Some Sizzling Scintillating Speculations

  15 06 88 was the day I began my career. Sharing that experience which always remains fresh in the mind. I was in Ajmer in May'88, visiting relatives, after Final Year Engineering exams. Got a call from Dad, that I had an interview call from BSL, for 4th June. In those days, interviews were few- and the first 2-3 I'd been to, had been just to get the feel of it. I reached there, having read up quite a bit on the final year subjects, and 'likely questions'  Loved the location at first sight-it was in Alkapuri, one of the posh areas of Baroda and a dream for those of us who were 'poor city dwellers'. There was a group discussion, followed by a MCQ(Multiple choice Question) quiz with the usual agility questions they have(Non-technical), like spotting the odd man out, etc. When this was over, we had a short wait, and then they announced that out of 64(original: 128) of us, 16 were shortlisted. And, the rest could go. We had an interview with my future boss- a frie...

  What a thrill that used to be.. reading that a competition I entered had won a prize.. Trying to recall the very first competion sometime back in year '87 or so. I remembered the folder of magazine clippings that I have here, and checked. However, I could not trace that particular first clipping.. maybe it's in some other file..it was in the magazine 'The Weekly Sun', one of my absolute favourites(I wish they would restart publication)... it was a pic of Rekha from the song'In Aankhon ki masti mein'...we had to guess the song and the movie (Umraao Jaan). That delight on winning the prize in a draw of lots - for the first time - it's unimaginable .. a real mood-booster it was. And, then, there was no looking back.. Sun used to have a number of such competitions . One was 'Spot The Ball'... a pic from a cricket field scene, and, we had to guess where the (hidden) ball was. The most accurate guess would win. The next one, as per my list was an article...

  I have very faint memories of the first mode of transport, which used to be someone from the family dropping me off to school(usually Granddad or Dad on their cycle) Then, there was this cyclerickshaw (risk-shaw, rather, the way he would pilot his vehicle) guy who was ‘appointed’, to do the task. Besides the overload of kids in his rick, he used to also speak bad words(Probably hangovers from previous nights), and, one day, I used one of the bad words he would speak, at home. I had no idea what it meant, however, the next day, he was terminated for teaching me bad words. Luckily, one of our teachers (KM) used to stay right opposite our house, and used to go to school via bus. Hence, she agreed to take me as well .. this was, I think Std IV or so. From Sursagar,(Next to Pratap talkies), we would get bus GRS 7613(Of course I remember the number)… and the same bus coming back as well, if lucky. Sometimes, if I was lucky, KM would be late in the morning, and I was accorded the lu...

 Digressing a bit from school memories. This incident flickered into my mind today. I had posted about it some years back. Some memories remain fresh in the mind, always… this is one of them… back in 1988, when I was a fresh trainee in BSL, first job. One day, my boss called me. He needed a drawing from a supplier in Ahmedabad,  and asked me to get one of the apprentices from the Service Department to go there and get it. I arranged it, feeling quite pleased with myself(Any small work done in those days, gave an immense sense of satisfaction, as you can imagine- those rookie days at work are the days when you want to prove you're worth every rupee they're paying you). Off went the apprentice to Ahmedabad. In the evening, the boss asks 'is the guy back?'- of course, he wasn't. I went to the workshop section of the office, and it turned out that no-one even knew the guy's name, since he was quite new. And, the senior service people had left for the day. Someone ...

  20 03 24 We are from the blessed people, who have seen music progressing from a simple radio, to record players, to audio cassettes, to the current forms. My first favourite, in the early seventies, used to be (like for many others), Binaca Geet Mala (Later Cibaca), with Amin Sayani. Wednesday would be a day eagerly awaited, time 8 PM, when we would hear the all too familiar voice saying ‘Namaskar, Behnon aur Bhaiyon’, on Radio Ceylon. We had a Philips radio, which had Short Wave bands(Not sure @ FM in those years), and, Binaca used to come on one of those bands. Luckily I found a pic of the exact same model via google, and it was this one, indeed.. it says it’s model LX4. (Now, an antique piece worth quite a bit, I am sure ). Sometimes the reception would not be too good, and the ears had to be kept right on the ‘screen’, in order to hear something. And, woe betide if the electricity went off during that hour.. everyone in the house would know how irritated I was. Ahahaha. At th...

  19 03 24 For some reason, the memory section of the brain always remember school days well, but, jog it to recall what I had for lunch or what I wore yesterday, and I have to strain . heh heh. Since I mentioned one of the unusual guys from class, in the Reading related post recently, here’s some more memories on similar fun people. To start off, let me recall people who really use to make us smile/laugh/guffaw in school days, by their remarks, innocent or otherwise. (Names shortened to initial, to maintain privacy) 1. There was this guy, D - he used to deliver gems of information every now and then, and he'd end with 'You see, Idea is India'. 2. There was this other guy, P . We used to have morning assembly, as all schools do. One of the prayers/anthems each week would be 'India is my country. ( https://www.indianmirror.com/geography/geo7.html ) All Indians are my brothers and sisters'. Well, this guy would always add, in a louder-than required voice,...

  Being an avid reader in those days meant that I would look for all sources for getting books and comics to read, on returnable basis, and, then, return, and borrow again after a few days and return… and so on. And, being an avid collector of these, meant that there would always be friends or relatives wanting to borrow some of my precious collection from me. First, the borrowing part. These used to be mainly school friends.. I remember borrowing Laurel and Hardy comics, Hardy Boys books, Tintin/Asterix (the ones I had not got yet from my friendly neighbourhood second hand books guys)…before returning, in a couple of days, each one would be literally ‘devoured’ page by page. Now when I get these gems in pdf form on the net, I wonder how life would have been if today’s advanced technologies had been available then. Wow. One thing I’d always make sure – the borrowed material would always be returned in the same good condition that I had taken it. Sadly, not so the other way roun...

  More than Phantom or Flash Gordon, I used to (still read) love Mandrake the Magician and his friend Lothar's adventures. A favourite daydream(Piscean trait, of course) for me, would be to imagine doing such magic/illusion/hypnosis, on friends/ enemies. heh heh. One of the most famous friendships on earth- Mandrake and Lothar. (As they say in the tales) Mandrake- a magician par extraordinaire known for his mass hypnosis feats. Lothar-the strongest man on earth, King of 12 nations. Brings an ice machine when Narda asks him for ice cream. Picks up a car when Jed's cufflink rolls under it, rather than going under the car like us ordinary mortals would do. Narda-another Princess, Mandrake's fiancee.(I forget the name of Lothar's fiancee-she came into the picture later) Jed- head of Inter Intel-short for International Intelligence, which has a robot as it's big boss(above Jed). No-one thinks that there could be a human being behind the robot's voice which is disguis...

  14 03 24 Hobby: Reading Part 4: Adding to the list of eminently readable material Sometime in the late seventies, I began engrossed in reading magazines, besides the craze for books. And, at the same time, there would be great fun in writing Letters To the Editor, entering competitions, and so on. Letters to the editor: It was such a delight, after waiting between magazine issues, to get a new issue and quickly go to the letters page to see if my letter had been selected. And, added bonus, if it won the best letter prize. This happened a number of times, and, soon I was writing around to around 40 magazines and newspapers every month. Made a lot of good friends  courtesy this very inspiring hobby, including editors of some magazines, whom I also had the pleasure of meeting. (that is a topic for another day). The magazines would be everything from youth mags, to travel mags, from movie mags to readers digest… the one topic I strictly avoided (unless there was humour), was pol...

  Hobby : Reading Part 3: Second hand books (Pics in this post are for illustration purposes) There were a few people near our city home in those days, who had become quite ‘valued’ for me, since they were a good source of second hand(read’near new’) books and comics for me. The best one was the one who would sit outside a closed restaurant door, on it’s tiled surface , next to what used to be Kalamandir talkies. He would always call me Bhaiya and, seeing me walking towards his , err, stall, he would pull out the comics and novels he would have stashed away to safety, for me. (I used to get the first ‘right to refuse’, so to speak . heh heh. ).. one of the most prized collections that happened 80% courtesy him, was my Tintin books. There was apparently some guy, who I could identify vide the pen scroll he would make all over the first page of each Tintin comic, before giving it away. And, this gent would invariably get it and keep...

  In those days (Seventies) , buying new books used to be quite an expensive hobby. With God’s Grace, I never had a shortage of books to read, courtesy the many sources that were ‘made available’ (so to speak) ... even today, the charm of a real book far exceeds that of a PDF/scanned copy / online kindle read. One method of adding to the collection, would be to select my ‘most wanted’ books as my birthday presents ‘in advance’. At the Noddy age( 6-8/9 years) , I would select the Noddy books which I did not have, at Allies’ book stores, and inform each Uncle one of the serial numbers from 1 to 24 accordingly. (We couldn’t afford to buy them all-they cost a princely Rs 4 to Rs 8!). I would look suitably thrilled when the books were given to me, duly signed and marked ’With best wishes from so-and-so Kaka (Uncle in Gujarat terms) / Bhaiya(cousin) ’. In the coming years after the Noddy age passed, I would select Famous Five/ Five Findouters/Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew/ Three Investigato...

  Part 1 : Circulating Library Days Summer vacations approaching. Motivation to sail through the final exams…then, six weeks free. The biggest motivator: (re)joining ‘Rajesh Circulating Library’ in the station area, and get comics and books to read. There were three libraries, run by the same family, we usually went to the first one. The favourites in comics would be the Archies, the Richie Riches, Tarzan, Tintin, Asterix, Enid Blyton … each one would have a USD or UKP price written.. the library guy would charge the equivalent in Rs/Ps. For e.g. a 25 C Richie Rich, would mean 25   Paise reading charge(A 25 Paise coin doesn’t get anything now, hence, it was demonetized along with all other lower value coins in 2011) We were allowed to keep the comics for a week, I think.. so, we would pick 7-8 at least, and, read, re-read, re-read, re-read them to make sure we got the full ‘Paisa Vasool’. Around 7 th -8 th Std, there were also the Hardy Boys, the Three Investigator...

I still love reading Enid Blytons, every now and then.. however, when I spotted ‘The Accidental Prime Minister’ at the flea market, I had no idea it was a children’s book. It turned out to be so much fun that I read it over the weekend, start to finish. It takes a dig at British politics, reminiscent of the series 'Yes, Minister'. It’s about this 12 year old boy, Joe.. he and his friend Ajay come to know that their favorite park is about to be closed to make way for ‘civilization'.                                                                              Joe, who knows the Prime Minister is coming to their area, goes to see him, and, shouts a lot at him, calling  the PM ‘dafty’, and telling him about other fun things the country needs, like doing away with alarm clocks so people wouldn’t...

  A phillumenist...a person who follows phillumeny...in simple terms, a matchbox label collector. ----- The matchbox has become somewhat obsolete, in these days of 'instant lighters' of the electronic type, which followed on the heels of gas lighters and the electric ignition cooktops. One click and voila, the cooking gas is on. Of course, I( as do most people who do pooja with agarbattis) still need a matchbox to light the agarbattis.(Incense sticks) for the pooja- hate to light those with a lighter that gives off a flame that could singe the eyebrows, right? ------ Dad has preserved all the labels from those days. Some samples: So, let's see now. as I said, the hobby began back when I was in school. Matchboxes used to be a lot of fun in those days. Dad had also brought back a lot of labels in 'mint'(Brand new) condition from his Russia trip then, and those were really what made me get interested in the hobby. ('Every other person collects stamps and coins, I ...