I Don't Know

My daughtet in law went out on an errand this morning.  She was stopped by

traffic police on the way. 

Police : Madamme, where is your helmet ?

DIL : I don’t know.  ( She had no idea if she left it in our house, clinic

or in the flat) 

Police : OK. whose scooter is this ? 

DIL : I don’t know.  ( She had no idea if the scooter was registered in my

name or Ashwin) 

Police : OK Where are you going ? 

DIL : I don’t know.  ( She had no idea about the name of the office or the

area it was located. Ashwin gave the location on google and she was

heading towards the pin.)

Police : OK where did you come from ?

DIL : I don’t know. (The place where I stay is recognised by different

names by different agencies. Panchayat calls it  ‘Curti’ , the name of the

village. The electricity dept calls it ‘Mestawada’, the place where our

feeder transformer is located. The gas people call it ‘J C Nagar’, our

house is on their JC Nagar route. Aishwarya doesn’t know any of these.)

The police officer did not know what to do. He had to deal with a terribly

frightened, (Getting caught by traffic police is one of her nightmares)

sweating and helpless looking lady who did not know anything ! 

By then his sight fell on a large envelope which was in the glove

compartment. 

Police : (pointing to the envelope) What is that ? 

DIL : Parcel .

Police : (Thanking his stars and offering a silent prayer for being able to

elicit an andwer)  Where are you taking it ? 

DIL : To the courier office.

Police : Let me see. (Taking a look at the to and from address) Who is

Ashwin Mysore ? 

DIL : My husband. 

Police : (Pointing to the ‘from’ address) Is this your address ? 

DIL : Yes. 

Police, now fully relieved, noted her name, our address and issued

a challan for Rs 100. 

I got a message on my mobile immediately  but had to wait till she

returned for the whole story. 

It was worth the wait !  

Dr Stanley John

This is a gentleman whom I have never seen. He had been out of my mind

for the last few decades and I had forgotten about his existence till my

sister sent me this picture today morning. 

But I did hear a lot about him long back. Half a century ago. Dr Stanley John

was probably one of the very few in the country, who were conducting open

heart surgeries. At CMC Vellore. In fact I heard the name CMC Vellore only

when one of my cousins was taken there for surgery, to treat a heart condition. 

An open heart surgery was something people had difficulty in believing to be

possible. Like landing on the moon ! I remember that my cousin was

accompanied by his father and four of his uncles. My father was one of them.

I understand that a high level delegation was necessary to see the place,

meet the doctors and decide whether to go for the surgery or not. It seems

the group of doctors talked to them with a lot of patience, explained the

procedure in detail and a thumbs up was given for the surgery. Dr John

must have been the leader of the group. 

But I did not hear about Dr Stanley John, then. On hearing about the success

of the surgery, our neighbour decided to take his daughter to Vellore, to

consider a surgical option to treat Fallot’s Tetrology. He was a Freelance

journalist and an accomplished photographer. 

He was extremely impressed with the personality of Dr Stanley John, and I

heard a lot about Dr Stanley from my neighbour. After the surgery of his

daughter, he visited CMC many times to photograph the OT and the 

equipment and also to interview the doctors. This resulted in a detailed

pictorial which was published in the prestigious Illustrated Weekly Of India. 

The obituary of Dr Stanley John brought out all these memories. I hope he

lived a full life, died peacefully and rests in peace.

Camping At Farmagudi

The two of us, myself and my friend Triambak, camped on the outskirts

of Ponda in an open area last night. We pitched our tent, ate our dinner,

sat for sometime looking at the sky and the procession of airplanes on

their landing path and then tried to sleep. It was strange. I was feeling

sleepy but couldn’t sleep. The tent was comfortable, weather pleasant

but sleep evaded me. I kept counting the airplanes passing over the

tent and might have slept fitfully for an hour or two. 

Morning was great, we walked around the area, took some pictures,

drank the left over hot water ( used for making soup the previous night)

and returned. We plan to use the tent more often and hope we get to do it ! 

Some pictures, here.

Our tent at night with the 'magic light' on top 

My friend, inside the tent

Wild flowers/ inflorescence or whatever, growing close to our tent

A withered old tree and a green young one - somehow the scene appealed to me. 

Few pictures of the early morning sun

Add caption

Yours truely,

Cattle and Cattle egret

Our tent and its surroundings

Morning sun as seen from within