Bear your Cross with pride.

The other day, while wading through a plethora of gifts bestowed on us on various occasions and stored away in our steel cupboard, I came across a Cross Select Tip Rolling Ball Pen with a rich brown enameled body, rather handsomely boxed. As I took it out to admire it, it triggered a memory. I’m backtracking to the late seventies and early eighties. I was working in Everest Advertising as a writer and enjoying a rather long spell of success. http://digbig.com/4yqay. This agency was run on feudal lines with many fiefdoms operating under an overlord. From time to time, durbar used to be held and favours bestowed on the deserving underlings among whom I happened to figure. One Diwali, I was among the select coterie to receive from the Overlord’s second-in-command under the benign gaze of the King-Emperor a golden Cross Ball Pen, a much coveted status symbols for executives. I was quite thrilled to get it although I did most of my writing on a typewriter. http://digbig.com/4yqba. Being absent-minded, I managed to lose my Cross soon enough and was much castigated by friends, well-wishers and associates for being so careless and uncaring.

Change, change, change.

The more I think about it, the more amazing I find it. I must have been born under a forward-looking star that ordained that I would see so much change and so much history in the making in a single lifetime. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2007/04/pain-and-suffering.html. For instance, as a child, I saw MK Gandhi at fairly close quarters at one of his prayer meetings in Mahabaleshwar. I wrote about it in my still unpublished novel http://www.addgandhi.com/original/ on Gandhi and Hollywood, The Last Gandhi Movie. A few years later, I listened to Nehru’s famous eulogy at his funeral (“the light has gone out of our lives”) on our 5-valvr Bush radio. http://www.eulogywriters.com/ghandi.htm. So even if I rank among the lesser mortals who do not make history, I have been a mute witness to history in the making. Some of the late 20th landmarks I watched at more than six degrees of separation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation were Nehru’s death, the infamous Emergency interlude, Operation Bluestar and its aftermath, to mention the most noteworthy. I witnessed India’s progression from a colony to a state capitalist economy to a free economy. I saw at least one hack Victoria driver being butchered from my third floor terrace at 233 Khetwadi Main Road http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/07/morgue.html in the 1946-47 riots as well as Muslim houses behind as well from across my present residence in old Thakurdwar being put to flame in the 1992-93 massacre following Babri Masjid’s demolition. Apart from these, I saw my own family graduate from the coal choolah and the kerosene stove to bottled cooking gas and from the coal-fired water heater to electric heater. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/06/heat-of-days-long-past.html. I saw the valve radio making way for the transistor powered one. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2007/03/clueless-in-mumbai.html. I saw my portable typewriter making way for the PC in a span of forty years. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/06/my-portable-typewriter-tale.html. And, I also saw myself graduating from the milk in a bottle and later in a plastic bag that needs boiling every morning http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/06/neo-luddite-relents-sheepishly-shame.html to the milk in a carton that needs no boiling at all. The Internet, e-mail, IM. SMS, Wen 2.0, cellular phones, CDs, DVDs, the likelihood of the end of the civilisation as we know it and of the institution of marriage … good grief, Charlie Brown, where are we headed?

My portable typewriter tale.

There’s a story, apocryphal perhaps, about Woody Allen’s technophobia. Every time he needs to change his typewriter ribbon, a friend gets invited to a home-cooked dinner. (Read ‘printer cartridge’ just in case he has switched to a PC by the time you read this.) True or not, it goes well with Woody’s screen persona. I used to think of myself as a technophobe till the time I got myself a portable typewriter, back in 1958, to pound my M.Com. thesis on. (I never admitted even to myself that my handwriting was atrocious and illegible.) My new acquisition was a made-in-India machine. I forked out the princely sum of Rs.1500/- for it. My dissertation ran into some 700 and odd pages. After reading it, my external assessor, Dr. K. N. Raj, told me that had I waited one more year I could have got a Ph.D. for my trouble. That’s not apocryphal, trust me. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/09/almost-ph-d-me-who-else.html. Technophobe and techno-illiterate – I’ve continued to be both most of my life. I gave up driving long back because I was terrible at it, even worse at parking. When the PC came along though, I was among the early majority in getting converted by around 1995. I even managed to write a part of my still unpublished novel directly on my PC. I’m okay with surfing, e-mail and word processing but haven’t yet ventured into spread sheets. A part of the reason is I don’t really need to use Excel. This memory segment is brought to you by courtesy of Mr Gerry McGovern in whose article (Metadata is essential web writing skill.) I came across the Woody Allen anecdote which I had read before. “Metadata is the: who, what, where, when and how, of your content. … (and) may include: heading/title, summary/description, author name, date of publication, geographic classification, subject classification, keywords,” explains Gerry. The core of his argument is: “Metadata gives your content context.” Part 1 of the article at
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2003/nt_2003_06_02_metadata_1.htm. Part 2: http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2003/nt_2003_06_09_metadata_2.htm.

Does God love Page Three folks? Like the whole wide world?

Like virtue, celebrity is its own reward. And, it confers on (s)he who wears the mantle certain privileges. Not the least among these, I’m beginning to realize after regular perusal of Page Three and much thought, is the direct, one-to-one access to the Almighty. No kidding, folks. Here you have it straight from the horse’s (or, the mare’s) muzzle (name withheld to avoid physical and/or legal mayhem): “I’ve a direct,. one-to-one, very very special relationship with God. By now, we’re on a first-name basis. He calls me Skip. I call him Boss. He never refuses to take my call. We have long, rambling chats.” There you have it, the unvarnished truth. What did I tell you? All this has also made me understand why God doesn’t have time for us lesser mortals. Makes sense, no? Remember what Woody had to say on the subject? “Not only is there no God but try getting a plumber in Manhattan on weekends.” And: “Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.” And: “If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank. ” http://www.lifeisajoke.com/woodyswit_html.htm. Also: “As the poet said, 'Only God can make a tree' – probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.” And: “How can I believe in God when just last week I got my tongue caught in the roller of an electric typewriter?” http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Woody_Allen. P.S.: It’s a sobering thought, though, when you remember that Woody is a celeb himself. Well, he must be the exception that proves the rule. Gotcha! [Related link: http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/05/are-page-three-lions-inveterate-lady.html]