk from village to village, with a jhola on his
shoulder trying to make people literate. He would compose street plays 
('jaatas') and wrote primers to be used as textbooks to educate the illiterate.
Now the movement (called 'Arivoli' or 'Light of Knowledge' movement) has grown
to be one of the most successful grassroot movements in India, spreading to 
far away places like Bihar. People educating people and trying to root out 
illiteracy. The enthusiasm and energy these people have are amazing and they 
are confident that India would acquire 90 % literacy or better by the year 
2000. "This is a movement that has its own momentum. It cannot be stopped" I 
was told. "It is all over the country."

First some numbers. The illiterate to volunteer ratio runs around ten to one
at present and even with about a 30 % attrition, there is enough supply of
volunteers. This should give you an idea of how many people are involved in 
this movement. Most of the volunteers are school children, whose only reward
is the joy of educating another human being. There are individual stories of 
courage and volunteerism, unheard of everywhere else. Like that girl in 
Pondichery from an orthodox family who fought hard and succeeded in spreading 
literacy among unwilling prostitutes. Even a teashop owner could be a
volunteer and it was absolutely moving for me to witness a theoretical physics
Ph. D being able to relate to a chaiwallah and chat about their common goal.
The target is to teach the illiterates about 200 hours of non-formal education
and that is presumed to leave them with a level of a fourth grade student. 
There is, of course, a big concern about neo-literates relapsing into 
illiteracy. 

Already some districts in Tamil Nadu and Kerala are declared to be completely
literate (completely literate is taken to mean at least 90 % literate. A major
metro area like Madras or Bombay has such high literacy rates, especially
among males) Interestingly, rural areas are more receptive to this idea than
the urban areas and women are much more willing to become literate than males.
The only area where there has been a significant resistance is in urban slums,
where underworld activities by and large leave the denizens with little or no
interest in education. Some politicians are obviously suspicious of this
movement - politicians want people to be uneducated and dumb and also they
fear that the volunteers might eventually become politicians. But there is no
stopping India's march toward literacy, all done by pure volunteerism, what
several well-laid out government plans or money could not achieve.

And remember folks, you have read about it here, first. I have absolute 
confidence in Dr. Ramanujam and his efforts. His eyes twinkle when he dreams 
of that day when illiteracy is eradicated in India. 

(By the way, during the three day weekend of the New Years Day what would a
Dr. Ramanujam and friends do ? Convene their Science Forum, of course for
three days. His wife has designed some low cost, fun physics experiments for
high school students. His science magazine, aimed at the ten to twelve year
olds, is a big success, despite its perennial monetary problems. I have been
asked to write a bunch of articles on computers and data storage. I love
writing for children, lets see. Should anyone need more info, please contact
me or better still Dheeraj who may be in computer contact with all these good
folks in India.)

\medskip\hrule\medskip

New Years Day is such a big deal in India, it has almost become a public
nuisance. Only fools and drunkards and totally mindless would venture out
around midnight, only to be promptly arrested by the police under various
sections of Indian Penal Code. Interestingly, the New Years Day is also the
busiest day for many temples in India, with temples like Tirupati raking in
record collections for a single day. Special poojas are performed at the
midnight hour by the devout and it is only a matter of time before the 
BJP/RSS/VHP Ajay Shah type Hindu fanatics claim that the New Years Day is
actually a Hindu holiday. Even more amusing example of the 'West' mixing 
with the 'East' was when the Indian Science Foundation or some such
outfit awarded a medal to an 'Astrologer' for his 'scientific contribution'
over the protests of scientists like C. N. R. Rao and M. G. K. Menon. 
(In the past, this same foundation has sponsored research papers on such 
questionable topics as the 'Effect of magnetic field on sexual behavior' and 
so forth). 

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Uncle Raghavan, not a 'true uncle' of course, came to Pittsburgh a few years
ago from Madras. He was an Inspector General of Police in Tamil Nadu. He was
in Pittsburgh to join the Univ. of Pitt to do a Ph. D, although he already had
a Ph. D in 'Police Personnel Management' from India and has even written a 
book. He was an energetic man, fit as a fiddle, displaying the typical, sharp 
police personality, although he wondered at first if the streets of 
Pittsburgh were safe for him to walk ! He was staying with my friend Abin 
temporarily and was a really interesting person to talk to. He could talk 
about anything in the world and had interesting perspectives. Besides, he was
a treasure trove of anecdotes, based on his illustrious career. He 
showed us an old issue of India Today, pointed to a photograph (of Rajiv
Gandhi being assaulted by a Sri Lankan soldier when he was inspecting a guard
of honor) and told us "You see that shadow of a figure in the background,
behind Rajiv Gandhi, that was me ! Thank god, nothing happened to him that day"
Then mysteriously Uncle Raghavan went back to India, because of financial
problems and aid not coming through and we never heard from him again.

Then history repeated itself. Uncle Raghavan was the police chief in charge
when Rajiv was assassinated near Madras in 1991. The Verma commission found
him 'responsible' for the security lapses, not in the least dwelling on the
multi-dimensional pressures these officials face day in and day out,
especially from corrupt politicians. However, the Verma report 'praised' Uncle
Raghavan for his post-assassination efforts without which the case would not
have been solved. 

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BHEL employees colony in Bhopal is one of the largest in India and is supposed
to be the model in national integration, what with a large number of highly 
educated and technically qualified persons living in its quarters. In the 
aftermath of the Babri Masjid violence, even this bastion was not spared and 
over a hundred people, mostly Muslims, were killed. Obviously, education does
not necessarily lead to enlightenment. Shame on you, Hindu fanatics.
       
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\centerline{\bf End of part I}
\end{document}
