The lady at the opticians had a curious accent. It was not something I recognised. I had to know.
“Is that a New Zealand accent?” I asked her.
“No. I am from somewhere much further away.”
“Australia?”
“No no. Much much further away.”
“South Africa?”
“Now you are getting closer. Not South Africa though. But nearby.”
“Is it Botswana?” I was clutching at straws.
“No. I’ll give you a clue. My country looks like a teapot. Google it.”
So I discovered she is from Zimbabwe, and its map does resemble a teapot, if you can imagine a teapot without a handle.

So, I learned something new. As they say, the last thing you learn is how to stop breathing. This irresistible desire to learn, this incorrigible curiosity, keeps us going, I guess. In my case it also costs money.

I have been avoiding FB posts that entice me to spend money on new ideas. Only with partial success, I will admit. Just the other day, I purchased a device for sealing plastic bags. What a wonderful thing it is! Only the size of a stapler, it seals plastic bags and makes them completely airtight. A wonderful device, I thought and promptly purchased it. I went about sealing every open bag of food in the house. Cereals, savouries, nuts, biscuits … anything I found open, I sealed – until my wife started complaining.

“What’s wrong with clips or clothes pegs? Why don’t you just use those ziplock bags?”

And then I realised, I hadn’t thought it through. Well, the video on FB by MustHaveIdeas didn’t discuss these possibilities. They just showed me an iPhone that was sealed in a bag and dropped into the fish tank. That was enough for me.

I also purchased this clothes dryer that is a regular concertina type dryer but with electric heating. It dries clothes in half the time and consumes only 0.3kwh which is about 10p an hour. Instead of drying overnight, clothes dry in 4 to 5 hours. It’s even got a cover to conserve the heat. Great. The one question I didn’t ask myself was – what is the hurry? It is not as if we are running out of clothes!

Then there is the telescope that sits in our conservatory. It was received as a present from our son on the occasion of my wife’s big birthday. I am in charge of everything technical in the house and so I put it together, read the manual and lugged it to the open field nearby to look at the moon and planets like Mars, Venus, Saturn and others. Excellent. Mars was a little blob before. Through the telescope it is a bigger blob. Yes, the moon has many craters and Saturn has a faint ring. But so what? I can see much clearer images on Youtube and I don’t have to lug the heavy tripod with the heavier telescope and assemble everything, align and focus in the middle of the freezing night, in a desolate field. If I want to be really astronomical, I could even use an app on my phone and see all the planets above and below the horizon. If there were no clouds, I could actually see some of them with the naked eye. The telescope now sits forlorn in my conservatory occupying valuable space.

I have now decided not to be tempted by anything new. I have unfollowed MustHaveIdeas. Meanwhile, the magic whisk, the sealer, the dryer and a variety of other brilliantly useful things sit without use. They have become collector’s items – they collect dust.

Horrible homophones causing me embarrassing moments …

In 2022, I accompanied my wife to an orthopaedic surgeon in Bangalore who specialises in knee replacement. He came across as a nice guy, very approachable. So, when he finished advising my wife, I asked if I could get his medical opinion on something that was causing me some concern. (In India, you can sometimes generate these ‘buy one get two’ deals.)

“Sure,” he said giving me his full attention.

“I get some knee pain too but only after a long cycling trip or some heavy exercise.”

“That’s sweet pain. Don’t worry about it,” he reassured me.

I’m full of sweet pain now having visited the gym a few times in the New Year. Every muscle is on fire and I feel as if a road roller has run me over. Hopefully, the body will repair itself soon because frankly there is no difference between real pain and sweet pain. Are you listening doctor?

I have avoided sweets since January 1. This variety of sweet pain is almost unbearable. I’m like a junky deprived of my daily fix. I look at my wife and drool like a hungry Labrador when I see her eating those plum puddings.

If any of you meet me this month and I’m not my usual self, you know why. I’m suffering from a double dose of sweet pain.

Happy New Year to all my friends and family. Let us hope 2025 will prove both Nostradamus and Baba Vanga wrong. They have prophesied apocalypse this year. On that cheerful note let me tell you about my New Year resolutions – sorry solutions.

Every year, I make New Year resolutions and every year I break them after a few months, sometimes weeks. The main problem is that it becomes an all or nothing endeavour. I will not eat chocolates, I will not consume alcohol, I will go to the gym 7 days a week, I will write a minimum of 500 words daily, and so on. In short, my resolutions are designed to fail and they invariably do. I know I shouldn’t be eating sweets because I have diabetes. Someone said to me the other day, ‘You will go blind if you eat so many sweets.’ The riposte that popped up in my head was, ‘Sweets would still taste delightful.’

But seriously, I need to get rid of that sweet tooth. The quality of my sleep is better if I don’t consume any alcohol. I am overweight and the case for sweating it out in the gym is very strong. I wish to improve my writing – so, as many writers tell me, I must write something every day, even if it’s crap. My resolutions, as you can see, are well intended. However, they simply don’t work.

The pattern is the same every year. I am resolute in achieving my goals. Weeks pass. Counter arguments to defeat my resolutions gradually line up like some superior army against an already weak and demoralised enemy. The eastern concept that everything is an illusion (ergo nothing matters) join forces with its unlikely bed fellows – the existentialist tenets of the west – freedom of choice and individual responsibility. The first casualty is usually the anti-sweet pledge. I pop one measly chocolate bar into my mouth and the rest of the resolutions come tumbling down like a house of cards. Excessive drinking becomes a routine (in my case one or two glasses of wine a day), I forget the way to the gym and the realisation that writing without being inspired is not something I am able to do! I am back to square one.

A wise friend of mine from Sheffield told me one year that his only New Year resolution was to drink more red wine. He did not say he intended to reduce his white wine consumption proportionately. I had just assumed that to be a given. Only last evening, did I realise that I could have been wrong all these years. His was a New Year solution not a resolution. I have, therefore, decided to decapitate the word, remove the ‘re’ from resolution. Like the mythical Phoenix, the solution has emerged from the ashes of broken self-promises: no New Year resolutions this year, just less of everything.

In life, one never forgets certain events. These serendipities form indelible impressions on the psyche. They leave a yearning, a desperate wish to repeat the experience, to relive the sudden elation of a moment long past. More often than not, it remains a yearning, futile hope rather than purposeful aspiration.

The first time I saw Istanbul was by a lucky accident. I had just begun my career as a marine engineer. It was 1980 and I was one of the two fifth engineers on a general cargo ship. A fifth engineer spends his time either sleeping or working in the engine room.

In the summer months, the engine room is an oven, the temperatures often exceeding 55 C or more near the engines and boilers. The cacophony of multiple running machinery is an aural assault on the hapless engine room crew. Faint smells of leaking exhaust gases and burning diesel adds to the misery.

While at sea, an engineer doesn’t usually have much locational awareness. I knew our destination but that was about it. My ship was on its way to the Black Sea port of Ilyichevsk in the then Soviet Union. I knew that we were in the strait of Bosphorus and would be passing under the bridge connecting the continents of Europe and Asia. Sadly, I was in the engine room at the time, under the waterline.

Had I not popped out on deck that evening for some respite from the heat and noise, would I have fallen in love with Istanbul the way I did? Was it just for me that the sun was setting on the city, bathing its splendid mosques in golden orange, silhouetting the squawking seagulls against slender minarets? Did I not momentarily forget the heat and din when the cool sea breeze on my sweaty overalls comforted me in its delicate embrace? For a few ephemeral but precious moments, I stood frozen on the deck of the moving ship, absorbing the magnificent vista gliding past me. I became a part of Istanbul and Istanbul became a part of me.

And so, after more than four decades, I was fortunate to experience nearly identical emotions as the ferry plying between the two continents approached Eminönü, its final stop. The sunset, gulls, minarets – were all there as if the intervening years were illusory and nothing had changed. I was glad that despite the years, I hadn’t lost the capacity to be astounded and love-struck.

NB: apologies to those who read the earlier version. I have shortened it to remove all the unnecessary details. I had violated the Chekov’s gun principle (if you introduce a gun into the story it must go off before the story ends).

The Republic monument in Taksim square, Istanbul – the epicentre of political protests – is now cordoned off by the POLICE. India Gate in Delhi is closed for business too. History is being rewritten in Turkey. Nothing new there. Those miserable Moghuls are being gradually purged from our history too; what are they doing in our Hindu Rashtra anyway? Kemal Ataturk is not the favourite anymore. Mahatma Gandhi, don’t worry, you are not alone. School curriculum has been altered to refelect the new history of the Turkish Republic. NCERT തഥൈവ! Jai Sreeram. Name of the country changed from Turkish Republic to Turkiye. India? Welcome to Bharath. Contempt in some quarters towards women not properly covered. Bharathi naree don’t get caught up in love jehads. Voices automatically lowered when Erdogan is mentioned. In Bharath, the M word may be freely used, but only in unctuous eulogies. Fearless Turkish journalists are rotting in jail. Bharathi journalists have been tamed, others can go to jail. Antinational bastards. Serves them right. Why did they commit unlawful acts like criticising the government? Didn’t they know about UA(P)A?
Where am I? Turkiye? Bharath? I feel so homesick!

I don’t think I was cut out to be a photo journalist. Whenever I witness something completely out of the ordinary, I forget to take a photograph. Some 6 months ago we were on a coach to London from Southampton. We were speeding along the M25 (for those not familiar, it is a 188 km circular motorway around London) when all of a sudden, the traffic slowed down to walking pace. In the slow lane was a full grown swan, waddling along as if it owned the road! We stared at the elegant bird, open-mouthed. None of us clicked a picture.

Recently, on our way from Istanbul airport to our accommodation, a similar thing happened. The traffic was crawling along due to an incident on the motorway. Taking advantage of the slow pace was a man with a little cart selling bagels! That too in the fast lane. An extraordinary sight for us. I didn’t have the presence of mind to take a few pictures. Instead, I said something like, ‘Look look’ to my wife. The cab driver, thinking I wanted a bagel, pulled up close to the cart! I had a hard time communicating with him that my mouth was open in astonishment and not in hunger.

So, I’m afraid I had to bore you with a thousand words instead of a couple of photographs of the scene.

Some six months ago, I started growing a beard or more correctly, stopped shaving. My beard is of a rebellious nature and does not grow uniformly. It is mostly white whereas the hair on my head is preponderantly black. When friends started telling me that I have put on an extra 10 years with the added facial hair, I let them in on a secret: I was growing a beard for precisely that reason. It was a social experiment that I was planning. The litmus test would be conducted during a ride in the Metro in any Indian city. In the past, no one offered me a seat although the signs clearly announce that some seats are reserved for senior citizens. I was sure I now looked the part – every bit a senior citizen with a flowing white beard.

With great hopes, I boarded the Bangalore Metro and manoeuvred through the milling crowd to a seat reserved for senior citizens. It was occupied by two strapping young men and I hovered expectantly right in front of them. But, they just gave me a brief glance and continued canoodling their phones. Disappointed, I looked up at the sign. The Metro authorities had changed it. They now invoke their patrons to offer the seat to:
the elderly, disabled, women with babies and pregnant women. The words were illustrated with a woman holding a baby, someone leaning on a stick, a disabled person with crutches, and a heavily pregnant woman! No mention of senior citizens.

My social experiment has failed. I will not tempt fate by wielding a walking stick; neither will I invest in a pair of crutches. I couldn’t get pregnant and even if I could borrow a baby, I wouldn’t qualify as a man carrying a baby doesn’t.

I must find a good barber.

It was a good decision to visit Colombo on the last day. We did bask in some colonial luxury at the Galle Face Hotel, breathing the sea air and sipping beer. However, Colombo, like any other city, is not a place where I would want to spend too much time.

The train ride from Waikkal to Colombo was reminiscent of the Indian trains of the late 80s complete with the small cardboard tickets with embossed serial numbers. A one way ticket cost us only 120 Lankan rupees while the return cab ride cost 5200!

At Colombo station, the tourist office suggested we hire a tuk tuk for sightseeing. Promptly, there appeared a driver who claimed to speak English but quickly switched to Tamil which we understood, mostly. He had an eerie resemblance to the tourist office man. I don’t have the heart to describe everything we saw. The photographs give you a rough idea.

A man we met at the ATM, Shiva, offered to accompany us to the bus stand for the return journey. After discovering that traveling by bus would involve another taxi ride nearer our destination, we decided to take a cab all the way. Shiva used his Pickme app to call one, waiting until it arrived. He even asked us to call him after reaching our hotel!

So, let me close this series with a big thank you to all the lovely people of Sri Lanka, especially those who helped us, often going out of their way to do so. Thank you also to our faithful friend, the frog who followed us all the way from Jaffna. He was last seen in our bathroom.

I hope you have enjoyed reading it all as well as viewing the photographs. I didn’t get a lot of time to proof read or edit before posting. Apologies for errors and omissions.

Ayu Bhavan.

The photos taken in Negombo lagoon and Wenlankanni can speak for themselves. I’m taking a couple of days off!