First Morning Walk with Airpod Pro

Yes, everything has a first time. And my date with ‘Airpod Pro’ is no exception. For the uninitiated (if there is any, that is), the device is one of IPhone’s high end wireless listening pleasures that my son bought for me. He presented one already to Aunt. Until now,  in the morning walks she would pass an occasional  side glance at me to convey her one-up feeling. Not any longer. Today I inaugurated mine.

One begins such things with something auspicious. What can be better than Lalitha Sahasranamam. The advantage is two-fold. One, starting on a good note. Two, if I listen to it every morning, I will no longer be a back bencher in the Vedic Chant group back in Bangalore. For most it is just brushing up. For me it is starting from scratch. Who knows when I render it at 120 words per minute on return in six months, my peers would not look at me with open-mouth awe – Sundaram, of all the people!

It being day one with Airpod, I didn’t confine myself to one item all through the morning walk. I meddled with podcasts as well. I clicked The Stories of Mahabharata, by Sudipta Bhawmik. His narration was good; dramatization could have been on a lower scale. Shanthanu, the great king is walking along the riverbank, is floored by the beauty of Ganga who appears from nowhere; proposes to her, she lays down pre-conditions one of which was no questions asked on her actions, if violated she would disappear, he agrees, she bears him seven children but drowns each of them in the river; unable to take it any longer when the eighth was born, he asks her why, and she disappears… Years later on the same riverbank he meets Satyavati, daughter of a fishermen’s tribe king, is attracted to her and proposes. This time her father lays down conditions….

More later perhaps, I said, as I switched to another. This time it was Ponniyin Selvan (son of Ponni) – a 70-year old all-time great Tamil fiction - the story of the early days of Arulmozivarman who later became the great Chola emperor Raja Raja Chola. The Brihadeswara (Shiva) temple in Tanjore should stand permanent testimony to his love for art and architecture. The geologists, archeologists, or whosoever is competent to talk about the grandeur of this and other monuments (the Shiva temple that was carved on a single rock starting from the top in Ellora, in another era, yet another example), have often wondered if those who selected the Seven Wonders of the World missed these for their architecture marvel and the monumental task involved in erecting them. 

Anyway, back to Ponniyin Selvan. The story appeared in series in the Tamil magazine Kalki from 1950 to 1954, authored by “Kalki” Krishnamurthy.  Kalki was a popular weekly of yesteryears. The story was woven so well that week after week the housewives of the villages would wait for the next edition. Alas, there were other magazines too, known for something or the other. And the poor ladies could not afford to buy all the magazines. So, one would buy Ananda Vikatan, the other Kumudam, yet another Kalki and so on, and they would exchange with one another. My own role in this as a lad of 10 was to act as an errand boy - pick one magazine from one Mami and give it to the other. Occasionally they would hand me to eat something that they had freshly prepared, I didn’t time my visit though.

Many leading film personalities of South – from the yesteryear Sivaji Ganesan and MGR to the present day Kamala Haasan - had seriously contemplated making Ponniyin Selvan into a movie. But the sheer magnitude of the project kept them away. Now Mani Ratnam is all set to release his magnum opus in two parts - Part 1 in September. Our two cents to his investment would be that Aunty and I will watch it in theatre, and not wait for it to descend to OTT platform.

“Oh God…, here I am - I have reached home.” Till yesterday the pronouncement was, “only a few more yards, and I will be home,” at each of the six turns. “Thank you, AirPod Pro,” I whispered as I placed it carefully onto its case. “After all, it has cost half of what I paid for my first flat in Delhi in the 1970s,” I told myself, but not loud enough, because I have strict instructions from my son not to convert everything into rupees. “You will then go back to India empty handed,” he would remind me often. 

Adapt Thyself

That is what I remind myself when I leave my home for a long stay. But not before I overcome the inherent hiccups of a travel from India to USA. First, the jeglag. In the first few days you swing around the house in unsteady, drunken steps like Motilal in Jagte Raho with only the song, Zindagi khwab hai, khwab mein… missing.

Second, you wake up at midnight as though you were in India and had an afternoon nap, and head towards kitchen for a bite or coffee. “This is US man - and past midnight. Get some more sleep if you can,” pats an inner voice as you walk back to bed somewhat cheated.  Third. Your body takes time to switch from the Indian routine to the American mode so that your bathroom visits no longer wait for the American evenings. Fourth…

Once through these, it is time to move on. While in India, we earmark certain projects for the next US visit – mostly those that gel well with the US lifestyle: weight reduction, go slow on sweets and salt, stricter exercise regimen, recapture the reading habit…. So, on arrival one of the first things I requested my d-i-l was to shift the weighing scale from their first-floor room to ground floor. She promptly complied with it. If this machine too doesn’t cooperate like the last one, I shall have it replaced with one that is user friendly.

For breakfast, it’s no more the customary Idli, dosa, upma or paratha stuffed with subzi of the previous evening. it is now carrot and its allies, or sugar-free cereals in a bowl with cut apples sprinkled sparsely. This is Aunty’s initiative fully backed by her son and d-i-l. Sometimes it is just cut fruits, as though I am on an indefinite fast for a public cause. 

We will visit Library any time now. Earlier, we would collect six to eight books in one visit making the onlookers wonder if Jeffrey Archer or James Patterson is walking out with reference material for his next publication. And, after all the permitted extensions, we drop the books back consoling ourselves, “Thank God, we could finish at least one book amidst our hectic activities”. An undiluted self-cheating remark - we had all the time in the world. “It will no longer be so,” is the promise with which we plan to re-enter the Library. 

Before boarding the plane from Bangalore, we also swore to ourselves that this time we would spend still more time with our grandchildren - playing Racko, Apples to Apples, Uno, Sequence. Alas, we were ready, but they have outgrown the company of grandparents. Yes, now I have to look up to see the face of the elder one with his 6 ft 2 inches figure. He is on a farewell spree as he and his friends, studying together in school, move out to different universities. There was a time when, as a child, he would narrate to me stories like the Charlotte’s Web which Initially I would pretend to be listening, only to find myself really engrossed later. The younger one is now on a week-long visit to the Emerald Bay in California with his Scouts team. (He has just returned. So nice of him, he has bought me a gift – a cap with my old time favourite, John Wayne’s photo embossed. Very thoughtful – not one with Spiderman, Batman, or Harry Potter characters, the current rage.

And to sum up? Well, our son and daughter in law are busy in their work-home desks upstairs. They join us for coffee, lunch and tea. Though it is summer vacation, children are seldom at home. They have their priorities. And we? Yes, we browse through Netflix, Prime Video, and other platforms to see if we have missed out any movies – language regardless. The only difference is that we now watch it in the four walls of US instead of Bangalore. 

The silver lining?  After dinner each night, all of us sit together for board or card games, to solve a crossword puzzle, or for a chat. And it is this one hour or an hour and a half of quality time we spent together leisurely that I shall cherish and carry back home.

US Travel - All Is Well That Ends Well

 “Appa, this time you two are NOT travelling alone; we are coming to Bangalore. On return we all fly together to US,” conveyed my elder son in a tone that had traces of a directive. Yes, nowadays it is bottom-up command - their turn to bat. He is fully justified. In the recent past I was hospitalized twice – once for Covid and later for severe Vertigo. But as fate would have it, at the last minute their trip had to be cancelled, and the just two of us, Aunty and I, travelled as usual. 

“Have a safe flight,” said the staff at the counter as he handed the boarding pass to us. In passing he mentioned the reporting time at the gate which sounded much later than originally scheduled. “Yes, the flight is delayed sir. Not to worry, you require just 30 minutes at the next point to catch your connecting flight to US.” 

The thoughtful travel agent lady who earlier booked our tickets had opted for the wheel-chair facility for us so that we got transported in the buggy to the connecting flight without any hindrance. The only problem we encountered was, Business class or Economy, the buggy operators at the European airport waited to pick up similar wheel-chair passengers from different flights landing around that time and drove them all together – to save on their labour. The net result? We missed the connecting flight. 

We were rebooked via Washington Dulles. No problem. The only snag was we got different responses on our checked in-baggage. One said it would go direct to San Francisco as originally tagged, regardless of re-booking. Another said that for security reasons, these days the checked-in baggage would travel with the passenger.  At the Washington airport the staff on duty checked computer and said that the baggage was still stuck at the European airport and we should file a baggage claim on arrival at our destination. 

Like the multi-car rear-end collisions in a road accident, we would miss our final connecting flight too, from San Francisco to Phoenix. We would thus be stuck in San Francisco from 9 pm till early next morning. Our younger son in San Francisco, closely following our movements, rushed to the airport along with his son armed with Aloo and Paneer parathas from the best restaurant in town and light blankets for the few hours of halt at the airport. A blessing in disguise – we spent time together catching up with grandson’s recently acquired Kung Fu black-belt status, Kamala Haasan’s Vikram, Drishyam famous Jeetu Joseph’s  12th Man and other movies that swarm the new-found OTT world, the rain-affected fifth and final T-20 series between SA and India and so on.

Finally, we reached Phoenix on a Wednesday morning instead of the previous evening. Alas, without the baggage. Love’s labour’s lost. Aunty had hand-picked items for the grandchildren, daughter in law and son, and was hoping to open the suitcases right at the doorstep and hand them over along with the bundle of select Indian sweets and snacks.

The baggage arrived three days later; luckily everything was intact. “All is well that ends well,” I said, quashing my earlier decision to claim damages from the airlines for the inconvenience caused. Better sense prevailed that the fine print of the airlines’ terms and conditions would more than amply cover such and still complicated contingencies, and I would only be waging a losing battle. Discretion is the best part of valour, I said to myself as I put the incident on the back burner, and here we are, all set to make the most of our visit.

Man's Best Friend

“Make new friends, but keep the old; one is gold, the other is silver,” or something similar, is what I recollect having jotted down on the back cover of my Matriculation English textbook. Decades later here I am reminded of that when I met Max, the new addition to our son’s family in US – the first ever in our expanded family. 

Max’s arrival into the family was not planned. It was an impulsive decision on the part of Sunita, our daughter in law. One fine morning her colleague brought from home half a dozen puppies to office by prior arrangement and distributed one each to pre-determined colleagues. One was still left, God alone knows for what reason. And Sunita happened to be the lone staff not holding one. And he was handed to her. For her it was a blessing in disguise. As a child, while walking along the road in Delhi, she had often pleaded with her Dad if she could pick…”that brown puppy’, the street dog,  and nurture him at home, only to be ridiculed by him. Now here is her ’dream come true’ day.  “But,” she said to herself, “will the other members of the family welcome him, or will I be in again for another ridicule?” Regardless, she carried him home, stopping on the way at an animal shop to buy half a dozen items for his day-to-day care. Bravo.

On seeing a new member, the younger son was overjoyed. Even during visits to stores for shopping, he would detach himself and be with the pets of other owners. He immediately held the puppy on to him. And the puppy was only too eager to join the younger playful age group. 

The older brother was a bit skeptical. His main worry was if in the midst of preparation for the Board Exam he would be assigned the dog-walk duty at least once a day. More importantly, at adolescence a dog was the last companion he wanted to be seen with. 

The head of the family - my son, that is - welcomed the guest with an ‘all in the game’ equanimity. 

The following Friday evening at a post-dinner meet lasting an hour and a half, the family christened him Max. Other names that figured in included Tiger, Johnny, Caesar, Jimmy…  But the unanimous verdict was the name should be monosyllabic. 

  *    *     *     *     *

My nature is such that caution takes precedence over anything else. So, the day I booked our tickets to US, I had a face-time chat with my son to ask him to keep Max, now fully grown, on leash when we were about to reach home from airport. From what we see of him during our video chats he appears ferocious. “If someone can take him for a walk coinciding with our arrival, that is the best we could ask for,” I reiterated.

Two miles before arriving home from the airport, I saw my son ring up Sunita and tell her that we would be home in ten minutes. I wondered if they were planning a Mangala Aarati in our honour at the doorstep. No, it was a hint for her to take Max out for a walk. And she did.

Now it is a week. Max is as close to both of us as we feel towards him. Anything else is secondary. We get up early, and he rushes from upstairs to be by our side wagging his tail, to watch us do our morning exercises. And when we go for a walk he follows us up to the door.  He knows he is not allowed to join us. He wears a concerned look at us as though wanting to reassure us, “I will behave well Thatha, why don’t you take me along.” 

There can’t be a better truth in the saying that dog is man’s best friend.