Handy Chem

These hands are not mine

They don’t look mine

Is that a stranger’s hand

No, it is my good old hand.

The mount of Venus

Has run out of love it looks

The mount of moon

Seems to be on the wane.

The constant companion in gold

The wedding ring three decades old

Struggling to hang on

Finding the finger thin.

The palms once pink and plump

Now look creased in a slump

The palms now designed with black spots

No lady Macbeth am I to damn the spots.

When I exit this chemistry laboratory

My hands will be back in the old glory

With all chemicals flushed away

I will rule the day.

Snail mails to no mails

The mode of communications has changed much in the past couple of decades. Here I am referring to communication between two persons who are not in close proximity. In present times I do not think twice before dialing up a contact for a quick chat. The person's location is not at all a factor while I make the call. Nor is the subject matter of the call, it could be as trivial as enquiring what was breakfast. 

My thoughts go back to over two decades ago when I began my expat existence. So here I was in Mumbai, the name change had just happened from good old Bombay, getting ready to start the new life. I get a call from a gentleman who wanted to pass on some papers to his son, who was going to be my new colleague in the foreign land. So he drops in the same day with a bulky package and says it has some documents, a pair of shirts and some sweets. After he leaves, my better half cautions me about the package and insists that I open it and check the contents as I will be responsible for the contents when I  land in the foreign port. Having heard enough horror stories of carriers getting locked up for talcum powder turning out to be more heady stuff, I didn't want to take a chance. Fortunately, there was no 'talcum powder'. 

The airport, very different from today, had large crowds dropping off their loved ones. A couple of strangers approached me asking me my destination and requesting if I could carry envelopes, presumably letters, for their near and dear ones at my destination. Putting on a stone face I ignored their pleas. I realised that to save a few rupees on foreign air-mail, this was a regular feature at the airport. At the destination, there would 'collectors' to take over the last-mile journey for these letters. Over the past two decades, this practice seems to have died a natural death.

My first weekend as an expat was in Kuwait. Having nothing much to do I went out for a walk in the evening. It was a cold wintry evening and the streets were deserted. The silence in the streets was deafening, broken occasionally by the roar of the lone vehicle driving past. I was walking towards the city center. As I plodded on, I could hear a low buzzing sound. Sounding almost like a swarm of bees. As I neared the city center the buzzing grew louder. I also started seeing people walking very purposefully in one direction. I did slow down my walk but I continued in the same direction. I turned into the open space at the city center and it was a sight to behold. There were hundreds of people, gathered in multiple groups. I realised it was probably the same as the sounds that were heard at the Tower of Babel. No, it wasn't as if their language had been confounded, but they were indeed speaking different languages.

The groups were different linguistic groups. It dawned on me that this being the holiday for the expat labour community, they gathered in the city center to meet friends and relatives. These gatherings were primarily used to exchange mails brought in by someone who had returned from the homeland. It also served as a point for collecting the outward mails. These outward mails would all be in the airmail envelopes with the red and blue borders. They also would have the requisite stamps affixed. So anyone going home would collect these envelopes and post them as soon as they land in their home country.
I could see all the nationalities there, of course, the majority were Indians. Among Indians, the Malayalees being the majority. Among the Malayalees, the groups were almost village wise. This was the age of audio cassettes and the envelopes that went back and forth also had cassettes in them. The handwritten mails were graduating to audio mails. This was a short-lived phase. Probably the lack of headphones compromised the privacy of these messages.
Further into my stay and travels to the other countries in the region I realised that every large city had similar meeting points for the expat population. Even today when the snail-mails have become almost forgotten, the gatherings still happen. Now the purpose is to meet and greet and the occasional sharing of delicacies brought in by a recent returnee. Despite the VOIP calls and free video calls, it is heartwarming to note that face to face meets are still in fashion. 

Of leaks and lies

Question is ambiguous
paper is porous
examination is ink
they all leak.

Facebook is open
Aadhar insecure
Party apps are thieves
they all steal.

Assurances mount
falsehoods multiply
loud voices are louder
all hot air.

Confidence ebbs
Governance wanes
newer slogans blare
noise is a cover all.

Shout drowns out
the voice of sanity
Oft repeated lie
is truth engraved on rock.

More eyes can see you
more ears can hear you
tap the keyboard
let the lies flow.

Monsoon thoughts

Wet greens all around
As the wet black snakes through
Black is uneven
Spotted with brown pools.

Pits camouflaged with muddy wetness
Snaring the unsuspecting
To fathom the depths
Of damages and no returns.

Gathering around the hot cuppa
Tales of more wetness shared
The more adventurous
Prophecy wetness for coming days.

The wet now precipitates
Drumming on the roof
Poring on the windshield
Wiper swishes wishing away the deluge.

Fogging the insides
Pitter patter of small arms
Now changes to the staccato of automatics
The crescendo scaling a pitch, I cannot hear me think.

The window seat beckons
The palm leaves nod in agreement
The flowers bow with added weight
I look for the break in the cloud canopy.

The sky a canvas
With cloudy grey
The sky-blue and sunny yellows
Wait for another day.

The sunny yolk on the horizon
A memory waiting to be reborn
Today is again a dark and wet day.

Privacy

PRIVACY

George Orwell in his futuristic treatise ‘1984’ has strewn many a pearl of wisdom, which then appeared as pebbles. These pebbles have over the past decades started shining through as the pearls they are. His most famous statement “Big Brother is Watching You” is not just a warning for us today because the  big brother is not just watching he is also directing and controlling us and ours.

The voyeuristic tendencies, inherent to human kind, has started to bite where it hurts. It was fine as long as the rich and famous had their dirty linen washed in the yellow broadsheets. Reading these behind the doors stories titillated one and all. Now when our own privacy is compromised, the shoe is biting.

I remember the short one-liners that used to be in the office emails, which used to be the official privacy policy of the organization. Most used to go as “if you are not the intended recipient of this email, kindly delete this mail” OR “If you are not the intended recipient of this mail, then please mail to  xyz@abc.com” and various other versions of this. How idealistic and naïve the world was then. How different it is now in this age of virtual life.

We take pride now in putting on the virtual platter pictures of everything that we eat, places we visit, people we meet up, clothes that we buy, at times clothes that we do not buy and similar other innocuous events and articles. Then we keep tabs of how well or poorly our virtual platters are being viewed and liked.

In the good old days, we double checked the locks at home, patted the pocket to see if the wallet was still there, gummed the envelopes, filed away receipts and bills and listened to our mother’s advice – ‘don’t talk to strangers’. Today when the hard checks have become soft ones in our lives, are we less careful? We do not think twice before filling up a raffle form or a feedback form at the Mall with personal details. Click and collect is becoming the norm and the credit card information is provided to any and every merchant. We accept friend requests from these virtual strangers with whom we share our life stories. Orwell also said, “If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself”, this is all the truer now.

All our life we have been told to avoid dark alleys and lonely places, yet we have no qualms in getting into shady virtual places and registering our personal details to leave an indelible impression. While we unhesitatingly provide personal details, we cry foul when we are told about the ‘leaks’. This raises the question of responsibility. Who is more irresponsible the individual who shared privacy data or the custodian of such data? A debatable point, perhaps both are equally to blame. The custodians vouchsafe themselves with reams of small print as an agreement with the individual, who being a very agreeable person never reads the fine print but agrees to everything! Can we not have a standard, generic and authorized ‘non-disclosure agreement’ to be used by all.

And now we have GDPR. In simple terms, GDPR  is a data protection law that governs how websites store and retain the personal data of EU citizens. The simplicity ends there. Start reading the fine print and you realise that this ‘beast’ has stealthily slipped in. While it had been maturing during the past few years, it did not get the attention that it deserves. Now suddenly it is in our face. For the non-EU citizens, the GDPR impact has been in the form of an avalanche of emails from various virtual worlds where one registered and forgot. These sites are now writing to tell all that they are GDPR compliant and their policy is updated, they are now more transparent about how they store or use personal data.

It was shocking as well as a rude wake-up call when I saw the GDPR compliant mail from an astrology site that I used eons ago. While I had forgotten about them, they still remembered me. I then chose the next best option of unsubscribing. But it was not that easy. I had to browse through three more pages and leave some more information before I could unsubscribe. Did I really unsubscribe? Time alone will answer this question.

So how does one maintain ‘privacy’ in this binary world? Having a non-digital existence is the safest route but probably impossible in this age. Awareness is key to protecting one’s privacy. “Words once said can never be taken back “ is now “key-clicks that you make cannot be un-clicked”. So, before every click one needs to exercise the due diligence required. Go minimal is the best advice under current circumstances. Where one can browse around as a guest, it is preferable to be one.  Before divulging any personal information on the virtual media, it would be prudent to ask oneself the following questions:

• 1.       Why do they (the website/service provider) need this information?
• 2.       Can this information be miss-used?
• 3.       Is this information being held securely?
• 4.    Finally, it is good to remember that one’s personal information, photos, passwords etc., are personal and more than anyone else the individual is responsible for its safekeep.

If one is convinced with the answers to the above then one can go ahead with providing information.

Ear full

As Indians do we have a different standard for defining 'noise', just as we are known to have different standards for tolerance to spice, hygiene, personal space, nosiness, know-all ness and every otherness? 

I am on a break, in India soaking in all the different levels. I am recalibrating my tolerance levels to old known levels. I need to do this periodically so that I do not become too complacent and comfortable in my congenial adopted home and forget the fact that I need to get back one day. The orchestra that my neighbour conducts at 5AM beats the pleasant morning alarm chimes from my phone. This neighbour is a firm believer in washing all steel utensils before sunrise. She or he, difficult to guess the gender from the cacophony, uses decibels and not detergents for the washing. I doze off again when the steel-utensils-orchestra becomes the new normal, only to be woken up again by a rather strange noise. The noise is a cross between a cat getting strangled and the goods train passing through a tunnel. I realise it is again from the neighbourhood. I almost do a 'eureka' when I discover that the sound is generated by another musical soul who is clearing his throat, this time I am sure about the gender.

Although there is a construction site close by, the decibel level from the site is challenged by every animate and inanimate object around me. I wonder how the saints of the past and, if any, in the present, meditated in this eardrum-splitting environment. No wonder the celestial damsels were required to break their meditation, elsewhere a loud cracker burst would have done the job. And fireworks were what welcomed me into the new year. My last new year eve in India was about to celebrate its silver jubilee and I did not allow that by having the new year bash back home this year. The crackers started going off much before midnight, perhaps the clocks were a little fast for those early revellers. Once someone started, the others could not wait and within no time all joined in the I-have-better-fireworks contest. In my opinion, all the noise about placing controls on fireworks and pollution have only given more sound, fury and smoke to the fancy sounding crackers.

The reason behind my making noise about Noise was an experience I had one morning when I went to one of the corner shops to get some documents scanned. As I had almost fifty odd pages to be scanned and the scanner available did not have sheet-feeder functionality, I had to hang around for an hour while the documents were getting scanned page by page. There was a gentleman in the next shop who seem to be having a shouting match. I could only hear his loud tirade all the while and could not hear any responding voice. Out of curiosity, I went out to investigate, rather peek. To my surprise, I saw that he was having a phone conversation. I also realised that with the kind of free talk-time availability, this conversation, if it was one, would go on for hours. Out of consideration for the health of his vocal cords, I thought there was a need to react. Despite knowing well that any comment or objection from me could fetch an even worse verbal or physical reaction from him, I decided that something needs to be done. Through gestures, I communicated to him that he needs to tone down his voice. I am not sure why but there was an immediate positive effect. His voice came down to normal levels and he continued the phone conversation. Rest of my waiting time was spent in peace and I managed to hear the drums of the scanner. That set me off thinking if the tolerance or silence is the reason for such thunderous surrounding around us.

Have you also wondered why people must be so loud? Does louder mean more authority? Yes, if you are commanding a parade you need to be loud to be heard but when you are on the phone is it necessary. People tend to forget that Graham Bell had them in mind while inventing this wonderful device, which saves the trouble of shouting across distances. The decibel level seems to be directly proportional to the distance between the caller and receiver.   

It was very interesting to note the UK has the following prohibited times on noise making: Monday to Friday: before 7 am and after 8 pm. Weekends and public holidays: before 9 am and after 8 pm. Note: The prohibited times apply when the noise can be heard from inside a habitable room of other residential premises. Any residential noise can still be considered unreasonable outside the prohibited times

Maybe we need to clamour to have such a rule in India without adding to the noise.

Revisit 2

The foundation of a state
From laterite stone
Stone so red
those reds came
through ballots
and not barrels.
The valley, womb of the stones
abode of the homeless
the have-nots,
demi-gods the dons
running the roost
lives so cheap.
Fortieth they say is a ruby
a ruby ago
I walked these streets
cycled these streets
Now in this abode
nine floors high
I look at the remains
of yesteryears
development has cleaned up
the greens of yesterday
the slums of yore
new towers elbowing out
the pigmy shanties.
looking at the expanse
I soak in the new
probing for the familiar
I get only the different
out in the streets
the lingo has changed
fusion and migration
is the identity lost?