Why...?

The mood is grim and I bet there are hundreds of people blogging right now about this very issue...but after all this blog is about satisfying a need for self-expression so here I am, at it again!

"I hope this is your number Sid. Anyway, I've reached home safe." This message worked its way to me, all the way from Mumbai 7000km away with the help of technology Mankind had not dreamed of a few centuries back. To tell me that a friend was safe from men shooting at others. Staring out the window this November morning I felt my mood being reflected in the sight that met my eyes- bare trees against an overcast autumn sky. One question, one thought kept running through my mind like a stuck tape-recorder. Why...WHY? Why in the world would a teenager want to pick up a gun and murder, in cold blood, complete strangers who'd done nothing except impinge on his line of sight?! On the surface I seem to know the answer or answers, rather; religious fanaticism, brain-washing, a misplaced belief in a greater good, simple blood-lust and the temporary feeling of invincibility or, most frightening of all, a firm belief in emphatic promises of a blessed after-life- promises made in arrogance, accepted in faith. But as is most often the case with such a simple question, the more answers you have, the farther you are from the truth.

One of the beliefs I hold on to as tight as I can is that every human being is good. After all, like is often said, every single person is born with a clean slate. Like dust gathering on a shelf that is just out of reach, however, we allow that innate goodness to be smothered under the smoke of a false sense of oppression and need for justice. And when we do climb a stool and look at that topmost shelf its dismal state surprises, even shocks us. A twinge of conscience, one clean sweep with a mop and the shelf is forgotten once again. "We shall not let them go unpunished" is by no means a solution. As rifles end lives in one corner of the world, in another corner normal everyday citizens rush to stores so they can purchase weapons for 'self-defence' before the next president clamps down on the purchase of fire-arms. There was a man who once who said that an eye for an eye would make the whole world blind. Believing that every one of us can find that goodness within, time and again he came perilously close to losing his life trying to stop complete strangers from strangling each other. But more importantly, every time he broke his fast it was a signal that he had succeeded in his endeavour- to reach beyond that crust of superiority, hatred, animosity and anger in a person and touch the living, beating human heart within. Yes, cliched though it may sound, I am talking about Mahatma Gandhi. He came unlooked for, was felled by the evil he tried to root out and is now sorely missed. A very disturbing notion crossed my mind recently, showing how badly we needed a few more souls like his...

I wonder- in the by-and-large lawful Western world, just how much of the peace they enjoy comes out of a genuine human desire for peace, rather than out of a fear of swift, severe reprisal! It is a scary day indeed when peace becomes a commodity bought with military currency. It is a scary day indeed when one rushes to buy a gun, "because who knows how many the guy next door's got!" I hope and pray with all my heart that that day hasn't come yet. That we get on that stool and clean the shelf before it collapses under the weight of the dirt it's accumulated.

The question repeats itself...why?

P.S.

Well-this blog isn't dead...yet! It may be going downhill, but who knows what's round the next dale!

You may call me P.S. I'm betting that the first thought that springs to your mind is a foolscap sheet of paper, once upon a time blank, its virginity now destroyed but its beauty enhanced. I do not apologise for that. I am an egoistic guy and I make no apologies for that either(sorry if I sound a bit like Ayn Rand there). I am proud, very proud, of the effect I produce on this dead-wood dance floor. I love the sound of my voice. Scratchy though it may seem to some, to me it is the gentlest, most soothing melody I have heard. I haven't finished. I am a dancer of the most exquisite skill. The convolutions I describe are leagues above the capability of the most talented ballerina. There is one disclaimer though that you ought to be aware of- talented as I am on the small scale I have no say on the overall effect of my gyrations on the floor. So if the afore-mentioned effect is not pleasing to the eye, don't blame me! I have told him time and time again to enrol in hand-writing classes ...but does he listen?

Who am I? Ahem, well, I introduce myself as... Aw, come on, don't stop! Atleast let the music stop...flowing! Sigh...

Yours till I'm put back on,

P.S.
----

(A tribute to a fountain pen on paper)

Wat Nadenken (Some Reflections)...

The face reflected in the window seemed to stare right at me, boring into my skull and reading my innermost thoughts. The distortion of the face by passing stations flowing through it did not reduce the intensity of its inquisitive gaze. Shadows cast by the flickering lights in the train and the occasional filtered city light from outside played games with the face giving it more life and form than it actually had. The face looked Indian. I kept staring at it wondering amusedly if the person it belonged to saw my reflection the same way, if he was thinking the same thoughts…

When I first landed in Norway on my cross-European course, I had some presupposed notions on life in Europe. A year in the continent has taught me something though. While some of those suppositions have been validated and others completely refuted, what’s most striking is the completely new perspective I got on India…and my Indian-ness. Read on to find out some of the allegories/ideas/questions the statement “I’m an Indian” gives rise to :)

The Crowds
Depending on which part of Europe you’re in the first image that pops into some one’s mind when he hears India varies. Norway is, well, slightly under-crowded. After all, with a population of 4 million the country’s got less people than Chennai has. Mention India to a Norwegian therefore, and watch him go into a trance as if watching a horror movie…picturing a sea of people, moving in all directions, all talking simultaneously, most of them even brushing against him all the time!! “Brrr…,” he shivers, lets out a sigh and drinks two beers in complete silence. Then comes the reaction. “It must be quite crowded, no?” “Yup,” I say, with a proud smirk on my face. In fact, one of my Norwegian friends visited Delhi airport en-route to Nepal and he still recounts his experience with a glazed look in his eyes. “Chaos, complete chaos! That’s what it was! Do you people actually handle planes there?!” “Yup,” says I, with a twitch of my lips.

The Heat
Once the topic of crowds is discussed thread-bare – which usually takes two hours – we naturally turn to the weather as it’s raining outside. Here all the Europeans stand united. While some of them can understand a crowded city what none of them can comprehend is 40 degrees Celsius at 95% humidity for weeks on end. “The Bible does not mention Hell as being on Earth!” “How many clothes can a guy remove? I go out in my shorts at 20 degrees!” Here though, I cannot smirk my usual smirk. Much to my consternation I find myself sweating on a walk at 20 degrees. The question arises – am I still a true Chennaiite? Scary, very scary.

These were the only comments I could get out of the Norwegians for they are a very shy people and have this wonderful principle (called Janteloven) that simply put, keeps them from talking to others.

Spiritualism
The Netherlands however, is a different story altogether. The Dutch, apart from being tall and perfectionist are a very amiable lot. While I love talking about my country, city and beliefs, sometimes this can be a mite frustrating. “Siddharth? Like the famous Siddhartha who invented Buddhism?” – Guys, come on Buddhism is NOT a technology… “So, are you enlightened? Can you levitate like those fellows with beards who sit in the mountains? Oh, but you said you were from the southern part of India…you don’t have mountains.” Mr. Smirk takes a walk. I indignantly refute allegations that South India does not have fellows with beards. Absence of snow does not imply absence of spiritualism.

Being Vegetarian
Talk of spiritualism naturally leads to religious investigations. For predominantly Christian Europe and Islamic-Christian Holland in particular, to be a vegetarian you either need to be mad or a Hindu. I patiently explain that Hinduism isn’t the only religion in India and even most Hindus are non-vegetarian. Then I go and make the mistake of saying that no strict Hindu would touch beef. I also, maybe willingly, make the mistake of saying we believe in reincarnation. It is here that the conversation reaches its climax. I have three people shouting at me at the same time like I’d just pick-pocketed someone. “So if a Hindu eats a cow, is he born as a beetle or a pig in his next life?” “Can you eat a cow that is not killed but is already dead – I heard they do it in Nepal” – Seriously, give me a break – why in the world would I eat a cow that died probably of lung infection?! “You eat cheese? But doesn’t that also come from cow?” – Explanation: "Cow" is not the same as "From cow." After two more hours of elaborate explanations of the concepts of cows, karma and reincarnation and how these topics are inextricably linked with our lives on earth I’m left in peace…until the word "movie" slips out of my all-too-active mouth.

Bollywood
One topic no Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi can get away from is that of Bollywood. I mention my country to my course-mates only to see two of them break into an impromptu aerobics lesson with palms upraised. “Ah, I know that ugly guy, some Shan or Rukhan or something. And and and…that girl…Aishrai…oh, everybody knows them man.” – Nice. The two people I don’t like are the international faces of Bollywood. Of course, I then have to firmly deny that I know dancing, especially Bollywood style. You-tube to the rescue…

There's a lot more, regarding politics, corruption, poverty (some believe the whole country is in rags) and the fact that I'm most often late for an appointment... but I feel I’ve bored you enough. One question though, that’s very clichéd but is still put to me an umpteen number of times – “How do you say Cheers in Indian, Sid?”

More on the other side sometime later…till then, tot ziens, vanakkam.

Those days

I often think about the days when I was in school. Flashes of brilliantly clear images sometimes over power my mind, and then I am lost to the world for a while, thinking about days gone by.

My earliest memory of school is me sitting somewhere in the corner of a class room in lower kindergarten listening to the teacher call out names from her register. For some inexplicable reason, she used to ask a girl called Preeti to sign somewhere. I used to then fervently hope and pray that my turn never came, because, I hadn't the faintest idea how to wield a pen, least of all, affix my signature at a desired location on paper. It was many days later that I found out that the girl's name was Sai Preeti, which my nasal sounding teacher had pronounced 'sign'.

I remember frantically announcing at home once, that I needed money for a 'Tinders Match Box'. Although I did not know what it was, I had been convinced by my teacher that failure to cough up at school would have disastrous consequences, such as being made to kneel down the whole day. No amount of questioning or coercing by my exasperated parents could decipher what that cryptic phrase meant. It was later discovered that I was to take part in the School Sports Day's 'Toddlers March Past' and the matter was successfully resolved.

I was also the owner of a fiery temper, which albeit slow to rise, was explosive in nature. In the fifth standard, during morning assembly, a fellow classmate called Aravind, rather unwisely tried to insert his little finger into my right ear. I dont know why, but at that moment I was blinded by rage and remember lunging wildly at his face, restrained by several classmates. He clapped his hand to his mouth,spat out a bloodied front tooth and staggered off somewhere. I then found myself standing in front of the class teacher. Staring at me with barely concealed amazement, she tried her best to put her thoughts into words with an extremely inadequate "Why did you break Aravind's tooth?" I just stood there without answering, beacuse I realized that whatever I did say at that point, would almost certainly, be the wrong answer.

There were teachers who loved me and teachers who loathed the very sight of me. One particular English teacher unashamedly favoured me over every other student, solely because I was a fellow Malayalee. In her eyes, I could do no wrong, and this notion was extended to grading in tests, selection of the class leader and the greatest schoolteacher-extended honour, being the chosen one to carry the class work books to the staff room. At about the same time, there was a Hindi teacher who used every opportunity she had to beat me to within an inch of my life. I once forgot to bring my Hindi Workbook to school three days in a row. I still have nightmares about those three days.

There were many strange creatures who inhabited my world at that time. There was a boy who at the tender age of seven assured me that if i didn't believe in Jesus Christ I would go straight to hell. A classmate whose pastime of choice was to 'crack' the knuckles of other people's fingers. A fellow who refused to eat with me whenever I brought non vegetarian food in my luch box. A chap who insisted that the only other country in the world was France and every other country was a part of that (apparently) great nation. There were science teachers who refused to teach sex and evolution because it went against their religious principles. There was a history teacher ( I am not joking) who said the Prophet Muhammad's flight,'Hijra' was the name of the airline he flew in. A physics teacher who in eleventh standard warned me against talking to girls as it was a bad habit. A mathematics teacher who exclaimed when I was contemplating joining the commerce group 'Commerce! I thought you were good in studies!'


I do miss school very much. I miss the carefree innocence of our youth. I miss the fact that the worst thing which could happen in class was being made to go out. I miss the long corridors, the western classical music played at morning assembly, the tree tops outside the windows, the much awaited games periods, the excitement of new school bags and contents of lunch boxes, the science and history text books, winning prizes, field trips and friendly teachers. School was fun.

Somewhere I belong

This is a post about me. About something that has been rankling for sometime. Apologies to my readers (both of you), if the mood of this essay is not conformant with my previous pieces(both of them).

I belong to a Malayalee family, which, like millions of other families left Kerala in search of a new life elsewhere. My parents came to Chennai in the eighties,found their respective jobs and have remained in the city ever since. As a result, my sister and me have been brought up in a cross-cultural environment encompassing two states and four languages. I speak a combination of English and Malayalam at home. I spoke a combination of English and Tamil at school. I answered Hindi(my second language at school) answer papers in a combination of all three languages(which is probably why my Hindi teachers were not at their most polite best while in conversation with me).

The outcome of this has been that I cannot, in all honesty, confidently say that I feel completely accepted by any of the above mentioned groups. My Tamil classmates although extremely friendly, know that somewhere, deep down I am a 'Mallu'. Any true-blue Malayalees who I chance upon, regard me suspiciously because of my fluent Tamil. In college, I have been called 'Peter' ( a slightly derogatory Chennai term used to describe an English speaking person).When a Malayalee introduces me to another Malayalee he always does so with a disclaimer - "This is Ashwat, he is a Malayalee, but has lived in Chennai all his life." The other Malayalee immediately starts talking to me in English, assuming that there is no way in hell a person who has lived in Chennai all his life can ever speak passable Malayalam.

Another disturbing aspect is the pride of position given to the colour of your skin. Disregarding the fact that all Indians are coloured varying shades of brown, we have a tendency to slot people into 'black', 'white' and for some obscure reason 'wheatish'. I, and some friends, have been called 'Vellakara'(white man) owing to a combination of our English skills and fair skin. When a friend of mine retaliated by calling the person who had given him this sobriquet a 'Karuppukaara'(black man), he was accused of being derogatory and insulting.
Funnily, several North Indians labour under the delusion that anybody who is fair skinned is from the North. Many of them come and address me in Hindi confident that I would reply in their language.

It is therefore no surprise that most of my closest friends are people who primariy speak English as well. This is often percieved as being elitist or snobbish. I beg to differ; although I speak good English, I belong to this country and perhaps have a greater understanding of its diversity than the people who stick to their vernacular.

So am I a true global citizen or do I belong nowhere? I prefer to believe the former.

Blogger's Block

Thoughts flash in and out. Some are rejected, some are stored, some referred to a higher compartment for approval. The hands itch to open Word, the fingers itch to traverse the keyboard. A brilliant spark is caught and examined. And thrown away. It shall remain just a spark. Brevity, they say is wit. Too much brevity, though and what we’ve got is not wit but Blogger’s Block. Why not? Genius begets gigantic goof-ups, mediocrity results in mediocre mishaps. If a genuine writer can have a block, why not a blogger? Downscale a writer’s block and what have you got? A very randomly mixed, preheated mixture of thoughts floating around in a soup made up of the need to write. Such are the times when readability is thrown to the winds. When Honesty rules one half of a kingdom, the other half ruled by Desire. You are now a visitor to the land in between – a land that exists due to these two halves, a land that exhibits neither of their qualities. The time is past midnight – that time of the night when most geniuses get their inspirations, when most bloggers, the insatiable desire to write. I knew it from the beginning. Knew the dangers of starting a blogspot. Meaningful articles followed by inspired ones followed by meaningless ones. The usual path, traversed by a person who fancies himself a writer, who discovers the difference between wanting to write and being able to. The result – a post from a blogger suffering his equivalent of what robs a columnist of his weekly trip to the movies. It’s a strange, dangerous, addictive thing, this blogging.

Chennai to Bangalore

I am one among the hordes of people who have moved to Bangalore upon graduation. Bangalore, being in close proximity to Chennai, makes it incumbent on me to duly travel home every weekend. I must impress upon my readers that these frequent trips home are solely because of the impassioned pleas of my family and friends and not due to home-sickness, loneliness, craving for home-food or a necessity to get my clothes ironed.

This post is about the people on the train home. They all fit into one type or the other. I shall now proceed to descibe the various types to you.

The IT Guy
This type of person, as you might have guessed, works in one of Bangalore's many software engineering firms. His main characteristic is the laptop which hangs from his left shoulder. A Deccan Airways tag will also faithfully adhere to his luggage. Every time he wants to visit the bathroom he will point at the laptop and say loudly"Please take care of my laptop, I will be back in a few minutes" This is in case he feels his fellow passengers have mistaken his laptop case for a shoe bag. This type of person also looks upon all non IT people as beneath contempt, unable to understand why someone would choose a profession that will not take them to the USA in three years of joining the company. When I inform him that I work in civil engineering, he expresses his condolences and sincerely hopes that I will be soon able to find an IT company to take me on.

The Maama/Maami
These are the standard issue elderly folk on the train. As soon as they enter the train, they request you for your lower berth. Upon the train leaving the station, they immediately open two Dabbas of curd rice which they then proceed to polish off with relish. Once this is done, they transfer their attention to me. Questions follow about my job, accomodation, salary, and address. All my answers will be compared with their son who usually is the above mentioned IT Guy, albeit living in the USA. When I tell them that I work in civil engineering they usually stop talking to me assuming that I did really badly in the Tamil Nadu State Board Examination.

The Babe with the Cellphone.
This type of person is female and is usually good looking. A boyfriend usually drops her off at the railway station and. Upon the train leaving, she calls him up again. The conversation then lasts long into the night, neither too loud so as to enable eavesdropping and neither is it too soft to ignore. If this person happens to occupy the berth adjacent to yours, any chance of sleep will be disrupted by continuous giggles (if the relationship is in its infancy) or snarls (if it is a few months old). Does not usually care if I work in civil engineering.

The New Parents
These type of people are a young couple with a baby in their arms. Their immediate task upon entering the train will be to close the windows so as to protect their precious baby's ears from the wind. They will then look at you expectantly, waiting for you to comment on the baby's intelligence/cuteness/smile. In case you do not oblige, (or in my case scowl violently) they will affix you with murderous stares and the mother will hug her baby closer to her breast, making you feel like a child molester.

The No Ticket Guy
This type of person is one who has ommitted to book his ticket prudently in advance. He will give you a sycophantic smile and sit half his butt on your seat. He will then glance up and down the corridor nervously in anticipation of the ticket examiner. Upon the TE's arrival he will start talking to him in hushed tones, maintaining the oily grin with considerable difficulty. In case he is lucky, the TE will give him a seat. Once this happens he drops the grin immediately, becomes brusquely irritated with his fellow passengers and puts his feet up on his allotted seat and hums a tune.

These are the most common of the train travelling types on he Bangalore-Chennai route. More on living in Bangalore in further posts. Stay on the edge of your seats, readers.

When…

Random thoughts that resulted in a poem promptly penned down are herewith attached...
Comments and criticism appreciated - as always! :)

When the revving of a bike
Makes you yearn for that wind on your face
When the greening trees against a grey sky
Remind you of the view from your high terrace
When a ride in an intercity train brings back
Memories of all that noise, dust and those rust-brown tracks
When a foreign tongue starts sounding like a known dialect
And strange faces do familiar memories resurrect…

When the waves themselves seem to break
With a message from distant shores, hidden in a poem,
When an esoteric dish with some masala, does a familiar delicacy make
When Roman architecture brings to mind an Indo-Saracenic dome…
Then my friend, realize - and make no mistake -
That you must delay no more for sanity’s sake -
‘Tis time to pack your bags and Go Home.

One of His masterpieces...

First of all, Thanks to Him who put them up there. Second thanks to my "Northern Lights friend," simply, for sharing it with me. And third, thanks to Jiann Chyuan who unknowingly inspired me to write about something that deserves to be described.

It was a cold, clear night - In Norway the nights are mostly cold and the clearer they are, the colder they are - and we were both feeling a little bored and energetic -a perfect combination for going out for a walk...and so we did. We set off, on our usual trek route behind our flats in Steinan, up the narrow ice-covered trail to the power plant. It was a weekday and was therefore relatively quiet. With only the occasional rustle of a light breeze through the corn fields and the inky star-spangled canvass above we climbed up to the plant, planning to go on afterwards to our usual look-out post atop the hill. It was a lovely night and we were entranced, as we usually are, by the special beauty of this place that says so much, so simply, so silently. Nowhere else would I have dared to walk through a forest at 12 at night - but here...here it was different. Our only companions were the bushes and the trees and they did not seem to resent our intrusion too much! As we kept walking, we noticed, but chose to ignore for a while, a strange greyish-green cloud that had mysteriously appeared above us. When we reached the plant, however, we turned around and looked up...and were transfixed.

Imagine a dragon...a dragon of green that leaps across the sky, looking for all the world like a rainbow, that suddenly ducks and turns and tries to catch its own tail...all these maneouvres executed with a grace that defied the imagination. Imagine two more dragons like that appearing out of nowhere...chasing each other across the black canvass, appearing to flow from one brilliant star cluster to another and then just as mysteriously disappearing, only to reappear a few seconds later from the other direction as if having forgotten to visit a star! Yes...we were witnessing a masterpiece...created by an artist whose imagination knows no bounds and whose canvass is the very sky itself - the Aurora Borealis, commonly known as the Northern Lights.

We stood there, completely oblivious to the crick in our necks...and in those couple of minutes, I felt I could reach out and touch that dragon's head, thank it for having put on this show for me. As soon as we perceived a break in this phenomenal exhibition we hurried on to our look-out post and were just in time to catch the sight of a rainbow of green arching across the black fjord, across the town that in itself looked like the sky turned upside down, above our heads, and into the hills beyond. I tried to imagine what the first Vikings would have felt...knowing as they did, absolutely nothing about ions or any of the details that created these supernatural fireworks...and I am sure this indescribably beautiful work of art contributed, atleast partly, to their decision to settle down here in such inhospitable climes!

A Windswept Piece of Land

Readers of this blog - if such a class of people does exist - You're lucky! :-D

Here's my latest, a write-up on my trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. A statutory warning: some descriptions may be quite graphic, though in this case, I could not help that!

Read on...

A Windswept Piece of Land

The bus was jam-packed, filled with tourists of all imaginable colours, sizes and shapes, chattering away merrily as they rode the three kilometres to this remote piece of land in the very heart of Europe…a piece of land with innumerable stories to tell.

“Here we are, please form groups of six or seven and follow your tour guides. The tour will last approximately half an hour. This place is a historic heritage site. We request you to please therefore, observe the rules posted. Photography is not permitted inside the cabins. The bus will leave from here in 45 minutes, so, at 16:00 hrs. Make sure you are not…..”

By this time, all conversation had died down and though the well trained guide finished her speech, she had lost her audience – lost it to that white ice-covered, windy piece of land and its frost laden pine trees that shouted out, for anyone who would care to listen, one of the most compelling tales ever told.

We trooped in through the main gates, not at all prepared for what we would experience. I felt a shiver run down my spine and a lead ball settle in my stomach at the sight of those tracks. Three sets of rail tracks led straight from the entrance right through the fenced-off area to where the chambers had once stood – the biggest of World War II, the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the world’s largest concentration camp.

The pictures came unbidden playing like a movie reel inside the head, with the slightly hushed voice of the guide providing a cruelly graphic narrative as past atrocities came alive and the very sanctity of the human mind was called into question. I saw the prisoners being bundled out of the coal-carts, bewildered and confused, clutching their possessions as they looked around for their promised accommodation. Nothing would have met their eyes but the two bleak buildings, meant for them, built by their predecessors. More than half of the prisoners were then marched into a huge hall where they were asked to undress, leave their belongings and step into a shower room for “desanitisation.” Little did they know that those innocent looking shower heads were designed not for water, but for lethal gas that in the space of a few breaths took their very lives away - a punishment for having been born into a certain community.

The ground crunched under our shoes as we walked around, as we started realizing how lucky we were, simply, to be alive. The wind picked up, howling through the rows of low brick-cabins in the adjacent complex, leaving our hands and feet benumbed by the piercing cold, our minds benumbed by a horrific past relived. Cameras clicked away mechanically as the more sturdy of us filed the moment away in digital memories. We entered the huts where the prisoners were kept…and this part of the story was no better.

Each brick in these huts was put in place by the prisoners themselves. Each hut housing around 600 to 800, the prisoners found themselves sharing a single 2ft by 6ft bed with 6 others. A single row of toilets ran across the middle, serving all 800 and the walls and the floors, till today, bear the stains of innumerable struggles as a million incarcerated souls fought over basic needs that we now consider our birth-rights. Our tour guide then presented to us an irony so grim it was an effort to even imagine it;
The most coveted job in the camp was the cleaning of those choked, overflowing toilets. The soldiers in charge of picking prisoners for execution would reportedly not go anywhere near these people filthy as they were and thus this was the only job that offered a guarantee against execution. The full horror of the situation hit us like a sledgehammer and our stomachs churned at the thought of what the world had allowed to happen.

We walked out in a daze, by now too nauseated by what we had seen to absorb anything else. The guide, seasoned as she was, had a quaver in her voice as she pointed out the tower over the entrance from where soldiers would snipe at unsuspecting prisoners…for sport. What’s more, these prisoners were made to work in driving winds and snow and sub-zero temperatures wearing a single shirt and trousers, 12 hours a day, with nothing to go back to-no warm home, no family, no soft bed-nothing but a cold, dank hell-hole of a cabin.

As we left those fences behind, whatever else we may have felt in our lives, on this day we felt lucky. Lucky to be alive, lucky to be living in a time of relative peace and comfort, to be able to take for granted what some people had to fight with their lives for – lucky beyond measure. And whatever else we may come across in Life, whatever else we may forget…we must not and can not forget this.

On Pedestrianism and Kerala

Due to the mysterious absence of my fellow blog-mate and my not-so-mysterious lethargy...this blog has been dumped by the roadside for a while. I'm therefore attempting to redeem it, with an article I wrote ages ago, which is, hopefully, still relevant today. Here goes...and please let me know if the situation has changed, for the better or the worse. :)

Chennai, it is said, has given the world two famous dance-forms. One of them is Bharatanatyam, the other Pedestrianism. And Bharathanatyam is by far the more esoteric of the two. Any thing, man or beast that spends more than half an hour on Chennai’s roads finds itself performing a most complex tap dance that would put the world’s best flamenco artists to shame. Undecided cyclists, people in a hurry, autorickshaws on the prey, well-aimed projectiles of spit and the vagaries of the road itself all form part of a list of obstacles that meet a normal living being who erred in one thing before setting out – trusting its own two… or four legs, as the case may be. For all that, however, just as a hunter thrills in the excitement of the chase, just as a warrior is exhilarated by blood-lust, so does the average chennaiite love to “walk.”

Till he visits small, unassuming, quiet, green, deadly Kerala. Every hunter, every warrior and every Pedestrian (yes, it is spelt with a capital P) has his limit. For the Pedestrian it is Kerala. It is in Kerala that the fine line between an art-form and a suicide attempt is crossed. It is here that the Pedestrian meets, or rather, comes in contact with his match. Uncontrolled, they roam the streets at will tearing limbs and hearts asunder without the slightest respect for the laws that form the bulwark of a society. These monsters that do not even merit a mention in the tourist guides under the heading “Dangerous Creatures and Life Hazards” are but the ubiquitous Buses of Kerala. Yes, this too shall be spelt with a capital B. One accords his opponents the merit they deserve.

They bear down upon you without a toot and by the time you’ve recovered sufficiently enough to realize that you are Providence’s favourite child, the next one is upon you. Providence is a mighty fickle parent. When posed this problem, one Pedestrian survivor remarked pithily, “You learn to live with it.” And so one learns to live life on the edge, with the Devil on the one hand and the Deep Sea on the other – no kidding – Kerala’s got a long coast. Worse off are the poor folks who still cling on to the interiors… getting caught between the Devil and a barbed wire fence isn’t exactly my idea of a peaceful evening stroll.

That however, is only till you get into the Bus…if you can survive that long. Once in, the ride of your life awaits you. Never was a roller-coaster ride obtained cheaper. Never was the transition from victim to murder-accomplice so smooth. Small wonder then, that almost all the famous martial art forms originated here – martial arts are mostly about reflexes and balance…right? With a National Highway the width of my corridor with plants butting in on either side, it isn’t surprising that the Bus assumes right of way…on a single lane road.

“What about Lane Discipline?” the cry goes around ¬– one does not get a meaningful phrase by putting together two non-existent ones.

“Give us a plus-point!” begs the adamant cry – you get to see Kerala as you would never have seen otherwise.

To sum up - if questioned about it, one could say, “Life in Kerala is like Life in slow-motion - It’s beautiful. Death however, travels pretty fast.”