Hindology

India ahoy!

2010-01-04T16:52:00.000Z

When I decided to migrate back to India, my employers in UK (Fujitsu) found me a role in their Indian headquarters in Pune.

So I shifted the entire Kallidai family from UK to India – lock, stock and barrel. Well, almost. My house still stands in Hemel Hempstead just outside London although occupied by tenants. My friends still send me regular mail and text from UK, and some even visit me in Pune.

We settled down quite well. My new job was fantastic and my wife and son enjoy the change in the lifestyle.

“Do you like the school in London or Pune,” I asked my son, Neel.

“Pune of course Daddy,” he replied emphatically. “The school here has two computer rooms and much better computers than London.”

“And what about your friends here?” I asked him, pleasantly surprised.

“I like my friends here better too,” he drawled. “I get to play with them every day.”

In UK, the weather was so dreadful most of the year that playing outdoors was unheard of, except for the occasionally clear days in the summer.

When I asked my wife how she was getting on, she smirked and said, “Well there’s nothing much to do here really! I don’t have to drop Neel to school every day – he gets a bus at his door step. I don’t have to do the washing up and the cleaning up as the maid does it every day. I don’t even have to drive as the driver takes me wherever I want. I quite enjoyed the busy routine in London.”

I helpfully offered to cancel the school bus and sack the maid. She looked at me as if I had gone quite mad, and smirked a bit more. I could see that she was getting used to the little luxuries that matter so much in India.

Even my mother and father seemed happier. “I can take a walk any time I like in my slippers and flip-flops,” my mother beamed at me. “I don’t have to be burdened by the heavy jackets and sweaters like London. India is so much better for us retired folks.”

And of course, I have now bought a house and find it even more enjoyable. In London when we moved to our new house, I had to do everything from moving things to painting, and from assembling furniture in flat-packs to fixing the new cabinets and wardrobes. In India, labour is so much more affordable. Everything is one phone call away, usually followed by helpful people who do everything for you as you watch and direct them.

But the real icing on the cake is our ‘after-dinner walk’. One hour after dinner, I usually nod at my wife and son. They immediately put on their flip-flops and we saunter out in our bermudas (and yes this is December/January) to take a quick walk. Usually these walks end in the three of us ending up at a chat house or an ice-cream parlour or a milk-shake joint, usually eating paani-puri, licking some exotic icecream, or sipping a thick-shake topped with chocolate chips. This was unimaginable in the UK.

And to think that some of my friends and colleagues actually tried to discouarage me from moving back! Whoa!!

Acclaimed Statesmanship vs Modest Censorship

2009-06-30T16:16:00.009Z

Whatever happened to the Hindu quality of modesty and humility?

I keep getting press-releases from one Rajan Zed, who is apparently a leader of great stature and substantial achievement. Zed is an Indo-American leader who was invited to read historic first Hindu prayers to the Nevada Assembly and the Nevada Senate, as well as the United States Senate in Washington DC.

This seems to be one of his major claims to fame, followed by regular press-releases he issues on various subjects on Hinduism. Most of his statements are confined to the misuse and abuse of Hindu icons, offensive use of language and so on and so on and so on...

Now, there is nothing wrong in that. We do need stalwart statesmen such as Zed to keep the Hindu ball rolling (do we really, I can hear a few voices asking in the background).

One thing I do find a bit irritating about his statements is that he keeps issuing comments about what is happening in Britain. There is no doubt that he has every right to be concerned about what is happening to Hindus in any part of the world, but surely he cannot claim to understand the issues of British Hindus as well as British Hindus themselves? Yet, in utter isolation, without any reference to British Hindus themselves, he keeps issuing statement after statement about our situation here. Most of them do not even help our cause here, but simply relegate themselves to the 'uh-oh, yet-another-statement-from-the-Zed-PR-machinery' pile.

But every time he issues a statement, I cannot help chuckling in amusement and raising my eyebrows in embarrassment. That's because he always describes himself in his own press-releases as an 'acclaimed Hindu statesman'.

That brings me to my original point - whatever happened to Hindu modesty and humility?

Should one describe onself in the choicest words of praise?

Perhaps you should not read too much into this. The chap is full of energy and plays an active role in dozens of organisations fighting the Hindu corner with aplomb and ease.

But I just wish he can stop describing himself as an 'acclaimed Hindu statesman'. Publicly displaying one's high opinion of oneself is a bit cheesy and embarrassingly corny, to say the least!

Bust up in Brum

2009-06-14T20:56:00.002Z

My employers are quite generous - although they make me work in Birmingham three to four days a week away from home, they put me up in a serviced apartment right in the middle of the city centre.

I mean - how much more convenient can you get? I step out of the apartment and I am right there in the heart of Birmingham's coolest streets loaded with shops, restaurants, train stations, bus stops, malls, supermarkets, cinemas and all kinds of things a person living alone wants at arm's length.

This morning however I work up with a rude shock.

At around 7.00 AM, there was screaming and shouting outside. I popped my head out of the window, and to my horror discovered a young man (Indian or Pakistani) standing outside the club opposite my apartment covered in blood. He was swaying around while two policemen held him and two other men watched.

I became aware of another group of caucasian men and women standing twenty yards away, held in check by another group of policemen. It was quite apparent that there had been a fight between the two groups and the young Indian (or Pakistani) man had taken a rap.

There was a lot of shouting and screaming going on. The two men who were standing next to the blood covered victim gesticulated rudely at the caucasian men (and women) standing further away and used the choicest of four letter words. Not to be daunted, they responded in a similar fashion, while the police tried to restrain both parties.

In the meantime, the blood covered young man swayed a bit more and sat down suddenly on the ground. A scantily clad girl detached herself from the other group and came running to the Asian group, and I could see that she was actaully crying and pleading about something.

Four policemen had actually cornered the blood-covered youngster into a doorway and he suddenly sprang up and swore at them, "I am the victim damnit... do you hear? I am the victim. And yet you w**kers are holding me from all sides while the guy who hit me is standing there looking completely free."

The Police tried to restrain him back, while he became even more hysterical.

A few minutes later an ambulance roared into the street, and the young man was escorted promptly into it.

Exactly six seconds later, he sprang out of the ambulance without his shirt and started jumping up and down while the police ran behind him.

"Why is the guy who did this to me not getting arrested then ei?" he screamed at the police. "Why are you restraining me while he is free? Why is he not in this police car on his way to the station?"

The police had their best wooden expression, which they had probably spent years perfecting before being let loose on our streets.

In a few minutes the hysterical man was bundled in, the ambulance roared away, and the police hovered on taking a few more notes from both the parties that were left behind.

They put up a police tape all round the club - probably to gather forensic evidence later.

The incident set me thinking - Britain seems to be heading towards an overdrive based on alcohol, sex and drugs. Clubs and pubs have become breeding grounds for violence and frustration, not just entertainment and music.

From what I gathered during the screaming and shouting, the violence had erupted over a girl.

There was so much frustration and anger involved.

The Bhagavad-gita, that book of timeless wisdom spoken by the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna declares:

kama esa krodha esa rajo-guna-samudbhavah
mahasano maha-papma viddhy enam iha vairinam

"It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born of contact with the material modes of passion and later transformed into wrath, and which is the all-devouring, sinful enemy of this world."

His Divine Grace A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Founder of ISKCON explains in his purport to this verse that when a living entity comes in contact with the material creation, his eternal love for God (Krishna) is transformed into lust, in association with the mode of passion. Or, in other words, the sense of love of God becomes transformed into lust, as milk in contact with sour tamarind is transformed into yogurt. Then again, when lust is unsatisfied, it turns into wrath; wrath is transformed into illusion, and illusion continues the material existence. Therefore, lust is the greatest enemy of the living entity, and it is lust only which induces the pure living entity to remain entangled in the material world.

The Bhagavad-gita scientifically explains how lust and anger lead to loss of intellect and utter bewilderment:

dhyayato visayan pumsah sangas tesupajayate
sangat sanjayate kamahkamat krodho 'bhijayate
krodhad bhavati sammohah sammohat smrti-vibhramah
smrti-bhramsad buddhi-nasobuddhi-nasat pranasyati

"When a man dwells in his mind on the sense objects, an attachment for them arises. Desire is born of that attachment. From desire anger is born.From anger comes delusion, from delusion springs failure of memory. From wrecked memory results the ruin of the understanding and then he perishes."

The incident in the pub arose because a few men dwelled on a sense object which awoke desires. When there were obstacles placed in the fulfilment of their desire their anger led to violence. It was all fuelled by their alcoholic indulgence and in reality this leads to the forgefulness of one's originally blissful and eternal spiritual position.

As I was about to close the window I noticed another young man standing next door. Like me, he must have been a silent witness. He suddenly looked at me and smiled as if to say, "What a fuss!"

I noticed that in the early hours of the morning, he was sipping an alcoholic drink too.

I smiled back.

Will someone do something about the British weather please?

2009-06-07T07:35:00.005Z

Everything in the UK is great - except for the weather.

I mean - here we were, enjoying perfectly fine weather sunning it out in the 25 degree heat, and the next day, it pours like a thingummy-come-torrential-flood. Someone should tell the weatherman (or the weather-woman in these days of political correctness) to just make up his (or her) mind.

The worst part of the rain is my utter helplessness in mowing my lawn. If it pours for days on end, the grass starts growing faster, and in all its wet resplendence it defies the blades of my lawn-mower.

Of course, right now my lawn looks like some tropical jungle. This is because while the sun was shining I was out cycling on the canal tow-path. And now that the rain has announced itself as the main deterrent to any lawn-mowing desires I had left, I am unable to swing a blade in its direction.

When I was holidaying in India, I got used to walking around in bermudas, t-shirts and flip-flops at 9PM in January. I was just about getting used to doing that last week, and the weatherman (er - the woman?) decided to turn.

I must admit - Lord Sutch of the ex-Monster-Loony-Raving-Party had made an election promise that, if practically possible, would have made me vote for him and no one else.

He had made an attractive promise in one of his manifestos, way back in the 1990s. The Party had declared that if it was elected, it would tie a rope around Cornwall and tug the British Isles back by 20 degrees South. The idea was for us rain-harrassed and cloud-covered Brits to have the same weather as sunny Spain.

If only that was possible, Britain would be the best place one could ever wish for!

And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride....

hum ho haa heee - yet another cabinet reshuffle

2009-06-06T09:12:00.002Z

After being bored to death by the expenses scandal (I mean do we really care which MP purchased what kind of toilet seat and claimed how much back, for heaven's sake?), we now have the survival drama.

What will happen to Gordon? Will he survive or will he not?

The spate resignations from Cabinet Secretaries last week probably added to the worried look the PM had on his brow during the last press-conference. But he seems to have survived - for now at least.

But like Hazel Blears who proudly displayed a brooch that said "rocking the boat" as she walked out on him, the EU election results may well do just that - and rock the boat.

If Labour comes a dismal fourth, will the rebel MPs put up and shut up? Will Cameron increase the tone of his call for an immediate General Elections? Will Brown buckle or will he buck up?

Questions.. questions questions... and all we have to do is to wait till Monday for the answer, when the EU elections results start coming in.

At the end of the day, I know that whoever comes to power, one thing will remain: this Government and future governments will continue to treat the Indian faith traditions (Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism) as an 'after-thought'. They will continue to speak to us on a 'tokenistic' basis, while they maintain conscious rigour and characteristic robustness in engaging with the Abrahamic traditions.

No doubt, the Abrahamic traditions have a claim of historicity - after all Christainity has been around here for more than any other religion; Judaism has been here sevaral hundred years before the Indian faiths even dared to show their face; and Islam has received special attention for all kinds of reasons.

However, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists are often left feeling left out while attention on the Abrahamic faiths is steady and consistent.

Only a few months ago I was at a reception organised by the Communities and Local Government Department. Although they had laid out sumptous tables with kosher and halal meals, not a morsel of food was suitable for an orthodox Hindu who would only eat strict vegetarian food that did not contain onions or garlic. Jains of course would have had an even more difficult time since they eat nothing that is grown under the ground. The dietary rule is only an illustrative example of how Hindus keep getting sidelined - the list can go on.

But to cut the long ramble short - what difference does all this talk about expenses and Gordon's survival make to the Indian traditions who are an afterthought? Hum, ho, haa hee - not much, me doth think!

hoarding all the way...!

2008-10-16T21:55:00.005Z

ever wondered why indians keep hoarding stuff in the house? it seems so difficult to throw out things well past their sell-by date; so unimaginable to give away stuff you dont use but may still be useful to others; and unacceptable to to take stuff to the tip and get rid of them for good.

everything starts with yoghurt containers. now, why does my wife carefully wash them and keep them stacked in a corner in the kitchen?

"well, they are the best containers when guests want a take-away after a meal at our house!" she grins, when i question her.

she also has other stuff that keeps accumulating. a bottle contains rubber-bands that she carefully peels from packaging, another box contains gift wraps that she carefully unwraps in a crease-free manner and stacks for future re-use, and a corner in the garden shed contains stacks of old disused pots that hasnt seen daylight for decades.

when i try to throw some of these away for good, she gives me a stern look and admonishes me with a curt retort, "it's all about recycling and being eco-friendly. don't you think that reusing this stuff will save the planet's resources?"

my son on the other hand hoards toys, balls and coloured pencils. it doesn't matter if the toys are broken and unuseable, if the football is punctured and has lost its bounce, or if the coloured pencil has lost its stub and cannot be used again. they pile up in a corner in his room gathering a bit of dust and all of his unidvided attention.

if I do try to throw any of his stuff, he would look at me in great anguish and with as much seriousness as a five year old could possibly muster and say something like, "daddy, i love my transformer, please dont throw it away. Pleeease?".

of course, i would have to sigh and change my mind.

my father is a completely different hoarder. he loves trinkets and tools. if he dismantles an old table to throw away, he would carefully remove all the nuts and bolts and keep them sealed in a plastic bag in the garage. if he discovered a piece of string or a wire lying around in the house, he would roll it up neatly, label it correctly and store it efficiently in a carboard box kept for knick-knacks.

the amount of junk he accumulates leaves me breathless. if i do question him on the utter uselessness of hoarding so much junk, he would just look away quite conveniently or look busy changing channels on the tv.

last month, the tap in my bathroom broke. the plumber said that it was an old model for which no one manufactured a washer that needed to go under the tap. my father just raised his eyebrows, quitely rummaged through his pile of junk in the garage, and marched triumphantly in with the plastic washer that was an exact fit.

my mother, who is an avid reader of books, hoards just that. old books, brown books, colourful books, torn books, used books, unread books, dog-eared books, crisp and clean books, and i-dont-know what other category of books sit on a shelf in her room. i thought she might like to give some of the books she had already read to charities like OXFAM. but no, she loves her books and wouldnt dream of giving them away."i keep reading them again and again," she declared in a very proprietary manner. "and i find deeper and deeper meanings in them every time i read them again."

now, i always thought that i was not a hoarder. i do throw away as much as possible. or do i?

my wife walked in to my study yesterday, and threatened to throw my desk out for recycling if i did not do something about the second draw. "what second draw?" i asked her puzzled. "it looks perfectly ok to me."

"does it now?" she smiled sarcastically. "look at the miles and miles of cable and wires and all kinds of things inside it. you probably dont need them, probably dont use them, and yet you cant throw your useless cables away, can you?" she enquired scathingly.

i sighed and spent two hours this morning going through old cables and wires. she was right - I discovered three earphones belonging to three old mobile phones that i have thrown away, six old telephone cables that i used for connecting pc to phone line during the dial-up days, and several old pencils and pens that refuse to write.

healer, i should have said to myself, heal thyself.

mind the generational gap

2008-10-16T21:53:00.000Z

my dad and mum love to watch two tv serials: kahani ghar ghar ki (the story of every house) and kesar (thats the name of a girl). my son loves to watch dora the explorer.i love to watch news at ten.my wife can watch pretty much anything and is not fussed.but the sheer variety of tastes in watching tv in my house is bewildering.of course, i can never tell the difference between one hindi serial and the other. most of them have a rich family in it.

if the daugther-in-law is an angel, usually the mother-in-law is a devil, or vice-versa. they usually have a few murders, rapes, take-over bids, birthday parties, weddings, divorces, deaths, accidents, mistaken identities, baby-swappings at birth and the usual chanting of a theme song thrown in for good measure. most of the characters look the same. sometimes the good guy in one tv serial is the bad guy in the other.

i once told my mum, "dont u think that the name kahani ghar ghar ki is a bit out-of-place? the story in ur tv serial never happens in every household - it is quite unique and comic. they should be change the name to 'kahani ghar ghar ki nahi' or something like that."mum and dad gave me a dirty look like i was some scarred left-over from a rubbish dump the cat had foraged and rejected.

that was the end of my trying to make any sense of my hindi-serialo-phobia.so i bravely tried to sit down with mum and dad for five minutes to join their favourite hindi shows, but ended up feeling totally lost and bewildered. day after day, night after night, they watch the same stories re-hashed, regurgitated, re-created and redeployed in different permutations and combinations, but the essential ingredients are always the same.

don't they ever get bored? but no - o no - they r glued to the tv set in complete and utter dedication.my son is the same - dora the explorer is the apple of his eye, bob the builder is his hero, and the backyardigans are the shennanigans of his comedy store. he can be happily glued to the tv set without batting an eyelid at anyone else for the entire happy hour that his mother allows him to watch every day.

my wife's attitude is the best. " i really dont have to watch every single episode of the tv serials," she explained earnestly. "if i see one episode a month, i can understand the story of the entire month, so why waste time seeing it every day anyway?"

if i am lucky enough not to be in front of my computer, and if i am lucky enough to find that neither the first generation nor the third generation of my family are hogging the remote control, then occassionally i get the chance to see my favourite programmes. these are sky news, bbc news 24 and news at ten.last night as i managed to settle down to a quite moment of news-watching, my 6-year old son waddled down the stairs in his pajamas which were too big for him, and said, "daddy why do you always watch the news? its so booooooring.'

what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gooseling. or is it the other way round?sigh!

Garbhology and the art of social discourse

2007-06-04T07:05:00.001Z

Whew - the Dandia and Garbha charity event I attended last weekend at Copeland school in aid of social projects in India were frantic. The charity event was organised by the Lotus Trust in aid of Vrindavan Food for Life and Bhaktivedanta Hospital in Mumbai. Over five hundred people danced their way through traditional devotional music well through the night, glittering in colourful silks and exotic jewellery. And yes, even the men – the youth in any case - seem to favour silk kurtas and all kinds of silver jewellery embedded in odd parts of the body that makes no sense to me. It must be a sign of my middle-agedness,

I am not exactly an elegant dancer, but one of those 'getting-along-in-a-moderate-way' types. But my friends Rishi Kumar and Sanjeev Patel were like twins who were born to dance or something like that. They whizzed past everyone in intricate twirls and synchronised steps, with their Dandia sticks whirring in the air like some helicopter come to pick strawberries, leaving the rest of us gasping for breath.

And then there was my good friend Prash. He suddenly decided to spring one of his unknown acquaintances on me. The acquaintance was quite harmless, but rather boring in a manner of speaking – boring because when the first words of greetings were exchanged, none of us knew what to speak to him.

My other friends Amit, Devesh and I were just warming up to some chilled-out debates around the latest Pirates movie, when Prash must have decided that we needed to be punished for not including him in our male-bonding prattle. Prash, who is known as the original nalayak in my friend circle, conveniently disappeared two seconds after dropping his acquaintance on us. Exactly ten seconds later, Devesh and Amit politely excused themselves and planted their tactful selves one row ahead of me.

Politeness personified that I am (he he he), I stuck around rather bravely with Prash’s harmless friend, trying to break ice. The only problem was that the ice was as hard as South African diamonds, and there was no thaw in site.

Luckily for me, Shyam, who has just come fresh from India, walked by with a warm greeting. I managed to dump Prash's harmless friend on him - whew- and almost felt like one of those fortunate blokes who had just managed to break out of Alcatraz.

One of my mates wants to get married in an honorable sort of way (identity protected so his position is not compromised. Well to be honest, I am protecting his identity for my own protection – he would probably give me a black eye if he saw his name in print here). The poor bloke gets twenty elderly maasis descending on him at every social event, trying to match him with single girls at events like weddings and Garbhas. When my mates were pulling his leg in a humorous but honorable way to make a move and talk to some of the two hundred single girls single girls dancing and prattling around the hall, a young man who had just come from India overheard the friendly banter.

"Do you know how I can meet someone too?" he whispered to me in all earnestness. "I do want to find someone to get married to.'

In the meantime, my son Neel kept popping up every 5 minutes between his fledgling dance steps to take a sip from a mineral water bottle I held in my hand.

Fifteen minutes later, the man who had just arrived from India announced, 'Hey I am going to join that group with that aunty in that pink chaniya-choli. She is teaching some groovy moves to the guys and gals dancing with her.'

An elderly man sitting nearby came down heavily on us and said sarcastically, 'Soooo? All of you have left your wives on the other side of the room and you are having fun here by yourselves, are you?'

‘Kaka, don’t preach,’ sniggered someone. I felt a bit guilty and tried to look away. One must respect elders after all, not to forget spouses.

I managed to look to the far end of the room and noted that all the spouses were having a great time dancing with other women – none of them seemed to be missing us and seemed to be having a great time anyway.

I got home tired and weary, way past midnight - only to be woken up at an unearthly hour, at the crack of dawn by Leela maasi - my wife's elderly mentor at the temple. She wanted my wife to get to the temple early in the morning to help make samosas for the shop (that is my wife’s weekly seva at the temple).

'Maasi?' I croaked half-asleep. “”Whadya want?'

'Deepali chhe?' she demanded in a voice of authority that no one else in the entire temple could even attempt to muster.

I dared not tell Leela maasi to stop calling so early in the morning, and just passed the phone meekly to my wife.

Talk about paper tigers!

Monkeying around in Vrindavana

2007-02-27T09:07:00.000Z

Two friends of mine Bhavesh and Rishi texted me from India, “Reached New Delhi. Good journey. Safe.”

Three days later, I got another text message saying, “In Vrindavan now. Great temples.”

Next day, I got another message, “Delicious carrot halwa at Loi Bazaar in Vrindavan. Wish you were here.”

And the last message I got was, “Help! Rishi is being chased by monkeys in Vrindavan. What should we do?”

I texted back, “Grab a stick and wave at the monkeys. That’s all that keeps them at bay.”

And its true – in some temple towns in India, the monkey population is greater than the human population. All you need to keep the monkeys from following you and grabbing things from your hands is a stout stick.

As soon as they come near you, you need to wave the stick at them and utter a stern shout – that will keep them away for exactly ten seconds. As soon as they get near you again, you repeat the same process of stick waving and shouting all over again.

In towns like Vrindavana, monkeys have formed organised gangs to terrorise humans. They even have their ‘dons’ – monkey leaders who lead the terrorisation. The people of Vrindavana have a love-hate relationship with them. They love everything about the town, including the monkeys as ‘associates’ of Lord Krishna, but also know how to discipline them when they get out of line.

When my mother came back from a pilgrimage to Vrindavana fifteen years ago, she told me, “I had gone to the temple to buy some samosas to take back to our hotel. As I was walking back, a monkey jumped in front of me, grabbed the samosas from my hands and disappeared into the trees.”

“Did you go hungry that evening?” I had enquired.

“Yes, but that was fine. After all, even the monkeys in Vrindavana must have been pious souls. Otherwise, they couldn’t be born here in the land of Krishna. I couldn’t get angry with them. And in any case, fasting in Vrindavana can only be good.”

Typical fatalism or what?

Keeping Leicester awake till midnight

2007-02-27T09:06:00.000Z

Over fifty people from thirty East Midlands organisations attended a meeting organised for the Commission of Integration and Cohesion in Leicester by the Hindu Forum of Britain, the National Council of Hindu Temples UK and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad UK on 18th February.

Raman Barber, President of the Shree Sanatan Mandir, picked me up from the station.

He is the kind of man who just can’t stop being hospitable. As soon as I entered the temple, he asked me if I wanted some ‘prasad’. I thought that ‘prasad’ would probably be a small bowl of sheera or a laddu.

I bumped into Kamal Nandha, an eighteen year student from Leicester, who has undertaken a part-time sabbatical at the Hindu Forum of Britain. He had come in early to help me set up the audio-visual equipment for the meeting.

A few minutes later, a volunteer from the temple walked in with two large plates of food – it contained everything from rice and roti to dal and shaak.

“Er – Ramanbhai, I thought you said you were going to serve me some prasad, not a whole meal,” I exclaimed, pleasantly surprised. The journey from London had made me quite hungry and this was a welcome distraction from the meeting that was to follow.

Raman Barber, Kamal Nandha and I crowded into a small room in the temple and ate the delicious meal that had been brought for us.

“This has come straight from the plate offered to the Deities of Radha and Krishna,” beamed Raman Barber.

We came out of the room after our meal only to find that ten of our guests had already arrived. They were all relishing plates of spicy bhajiyas (not the screaming hot variety I am afraid) and cups of piping hot masala tea. The hospitality does not stop flowing!

Later, he confided to me, “We want to organise a Janmashtrami celebration till midnight this year with a proper abhishek at the stroke of twelve. No one in Leicester has ever organised a midnight Janmashtami celebration for Lord Krishna in a temple. This will be the first time.”

I am sure that with his organising skills and committed team of volunteers, he will be able to conduct a spectacular festival that will keep all of Leicester awake till midnight on Janmashtami.

Watch this space.

Greener pastures?

2007-01-25T23:02:00.000Z

Apparently ‘buy-to-let’ is the new rage in New Zealand. My brother who lives in Auckland called to tell me that he was seriously considering buying a lot of properties and letting them out on rent.

“Prices are cheap now,” he said. “For 300,000 New Zealand dollars, you get a decent three or four bedroom house. That’s just £100,000 to you Brits. The rental income will pay off our mortgage and prices are rising so rapidly, you are assured of a good capital gain return in a few years.”

“Can UK residents buy in New Zealand?” I asked, immediately pricking up at the thought that those who missed the boat and could not become property millionaires in the UK, may still be able to catch up in New Zealand.

“Yes of course,” replied my brother. “I know many UK families who have bought dozens of buy-to-let properties here.”

But hold on – all is not paved with gold.

Interest rates in New Zealand are quite high – nearly 8%.

But house prices are still so low in New Zealand that a normal three-bed house for £300,000 in the UK can be exchanged for a farm with 20 acres of land, a large mansion and a few stables and barns (all for the same price).

“A lot of people just buy these farms here, plant grape vines, and export tonnes of grapes every year,” concluded my brother. “Easy money while you sit and chill.”

Who says the grass is not greener on the other side?

Whose turn to chill out?

2007-01-25T23:00:00.000Z

No amount of cajoling could convince my son that I wanted to see the News on TV.

He was right in the middle of the 60-minute evening slot his strict mother had allocated him every day (30 minutes for Maggie and the Big Beast and another 30 for Ruby and Max).

Apparently both of these were big hits with children of his age.

My blissful ignorance of how important programmes of this ilk were to the child population of this country had no effect on my son.

“It’s my turn daddy and not yours,” he said in all the seriousness a four-year old could muster. “After me, it is Grandma’s turn to watch her Hindi serial and then its Grandad’s turn. You go to your study and work on your computer.”

I guess that about said it all.

My four year son had taught me a lesson indeed.

I needed to spend less time every evening after work, locked up in my study, working for the whole world, and more time relaxing with my family, which was my whole world.

Will I succeed?

Only time will tell.

Woes of a Sunday traveller

2007-01-20T23:49:00.000Z

My wife Deepali and I were driving to a meeting organised by the South Indian Association, when I got a call from the BBC who wanted to interview me on News 24 over the Shilpa Shetty controversy.

"Could we have you at the studio at 8 PM?" suggested a friendly producer from the News Desk.

I looked at my wife to check if this was OK with her. After all, we had been planning to have dinner at that exact moment suggested by the friendly BBC producer, Daniel, in a restaurant in Kingsbury. I sighed and asked Daniel, "Could we not do it later?"

"9 PM is fine, though not ideal," came the reply.

But my wife had other ideas.

"I don't think we can eat so quickly before half-past eight," she barked in an expressionless manner. "When have we ordered and finished our meal in an hour in a restaraunt? You'd better do your interview first. We can eat in peace after you come back."

Bowing down to the impeccable logic of the woman of the house, I asked the BBC producer to arrange a cab for me from the Church of Ascension in Preston Road, where I was attending the South Indian Society meeting.

At the meeting, one of the Committee Members looked at me imploringly and said, "Could you not join the Committee this year please?"

I smiled and shook my head as best as I could. "No, I really can't. The Hindu Forum of Britain takes up all my spare time."

"You can at least advise us on key issues," she continued with a big smile.

"Yes of course - as long as I don't have to attend meetings," I smiled back.

Daniel from the BBC had promised me I would have a cab pick me up at 7.20 PM from the Church of Ascension Hall. I promptly excused myself at 7.30 PM to check if the cab had arrived. Not a sign..

I called Daniel who gave me a number for the cab company.

"He is only a mile away and will be with you in two minutes sir," said a helpful lady on the line after checking my name and a reference number Daniel had given me.

The two minutes ticked away and became ten, and twenty...and yet there was no sign of the cab at all. I rang Daniel again.

"The cab is nearly twenty minutes late isn't it?" he confirmed. "I shall ring the cab company straight away."

A minute after I spoke to Daniel, the cab finally drew up.

"You are twenty minutes late," I told the cab driver and immediately felt that the tone of my voice could have been less accusatory.

"Not my fault mate," snapped back the driver. "I was in Heathrow when they asked me to do this job, and I had to drive through some hard traffic."

I felt sorry I had snapped at the cab driver and decided to make amends.

"Yes of course, it probably was not your fault. How long will it take to get to White City and the Television Centre?"

The cab driver softened immediately. By the time I left the cab at the BBC Television Centre in White City, he and I had been having a raging conversation about the politics of Bangladesh (which was where he had originally come from).

At the BBC interview, I made various comments about Shilpa Shetty, Jade Goody and Big Brother. After the interview, I was escorted back by another cab to a restaurant where my wife and son were waiting.

After a hearty meal, when we did finally reach home, I suddenly remembered that I had to be in Bolton by 11.30 AM the next day for a consultation meeting with the Hindus of the north of England.

"Bolton?" said my wife in surprise. "How on earth are you getting there so early? It takes three to four hours to travel from home to Bolton."

I checked the internet for train timings and was jolted out of my gentle Saturday reverie.

I had travelled the London-Manchester route by Virgin trains many times on weekdays. Bolton was only 30 minutes from Manchester, and I had thought I could leave home at 7.00 AM to reach Bolton by 10.30 AM, well in time for the meeting at 11.00 AM.

But I had not reckoned with that dreaded British institution called the "Sunday timetable".

Trains and buses run to normal times on weekdays, and most Saturdays. On Sundays however, there always was a reduced service.

Sunday, after all, is a day that very few British people like to travel. It is a day for staying at home with family. Only a few abnormal souls like me undertake to do Sunday travel.

I discovered in dismayed silence, that the first train out of Watford Junction to Manchester Piccadilly was not at 7.00 AM, but at 8.53 AM. The train would only take me to Bolton by 1.00 PM, about 30 minutes after the meeting actually finished.

I couldn't believe that I had actually forgotten all about the dreaded Sunday Timetable. There was no way I could get to the Bolton meeting on time.

Then I remembered that my PA had actually offered to book my tickets for this journey. In some misplaced feeling of chivalry, I had gently brushed her suggestion aside and told her, rather proudly, "Don't worry Rani. You are quite busy today, so I'll try and book my ticket myself. I'll just walk up to the ticket counter at the train station and book the ticket before the journey. It's a simple ticket and I can manage it very well on my own."

I knew I would have to tell her on Monday that I jad completely failed to manage my tickets on my own without her help. I could almost imagine her chuckle with glee to learn of my own incompetence in doing what she does so well.

The woes of a Sunday traveller in Britain can fill an epic novel.

Private prejudice and public veneer

2007-01-20T12:52:00.000Z

Yippee! For once, I actually agreed with what Trevor Phillips, the Chair of the Commission of Racial Equality in UK had to say.

Speaking about the Shilpa Shetty row on Celebrity Big Brother, he said, “The programme had laid bare the dark heart of private prejudice that too often sits behind the public veneer of tolerance.”

And – er – some of us may ask: what exactly does that mean in plain English?

Basically, the CRE Chair was alluding to what I have heard many (and I mean many) ‘wise’ and experienced Indians in the UK often say: “The main problem is that most English people are polite and respectful while speaking to you on your face. They don’t display any signs of intolerance. But as soon as your back is turned, and they are amongst themselves, they do talk ill of us and make comments that could be considered racist.”

I had never actually been fully convinced of such allegations and always let such comments go. After all, how much can one build one’s relationships with people based on conjecture?

But hold on – reality TV actually proved some of these wise and experienced Indians right. And that is what Trevor Phillips was referring to in ‘posher’ English: that people could hold racial prejudices in private conversations amongst themselves, but in the public domain they always maintain a politically correct and disguised version of themselves that appears tolerant and respectful.

Anybody who saw Danielle and Jo, the two cohorts and partners-in-war of the loud-mouthed and foul Jade Goody, the main persecutor of Shilpa Shetty, would have seen this in action.

I was amazed at one point when I saw Jo (or was it Danielle? I could never tell who was who) speak to Shilpa in a conciliatory tone. She sympathised with Shilpa, and was almost apologetic. But as soon as Shilpa’s back was turned, she ran back to Jade Goody, repeated every word that Shilpa had said, and sniggered away nineteen-to-the-dozen, while taking great pleasure in dissecting the Bollywood actress to pieces.

This happened on more than one occasion. I noticed that two-faced private conversations of the three ‘witches’ of CBB were much more virulent and insulting, and often laid bare the prejudices they held in private.

Could their behaviour have been simple envy and plain bullying or what the media referred to as ‘bitching’? Or could it have been exactly what Trevor Phillips referred to as the thin veneer of public tolerance hiding the private prejudices that people often hold?

Personally, I had never been a fan of Big Brother, and until the Shilpa Shetty row, I had no idea who the residents of the Big Brother House actually were. As soon as the media started calling me for my comments, everything changed. I had to actually rush to see a few episodes, read a bit on the net and familiarise myself with the ‘house politics’.

At one point, after I finished an interview for BBC Radio Five Live, I got a call from the Hindu Forum of Britain’s office, and the female staff cooed, “Ramesh, we just heard you on Radio, and cor blimey (sic), we never knew you watched Big Brother. I could never have imagined you talking about Jade Goody in public.”

Uhm ah – could this also be some sort of prejudice happening in reverse?