My city

I don't have any particular city / town that I call my own. 37 years of my life have been spent at 1 city, 1 township and 3 towns.

7 years in SPIC Nagar, 5 years in Pudukkottai, 1 year in Kumbakonam, 4 yrs in Chennai, 4 yrs in Kilakarai (College), 5 years in SPIC Nagar again, 7 years in Chennai and last 4 years shuttling between Chennai and Tuticorin. In none of these towns and cities have I felt as a part of that place. I am a perennial outsider, wherever I am.

Some people love the city they grow up in. Take Chandrachoodan for example. He might be city hopping every other year, but still his love for Madras/Chennai grows stronger. Or Bishwanath Ghosh - he loves Chennai so much that he wrote a wonderful book about it. I envy them. I love history, I dig up facts about hoary Madras, but if you ask me whether I love this city or am proud to be a Chennaivasi, I can't give you a straight answer.

Tuticorin is another thing altogether. I have spent close to 16 years in and around Tuticorin, but can never be part of this town. I earn my bread here, did part of my schooling here, but still feel a rank outsider.

Pudukkottai and Kumbakonam are only hazy memories. I hardly remember anything about those towns. When we planned an alumni meet and the idea of meeting at Kilakarai was mooted, every one rejected it. That should say a lot about how we felt about Kilakarai.

Partly due to the regular visits to the ancestral house and partly due to the strong bond with the extended family, the only place where I feel at home is my village, where I have hardly stayed for more than 10 days  at a stretch. Ofcourse, the villagers look at me as an outsider there too.

The Emperor of All Maladies - Siddhartha Mukherjee

Cancer, the very word strikes fear in the hearts of those who hear it. My fixation with Cancer started when I was on the verge of being a cancer patient. I wrote about it here.  There were a couple of distant relatives who passed away due to cancer, though I wasn't affected much. Then there was Lalita Mukherjee. It was with her death that I truly felt the impact of the disease.

Siddhartha Mukherjee, an oncologist by profession understands this fear. It is a tough profession, to watch most of your patients die. He wrote "The Emperor of All Maladies" out of the notes he wrote as a practicing oncologist.

It is difficult to slot this book. Siddhartha Mukherjee reaches into history, literature and social studies to present a complete picture of Cancer. Interspersed with anecdotes about his patients, it makes a interesting read. He details the initial struggles by doctors to understand the disease. Some thought of it as caused by black bile, some thought it could be cut out of the body by surgery. He then leads us into the War against Cancer, how it went down the wrong path and the course corrections.The chapter on Cigarettes and how the manufacturers tried to stall the warnings make for chilling reading, especially when the same game is being played out in Asian countries.

The later part of the book has details about the current developments in cancer cure. This chapter with DNA - RNA and chemical reactions might tax the reader a little. However, even I, whose last class in Biology was in High School, was able to understand it. He leaves the reader in a positive frame of mind writing about the new drugs that have increased the life span of cancer patients.

For me, what stood out was Mukherjee's empathy with the patients. He gently chides some of the doctors who treat only the disease without understanding how it affects the patients. He writes about palliative care and how it enables terminally ill patients to die with dignity.

If any one of you wants to understand about Cancer, this is the book to read.

When I lied to novelist P.A. Krishnan

The last 10 years of my career has been spent in selling services. I was trained as an Engineer and worked as one for 5 years before stumbling into sales. With my inherent shyness and inability to make a lasting impression, I struggled in the initial years. I could sell to them over phone, I was pretty confident with words, but meeting one to one was a torture.

During my initial ship chandling years, I visited Dubai to sell our services to ship owners and ship management companies there. I was tagged along with a sales person from our company's associate concern in Dubai. This person was an Anglo Indian from Mumbai, and a born sales person. I went along with him for a week in client visits. He was able to connect instantaneously with any client. He could talk passionately about EPL footbal with an Arab Sheikh for an hour, and in the next floor extol the miracles of Mahim Church with a Mumbai Christian.

Those were my initial days, so I looked up to him with awe. During the breaks he used to explain to me - "Always look for a connect with a client. It might be anything - football, movies, religion - but find something common that binds you both.". It was easy for him - but I never could do that. In Glasgow, a shipping company executive asked me "Is Nathan your Christian name?". I blurted out, "No it is my Hindu name". I was that inept.

I do try to follow his advice and it has helped me in my decade of selling services. Couple of years ago I was with a purchase manager from one of the mills that I serve. He had been using our services for a couple of months then, but we still hadn't cemented our place. So I was talking to him, exploring for some connect.

He asked me "Where are you from ?"

I replied "I am from Karaikudi area, but am living in Tuticorin and Chennai"

"I have come to Karaikudi a couple of times. My father was an active participant in Kamban Kazhagam" he said.

Bingo. I had participated in a Kamban Kazhagam (a society that actively promotes Kamba Ramayanam) during my schook days and had even won prizes for recital. I had my connect. As I told him about it, he asked "Oh, so you are interested in Tamil Literature? What magazines you read?"

In order to look sophisiticated I lied "I read Kalachuvadu and Uyirmmai". These are the powerful literary magazines in Tamilnadu. I don't subscribe to them, but read them whenever they are available free online.

He was impressed. "My brother writes in Kalachuvadu regularly. You might know him. He is P.A. Krishnan"

I bluffed once again "He is a favourite writer of mine. I have read his novel புலி நகக் கொன்றை. It was awesome".

I knew about P.A. Krishnan, I knew about the novel, I had read about the novel, but I had NOT read the novel. No harm in lying for a sales contract, I told myself.

"Oh you are such a fan of his? Ok, let me call him and you can talk to him".

Now I was caught. I had to go through the lie. I talked to P.A. Krishnan, told him that I am his fan and safely steered the conversation away from the novel to his essays a few of which I had read. He asked me about his latest article in Kalachuvadu about Egypt, I hemmed and hawed and managed to end the conversation.

Whether this bluff helped me or not, I am not sure but I did serve his brother's mill for quite some time. His brother has since then left the mill. I too don't serve them anymore, so I can put this in public domain.

I did buy புலி நகக் கொன்றை in the next Chennai Book Fair and read it. It is one of the better Tamil novels I have read, centered around 4 generations of a Thenkalai Iyengar family near Nanguneri. It is on par with "The shadow lines" by Amitav Ghosh.