Wordsmith

  Published in The Hindu Open Page Chasing the elusive numbers  PREMIUM Post the digital revolution, our minds have become fatigued with PINs and transaction pass codes December 03, 2023 12:19 am | Updated 12:19 am IST THOMAS PAUL I read about a standard tactic that the police employ to catch vehicle thieves. A constable hails down a vehicle and asks the driver to tell its registration number. If the driver is the owner, he should be able to readily tell the number. If he is driving a stolen vehicle, it would not have occurred to him to memorise its number. That is a clever tactic, I thought and laughed at its ingenuity. After I was done laughing, I realised that I too could not readily recall my own vehicles’ numbers. Had a policeman stopped me similarly, I could have been in trouble. My memory is like a sieve, so of late, I have taken to periodically self-check if I can recall my own vehicles’ numbers. The numbers conundrum does not end there. There are occasions...

  Published in The Hindu Open Page Surviving road rage PREMIUM   The heat and dust on thoroughfares despite signals and wardens October 22, 2023 12:45 am | Updated 12:45 am IST THOMAS PAUL Many consider traffic signals as suggestions, leaving it to their discretion to jump the signal or not. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto Y ou honked a second before you noticed the sign “Silence Zone. No Horn”. Without a horn, there is no way to attract the attention of the jay-walking folks intent on mobile phones. We consider traffic signals as suggestions, leaving it to our discretion to jump the signal or not, especially if the signal is manned by traffic wardens — the poor souls burdened with responsibility devoid of authority. At unmanned signals, it’s a psychological war between the strictly complying motorist who heeds the red light, and the nothing-is-off-limits trucker who is running late. You are in the middle of a cluster of vehicles at a red light. Th...

  Published in The Hindu Open Page The dogs are here to stay  PREMIUM As long as there are open garbage dumps and free food, the number of stray canines are going to increase August 27, 2023 12:37 am | Updated 12:37 am IST THOMAS PAUL I t is past midnight. All is calm, but not quiet. A dog begins to bark in a measured way — not for, or at, anything particularly, but as though just establishing its presence — and wakes up households around a half-a-km radius. A few other dogs from near and far respond to the barking, each creating individual high-decibel circles of a half-a-km radius. It’s like a Venn diagram of partially overlapping barking circles with my apartment in the middle, getting it from all sides. I am startled awake by this motiveless tranquillity-busting, and I wait out the nuisance. I’m sure this is no watchdog alert — no burglar has ever been challenged by dogs in our area. Any burglar with a pack of biscuits is welcome. So the cause of the initial ...

  Published in The Hindu Open Page Chaos at the level crossing  PREMIUM     It’s a stampede in slow motion, requiring nothing less than God’s help June 25, 2023 12:56 am | Updated 12:56 am IST THOMAS PAUL As the gateman raises the boom barrier, there is a veritiable stampede. | D riving across a railway level crossing during peak hours cures your low blood pressure. For instance, you are the first at a closed level crossing on a narrow two-lane road. More vehicles arrive and queue up behind you on the left lane. The right lane remains free to allow vehicles from the opposite side to come through when the crossing opens. So far, so good. A minute passes. The queue behind you is getting longer. Then the inevitable happens. An impatient cab driver (is there any other kind?) arriving last, ignores the mile-long queue in front of him, takes the right lane, and draws abreast of your car. He is in the wrong lane, but his look says, “So what?” He is swiftly...

  Published in The Hindu Open Page Round and round in circles Directionless, frustrating drive on the road with a GPS that has gone awry May 07, 2023 12:44 am | Updated 12:44 am IST THOMAS PAUL Your phone does not chide you, but being infinitely patient, “re-routes” you T his is the age of GPS. But if you drive like me, you can still miss the route. You overshoot a crucial turning due to a minor lapse in concentration. Your phone does not chide you, but being infinitely patient, “re-routes” you. And now you can’t believe the squiggly new route you see on the GPS, like noodles gone berserk. Too many lanes have sprouted, and there is the possibility of going in the opposite direction on a one-way street and getting fined by the traffic police. The GPS perversely seems to show the direction exactly opposite to what you have in mind. Or you have encountered digging work across the road that seems to have started only an hour ago and is not reflected on your GPS. You are t...

  Published in The Hindu Open Page A station scene  The trains leave, and an eerie calmness descends on the platforms as there is no other soul left March 19, 2023 01:57 am | Updated 01:57 am IST THOMAS PAUL   There is no other soul left on the desolate platform. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto I t is a small-town station with only two platforms, but it is on the main railway route, and most trains stop for two minutes, grudgingly. The computer-programmed station announcement sounds disjointed, as though it is a collaborative effort of several people randomly contributing a word each to form a single sentence. The announcement that the trains will arrive “shortly” is a triumph of hope over experience. The trains, besides arriving late, also stop just a kilometre short of the station, waiting for signal clearance. My train’s scheduled arrival time is 9.30 p.m., but I realise that the crowd on the platform is for two other earlier trains that are se...

  Published in The Hindu Open Page 60 is the new 40  Just because it’s the time of retirement, the sixties should not be considered the end phase of one’s life THOMAS PAUL August 21, 2022 01:42 am | Updated 01:42 am IST Life, as they say, begins at 60, and it is a fascinating beginning. The other day, I came across an advertisement for the commercial launch of a large cluster of apartment blocks in the suburbs. The marketing blurb gushed about the superbly designed layout and the amenities: play area for children, games enclosures for teens, and for the other age groups, a jogging track, a tennis court, a swimming pool, a gym, and so on. The USP was that there was something in it for all age groups. Having exhausted that laundry list of amenities, their marketing team probably sensed something amiss. They seemed to have looked about for any group that had been left out. So in their very last line, they announced there were some features even for those above 65 —...

  Published in The Hindu Open Page The queue conundrum Scientific queue management hasn’t caught on everywhere. The jostling continues THOMAS PAUL   May 01, 2022 12:38 am | Updated 12:38 am IST 01-May-2022  ...  A single counter will have at least three strands of  queues  developing in front of it, each strand competing to access the  window  of the counter ... The movie  Kaalia  (1981) featured a queue-despising Amitabh Bachchan declaring famously that queues began from wherever he stood. That shook our faith in the queue system a bit. While many of us endure queues like martyrs, the smart ones bypass them. Some clog it perversely. Bypassing the queue Confused as we usually are by movies-inspired fake pride, we suspect that standing behind somebody in a queue amounts to a lowering of status. So we level the field by stepping to the left or right. This causes a corresponding zigzagging behind us, and soon the queue ...

  Published in The Hindu Open Page On the move People with transferable jobs are a rootless lot, forever outsiders wherever they live THOMAS PAUL February 20, 2022 01:03 am | Updated 01:03 am IST It’s been a lifetime of city-hopping and never a dull moment in my banking service. Bharat Darshan at bank’s cost, and a rich haul of experiences and memories. Families of Union government or public sector employees are this rootless lot who are forever outsiders wherever they live. I have wondered about the greener pasture on the other side, the vast majority who live out their entire lives at their place of birth, or maybe not farther than a five-hour bus-ride away, building a huge circle of acquaintances, friends, and strengthening relationships among kin. The only negative aspect might be that this lot can’t escape the circle if a few relationships turn sour. If you leave your home State at the high school stage, then over the years you lose your brand-recognition— your h...

  Published in The Hindu Open Page God and Santa Come to think of it, impressing kids or adults may not be a big deal THOMAS PAUL January 09, 2022 01:05 am | Updated 01:05 am IST My grandson, recently turned seven, is a multi-tasking whiz kid, as probably all kids are at that age nowadays. Or at least they seem so, to a technologically challenged old-school type like me who does one thing at a time — slowly. Uni-tasking is what we are famous for. Now, this grandson of mine solves the Rubik’s cube in three minutes in an offhand and negligent way, without even looking at the thing, while talking about something else. He beats me at chess regularly, can rattle off the names of celebrities and sports stars, knows the location of tiny countries on the world map, and can (and will) explain random items from the encyclopedia. Whenever we get together, his one-upmanship is complete. I don’t let on that I’m looking for his Achilles’ heel which I have yet to locate. Though he doe...