Tag: bits and pieces

The man used to walk around the old mohalla of the city wearing a pair of dark sunglasses. Sun or no sun, morning, afternoon or sun-down, those dark glasses were always resting on the bridge of his beak. Hidden behind those dark shades, his sharp roving eyes, each one of the pair working independently, used to look for any and all unusual activities, foreign spies and people who frequently indulged in dangerous stories. He had his eyes on everyone and no body could tell. He could be looking at you and he could not be looking at you. This man was no ordinary man, he was a secret agent, his mind was always taking notes and the sunglasses were a perfect cover for his covert art. These sunglasses were his weapon of choice.

The man was C.I.D, it was well known. Goggles long ago gave away his ruse. People knew it all and they had a hearty laugh everytime he walked past. In the city, this man became known as ‘Nab’Ga’gal‘, Nabi of Dark Sun Goggles.

Heard:
Once, long ago, a foreign tourist was on a visit to Kashmir. He wanted to go from downtown Srinagar to Dal Lake, so this foreigner walked up to a nearby tangadda and asked a tangwol, tongawalla, who was at that time was grooming his not so big horse and mounting the sideblinds on its eyes. The foreigner gingerly asked the tangwol if he would give him a ride to Dal Lake. Tangwol replied, “Why certainly Janaab,” and while brushing the coarse sparse hair of his little horse using his own coarse long fingers, he added, “and it would only cost you rupees ten.” The foreigner was no fool. He had heard all about the wily ways of Kashmiris and their evil bargaining powers. And this particular foreign gent was also well read and at this particular moment he remembered a line written in 1783 by an Englishman named George Forster: Kashmiris are “endowed with unwearied patience in the pursuit of gain.”

The foreigner, crossing his arms across his puny chest, the big collar of his bush shirt looking stiff, said, ” I know the route and all the roads, it should cost me not more that five rupees,” and then, with some difficulty, putting his hands inside the side pockets of his tight at hip bell bottom pants, added, “I will only pay five. Fine.” At this the tangwol moved close to the foreigner and in a hush-hush tone said, “Ahista Bowlaow, not so loud,” and then moving still closer, into the foreigner’s ear, whispered, “mera Ghura sunaiyga toh hasaiyga, if my horse hears that, it’s going to throw a laughing fit. You see it knows all the routes.” After this the bargaining session ended.
After a ride that lasted around forty minutes, the foreigner reached Dal Lake and paid the tangwol the promised sum of rupees ten.

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Photographs: A horse and a Horseman at Gulmarg

• Unrelated post: Horses, donkeys and a film

Heard:
Found them all sleeping in the courtyard one early morning, the entire family of a neighbor. They hadn’t slept inside their house that night and probably many more nights.
When asked, they replied, ‘Don’t you know? Sek’lyob is about to fall! We are just prepared for the worst.’ Walking on street, people were playing pranks on reach other: ‘Watch your head, look at the sky, sek’lyob is falling. Haha! Got’ya!’

Read:
July 1979
The American Sky lab vehicle, nine stories tall and weighing 77.5 tons, was expected to slip into the earth’s atmosphere. Somewhere, ten fragments, each weighing 1,000 Ibs. or more, were to crash down to earth at speeds of up to 270 m.p.h. with the force of a dying meteor. Thus would have be observed, after a series of miscalculations, the tenth anniversary of man’s proudest achievement in space, the walk on the moon.

NASA’S statisticians contended that the chance of any remnant striking a human being was only 1 in 152; the probability of any specific person being struck was 1 in 600 billion—far less than the chance of being hit by a bolt of lightning or winning a lottery.

 One of the heaviest pieces of Skylab, a two-ton lead-lined vault used for film storage, was capable of digging a hole 5 ft. wide and 100 ft. deep. And within the band of Skylab’s orbital paths lied some of the world’s most populous areas, including all of the U.S., much of Europe, India and China. Indeed, the chance of debris falling in some city of at least 100,000 inhabitants was a sobering 1 in 7. Only 10% of the earth’s inhabitants could be considered totally free of any risk from Skylab’s metallic fallout.

Image: Haar