Ever since I learnt of M.O’s ailment I have started thinking about cancer and our war against it. A recent article in The Economist gave some grim statistics: 10 million people were diagnosed with cancer in 2000, and 6 million died from it. And the numbers are growing, despite the billions being spent on cancer research. The article, however, said there was hope for the future, in the form of a new treatment that is yielding positive results.

I am reminded of the first time I saw the movie Anand. I was probably 12 years old then, and the movie upset me terribly. I resolved to become a “doctor” and “find a cure” for cancer. My dad was very amused at this resolve – he even mentioned it to a friend and they laughed about it together. I didn’t find it funny at all.

Over the years two aunts in my family have succumbed to this disease. The count in my wife’s family is at three. And now M.O – someone who was in perfect health until the other day – has it too.

* * * * * * * *

I’m reading Pablo Neruda’s The book of questions. I fall into a trance, reading the questions…

If all rivers are sweet
where does the sea get its salt?

Tell me, is the rose naked
or is that her only dress?

Is there anything in the world sadder
than a train standing in the rain?

Why did the grove undress itself
only to wait for the snow?

Where can you find a bell
that will ring in your dreams?

Whom can I ask what I came
to make happen in this world?

Love, love, his and hers,
if they’ve gone, where did they go?

* * * * * * * *

On a recent drive with a friend, we were listening to songs from Swadesh.

“I want to see this movie” he said, after listening for a while.

“Why?” I asked.

“I like the songs – not one of them so far has been of the pyar-mohabbat type!”

* * * * * * * * *

We watched Khoobsurat (starring Rekha, Rakesh Roshan, etc) some days ago. Loved it, as always. Movies are reasonably accurate mirrors of the times they are made for, and this makes it easy to see why they do not make such movies now-a-days. Life isn’t so simple anymore. An Amol Palekar like character – full of innocence, simplicity and quite the opposite of a macho-man – would probably be a misfit in today’s world. Atleast he wouldn’t be someone most people would want to pay and watch in a movie. Thank God for old movies and literature.

* * * * * * * * *

It is a bright morning, and sun’s rays illuminate dark corners of the house and expose well-knit spider webs. Should clean up before wife spots them, I tell myself, and reach for the jhaadoo.

Her eyes are quicker than my hands.

On Thursday night I broke my specs.

It happens every once in a while. I would be sitting calmly, reading a book or magazine, or simply daydreaming, when a whirlwind begins to form and threatens to disturb my equilibrium. I would ignore her for a while; sometimes it would pass, and sometimes it would turn into a hurricane. Silence can withstand even a hurricane, but is difficult to maintain at such times. My first response is to reach for the nearest object – the spectacles on my nose, at most times – and break it: click.

The first time I did it, I was surprised at the ease with which it broke. I felt disappointed – it appeared too trivial – and wondered if it had had the intended affect. It did – she was stunned for a few seconds.

These days she ignores it. It now only means a new one will have to be requested from my parents in India the next time we call them.

In the beginning, it used to happen frequently – once every few months. After a while my parents expressed concern about this tendency of mine to step on or sit down on my specs – could it be a bad omen? they wondered. Or was it the severe winter in Germany that made the frame and glasses so brittle?

My sister – who studies in a university nearby – once happened to chance upon the broken artefact. “This doesn’t look like you sat on it – it is neatly cut into two. How come?” she asked. “It was placed between two hardbound books when I sat on it.” I replied.

The last time I was in India, I picked up four pairs. The person at the opticians wouldn’t have normally given it a second thought, but these were four pairs with identical frames. “Two for me, two for my twin brother.” I explained. He nodded with amazement – “Two people, same power – what a wonder of nature!”

On Thursday I broke one after a year and half. Its time had come.

…by the way did you notice those workers who are cleaning the windows at office these days actually this afternoon I saw them stretched out on the grass taking a break munching something plucking blades of grass and I immediately wished I could be there and not in the corridor walking back to my seat back to my monitor back to what I find these days a narrow existence which is perhaps what happens when one spends seventy hour weeks successively at work and one doesn’t know if that is exactly the place to be in and so I was thinking how nice it would be to be lying there under the warm sun when it struck me that all these continuous moments with artificial elements at work – keyboard, mouse, monitor, cyberspace – has made me crave for something natural, something physical, no no not that physical you dirty mind you all-words-no-action woman it is not that but what I mean is for example when we stop each morning at the traffic junction next to those fields on the way to work I feel like getting down and walking over to the grass just to feel the earth feel the dew and take in the freshness – what’s this, pumpkin again in the sambar and the palya I can’t believe it I think I’ll never forgive Stefan for giving us the pumpkin so what if it is a rare Italian type how long can I eat this alone tell me how much is left also can we please please give part of it to someone ok then as I was saying I’m missing being in touch with nature so I’m going walking to work tomorrow you can take the car I do not want to miss the chance to spend time outdoors when we’re having this fine spell of weather God knows how long it will last I hope it will be nice and sunny at Laussanne this weekend oh that reminds me I am yet to book my leave for next Monday you must remind me about these things and have you booked the hotel yet good and what about my jeans has it been put for washing fine then I’ll put it yes I’ll clean up also don’t worry and yes the dishes too no no I won’t keep the dried ones in the wrong shelves you mustn’t really interpret my words as missing physical work what an opportunist you are taking advantage like that I must really be careful of what I speak so what are you going to do now talk to your parents of course go ahead I’ll join you after I finish everything….

In December 2000, on our last day at the company before our transfer to Germany, my wife and I met the directors in their cabin. After the customary greetings and best wishes for the years ahead, one of the directors brought up the weather. He had recently returned from Germany, and he said we were lucky since severe winter hadn’t yet set in.

“It was still around 15 degrees when I left, which is very unusual for this time of the year.”

The other director was surprised to hear this, and something in his expression told me that he had, in that moment, decided on his next trip to Germany.

Once outside, Wife and I looked at each other and smiled.

“I cannot understand the Germans.” I said, shaking my head. “Quite obsessed with the weather, aren’t they.”

Like most urban middle-class Indians, our interest in weather was limited to infrequent conversations about the heat. Until a decade ago the mass media reflected this – all we got at the end of a doordarshan news programme was a listing of maximum and minimum temperatures recorded in the four metropolitan cities.

And before we end, here are the temperatures recorded at the four ….

It was as if these numbers were insignificant statistics, added as a formality just before signing off merely to placate people at the meteorological department, who, back then, were probably not much better at predicting weather than astrologers were at predicting the future.

Some years later viewers were fed with an image – from the Insat 1B, the news-reader emphasised, just to be sure everyone understood we too had a satellite up there – that showed a clear picture of our country in a black background with smears of white here and there, patches that portended rain and instilled hope.

These days things are very different. Weather has turned into a profitable business (not as profitable as astrology, though) and we now have whole bulletins reeling out forecasts from Tokyo to Timbuktu about snowfalls and showers. (The other day, at an informal gathering, someone joked that CNN intended to outsource its weather forecasts to India. I later learnt that an earnest member of that gathering had initiated plans to introduce a course that groomed “weather-consultants”.)

Our perception about weather has changed considerably in the three and half years we have spent in Germany. The day begins with a look at the temperature reading on the car dashboard followed by a quick extrapolation of how cold or warm the day would turn out; on Fridays a look at the weekend forecast is mandatory; travel plans are seldom made without consulting weather channels; and any long occurrence of unfluctuating weather results in frequent checks to see when the pattern would change.

In short, we’ve almost reached the German levels of obsession, thanks mainly to the fluctuations and extremities we experience here. These days the temperature is hovering around 35 degrees Celsius, which is unbearable in offices that have no air-conditioning (and most offices, including ours, don’t). Last year it touched 40 degrees Celsius – a record of sorts, and it did lead to a few alarming occurrences.

Some months ago when North India was reeling under the heat wave, I spent time giggling at the laments of the Delhi-trio – Anita, Rash and Hekate – whose blogs, during those days, resembled journals of souls stuck in the middle of the Sahara, with sentences resembling utterances from a parched throat. It is now time for me to face the heat, and for you to bear with its consequences.

When I recently came upon a news item that conveyed United States’ intention to reduce their armed forces in Germany by half, I was concerned. I expressed it to my wife.

“The US is planning to reduce their forces in Germany.” I said to her.

“Really? So how does that affect us?” she asked, disinterestedly.

“What do you think will happen to the Roadside Theater productions?”

“Oh! I didn’t think of that!”

We have been regulars at the Roadside Theater – a theater formed by, and mostly for, the US armed forces community in Germany – since the last few years, watching plays that have included memorable ones like Fiddler on the Roof, Honk, Proof, and more recently, Victor-Victoria.

Honk, an adaptation of The Ugly Duckling, was the first play we watched and I found it difficult to believe that an amateur cast could turn out such a professional performance. The handout had titles like Major, Lieutenant, and Captain against names of actors and actresses – these were people with a regular job, and yet they were so good and polished in the art of theater!

Could it be, I’ve sometimes wondered, that these people in the armed forces need – at times of peace, when work is routine – something they can indulge in with passion? Are these dramas on stage diversions or substitutes for the real dramas they yearn for in the battlefield?

Whatever the reason, one cannot take away any credit for the talent nurtured and passion spent in these productions. I only hope that the ones who are called back to the US are those who sit among the audience, not the ones on stage.

The US occupation of Germany has had one other consequence I am very glad about: an English library in Heidelberg, perhaps the only one of its kind in the near vicinity. Although the selection of books and magazines slants towards American authors and subjects, it still presents a valuable source of books and a favourite haunt on Saturday mornings.

So when I think of Iraq, despite all my distaste for the US led invasion, I cannot help wondering if, a few decades from now, there will be people who will derive such indirect benefits from the presence of US troops and their families in that country. If Bush or his advisors were to read these lines, they would probably want to kick themselves for not having thought of this ingenious justification for war and subsequent occupation of a weaker nation.