PROMISES, PROMISES

No, this is not about the eponymous Broadway musical of the 60s.  Nor need you fear a throaty rendition of the title number which Dionne Warwick  made so popular. Aside from the fact that my musical abilities are not fit to be mentioned in the same breath as Dionne's, the promises are entirely of a different kind.

I was getting ready to renew my driving license, which includes an endorsement for two-wheelers, in Chennai where I now happen to live. I have fond memories of the process of getting a driving license the first time ever, in Tamil Nadu state. A strict parent who was also a stickler for rules only permitted me to apply for a license on completing 21 years of age, not a day before. I felt I had waited long enough. As a result my license was issued on my 21st birthday. I took the test in a small provincial town where the Traffic Inspector arrived at a leisurely 11 a.m. despite having been told that the son of a senior official was waiting to take the test, accompanied by his father, the said senior official. My father proceeded to tell the Inspector that I must be tested "thoroughly". I had to do the mandatory drive around couple of blocks involving  four right angled turns, a bit of driving in the midst of ox-carts, buses, trucks, bicycles, wandering cattle and pedestrians without hitting anyone or looking like hitting anything, topped off by a reversing manoeuvre and parallel parking. The last one was a bit of a laugh given the singular absence of pavements (a.k.a kerbs) in that town.

 I didn't have to make any promises to be good, not to drink and drive or drop acid (a popular form of thrill-seeking those days) while driving. There were no seat belts nor helmets in use. On being told that I could drive a scooter as well, the Inspector promised a "two wheeler endorsement" as well. He didn't test me for it - he took me on my words, skipping over the embarrassing details of how I could have trained on a two-wheeler when I did not have a learning license for it....

The process was rather more stringent and unpleasant in the UK. Not only was I failed when I attempted to save money by not taking the help of a driving school, but decade-and-a-half's driving experience in India was considered as a distinct setback by the Licensing Inspector(s). The driving school taught me how to "game " the test rather than teaching me better driving skills. Like placing a strategic "dirt mark" on the rear windscreen to centre the car while reversing, making exaggerated movements of the neck to ensure the Inspector saw that I was using the side and rear-view mirrors, stopping  to let old ladies cross the road (even when they were only chatting by the roadside), employing the "ten-to-two" position on the steering wheel, "driving like an old lady", etc.. Ah, yes, I wore a proper suit and tie to convince them that I wasn't one of those detested "Ealing and Hounslow types", but a proper gent working in the City. I was failed for stopping unnecessarily (for a lady to cross the road) and "driving at a speed inappropriate for the traffic" (too slow). I had been warned about taking the test at that centre which was notorious for failing Asians - reportedly most of the junior colonial officials who felt betrayed upon Indian Independence and returned to the miserable English weather  and acute rationing from a life of colonial luxuries (huge bungalows, parties and a retinue obsequious servants), hailed from that place where I took the test - their descendants apparently held Indians responsible for their miserable post-colonial lives in less than modest circumstances.


With typical Indian cunning - not to mention minor infraction of the test rules - I had applied to another centre as well, and that test was the very next morning. Needless to say this area had no colonial connections ( was quite popular with Japanese families, thanks to couple of golf links in the vicinity) and I duly passed the test possibly owing to the fact that I spoke and understood English very well and did not keep smiling and bowing, saying "hai". 


But I made no promises to wear the seat belt, check the tyre pressure, consult my mirrors before attempting a turn, parallel park exactly 12 inches from the pavement or even not to kill anyone on the road. It was taken for granted that I would do all of these since the rules said so.


Down in Chennai I have to make promises: 

To wear a seat belt

To wear a helmet

Not to use a cell phone while driving

Not to text while driving

To stop at red lights

To wait for the green light before crossing a junction

Not to hit pedestrians when I have a stop signal

Not to drive on the right (which as you know is the "wrong" side here) side of the road

To drive on the left side of the road

Not to weave through the traffic like a shuttle in a loom

Not to overtake from the left ( this is a serious promise for it is the left where most of the overtaking happens in Chennai. Some say this should be called "undertaking" for it is the opposite of "overtaking" and could most easily result in a visit to the undertakers).

To overtake only on the right

To use the headlights when it is dark

Not to use  the high beam to dazzle drivers coming towards me, but the low beam to let them know of my presence and to light the road immediately ahead

To indicate in advance my intent to turn 

To look for oncoming vehicles before opening vehicle doors 

To look left and right before pulling into a street

To stop and look before entering a main road or a highway from a side street

Etc etc. ( the list, as they say, is indicative and not exhaustive)

None of which, judging by the Chennai driving style, I need observe after gaining the license.

MATRIMONY ON THE NET

Disclaimer: This is NOT a plug for any website professing to make matrimonial alliances simpler and more efficacious (none of them claims happier or longer-lasting marriages).

I walked in on my father this morning to hear him advocating the convenience of Skype (this is no plug for Skype either) in forging matrimonial alliances. It was particularly impressive, considering that for the major part of his life personal computers were unknown in India and that he does not know how to use one. He has however, chatted with his grand children in the USA (where else?) via skype and thus knows what it can do for us.

Some things haven't changed, but some others have.

The view that marriage is considered a good thing - even necessary - for human happiness has not changed; the means of attaining that objective have. Parental view of marriage has not changed: it is a restraint (Tamil: "kaal kattu" - literally shackling one's legs)  against "boys" of a certain age going "astray". How that restraint is placed on them has changed - albeit only superficially.

Parents here are rather attached to their sons as people in the West are attached to their Pension and 401K Plans. That's because the son IS their pension plan. At least amongst the vast middle class. Keeping track of the intimate details of the young man's daily life is the norm rather than the exception. Recently I was in receipt of a real-time update from the father of a young man of the latter's progress towards North America. The updates included when he reached a European midway point, what he did there (how he changed some  currency, what he purchased, an aside on the extortionist prices in European airport cafeteria, etc. Mercifully, I was spared the details of his bowel movements). Tiger Moms might consider this as "involvement" in their offspring's' life and make a few millions describing it. We are not money minded. We are interested in our children's welfare, period.

Back to matrimonial advice involving Skype. The young man in question is apparently showing no great urgency to get his legs shackled despite having just landed himself a job overseas - a real job with "good prospects" and not one of those short-term body-shopping expeditions. His father cannot understand this lack of urgency. This is like a young man declining the car keys and a driving license when they are finally handed to him, after having chafed at the bits all his life to drive a car. Father is worried and wonders - as all parents at some point in their children's life do - if he already has a car on the side that the parents know nothing about. As an involved parent, ideally he would prefer to choose the "make and model". There is unexpressed fear that the son might be throwing his money on Taxis.......


The arrangement finally worked out between my father (Advisor-in-Chief and a comforting shoulder besides being the elder statesman of the family) and the father of the "boy" (they are always referred to as "boys". No wonder that eligible young women don't show much interest in them, preferring instead grown men) is that the father would short-list desirable young women  after matching horoscopes and family circumstances. The young man would further prune the list whereupon a skype chat and email exchanges would be encouraged with one. My father blithely went on, "let them meet on Skype and finalise it", as if it were a business contract,  unaware of the profound discomfiture the suggestion was causing to the father of the boy. Such an important decision, being left to the boy and the girl!


I must clarify here who a "desirable" girl is. It is someone who is not short, but not taller than the boy; well-educated, but not more than the boy; has a good job but not earning more than the boy. What is left unsaid is  that she should be eternally grateful to the boy's family for having rescued her from life-long spinsterhood and be willing to find her happiness in catering to their every whim. She should be sociable but just so; subservient to the in-laws, but still stand up to the husband should he stray from the straight and the narrow; rid the boy of all bad habits his mother didn't succeed in eliminating; and not capable of replacing her mother-in-law in her husband's affections. How the planetary configuration of a horoscope ensures these requirements  remains a mystery to me.


In the olden days personal references tried to ensure (and often failed) that the desired qualities were genuine and not faked. The reciprocal arrangement of  matrimony between the girl's brother and the boys sister was practised where feasible - the fear of  Mutually Assured Divorce was supposed to ensure the the pair of marriages was happy. In the days of Internet, Computer Horoscope Matching, Skype and Face Book, there are more effective ways of ensuring marital happiness, it appears. 


I have heard of some wedding celebrations being streamed alive on the net for the benefit of key relatives and friends who could not be physically present. I reckon that such will be the norm in future rather than the exception. One can reasonably expect that in the near future the A to Z of matrimonial alliances will be concluded on the net, including a broadcast of the wedding celebrations.

However, I do hope that the marriage itself will become private, a matter between a man and his wife.

DON'T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT IT

Back in the 1980's Europe led a blessed existence. No credit crunch, no ratings downgrade, no China, India or Brazil for that matter to worry about, USSR was collapsing, NATO was ascendant and there was no bottomless  pit now known as Greece. And they had a wonderful crop of golfers in Ballesteros, Woosnam, Torrance, Langer, Lyle, Faldo, et al. The French did not care much for golf but had President Mitterand who first nationalised the banks and then privatised them, just for fun. These golfers did not make as much money as even fourth rate American golfers did, but were just beginning to taste the big bucks, mostly in the form of endorsements. A charming advert for American Express cards had Seve Ballesteros  exhorting the general public, in his cutely Spanish accented English, "don't livhhome without it" (ie, don't leave home without it).

Now it is my turn to make that exhortation. Don't get me wrong, I don't play golf, nor can I remember a single current player's name save that of priapic Tiger Woods.  Nor am I  plugging for Amex or any other card.

Also back in the 1980s a group of us in London were engaged in trying to tell good companies from bad ones so we could smartly lend to the good ones while avoiding the bad ones. The idea was that while our competitors were counting the cost of their lending misadventures, we would be on some beach sipping diquiris and admiring beach beauties. Paul, my friend from those days used to declaim "if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, IT IS A DUCK", the exasperated capitals occasioned by my unwillingness to apply this maxim to India's fastest growing business house of that time. I thought Paul was a bit odd - after all he used to get all excited by female legs in patterned tights during our postprandial walks to the Barbican library, "god, I fancy that"- and did not take much notice of quacking ducks. I swore then that when it was my turn I shall also exhort others with something similarly pithy and witty.

Later on quacking ducks began to make a lot of sense as did the need for Paul's exhortation.  We routinely missed common sense and folk wisdom and would invoke Godel's completeness theorem and its implications for the future of computing while considering a loan to a computer firm,  just as easily as we compared Aliber's logit-function failure-prediction model with Altman's linear regression one. It is easy to take leave of common sense in a thicket of exoticism and the latter was like a comfortable, warm and familiar blanket.

That is exactly what happened in the sub-prime crisis. Consider this: if you let 5 glasses of muddy water to settle for a while and then decanted the top 80% of each glass you could have 4 glasses of clean "potable" water (triple A grade drinking water); then if you mix the remaining 20% of each glass, let it rest and again decanted the top 80% of that, will that be the same as the earlier decanting? The financial charlatans of the Wall street said yes, it is as good, and Triple A too. The investor community agreed. After all a lot of mathematics was used, differentials integrated and integrals differentiated, equations solved and Gaussian Copula was invoked. In short, quacking ducks were considered golden geese (which they were, for the privileged few on Wall Street). 


We indulge in this every day. Not the differential equations, mind you, but this self delusion that a duck is something other than a duck simply because someone chooses to describe it in some esoteric, incomprehensible way using Greek letters and squiggly symbols. Take the general public for example: the poor things do not realise that in the name of giving their children access to education, the government has actually de-based the latter and now what they have will be worth nothing in the job market, thus making no difference to their futures.Their expectations having been raised (to a non-manual employment in salubrious conditions), the next-gen has become incapable of pursuing their traditional family vocation. The public is smart enough to not accept the offer of a shirt from a naked man; then why do they accept empty promises and (apparently) free cash from the Government? 


Governments throwing money at people only creates a culture of dependence and inflation. Both hurt the poor more than the rich. Far more. The culture of dependence is far worse than the inflation. You only have to see the beggars who line Mumbai's Marine Drive on certain days. They patiently await alms from wealthy merchants. Their faces have no hope, not even anger; there is resignation,  a certain passivity, a fatal acceptance and unwillingness to even try. You know that they will forever wait to be fed by someone or just lie down and die. But somehow the people are persuaded that a good government is one that gives them freebies and a better one is one that gives them even more. In their own personal lives are they similarly persuaded? Apparently not. Somewhere along people pick up the habit of willingly suspending  disbelief.


Why do thousands of earnest young MBAs (mostly from colleges of dubious credentials, I admit) go to work everyday and spout absolute drivel from long-forgotten text-books without sparing a thought to what they are saying? Why are they afraid to call a duck a duck? Why are they ready to believe that "ordinary life"  is somehow different from "work life" and that the laws of the former do not apply to the latter? 
Why don't they subject what they see and hear to the test of Common Sense?
Why do they leave it at home when they leave for work or school or college?

Everyone should post this sign on the inside of their front door at home so that they are reminded of it every time they open their door to step out: Common sense - don't leave home without it. 

BERLO FOR PRESIDENT

The Indian Presidential race, while not as exciting or of as much consequence as the American one, is unfolding. Perhaps it is accurate to say unravelling, especially if you are Sonia Gandhi. It does not matter who resides in our Rashtrapathi Bhavan (ie, Presidential Palace) for the Indian President does not matter at all. Even in India. Especially in India. But still, a contest is exciting especially if the dramatis personae have much riding on the outcome. What is even more exciting are the intrigues that accompany it, the rumours, the hard news, the moves, counter moves and the hype that surrounds it. A Martian may be excused for thinking that we are electing the President of the World with his fingers on the Intergalactic Gamma Ray Weapon's trigger.

The moves, the counter moves, the waiting game, the counter-waiting game, the speculation, the inspired leaks, it is al so exciting. The uninitiated may not understand is what the fuss is all about.

Being President of India is the easiest thing. To paraphrase Neil Diamond, even chicken can do it. Some chicken have. Some turkeys too. You only need to be a Gandhian monkey to be President: hear no evil, see no evil and dont speak at all. Like the current incumbent.

You get a magnificent residence, a fat remuneration and you get to jet around to countries you didnt know existed and whose names you cant even spell in your own mother tongue. You get to take your entire family with you at tax payer's expense and divert national carrier's flight for this purpose. You get to authorize important legislation without even a look, and you get to display the special skill of signing anything and everything placed before you. You get an opportunity to communicate eloquently through silence.

Some got an opportunity to sweep the floor someone else walked on; and someone signed away democracy in the middle of the night. All get the opportunity to make inane speeches and lofty promises to the people at large on important occasions regardless of what happened to earlier promises. In America they say that some Presidents are lucky that nothing sticks to them. In India the President is Teflon by design.

Retirement benefits are very good. You get to live in a huge bungalow in Delhi, have security detail escorting and protecting you, no security checks at airports, a car with revolving red lights and, in addition, a generous pension. You can also get, for free, valuable real estate in a place of your choice if you have been nice to the ruling party. You can escape your past dodgy financial dealings for we don't believe in embarrassing our Presidents - they do well by themselves without outside help. You dont even have to electable to dream of this wonderful life - you just have to be nice to the ruling party and practice your signature a lot.

So it is no surprise that many people want to be President of India.

Who are in the race this year?
 Pranab Mukherjee, a man of flexible convictions who can sup with the devil even as he sings with the angels. He is willing to be emasculated in return for the presidential sinecure. He can also be handy in the event of a fractured electoral mandate in 2014. His refusal to make a deal with Bengal has lost him some support, but the calculator that he is he has found the support elsewhere. His chief rival appears to be a former president with a bad haircut. The left calls him a "war monger" even as it glosses over China's arms build up He is preferred by the intelligentsia and the middle class. But he has a serious flaw: he reads the papers placed before him and even dares  to ask questions and clarifications. He is not quick to draw his pen or a broom. A very unsuitable person, for some. Then there is a former Speaker whose principal credential appears to be his tribal origins. In addition you will have the usual cast of eccentrics, attention seekers and spoilers hoping to split the votes.

The ruling party wants its own man and the main opposition is not sure what it wants. The left waits to see what the others are up to. Didi flopped, Mulayam flipped and Amma is flip-flopping.

I have a great suggestion: Bring Silvio BERLUSCONI. He is very rich and presumably not interested in small change. Colourful. Charismatic. Above all, he is Italian. When real power vests with one why not another for an ornamental position?

Imagine the "Bunga Bunga"  parties at the Rashtrapathi Bhavan with Berlo as President. All of Bollywood will shift to Delhi for those parties and Shobhaa De will participate, clad in a toga.

We can have Sunny Leone as VP!  What a coup that would be!

IN PRAISE OF SPANKING

These days you can't spank anyone; I mean in a non-sexual and disciplinary way. Government, misguided by even more misguided social scientists have made sure of that. Our social  scientists are largely educated overseas and when they returned, they came back bearing  gifts much like the ones Greeks took to the Trojans. Instead of being beware of such gifts, the government simply accepted them and as a result we can't spank anyone, least of all erring children. As for spanking in the "other" way, the government diktats had no impact on their use anyway - spankers spanked and spankees loved it.

In the U.K.up until the '60s schools and parents could spank children for various kinds of infractions and look what it did to that nation: Lloyd George, Churchill, Montgomery of El Alamein, numerous pilots who saved the English bacon in the battle of Britain, Frank Whittle who invented the jet engine, Paul Dirac  and Arthur Eddington both of Physics fame, Turing of cryptography and computers, Hammond, Hutton, Larwood and Jardine of cricket, Crick and Watson of DNA fame, Issigonis who designed the Mini (car, not the skirt), the Beatles even, were all products of  an era of sound spanking. And look at how they all turned out. Then some misguided social scientist came along and recommended becoming friends with children instead of raising them. See what happened then. We haven't had a single great Briton in a country that calls itself the Great Britain. An air force that cannot save England from Scotland, an auto industry that doesn't exist any more, a middling cricket team and unmemorable cricketers, a nation where nothing is invented, a country which cannot even make safe mortgage loans. Britain has been reduced to a nation where form matters more than function (look at WAGS and footballers),  and whose PM carouses with the rich and the famous and leaves his 6 year old daughter behind in a pub. The greatest single failing in all of this is the absence of spanking.

When we were young, any infraction brought on swift and certain disciplinary action: a stinging slap across the cheeks. Swift, unpremeditated, instinctive reaction to a perceived crossing of some boundary. The progressive mums might have given a hug  later on, after allowing sufficient time for contemplation and a sulk. When matters got a bit more serious and landed in the domain of the father, the punishment was much more painful and usually administered with a fine cane whose "swish" through the air was sufficient to induce a wince and evasive action. The last mentioned usually doubled the quantum of punishment. Poor grades in quizzes tests and exams, insufficient preparation for the above, spending too much time at play and too little with books, poor condition of school books and workbooks, giving the glad eye to some girl if you were a boy, receiving the glad eye if you were a girl (you were supposed to be invisible and not get noticed, especially by boys which kind of negates being pretty and attractive which every parent wanted their girls to be), items of clothing which even remotely suggested immodesty or fashion etc etc were all grounds for receiving some strict old fashioned disciplining.

Telling lies and being economical with the truth may be much preferred political attributes lately, but back in the days when gay meant being happy and pansy was a flower, they didn't cut any ice with parents or teachers and brought on swift and punitive action. And look at how we all turned out: god fearing, parent fearing (which are the same thing really), teacher-respecting, law abiding upright citizens who stop at red lights even in the middle of the night when there is no traffic,  never cut the median yellow line,  pay their taxes and who look after their grandchildren in old age.

Corporal punishment, as it was fashionably called in the 70's when discussions were on to abolish it, differed in the means of execution but had a single objective: to inflict maximum pain in the swiftest possible manner with the longest lasting effect. It was claimed that it formed character - variation of  "what didn't kill you made you better", "iron is forged in fire", etc. line of thinking. And raising kids was all about forming character those days. Literature suggests that in English schools, there may have been an element of sexual nature in administering such punishment, especially while caning the rear ends of errant boys. Boarding school stories of such nature are a legion. But then the English have always had a fascination for human male rear ends and  what The Economist once referred to as "a fondness for buggery". In India that was not the case at all, perhaps because the Indian parents and teachers were aware that gluteus  maximus, being a substantial muscle, was capable of  enduring the pain of a cane or a palm. The preferred Indian locations were the palm (and if you caught the cane) the back of the palm, funny bone in the elbow, cheeks (usually with the palm) and calves (try taking full force of a fine manilla cane  there). There was no hanky panky of a sexual nature in punishments in Indian schools or homes.

Look at what happens now: parents don't raise their children; they merely finance them. If they so much as lift their fingers to admonish the errant ones, there are at least half a dozen laws under which they can be arrested. The teachers have been taught, wrongly, that they must not resort to corporal punishments. No wonder we don't make jet engines, design minis, win Nobel prizes, discover the secrets of the universe or even produce good cricketers. We drive like maniacs as if there is no other road user, take every conceivable short-cut in every endeavour, and cannot even think of a single consensus candidate to ornament the Presidential Palace. We can't read, we cant count and we certainly can't integrate. Differentiate we do well  but only based on religion, skin colour, caste, tribe, sub-sect and real and imagined historical neglect. Our dams leak, our exam question papers leak, our nuclear stations leak, high public offices leak, and two-thirds of the population does not have roof over their heads, leaky or otherwise.

We don't work and blame lack of results on social divisions. We expect everything to be given to us sugar coated. We are not empowered but we all feel entitled to everything. We want to escape the coils of the accident of our birth but demand benefits based on that birth. We don't want to feel the pain of making the effort.

I say enough of this soft-parenting. Bring back corporal punishment. Spank everyone who does not do what he supposed to.

The image of Manmohan bending over and Sonia administering a cane to his rear end is strangely troubling as its is exciting, cartoon controversy or not.

CUCKOONOMICS

I was indulging in my morning cuppa and newspapers when a cuckoo called outside my window. Now the Indian cuckoo (koel) is a much glorified bird, due mainly to its sweet call. Many a female singer has been feted as the "koel" of India. It is fact that we Indians find a pre-adolescent female voice attractive- the further south you go, the more pronounced this preference. Shades of  paedophilia.....? Lets keep that for another post.

For all its sweet voice the cuckoo has no other redeeming feature; but a few that are shocking. It is not a particularly good flier known for its aerobatic abilities. It does not have noteworthy plumage. Unlike the humble crow it does not clear up the mess that we leave behind. It is not social, preferring a lone existence.

 It takes no responsibility for its offspring, abandoning them to the care of someone else. Specifically, it has this habit of laying its eggs in the nest of a "host" after dislodging as many of the host's own eggs as possible. The mother cuckoo plays no further role in the upbringing of its offspring. Resembles politicians, doesn't it?  Passing the consequences of your deeds to someone else?

The cuckoo chicks for their part grow faster than the host chicks, are more ravenous, and compete  vociferously (and more successfully, I might add) for the food the host mother brings. Some chicks are even known to push the host chicks out of the nest. If all that sounds like Mamata, it does so because it is. All in all, despite its sweet voice glorified in Indian poetry, there is nothing glorious about a cuckoo and a lot to despise, even hate.

Cuckoo is used in slang to denote a crazy, silly, person or a simpleton. Going cuckoo denotes going out of one's mind, becoming mad. As we have seen so far, the word cuckoo doesn't stand for anything admirable. Cloud-cuckoo-land is a place of fancy, unreality. The sort of place politicians usually inhabit. Manmohan lives there.

Cuckoonomics results when cuckoo politician meets real economics.

Cuckoonomics is practiced when you buy votes with subsidies and the like, leaving the economic eggs to hatch in someone else's watch, leaving that someone else to feed the hatchlings. When you refuse to take responsibility for your electoral dalliances and liaisons and leave someone else literally holding the (economic) baby, it is cuckoonomics. When you empty the coffers of state, when you pile up deficits, when you hand out doles to those shouting the loudest, when you make Tughlaqian retrospective tax laws out of pique and then claim it has not frightened off investors (presumably the $12 billion that exited was to pay overdue electricity bills back home) it is cuckoonomics.

Our FM, Pranab Cuckooji,  doesn't believe that our growth is faltering, and asserts we will grow at  9% until the facts are too overwhelming to continue the denial. Analysts and rating agencies are the eggs that this cuckoo kicks out so that their views don't survive. Mr Cuckooji does behave like an ostrich in the face of adverse news. This particular imitation of an ostrich by a cuckoo has not been observed elsewhere.

Oh, by the way, the Cuckoo's Nest  is at 10, Janpath and nothing flies over it..

MACHO IN MADRAS

Machismo in Madras consisted of being wiry with an extravagant handlebar moustache  twisted into fine points at the tips; crisp white "veshti" starched to stand a few inches apart from the lower limbs; an even crisper and whiter shirt unbuttoned just far enough to show that the owner had not had an open heart procedure; sleeves rolled up to mid-biceps which, while clearly showing a healthy musculature, were by no means a foot in circumference. An occasional gold chain was sported, with an amulet to ward off evil eye or as a mark of obeisance to a favourite deity. There were also the visibly overfed slobs with buttons open all the way to the navel displaying thick gold chains and significant man-cleavages. While the latter were aspiring "minors" (a derogatory term for wealthy reprobates, perhaps originally referring to the dilettante play-boy sons of wealthy men; minor as in "junior"), they didn't carry much street-cred as the macho men - too fleshy and way too soft for all their swagger. That their hall mark was an "arumbu meesai", a thin line of incipient moustache, did not help. Real men had real moustaches - dark, luxurious, and pointed; occasionally turned up at the tips a la Dali but not for comic effect. Arumbu Meesais may have gotten you sobriquets like "Kaadhal Mannan" (King of Romance) but they did not cut it in the world of real macho men who did not cry.

Macho men of Madras respected women. This respect was manifested as keeping their distance from women whether belonging to their own family or not and was not in recognition of women as independent humans - which they clearly were not- but out of a sense of  chivalry which had been dinned into them. This sense told them that women were the weaker lot, they needed to be protected and as macho men it was their duty to provide this protection. They classified women into three groups: mothers, daughters and mothers and daughters of others. Then there was a rarely spoken-about fourth group, the "other women". This category of women were generally as good as wives but prettier. They would share the macho men's bed but not their wealth. Theirs was a fully functional family except it was not a "legal" arrangement. A macho man's machismo was questionable if he did not have such an arrangement. The wives overlooked such liaisons as a necessary outlet for the sexual energies of macho men provided the interests of the "legal family" remained inviolate.

The macho men of Madras had an innate sense of fairness, even in business. They did not exploit the weak, or cheat even when no one was looking. There simply were certain things they didn't do. They also didn't cringe and crawl for favours political or otherwise. They demanded favours where they felt entitled to. Even as they derived their status, power and position from inheritance they were quite proud to showcase their own achievements.

Madras became Chennai. and a lot of things changed. Including the macho men.

The veshtis remain but now worn as a political statement rather than as a garment appropriate to the climatic conditions. The thin gold chains have long gone and given way to ones as thick as ones pinky. Fingers are festooned with chunky gold rings set with stones of all colours shapes and sizes in the belief that they brought money, good fortune, long life, and certain prowess to the wearer. The white shirts have mostly given way to  tight Tee shirts which proudly display the bulge in the middle. The handlebar moustaches have given way to caterpillars dyed an improbable shade of black  The  face today is hidden behind huge, shiny  "shades" which in the olden days used to be aviator style "cooling glasses". Today it is important for macho men to look like their political heroes.

The Chennai machismo doesn't much care for women. They like their women alright, but not in the same way as before.Women are a nuisance who are becoming competitive, insistent of their rights,  demanding respect and generally unpleasant. They don't know their place and do not defer to men. It is not uncommon to see modern macho men pushing aside women to get ahead in a queue. When the opportunity arises, they are not above copping a feel.

The latter day macho men don't travel any more in  Ambassador cars with open windows and second world war surplus jeeps of various manufacture. They travel in huge SUVs with heavily tinted windows, flying flags of their political affiliation.

You see, they derive their machismo from the flag and the SUV.