Worth the Wait!

Today, something strange happened to me. As usual, I was sitting in the car, waiting for her to come down and take her to work. She takes her time before leaving—carefully locking up, checking everything twice, making sure the house is in order. It’s something I used to find frustrating, but over the years, I’ve come to understand. Maybe it's a stereotype about women that men (including me) propagate, but honestly, it’s also one of the little things that makes her her.

Still, the waiting wasn’t always easy. I’d sit there, keeping the engine running, thinking she’d be out in five minutes. I’d leave the AC on so the car would be cool for her. But as ten minutes passed, my mind would wander to the wastefulness of it—burning fuel for no reason. So, with a sigh, I’d turn the car off. And, like clockwork, within 30 seconds, she’d appear, only to frown and complain about how hot the car had become. This has been happening for ten years.

But today, something felt different. As I sat there, I suddenly had a thought: If I switch off the car, she will come. Not just because of some strange pattern I had noticed, but because I wanted her to come. Because I missed her. Because in that quiet moment of waiting, I realized I wasn’t just impatient—I was lonely.

So I turned off the car, half-smiling to myself, feeling silly for believing in this little ritual. And then, just like always, within seconds, she appeared. Was this cause and effect? Ah, may be I am reading too much epidemiology.

And then it dawned on me, the wait didn’t matter anymore. I can turn off the engine anytime and she would be there, always!

 

Kya rakha h un kuch palon mein

Kya rakha h un kuch palon mein?

Kya hojayega ek do din mein?

Tum toh yun ud jaoge,

Bin bataye ke vapas kab aaoge.

Aandhi ka saamna,

Jhuggi kaise kare?

Doosra ghar to basa lenge,

Dubara man bhi baha lenge.

Kya rakha h un kuch palon mein?

Kya hojayega ek do din mein?

Kitne kadmon ko rokenge?

Kitni chittiyan likh ke fadenge?

Das me do sher h tuje pasand,

Baaki jhumlon ka kya karein?

Darte h tere faisle se,

Tu kahe to vo ahem,

Tu kahe to kuch bhi nahi.

Kya rakha h un kuch palon mein?

Kya hojayega ek do din mein?

Khushiyon ka rah dekhkar takh gaye,

Titliyon ko kaun kabze me laata h?

Nahi karenge pyar ki poori bayan,

Laal kalam lekar bhait jaoge,

Ki yeh sahi h aur ye ghalat.

Un dabi si aashaon ko, lafzon ko,

Jholi me lekar ghoomtha pagal jaise,

Mere kabr me milenge vo sab,

Guzarte logon ko mashwara dete hue,

Ki pyar ko kaabo mat rakhna,

Balki pyar ke kaabil ho jana.

The Murungakaai Sambar

I was returning home from office and as soon as I opened the front door, my two-year-old daughter sprung on me and took me to the ground. I played with her, listened to the garbled stories she had to narrate and a good 30 minutes went by. I went to freshen up and came back to sit down in the living room sofa. My daughter and wife were engaged in their own activities, as I was staring emptily into the TV that hadn’t been switched on, sulking about the week and the day that had been unproductive so far – neither a single creative idea nor a single worthwhile piece of work done. Apparently my wife was planning to make Murungakaai (drumstick) Sambar for the evening and realised that we had ran out of the key ingredient murungakaai. She came out of the kitchen and seeing me loitering away, ordered me to fetch some from the market. Angry as I was for not being productive, I took on her request grudgingly. I put on a blue t-shirt and as per custom, carried my daughter to the market.

Sulking all the way, I entered the vegetable section while my daughter happily got down and homed in on the candy section. While she was making her selection, I was going through the assortment of murungakaai, all the while not letting her out of my peripheral vision. As most Tamils would confirm, selection of the perfect murungakaai is a skill in and of itself – neither too thick nor too thin, neither too long nor too short, neither too fresh nor too ripe. If the perfect kaai is not used, the Sambar would be a disaster, an outcome that my wife does not take lightly to. Most young people gain this particular skill by watching their parents and I am no exception to this phenomenon, as I remember the nuances of vegetable selection my mother used to teach me whenever we went to the market together.

Unfortunately, this evening the perfect one was not to be found - adding to the frustration of not being able to solve the problem of missing data in time series at work. As I ran my fingers through this one particular kaai, I found that it was not perfect. In my opinion, Murugakaai is a very peculiar vegetable. Unlike the other bulky and round veggies, it is long and slender and has small swellings at regular intervals much like the knuckles of the human finger. The ‘knuckles’ are largest in the middle of the vegetable and taper uniformly towards both the ends. However, this particular kaai that was in my hand was missing some of the ‘knuckles’. It hit me like an apple falling from very high up a tree. I realised that the missing knuckles’ sizes can be predicted from the sizes of the adjacent ‘knuckles’ through imputation, as the sizes were correlated in space. By now, my daughter had already made her pick and was eagerly waiting for me to give her the nod and bill it. I grabbed the imperfect kaai and went straight to the counter. I couldn't wait anymore as I desperately had to Google. I paid the cashier an amount that was within the range suggested by my middle class brain’s pricing conventions.

I rushed home as my daughter kept uttering ‘kaai…kaai…kaai’, one of her favourite words in her every growing vocabulary. I blasted the door open, transferred my daughter to the ground and handled over the kaai to my wife with a triumphant smile. Without being too impressed, she half-heartedly accepted my submission, while staring confusedly at me for having that smug across my face. It took me a while to realise that I was smiling from corner to corner and corrected myself. I turned around and reached for my phone and started to Google ‘impute missing data in cross-sectional time series’ and the results it threw were to my utter joy. And I resumed my smile. My wife silently observing all these, yelled from the kitchen, “You can thank me later for the discovery!” She knew that I had found something that was useful for my work and that she in her own little way helped me get there. I merely nodded and smiled.

The Murungakaai Sambar came out wonderfully and we all sat down in a circle to enjoy dinner. I exchanged a smile with my wife and nodded my gratitude to her, which she acknowledged by helping me with another serving of the tasty meal.

Fall from the summit of pride!

In a place where I smile but without joy,

Where I live but without life,

Where I walk but on fiery sidewalks,

Where even the air refuses to enter the soul,

And the chillness dries out the tears;

The Sun shines heavily but,

No warmth I can feel around me;

No shoulder to talk to and where,

Courtesy comes at a cost.

Is this how death feels? I ask myself.

No malady seems greater,

Than what is the present state.

The land is so foreign it confused me,

And sent my principles to hell.

Solitude took me prisoner,

And I it.

A prince turned vagabond, 
A fakir in disguise I was.

Thought I set out to find God, but

Instead took advice from the devil.

The mind wandered to dark places,

Against my will and control was futile.

I misread, missed my way and went astray,

Talked when I should have been silent,

Thought when I should have slept.

In a moment of fit, threw up a tantrum when, 
An unsuspecting angel,

Got caught in the crosshairs;

Its wings singed and pride injured.

Unable to help for fear of further injuring,

I stood there and my head bowed until,

I realized that it was no less than a death blow.

No amount of excuse would suffice,

To repair what has been undone.

A thousand births I would take

For the sole purpose of redemption.

But even that feels undeserved, because

The greatest sin is betrayal of trust.

How could I ever bring myself to reconcile this?

I lost the moral ground of which I have

Always be too proud of.

May be this is God’s way of telling,

“You are not as prefect as you think.”

To proud to realize how blessed I was before,

It is now all ruined.

There is no more hope.

Dare I say, that one day in the future

I can face my creator and seek forgiveness!

I will trade Him the benefits of all my good deeds,

In return for my guardian angel’s restoration;

Free it of all scars, past and present,

So that it may emerge,
Once again in all its glory and pride!

The Mumbled Prayer

You must have heard or seen these statements at some point in your road life; ‘Don’t drink and drive’, ‘Drive safely because someone is waiting for you at home’, ‘Alert today, Alive tomorrow’, ‘Do not mix drinking and driving’, ‘No belt, No brains’, ‘No safety, Know pain’ and many more. Well, these are some examples of the coercive, emotional, passive aggressive, sarcastic and pun-filled carefully crafted ad slogans that transport departments across the world use to warn road users to stay safe. 

I don’t know about other countries but in India such messages mainly play the role of placing the onus on the road users to stay safe rather than honestly caring for road users; some elected officials deliver this hypocrisy personally in radio advertisements. Have you ever heard of an ad saying ‘Avoid the potholes or you will be dead’, ‘This road may kill you because there is poor lighting’, ‘No signals, use at your own risk’, ‘By using this road you accept the risk of dying and your kin can sue the contractor or rain for it’ and the answer is obviously ‘no’; No government officer will incriminate himself because that will be honest and stupid and honesty is the last thing you expect from a public servant and stupid they are not.

We can debate at length about how much each human, vehicle, road maintenance, victim and environmental factor contributes to the death and injury tolls that occur due to road traffic accidents (read here) but unilaterally accusing human factors in media campaigns may not help much. I have thought about this for a long time now but have learnt to accept the fact and ignore the possibilities.

Alright, let’s come to the point. My wife. She is a thing of peculiar habits. I cannot tell you about all but I’ll discuss one relevant habit today. Every morning when I leave for work, she accompanies me to the gate and sees me off till my car exits her line of sight. She has been at it since our marriage and so far I have ‘unsuccessfully’ discouraged her from doing so as she has many other important things to take care of in those busy morning hours.

I thought she was being sentimental but did not tell her for fear of hurting her feelings and did not bother her anymore. I did not put much thought into her 5-minute bustle either. As time flew by her behavior grew upon me and I almost became dependent on it; I would not leave unless she stood there at the gate and waved me goodbye. I don’t know why but maybe it just became a conditioned reflex!

Accepting the defeat of not being able to stop her fastidiousness, I gave into her and started observing her more intently during that 5-minute encounter between entering the car and driving off. This is when I realized that she was almost ritualistically following this protocol. She would do all the girly stuff, close my door and then mumble something, keeping her eyes on me all the time. I don’t think she noticed me noticing her (to this minute she is blissfully unaware, I guess). Many a time, I wanted to ask her what she mumbled every day while sending me off but refrained myself because I didn’t want to startle her and modify whatever she was doing (a truly observational study).

In fact, I did not have to ask her because I knew exactly what she was uttering so softly with such passion and commitment that you can see in a 3-year-old trying to eat an ice-cream without spilling. I most certainly think that she was praying to the gods (no, the God - she is a strict monotheist) to keep me safe on the highways of death.

I can’t say if god has the power to prevent road traffic accidents but governments surely do. I don’t drink and drive (because I don’t drink), I always wear seatbelts, I never drive in the opposite lane, I never cross speed limits, I maintain my car, I pay my taxes (in the hope that better roads will be built) and I follow all (well, almost all because I too am a human) the rules. I may not have been the best of drivers but I have strived to be better. But if the non-me factors such as the surprise pothole nightmare, the stressed bus driver who took on the added responsibility of population control, the malfunctioning signal, the signage lack, the corruption, the lack of political will and the bureaucratic apathy are not taken care of, what am I supposed to do?!

Even without any media campaigns advising me to be responsible for my safety on the roads, there is one thing that will keep me safe always; whenever I feel the urge to make a rash decision on the road I will be reigned in by the memory of the passionate face that utters the mumbled prayer.

Mom, Sudoku and Women Empowerment

The conventional south Indian housewife, of which my mom is a typical example, didn't care much about leisure time activity options, because the modern marvel TV has made it easy for them all. The Box has been her true friend with all the tearing sop operas and scintillating news items it provided her constantly. Her afternoons were spent either pitying the poor silver screen daughter-in-law or awe-stricken at the latest divorce of the famous movie star. But in the last couple of years, the TV has failed to get my mom's attention, and my father remains the sole user of the remote. So what about other leisure time activity options.

For a regular housewife the newspaper doesn't hold much charm beyond the interruption of power/water supply info the third page provides. But my mom was anything but regular. Beneath that veil of a housewife disinterested in the more intellectual ways of the world, she had her own convictions about the working of the universe and everything in it. Even when sobbing for the unfortunate daughter-in-law, she would casually browse to the more serious news channels and update herself with the happenings, albeit less frequently and less intensively than Obama. Her focus was on middle east developments, national politics, the USA, the teardrop at the tail of India, origin of religions and their interconnections with science, of course Mugals, how can she forget the Mugals and lastly but not leastly the bullion rates. For such a woman, the newspaper must surely hold more as a leisure time activity. So which portion of the news would interest her more, there is the science page, the local politics page, the national politics page, the international page, the editorials, or the least likely sports page.

One afternoon when I was incidentally at home, I observed that in her room there was the newspaper wide open, with a pencil and rubber parked on it. I thought that these accessories had no earthly business there, 'cause there was no child in the house who would be using them. After some time I saw her entering her room with a vengeful look on her face and I thought she was probably going to relax for a while and by relaxing I mean, sleeping. 

Later that day I was informed by my father that solving the new math game that the papers are running on the last page has caught her attention. The game was a 9X9 Sudoku puzzle with different levels of difficulty represented by number of stars, one star for easy and five stars for a difficult level. So that explains the pencil and the rubber. She continues at it for hours at a time until she solves it. She began doing the easier ones and used to check with the answers that came in next day's issue. Slowly but steadily she has reached the four star level. It drives her crazy that she takes a long time to solve them difficult ones. But she is determined. No man in the house would dare to disturb her while she is at it, solving away the squares, constantly rubbing off her errs. Ever since every afternoon instead of sobbing or being bedazzled by sensationalism, she now retires to her room with the newspaper, pencil and rubber and strives to win the battle against the cunning and evil Sudoku. After she has won she awaits the man of the house to come home to proclaim to him what 'star' level she had conquered today. 

She has become so obsessed with this that I guess she must probably be thinking of the foe the next day paper is going to bring her before she says her bedtime prayer. It is only a matter of time that she conquers them all and becomes the modern Chengis Khan. Only time would tell us that after this conquest what leisure time activity is going to pick her interest.

Occasionally the unexpected, unthinkable and unimaginable things happen. Today universal women empowerment may seem a distant reality, an ideal that will never happen. But slowly and steadily women will achieve their dream and the world will be a much happier place than it is today. I pray and believe.

Random transmissions on research

Investigation of a paradox is the most likely path to a scientific breakthrough, that cannot be achieved by mundane explorations of the ordinary. Likewise, it is the weird people who add spice to life as the routine ones take away from it.