Things that money can't buy...

I happened to remember a credit card company's tagline today.

"There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's MasterCard"

And I'm gonna tell you how I happened to remember this old tagline. 

On a regular weekend, I called up couple of my bachelor colleagues, who would normally have no exciting plans. With no girlfriends to take for shopping or movies, they were always happy to accompany me to any of my crazy expeditions - say a photography trip or a really stupid 3D animation movie. I had plans and they were there for the moral support that I needed. I still remember this one time when I was busy taking photographs for close to 3 hours and they were bored to death after throwing a 100 flat stones to the nearby lake to kill time. Guys, I love you both for bearing with me on all these trips!!

So, coming back to our story. This time I had plans to watch a movie by an aspiring Bollywood startlet who was backed by generations of superstars. It advertised the hero having a 'devil may care attitude' know what, the tagline of the movie got me completely hooked and I wanted to watch it on the opening weekend itself.

So, off we went. Hungry and famished by the time we reached the shopping mall which housed the multiplex, we stepped into the food court to have some food. We were welcomed with stale food which had stayed in the deep freezer for months and were charged exorbitant rates after feeding us half tummy. I thought, the water that Mommy throws away after washing fresh chicken would be tastier than what the food court served us...

Now, the movie began. Almost three hours of watching the hero go through an existential crisis in both life and love. It gave us the valuable message that life can pass you by, if you don’t stop to savor the moments. If this was the first ever Bollywood movie I was watching, I would have definitely enjoyed it. Sadly, I have seen this idea couched in the template of a dozen love stories which I can list out with my eyes closed.

The movie lasted too long, at least by a good 20 minutes and later, tired and wired after 3 hrs of straining eyes, we stepped out of the theater. So, my colleague wanted to buy a goggle. 30 minutes of coaxing and persuation, he bought a Ray-Ban itself. Again, god bless Mastercard.

Next stop - Lifestyle Brandstore. I went in empty handed, stepped out with three brand new linen shirts. Why? - there was an offer - buy 2 and get 1 free. I dug in through the whole shelf and the guy who had more than enough shirts in his wardrobe added another 3 shirts to his collection. And as a result, I owe the bank another 5000 of hard earned Indian currency. Any ways, thank you again mastercard. :-)

So, thats how it works. I was very happy. The shirts were looking good in the mirror and on my way back, I was already sketching me in 3 different shades of Linen in different occassions. So, chalte chalte, we reached a signal where I stopped behind an elderly gentleman on a Hercules Bi-cycle. Close to 70 years of age, he looked impeccably healthy for his age. I exclaimed to my colleague - "See that guy on the bicycle. See how healthy he is. May be even we too should start cycling." He gave me a look and then he sadly looked down at his ever growing Pot-Belly a.k.a beer belly. He said "Its too hot out here in Nagpur for cycling. What do you think?". Completing the sentence, he increased and adjusted the climate control again to fight the scotching heat.

Then came a crowd of small kids in torn and soiled clothes asking for alms. They were requesting alms knocking on every closed window tapping and making soiled finger prints with their small hands. Like every other average Indian, I pretended not to see them, looking here and there, adjusting volume on the audio system, wiping dust from the never before wiped dash board and all. A little girl with a small baby in her arms came to my window. She was around 6 years of age and had a 6 month old baby in her arms. The baby was crying with all the life left in it and I was like left thinking whether to pull out my wallet which may have had some 10s or 20s rolled in some unused compartment. Like all guys of my age, I too had lost the habit of carrying bills in my wallet. Bills were meant only to pay the 'Tapri Walah' for an occassional 'chai' or 'Poha'. For the remaining necessities, we had mastercard! Simple logic and pretty straight too, isnt't it?

I sat there, frozen in time. I was unsure whether I had anything left in my wallet to give the little girl. I looked at her face. My palms were already sweaty and losing grip over the steering wheel. If I pulled out my wallet, I would be giving hope to the little one and the crying baby. And in case if my wallet turned out to be empty, I was not man enough to see the expression on the kid's face. She was wearing a torn 'Baniyan'. It looked so soiled with small holes all over it. I though about home. Her outfit or the rag that covered her body wouldn't even find a way to my Mom's kitchen where rolled paper towels and faded turkish towels are being used to facilitate all the tidying up activity. As I sat there, looking totally lost and ashamed with a bowed down head, with my eyes fixed on the Suzuki Logo on the steering wheel, I felt the girl was moving on to the gentleman on the bi-cycle. He didn't look like a rich guy or even like an average office going Indian. Though he wore clean clothes, I could notice they were pretty worn and his collar and cuffs were already showing its age looking all fluffy wherever it made contact with skin. His sandals were razor thin after all the steps it had taken. He called the girl to him and with one hand still on the handle he reached his shaky hands to move the cloth covering the baby's face. He looked at its face, touched its cheek and gave a smile. He reached  his shirt pocket and took a couple of currency notes and handed over to the child and advised her to feed the baby with something. 

The girl was grinning ear to ear showing her missing front teeth. She now wanted some more money. The gentleman smiled and reached again to his shirt pocket and gave her some more. He shot a smile again and the signal was green by then. The gentleman pedalled off at his own pace without another glance. My chin was touching my chest with shame by then. And then I saw one more sight. In came the kid's mother and took all the money the gentleman gave and slid in to her sweaty jacket. Wherever the money went or whatever was done with it, the gentleman has moved on with his life with a satisfaction of doing a good deed. A little happiness, a feel good moment - something no mastercard can ever buy. 

I shifted position uncomfortably in the seat of my climate controlled car - my swollen wallet in the back pocket adding to the woes. And I had 3 mastercards stacked one above the other in my wallet. Yes, there are some things that money can't buy, for everything else, there is mastercard and at times, none of these can buy you what you want.

Any ways, I decided, now on, I'd keep some money in my wallet, because, every time, a mastercard can't come to my help.

Siblings..!!

GIVEN what a mouthy thing I grew up to be, it’s shocking when I tell anyone that I began talking later than most children do. But I didn’t need words. I had my older sister, whom I call Oppol. For those who are unfamiliar with the customs, traditions and beliefs in India, here its mandatory to give respect to elders while addressing them or talking to them by adding some suffix to indicate their seniority. In Hindi, we usually add 'bhaiyya' or 'deedi'. In malayalam, we suffix 'chettan' or 'chechi' to their names. My dad had only one sister and he used to call her 'Oppol'. This term is heard only in particular areas of kerala and Its a very old way of summoning one's sister. Digging dictionaries, one may be able to find what it means: "The one born together". I have to say, the term still carries a lot of old world charm with it. I was made to call my Sister as 'Oppol' even before the time I can remember.

The way my mother always recounted it, I’d squirm, pout, mewl, bawl or indicate my displeasure in some comparably articulate way, and before she could press me on what I wanted and perhaps coax actual language from me, Oppol would rush in to solve the riddle.

“His blanket,” she’d say, and she’d be right.

“Another cookie,” she’d say, and she’d be even righter.

From the tenor of my sob or the twitch of one of my fat little fingers, Oppol knew which chair I wanted to sit on, which toy I was ogling. She decoded the signs and procured the goods. Only 5 years older, she was my psychic and my spokesman, my shaman and my Sherpa. With Oppol around, I was safe.

Now, the mother of an incredibly naughty and noisy girl child, I am pretty sure she wouldn't have any issue understanding what the kid wants. 

We marched (or, rather, crawled and toddled) into this crazy world together, and though we had no say in that, it’s by our own volition and determination that we march together still. Among my many blessings, this is the one I’d put at the top.

Three weeks ago, the calendar decreed that we pause to celebrate mothers, as it does every year. Three weeks hence, fathers get their due. But as I await my flight to meet my parents in a quick land and take off arrangement at Trivandrum on a Father's day, my thoughts turn to siblings, who don’t have a special day but arguably have an even more special meaning to, and influence on, those of us privileged to have them.

“Siblings are the only relatives, and perhaps the only people you’ll ever know, who are with you through the entire arc of your life,” the writer Jeffrey Kluger observed to Salon in 2011, the year his book “The Sibling Effect” was published. “Your parents leave you too soon and your kids and spouse come along late, but your siblings know you when you are in your most inchoate form.”

Of course the “entire arc” part of Kluger’s comments assumes that untimely death doesn’t enter the picture, and that acrimony, geography or mundane laziness doesn’t pull brothers and sisters apart, to a point where they’re no longer primary witnesses to one another’s lives, no longer fellow passengers, just onetime housemates with common heritages.

That happens all too easily, and whenever I ponder why it didn’t happen with Oppol and me — both of us so different from each other — I’m convinced that family closeness isn’t a happy accident, a fortuitously smooth blend of personalities.

IT’S a resolve, a priority made and obeyed. Oppol and her Husband could spend their yearly leave of around 45 days embarking on a voyage or a joyride rather than visit home town in this busy world. But they travel all the way from where they work - in another continent, in another time zone - every year, just to be together. We made a decision to be together, and it’s the accretion of such decisions across time that has given us so many overlapping memories, which are in turn, our glue.

I’m also convinced that having numerous siblings helps. If you’re let down by one, you can let off steam with another. There’s always someone else to turn to. This is from my own experience of watching my Mom deal with her 10 siblings. There are always gangs or herds within this herd which are attached among themselves than with the others in the herd.

It’s like a treasure chest: you have access to a lot of different personalities, Mom told me. “With my brothers and sisters, I turn to them all. But I turn to them for different things.” That’s how it is in our brood, too.

Perhaps because the two of us belong to the same generation — just over 5 years  separate me and Oppol — each understands the other better than our mother could ever understand us, or than our father ever will. And while our parents gave us values, we inadvertently assigned ourselves the roles we play. Popularity came more easily to Oppol being the more obedient and controllable, so I resolved to be the more diligent student, needing to find my own way to stand out. Because Oppol and I made relatively conventional choices, Mom and Dad were always happy to compare us to each other for the things we were not so popular about.

That’s how it goes in a pack of siblings, and I sometimes wonder, when it comes to the decline in fertility rates in our country and others, whether the economic impact will be any more significant than the intimate one. For better or worse, fewer people will know the challenges and comforts of a sprawling clan.

Those comforts are manifold, at least in my lucky experience. With siblings to help shoulder the burden of your parents’ dreams and expectations, you can flail on a particular front with lower stakes and maybe even less notice. Siblings not only pick up the slack but also act as decoys, providing crucial distraction.

They’re less tailored fits than friends are. But in a family that’s succeeded at closeness, they’re more natural, better harbors. As far as I have observed in case of my Oppol, she isn't a person I would have likely made an effort to know or spend time with if I'd met her at school, say, or at work. And yet a reunion with her thrills me more than a reunion with friends, who don’t make me feel that I'm, “a part of a larger quilt”. My sister does.

With a friend, I have to be more articulate. With my sister, I can be my most primal self: inarticulate, childishly emotional. I’ll have a fight with my sister and say, ‘O.K., I know we’re in a fight, but I need your advice on something,’ and we can just put the fight on hold. They’re the only people in the world you can be your worst self with and they’ll still accept you.”

My sibling has certainly seen me at my worst, and I’ve seen her at her's. No one has bolted. It’s as if we signed some contract long ago, before we were even aware of what we were getting into, and over time gained the wisdom to see that we hadn’t been duped. We’d been graced: with a center of gravity; with an audience that never averts its gaze and doesn’t stint on applause. For both of us, a new home, a new relationship or a newborn was never quite real until the other has been ushered in to the front row.

This vacation, when she comes home, I have to decode what she wants. It won’t be difficult. I have decades of history to draw from, along with an instinct I can’t even explain.