My life as a DI.

I became a Digital Immigrant http://tinyurl.com/43fygl about 10 years ago when I began using a PC regularly circa mid-1998, learning to surf the Internet and to use email later the same year. I continued for a while the use of my portable typewriter but after a bit I abandoned it for my PC. (I graduated to a laptop used as a desktop only a couple of years ago.) Unlike many DIs, I did not get into the habit of printing emails I received or, worse still, getting someone else to print them for me. Even now, from time to time, I go into the "Did you get my email?" panic (landline or wired) phone call mode. But that's more because of the unreliability of the MTNL DSL connection than a lack of trust in the Internet. I have always been editing on the screen instead of on a printed copy. I don't drag people to my PC to show them an interesting website I've found. I mail them the url, instead. I'm not at all comfortable, though, with fast-moving video games. Twitch-speed is not within my ambit. Having been digitally undexterous all my life, I play slow stuff like solitaire. Slow downloads rarely upset me overmuch. I haven't learned to multi-task and parellel-process as yet, except maybe as far as listening to music while working at the PC. When it comes to a choice between television and books (the tree-cutting kind, not online), I go for the latter anytime. I don't care for a cellular phone, don't carry one. No faxing for me. Email has been as far as I go in online messaging. I haven't graduated to instant messaging. The spellings that go with it make me uncomfortable. In fact, the phenomenon of aliteracy (the inability to spell, punctuate and construct a sentence) bothers me. http://tinyurl.com/3kjgyh. On a different note, I don't insist on bottled water like the Digital Natives do. I haven't taken in a big way to social networking although blog I do fairly regularly. For me, Google is both a noun and a verb (with a lower-case 'g'). Last August, I got a USB thumbdrive as a birthday gift. I use it rarely and sparingly. Recently, I got a basic iPod Shuffle also as a gift from Ujwal. I listen to Beethoven, Brahams, Tschaikowsky, Bach, Wagner and other classical masters as well as Glen Miller, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Noorjehan, Geeta Dutt, Mohamed Rafi and similar oldies on it. I'm beginning to accept that digital information is ephemeral (44% of websites vanish within a year) and democractic, not authoritative (Wikipedia, not Britannica). P.S.: There are, I reckon, only two born Digital Natives among the Mankars: Anika and Armaan. From recent personal observation, I would add that Aditi and Avantika too have, by their own efforts and interest, attained the DN nibbana by now. Bully for them.

Impressionism, mon amour.

The centre ‘Quote of the Week’ panel in the 11 April 2008 issue (Volume 4, Number 2) of The Playgroup News tells us what happened in Ms Christa’s class. I quote from her report verbatim (including the number of dots):

Ms. Christa: What was so important about Monet’s paintings?

Class … pondering ……

Anika: Light, light was important to Monet.

Ms. Christa: That’s right. You are on it today, Anika.

I don’t know if Ms Christa listed for Anika’s class the distinguishing characteristics of “Impressionism”. This 19th-century art movement got its name serendipitously from the word coined by Louis Leroy in the course of his satiric comments in a leading art journal on Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant, 1874). Apart from brushstrokes discernible to the naked eye, open composition, everyday subjects, the inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience as well as unusual visual angles, perhaps the most important is the emphasis on light in its changing qualities – often accentuating the effects of the passage of time. “He pretended that he did all his work outside and on the spot, when actually he sketched rapidly in paint, then carefully finished his canvases in his studio. He even used photographs on occasion, furtively, and was furious when he was caught in the act in London while adding details to his series of pictures of the Houses of Parliament,” writes Christopher Benfey (‘Still Waters’) http://www.slate.com/id/2929/. Having no safety net in the shape of aristocratic patronage as did Degas, Manet, and Berthe Morisot, he was a cautious crowd pleaser. That doesn’t in any way degrade his work. It was first class all the way. A beacon light, shall we say?

Now, a Degas-Money-Van Gogh joke (‘Stealing the paintings') with Anika’s permission. Actually she ought not to mind living and growing up as she does in the land of the automobile.

Recently a guy in Paris nearly got away with stealing several paintings from the Louvre. However, after planning the crime, getting in and out past security, he was captured only 2 blocks away when his Econoline ran out of gas. When asked how he could mastermind such a crime and then make such an obvious error, he replied: "I had no Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh." http://www.ahajokes.com/pun09.html

P.S.: Here’s what I wrote to Avantika in the e-mail sending her the pdf of The Playgroup News:

Hi, Avantika. This is most amusing. Please download it and show it to Ashu and tell him we remember him talking like this as a child when he was about Armaan's age and we took him and Abhi to Jacob's house. (Jacob was an Art Director working with me in Clarion-McCann and had a ceramic studio in the same building where Yash has her office. In fact, I used to see her in the neighbouring studio of Dayaram Chawda one of whose pictures she has hung in her drawing room.)

Armaan: Student of the Month.

Yesterday night, Armaan told Ujwal and me over the phone that he had been selected Student of the Month. Great news, we told him. Congratulations, we said. He is truly a focussed student and, when not distracted by something or the other, he excels himself in school work. Crediting his success to the Mankar genes is a great temptation. I suspect, though, that it may not be the whole truth. (Is anything else for that matter?) Thinking about it this morning took me to my childhood at 233 Khetwadi Main Road. I was a student first at Sirdar High School http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/09/first-day-in-school.html in the 12th Lane, not more than two minutes’ walk from 233 Khetwadi Main Road once you climbed down the three floors. I was never overly eager to go to school, a reluctant scholar at best. I took to English “like duck to water” as the cliché goes. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/05/english-yes-english-grammar-no.html. In my first school where I spent seven years, I used to stand first most of the time. I also authored most of the content of the handwritten magazine in Marathi for my class. (I remember one issue where I had featured a novella of the swords-and-sorcery genre.) Later, when I enrolled in the Wilson High School also in the same neighbourhood 15 or 20 minutes’ stroll from 233 Khetwadi Main Road, my grades started slipping. This was by no means because I had suddenly grown dumb but because now the pond was larger with many more smarter fish. In my new school too, I was a reluctant scholar, not too keen about studies and not at all keen about games. I was timid, tongue-tied, well-behaved by default. I made very few friends. I remember one more thing that amazes me when I look at the way the kids who come to Ujwal for tuitions study so diligently and ferociously. I did not study all that hard. Ashu and Abhi were unlike me, probably took after Ujwal. They went to a far better school than either of us. They were outgoing and had large circles of friends and did well at studies without missing out on extra-curricular activities. I remember hordes of their pals coming home and Ujwal cooking loads and loads of food which they polished off in a jiffy and asked for more like Oliver Twist. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/12/more-is-happier-maybe-maybe-not.html. This memory comes to you by courtesy of Armaan Sood-Mankar, Student of the Month.

Yes, Armaan. There is no Santa Claus.

Abhi tells me Armaan already knows there is no Santa Claus. Daddy and Mummy give all those presents he gets. He has even shared his discovery with Anika. I feel whoever told him the truth did him a big favour. Fairy tales with happy endings and euphimisms are the bane of the human race. The sooner they know the truth, the better. I remember Avantika at age six or seven telling Ujwal and me how her didi, Aditi, used to cover her (Avantika's) eyes every time there was a scary scene in the movie they were watching together. This annoyed her no end because she has already sensed it was all make believe to start with. Abhi of course does not agree with me. This is contrary to his normal realist thinking. But then there seems to be a huge worldwide conspiracy to perpetuate the Santa myth. This Christmas, the ho-ho-ho man is reported to have got more than 750,000 letters at his Santa claus, Arctic Circle, Finland address. The Santa Claus Post Office is in a stone house eight kilometres from Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland. Santa's eleves sort outthe mail there. Strolling down my personal memory lane, I remember receiving Christmas gifts http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/12/saint-nicholas-never-met-him-in-person.html but never seeing a Santa hanging around the toy shops. (Akbarallys were to introduce a Chacha Deepak during diwali shopping in the sixties. Santas came much later - probably with the malls and rampant consumerism.) I'm glad Armaan and Anika don't believe in the ho-ho-ho hoax. Bully for them!

Genesis.

A couple of days back, I got an e-mail from Anita under the subject line: “Kids” (meaning Armaan and Anika).

Today I got asked where do babies come from and about getting married.....

Thank god I had read a little of it - how to answer them at this age but could not remember the entire story, so now I have to do my homework on it!

They were too funny and most of it on the mark too.

I e-mailed back as follows:

I don’t remember asking anything remotely approaching the birds and the bees territory when I was a kid. I was pretty dumb and incurious by today's standards. But good to hear they had you stumped for a moment. Bully for them.

Ujwal and I had a huge laugh about it and she told me about the girl on Judging Amy [a Hallmark TV show] asking her judge mom what an orgasm was.

This got me reminiscing about how it used to be in those days of innocence. Growing up must have crept on me suddenly and unknowingly, I guess. At what exact moment, I can’t quite recall.

Or, maybe, I don’t want to remember, who knows?

P.S.: I found a couple of sites where a simple answer to the difficult and embarassing query is given: http://pregnancy.about.com/cs/secondpregnancy/a/babiescomefrom.htm and http://health.howstuffworks.com/adam-200107.htm. Also a rather amusing hint is here: http://www.insidemotherhood.com/2007/03/20/where-do-babies-come-from./

Spring loaded.

I lived my childhood with spring loaded or clockwork toys for company. Toys for boys. An Egyptian mummy, too. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/06/toys-for-boys-egyptian-mummy-too.html told a part of the story. The other day, though, while buying toys for Armaan and Anika, I suddenly but distinctly remembered the long forgotten tactile pleasure of winding spring loaded toys. It was almost as if the power to animate them and make them do stuff was in your hand that magic moment. Battery-powered toys don’t give you that feeling, do they? They run of their own volition almost, in utter disregard of the child. No fun there. And as the batteries run down, the toys too start slowing down as if old age is catching up with them. That kind of thing did not happen to their spring loaded elder cousins I played with. Their nemesis was rust. And, the perverse urge that hit me on rare occasions to turn the key counter clockwise. Speaking of keys, they came in two types: the detachable ones and the other kind. Of the two, the first type was apt to get mislaid. I remember the bouts of frustration I used to be prone to on account of so many lost keys. Sometimes, though, the toymakers out of compassion used to pack keys in pair. Else, you were at the mercy of the toy shop owner who just might condescend to sell you a spare key from his precious cache.

The Red Book.

I wish I could tell you with a straight face that I learned the story of The Ramayana from my father and mother or by listening to kirtans or by watching Ramleela. It simply won't be the truth. And, although I haven't sworn with my right hand on the Bhagwatgeeta that whatever I write here will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I just cannot bring myself to lie to you so early in the game. So, I shall stick to the truth. In the bottom part of a book cabinet in my childhood home in Khetwadi, there was lurking a 12" by 7" hardbound red volume. It was waiting for me to discover it, I guess. In this priceless tome was the story of The Ramayana retold in a series of four colour pictures (one on every glossy page, back to back) drawn by someone who seemed to have learned the craft at the feet of Raja Rammohan Roy. The story started with King Dashratha's Putrakameshti Yagna (the fire sacrifice for progeny) and ended with Rama, Laxman and Sita's return from vanavasa (banishment to the forest). I read it so often and handled it so roughly that my red book got tattered in a few years. I cannot recall where it finally vanished. (Maybe, Mother Earth opened up and swallowed it like she did Sita.) I wish I had the sense to handle it with kid gloves. Had I done so, Aditi, Avantika, Armaan and Anika could have enjoyed it as much as I did. I shudder to see them reading the atrociously illustrated and slovenly written Amar Chitra Katha comic books and have a secret Fahrenheit 451 fantasy about the monstrosities.

Toys for boys. An Egyptian mummy, too.

A favourite childhood toy I remember vividly was a chutney green road roller cast out of metal. It had a tall chimney. It was powered by a spring-loaded clockwork wind-up engine. You could remove the key before you put it down to do its backward and forward road rolling routine. I have a feeling I had persuaded my father to buy it for me from the famous Lucky Toy Mart at Crawford Market. I also used to play with a clockwork train set - green as well - pulled by a 'coal-fired' replica engine and railroad sections, straight as well as curved. I had managed to acquire from I don't remember where quite a few more such sections. I used to set up an entire journey track with a gradient and a bridge using bits and pieces of other toys like wooden house building sections. No readymade layout for me like the one I see Armaan and Anika playing with! My Meccano set, a modest No. 2 or No. 3, had been purchased from Whiteway Laidlaw, the pucca Brit department store near Flora Fountain. (Its premises were later taken over by the Khadi & Gramodyog Commission and now houses the Khadi Bhandar.) I used to make windmills and other movable toys with my Meccano set and run them with a miniature battery-powered motor they used to sell at the time. I also had a pink coloured nicely sculpted wooden street lamp with a tiny bulb. I remember using a flat Everready battery to light it up. It was a regular part of my improvised railroad layout. Once, during a Navi Wadi jatra (fair) for our family deity, Maheshwari, I bought myself a plastic 'coffin' with a plastic Egyptian 'mummy' lying flat in it. So tiny was this toy that I could easily hold it in my childish palm. In the coffin's false bottom was hidden a magnet - as also inside the mummy. When you gave the coffin a nudge, the magnet would shift causing the mummy to rise. It was applied magnetism and polarity at their best. I thought it was powerful magic, though, and paid the toy seller ten rupees instead of the real price of five rupees for it. (In short, I did not haggle.) When the truth was out, one of my cousins accompanied me to the toy shop the very next day and managed to get back the extra five rupees with a combination of cajoling and mild threats. I watched this drama with a red face standing far from centre stage and thinking the fuss was uncalled for. Powerful magic was supposed to be worth a lot, wasn't it?

Celebrity DIY instruction sheet. Step #1: Open mouth. Step #2: Shove foot in. Step #3: Go blab, blab, blab.

The foot-in-the-mouth disease spares no one. Its most famous victim was India’s (most probably) No.1 ‘icon’ when tied himself into knots on being asked if he would continue to work for a cola that’s at the toxic hub of the pesticide scandal. First he said Yes. Then he said ask the company because he didn’t understand ‘these things’. All he needed to say was, he was only the hired help, he did what he was told to do. (Remember the factoid that Alfred Hitchcock reportedly called actors cattle?) In the same newspaper another ‘icon’ made an ass of himself in a special ‘interview’ – obviously a part of the publicity blitz for his new release – by telling his equally clueless interviewer that Hollywood started making spectacularly mounted sci-fi flicks only twenty years back. (Huh? Duh!) Obviously, he wasn’t aware of, say, George Pal’s The War of The Worlds with its Oscar-winning special effects made as early as 1953. He also proudly said that he had persuaded his dad to make India’s first (?) sci-fi movie to clear the way for others to follow. If they didn’t do it, that genre would be lost forever to Bollywood. (Huh? Duh!) What about Kidar Sharma’s Armaan made as early as 1942, the Quit India year? I stopped reading the gibberish at that point vowing never to read another word uttered by him – a promise to myself I’m sure I shall break. Serves me right for my ‘scratch an icon to find an intellectual’ frame of mind, what? P.S.: All the critics were hailing the ‘ten-year-IQ-in-an-eighteen-year-old’ act put on by the latter ‘icon’ in the new sci-fi-set-to-music flick. Maybe, it’s not an act, after all. To read a bunch of ‘foot-in-the-mouth’ jokes concerning ordinary mortals, head for http://footinmymouth.com/ http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8034 http://www.jn10.co.uk/stories/index.php?cat=7.