Short ‘N’ Snappy

-MMM

Expiating for an eclipse

And so the moon went into eclipse recently. And what a drama people made out of it. The Man from Madras Musings is no atheist (in fact, he is more of a theist than anything else) but he did find the goings-on stretching the very limits of credulity.

Mind you, this is not the first lunar eclipse that MMM is witnessing. When he was young, MMM has seen people offering prayers at temples during eclipses as the time was considered particularly holy and it was all done with a certain grace. Not so any longer. Loudspeakers were pressed into service, temples offered darshan at special rates, and many of the faithful took the opportunity to avail of half-a-day’s leave from office. No matter that the moon went into eclipse only after the sun had set. These people wanted time off to prepare themselves for the holy period. It was on the tip of MMM’s tongue to ask some of them if they were going to battle Rahu so that he did not swallow the moon, but he, MMM, opted to keep quiet. These are orange times and you never know when some fringe element sees red.

Many of the photographing variety went to the beach and other open spaces to take pictures of this celestial event. But these numbers were matched by several others who preferred to stay indoors in order to protect themselves from the harmful effects of the eclipse. MMM who had always assumed that this was a tradition among pregnant Indian women was surprised that a number of men decided to lock themselves in as well. This fear psychosis was well fed by numerous godmen going on and on in the media about how millions of microbes fall dead on us at this time and if such a disaster happened to them what about us humans? There was one guru, whose facial hair begins where his tresses stop, who spoke at length on this.

But all of this was nothing compared to the popular TV channel that is named after the other celestial body that goes into eclipse once in several years. Though at one time professing rational ideals, this media house has long come to realise where the money is – namely pandering to blind beliefs. So they had an interview with an astrologer who held forth at length on the powers of the planets. One question posed was as to why only the sun and the moon have eclipses. The answer was that these were the only two that had light of their own. And then, while MMM was still digesting this pre-Galilean theory on the skies, the camera cut to a village outside Trichy where apparently each time there is an eclipse, an iron pestle stands erect and remains so until the sun/moon is ejected by Rahu, or maybe Ketu, or may be both. It is a wonder that manufacturers of performance-enhancing drugs have not yet adopted this place. The anchor-person interviewed several of the villagers about this and they all vouched for such a happening. MMM was busy scoffing when someone sent him a longish tract on WhatsApp, which explained in so-called scientific terms why this happened.

The question is, are eclipses capable of such havoc only in India or is it the same in other countries of the world? Did the Queen of England’s granddaughter-in-law for instance, who with amazing regularity gets into the ‘family way’ as they call it here, lock herself in?

Now, Chief, let us sit back and await those letters that will come in asking us if MMM would have dared criticise minority community practices. To that MMM has only one answer – he is not from a minority community and so does not know enough about them to criticise them. Time the majority learnt to laugh at itself anyway.

VI’P’

Every once in a while, VIPs turn up in this, our Chennai, from other parts of the country and the world. If they have some spare time, The Man from Madras Musings is asked to meet up with them and throw some light on our city’s history and heritage, both of which, as we all know can do with all the illumination they can get, given the way we keep them under wraps. And so it was recently. MMM met up with one such VIP for a tour of a particular building. MMM, VIP and entourage were following a pre-determined route, when VIP made a detour. The followers decided to follow, whereupon VIP indicated that he was en route to the restroom aka toilet. That made MMM remember an anecdote once related to him by a top policewoman of our city.

This was when the same lady was a junior in the service and was heading the police force in a small town in our State. It was not a place to which many VIPs came except when there were elections afoot. And so it happened that one of the most charismatic of leaders arrived in the town while on the campaign trail. The itinerary involved him addressing a mammoth meeting and then leading a procession, also mammoth, through the town. The meeting went off well and then it was time for the procession to begin.

Policewoman-in-charge kept track of the progress from a control room and for quite a while everything went as per schedule. All of a sudden, at a particular junction, the leader went off on a tangent, followed by the entire procession. Top cop was furious and anxious as well and began asking on the walkie-talkie (this being the pre-cellphone era) as to what was going on. The policeman at the other end, who had till then kept up a steady stream of communication, suddenly became highly reticent. He hummed and hawed. This provoked top cop even more and she had to firmly ask the man as to what was going on.

It was then that he came out with the whole story. Leader had done rather well for himself with the soda water they had supplied at the meeting and this had had its effect. He had begun asking for a toilet early on in the procession and his requests had become more and more pressing as time went along. Left with no option, the policemen on duty had decided to take him on a side route to a hotel but there was no way this could be communicated to the crowd. And so they had all followed him!

However, even as the cop related this to the lady at the other end, many of the hangers-on picked up the story and passed it on to the rest of the surging crowd. The leader’s call of nature became public information. As if on cue, several of the faithful promptly relieved themselves on the compound wall of the hotel and other places nearby.

MMM and his VIP had a more humdrum walkabout in comparison.

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