Mr Yogi

Mr Yogi.
Ok. Here is one blurred recall of this hit serial which, perhaps, has some good semblances with our present status.
Y. I. P(ah)ATE(h)L.
Yogesh Indernath Patel from America(h).
A slim, tall, fair complexioned, dressed in ‘Raymonds’-cut suit, tie and black polished shoes, flavoured American accent and a NRI from the US of A, back here in India looking for his bride. He is something like ‘Mr Beans’ in his looks and his ways.
‘Y.I. Patel’ is played by a not-so-known actor, late Mr Mohan Gokhale. I am grim; he died prematurely at the age of 44 due to heart attack. This 13 episode teleserial was up in air around year 1992.
Patel returns from the US and goes around looking for girls one after other, from town to town, and ending up with some sting-in-the-tail end in each instance. His mentor and guide in India for bride hunt is played by versatile Om Puri in his classic inscrutable style. Astromatch is the main criterion for their search along with other factors like education, personal qualities etc etc. Thus Om Puri arranges for him all the twelve zodiac sign gals for the remaining 12 episodes.
In every episode, the zodiac character and the Manglik status is briefed to Patel, lovingly renamed as Mr Yogi. Then he lashes out to the girl, in his pet American style not known to the latter. They invariably react frantically to his very introduction—
Yogi: Hi, Y I Patel.
Girl: How do I know why you are Patel.
Yogi: No, I mean my name is Y.I. Patel, Yogesh …
Twelve episodes pass by, showcasing his humorous bride hunt and its event. Girls also seemed to struggle hard to win over the NRI. But it ends up in a fiasco every time. In the end, while the mentor and the disciple sit down contemplating their new strategy, the mentor’s daughter appears in the scene to end Yogi’s search. Role played my Mrs Savita Gokhale, Yogi’s real life wife, probably presents victory of love over all other criteria. The Mentor is initially shown getting angry at this alliance but love is the ultimate winner.

Why I do blogging

Blogging also holds some special significance to me as a mariner. On ships, we are suppose to be writing a ‘Mate’s Log book’ for every quaterly-day period. We grow up and reitre out doing this job each day without realizing the meaning of it—why is it required, how it came into practice, etc. Just recently, while listening to ‘Gyan Vani’ on radio, I heard a talk given by some renowned historian of India. He was discussing as to why it was difficult to unravel the history of India for a long period from ‘bla-bla’ B.C. to 10 or 12 century AD. He expounded that it was because Indian beliefs considered this world as Maya or an illusion; hence they never felt the need of recording any event or their own lives anywhere. In fact our system of learning was also ‘Oral’, requiring the Shishyas or the pupil to learn by heart every ‘shlok’ or the verse. Only around the time of Mughal’s did the people write books in praise of the ruler, which today become a source of uncovering the history.
I immediately felt that perhaps the remnants of the same principles reside in us even today. That is why we need to be trained on how to write the log and even then we continue to do practice of sweeping remarks— writing the ditto script of entry day by day, mechanically, without giving any heed to small events of any Watch hours. Log book, prima fascia, is a British System which we have adopted ditto without delving deeper into its purpose. Perhaps, British Naturalist Charles Darwin’s personal log books while sailing around on HMS Beagle became the draft work for ‘Ascent of Man’, ‘Origin of species’ and the theory of evolution.
Hey did I know that before!?
I felt a strong urge to take up the practice of Logging as early as I could even at personal level.

Right to be wrong!

Opinions are like arse holes; every one has one!
We often take liberties with our freedom and choose to overlook our responsibilities. Free speech is one of our greatest assets. So, what do we do? Make free speech, deliver unwanted unexamined opinions and shout aloud ‘freedom!’?
In class 10th there happened this event where freedom’s abuse was so living. We had one story in Hindi Literature which dealt with the elderly family members’ attitude towards the faster changing newer generation. ‘Annde ke chilke’ was about a typical new middle class family which showed the all-pervasive fights between family cum religious ethos and newer generation’s openness to adapt to changes. Young sons and daughters-in-law of an old Hindu mother have just converted to non-vegetarian diets, ‘Egg-eaters’. But the pious and deeply religious mother’s sentiments towards egg eating could not have let them be compatible in the house. They choose the mischievous path of disposing the shell of the eggs consumed by them secretly in the pass-by sewer after collecting them in their socks.
The dutiful eldest son discovers this one day and advises them, in good humor, to dispose the shell comfortably and properly as mother was ‘understanding’ enough to ‘not to see it even after sighting it’. This story terrifically depicted the intelligence and sensibilities of an old mother to the changing times and her conscious effort to adjust to it.
During the class test, a question was asked to explain and elaborate on why the mother would ‘not see it even after sighting it’. Other class mate, Vixxx, who would keep little busy in extra curricular activities, arrived in the test quite unprepared. After all, the brain was still alive and working, to handle the odds, he thought, like all of us do. He wrote down the answer that mother would not see it even after sighting it because such garbage always makes a bad sight!! And now, what a flagrant abuse of one’s freedom— to think and to write and give an opinion!! (Even though we all do this in one way or the other)
As his answer was laughed out at for his prolonged absence from the class resulting in such a hilarious mistake, Vixxx made a quarrel about the obvious logic in the answer. He wasn’t wrong after all, he continued to maintain.
Just recently, my good friend Mani was arguing that the recent Supreme Court verdict to instate women judges for all of the rape cases is highly gender biased, or connoting that judges do get carried away. Did he know any ABC of law, I thought.
Movie ‘Shool’ also shows one MLA in Bihar state-assembly who makes a fight on letting electricity be ‘extracted’ from running stream of water as, as he uttered, it was akin to ‘taking out the soul from a body’.
Gross abuse of democracy and Freedom of speech in an environment of ill-education

Why I do Blogging?

Why I do blogging?
Blogging consist of word ‘weB + LOGging’. Thus it is a kind of dairy maintained over the internet. Many people maintain it like a daily log, recording their day to day activity, while others maintain it like a journal, recording their most intimate thoughts. Based on ‘settings’, Blogs can be made either private, or personal, or available to specific people only. Blogs help in giving a more elaborate description of our behaviour and thoughts to those who can access it. Blogs also help in enhancing communication with other people. In addition, they help us to vent out what ever strong feeling we have inside ourselves on any issue that we think about. Being more technocratic in nature, Blogs have numerous advantages over the conventional notebook kind of logs and journals.
I have often felt a dire need of preserving my thoughts and opinion on certain issue right at the time they were conceived and were still-fresh; and then record them as they change overtime. Sometimes I wonder how I would feel when I return to the infancy of my ideas and gauge how they changed or refined in due course. Hence, blogging.