Ravana Is My Role Model!

You could have let (all) his lengthy replies (cim's too) stay here... I read, cherished and 'liked' the contents of those messages, only to see its all deleted now and in place a mere one liner! Bit disappointing really...

 

Dear Sri,

A short note of apology before I expose you to a barrage. I had requested you to remove my long fb because I was given the impression that I am not allowed to put up the long response I had presented in your page. Quite apart from this, I felt that my fb called for my usual revisions and IL doesn't allow revisions, why I don't really know. Anyway, Kamal called me up last evening to inform me that he had heard of no word count rule at IL. Even you didn't mention it during our private exchanges. So I am taking up challenge again and putting up the post you had deleted at me request. And yes, it is revised, much to my glee.

oj

Dear Sri,

These 500/= bills bother me. From the way people behave, the government appears to have issued a Notification that all such bills are fake. And that reminds me of prehistoric times, when both you and I had just about begun to inhabit this world. A rumour sprung up that 2 anna coins were fake if they were yellow (gold?) coloured. Don't know about you, but I was certainly ushered into a breathing world full of 2 anna coins and they were invariably yellow. Then suddenly, someone started up this campaign, a mere whisper to start with, but soon loud enough to split one's ears, that yellow 2 anna coins were not to be trusted.


I had an uncle, an older brother of my father. He was an old man, a very old man, a very, very old man, a man who was so old that no one on earth could be older than him. (Except for the fact that he was no older than me as I write this response.) He used to drag me to the market to help him buy groceries and fish, much to my discontent. That reminds me of your elder brother dragging you to school ignoring your impious protests. Anyway, on one of those occasions, the vendor offered to my uncle a yellow 2 anna coin in settlement of the transaction. My uncle told him in his impeccable Dacca Bengali dialect, "They will not accept this 2 anna piece. You had better change it for a white one." Upon which, the vendor yelled back in his own impeccable Dacca dialect, "Which brat (actually he used the Bengali or Hindi equivalent of (son of a *****) will not accept it? Even his father will." My uncle replied without batting an eyelid, once again in Dacca dialect, "Yes, I am aware that the father will accept it. But I was talking about the son." I can't recall how the difference of opinion was settled. Probably my uncle lost and then forced it down someone else's pocket. The way you might have disposed of your 500/= bill.


Just a passing thought. The quantity theory of money in economics talks about the velocity of circulation of money. Money changes hands at an average speed and it travels across state borders. I checked inside my wallet and discovered a 500/= note. Is this the fake note Cheeniya offered to his doctor, I couldn't help asking myself. I will report back once I find out the truth.

I have two doctor visits coming up. The first of them is scheduled for tomorrow. (Please pray on my behalf.) And I am feeling quite restless. My behaviour might remind you of those same tremuloids that you people were merrily discussing. Cruelly oblivious of my condition. The second visit will be the retina check up by a surgeon who travels to Kolkata (from Chennai) once a month and I have an appointment with him on 15 June at 11 AM. (Kerman told me in Jaipur that she is related to him through her husband's family and then scared the hell out of me by informing me that he is thinking of winding up his Kolkata visits.)


Anyway, he seems like a nice chap, who, for a reason totally unknown to me, has developed a liking for me. After the check up is over, he makes me sit there and chat, while patients queue up outside making me feel more and more uncomfortable. I know that they all keenly watch that opaque glass door you described for the shadow of a patient promising to vacate the consulting room, me in other words. And the subject he enjoys speaking about is music.


Not just music, but the re-emerging vinyl discs, which he insists I should start collecting. At the back of the prescription, unlike your doctor, he once wrote down the names of sophisticated record players and even their prices. Every time I see him, we end up in records, record players and shops where I can buy them. Yes, he doesn't draw Ravan's heads on his prescription pad. Finally, I couldn't resist the temptation any longer and selected a favourite vinyl record from my own collection of yore (which I don't get to listen to anymore, since I didn't follow the doctor's prescription and buy the record player he suggests that I do) and presented it to him along with your fake 500/= bill that had travelled by then all the way from Chennai to Kolkata (following laws of economics). So, back it went to Chennai.


The doctor hit the ceiling, refusing to accept the gift, but I insisted and finally he agreed. The next time I visited him, he scolded me almost. (Not for the note. He had probably passed it back to your vegetable seller.) He informed me that it was a classic record, no longer available in the market and that he had to spend a good deal of time attending to the dust collected in its grooves. He was not just a retina specialist, but also one who knew how to keep his vinyl records healthy. And ended up with, "As I was cleaning that record, I diagnosed that you (i.e. OJ) are (is) a terribly irresponsible record collector. He was more concerned about my ill-maintained vinyl record than my retina!! He even offered to bring back the record next time and give it back to me, now that it was as good as new! But, to his credit, he gave me his Chennai phone number and invited me to share a drink with him next time I visit Chennai. I smiled in silence. I didn't wish him to find out that quite apart from not taking care of my vinyl records, I don't attend to the destruction of my liver either. I don't drink at all. I was scared to reveal this information to him, should he refuse to attend to me next time. 15 June, if you have not forgotten.


After reading you Sri, I am thinking about Ravan as well. Not that my doctor had drawn my attention to Mr. R. But legend has it that Ravan was a great veena player. Quite apart from his 10 heads representing the 6 shastras and 4 vedas. Pretty learned chap. And I simply cannot locate the passage in Devdutt Pattanaik's Sita where he speaks of the special significance of one of Ravan's 10 heads. Incidentally, Ravan was probably endowed with 20 arms as too, though no one I know of speaks about their symbolic significance. I might bring up the Ravan's veena affair with the doctor on 15 June.

I am reminded now of the Bengali humorist, who wrote under the pen name Parashuram. He has a story whose title should translate to something like the "The Dangers of Medical Treatment". The protagonist in this story was told that he didn't look quite healthy and that he ought to consult a doctor. Being a gullible chap, he searched for doctors. Each doctor he went to diagnosed him in his own unique fashion. Everyone of them, when the patient asked what was wrong with him, answered that it was a serious problem. One diagnosis was "cerebral tumour with strangulated ganglia". On hearing this, the patient left the C-note on the doctor's desk, never to return again. Those days, there were no 500/= bills though. Probably a 10/= C-note. Another told him that it was difficult for him to explain the nature of the disease. "If I tell you that you are suffering from differential calculus, will you understand? Leave things to the specialist." The patient fled again, not without parting with the C-note mind you. Finally, he told a doctor that he had no complaint at all, but that his friends thought that he might be ill. The doctor nodded in agreement with the friends and informed him that something was of course wrong with him, only the patient was not sensitive enough to feel his problem. The story ends with the terrified man visiting a lady doctor and promptly marrying her. He was saved.

With the progress of medical science, I find the Parashuram doctors (leaving out the last one) increasing in numbers. For before you can even open your mouth, doctors send you off for a CT Scan or something else equally fear inspiring. Compared to these, your Ravan doctor is an angel. Imagine what would have happened if he recommended that you chop off your head and let it regrow as was the case with Ravan when Ram was fighting him face to face. Indeed, something similar happened to me not too long ago. I had developed a pain in my neck and the orthopaedist sent me to a physiotherapist's clinic. The latter made me sit in solitary confinement in a dimly lit ghostly room and tied my neck up in a maze of wires. He made sure that I couldn't leave the chair. So, I had this distinct impression that I was going to be electocuted.There were at least ten such wires, substituting I guess for the Ravan heads. And then he inserted a plug into a machine gun like object making me feel not exactly like a condemned criminal, but more like a army deserter facing a firing squad. I took a deep breath, following our PM's advice, and prepared to die. Strangely enough, however, the therapist declared then that he was getting me ready for a "shock treatment". I was mighty worried for my head now and not just my neck, since, as far as I knew, shock treatments were reserved for mentally imbalanced people. Not for the vertigo types like you. I had a pain in my neck, but not exactly a pain in my head, as far as I was aware. And then, before I could protest, he announced, "get set go" and turned on a switch. He left the room with a final instruction that I could call out to him if I felt that I was dying. In an electric chair. He also instructed me to shout as loudly as I could, because he was somewhat hard of hearing.


I put up with the torture with bated breath and whispering humbleness, till a bell rang out, telling me that the shocks were over for the day, but that I would need to face them again the following day. The thing continued for 6 days in a row if I remember correctly. I earned my freedom finally and left the horror chamber smiling in relief, though still cowering in pain as far as the neck went. But I told the orthopaedist that enough was enough. "Leave me alone please, a pain in the neck is easier to live with than electric shocks in a dark chamber, run by a therapist who had a hearing problem."

I am almost certain that Ravan didn't suffer from neck pains. And even if he did, it was only that one head that he couldn't move, the one which was more important than the rest. Whether he could move his head or not, he managed to abduct Sita. And look at poor you and me. Even to ogle at a pretty girl, we have to do a right about turn. I am sure that there are no girls who enjoy being studied by superannuated people turning around lock stock and barrel to watch them pass by. And let me end up by offering a theory concerning Ravan. It is possible that he didn't need to turn his head at all. He had ten heads looking in ten directions probably. Being so well-equipped, why should he need to emulate shoulder turning kings at all? He could watch all the girls in the world without exercising his torso at all!!

oj

 

Kaniths,

Post revised and restored. See if you have the patience to read it.

oj

 

Doctors and plumbers are very dismissive of a layman's instinctual proficiency. Just as doctors fail to diagnose the provenance of a simple neck pain, plumbers mock a harmless trickle from a ceiling even when we are crying loud that something sinister is at work. A fine trickle that once plateaued at a sluggish leak in my bathroom lead to collapse of my ceiling in few days. So, I believe that your happy-go-lucky trickle is portentous of the downpour we will witness soon. We have so far managed to trickle Ravana's necks (one at a time) in the 'senile' tap. But Ravana's mighty arms and fearsome shanks can only manifest in the thunder and rain of your writing, perhaps in a sequel to this post.

 

I am trying to gasp, catch some air .....

Has been some time Cheeniya sir, me logging in and going through our favorite snippets and writing a feedback. This time though, I hit the jackpot as you seem to have released one of those ever scintillating rambling of your's! Even as I pulled up my chair to pour on it and kept pouring on and taking in and taking in...For when Cheeniya writes, oh so do all his fans, followers and patrons! All brilliant writers too no less. So, even as I started off to visit the doc with you, don't know how I landed in the land of Srilanka wading through some Greek or was it the modern mythology and touching the Florida Keys almost ?! Crossing all those oceans was no kid play mind you and hence here I am, trying to float above the waters of words!

Coming in late means coming to a dossier of information of immense proportions! What was supposed to be a Maniratnam take turns into a Cecil B Demille's classic!

However much my one small head may be thinking of Ravana and his immense virtues, I still cannot get your humorous doc out of it! With his one head that held a smiling face, he seems to have made an impression on urban me. Where in the world today exists a doc who will sit with his patient, never mind how interesting and charming he may be (the patient!), and does a doodle of Ravana with his ten heads and discusses the neck situation, be it one or ten. I tell you, he is a find indeed. No wonder you acquire a virtigo or neck ache and visit him, a crisp note of fake or real 500 note not being an obstacle. Does one not pay that much for a lowly movie in one of those multiplexes these days? Doc is worth it!

And you dear buddy, will never lack the incentive to write, I can bet on that!

L, Kamla

 

Dear OJ sir,
Superb!!!! And you deleted it? I want to argue with Cheeniya sir (not have the courage to say fight), though the line is thin) for deleting it! He read it and I am sure he must have enjoyed also. Why should he deprive us of enjoying it?
So, you seem to have been bothering more about the 500Rs. note assuming it might be fake. I think Economists think too much, we ordinary people just give the 500 rs. note in the shop and with equal ease we take a note from him also! I have never been rejected a 500Rs. note so far. Once I asked in the bank how would he know if it is printed before 2005 ( I remember reading in the paper that those which were printed in 2005 should not be accepted. The lady in the bank showed the small print of the year on the note... which I never observed before. You are an Economist and Cheeniya sir is a banker and you both know better.
Exchanging notes about doctors? They are also humane. Some like Wodehouse, some like old records (music and not medical) and enjoy the company of patients who have the same likings. Our family doctor is quite serious and speaks only about ailments. When we wait in the waiting room full of patients my observation...there is a small gap between the ceiling and semiglass partition and we can hear the doctor and patient talking, though not very clear. First it is wishing the doctor, then explaining symptoms, then silence (doctor must be examining the patient, then a again some talk, must be writing prescription and explaining the dosage and finally silence (patient must be giving him fees). The last silence is an indication is that it is the turn of next patient.
Yes, I agree it is better to be with pain rather than an electric chair like experience. You went patiently for six days. I would have quit the next day.
Thank you for presenting the fb on our request.
Syamala

 

Dear Cheeniya sir,
Ravana must be watching from up above and thinking about you......My PRO is making me so popular (popularity in anyway is accepted).
Syamala

 

@ojaantrik

Dear Sir,

I had a nice laugh at all the incidences you had shared with us. Literally could visualize your ECT ( shock therapy)... So finally they managed to send you off alive.

I enjoyed the really long reply. I never had a chance to read before and thanks to you for putting it back for us to enjoy.

Vaidehi

BTW I don't think I can have Ravan as role model even if he has some good characteristics, in the sense I have the name of Sita, right.