Has anyone heard of Windsor Manor?

Posted on February 21, 2015 by Sunil Rajguru

I went to Windsor Manor (now ITC Windsor) after years.

Most of the autowallahs looked at me as if I was talking about a foreign country.

Old Airport Road? JP Nagar? They queried. I think only the 10th or 12th autowallah had heard of it.

Sigh!

When I came to Bangalore in 1988, there were only 3-4 5-stars including Windsor Manor which was a landmark and every autowallah knew it very well.

Windsor Manor was also the famous setting for Kamal Haasan’s Pushpaka Vimana film in 1987 (The Windsor Manor bridge scene with the dead beggar is iconic) and was once the hub of the high and mighty.

New Bangalore has slowly been crushing Old Bangalore out of existence and at least people like me have been denying it for years.

When’s the last time you did something for the first time?

Posted on June 3, 2014 by Sunil Rajguru

I am not at all a great traveller and I was always dragged to trips first by my parents and then by my wife. So it is but natural that when I visited Sri Lanka for the first time, I would experience a truckload of firsts.

Listing some of them…

Saw a complete rainbow…

As rain was playing hide and seek with us throughout the trip, I noticed a complete rainbow on the horizon of the ocean standing on a boat. I realized that all the rainbows I had seen in my life were partial and faint! Maybe that’s why “A pot of gold at the end of the rainbow” was phrased. The other end isn’t usually seen by an observer.
This one was simply breathtaking and was a perfect semi-circle. It was so strong that it looked as if giant hands had painted it on to the sky. As they say, there’s a first time for everything even if you’re on the wrong side of 40!

Saw a double rainbow…

Within a very short time of the above incident, I saw a double rainbow and didn’t even know such a concept existed! This happens due to light reflecting twice inside the water droplets and the order of the colours is reversed in the second rainbow.
Such things makes one realize how cut off from nature we actually are. I also saw the night sky rich with stars after ages. In the olden times, mankind used to sleep under the black velvety sky and look up in wonder and awe. Sleep must have been sound and full of great dreams.
Today we know all about the Big Bang, the history of the universe, the composition of stars and can see tremendously faraway star images on our computer screens via the Hubble Telescope but we fail to notice the beautiful night sky right above our heads every night thanks to light pollution!

Saw a pet porcupine being taken for a walk…

We saw an old woman walking with two leashes and noticed that they ended in two porcupines! There was a full-grown one and a baby one and both of them were being taken by this lady much like you would walk pet dogs.
I am not good at reading animal expressions but the porcupines actually seemed smug and happy!

Saw an iguana crossing the road…

I didn’t know Sri Lanka had iguanas! Saw one crossing the road ever so slowly. It was a fun sight to watch and looked ever so grand. The traffic in this country is disciplined and follows the speed limit and I didn’t see a single road kill on my trip in Sri Lanka, something quite common on Indian highways.
There were iguanas even in the hotel premises and they look kinda cute. I can understand why they are popular pets in America.

Went whale watching…

The rainbow incident happened when we went whale watching, another first for me. While the whales we went to watch here were much smaller than those I had seen on TV, it was a good experience all the same.
They kept surfacing in bits and people kept running all over the boat to catch a glimpse. In the end we saw two whales together and the boat guide smiled and said, “Now that’s a couple: One girl and one guy!”

Was woken up by monkeys dancing on the roof…

While sleeping in a resort at the centre of a wildlife park, we were woken up quite early in the morning with monkeys jumping on the roof. It wasn’t a one-off event and the noise continued for quite some time. It was almost as if they were disco dancing on top.
Outside the window one could see both monkeys and wild boars. A resort employee told us that we were unlucky for a few days back one visitor saw a leopard staring at him through the window early in the morning!

Saw flying fish fly…

I’ve heard a lot about them and seen them on TV, but nothing beats the experience of seeing a fish defy the laws of gravity for what seems like an indefinite period.

Swam in a lagoon beach…

I’ve been to many beaches but never a lagoon beach. That’s when a rocky barrier cuts off a body of water from the main beach and you are saved from the aggressive waves which scare many people from going deeper into a beach.
It’s quite a different experience where the waters are much deeper and much calmer. The waves come and go quite gently. While all the children were initially quite disappointed, they soon got the hang of it and didn’t want to leave.
My wife also managed to go neck deep in sea water for the first time in her life.

Used a moving walkway…

OK, this is pretty minor, but it happened all the same. While escalators have become ubiquitous part of city life, moving walkways not so much in India.

Drank from a water fountain…

Another minor thing, but a first for me: Both the moving walkways and water fountains were in the new terminal of Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport.

Used a Jacuzzi…

I have been to many resorts with Jacuzzis, but this was the first time there was one in our room. We were pleasantly surprised to be upgraded to get a room the size of our flat and the bathroom the size of our living room.
This was the first time we had a personal Jacuzzi and it was a great experience.

Went on a (sort of) road trip…

As I said that I’m a very unadventurous fellow I’ve never been on a proper road trip. Sri Lanka is a small country and many of the packages consist of a vehicle at your disposal and a different hotel booked every night in a different city.
One day we were at a historic town. The next day at a wildlife resort. Another day at a hill station. Yet another at the beach. It was a totally different 8-day vacation for me.

Fed an elephant…

Fruit baskets were for sale which could be fed directly to elephants, so my son and I made the most of it. It was the first time I put food directly into the mouth of a big elephant and held its trunk.

Saw a baby elephant being bottle-fed…

We were told that there was a very unique daily event of baby elephants being fed from a large bottle of milk. Sure enough there were many baby elephants in a circle tied in chains. While most were trying to break free, one kept pulling and screaming.
It didn’t let up and kept pulling and screaming. It pulled so hard that it finally fell down and it started bawling loudly. It would have been a cute sight had it not been for the chains.
I couldn’t take it and went off. That’s another thing about the human race. Our cruelty to animals is so inbuilt and natural that you don’t even notice it anymore. I’m sure all those mahouts take great care of their elephants and love them, but still…

Visited Sri Lanka…

Of course all this happened on my first visit to Sri Lanka a beautiful country that I fell in love with. If India suddenly became cleaner, more disciplined and less populated, it would become Sri Lanka. People talk of India matching up to Europe and America.
I think we are way behind even Sri Lanka which is in the process of rebuilding itself after the extremely long civil war.

Mistaken by my wife for…

In a large shop my wife was looking totally lost and I went and stood next to her. She looked at me and asked, “What material is this… How much… Where does it…”
Then she looked at me blankly and said, “Sorry I thought you were the salesman!”
She later attributed it to a new T-shirt I was wearing (a gift from her no less!).
This after I had been separated from her for just two minutes and married to her for 15 years!
The first time I was mistaken by my own wife for a salesman!

With that trivial first, I end this pretender of a travelogue…

The day Indira Gandhi died…

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Sunil Rajguru

“Where were you when… such and such a thing happened?” is such a cliché.

But you still want to task that question.

Today is October 31, the day Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated.

I was a school student when it happened in 1984, and certain things still stick to this very day…

AIR revives Indira: In the ghastly act, her guards pumped 30 bullets into her body at about 9.30 in the morning. She was officially declared dead by the doctors an hour later. But since President Zail Singh was out of the country, the government didn’t declare the news before evening time.

Doordarshan kept saying that she was “serious” all day. One All India Radio broadcast in the afternoon even said something to the effect of: According to unconfirmed sources, she may have regained consciousness!

Such a media blackout is unthinkable in today’s Twitter Age where everything breaks instantaneously and universally. Of course everyone knew the truth in India through word of mouth, but there were still many who thought she would survive till the official confirmation finally came.

The Kid on the Bike: The moment we got the news, one of my school seniors and neighbours screamed “Indira is dead: Now Vajpayee will be Prime Minister!” After that he cycled all day in the neighbourhood shouting “Vajpayee for Prime Minister.”

To me it seemed quite bizarre considering the fact that I had heard Vajpayee’s name for the first time in my life. But his words became prophetic as Atal Bihari Vajpayee did indeed become PM after 12 years.

The Fateful Speech: “Mere khoon ka ek ek katra is desh ke liye kaam aayega,” (Every drop of my blood will serve the nation) is a popular statement she made in a political rally days before she died.

This was the talking point for everyone for months on end after Indira’s death.

But when I entered journalism, some seniors told me that she never made such a statement.

It was a figment of the Congress’ imagination and part of their propaganda!

Seven Years Later: In 1991 Indira’s son, former PM Rajiv Gandhi, was also assassinated. But this time it was after 10 in the night when half of India was either asleep or blissfully unaware of the tragic news.

I fell into the latter category. I took my morning walk and when I returned home I saw (what was to me at least) the most shocking “Breaking News” ever.

“Rajiv Assassinated” was above the Times of India masthead.

My late sister’s journalism teacher had told her that such an event was a rarity and happened very few times in a newspaper’s lifetime.

Of course, now the times have really changed.

Today if you are a rich industrialist with a few crores to spare, then you may be able to announce your son’s birthday above the Times of India masthead, with the way it’s going!

Does anyone use Sloan’s Balm?

Posted on May 11, 2010 by Sunil Rajguru

When I was small, I had a sprain that wouldn’t heal. My relative told me that there was a balm that was extremely painful and extremely effective and he’d recommend it to me if I was up to it. It was a brutal “one-day” solution. I didn’t know what he meant but I said yes all the same. He handed me a yellowish-orange extremely smelly balm and told me to use it sparingly or else face the consequences. I put in on and rubbed it and wondered what the fuss was all about. Then I felt a mild burning sensation. It steadily got hotter and hotter and my relative was looking at me amusingly from the corner of the eye.

Then suddenly my hand caught fire! (Or at least it felt that way) I could hardly bear the pain and I didn’t know how to describe it. It was as if a dozen hot needles had been poked in my hand or simply someone had poured kerosene on it and set it on fire. The hand got hotter and hotter and I simply felt I would faint! My relative calmly told me to hold on. It would eventually go away. Eventually meant a few hours and in that time, nothing else mattered. No house. No relative. No work. No thoughts. It was me and my burning hand. By evening, the burning started receding, just like a fire that had been put out with embers steadily cooling. I felt a tingling even as I slept.

When I got up in the morning, I was totally OK. And despite the pain, I was converted for life. As my relative said, “Use other balms 10 times, use this one only once.” But I can see why it’s unpopular. It smells. It leaves stains on your clothes. And of course, it burns like hell. My wife can’t stand the sight of the bottle and says that I’ve used it so many times, that my body is probably immune. When I have multiple body aches, she calls it a Sloan’s Bath. Though my wife did inform me that her grandmother uses something more potent and rare called Sloan’s Liniment. I was mighty impressed.

I have recommended it to people with adverse reactions. Once when my late sister was limping for days, I gave her a bottle. The next day morning I got a firing.

My leg burnt. I couldn’t sleep all night. I got out of bed at 2am. I put my leg in running cold water. I kept it in a bucket for one hour…

When she finished pacing up and down with her tirade, I pointed to her leg. She was no longer limping. She was cured. “But the pain wasn’t worth it,” she said and stormed off.

Once I gave it to my flat-mate and watched in horror as he took a huge amount and started massaging his leg with it. I warned him of the consequences but he wouldn’t listen. He said something to the effect of “Mard ka bachcha” (Loosely translated to mean “son of a macho man”). My friends and I watched as he sat sure that nothing would happen. Then the tingling started and the pain multiplied. My friend got up started pacing around. He was putting a brave face and having difficulty in controlling his pain. Then he let out a scream and started heaping choicest abuses on Mr Sloan and his extended family.

As all of us watched the comic scene, he suddenly picked up the bottle and threw it out of the window with all his might. I ran to the window fearfully, for it faced the main road. If it hit a passing motorist then broken glass and Sloan’s would combine to unleash such pain, that the motorist would surely file a case of attempted murder. Luckily, it had fallen safely into the ground. I could only hope no man or animal would poke its nose into it. I realized that I couldn’t recommend it again to anyone.

It is also a tough task shopping for it. If I go to 10 medical shops, then 5 shopkeepers are sure to look at me as if I’m speaking some foreign language. When I finally do get a bottle, the shopkeeper opens his notebook and scribbles. (Customer came and bought the entire stock (1 bottle) of Sloan’s Balm) I’m serious, when I ask for a second bottle, I don’t get it.

I read somewhere that Sloan’s has capsaicin, which is an essential component of chili pepper. That explains it. If you eat chili pepper, you’ll feel as if your throat is on fire. If you use a balm which has a chili pepper component, you’ll feel as if your body part is on fire…

Hello, is there anybody out there… anybody using Sloan’s Balm?

More importantly, does anybody want to use Sloan’s?

Post Script (On November 16, 2020)…

I posted this piece more than 10 years ago and it is my most viewed and commented upon one by far. I am surprised at how that happenened and the comments still come in. In fact in the first few years, whenever you would Google Search “Sloan’s Balm”, this would be the very first entry! Since then it has been sliding steadily downward. It appears that there is a small but dedicated group of Sloan’s Balm users in this world. Meanwhile they finally changed the design and the logo of the bottles and I also finally managed to lay my hands on Sloan’s Liniment! So now I have options for both the balm and liniment to take care of my various aches and pains as I grow older. Despite its relative obscurity it appears that it is still alive and kicking well into the 2020s!

10 programmes I once loved on Doordarshan…

Posted on October 9, 2009 by Sunil Rajguru

There was a time when Indian TV had only Doordarshan. Colour TV was difficult to imagine. A remote was an unheard of concept. And multiple channels? Ha ha ha!

Strange but true: This government owned unprofessionally run non-24-hour TV channel was all we ever wanted. For us, Doordarshan (or DD) was Santa Claus who had at least one gift for every person in the family. DD probably peaked in the eighties and after that satellite TV took over. Last month, DD completed 50 years.

Here’s looking at 10 of my favourite programmes in no particular order…

Weekend Movies: Our home box office
The high point of every week was the Sunday Hindi movie. No matter what they showed, you still looked forward to it. Blockbuster or flop, millions would sit glued to it week after week right till the very end. I never missed the weekly regional movie too. It was a glorious peek into the culture of every state and national integration at it best.

The World This Week: The ultimate news capsule
When this was first aired, we were all blown away. Nobody thought news could be so slick and sexy. Prannoy Roy became a superstar overnight. If you missed this, then you felt as if you had missed the entire news of the week. But if that was cream, then the 24/7 news channels of India today are definitely highly diluted and adulterated milk.

Buniyaad: Saas Bahu ka baap
There was a time when Master Haveliram and Lajoji were the most watched admired couple in India. This epic, from the maker of Sholay, spanned decades and we didn’t feel like missing a single episode. The first serial for me that probably became a habit. (I always found India’s first soap Hum Log a tad slow)

Bharat Ek Khoj: India’s history channel
Even if you didn’t like Nehru, you couldn’t dislike Bharat Ek Khoj, based on the book The Discovery of India. This serial, which lasted roughly a year, took you through India from the Vedic period to Independence without sounding like a history lesson.

Karamchand: Desi Sherlock Holmes
We heard at that time that Pankaj Kapoor became the highest paid TV actor with this serial and he deserved every Rupee. Just like Hardy’s “Here’s another fine mess you’ve got me into”, the eccentric Karamchand’s “Shut up Kitty” became a national rage.

Byomkesh Bakshi: Classy and gripping
I had never heard of Byomkesh Bakshi or Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay in my whole life but when I saw this Bengali detective serial, my first thoughts were, “It’s right up there with Sherlock Holmes.” Sterling performances by Rajit Kapur and KK Raina.

Quiz Time: The battle of the brains
For me Siddhartha Basu’s university quiz is still the gold standard for quizzing in India and he’s still the ultimate quizmaster. The suspense and drama beat KBC, Dus Ka Dum and Bournvita Quiz Contest all put together.

Mr Yogi: The original What’s your Raashee?
By 1989 standards, this was quite an exotic concept and Mohan Gokhale seemed like an exotic actor too. This was a fresh serial and Om Puri as the sutradhar excelled. Our bumbling NRI and his 12 heroines enthralled us.

Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi: The original laugh riot
Shafi Inamdar, Swaroop Sampat, Rakesh Bedi and Satish Shah were the perfect cast. The script was perfect. The comedy was perfect. Indian TV is yet to better this serial. We looked forward to what avatar Satish Shah would come up with in every episode.

Chanakya: Vedic magic
While we had heard so much about Chanakya and his Arthashastra, to see it come out on the small screen was really different thing altogether. The atmosphere transported us straight back to the Vedic era. Dr Chandraprakash Dwivedi was Chanakya incarnate.

…and 4 “imported” ones…

Secrets of the Sea: The precursor to National Geographic
Jacques-Yves Cousteau has no idea how many millions of Indians he introduced to the wonderful world of televised nature. In an era starved of good educational and enlightening multimedia this was an hour of pure bliss.

Oshin: The most famous Japanese girl of that era
The dedication and toil of this 7-year-old girl bowled all of us over. We cried with her and rejoiced with her. We grew up with her.

Jungle Book: Chaddi pahan ke phool khila hain…
The cartoon was good, the story was good, Nana Patekar’s voice as Shere Khan was good… but the only thing that sticks is the title song penned by Gulzar.

Talespin & Duck Tales: High octane adventures
Kids of today who have 24 hours access to multiple cartoon channels will never understand the weekly anticipation for these two serials. Disney’s wonders travelled all over the world in these adventures… and we travelled with them.

And to think all that on a Black & White TV!

How to play cricket with a hockey stick and some old socks

Posted on July 17, 2009 by Sunil Rajguru

Take a few old socks. Roll the first one into a ball. Take another and wrap it onto it carefully so that the shape is maintained. When it reaches the correct size, stitch the final socks neatly so that you are left with a very strong and sturdy ball…

But I am getting a bit ahead of myself. Why would you want to convert old socks into a ball anyway? Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. There was no shortage of necessities and no shortage of inventions at Sainik School Satara, for the hundreds of boys away from home. One was the necessity to play cricket. Footballs, football grounds and football sessions were abundant. After football, basketball and hockey ruled. Swimming and horse riding were regular affairs too. The only problem was cricket. There were simply not enough balls, not enough bats and definitely not enough sessions in our packed hostel routine.

But we wanted to play cricket. So one genius had a brainwave. What was the one thing that every hosteller had? A hockey stick! What was there no shortage of? Old socks! And what could we find in every study room? Chairs. So the game of hockret (hockey+cricket) was invented (most people pronounced it as hockrate, but I think I’ll stick to hockret). (I think the game could also be called sockret. In that case, the inventor would be Sockretis)

The game is played thus: The back of a chair serves as a wicket. The freely available hockey stick replaces the rare cricket bat. And our good old hockret ball (as mentioned in the introduction to this article) replaces the cricket ball. All the other rules are more or less the same. Now there are many advantages of the hockret ball. What happens when it hits a window? Voila! It magically bounces off! What happens when it hits someone? It pains for maybe not more than 30 seconds. What happens when the ball gets lost? No need to buy a new one. You just pool in your stock of old socks and sit together and stitch up a new one. Luckily, enough of us could handle a needle and a thread to make sure that hockret balls were never in short supply. They were better, cheaper and safer than even tennis balls. So we could set up a game of hockret anywhere: On the road, in a small alley, in a ground or even on the boxing ring.

Hockret also came with its own set of innovations. One of them was to counter the contentious LBW rule. Nobody ever wanted to be an umpire and if anyone ever became one, he was just short of having his head knocked off by a dissenting hockeystickman. What were we to do? Even TV replays and Hawkeye together have eluded consensus among commentators, so what hope was there for us always fighting mere boys? Someone came out with the bright idea of the Rule of Three. “Let the ball hit the leg two times and all is forgiven. The third time it will be out.” It doesn’t matter if the ball would have hit the stumps or not. Three chances is all a batsman got. Not only was this proposal accepted, it was a roaring success. It also gave you the freedom to kick the ball out of harm’s way if the hockret ball was heading towards the stumps.

Hockret allowed you the freedom to chuck. That way, it was more like baseball, since the hockey stick is also pretty thin, like a baseball bat. It let someone like me, who was a failure at playing the “propah” game of cricket, a chance to finally get a few wickets and hit a few boundaries. I still can feel the grip of a hockey stick and the pleasure of clobbering a soft ball.

Over time, we found that NCC stockings also led to tougher and heavier balls and the dynamics were also different. (Just like Kookaburra versus Dukes balls!) If the ball fell in water, it became all the more unpredictable. Not only was it heavier, it would hit really hard if it came on to you and splash water all around. So hockret’s only disadvantage was that we couldn’t play it when it rained. Mud made it totally unplayable and that’s something that couldn’t be simply wiped off like a leather ball. Football still ruled the monsoon season.

What really made things addictive, was indoor hockret. We had dormitories with 13 beds on each side, so they had pretty long corridors. People started playing in the dorms and that could be done at any time of the day and night (Of course one had to be evading authorities all the time). At times they lasted all day. I think one batsman even claimed to have made a thousand runs in a day! Brian Lara, eat your heart out. Some of us would even play this during our study holidays before the exams. I think it did lead to some of us getting fewer marks than we ought to have.

The hockret we played showed no resemblance to Test cricket or even the one-day variety. The bowler would try to get a wicket with every ball or at least stop the ball from being clobbered. The batsman would try to hit every ball for a 4 of a 6. In fact I think the current T20 is the game closest to our good ole hockret. That’s T20 cricket + baseball + hockey. No wonder it was so irresistible!

I wonder if they still play hockret at our old school or has it become extinct by now.

Sunil Rajguru's World

A little bit of everything under the sun.

Category Archives: Nostalgia