Month: April 2014

Popular Tailors.

This story led me to muse about some other stories connected to tailors.

The earliest one that I remember was being taken to a shop that sold ready made school uniforms run by an old Madras entrepreneur. He made the unfortunate mistake of making friends with my father and so, the three siblings were all marched to his shop to get made to order uniforms as ready made rates.

A little older I learnt about another famous story now known throughout the length and breadth of my glorious country -about my father’s acquaintanceship with Muhammed Ali Jinnah the connection being the sharing of the same tailor that suited both of them.
Appa
Jinnah

The photo on top is of my father and the one at the bottom is of Jinnah. Both are dated 1944, three years before the partition when both gentlemen lived in Bombay. I was one year old at the time and do not remember meeting the great man who is reputed to have pinched my cheeks and commented something to the effect of what a grand looking fellow I was.

Subsequently, I had many tailors who outfitted me as was the term for tailors stitching clothes for men. When we moved to Pune in 1990, I zeroed in on a remarkable young man Riaz who continues to outfit me even till today though he is left with only one tailor/cutter as the business has shifted to ready made garments.

When Manjiree came into our home last August, she took one look at my wardrobe and marched me to a garment shop and bought me some jeans and fancy shirts while ensuring that I junked most of my old fashioned garments. I duly did that but cheated her by rarely if ever wearing those new clothes to go out and wearing our traditional kurta/pajama ensembles. She cannot complain as that is our national dress and is not subject to the vagaries of fashion.

It is a pity that I cannot produce another famous personality outfitted by Riaz and his merry men with who I can share some reflected glory.

Comment Moderation.

moderation

Suddenly, some of my readers’ comments are going automatically into a moderation queue without me having done anything to the comment facility in my blog.

My resident geek is trying to figure out why this is happening as I am not able to. In the meanwhile, please do not be offended. It is not me who has turned that gadget on. It is some mysterious genie who thinks that he is being funny.

I apologise for the inconvenience caused and assure you that I love all my commentators without exception and so despite getting warnings that your comments are being moderated, keep commenting.

Thank you.

Rummuser.

Son And Grandson.

Casanova-001“The eighteenth-century Venetian Giacomo Casanova is legendary even today for endless sexual adventures, including an affair with his own seventeen-year-old illegitimate daughter, which resulted in her giving birth to a boy who was both his son and his grandson.”

This piece of trivia that I came across reminded me of this gem from my youth which used to amuse me and my friends no end.

Two States.

2states4

The uber efficient Geeta kept badgering her fellow alumni to join her and Koushik to see Two States, an Indian movie based on a campus romance between a Punjabi lad and a Tamilian lass which took place in the Institute Of Management from where all of us had graduated. It was pointed out to us by her that a number of scenes in the movie were shot in the Institute and it would be nice to see the movie in a group.

So, I took her invitation seriously and went to see the film yesterday afternoon.  The day incidentally was the hottest day this summer clocking 40.3 d C.  It was nice to have lunch before the movie in air-conditioned comfort at a restaurant that I had never been to before at Dorabjee’s in what we call the Camp here in Pune with Mitali who agreed to join me and my fellow alumni for the movie and also the movie and post movie coffee at the food court in the mall where we had seen the movie also in air-conditioned comfort.
IIMA

The film is a worth-going-to one with some excellent acting, direction and photography depicting two vastly different cultures quite crisply and showing the various emotions on display with delicate touches of direction and acting.  The humour which is part of the plot comes through in subtle metaphors and since our crowd was quite eclectic we were able to catch the nuances and enjoy them. Since Shekhar had had a roaring campus romance during his stay there, he was in raturues! The scenes at the institute took us back on nostalgia trips and that was  a nice feeling too.

The story incidentally is based on a highly popular novel written by a graduate from the institute and is supposed to  be autobiographical.  If that is true, the conflicts in the story line have been handled with great delicacy and I particularly could identify with the strained relationship between the hero and his father.  It was also quite fascinating for me to revisit Delhi and Chennai where I have lived.

As I have experienced before too in this particular theater, the sound was too loud and that was the only jarring part of the experience.  I will remember to take some cotton to plug my ears the next time I go there to see a movie.

Thank you Geeta for getting me out of my comfort zone in the heat to go through a thoroughly enjoyable outing.  Thanks  Shekhar, Shilpa, Mukund, Koushik and Mitali for the post movie coffee session which was enjoyed more than us by the visitors in the neighbouring tables.

Apart from all those expressions of gratitude, a special one again for Geeta for the unexpected treat that she gave me.  And another special one for Mitali who has decided that I am an alley cat.

My rating for the movie?[rating=5]

A Cuckoo In The Nest.

cuckoo

Apparently this idiom is used in two senses. The first one being a suddenly developed problem which keeps growing in magnitude and the other being a member of a group not quite popular with the group but who is not kicked out by the group out of consideration of her/his sensibilities or inertia or because there are other factors working behind the scenes.

Let me briefly write about both by starting with the first. Both my hip joints suddenly started to be very painful and lateral movements became extremely difficult for me in December 1980. It was 18 months before it was diagnosed properly and it was another three years before a surgeon would agree to replace one hip and I had to wait for another two years before the second hip was also replaced. I had to be careful and give up a lot of things including golf but I managed to be pain free if somewhat careful about my movements till the year 2000 when both the hips started to give trouble and I had to get them revised through two surgeries back to back within three months of each other. Things statblised again till three years ago when one had to be revised again and I am back to restricted movements till the second one becomes too unmanageable before which time hopefully I would have gone off to meet my maker. That cuckoo is still very much in the nest and how it will all unfold is yet to be seen.

The other story is about a colleague who was my senior who I overtook. This man was a climber and not a team player in an environment which had a lot of bonhomie and team spirit. He meandered his way till retirement and I was at least able to prevent his getting an extension to his employment as it would have demotivated younger colleagues waiting in the queue to replace him. He kept the top in good humour and kept the bottom kicked till the very last day of his employment with us and he was the only cuckoo in the nest that I ever came across in a group setting despite having worked in a number of positions and been part of many other groups. Perhaps I was just lucky as I am sure that others would have many more in their lives. In retrospect, I am grateful to have had that man in my life as at least I have one experience to write about for this blog post.

Other than these two sharings of my life, I have nothing to offer my readers on this subject which was chosen by Padmum, a presently non participating member,  for the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where five of us write on the same topic. The four other bloggers who write regularly are, in alphabetical order, Ashok gaelikaa, Maxi, Shackman. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, do give some allowance for that too! Ashok too is having prohlems with his blog being down and may or not participate this week.