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CRANK'S CORNER

        Ever since I started to carry my email id at the bottom of this column, needless to say my inbox is overflowing like an Onyx dustbin as unknown but kindly hearts are thoughtful enough to offer me either several thousands of dollars stashed away in some African country or unlimited supplies of viagra. I have to decline them as my residence is already bursting at the seams. But the moral of the story is: Well, moral of any story is that it should come at the very end and hence this is not the right occasion to bring it in.

        But when you openly flaunt your email id, you are, in essence, making a straight invitation for all kinds of response. Of course, it doesn't mean that I don't get sensible mails at all. For example, just a couple of hours ago, I received one from V Raghuram (the name has not been changed so as to not protect his identity as I presume he himself had sent this mail under a fictitious name), who without beating around the bush, came straight to the nub: Hi, I have been trying to make sense of what you write. I can't. So when will you come up with something that we can understand?'. My reply to Raghuram (or whatever his original name is) is simple: I will the moment I know how to. My only problem now is whether Raghuram (I know this is not the name in his bank passbook) will understand this answer or not. Suppose Raghuram (please substitute the name that would be found on his voter ID) doesn't figure out this explanation too. Will he (this is a simple pronoun representing Raghuram which is a proper noun representing some other proper noun) send another mail entreating me to be clear in my words? The ball is in Raghuram's (I am too tired too think of something that will go into this brackets here) court.

        A mail from another reader was equally straight to the point. Responding to my recent column on health foods, this touchy reader was righteously offended with my reference to, of all things, Sivaji, which occurs in the near 800-word article only once, and that too in a throwaway flippant one-liner.

        The passing mention of Sivaji was reason enough for this reader to come to the inevitable conclusion that I liked Kamal movies. This is one of the major fixations in Tamilnadu. If you say that you don't listen to Ilayaraja's music, the immediate riposte would not be 'why' or 'what is wrong with his tunes'. The standard counterblast to this is 'but what is special about Rahman'. At such moments, you cannot argue that you didn't say anything at all about Rahman. Such responses are almost banned here. In Tamilnadu it is an unwritten rule that if you don't like Ilayaraja you have to be a Rahman camper. If you detest Karunanidhi's politics, then you should be a sympathiser of Jayalalithaa, as if it is unlawful to hate both of them equally. No neither nor, but always either or. In the event, life in Tamilnadu is almost like answering questions in an objective-type examination as the list of 'this or that' is endless: Dosai or Idli, Iyer or Iyengar, Trisha or Asin, Vikatan or Kumudam, beer or vodka, Sun TV or Kalaignar TV, T Rajendher or bear, train or bus.

        Coming back to the reader's mail, I still don't know how to respond, and when I come down to it, I may perhaps tell him to perhaps read what I had actually written.

        There are also others who keep mailing me with suggestions on potential topics for the column. Their intentions are no doubt noble, but the problem for me is there are at least a dozen promptings from well-minded readers. There are some who want me to make fun of the Left (how do you make a joke out of something which is already a joke?). Another reader has chipped in with an idea about spoofing mega-serials so that those watching them are reformed (it is not my job to change anyone, and at any rate, if they are going to be busy watching the soaps on TV will they ever get down to read my column?). Then there is someone who is insistent that I take up the issue of global warming (Since when did I become a physics teacher?). Will you pen the problems of students, a reader has asked. (Studies. Teachers. Parents. Well, that all about sums about the problems of the students).

        With such strong conflicting pulls and pressures, I take the only way out: Write about things that nobody can actually figure out as Raghuram rightly said without actually saying his right name.

        And the moral of the story is: My email indeed is: balakumarkb@gmail.com