Short N Snappy

Musical chairs on a train

”Ah!” The Man from Madras Musings! Glad to have met you!” said a voice and after that effusive greeting there was no way MMM could have lurked behind a news­paper and pretend that someone else was addressed. The person accosting MMM this way was a lady on board the Shatabdi Express bound for Bangalore from our very own Chennai. It was early in the morning and MMM was not at his best and brightest. Moreover, there was a considerable amount of work he hoped to get done on the train journey.

“I read everything you write,” said the lady, laying it on rather thick. She then proceeded to introduce me to her husband who smiled and said little. MMM reflected that he got that way as his partner in life did all the talking. By then, other passengers were lining up behind and MMM proceeded to his seat only to find that the talkative lady was back. She had a request, she said, and even before she made it, MMM knew what it was. After years of travelling on trains, MMM has a sixth sense of sorts about such entreaties – they invariably have to do with change of seats, berths or, at times, even compartments. And so when the lady said she and her husband were separated by the railways and their travelling together depended entirely on MMM taking a ­certain seat that was at the end of the coach, MMM agreed. He walked across only to find that a rather burly man already occupied the place.

Conceive MMM’s surprise when the man got up with some embarrassment and said that he was sorry he was seated at MMM’s allotted place but there was this lady who wanted to travel with her husband and had requested him to switch places and she had put him there. There was no prize for guessing who this was. And so it was now MMM and the other man who made it back to her. She was in the least perturbed. Oh, had she directed both MMM and the other man to the same seat? Not to worry. There were two other empty seats in the corner and so could MMM take one of them? After all the train had now begun to move (haha!) and since there were no stops en route to Bangalore, there was no way someone else would come to claim the seat. And so MMM moved there while the other gent went on to where he has been asced to sit in.

In his college days, MMM had frequently puzzled over some Operation Research questions where a certain number of trucks had to move a certain number of parcels (and here was the catch – the number of trucks was always lower than the number of parcels) to a certain number of towns within a certain number of hours, none of which made sense to MMM. And with all that he was asked to work out the shortest route or some such thing. He was reminded of those terribly traumatic questions when, shortly thereafter, two men returned from a smoke to claim the two seats in one of which MMM had been seated by the lady. They had been seated elsewhere they said, till this lady… and so it was back again. Once again she had MMM moved to another seat all the while explaining her modus operandi – it appeared on arrival that she knew that unless six people were moved her husband would not be seated next to her and so she had set about it. Finding MMM she said was a bit of luck.

MMM finally got a seat that remained his for the rest of the journey. He however could not help wondering as to how the Ticket Examiner would manage when he came along. That official, who was probably used to much worse, just breezed through the whole exercise and all was peace thereafter. MMM got to work but only for a short while. The lady was back. She asked MMM’s neighbour if he would mind moving over to where she sat. She had always wanted to talk to MMM she said and now was the best time as he, MMM was unlikely to be disturbed in any way. Her husband she said slept through most train journeys and so it did not matter where she sat.

Whodunit?

The Man from Madras Musings notices that elections are yet to grip the public imagination in this our land. His residence, as several regulars of this column will know, is more or less a reliable barometer, for most political meetings are held just around the corner from chez MMM. But this time the silence is deafening. Not that MMM is complaining, mind you. There was one meeting though, held by a motley collection of parties that have been abandoned by the big two. This had nine people on stage and three off it, these latter being, MMM suspects, the men who arranged the sound system, the chairs and the refreshments respectively. The principal speaker said that if his group (MMM cannot refer to this entity as single party) was elected, the first thing they would do was the cleaning up of the three foul rivers in our city. MMM guesses that when you are not likely to be elected, you can promise the moon and get away with it.

The Election Commission, which as you all know, frowns strongly on the pasting of posters by political parties on private walls, has decided to go the poster route. It has ‘pasted the town’ purple with posters of that colour, all extolling you to go and caste (oops that Freudian slip was unintended) your vote. MMM wonders if there is some double standard in this – how do you prevent people from pasting posters when you do the same? ‘Why beholdest thou the mote that is thy brother’s eye when thou considerest not the beam in thine own eye’ about sums it up.

These days, MMM gets very confused by the number of political outfits in our state, for they all have similar names with a liberal numbers of Ms and Ks in them. So in order to distinguish between them, he has arrived at a formula that he now happily shares with you. It may be of use when you walk into the polling booth. Will You Do It thunders the leader of one party at the end of every speech and the audience responds with a resounding ‘Yes’. So this is the Will You Do It Party. The principal opposition requests the people not to do it and so they are the Don’t Do It Party. A pater who is a doctor and has a matching son has accused some other party of stealing his manifesto and so his outfit becomes the Who Did It Party. There is one national party that depends on its one great leader to come down and garner votes and so it can be called the He Will Do It Party. The other national party now rapidly becoming notional is as divided as the fingers on a hand and each faction is out to pull down the other. So this is the We Did It Party. The motley group referred to in the first place can be classified as the We Hope to Do It party.

Whatever happens, very few of these parties and candidates promise to do anything for our State. That is if you are not in the market for cows, buffaloes, goats, mixers, grinders, laptops and, now, smart phones as well.

Tailpiece

Summer is here and practi-gent everyone is complaining about the heat or the ­humidity. The Man from ­Madras Musings could not help noticing that one of the newspapers of the city, and one that appears to cater to the less gifted, had a full page on how celebrities manage summer. MMM learnt several new things – drink water, said one, keep cool, said another, imbibe coconut water, said a third. A fourth said a positive attitude helps. Makes these people practically human,  does it not?

-MMM

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