THE PUNCHES WE THROW

The word “Punch Dialogue” is a terminology that is coined and commonly used only in the Tamil movie parlance. You will find no reference to this phrase in any other context other than in Tamil Movies. This got me musing. What exactly does it mean?. Where does it get its origin? How far has it spread?

These punch dialogues are hot one liners uttered by the hero or the heroine of a movie, to exhibit the macho and power of the character. These are commonly accompanied with stylish gestures such as snapping of fingers, crossing and re-crossing your legs while seated and so on. These gestures are further enhanced with loud and trendy background scores. The advertisement for the film is focused on these one-liners. These punch dialogues are mostly bravado words bragging one’s abilities like “when I say something once, it’s almost like it’s said a hundred times”, “when I decide on something I will not go back, even on my own advice” and so on. They are widely, hollow words and do not convey any significance and are meant solely for the front benchers and the nostalgic  NRI intellects. It is quite possible to deduce  that this phrase has its genesis from the idiom “pack a punch” which means “to have a powerful effect or influence”.  

In truth the Hollywood movies are not completely bereft of these punch lines. Take for instance the western movies where John Wayne shooting from his hip, killing the wicked villain will utter great quotes such as “Life is hard; it’s harder if you’re stupid” , or “Courage is being scared to death , but saddling up anyway”  or even “A man ought to do what he thinks is right”. These are etched in the minds of every movie lover of ester years.

It must be recorded here that the Tamil language is famous for its short and sometimes brusque phrases, poems which carry tonnes of useful messages. Take for instance the “Thirukurral” which is essentially a collection of couplets or aphorism which touches upon almost all aspects of life as varied as from ploughing the field to ruling a country. Or listen to the laconic blessings of the Tamil savant Avaiyar,  to a  king on his birthday as just “Varappuyara”. This is the title of a poem which translates as “ Varappu Uyara” meaning let the dams and bunds be raised. The area is a predominantly agricultural area with rice being the main produce. Paddy fields require stocking of plenty of water and more the water more the yield.  As the paddy crops require abundant standing water for their proper cultivation, the farmer builds high and strong bunds around his field to grow the crop. Only if there are good rains will the farmer take the effort to build the bunds higher to prevent the rainwater from running off. This water storing will go a long way in replenishing the ground water level. Your modern day “rain-water harvesting”,  indeed.  Well the poem goes like this

varappu uyara neer uyarum;
neer uyara nel uyarum;
nel uyara kudi uyarum;
kudi uyara kol  uyarvan

When translated means if the bunds are raised, more water can be held to yield more paddy which will lead to the prosperity of the general public and thereby the well being of the monarch himself is ensured. What a good advice on Irrigation system and proper governance.  

If Tamil literature has its fair share of punch lines, will Greek and Rome be far behind? Hippocrates, the Greek physician in his “Aphorism” has introduced the famous thought of “life is short…” which is greatly used in maxims of physical science.  Rome has made its punch mark with the famous “You too, Brutus?” (“Et tu, Brute?”- Latin)   to convey surprise at betrayal and any form of back stabbing.

When Armstrong stepped off the Eagle's footpad he etched his name in history as the first human to set foot on another astronomical body. The words  he uttered then  "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind"  has further immortalized his name and added his to the long list of “World Punch liners”.

Back home we use the punch line “ closing the back door ” to indicate a situation where you set out to do a job which however leads  into an array of activity prolonging the completion of the  original job that you set out to do. I think we read it in the Reader’s digest, where the man of the family sets out to have a peaceful siesta on a Saturday. Just as he walks to his room he notices that the back door is open. He goes to close it and sees that the light in the basement is glowing.  He climbs down to switch it off only to find that the switch is loose. He searches out his screw driver and fixes the switch. In the process he niches his finger. He goes to fetch some toilet paper to wipe the blood and ends up refilling the tissue papers in the toilet. While washing his blood stained hand he sees the dripping tap and has to change the washer and ultimately he closes the back door and comes to the hall. His wife asks him “where were you this whole afternoon?”. Our man replies “will you believe me, I was closing the back door”.

So let’s conclude, if huge information could be packed in a short sentence it becomes a punch line. While our lines don’t come with back ground sounds and stylish looks, we do pepper our conversations with them for better impact.

THE TELL TALE CLOCK

“You can take the horse to the water but you can’t make it drink”. How very true!  Since I am no “equidae”   expert I can’t give any first hand information on that, but I am clearer about its applicability on human beings.

Listen to this story that my father used to say quite often. A plantation overseer tired of the hot sun wanted to break for his siesta. He was sure however that the moment he turned his eye away his slaves would also fall prey to the designs of Morpheus. So he took a big baseball, drew huge eyes on it with some charcoal, hoisted the ball on a stick in the middle of the field and warned “These are my eyes, I might not be physically here but my eyes are watching you and any person not working will be flogged”. So saying he left peacefully to his cabin. The field hand dutifully worked for some time then one of the smart guy noticed that the eyes on the base ball were fixed in one direction and not rolling. So he secretly crept up from behind and threw his hat on the ball covering the eyes completely. He cried “the master’s eyes are closed. Come now let take turns to nap”.

My own experience is a story of sorts. I was then in-charge of a huge store yard which was in a particularly nefarious location. The yard which was of several acres was stocked with rows and rows of valuable copper cable drums. High walls with barbed wire fencing formed the first level of security. Hotlines to fire department and the nearest police station were the second level, and round the clock patrols with security guards were the third level.  It was all very nice to mark three guards for duty during the night with instructions to safe guard the items and an entirely different story in making them effective at it.  On an average the night shifts were a comparatively easy one’s, for one could sleep  after completing certain log enters and some such mandatory things, without the watchful eyes of a supervisor. It is only when the robbers decide to break in that all hell breaks loose.

The schedule is like this, one guard is to man the front gate, one is posted on top of the watch tower provided at the extreme end of the premises and the third to beat the patrol rounds in the complex. They were provided with lathi, a powerful torch light, each a pair gumboots and a whistle. Powerful sodium vapor lamps installed at strategic locations, provided enough illumination. As the yard was once a marsh there was no dearth of dangerous snakes and other creepers, add to this the dangerous burglars armed with axes, crow bars and equally menacing weapons.  The guards, naturally, were more prone to skip the beats and save themselves from all the impending dangers. It is here that the tell tale clocks come in.

These clocks were the manual winding clocks types with pendulum. Near the pendulum was a drum which spins in unison with the clock hands. On this drum one could load a paper disc. A long pointed needle protrudes out of the clock face. The person on patrol will have to press this lever and this will punch a hole in the paper disc.  This way one could monitor the beat cycles of the patrolling guards.  

 Three of these clocks I had put up at extremely difficult nooks of the building and I made sure that the clocks were wound daily and the paper disc changed without fail. The instructions to the guard were they should punch these discs on the hour every hour. If the boys missed punching they knew for sure I would almost punch them with my caustic words. Now they were in a dilemma, they either braved the elements and completed the rounds or face my wrath. The former seemed better so for some months I found that they carried out the routine patrols and by blowing the whistle they were putting off the burglars to some extent.

The human spirit is an indomitable one, so someone found out that if the clock was meddled it would stop ticking and so would the disc too. The tell tale clock was so quelled for sometime. Then I constructed a firm box like structure all around the clock with only the lever for punching visible. Now that was check mate. So the ticking of the tell tale clock continued much to the boys chagrin and to my smug pleasure.

TELL TALE CLOCK

The picture I have given below is almost similar to the one’s I used to handle.

INVINCIBLE GANGAMMA

This March 8^th, our friends teamed up and invited each other to name “the woman I admire most”.  Sure enough a majority ended up naming Mother Theresa or their own mom, some one named her daughter and one even her daughter in law (wise indeed!).  I sat rummaging to announce a really outrageous name such as Madonna, Naomi Campbell or Silk Smitha. Actually I really admire their beauty and their boldness at flaunting it.  I didn’t want to startle the ladies away, so I began thinking of some other name. Perhaps, my name?  But that would make me look like a Narcissus. So while scanning my memory for a more sedate name, in a moment of serious thought, the face of “Gangamma ” flashed through my mind. So I decided to talk about this Gangamma as the woman I admired most. Who is this Gangamma?  To explain that I need to take you some thirty years back.

            I was then beginning my college studies in a small town where we lived. My house was in the suburbs of the town and I had to travel by bus to reach my college which was in the other extreme end of the town. The suburbs could have their individual septic tank for waste disposal. But within the town area as the infrastructural facilities such was sewerage treatment plants were yet to be developed, the practice of collecting night soil was prevalent in the town area.  A group of sanitary workers will visit the privy of each house and collect the night soil and cart it off into a bullock cart. While this activity was going on the whole street will stink to heaven and hell. In fact we used to avoid using the street when we spotted the cart at the street end.

            The sanitary workers will chatter among themselves, fight and argue a lot loudly and spew the betel nut juice all over the street. But one lady stood out in this crowd. She was always neatly dressed in plain blue sari with a white blouse. Her hair was well oiled, neatly combed and collected in a bun at the back of her neck. I have never seen her chew betel nut or argue with the others. She would silently do her job with a blank face. She fascinated   me a lot.

As I have pointed out in my earlier blog, we used to visit a slum to do social service. Among the row of house wallowing in filth and dirt, one hut stood out. It was a small mud hut with a thatched roof. The wall was well white washed and sparkling in the sun. In front of the house, button roses planted in old buckets and battery containers were in full bloom adding beauty to the place. There was a small wooden plank doubling up for a door, but the doorway was well swept and cleaned with cow dung. The white kolam neatly drawn gave an almost holy appearance. Interested at this neatness amidst such poverty, I made my way to the house and looked inside. It was quite dark . I entered and found it cool. After some time my eyes got acclimatized to the darkness and I noticed that the house was clean, the floor was mopped with cow dung. There was a small shelf  and  the few copper vessels were so well washed they almost looked new. I peered with interest and there stood Gangamma smiling and inviting us to sit down. She was the sanitary worker I had noticed earlier. It was only during this meeting she gave me  her name. when I remarked about her neatness she thought over for some time and with a tinge of regret in her voice said “ My job is afterall to clean things, Right?”. Well she had a point there. It is not known if Gangaamma liked her job or not but it was evident that  fate had dealt her such a hard blow and created her as a sanitary worker, but she won over fate with her invincible spirit by keeping  herself and her home so impeccably clean.