A matter of heart

The anatomist will tell you a heart is a chambered muscular organ in vertebrates that pumps blood received from the veins into the arteries, thereby maintaining the flow of blood through the entire circulatory system. Invertebrates too have a similar contraption to do the same job for them. We all know that it is a much simplistic way to define a heart…moreover these anatomists and those of their ilk have no heart anyway…You may ask why. Are they not vertebrates though some of them at times may behave like an invertebrate? You are right to suppose an anatomist should have a muscular organ but wrong to expect that all of them to have a heart! Now, does that make sense?

The best way to prevent heart conditions is not to own one! “Hey how is that possible?” you may ask. Tell me how many times have you given away your heart while in your teens? Hold it! Cross your heart before you answer. The few girls in NDA during our times would have owned many hearts at one time…that also explains why cadets in our days did not get heart conditions even under much physical and in some cases mental duress. But always give your heart to someone who will take care of it. That is something we all realize emerging out of the teens.

There is a flip side to giving away your heart. When you do not have a heart you don’t have a heart. You then tend to become less compassionate. Everyone will tell you after every move by you “have a heart”. The easy way out of this one is to learn to always behave as if you ‘have a heart’ although you do not have a heart. This will help you in certain other circumstances also.

Take for instance when you have put your heart and soul into a game of golf – it has to be done though it does not matter where you finally put your golf ball. And of course on the nineteenth hole you can’t brag about the putt on the fifth and how close to your heart was that one, nor can you wear you heart on your sleeve when you rue the missed putt on the eighteenth. Mind you, you can’t afford to do any of these in a half hearted manner; after all your game of golf is very close to your heart.

I say this from the bottom of my heart, if you learn to do all these without a heart or with your heart in the right place (with somebody else), in my heart of hearts I feel giving away your heart saves a lot of trouble with cholesterol, BP et al.

Then and then…no yoga…no by pass…no ~graphy…you can live the rest of your life to your heart’s content!!!

The Wheeler Dealer

 

What I will say is in the realm of fialty – ‘fi’ as in fiction and ‘alty’ as in realty. The word is used for anecdotes that are in an area between fiction and realty. There is a soap on the tube airing juicy conversations between the ubiquitous (wherever there is a CD there is…) Amar Singh (AS) and a few cronies and industrialists. AS always reminds me of my school fellow Mannu B. Com. (MBC). I had attended a boarding school in Kannur on the North coast of Kerala.

I brought my army team to a PSU in Bangalore in the beginning of the last decade. I was still in uniform. On a first posting really down south, I had an opportunity to network with a few of my old school mates who have made Bangalore their home. One day, I got a call from the reception of this PSU telling me there was one certain Mr. Mamoo, wanting to see me. Earlier Saimesh, a senior at school and a neighbour in my village-town (there were/are no typical villages in Kerala) now settled in Bangalore had told me about MBC. I gave the green signal to let him in. I was more than curious to meet this fellow, three years my junior at school and from a neighbouring town to my own, in Kerala.

Soon, MBC was ushered into my office with all the trappings of fauj in attendance. Of medium height with a round countenance, on the threshold of balding, a thin typical Kerala style moustache lining the upper lip, MBC sauntered in wearing a bush shirt, trousers and leather shoes. The shirt was not tucked in. We hugged, although I could not then recognize him from Adam. We discussed the school and old boys (and some girls from the convent adjacent to our school) over cups of tea and biscuits. When it was time to leave he handed me a CV of his son, a fresher, who had applied to be an apprentice engineer with this PSU. A stepping stone before taking off for Dubai, Sharjah or Kuwait, I thought. I had no mind to refuse and so accepted the CV and promised to look in. He also insisted that Ramesh and I with our respective wives attend and Iftar – it was the id season - at his residence on the week end. At the iftar, dum biriyani and accompaniments after few tots of ‘imported’ Scotch whisky were exemplary and MBC and wife were hosts beyond compare. I felt happy for old time’s sake – or was it the scotch?

A couple of days later while in my office, I got a call from the CMD’s (of the PSU) office asking me to meet him immediately. This was strange as the urgency would not be so unless there was an emergency akin to war. So I dashed off to the HQ complex, where I was directly rushed into his office. Lo behold! What do I see? There he was, our MBC, a cup of tea half full in one hand and a half bitten off pastry in the other, sitting cross legged across from the CMD, wearing a wide grin in addition to his traditional bush shirt and all. It was obvious they had exchanged talks beyond pleasantries. The CMD greeted me “there you are Vish, here is your langoti yar, do you recognize him? It seems he came to know you are here and did not know how to get to you; so he came to me…..” Well I could only stare at MBC in bewildered appreciation. Before we left, the CMD had assured MBC of a place for his son among the next batch of apprentice engineers to be hired by his Company.

I learnt a lot about MBC in the subsequent months and years. A strictler, he is a member of the back-scratcher club. He does not do anything for free and does not accept obligations. No favours done no favours taken – be it a friend or foe. There is a price tag on everything. A good principle to follow in his trade. 

He says, there is only God who can do better than him – and you can see he believes that when he says it.  He can even create authentic births and deaths, on paper, from thin air. If he undertakes a job, consider it done. In Bangalore everybody knows him and he knows everybody; that is everybody who matter. You do not meet people like him until you have met him.

He is the wheeler-dealer.