One of my all time favourite books is Mark Twain’s Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In particular, I remember the part published as a separate story titled Whitewashing the Fence. Briefly, Tom is assigned the job of whitewashing the fence by aunt Polly––something that he does not really like. He starts whitewashing the fence, but ultimately makes the other kids of his neighbourhood do the job for him. He sells the idea that whitewashing is a work of art and not many can do it well. His friends fall for the challenge and come to do it in turns. They even pay him in kind to be able to get a chance at it. He not only gets the job done (he is able to get three coats of whitewash on the fence) by his friends but also makes some gains in the form of the core of an apple, a kite, a dead rat and a string to swing it with, twelve marbles, part of a Jew’s-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through… the list is very long. Says Mark Twain, “If he (Tom Sawyer) hadn’t run out of whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.”
Mark Twain summarises Tom’s exploitation of the kids thus:
“He (Tom) had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.”
Throwing small challenges, which a kid cannot but accept, is an art. Grandma Rita Jain, a Professor of Botany, seems to have mastered the art well. She has stitched a colourful mat with leftover pieces of cloth that she had. She makes her grandson, Kartik sit on the mat and proposes (that’s her way of challenging the little one), “Kartik, I wonder if you can point at the red squares.”
Kartik feels victorious when he is able, not only to point, but also count the squares of a particular colour. Sitting in Padmasan, the Lotus Posture on the same mat and performing some other actions form a package deal of challenges, which he enjoys accepting.
One trick cannot keep a kid engaged for long. Kartik seeks variety. The other day, the grandma sat by him and started whipping curds with the traditional Indian whipper (Mathani). It was a stratagem. As the grandma had expected, the little one was attracted to it and wanted to do it all by himself. “Dadiji, I want to do it,” he expressed his desire.
“Beta, it is difficult. Do you think you can really do it?” She made the exercise of whipping the curd sound like a highly technical job.
“I’ll do it slowly. I’ll not spill anything. Let me try at least. Please, Dadiji.” Kartik urged.
“Okay! Go ahead! Let me see how well you do it,” the grandma ratcheted up the challenge.
Kartik did it; and did it well. There was nothing great about it. But that little challenge was a step forward in improving eye-hand coordination. The sense of pride that he had at the end of the exercise, gave him confidence for yet another challenge.
In these games that Kartik and the grandma play, both are winners.
“Small bets make you fight; they get the best out of you.” That suggestion from a fellow golfer had appealed to me and I had got into what I thought was competitive golf. The bet used to be modest: breakfast on the loser, or meagre amounts that would be barely enough to pay the caddie. Howsoever small those amounts were, there used to be a great charm in winning. If nothing, honour used to be at stake. No wonder, the hundred-rupee note that I won for hitting an Eagle on the seventh hole, signed by the fellow golfers (those days scribbling on currency notes was not considered an offence) became a trophy of sorts for me.
Last Monday, playing nine holes after six months, I had three pars; two of them were missed birdies. Rest of the game was decent, mostly bogies, and an odd double bogie. For me, that’s a great performance. It can give me wings to soar for the next six months. But that is not what made my day. My day was made at the Noida Golf Course when I went there later in the afternoon to witness a Golf Tournament organised for the caddies.
The golf bit––the gross scores, the net scores, the longest drive, the closest to the pin… and the prizes––was like any I had seen in so many places. What touched me was a team of people talking passionately to them about L-I-F-E. Trying to talk them into looking at their lives and think about improving it. I did not know the people who spoke, but I remember the passion with which they were trying to influence their minds. They spoke to their families too––their wives and children who had come well dressed for the occasion. They had cast a spell on the lot. At the end of it, they seemed determined to rise and shine in life.
Once, at a traffic light I saw a kid hanging out of a school bus. He was unwell and was trying to throw up. He was relieved when he drank some water from my bottle. The bottle of water has also provided succour to people in similar state, standing by their cars parked by the roadside. Interestingly, the number of times this bottle of water has quenched the thirst of dried up car radiators is large.
When I started, I used to be carrying water in a plastic bottle. Then came the warning that drinking water from a pet bottle kept in a car parked in the sun could cause cancer. So I started using a beautiful wine bottle. Green glass and a cork––it looked good! Very good, indeed! It became the envy of friends who saw it.
My father was fitter in his nineties than many in their late seventies. He took adequate care of himself. Just for the fun of it, he even rode a bicycle well past his ninetieth birthday. Unto his last days he was an enthusiastic learner. He tried using a tablet and a smartphone to be able to net-surf and Google for the knowledge he sought to acquire.
Dosage (in gms): One eighth (1/8) of one’s weight in kgs. It is to be taken every morning (empty stomach) with fresh water. No food must be consumed until one hour after taking the dose. Note: Initial use can cause loose motions.
ember of 1998 (or 1999); I am not too sure of the year. Not that it is of much consequence. It was a Wednesday for sure, because I was in civvies. On other workdays we used to wear the uniform to Air Headquarters. I was driving along APJ Abdul Kalam Road (it used to be Aurangzeb Road then). On the roundabout near Hotel Taj Mansingh I narrowly missed a car parked dangerously in my path. I swerved and went around it. The cars following me had to take even more drastic evasive actions. I looked furtively at the driver of the parked car as I went past it. It was a lady.
She baked some chapatis. Then laying out the food on a tray, she told the attendant, “Malati, take this to room number 2 LGF of Boys’ Hostel-6. Amit Sharma is the name of the student.
Road Much Travelled 