A TIME TO LIVE AND A TIME TO DIE

(Fateful trips)



During the last days of World War II, an army doctor serving abroad, happened to come to our town to visit some relatives. And there he met a local beauty called Regina, and fell in love with her instantly. The relatives arranged a quick marriage. Captain Selvaraj and his bride went on a brief honeymoon. And then came the sad parting, for the captain had to report for duty.

Out of the Plane


The young couple wrote to each other regularly. There was no phone facility those days. And Regina waited eagerly for the captain's letters, standing at the gate till the postman came. This became the subject for some good-natured joking among the locals.

And then the great day arrived that Regina and Selvaraj had been waiting for. The war came to an end. Capt. Selvaraj cleared all the formalities of discharge, and then rushed eagerly to a plane in which he had been assigned a place.

He took his seat and beamed at everyone around for he could hardly contain his excitement. The plane moved to the runway, and was about to take off. Suddenly there was a communication from the control tower, and the plane came back to the boarding area.

A top-ranking official had to make an urgent trip on this plane, and so one person had to give up his place to the big shot. No one volunteered to do so. Therefore the lowest ranking person was asked to leave the plane. Selvaraj was the only captain on the plane, all the others being majors and above. So he was asked to get off the plane in the midst of his protests and pleadings, which fell on deaf ears. In the army, rank counted for everything. So he got off and trudged to the gate with tears in his eyes.

Meanwhile the plane took off. And it crashed immediately after. All on board were killed. Selvaraj had been spared to go home for a joyous reunion with his wife.

Onto the Train


There was another incident in 1954 when I was working in Hyderabad. The proprietor of a well known cinema theatre was very keen on booking a certain film for his theatre after hearing very good reports about it. The film, `Bahut Din Huwe', was made by Gemini Studios of Madras. The theatre owner decided to go to Madras and make a bid for it.

He made the necessary arrangements for his assistants to run the theatre in his absence, and then rushed to the station only to find the train pulling out before he could reach it. Undaunted, he arranged for a taxi to take him to the next station. After a mad ride, he was able to reach the neighbouring station just as the train had started moving. As he had entered the platform from the side towards which the train was moving, he leaped into the first carriage which was just passing him.

A few hours later the first three or four carriages plunged into a stream that was in spate as the bridge over the stream collapsed. The theatre owner's body was found several miles away where it had been carried by the flooded stream. Another man who tried to get into the front carriage was denied entry by the passengers, and went to the last carriage. He survived the accident, and was able to save many from death.

The next morning when people went to the accident spot, they found the great flood that had brought death to so many, was now just a trickle of water. Call it fate or chance, or whatever else you wish, but there seems to be some force beyond our ken directing the symphony of life and death - the force that pushed the captain out of the plane and pulled the theatre owner into the train.

Perhaps the lesson we learn is to respect the importance of living, and take full advantage of life.


© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

TINGLISH & PINGLISH

(Linguistic shenanigans)



Whenever people from here went to the U.S. and came back, they put on heavy American accents, or what they thought to be an American accent, even if they had lived here all their lives and were in America for just a month or two. But at the most inopportune moments they broke into their native woodnotes wild before hurriedly pulling themselves back to the Yankee drawl.

Bogus accent

Such people, contrary to their expectations of impressing people, usually turn out to be figures of fun. When I was working in the Madras Christian College I heard someone around the corner talking in a rich British accent. When I saw the man I was surprised since he was obviously an Indian. I came to know that he had studied in England and had picked up his accent there. Later I noticed his accent slipping into his native Telugu. Thus in the midst of an impressive torrent of British English he would say `Jeero' for zero, `joo' for zoo, `inistitution' for institution, and `ischool' for school. After a few months he gave up his British accent and spoke Andhra English, excepting when foreigners were around.

Another chap called Augustus came back after a brief stay in the US, and started tossing his American accent about all over the place. "Over there I used to have haat daags (hot dogs) every day." Soon they started calling him Bogustus, and teased him so mercilessly that he dropped his American talk like a hot potato.

Many Tamils speak Tinglish which is a mixture of Tamil and English. A college mate of mine in the American College kept changing his speaking style periodically. If one day you find him mumbling monosyllabic words like "yup" and `nope' you can be sure he has just seen a Gary Cooper film. Sometimes he quoted some lines from the films like, "Tomorrow is another day"(Gone with the Wind) quite out of context and unnecessarily. But when he ran out of such lines and had to speak on his own he slid into Tinglish. One day he got angry with someone, and shouted "That all won't walk here. I will see one hand." And he couldn't understand why we were laughing. He felt that speaking such `superior' English to us was like casting pearls before swine. Wonder how he wrote his English exams. He passed though.

Stealing the thunder

I first heard Pinglish being spoken by my two young aunts who were at home doing nothing after their college education. I was in the primary school at that time. My aunts spoke Pinglish giggling all the while when they didn't want me to know what they were talking about. They used Pinglish when visitors came, and acted as though knowing Pinglish was the height of sophistication. I tried my best to decipher their patter, but failed to do so.

Later I came to know that Pinglish was just an addition of the letter'P' near every vowel. Thus "How are you?" will be "Hapow apar yupu?" My aunts spoke this kind of thing very fluently and very fast thus keeping the listeners bewildered.

One day an elderly gentleman came on a visit. And while my grandparents were chatting with him, my aunts sitting slightly away said "wopondeper ipif thepere ipis eponopogh foopood ipin thepa hopouse topu feepeed thipis fapat gupuy". (Wonder if there is enough food in the house to feed this fat guy). And to their consternation the old gent turned to them and said, "Dopont woporripy. Appi wipill jupust hapave copofipee".(Don't worry. I will just have coffee.) My aunts left the room in a hurry blushing brick red.

They were a little careful with their Pinglish after that.

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

SENSE AND CENSORSHIP

(Straining at gnats while swallowing camels whole)

In a college in the southern part of our State, they used to show English films to their students. But when the hero and heroine neared each other with pouted lips, a professor would hold a piece of cardboard in front of the projector.
And while the students yelled in protest, the professor quietly watched the kiss on the cardboard. He removed his `censor board' after the loving pair moved away from each other to a becoming distance.
Thou Shalt Not
This "I-can-see-it-but-you-can't" attitude is sometimes carried too far by the censors even today. And what constituted objectionable material was not clear even to the censors. The British censors made themselves look silly when they issued this note: "This film is apparently meaningless. If there is any meaning, it is doubtless objectionable".
But some groups or other kept insisting on censorship. As early as 1897, an organization of `Upright Citizens' objected to a belly dance performed by a girl called Fatima in a short film.
In 1934, The Legion of Decency started cracking down on erring films. And ever since there has been a running battle between the censors and the film makers.
The British Board of Film Censors issued its Ten Commandments of "Thou shalt not... ." in the early 30's. Among the banned items were intoxication, vamping, vulgar noises, harsh screams and references to royalty. But such injunctions are taken as challenges by the innovative film makers. Cecil B.Demille managed to smuggle in an orgy into every Biblical epic he made.
The Indian censors were against kissing, while they allowed all kinds of vulgarity and lewdness. Film makers like Raj Kapoor cleverly introduced kissing in their films employing certain ruses. A kiss was sneaked even into an MGR film under the guise of sucking out snake venom.
The Dictator of Virtue
In Hollywood there was a continuing conflict between the film producers and the censors. Finally, Hollywood instituted a self-censor office headed by Will Hays who was promptly dubbed `The Dictator of Virtue'. He was paid $100,000 per annum. "We are paid to have dirty minds" he said, and quickly started demonstrating this fact. The nature of films changed dramatically. As a wag pointed out, "Good stories about bad girls gave place to bad stories about good girls".
The Hays office deliberated for four hours over a line of dialogue in the film, `Gone with the Wind': "Frankly My Dear, I don't give a damn". They suggested "darn" instead of "damn". The producer, David O.Selznick, had to fly across the country to New York and spend several hours persuading Hays to retain "damn". Many felt that Hays was straining at gnats while swallowing camels whole. "The inanities blessed by the Hays office are more genuinely corrupting than any pornography," said a critic.
Some claim that the audience is the best judge. But then there are many audiences that fill up a theatre only at the drop of a saree. One wonders how effective any censor can be, caught between such audiences and furtive film makers.
The script of a Hollywood film, `Zaza', called upon the heroine to scream at the villain: "Pig! Pig! Pig! Pig! Pig!". Back came a note from the censors: "Delete two pigs". The censors do seem ridiculous at times.
But after seeing some of the dances in modern Tamil films, where the hero jumps about drunk with his own importance, and the exaggerated image given to the hero in comparison to that of the heroine, one starts thinking that maybe we need the censors, even if they manage to just delete two pigs, preferably of the male chauvinist variety.

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu