Muthashan
Muthashan
For as long as I can remember I’ve had memories, and some of the clearest ones are of my trips to Bangalore and Chennai, where my relatives live. I recall the 24-hour train journeys to Bangalore, which I would spend jumping from top berth to top berth like a drunk monkey, and I also remember the excitement with which I would search the platform in Bangalore for the subject of this article: My Muthashan, my grandfather.
My grandfather is the embodiment of “eccentric scientist.” He is bald with a thin line of hair forming a semicircle around the back of his head and a shiny head that, according to him, is very useful when guiding aircraft. When he wakes up (at 4 in the morning), he brushes his teeth and goes down to the kitchen to have a glass of water. While reaching for the glass, his hand invariably knocks over every other utensil located within half a foot, which serves as an alarm clock for everyone else. Except my grandmother, who is used to this, and continues to sleep soundly in her room. The rest of us crack our eyes open, see that the sun hasn’t risen yet and flop back onto the bed.
Another one of my grandfather’s traits is his absentmindedness. While most of us may forget our handkerchief or maybe a water bottle, Muthashan is very capable of forgetting a person, as my Ammuma (my grandmother) will happily tell you. Let me give you an example.
My grandparents were coming home several years ago after some function, on my grandfather’s bike, when they hit a particularly large ditch. The bike jerked but didn’t fall, which is more than I can say for Ammuma. She flew off the bike and found herself sitting squarely in the middle of the road, her nice sari all rumpled and dusty. As several pedestrians tended to her, my grandfather (who had yet to notice that his wife had fallen off) continued down the road until he was out of sight. A few kilometres later, it began to occur to him that no one was replying to him, so he turned around and discovered her absence. Did it occur to him then to go back? No. He spotted a group of drunkards fighting by the roadside, and knowing my grandmother’s penchant for resolving conflict, he went there to investigate. When he didn’t find her there, he was deeply perplexed. After formulating several hypotheses, he concluded that he needed to go back the same way. Sure enough, a few kilometres down the road, he found my grandmother marching briskly towards him, swearing to herself that she would never again leave home without her own purse and money. She took one look at him and proceeded to roundly abuse him in Malayalam, when, hoping to cheer her up, he exclaimed, “But look! This bike runs so smoothly that even when 65 kilos fell off, I didn’t notice anything different!”
The words she used after that are inappropriate in public.
Ever since then, she has insisted that a four-wheeler will be the only mode of transport she uses, and no amount of lectures on fuel efficiency or the rising cost of petrol could convince her otherwise. Oh yes, and shortly after this incident, the bike was sold.
Ammuma and the rest of the family say that they wish this was the only anecdote about Muthashan, but then, he does like to live life with a flourish. So, logically, why shouldn’t there be even more stories in which he has unknowingly risked being disowned by his dear family?
Now, considering my grandfather’s idea that Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is appropriate breaking-the-ice kind of conversation, it is easy to imagine that he does not concern himself with certain information. Not much, just irrelevant information like a person’s name, or how many kids he has. You know, things like that.
So it didn’t surprise me when I was told of how he walked up to a woman at the Indian Institute of Science (where he works) and said, “Ah, you are George’s wife, isn’t it?”
“No sir, I am Govindan Nair’s wife”
…
Thanks to a well-aimed pinch from my mother, he didn’t voice his thoughts of, “But I saw you the other day with George!”
He is now over 75 years old, and continues to blunder through life with confidence. If you are ever introduced to a man in Bangalore, and said man is wearing an expression that combines bewilderment with quiet desperation two seconds after being introduced to you, you have most certainly met M. Venugopalan, my Muthashan. But never fear! Even if he doesn’t know you, he will be delighted to take you through the technicalities of the Cassini-Huygens Spacecraft!
Kirtana P. Menon
More Posts from Kirtanamenon and Others
tw violence
please don't ignore this. students are beaten up at Jawaharlal Nehru University in india and police is not protecting students. instead they're helping the goons. nobody is helping the students. a lot of students are badly injured.
signal boost
Random daily happenings
So my brother decided to show off his artistic talents today. He made a caricature and proudly displayed it to my mother and I, asking us to guess who it was. I told him confidently that it was his classmate Jash. My mother, equally confident, said that it must be Shirdi Sai Baba.
The hapless chap turned out to be Ronaldinho.
…
My thoughts during an exam
1. I’ll write “mathematics” instead of “math” so that the answer looks longer
2. Two hours left
3. Which subject is this?!
4. Ooh, who got busted for cheating this time?
5. Why are people leaving already? Did they skip questions or am I just stupid?
6. OH GODS has my watch stopped?!?
7. No. Ok… breathe…
8. NO DON’T WASTE TIME BREATHING YOU OAF
9. One and a half hours left
10. Why does this idiot behind me keep poking me in the back?!
11. My fingers are cramping
12. Great, my four-mark answers are longer than the twelve-mark ones
13. Of course, now I need to go to the bathroom
14. And I’m writing down song lyrics instead of the answers again
15. Forty-five minutes left
16. Shit, forty-five minutes left!
17. This question must be wrong.
18. This answer is horrible. Ok, I’ll add in a couple of ‘henceforths’ and see if that’ll do the trick.
19. Why are they asking for extra paper? I knew it, my answers are too short! Great.
20. The only way I’ll pass this exam is divine intervention
21. I’m so sleepy…
22. Having exams in this weather should be illegal
23. What a lovely poky seat this is
24. My ink got over. Great. I’ll use my other pen. So much time will be wasted now because of this.
25. My other pen has no ink
26. Pencil it is
27. Nib broke. AARGH!!!
28. She purposely gave me the worst pen she had. I bet it didn’t even cost 5 bucks
29. 5 bucks sweets are so rare nowadays… I wish they were still there.
30. FOCUS!!!
31. YES! My answer booklet is over!!! Now I can be all swag and ask for one more
32. Because they just have to waste my time and give me a supplement with the staple in the middle of the page
33. AARGH stupid staple won’t come out
34. How the hell did HE remove it so easily? And now I look like a wuss
35. “We don’t need noo…education…tu du du, tudu tudu…”
36. Just 30 minutes and this will all be over!
37. Maybe I should copy
38. It’s justified man! Look at what a lousy paper she’s set! How the hell am I supposed to remember all of this!
39. My partner is looking into my paper. No hope there then.
40. Behind me!
41. No she’s an idiot.
42. And it’s but obvious that the only person in the class with an afro is sitting in front of me
43. AAIYEE!! I wasted 10 minutes debating this!
44. Lightning fast writing!
45. I don’t know the spelling of beginning. Umm…
46. Um…
47. ….
48. “Begin…ing”
49. Now I forgot the sentence.
50. Almost done… scribble! Scribble!
51. 3 minutes left! Scribblescribblescribble!
52. Finished!!!
53. The second half of my paper looks like a five year old wrote it
54. Ok, I gave in the paper… Breathe in, breathe out…
55. And of course, now is the perfect time to remember all the solutions to the questions I didn’t answer.
Kirtana P. Menon
Quack Attack?
My family appears very normal. I have a father who loves sports and crime shows and I have a mother who is obsessed with vegetables and imaginary specks of dust. The only thing (yes, thing) that disturbs this image is the nutball I call my brother.
Don’t get me wrong, in front of other people he acts completely normal. Maybe a little like a clown, but still normal. The worst part is that people actually respect him! They think he is a very responsible older brother who has to babysit his bratty baby sister all the time (never mind the fact that I’m sixteen). This is what he has other people believe. I’m here to shatter all of these illusions.
My brother is an idiot. Now before you start protesting that he is in fact a very intelligent boy and I shouldn’t be saying things like this about my family, let me outline a few of the more prominent incidents. There is of course the one where he woke me up by dragging me feet-first into the kitchen. Then there is also the one where he decided to show off his arm strength by grabbing my feet in one hand and my hands in the other and flinging me onto the bed. But the one day which stands out in my mind is the day he abruptly decided to call me Quack Attack.
He likes to tell people that there is a reason behind this ridiculously idiotic nickname. There isn’t. He just suddenly decided, ‘Thou shalt henceforth be known as Quack Attack’ and that was it. I honestly didn’t know what was going on. One minute I was innocently sitting at my table and doing my homework, the next he had graced me with his extremely unwanted presence and declared that I “shall henceforth be called Quack Attack.”
My initial thought was something along the lines of, ‘doesn’t he have a hobby?’ but I dismissed that thought and, quite foolishly, I admit, asked him where this sudden announcement came from, whereupon he began to laugh and told me that I had been mumbling those words under my breath. Now that in itself is quite plausible, I do generally mutter while I am writing. But I clearly remember doing my Marathi homework at that time, so there was absolutely no reason why I would be saying ‘Quack Attack’ under my breath. But does that deter him? No, he just ignores my logical argument and sticks to his utterly idiotic beliefs!
It has been almost four years since that fateful day, and I would like to tell you that he has changed and has actually become the respectable 20-year-old everyone thinks he is. But I can’t do that because, sadly, he is still as much of an idiot as he was all those years ago. Time has not affected him one bit. His affectionate nickname has become rather famous *sob* and even certain friends have taken to calling me Quack Attack!
To those who believe that I may be exaggerating a little, I assure you, I’m not. Yes, there are times when we get along, and, having put up with him for sixteen years, I am quite used to his needling by now, but still. In my case, the ‘tyrannical older sibling’ myth isn’t a myth at all! I live it every day!
*cue Optimus Prime voice* I am Kirtana Menon, and I send this message out to all those who battle the forces of annoying older brothers. We are here. We are waiting.
Go to Pakistan
This has been coming for a long time.
Many months ago, actors Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan made statements about how India is no longer a safe place to live. Their statements were met with a wave of indignant bleating and comments urging (read: threatening) these actors to “go to Pakistan.” The recent Uri attacks seem to have brought these same buffoons out of hibernation. Armed with social media, they now choose to target Karan Johar. Who clearly has everything to do with these attacks.
The irony here is that the same people who so vehemently protest the cast of Karan Johar’s new movie have likely done nothing for the country themselves. Take the MNS for example. What are their legacies?
1. Covering people’s faces with ink (because logic). 2. Aggravated Assault (because the law is unpatriotic). 3. Campaigning for the removal of non-Maharashtrians (All Indians- oops sorry, all Maharashrians are my brothers and sisters…). 4. Corruption (Patriotism is obviously about lining your own pockets while your fellow citizens die of starvation). 5. Pseudo acts of kindness, like building random temples here and there (vote gaining tactics)
Classic examples of the Politician species.
To recap: “Karan Johar sucks!” thus said His Thackeray-ness.
However, in my opinion:- 1. The surgical strikes were a good response to the Uri attacks. The last time I checked, Karan Johar was not shooting soldiers, so I fail to see any logical thinking behind the wave of hate directed at him.
2. The people who really love their country will want to boast about what a wonderful nation they live in. However, to do that, you need something to boast about. Corruption, poverty, overpopulation, terrible sanitation, poor facilities, and yes, even intolerance are problems being faced by all Indians, and ignoring the problem or pretending it doesn’t exist isn’t going to make it go away. The only way to make this nation a nation to be proud of is by addressing these problems and solving them.
3. And finally, to any bigots who think “go to Pakistan” is an appropriate response to this post: you’re only proving my point.
Re-reading the Kane chronicles. Am I the only one who just noticed this?
Comfort Food and Khichdi
Food.
The very word inspires you with warm and fuzzy feelings, feelings of satisfaction, of happiness, of life at its very best. Whether we like the same food or not is irrelevant, because food, at its core, is one of the few things that makes everyone happy. Everyone.
Comfort food: This is the one type of food that gives emotional satisfaction to the one eating it. The eater experiences a genuine feeling of happiness while eating, usually associated with pleasant childhood memories. So comfort food is basically food that makes you really happy. That being said, allow me to proceed to my rant of the day.
I have come across an unpleasant number of people who claim that khichdi is their comfort food. The most tasteless, boring food ever to cross my path, is considered comfort food. How? Why? The only memories I have associated with khichdi are ones of the overwhelming taste of pepper on my tongue, of squishy rice and broken promises of pizza for dinner. So where does the “happy childhood memories” bit come in?
Maybe it’s just me. Because my comfort foods are Pav Bhaji and Kulfi, while my mom firmly states hers is Kerala Fish Curry with brown rice. And these are infinitely more interesting than blooming khichdi (don’t even try to argue with that). So I probably am the only one who does not understand how non-tasty food can be comforting.
In my house, khichdi is something that is made when the only other option is starvation. The pros and cons of each option are lengthily discussed, and then sometimes, we make khichdi. We have a very clear understanding of what we consider appropriate food. Khichdi is not food. Food implies everything discussed in the first paragraph. Khichdi is simply an Edible Item. I will not insult Food by clubbing it with the likes of khichdi.
And yes, I am ranting because my mom has prepared khichdi for dinner. Starvation didn’t put up a good enough argument this time.
Las Vegas Shooting
I just wanted to clear my thoughts and hopefully get some proper facts right now, because I'm not really sure what to believe.
I just heard that there has been another shooting in America, and the gunman reportedly had over 10 guns with him, including guns that are supposed to be inaccessible to anyone other than military personnel.
These are the facts that I know. So someone please tell me, how did this happen? Why is it so easy for a random 64 year old man to buy 10 guns. I mean, even if the state doesn't want to ban guns outright, shouldn't there at least be a limit for how many guns a person can buy? And if there is a limit, why isn't it being enforced? I saw a video of the shooting, and what I heard sounded like machine gun fire. How does a random person acquire a machine gun??
A lot of people seem to be against gun control because they believe that the second amendment (I think that's the one, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not American) grants them the right to purchase a gun for self defense. I understand that sentiment, but gun technology has advanced so much since that amendment was introduced that the amendment itself seems obsolete. When it was introduced, guns were so inaccurate that they could kill only a few people at a time at worst. And that too only at point blank range. Now we have guns that are highly accurate (this particular shooter was killing people from one of the higher floors of a hotel right?) and the current crop of guns is also capable of shooting hundreds of people in a few short seconds.
Like I said before, I'm not American so I may not know everything that there is to know about this law and the state of gun control in America, but it really seems like it needs to go through a radical revision. People are paying for this with their lives.
Changing Status of Women
This was a short piece I had to write in class (in about 10 minutes, so be patient please). The topic given was “The changing status of women” I’ve drawn inspiration from the stories of my grandmother’s childhood in a small village in Kerala, as she was one of the few women of her generation who was allowed an education, because of which she values it a lot more than my own generation. I hope this will show everyone how lucky they are to be educated. ________________________________________
Part One: As usual, I woke up unnaturally early, a couple of hours before the sun rose. Tiptoeing around my sleeping relatives, I quickly grabbed some clothes before running towards the pond nearby for a quick bath. Finishing the bath in record time (exactly 8 minutes) I got dressed and rushed back home, quickly finishing the rest of my chores before hurrying back out to begin the 8 kilometre trek to school. All before the rest of the family woke up.
I smiled sadly to myself, wondering, for the umpteenth time, if all this would be necessary if my relatives were not so against the idea of an educated woman. Why do I need to go to school feeling like a criminal? Just because I want to be educated?
Part Two: I watch in wonder, as my granddaughter throws yet another tantrum while my poor daughter tries to coax her out of bed to get ready in time for school. She’s complaining this much…. because of school? Does she not realise how lucky she is? Her parents actually support her education! Her grandparents like hearing about her school and her friends there! She never has to hear snide remarks about how she’s neglecting her duty as a woman by moving out of the kitchen! Does she really not understand how privileged she is?
-
kirtanamenon liked this · 3 years ago -
justanotherwordsmith-blog liked this · 9 years ago -
radha2504 liked this · 9 years ago -
causeihavenoimagination-blog liked this · 10 years ago -
kirtanamenon reblogged this · 11 years ago
