Tribute to a Friend

One of the most sensible decisions I took in my life was to register for a course in creative writing with IGNOU. Though I did not complete the course I gained immensely from it. The most important gain was meeting people with whom I am still in touch on a regular basis- Kiran and Sailaja even after thirteen years after first meeting them. But there is one friend I miss very much- JR Jyoti.

When I got to the first contact class I met a few people- Sabina, Sailaja and J.R. Jyoti who came with a stylish briefcase. For a couple of weeks I wondered what was in it. Later I saw he was an organized person with everything he needed for his writing- a couple of pens, papers, his old articles etc., on hand in his briefcase. But it also contained one more thing we all looked forward to seeing regularly. He brought a box of sweets on every Sunday we met. Needless to say we all bonded so well that we used to meet regularly even after the course officially ended. We used to sit in the Shanbagh restaurant where now a bakery stands besides the flyover near Hyderabad Central. JR Jyoti was the glue that held us together with his elderly presence but childlike enthusiasm for writing.

JR Jyoti had just retired (this was in 1996) as a Chief Engineer in the Railways. But did not look like he was older than forty. He was not only young in appearance but also in his attitude. He cracked jokes all the time keeping us in splits. By the time we met he had already published several articles in many newspapers and magazines. In fact, he had written a book of poems in Hindi also. He also wrote in Urdu. At that time a new paper, ‘AP Times’ came out and we all had our articles published in it. Almost every week it carried at least an article that one of us had written. But the best articles in it were those written by Jyoti sab. They were very humorous and I sometimes wished I could come up with ideas like his. He wrote witty pieces on every subject and every event effortlessly.

Though the output of the rest of us waned with the years Jyoti sab continued to write. He was an inspiration to me and generously gave me advice. Not only advice, he lent me books and magazines on writing. I used to wait for him to tell me I could collect the latest issue of ‘Writers Digest’ which he subscribed to. I am very grateful to him for that small but priceless help. Another important reason I cannot forget is that he brought into my life a person who became a close friend. Jyoti sab had asked Hari to talk to us about his book. He came on one Sunday and that day onwards Hari and I became friends.


Afterwards we used to meet now and then. Jyoti sab told me he was compiling a book of all his articles. He told me to go through them and I tried my editing skills on them. Eventually, he decided to self-publish the book. This was in 2006. But he died of a lung ailment shortly afterwards. I was doubly grieved because the same day one of my uncles passed away and I had to go out of town. I missed the funeral of my unforgettable friend and benefactor. To this day I regret not seeing him for the last time.

But he remembered me. Last Saturday I was at Odyssey and was pleasantly surprised to see Jyoti sab’s book- ‘Day is Night’published by Jaico, still on the stands. I had seen it last time I was at Odyssey but by then I had already bought Marquez's book of short stories. I had thought Jyoti sab's book had died with him but happily that wasn’t the case. When I opened the book I had another surprise. In the acknowledgements he had thanked me (‘Shri Vinod Ekbote’) for helping in getting the book ready. I felt terribly sad, almost to the point of having tears in my eyes. I wish he were alive to see his book in print. There was only one copy in the store and I bought it.

‘Day is Night’ is a collection of sixty two of his wittiest pieces. They are his best pieces that reveal his zany sense of humor and his razor sharp writing. He wrote on topics ranging from Feng Shui, his meeting with Gaya Lal (Gaya Ram of Aaya Ram-Gaya Ram), encounter with a housefly, getting a wisdom tooth removed and several such topics that reflect his fertile imagination. Reading the pieces brought back to my mind the images of Jyoti sab- a nattily dressed, carefully groomed and extremely elegant gentleman writer who was more than a friend to me. I miss him.

Out of Contact

I hadn’t been to a police station for quite a long time. In fact I had been to a police station only once in my life and that was almost twenty five years ago. The night before the door frames were to be fixed in the second floor we were constructing, they were stolen. A complaint was lodged and the cops made a visit. After about six months I was asked to come to the police station. They told me to sign a statement they had prepared saying that despite the efforts of the cops the property was untraceable. It meant they wanted to close the case. That was in 1984.

Last Sunday I went to go to the police station, for the second time in my life. I wanted to lodge a complaint. My mobile phone was stolen in the night before. I was sleeping with the bedroom window open and sometime during the night a thief had made away with it. I had bought it three years ago for three thousand bucks after being told that I would get a departmental SIM. I was reluctant but I had to buy it as I had no choice. Until then I had lived without a mobile but afterwards it was sort of impossible to go without it. Not that I have a large circle of friends but it was very handy to keep in touch with them. It also served as a watch (reason why I don’t wear one), an alarm and also a paperweight, sometimes. Then suddenly it was gone, but only for a day.

Every one advised me to lodge a complaint with the police. After consulting my cop friend I went to the police station in the morning. ‘You mean you want to meet the Circle Inspector to lodge a complaint about your missing mobile?’ the elderly constable at the entrance sneered. His attitude changed when I told him I knew the CI even though I didn’t. He told me the CI wasn’t in but a Sub-Inspector was available. I went in to give the complaint to him. He was a young man, maybe a fresh recruit but he had a large pistol before him on the table. There was another fellow in the room, some kind of an astrologer with a chain of beads around his neck and a large tikka on his forehead. I wanted to ask him if he would tell if my phone could be traced but I didn’t.

Later in the afternoon going through the haul I had at Abids I got a surprise. One of my generous brothers gifted me a mobile phone. It was an LG model, a basic one but with an FM radio. I had a phone but no SIM. They’d give a duplicate one at the office but I have no way of getting back the telephone numbers of my friends that were in the phone I lost. I’m wondering how to contact all my friends and let them know I’ve lost their phone numbers. Any ideas?

My Son, the Artist

One major benefit of putting kids in unconventional schools isn’t what they are not made to do but what they make out of the kids. I’ve realized this truth when I decided to put my kid in a slightly unconventional school where the kids don’t have to wear uniforms, shoes, don’t have to face examinations until higher classes and so on. Of course, they need books and I have to pay fees. Sometimes I think I might have made a mistake putting him in such a school and affecting his future. But after finding that he goes to school without any fuss and doesn’t ever talk of skipping school, and is in fact happy to be in the school, I felt that maybe it was a right decision after all. I think it isn’t an entirely wrong decision after I noticed that he was becoming good at something that I hadn’t even dreamed of.

Somewhere in the third standard or so his teachers started appreciating his drawings. He would sit at home making drawings of cartoon characters that he sees on television all the time but I did not realize he was actually good at drawing. Now every time they need someone to draw something for a project, he is given the task. Understandably, he is rather proud of it especially when the teachers write on his reports that he is good at drawing. He also won a few prizes in drawing contests which convinced me that this talent emerged because of the school atmosphere. He makes his own toys out of paper and cardboard


I’ve started collecting all his drawings of Spiderman, Superman, deities, jet fighters, racing cars, Ben Ten characters, Pokemon and so on. But what I cherish are the birthday cards he makes for me every year without fail. He begins two or three days in advance taking care I don’t see him doing it. I’ve saved all the cards he made for me since he started drawing. Somewhere in the drawings above that he made on the computer one is of his proud papa.

On Another Trip & the Year That Was

As the year begins to fade away my travel stars seem to be shining brighter. I’m setting off on another trip, the third one this month. I haven’t been anywhere this year for a long time and suddenly as if to compensate for it I am being sent here and there. This time I am being sent to Visakhapatnam. Vizag is infinitely better than the other two places I have been in the past couple of weeks- Guntur and Zaheerabad. Apart from many things in its favor Vizag is a seaside place and I simply love being near the ocean. I will be in Vizag on New Year’s eve so I plan to spend the last day of the year watching the sunrise by the sea. It would be a nice way to end the year which has been a mixed one for me so far.

The one major highlight of the year was that I finally managed to complete writing my book. I guess it brought me within inches of being a published writer. However I haven’t been able to stick to my deadline of completing the revisions by the end of the year but that’s okay. I will do it in the first two months of the coming year. Other than that, writing the blog regularly has been another source of satisfaction. I’ve managed to write two hundred and twenty two posts in 2008. Though I did not have anything published in papers and magazines (as if I do it quite regularly!) I am satisfied with the posts on the blog which has brought me more friends than I could make otherwise. The blog has brought in a haul of friends I am happy to be in touch with regularly.

As far as books are concerned I found plenty of them, a hundred thirty to be exact. My friends are envying me for finding some really good books. I picked up many books by my favorite writers- Elmore Leonard, Dave Barry, Paul Theroux, Pico Iyer and others. I have listed all the books I have found this year somewhere on the blog. But when it comes to reading I haven’t read as many books I should have for various reasons. Whatever books I have read have been good so far, books that changed something within me. I will continue to read more books though I might be picking up fewer of them owing to a space constraint at home.

Of course, the high point has been getting a Mont Blanc fountain pen as a gift. I also found a couple of nice fountain pens the latest being the ‘Swarna’ black fountain pen I picked up at Guntur about a week ago.

On the job there haven’t been many highs though I have learnt a lot of people in a particular industry hate me for sticking to rules. I am glad I had the opportunity to show these greedy and rapacious industrialists how it feels when the government flexes its muscle. The surprising thing is that there have been no attempts to shift me from my post and instead there’s a new respect for being unbending and straightforward. But it is very tough to remain unruffled when there’s wholesale corruption all around you.

I made a few trips on the job and had excitement at the end of the year in form of the anti-corruption operations in December. I will remember the one where I was part of an operation to trap a corrupt cop. It felt like I was in a movie chasing someone through heavy traffic. The low was that I was not promoted this year too and maybe next year I will move a step up the ladder.

I am not making any resolutions for the next year because I haven’t been able to keep the resolutions that I had made last year. I wasn’t able to listen to music and was also not able to buy an iPod. The other resolution was that I wanted to learn to cook but I was nowhere near the kitchen. I just ate.

So that was a little bit about my experiences in the year that’s gone and I hope none of you have fallen asleep while reading this post which is one of the lengthiest I have done so far. I hope and am also confident that 2009 will be a better year bringing every one success, happiness and lots of money which is something I badly need. Why? I have to buy bookshelves! Where else can I keep my books?

Wish You all a Happy New Year. Keep reading the blog. Thank You very much.

Daughter's Day Special: All My Daughters

It was in a most unusual way I came to know that I was going to be the father of a son. For some reason I am yet to comprehend, the doctor who performed the scan on my wife told me it was a son my wife was carrying. I guess it was because I told him where I was working that made him reveal the information. He had a grape garden in the place where I was working at that time. I wasn’t prepared for fatherhood so at that time it did not make much of a difference if it was a son or daughter.

The gynaecologist had advised my wife to undergo a routine scan done when she was with child. I had taken her to a diagnostic centre near my house for the scanning. The centre was run by a talkative doctor and we chatted while the visiting radiologist did the scan inside. When I told him where I worked he appeared excited that I was connected to farming. He told me he owned a grape garden in the place where I worked.

After the scan was over, my wife came out and the chatty doctor went inside to speak with the radiologist. After the radiologist left, the doctor leaned over and whispered in my ears that though he wasn’t supposed to reveal it, he told me that I was going to be the father of a son. It didn’t make much difference to me since I wasn’t really prepared for fatherhood.

However, after my son was born, my joy was short lived. The doctors told me he has to undergo a minor operation under general anesthesia. We decided to go ahead with it after considerable hesitation. I felt a saw run through my heart as the nurses took my crying and bleating child from my arms. He was only eight months old then.

An hour later when he was wheeled out of the surgery, bandaged and still under the effect of anesthesia, I was a changed man. I decided not to have another child. It was enough agony for a lifetime.

But I don’t miss not having daughters of my own. I consider daughters of all those I know as my own babies. My brother has two daughters and one of them, born just a day before my own son was born, is more of my own daughter. They are together most of their waking hours. My friend Raj has two adorable daughters. Hari too has a tiny, cute daughter who comes to me easily.

But sometimes I wish I had a daughter of my own but the feeling disappears when I think of all my other daughters.

Father's Day Thoughts

Exactly twenty years ago I lost my dad and ten years ago I became a father myself. Though my kid is ten years old and a decade has passed I continue to have doubts about my capabilities or abilities as a father. I am forever thinking that I am not doing enough for him and that I might fail him as a father. I am forever trying to teach him all I can while I can.

I had read somewhere that the best way to teach a child something is by example. I do not know what he learnt from me but one thing I am certain is his love of reading. He stares at the growing piles of books in the house with fascination and has a collection of his own comics and books that he likes to read. I think I have taught him the love of books by example. This, I am sure he will be grateful for just as I am grateful to my dad for the same.

I have been thinking of how to write about a magazine I had found a couple of weeks back and now Father’s Day provided me the chance. The magazine I picked up was the July 2002 issue of ‘Men’s Fitness’ magazine. It had a wonderful article titled: 51 Things Your Father Should Have Taught You. Some of the things in the article include:

Do things hard way sometimes- it’s good practice.

Stand up straight, shake hands firmly and look people in the eye.

Life is short. Enjoy it. ( this is the best piece of advice)

No discomfort, no gain.

Don’t lose track of your old friends; it’s important to have people around who know where you came from.

Watch out how a woman treats other people; sooner or later she’ll treat you that way, too.

Watch out how you treat your mother; sooner or later you’ll treat other women that way too.

If you’re going to waste time, at least do it with your buddies.

Give your own son advice even if he doesn’t seem to be listening; he’ll remember it when he really needs to.

I guess it is easy to become a father but difficult being a father.

Rebuilding a Friendship

Life sometimes has an odd way of pushing you into doing things you don’t want to do, and then throw a pleasant surprise at you. I got in touch with a long forgotten friend after a gap of nearly four years thanks to one such reluctant act.

Last Saturday one of my bosses asked me to attend an official meeting at a far away place. It was a holiday for us on Saturday and I was loath to attend it. I tried to wriggle out of it putting on a long face and muttering darkly about having to forego a holiday. My boss said, “Nothing doing’ when I told him I wasn’t inclined to go as I was in no way connected with the meeting.

To make sure I attended he gave me a memo, the ultimate weapon in the bureaucracy. So I had no alternative but to fall in line. The meeting was at a far away place and we had to leave early in the morning. I had my own ideas about the meeting and prepared for it the previous day picking up a book I could read. I thought of sitting in a corner with it and whiling away the time reading.

It didn’t work out like that since the meeting hall was small and every one could see every one. There were people from all over the country attending the meeting. I asked the people from Karnataka if they knew a certain officer I knew and told them I wanted his telephone number.

In 2000 I was in Chennai for ten days to attend a training session. I was put in a room along with an officer from Karnataka and during those ten days we became good friends though he was ten or fifteen years older than me. We kept in touch until 2005 and the link was broken because I lost his telephone number, and he too did not call.

On Saturday the officer from Karnataka had told me my friend had opted for voluntary retirement and promised to give me his number after returning to Bangalore. Yesterday when I called, he gave my friend’s number promptly as promised. I was excited

I dialed my friend’s number and waited with bated breath for Amarnath to lift the phone. Finally he came on line and asked something in Kannada. When I told him I was calling from Hyderabad, he was silent for some time and then he spoke. We chatted for some time and he asked me to come to Bangalore. I was glad I finally got in touch with a good friend and thanked my stars for agreeing to attend that meeting, though with great reluctance.

An Opportunity Missed

For a long time I had been thinking of doing something special for my son’s class teacher (‘didi’ for him) of whom he never stops praising enough. After I come home from work he begins by telling me how his ‘didi’ said something that he had done was good or how she gave him ‘stars’ in his notebook for his homework. He is always talking about his ‘didi’ at his school. He studies at a school where they don’t have exams or tests for students upto fifth standard. He looks forward to going to school every day. Today we were going to his school to collect his report card. It was the last day for him in the fourth standard.

While getting ready to go to the school I had the idea of giving a present to his ‘didi’ for all the encouragement she gives him. Also, apart from home it is at the school that kids spend a long time. So I thought it would be a nice gesture to giver her a gift and also click a photograph of my son standing next to her since he was going to a higher class with a different ‘didi’. So I remembered to carry the camera but forgot her gift, a fountain pen, at home. It was too late for me to turn back so I bought one at a stationer's near the school.

There was a crowd of parents and kids around ‘didi’ so I was hesitant to ask her to pose with my son. I collected the report and hung around for a while hoping she would be free for a moment but the people kept coming. I gave up the idea of taking the photograph. I had originally thought I’d give the gift to ‘didi’ myself but at the last minute I handed it to my kid to give it to her. After all, it was his ‘didi’.

‘Didi’ was busy talking to the parents but my son (shy, like me) went up to her hesitantly and handed it to her. She looked at the gift in his hand and at him silently for a long time. Then abruptly she pulled my son towards her, enveloped him in her arms and hugged him tight. When she released him I thought I saw her eyes had become moist. She told him to keep coming to meet her and talk with her. She waved him bye and as we came away I realized I was still holding the camera. I regretted not taking a picture of that unexpected gesture of a teacher's affection for her pupil. It would have been wonderful to capture that moment. But it was too late. I had missed a great picture.

On the way back home my son was silent. While going to school he was yakking away asking me a million questions the way ten-year old kids do. I then realized it was probably better that I had not taken that picture. Some memories are best stored in the mind.

Taking the Kid for an Outing

It is amazing how y kids remember some vague promise made to them a long time ago. This fact was brought to my notice early in the morning yesterday. My ten-year old son woke up earlier than usual and came straight from the bed to my table where I was writing. I wondered why he had woken up so early on a holiday. (It was Sivarathri yesterday.) Bleary eyed and not yet fully awake, he reminded me of my promise of taking him to the Indira Park on the next holiday. I had entirely forgotten about this promise and tried to talk him out of it. But he was adamant, and so off we went to Indira Park, a ten minute ride from our house.

But when we reached the park I was glad I made the trip. A park is the perfect place to be on an early summer’s morning. Already there were people milling about, some with earphones plugged into their ears, going about their daily constitutional. Some were doing various exercises. Many were sitting under trees and doing Pranayama. There were hordes of kids running around in the green lawns. Some were playing with Frisbees and some were playing shuttle badminton. A lot of people begin their day with a walk in the park. Only those lucky to stay within walking distance of the park can afford to come daily.

We strolled around inside the park watching the people. A gaggle of white geese attracted everyone's attention, especially the kids'. The geese were striding purposefully on the path beside the lake. There was a reason for their haste because soon they came upon a man with a bag in his hands. He threw them bread crumbs which the geese eagerly grabbed from the air. A woman took a picture on her cell phone camera. It was an unusual sight. I had seen another person feed grains to pigeons on the Necklace Road sometime ago. On previous visits I noticed an elderly gentleman leaving pieces of bread for squirrels in this park. It is heartwarming to see that people care about animals. But I wonder if they aren’t feeding them the wrong kind of food?

My kid was fascinated with a youngster who was hauling a net full of fish from a pond. The youngster sat astride on some kind of a white plastic sack filled with foam and paddled with his legs. Another youngster on the shore pulled in the net and filled the fish into another bag. My son watched as the fish wiggled their tails gasping for airm their gills flapping.

Wherever we went we noticed empty plastic water bottles floating in the lakes and other water bodies inside the park. There were plastic bags, empty wrappers of chips and other eatables littering the lawns. Why do we throw around so much stuff and make our environment dirty? It is easy to blame the park authorities for not keeping the park clean and garbage-free. But isn’t it our responsibility to throw all garbage in the bins and containers provided for the purpose? We just throw the empty wrappers wherever we like. It is high time we thought about it or else Hyderabad too will join the list of the dirtiest cities in the world (Mumbai and Delhi are already listed) as reported in a recent survey.

A Great Year

2007 has been a great year for me. It started with a change in posting from a stress-filled job to a relatively peaceful one. I bought nearly two hundred books this year and half of them were wonderful finds. The best find of the year was Julia Cameron’s ‘Right to Write’, a hard-cover edition I found almost by accident. The other significant find was Lynne Truss’s ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves.’ I’ve listed them in an earlier post and on the last day of the year I will post the second part of the list of best books I found this year.

Writing wise too it has been a wonderful year. I managed to write several chapters of my novel this year and though I had planned to complete it this year it doesn’t seem possible. I plan to complete it by end of January 2008. I also did the NaNo book which also I plan to finish soon. Then, I had several ideas for humorous essays that I am working on and most of them I plan to put on this blog. All of them are Hyderabad centric. Two of my articles were published in 'Wings & Aisles', the inflight magazine of Paramount Airways. Another article on fountain pens was published in a supplement (Quest) of 'The Hindu' in September this year.

Starting this blog was the biggest thing I did this year. I have no idea how many people are reading it but I am writing it nevertheless. Some friends who read it regularly say it is okay. Next year I plan to write better stuff and less frequently. More about this blog in the 100th post on the last day of 2007.

I also made several new friends this year and most of them through books. I’ve met a couple of them after having been in touch with them via e-mail. It was nice meeting them and finding that we share a lot in common. Of course, I’ve deepened my friendship with my old friends. I wonder how life would be without friends and I cannot imagine a life without all my friends.

Travel wise it has been a dull year. I have not been anywhere out of the state and my travels were confined within the state. Almost all the trips were official trips. Next year I plan to do more traveling and also take the family along. I am planning a trip to Goa and I hope it materializes.

The best thing was getting the Mont Blanc Meisterstuck fountain pen. Next year I plan to begin using the pen sometime in February. It was a good year for me and I hope 2008 is going to be even better.

A New Year's Resolution

In the same issue of ‘The Week’ I had talked about in my previous post, there is an article by Shobhaa De titled ’25 Ways to Be Happy in 2008’. She has listed out twenty five things to do that would keep us happy, and the list included things like crying your heart out when you feel like it, getting enough sleep, learning to lose and such advice. It was well written and worth a read. One item in the list that struck a chord in me was the one about listening to music.

I discovered that though I love to listen to good music I haven’t made music an integral part of my life. I listen whenever a song plays on the television but I don’t go out to buy music cassettes or CDs to listen to. I don’t even own a music system. I spend all my money on books.. Reading that list gave me an idea for a New Year Resolution I could do – listen more to good music.

Music has been what I’ve been missing all these years. I never made a conscious effort to listen to good music regularly though I enjoy listening to popular songs. When it comes to music I am an ignoramus. Not any more. It is going to change soon.

In the new year I plan to buy an iPod and load all my favorite songs on it. In fact sometime last month I began making a list of all the songs I liked. I will listen to these songs on the iPod. I will also ask my friends about the music they like listening to and if it is good I will load it on the iPod. I’ve observed that people who listen to music regularly are more relaxed. I will make a determined effort to listen to all the good music out there. I will listen to at least one good song every day from the new year on wards.

But first I have to buy an iPod. I’ve promised to give myself an iPod if I complete the book I am working on. It will take another month for me to finish writing it. Meanwhile I will check out the models and also the songs. Listening to music is one of the easiest thing to do since you do not have to put in any effort. You just sit back and relax. I will cut down on the books and spend more on music