Wanted to deal with many avatars of corruption, not just the transfer of money called bribe as a quid pro quo for some favor - films and TV serials corrupting the minds of youngsters, unhealthy industrial effluents corrupting the environment, viruses corrupting files and folders on our harddisk and so on. In this post I will confine to the usual connotation. I will describe an effort I started but did not finish.
The immediate mind recall agency when the word corruption is mentioned is the Excise department with the RTO coming a close second. The employees of the department practice corruption as a well documented process because (a) it gives them extra money to indulge in luxuries which they would have had to forego otherwise and (b) if they do not extract money from clients and pay the bosses their share, they are likely to be punished by transfers and suspensions. Both these causes can be handled better if the families of the employees cooperate.
First the families should be familiar with the nature of work their husbands / fathers do and the constraints under which they work. They should be aware or they should be made aware that the luxuries bestowed on them come out of bribes. The family members should know exactly the take-home salary of their bread-winner. They should refuse to accept goods and services beyond the monthly budgeted items.
Secondly, the families should stand by the menfolk when they face transfer / suspension for refusing to be corrupt. The families should form a union of themselves and collectively support their men in staying away from bribes. How many persons the bosses can afford to transfer / suspend? The effect of mass movement should get channelized in this direction.
The influence of the family in eradicating corruption is very strong. Civil society groups should mobilize the families and enlist their support. This will provide better returns for their effort than fighting the provisions of the Lokpal Bill.
Within the department, some clean executives should encourage the families getting together - organize cultural programs by family members, publish a monthly newsletter with contributions from family members and the management.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Visionally challenged not visually challenged
We do not need some external element to deceive us. We deceive ourselves very often. This is not a hi-fi philosophy statement. I wrote about the six sigma syndrome. Talking of statistics, consider the following:
Assemble a randomly chosen group of 100 people. Find their average height. Add the tallest person on earth, say, an 8-footer to the group. Recalculate the average height of the 101 people. Do you expect to see a large difference? Hardly.
Find the average net wealth of the same 100 people. Now, add one of the wealthiest people in the world, a Buffett, Mittal, Ambani or even a Bill Gates. Recalculate the average wealth of the group of 101 people. Any difference? Huge.
The statistical principle of finding the average of an augmented group is the same. It is only that the behavioral characteristics of height and wealth are different.
Very often we ignore this and blindly apply techniques and solutions from one context and one era to another context and another era without verifying whether they would be applicable or appropriate.
An educational consultant recommended teacher motivation schemes in an aristocratic school as part of school excellence. It did not take off in another school because the latter’s main problem was drop out of children. Unless this was tackled there was no scope of talking about excellence. He then blamed the poor teachers as not motivatable!!
Assemble a randomly chosen group of 100 people. Find their average height. Add the tallest person on earth, say, an 8-footer to the group. Recalculate the average height of the 101 people. Do you expect to see a large difference? Hardly.
Find the average net wealth of the same 100 people. Now, add one of the wealthiest people in the world, a Buffett, Mittal, Ambani or even a Bill Gates. Recalculate the average wealth of the group of 101 people. Any difference? Huge.
The statistical principle of finding the average of an augmented group is the same. It is only that the behavioral characteristics of height and wealth are different.
Very often we ignore this and blindly apply techniques and solutions from one context and one era to another context and another era without verifying whether they would be applicable or appropriate.
An educational consultant recommended teacher motivation schemes in an aristocratic school as part of school excellence. It did not take off in another school because the latter’s main problem was drop out of children. Unless this was tackled there was no scope of talking about excellence. He then blamed the poor teachers as not motivatable!!
Statistical connery
Conmen (and women) and their tricks come in various shapes and modes. We are familiar with some of them in the domains of politics, religion, and business. How about technology and science? Yes, we have heard of some unscrupulous ones indulging in plagiarism. Here is a case of two great corporations taking the collective scientific mind of the world for a spin. The trick is popularly known as Six Sigma.
Sigma, σ, is a symbol in statistics to denote variation Most phenomena in the world are believed to follow, sooner or later, a pattern of behavior called Normal Distribution. I don’t subscribe to it but that is not the issue for this post. The mean or average value is denoted by the symbol μ (pronounced “mu”). If your process is at 1 σ level that means 32 out of every 100 items produced will be defective (their measured value will lie to the left of μ -1 σ or to the right of μ +1 σ). The curve curves down sharply and not gradually. It is called an exponentially decaying curve. Thus 2 σ will mean 5 out of 100, 3 σ will mean only 0.2 out of 100 defects.
The companies in question claimed that they operate at 6 σ level and they gave a byline that only 3.4 defects will be made in a million opportunities. That is impressive on the face of it. But set against the nature of the normal curve it strikes a discord. 6 σ can not be so lenient as to allow one to make so many mistakes. I painstakingly did all the maths stuff to calculate what 6 σ actually demands. I came up with a figure of 2 over a billion. What an ocean of difference between being allowed to make 3.4 defects per million to 2 defects per billion. Then why are these people making a false claim?
When you say deviation, it is implied that the deviation is with reference to a fixed specification. You are able to say that the train arrived 35 minutes late because there is a scheduled arrival time which is fixed. Suppose the Railways says that the scheduled arrival time can be anywhere between 10.15 AM and 10.55 AM. How do you compute the late arrival of the train when it arrives at 11.00 AM? Railways will claim that the train is only five minutes late because they will conveniently choose the 10.55 option. The great corporations have done exactly the same. They can not hold the process under control beyond a certain capability. So they said that our mean is allowed to make excursions on either side of μ to the extent of 1.5 σ. Where technological improvements show no returns, the strategy is to resort to managerial gimmicks. The corporations would have passed the test of ethics if they had underlined the above assumption along with their 3.4 defects per million tagline.
I can think of only one other instance of similar conjob. That happened 5000 years ago. Yudhistira was made to say that “Aswathama is dead ……………. “ and whisper to the tune of drumbeats “the elephant”.
Sigma, σ, is a symbol in statistics to denote variation Most phenomena in the world are believed to follow, sooner or later, a pattern of behavior called Normal Distribution. I don’t subscribe to it but that is not the issue for this post. The mean or average value is denoted by the symbol μ (pronounced “mu”). If your process is at 1 σ level that means 32 out of every 100 items produced will be defective (their measured value will lie to the left of μ -1 σ or to the right of μ +1 σ). The curve curves down sharply and not gradually. It is called an exponentially decaying curve. Thus 2 σ will mean 5 out of 100, 3 σ will mean only 0.2 out of 100 defects.
The companies in question claimed that they operate at 6 σ level and they gave a byline that only 3.4 defects will be made in a million opportunities. That is impressive on the face of it. But set against the nature of the normal curve it strikes a discord. 6 σ can not be so lenient as to allow one to make so many mistakes. I painstakingly did all the maths stuff to calculate what 6 σ actually demands. I came up with a figure of 2 over a billion. What an ocean of difference between being allowed to make 3.4 defects per million to 2 defects per billion. Then why are these people making a false claim?
When you say deviation, it is implied that the deviation is with reference to a fixed specification. You are able to say that the train arrived 35 minutes late because there is a scheduled arrival time which is fixed. Suppose the Railways says that the scheduled arrival time can be anywhere between 10.15 AM and 10.55 AM. How do you compute the late arrival of the train when it arrives at 11.00 AM? Railways will claim that the train is only five minutes late because they will conveniently choose the 10.55 option. The great corporations have done exactly the same. They can not hold the process under control beyond a certain capability. So they said that our mean is allowed to make excursions on either side of μ to the extent of 1.5 σ. Where technological improvements show no returns, the strategy is to resort to managerial gimmicks. The corporations would have passed the test of ethics if they had underlined the above assumption along with their 3.4 defects per million tagline.
I can think of only one other instance of similar conjob. That happened 5000 years ago. Yudhistira was made to say that “Aswathama is dead ……………. “ and whisper to the tune of drumbeats “the elephant”.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Fast forward
From yesteryears fast forward to the ITized world. From the 50's to 00's following items moved away from luxury to necessity in a household.
Bicycle, Transistor radio, Watch, Music system, Refrigerator, Two wheeler, Mixie, Grinder, Telephone, Apartment, Microwave oven, Air-conditioner, Independent house, Four wheeler, Desktop PC, Broadband connection, Notebooks/Laptop/Blackberry. Cell phone had direct entry to necessity category without going through the luxury phase.
Similarly in an office, airconditioners, PCs, carpets and LED displays started appearing. The ubiquitous of these is a PC in front of every desk. In the early days the physical size of the PC was directly proportional to one's designation. Today it is inversely proportional.
It is ironical yet true, I feel most disgusted when I see services getting ITized. "Computerized" is a less dignified term. The jump into IT systems has happened without adequate preparation. I go to pay insurance for my vehicle. I am told that the systems are down and they don't know when the systems will come up, that I can go to another branch if I like. I was adamant in staying back and said that I did not mind the delay. The expert arrived a little later and found that the servers were not switched on !! They sport an ISO 9001 certificate for process culture.
I go to a bank to get my passbook updated but either the network is down or the passbook printer is down. If they have 4 passbook printers why can't they have a fifth as a cold standby?
I remember the early years when Indian Airlines used to do the reservation on the system and write out the ticket manually because printing the ticket was deferred to Phase II of ITization !!
Railways did better except that due to an error in the RAC processing logic, the family members were split into different bogies.
The Water Authority will ask for the consumer number and all details like name, address etc. every time and enter. Nobody knew that with the consumer number as the "key" the other details could be retrieved from the disk and printed on the receipt. When I tried to tell them so, they would not listen because the World Bank appointed experts had not told them to operate in this way !! The only change the computer brought about for them was replacement of the pen with the keyboard and the messy carbon sheet interspersed receipt writing with the printer.
To this day I have not figured out how to see my BSNL bill details through the Net.
Can someone help?
The most painful tyranny inflicted on the consumer is the ultimate in modern technology - the 1-800 number syndrome for lodging customer complaints.
Press 1 for Hindi, 2 for English......
Press 1 for queries, 2 for sale, 3 for complaints...........
Press 1 for warranty, 2 for AMC and 3 for ...........
....
....
Sorry, we are available only from 9 to 5 Monday thru Friday.
In the absence of any other way to establish communication, you wait till Monday, register the complaint, wait till Friday because nothing had happened, get back to "1-800, Press 1 for ...." drill and you are told that your complaint has been attended to. No way to convince the operator because the system says that the case is closed and systems don't lie. If you want you can register a fresh complaint. Again no one has turned up, but there is a call from the agency asking for the feedback on the service. When I said that there has been no service so far, the canned reply comes out "Thank you for your valuable feedback madam" ( I am used to people using "Sir" in place of "Madam", this is the first instance I heard "Madam" being used in place of "Sir")
The canned reply phrase tempts me to document an experience on Indian Airlines. Avro flight from Mumbai to Ahmedabad (ETD 6 PM) started late at 7 PM and after a turbulent flight neared the destination only to be told that the runway lights are not functioning and that we should go back to Mumbai. Again it started at 1045 PM and halfway to Ahmedabad had to return because of very bad weather. When the weather cleared, the duty timing of the crew was over and we had to await a fresh crew. Finally we landed at Ahmedabad at 7 AM , late by 12 hours and spending allthe time inside the aircraft or on the departure lounge. The whole aircraft exploded with laughter and booing when the steward repeated the canned announcement "Aasha hai ki aapki yatra sukhad rahi" .,... " Hope you had a pleasant flight". I could understand because in public sector, improvisation is frowned upon".
Bicycle, Transistor radio, Watch, Music system, Refrigerator, Two wheeler, Mixie, Grinder, Telephone, Apartment, Microwave oven, Air-conditioner, Independent house, Four wheeler, Desktop PC, Broadband connection, Notebooks/Laptop/Blackberry. Cell phone had direct entry to necessity category without going through the luxury phase.
Similarly in an office, airconditioners, PCs, carpets and LED displays started appearing. The ubiquitous of these is a PC in front of every desk. In the early days the physical size of the PC was directly proportional to one's designation. Today it is inversely proportional.
It is ironical yet true, I feel most disgusted when I see services getting ITized. "Computerized" is a less dignified term. The jump into IT systems has happened without adequate preparation. I go to pay insurance for my vehicle. I am told that the systems are down and they don't know when the systems will come up, that I can go to another branch if I like. I was adamant in staying back and said that I did not mind the delay. The expert arrived a little later and found that the servers were not switched on !! They sport an ISO 9001 certificate for process culture.
I go to a bank to get my passbook updated but either the network is down or the passbook printer is down. If they have 4 passbook printers why can't they have a fifth as a cold standby?
I remember the early years when Indian Airlines used to do the reservation on the system and write out the ticket manually because printing the ticket was deferred to Phase II of ITization !!
Railways did better except that due to an error in the RAC processing logic, the family members were split into different bogies.
The Water Authority will ask for the consumer number and all details like name, address etc. every time and enter. Nobody knew that with the consumer number as the "key" the other details could be retrieved from the disk and printed on the receipt. When I tried to tell them so, they would not listen because the World Bank appointed experts had not told them to operate in this way !! The only change the computer brought about for them was replacement of the pen with the keyboard and the messy carbon sheet interspersed receipt writing with the printer.
To this day I have not figured out how to see my BSNL bill details through the Net.
Can someone help?
The most painful tyranny inflicted on the consumer is the ultimate in modern technology - the 1-800 number syndrome for lodging customer complaints.
Press 1 for Hindi, 2 for English......
Press 1 for queries, 2 for sale, 3 for complaints...........
Press 1 for warranty, 2 for AMC and 3 for ...........
....
....
Sorry, we are available only from 9 to 5 Monday thru Friday.
In the absence of any other way to establish communication, you wait till Monday, register the complaint, wait till Friday because nothing had happened, get back to "1-800, Press 1 for ...." drill and you are told that your complaint has been attended to. No way to convince the operator because the system says that the case is closed and systems don't lie. If you want you can register a fresh complaint. Again no one has turned up, but there is a call from the agency asking for the feedback on the service. When I said that there has been no service so far, the canned reply comes out "Thank you for your valuable feedback madam" ( I am used to people using "Sir" in place of "Madam", this is the first instance I heard "Madam" being used in place of "Sir")
The canned reply phrase tempts me to document an experience on Indian Airlines. Avro flight from Mumbai to Ahmedabad (ETD 6 PM) started late at 7 PM and after a turbulent flight neared the destination only to be told that the runway lights are not functioning and that we should go back to Mumbai. Again it started at 1045 PM and halfway to Ahmedabad had to return because of very bad weather. When the weather cleared, the duty timing of the crew was over and we had to await a fresh crew. Finally we landed at Ahmedabad at 7 AM , late by 12 hours and spending allthe time inside the aircraft or on the departure lounge. The whole aircraft exploded with laughter and booing when the steward repeated the canned announcement "Aasha hai ki aapki yatra sukhad rahi" .,... " Hope you had a pleasant flight". I could understand because in public sector, improvisation is frowned upon".
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
yesteryear musings (10) medicare
Every family had its own doctor - there were no 5* hospitals vying with 5* hotels for ambience. The doctor's room measured 10 ft x 10 ft. He had a thermometer, stethescope, a wooden hammer and occasionaly the BP instrument. He used to keep one thumb on the abdomen and strike over it with the other thumb. That was the acoustic penetration test to see if the intestine, liver and kidneys were in tact. He used to strike the knee with the wooden hammer and sense the reaction of the patient.
The dispensation was always packets of some powder and a mixture (yellowish brown or rose in color). My most favorite treatment at the doctor's was the "throat touch". When you had sore throat, the throat was painted with a pinkish liquid - the liquid tasted sour and soothing. Alas the liquid has disappeared - was it called the Mandel solution or something sounding similar.
The dispensation was always packets of some powder and a mixture (yellowish brown or rose in color). My most favorite treatment at the doctor's was the "throat touch". When you had sore throat, the throat was painted with a pinkish liquid - the liquid tasted sour and soothing. Alas the liquid has disappeared - was it called the Mandel solution or something sounding similar.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
yesteryear musings (9) - lifestyle
Practice of madi has become extinct with nuclear families and pigeon-hole apartments replacing joint families and spacious houses. Those who practiced madi will not tolerate anybody else touching them or even coming near them. The non-madi section of the household was called vizhuppu. The madi people themselves wake up in the morning in vizhuppu state. They attain madi state after a bath and wearing madi clothes untouched by vizhuppu people. Can you spot a logical contradiction there? The person trying to enter madi state is vizhuppu, how can he or she handle madi clothes. This is where Physics and ingenuity come into play. Wood is a non-conductor of vizhuppu. Hence the cloth is picked up from the clothesline using one end of a long wooden stick aptly called madikkuchi. The cloth itself retains madiness because it was left to dry by the madi person the previous day and hoisted up the clothesline using the same wooden stick. The clothesline was reserved exclusively for drying madi clothes. It was installed high on the ceiling so that there was no chance of the clothes brushing any passer-by. Other than wood, exceptions to the madi rule were brand new clothes (kodi thuni), silk and rubber. If I remember right, plastic too was conferred the honor in later times. I am not sure about silver though. The madi state was a prerequisite for offering prayers and for cooking. The madi status of a person will get nullified after the person has had his/her lunch.
The madi culture had its associated life style practices too. One was the food routine. You are expected to have lunch around 10.30 AM, tiffin at 4.00 PM and dinner at 8.00 PM. You are branded as a low-caste person if you prefer breakfast (“tiffin”) at 8.30 AM and lunch at 1.00 PM. Due to exigencies of modern work timings, this has slowly but reluctantly come to be accepted. In those days, the menfolk used to leave for office at 10.45 AM and return home for tiffin at 4.00 PM. Another cultural requirement to retain your high caste status was that the lunch should necessarily conclude with rice and curd / buttermilk. Anyone skipping the moru sadam routine was branded as a low caste person.
The madi culture had its associated life style practices too. One was the food routine. You are expected to have lunch around 10.30 AM, tiffin at 4.00 PM and dinner at 8.00 PM. You are branded as a low-caste person if you prefer breakfast (“tiffin”) at 8.30 AM and lunch at 1.00 PM. Due to exigencies of modern work timings, this has slowly but reluctantly come to be accepted. In those days, the menfolk used to leave for office at 10.45 AM and return home for tiffin at 4.00 PM. Another cultural requirement to retain your high caste status was that the lunch should necessarily conclude with rice and curd / buttermilk. Anyone skipping the moru sadam routine was branded as a low caste person.
Friday, March 25, 2011
yesteryear musings (8) - practices
One of the practices of yesteryears that has gone extinct is the half-yearly ritual called purgative. It is scheduled usually on a Sunday. The process starts the previous day with an oil bath. On the D-day you get up early and you are greeted with about 100ml of castor oil slightly heated. It is a highly viscous liquid with a bad odour (later deodorized versions appeared). Occasionally it is mixed with milk and delivered. You have to consume it in one swallow, closing your nose if required. Then you need to jump up and down half a dozen times from a stool or staircase - the idea is to make sure that like Neelakanta you don't retain it in your throat but allow it to travel all the way to its destination. The number of visits to the WC is monitored and if it falls below the prescribed limit, an additional dose is administered. Lunch on that day is rice with a hot-water-like rasam (sans lentils and spices except for garnishing with jeera seeds). At night you have a feast comprising vattal kuzhambu and parippu thogayal. You then await the next instalment six months down the line. In later years it was replaced by consuming two tablespoonfuls of Milk of Magnesia at night. I do not know why the need for periodical cleansing of the stomach has disappeared today.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
yesteryears musings (7) - units
Physics is my favorite subject because Physics respects measurements and measures are associated with units. Some of the yesteryear units:
Jaan: Unit of length measured from tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger
Mozham: If I remember right it is equal to two jaans. A direct definition is the length of the forearm starting with the tip of the middle finger. Strung flowers are measured in mozhams (even today. The word has an English equivalent - cubit.
Gundu: A unit of weight used to sell firewood
Badhdhai: A unit of selling ash gourd or yellow gourd (pooshanikkai / parangikkai. It denotes a three dimensional sectoroid scooped from the oblate spheroid shaped vegetable. The thickness of the sector will determine its price.Talking about vegetables, one can not forget to recall the 5 ft to 6 ft long snake gourd (unlike the present 2 ft long ones. We used to carry it without cutting it - much like Rama carrying the bow Kodhandam!
Mattai: A unit of volume for buying snuff (this habit of sniffing snuff has disappeared now. TAS Rathinam Pattanam Podi was the most popular brand, the logo depicting a man with mortar and pestle.
Piri: Unit of hay
Koopidu dhooram: Distance to which one's shout can travel. Similar to lightyear !
Muttai: Literally a spoon and hence used to specify amount of cooking oil in tablespoons
Ozhakku: Unit of volume roughly equivalent to 400 ml
Unit of Time has never changed - remains 60 secs to a minute, 60 minutes to an hour, 24 hours to a day and so on. Is that why we say Time is Etr
Jaan: Unit of length measured from tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger
Mozham: If I remember right it is equal to two jaans. A direct definition is the length of the forearm starting with the tip of the middle finger. Strung flowers are measured in mozhams (even today. The word has an English equivalent - cubit.
Gundu: A unit of weight used to sell firewood
Badhdhai: A unit of selling ash gourd or yellow gourd (pooshanikkai / parangikkai. It denotes a three dimensional sectoroid scooped from the oblate spheroid shaped vegetable. The thickness of the sector will determine its price.Talking about vegetables, one can not forget to recall the 5 ft to 6 ft long snake gourd (unlike the present 2 ft long ones. We used to carry it without cutting it - much like Rama carrying the bow Kodhandam!
Mattai: A unit of volume for buying snuff (this habit of sniffing snuff has disappeared now. TAS Rathinam Pattanam Podi was the most popular brand, the logo depicting a man with mortar and pestle.
Piri: Unit of hay
Koopidu dhooram: Distance to which one's shout can travel. Similar to lightyear !
Muttai: Literally a spoon and hence used to specify amount of cooking oil in tablespoons
Ozhakku: Unit of volume roughly equivalent to 400 ml
Unit of Time has never changed - remains 60 secs to a minute, 60 minutes to an hour, 24 hours to a day and so on. Is that why we say Time is Etr
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Yesteryear musings(6) - Travel
Travel by train was an ordeal. If you had a window seat and the wind direction was toward you, you will be fully immersed in coal particles by the time you arrive at the destination. The hair will be full of coal, the clothes will be black. At wayside stations, the trains will stop for taking in water (remember that water is needed to produce steam and these were steam engines). The schedules were unhurried. I remember that on many occasions while traveling Mumbai – Chennai (Bombay – Madras in those days) and vice versa, I have taken a shower at the waiting room of wayside stations without missing the train. On several occasions I have had a good shower in the train itself. At other times we used to walk up to the engine and have a chat with the driver. We used to deem it an honor if the driver offered us a ride in the engine till the next station. Traveling by first class was indeed a luxury. We had cabins with a drawing room, bed room and so on. Liveried waiters will deliver decoction, milk and sugar separately.
Travel by train was an ordeal. If you had a window seat and the wind direction was toward you, you will be fully immersed in coal particles by the time you arrive at the destination. The hair will be full of coal, the clothes will be black. At wayside stations, the trains will stop for taking in water (remember that water is needed to produce steam and these were steam engines). The schedules were unhurried. I remember that on many occasions while traveling Mumbai – Chennai (Bombay – Madras in those days) and vice versa, I have taken a shower at the waiting room of wayside stations without missing the train. On several occasions I have had a good shower in the train itself. At other times we used to walk up to the engine and have a chat with the driver. We used to deem it an honor if the driver offered us a ride in the engine till the next station. Traveling by first class was indeed a luxury. We had cabins with a drawing room, bed room and so on. Liveried waiters will deliver decoction, milk and sugar separately.
Yesteryear musings(5) - Solicitors
Gudugudupandi: Wearing several layers of cloth in multiple colors, this man came with a small drum (udukkai) and portended good times for the house owner. He used to ask for cloth. He used to wear black
eye paint and the people believed that it was made of human skulls collected by the gudugudupandi from the cremation ground. People believed that he possessed occult powers and dared not antagonize him.
Bum-bum madu: The vendor brought along a bull decorated colorfully. He also predicted good things to happen in the house and made the bull nod in agreement. We had an expression to denote the “yes-men” – we said he was a bum-bum madu. When he failed to get anything from a house he used to utter curses and faithfully the bull will nod in agreement.
The monkey trick: The solicitor brought along a couple of monkeys, a stick and other things. On his command to cross the ocean and go to Lanka, the monkey used to scale the stick and jump to the other side.
Kalai poosaliyo: Only brass utensils were used in those days – stainless steel had not become popular. The vessels were coated with lead inside. When the coating wears off, it has to be done again. This vendor offered such services. He used to design a hearth inside the compound. A bellow like tool will pass the flame inside the vessel along with a piece of lead. The molten lead will then be spread evenly when still hot and later washed with cow dung. Sometimes he will use black lead instead of silver lead and cheat.
Thoor varaliyo: Wells were the only source of water in olden days. They had to be desilted every year to get rid of the solid waste collected and deposited at the bottom. This operation was called thoor vararadhu. In today’s terminology it can be roughly called dredging or desilting.
Ghee and butter merchant: The vendors who used to deliver ghee and butter at home were invariably were from Andhra Pradesh speaking Telugu. They will have a peculiar kind of balance and several shapes of weight to counter the weight of the vessel in which ghee or butter will be weighed. The housewife will apply a small amount of ghee on her elbow, spread it vigorously and smell it to determine the quality – much the same way people evaluate perfumes at the department stores. The vendors will wear shirts with huge pockets in which the account note books will be thrust. They will enter the amount and collect the sum after a couple of visits.
Gudugudupandi: Wearing several layers of cloth in multiple colors, this man came with a small drum (udukkai) and portended good times for the house owner. He used to ask for cloth. He used to wear black
eye paint and the people believed that it was made of human skulls collected by the gudugudupandi from the cremation ground. People believed that he possessed occult powers and dared not antagonize him.
Bum-bum madu: The vendor brought along a bull decorated colorfully. He also predicted good things to happen in the house and made the bull nod in agreement. We had an expression to denote the “yes-men” – we said he was a bum-bum madu. When he failed to get anything from a house he used to utter curses and faithfully the bull will nod in agreement.
The monkey trick: The solicitor brought along a couple of monkeys, a stick and other things. On his command to cross the ocean and go to Lanka, the monkey used to scale the stick and jump to the other side.
Kalai poosaliyo: Only brass utensils were used in those days – stainless steel had not become popular. The vessels were coated with lead inside. When the coating wears off, it has to be done again. This vendor offered such services. He used to design a hearth inside the compound. A bellow like tool will pass the flame inside the vessel along with a piece of lead. The molten lead will then be spread evenly when still hot and later washed with cow dung. Sometimes he will use black lead instead of silver lead and cheat.
Thoor varaliyo: Wells were the only source of water in olden days. They had to be desilted every year to get rid of the solid waste collected and deposited at the bottom. This operation was called thoor vararadhu. In today’s terminology it can be roughly called dredging or desilting.
Ghee and butter merchant: The vendors who used to deliver ghee and butter at home were invariably were from Andhra Pradesh speaking Telugu. They will have a peculiar kind of balance and several shapes of weight to counter the weight of the vessel in which ghee or butter will be weighed. The housewife will apply a small amount of ghee on her elbow, spread it vigorously and smell it to determine the quality – much the same way people evaluate perfumes at the department stores. The vendors will wear shirts with huge pockets in which the account note books will be thrust. They will enter the amount and collect the sum after a couple of visits.
Yesteryear musings(4) - Theeni
The common item on which pocket money was expended was the ice candy. This consisted of ice shavings lumped on a stick and sprinkled with colored water. The trade was ethical because the vendor never claimed it to be ice cream. He called it only kuchi ice namely ice on a stick.
For those who were banned from eating ice there was the sherbet. This was the same colored water added to normal water and topped up with some seed that used to bloat once in contact with water. The pods of the seed when put in water used to explode thus separating the seeds. Can someone tell me the name of the seed?
There was the mango cut in a shape resembling a row of teeth and hence aptly called pallu-manga. It was served with salt and chilly powder as side dishes. There was the mentholated peppermint in a spherical shape with black and white stripes all over. Almond mittais were for the rich boys – fairly large-sized egg-shaped sweets with an almond inside and sugar coated on the outside. It used to appear in two colors – white and rose.
An item that has become almost extinct from vegetable/fruit markets is the wood apple (called vlampazham). In some places one can see it on the eve of Ganesh chathurthi. Preparing sweet pachadi out of vlampazham was one of the easiest things to do for the housewife. She only had to scoop the pulp out and mix with jaggery. Imagine my pleasant surprise when on a visit to Colombo recently I had vlampazha juice at the Taj hotel’s breakfast offering. The pleasant surprise continued with murungai ilai (drumstick leaves) soup at lunch. If hotels at Colombo can offer these, why not hotels in Chennai?
The common item on which pocket money was expended was the ice candy. This consisted of ice shavings lumped on a stick and sprinkled with colored water. The trade was ethical because the vendor never claimed it to be ice cream. He called it only kuchi ice namely ice on a stick.
For those who were banned from eating ice there was the sherbet. This was the same colored water added to normal water and topped up with some seed that used to bloat once in contact with water. The pods of the seed when put in water used to explode thus separating the seeds. Can someone tell me the name of the seed?
There was the mango cut in a shape resembling a row of teeth and hence aptly called pallu-manga. It was served with salt and chilly powder as side dishes. There was the mentholated peppermint in a spherical shape with black and white stripes all over. Almond mittais were for the rich boys – fairly large-sized egg-shaped sweets with an almond inside and sugar coated on the outside. It used to appear in two colors – white and rose.
An item that has become almost extinct from vegetable/fruit markets is the wood apple (called vlampazham). In some places one can see it on the eve of Ganesh chathurthi. Preparing sweet pachadi out of vlampazham was one of the easiest things to do for the housewife. She only had to scoop the pulp out and mix with jaggery. Imagine my pleasant surprise when on a visit to Colombo recently I had vlampazha juice at the Taj hotel’s breakfast offering. The pleasant surprise continued with murungai ilai (drumstick leaves) soup at lunch. If hotels at Colombo can offer these, why not hotels in Chennai?
Yesteryear musings(3) - Nick names
We used to attach benign nick names to teachers. I don’t know if the practice continues today or has taken some different shape. The names were mostly functional or related to an attribute the teacher possessed. In any case there was no malice. I can recall the following:
Dhrabai: This was the teacher’s pet swear word when he wanted to scold someone. This was a superlative form of the less aggressive asadu and indicated uselessness
Sevvai kizhamai: This teacher was fond of Tuesday – let us have the test on Tuesday, next Tuesday we will have no class, today is Tuesday, so let us begin the new lesson tomorrow and so on.
Jilpa: This name indicated that the teacher sported long hair in the style of Dhoni of earlier days.
Ottadai kombu: This is the instrument used to clean cobwebs on the roof of the house. It is characterized by being long and slender. So the teacher who was tall and lanky was ottadai kombu.
Onne mukkal anna: This requires explanation. In those days one rupee was divided into sixteen annas and one anna contained twelve paise. Onne mukkal anna was thus written as 0 – 1 – 9 (rupee, anna and paise in that order). The teacher in question had initials OVG. His signature resembled 0-1-9. Hence the name.
Thundu beedi: This was the Physical Training instructor who was often spotted smoking small sized beedis
Arisi mootai: Obviously a short fat teacher who resembled a bag of rice.
Balli muttai: To this day I have not been able to figure out the connection between the nick name and the teacher. The nick name literally means lizard egg.
We used to attach benign nick names to teachers. I don’t know if the practice continues today or has taken some different shape. The names were mostly functional or related to an attribute the teacher possessed. In any case there was no malice. I can recall the following:
Dhrabai: This was the teacher’s pet swear word when he wanted to scold someone. This was a superlative form of the less aggressive asadu and indicated uselessness
Sevvai kizhamai: This teacher was fond of Tuesday – let us have the test on Tuesday, next Tuesday we will have no class, today is Tuesday, so let us begin the new lesson tomorrow and so on.
Jilpa: This name indicated that the teacher sported long hair in the style of Dhoni of earlier days.
Ottadai kombu: This is the instrument used to clean cobwebs on the roof of the house. It is characterized by being long and slender. So the teacher who was tall and lanky was ottadai kombu.
Onne mukkal anna: This requires explanation. In those days one rupee was divided into sixteen annas and one anna contained twelve paise. Onne mukkal anna was thus written as 0 – 1 – 9 (rupee, anna and paise in that order). The teacher in question had initials OVG. His signature resembled 0-1-9. Hence the name.
Thundu beedi: This was the Physical Training instructor who was often spotted smoking small sized beedis
Arisi mootai: Obviously a short fat teacher who resembled a bag of rice.
Balli muttai: To this day I have not been able to figure out the connection between the nick name and the teacher. The nick name literally means lizard egg.
Yesteryear musings(2) - curse phrases
More than corporal punishment, cursing was the preferred form of punishing in yesteryears. There used to be family-specific patentable curse phrases. Some of them I recall include:
- may the ant bite your wife (uttered to a ten year old boy!) un pondaatiya katterumbu kadikka,
- may it rain heavily on your wedding day (again uttered to a ten year old but usually a girl, especially if she chooses to eat raw uncooked rice)
- An introvert and unsociable character was called musudu. Must be a combination of Ummanamunji and Asadu
- may you be born as a cactus plant, ekkedu kettu erukka mulachuppo
- you are only fit to be a donkeyherd, nee kazhudha meykka thaan layakku
- may the ant bite your wife (uttered to a ten year old boy!) un pondaatiya katterumbu kadikka,
- may it rain heavily on your wedding day (again uttered to a ten year old but usually a girl, especially if she chooses to eat raw uncooked rice)
- An introvert and unsociable character was called musudu. Must be a combination of Ummanamunji and Asadu
- may you be born as a cactus plant, ekkedu kettu erukka mulachuppo
- you are only fit to be a donkeyherd, nee kazhudha meykka thaan layakku
Yesteryear musings(1) - School
Let me start with an object called balappam. It is a slender cylindrical pencil-like object used to write on slates. The cheaper variety would have large sand content and you will hear a screeching sound when it makes contact with the slate. The expensive variety was called Dilli balappam. Dilli I suppose was a variant of Delhi and anything connected with the capital was considered exotic! It used to come in two colors - white and cocoa. Use of chalks to write on the slate was a privilege enjoyed by the teachers and some chosen kids - who held authority such as class leader.
A handy erasing tool for cleaning the slate was the fibrous core removed from the banana stem. After cutting every circular piece, the intervening fiber was wound round the fingers. They were ejected out after a sizeable amount was collected.
The banana flower too was an interesting object. The petals were used as plates for eating tiffin. They were large and deep with the result that sambhar will not spill through the sides. Some petals were dissected longitudinally and rubbed against each other to produce a whistling sound. The middle part of each stalk of the flower pods had to be removed. It was generally believed that it was poisonous. The separation of the part was referred to as removing the kallan, meaning a thief. One does not know why it was called so.
Marbles are remembered by many. Wonder how many remember the takli? This was a hand held tool to spin yarn out of cotton. As students, we were supposed to spin a given quota of cotton. Can someone recall the name of the unit in which the amount of cotton was measured? One could also see priests standing on the road near the temples and spinning yarn for making poonal. They would give the takli the initial impetus by rubbing it vigorously on their thigh. Probably the activity is outsourced today to companies who supply bleached shining white poonals.
A handy erasing tool for cleaning the slate was the fibrous core removed from the banana stem. After cutting every circular piece, the intervening fiber was wound round the fingers. They were ejected out after a sizeable amount was collected.
The banana flower too was an interesting object. The petals were used as plates for eating tiffin. They were large and deep with the result that sambhar will not spill through the sides. Some petals were dissected longitudinally and rubbed against each other to produce a whistling sound. The middle part of each stalk of the flower pods had to be removed. It was generally believed that it was poisonous. The separation of the part was referred to as removing the kallan, meaning a thief. One does not know why it was called so.
Marbles are remembered by many. Wonder how many remember the takli? This was a hand held tool to spin yarn out of cotton. As students, we were supposed to spin a given quota of cotton. Can someone recall the name of the unit in which the amount of cotton was measured? One could also see priests standing on the road near the temples and spinning yarn for making poonal. They would give the takli the initial impetus by rubbing it vigorously on their thigh. Probably the activity is outsourced today to companies who supply bleached shining white poonals.
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