Gerald Durrell: The one author I adore

It's after a long, long time after which I am reading Gerald Durrell. I find myself curled up somewhere cosy, smiling, nodding, moving my lips silently to read some lines I like the sound of and letting out shrill laughs every few pages or so. These bursts of mirth startle Mitrajit from his single-minded dedication to television and my complete oblivion to all things else puts a faint pout on his face at times.

Gerald Durrell, after all, means you keep turning one page after the other laughing out loud at Larry's audacity, his parade of friends who turn up announced, their endearing 'Mother' and Gerry's endless collection of animals- from frogs to owls to baby terrapins.

His role as a crusader for wildlife conservation slightly sidelines Durrell’s recognition as an accomplished author with an impeccable, original writing style. His proficiency with the written word per say is not as thoroughly acknowledged. I, for one, love Durrell not only for his wonderful tales on Corfu, but for his much extensive vocabulary and his power of description.

If you can dissect the sentences from the story, you will see just to what heights can Durrel take the art of description to. Even if you don't fancy reading about a battalion of animals, read Durrell as an exercise in writing, to read about how refreshingly can one use colours, smells and the most unlikely similies to describe people, places and situations. I feel his works, especially the Corfu Trilogies, should be made a compulsory reading for students learning how to write features.

The Corfu trilogy (My Family and other animals followed by Birds, Beasts and Relatives and finally The Garden of the Gods) fills up the most fun within the pages. I still remember that chapter in 'My Family...' when Mr. Kralefsky, his tutor takes him to meet his ancient mother. The description of the room full of flowers left my head spinning in admiration and happiness. I lingered on that chapter for a long time, making notes, copying beautiful sentences and generally awestruck by such beauty on paper...

I am truly grateful to Rani maushi who gifted me with a copy of My family and other animals some five years back. Since then, our love affair with the Durrell family began. However when we got enthralled by his writing, we discovered his books were really hard to find and were very atrociously priced, as is with all good books. It’s at the British Council here that I discovered a wealth of his books after a long hiatus.

I have only about ten pages left to finish The Garden of Gods. I feel slightly sorry when any good book is about to come an end. It's a silly, eccentric quirk, but then finishing a lovely book means being no longer able to turn the pages in anticipation...

A delightful read.

Tagged

Atul has tagged me. And this is one very interesting: list at least five things that have changed in you thanks to your better half (or any one person who has influenced you).

This tag calls for more than just a list. So let me expand.

Given that he says I am the most stubborn person on earth who is immune to change, this is some challenge. We often have arguments that go something like this:
M: "I have changed this, this, this..... that... for you. Tell me the one thing you have changed for me"...
Me: "Ummmm... ummm" (I attribute the ummm to my poor memory and the long list to his sharp ability to remember almost anything)

On serious notes, earlier, before getting married, or even before meeting him, I was averse to the idea of changing to adjust in a relationship. I reasoned that if things are worth it between the two, the need for 'change' won't arise. And then I met him. I changed without my realising it and for the good. Same with him. I know now how silly my assumptions against change were.

The far-fetched idea that things should fit in like a jigsaw has now gone. Small things here and there make all the difference. I repeat, small things- for we don't find ourselves bitterly fighting on leftist or rightist theories than we find ourselves shouting about insisting on changing attitudes and habits that call for putting the bin out in the morning, the wet towel on the bed, replacing missing caps on water-bottles, the cell that is allowed to intrude at all times...

I am essentially the same person. So is he. But with time, I feel the following has changed in me thanks to him:

1) I am not as slow as I was before. My sis said I did everything in slow motion for the first hour after waking up. My husband said he had never seen someone so frustratingly laid-back. I think have changed a bit on this front.
2) See more movies than ever before.
3) I try to see people as he does, he doesn't judge. I have started keeping a tab on my Virgo traits.
4) Try to watch what I speak when I am angry.
5) I cool off much faster, have chucked pulling arguments out of spite than reason.
6) I have started cooking more often
7) Lose things a little less now.
8) His idea 'Why pay to eat veg?' means I eat more n-veg than I have done in my entire lifetime. These bong food traits scare baba no end though...
9) I try not to stuff my bags, pull the straps rashly and damage an item before its time has come.

You can also do this tag by mentioning how the influence of any one person has changed you. Remember, list five or more points and don't forget to pass the tag on.

I request
Feddabon
True fiction
The alphabet makes stories
Dharma
Void
to do this tag...

100th post

I realised last night that the last post was the hundredth on this blog. Felt good!
In the process of writing these hundred posts, I have met many new people whom I am glad to know through their words.
Each post happens to be a little expectation, waiting to hear what others think of the writing and the thought. I have not been disappointed so far. Thanking all those who come and read... And hoping I have your company in the posts to come.

Less is More!

I spend most of my time longingly lingering at some delicious food blogs I have listed in the Yumm Corner.

Nupur is hosting a Monthly Blog Patrol (MBP) on her blog One hot stove on behalf of Coffee (who initially came with MBP). The idea behind MBP is that participants must cook some of recipes they have come across some interesting food blogs and present the preparation with due credits at MBP. Each month follows a different theme and the theme this month is 'Less is more'. Participants will have to cook and then post those recipes that include five, or less ingredients.

Now it so happened that today, on a very hungry impulse, I made something that fits the 'Less is more' bill completely.

I realised this after I finished off more than half of the piping hot pasta. So I again peeled and cut one cucumber, peeled garlic, got a tea spoon of black pepper, scooped spoonfuls of butter and arranged all the ingredients neatly to take a photo to accompany the post. (Signs I am getting blogaholic.. :()

The problem is, in my drooling phase, I focus more on the wonderful food pics.(And on Nupur's hot stove- her neat collection of crochet purses, gloves) So to my disappointment, it occurred that my recipe doesn't follow the basic MBP rules (i.e. you should cook someone else's recipe and not your own). Here's the recipe anyway, for the pasta turned out pretty well and you can count the ingredients on the tip of your fingers...



Pepper-Garlic Pasta

Ingredients:

Garlic- One small pod (Or about 15-20 cloves)

Whole black pepper- One teaspoonful

Kheera i.e. cucumber- Two, medium sized

Amul Lite- Two tablespoonfuls
(Or normal butter-- More, but not less, in this case though!)

Granora Penne Rigate Pasta no.26- About 200 gm

Salt to taste

Method:

Pressure cook the pasta for ten minutes, this boils the pasta just right, al dente. Don't forget to add a little oil before putting the pasta to boil, and do not over-do the ten minutes time. If you choose to boil in a vessel, may take slightly more than ten minutes.
While the pasta is getting cooked, peel the cucumbers and slice in rings, like you would do for a salad. Also peel garlic cloves. (This apparently tedious job is done in a jiffy if you wet the garlic cloves first, slice in half with a knife and then peel) Grind pepper and garlic in the chutney jar (or using a mortar) to a fine paste.
Exactly in ten minutes, take the cooker off the gas. Drain the pasta completely.

Heat butter well in a heavy-bottomed pan and then add the garlic pepper paste. Once the butter starts leaving sides, and the pepper-garlic paste gets a light reddish tinge, add the cucumber slices. Saute for 2-3 minutes, till the cucumber slices change colour and are cooked. Now add pasta. Sprinkle salt to taste and mix well.
Just don't be stingy with the pepper, garlic and butter and the outcome will surprise you. Tastes as delicious as it is easy to make!

Go to Nupur's blog to see the simple, wholesome recipes she has posted as a part of Coffee's Monthly Blog Patrol...

Via Darjeeling

The movie verges on the boundary of good and a tad boring. The reason for this tricky combination is that the film has brought together some very convincing actors but the story fails to engage the audience enough.

Without delving much, here's the basic framework of the film: Sonali and Kay Kay are on their honeymoon when one of them disappears. A policeman (Rabin) is called for investigation. Period. He recalls the incident to a group of friends and a session of speculation begins.

The film literally takes off with a rough start (courtesy a rash driver) and remains engaging for a while. It's at the adda session in Ranu's (Rajat Kapoor) house in Calcutta when the pace begins to falter slightly. As each narration differs only in some intricate points and most scenes and shots remain the same, a sense of redundancy piles up somewhere in the middle of the film. Though the story gears up again towards the end, to finish off on a teasing note.

Vinay Pathak (Rabin) with his cigarette-sniffing act repeats the magic characteristic of him. Rajat Kapoor (Ranu) looks wow in the new look. Sandhya Mridul (Mallika) looks rather too bored and sullen. Sonali Kulkarni (Rimli) plays the part of a pampered, rich daughter well, but newly married Rimli's character is not very likeable on the whole due to her soft, overtly sweet drawls most of the time and the occasional hysteria. Proshant Narayanan (Kaushik) (guess a few 'r' and 's' are missing, but nevermind) is good, so is Simone Singh (Preeti). Parveen Dabbas (Bonny) disappoints with a rather drab and dull performance, which was also incidentally expected of his character at most points of time.

Given that there are certain people who like ambiguity and insist on it with a creative compulsion, we can assume that it was intentional to leave the viewer with a set of unanswered questions. But a little more detailing would not have hampered this intentional ambiguity. The end is such that it will probably compel viewers to review the characters as per their own perceptions, discuss, debate and ponder on. Via Darjeeling is an ideal prelude to a round of discussions.

The film is more about the perception of mystery than mystery itself. And had this rather interesting idea been worked on more comprehensively, the movie would have been more appealing.

But why doesn't Via Darjeeling cross rightaway into the 'good' territory? The redundancy when the friends speculate their own versions, for one. The story versions could have done better with more punch (I loved Kaushik's version btw, and the conversation thereafter) or more variations in the shots. Secondly, all the characters could have been etched better.

All said and done, I am waiting for friends to go watch this movie so that we can discuss things out. Am really keen to know what they made of the story. In fact, in spite of the tad boredom, Via Darjeeling gets all the more interesting after it ends. There's much fodder to let the brain start ticking away after the credits roll.

CoralDraw experiments

I have been listlessly fumbling with Adobe photoshop and getting more and more saddened by how people love to complicate something as relaxing as drawing. Anyways, with my limitations that allow me to crop and adjust image size, I doodled some drawings using the lovably easy Paintbrush. Have put these up to accompany the scribbles on the other blog which gets very rarely visited :(...
So be there, have a look while I find something to post on this blog.

The last article on 'Writer's block'

"There is no story which has not been told before, or that has not been imagined by Vyasa in his epic Mahabharata. So whatever you write cannot be entirely your own. So said the old woman. So says Pamuk. So in essence, all our efforts at novelty can ultimately bear the brunt of being labeled as plagiarism only if some eccentric book devourer puts his mind to proving the point.

There is nothing novel worth talking about, given that the thousands of years of history of human existence has witnessed, has been almost pickled to a pungent perfection of knowledge mixed with scorn about all the possible combinations of human relationships and their fall-outs. And so, it is a tad discouraging to know what me and you are doing (i.e thinking to write and sometimes writing to think) is only redundant work. All that need be said has been said before.

We writers are merely here for we humans are a peculiar race, a majority of which needs to be told what to do, what not to do, and most often this majority derives a masochistic pleasure on being told things are not done the way they should be. We merely need to be told things a thousand times over in order to convert a truth to a lie and vice versa. Since ancient times, people in power got stories crafted to suit their own motive. Writers helped them meet their end by writing according to the briefs given to them. With a little skill, legends essentially remained the same to the prospective buyer who flips pages leisurely to taste what is in for platter, but once the copy was bought, once it was invested in, and then when it was read (at times grudgingly so for a book bought and not read seems unusually heavy on the pocket), the skillfully altered nuances of fact and fiction were successfully thrust in the mind of the engrossed, ignorant reader. Altering bits and pieces here and there, history changed. And when it had changed enough, when the new powers thought it right to invest in a re-run of facts, members of our clan were employed again to tell 'new stories'.

Writers often end up being dumb mediators of thought and idea they fool themselves in believing is their own. Thinking thoughts and raking up extinct ideologies versus the so-called new schools of thought is nothing but the mechanical pursuit of masking the present life with a sense of achievement. Most ideas that gain momentum do so not because they are worthy ideas, but because a few smart people decide it is profitable that the idea propagate. And so, old stories and revamped to be presented as a new and novel idea. So, my dear friends, this is reason enough for you and me to put an end to our writer's block".

Thus said the old man in the last article of his much-read column called Writer's block.

His fame was in part due to the attention attracted due to the many charges of defamation, libel and plagiarism that thronged his career and which he faced with dignity, wit. Till he died of a comfortable old age in a sprawling villa placed at a location conveniently cut-off from civilization, he wore a mischievous gleam that seemed to own up an acceptance of the accusations. But a gaze of aloof shrewdness (that often signifies wisdom acquired of an age of reading and age itself) immediately followed the momentary mischievous gleam and dismissed the enquirer instantly of any further questions, or doubts.

Back

The bus ride from Manali to Delhi killed me. I have never been so tense and so 'in the moment' in my life as I was for those 16-17 hours. My tickets to Ahmedabad were booked for the 12 PM flight and I reached the airport around 11.40. God knows how I managed to board, and God bless the sweet staff who let me in after saying the routine, 'Sorry ma'm, Check-in closed'. The time in the flight and the ride back home was like a delirium. It was only when the Amdawadi heat pierced me in that fond, old way that I realised I was home, in the same dreaded, wonderful heat of my hometown. I actually miss the Ahmedabadi summers and it felt especially blissful to be back home this time of the year.

The trek was wonderful. The base camp was at a village called Chakki in Naggar, about 25 km before Manali. From there, we walked up to Rumsu, Pulag, Chans Falls, Gom Karari and finally the Chandarkhani range. On the first day, when they took us to this real short orientation trek and rappling, I found myself breathing so heavily and in such a bad shape, that the seven remaining days scared me no end. But as we progressed, things became better and before I realised, I was on Camp 3 at 13,000 ft.

I discovered I am unusually quiet and at a loss of words more often than not. I also verified that I am a very boring person compared to the constantly chattering girls and guys who can find ways to turn into tales even routine business like eating bread and butter. These rather sorry discoveries were balanced by the assurance that I could spend time on my own in complete bliss. It irked me sometimes when people spent all their free time in the pristine environs singing film songs at the top of their voice, playing cards or talking about prospective or broken love affairs. There was little scope for silence in the company that I was in- effervescent collegians with a passion for getting themselves clicked. But then, being able to talk in Gujarati after a long time, being in the company of that lovable tribe after ages was a treat in itself. Being in Gujju company means having an unlimited supply of snacks- and it was no wonder that their stock of khakra, mamra, ladu, wafers and what not did not exhaust even till our way back. (I am sure they have enough food left to see them through the train journey from Delhi to Bhuj too)

Himachal is breathtaking. The comparitively remote place that we were at and the trek through some remote up-hill villages allowed us to see the lifestyle pretty closely. Describing the place is an effort in itself and this impromptu post won't do justice to the beauty and simplicity of the people and the place. I would post the photos once I am back in Kolkata. Talking about photos, there was yet another blunder very characteristic of me. I have nagged friends to pose in cameras without rolls, I have spoilt many a rolls as I never learnt how to insert or wind those properly in one piece and I have lost many a newly printed albums. This time, I managed to wipe out the memory card while i was fidgeting with the camera menu on Camp 3 (for I had taken extra batteries but forgotten to take extra memory cards). In effect, all the photos that I clicked on our way up were wiped out. But I didn't cry to my surprise and decided I would click some wonderful photos on the way down. Some consolation!

On the last day in Naggar, we went out to see the town in an open milk-van types tempo- the dozen of us standing in the cold wind. To my utter embarrasement, they sang songs at the top of their voice, with all the villagers staring at us disapprovingly. It's a pity when (and how effortlessly) the thin line between pure fun and vulgur pleasure can be crossed by tourists. Anyway, we went to a very quiet area uphill where we came across a beautiful bungalow of the famous Russian painter Nicholas Roerich. (I hadn't heard of him though baba and aaji immediately recognised and beamed with appreciation on hearing the name) We were there after five and the house is then closed for visitors, so I could only click the place from outside. There was this Music centre and someone was singing really well. Then we went to a 1460 years old castle, which has now been turned into a hotel (The Castle, Naggar, HP Tourism). Waiters were taking up drinks and food and the interiors were beautifully lit, the wood carvings were breathtaking. I must go there again with Mitrajit asap. Just outside the castle, I marched on the shopping spree I had promised myself. Bought a wonderful shawl for didun, the himachali jute chappals just like the ones that mummy had, long woollen socks and ofcourse, a handful of cherries to eat on the way. I also got a pair of some really neat wooden combs with intricate carving, and a very heavy, beautiful, but apparantly useless small dabbi whose lid is so small, it would be even uncomfortable to use it as a sindoordani. Nevertheless, I was jubiliant after the shopping, as always.

Photos here

Incommunicado

I don't really appreciate words that seem to be stretched for the heck of it. Incommunicado is one such. But doesn't it make for some whacky title of a post? :D

I am off to a place where there would be no mobile and no electricity to charge the dumb thing even if I take the instrument along. Wow!

The prospect sounds good, but been really long since I have been really alone. Not sure of the venture, not prepared in the least, but I know I must go.

So then, the earliest I will be back here is 27th.

Cya then,

(O, also check Sailu's blog where she's has put up this small poem which all of you have ignored till now. Accompanied by a small little painting I did to go with it. If you are not into poems, you can always try her lip-smacking recipes)

My daddy strongest

Dharma has been on one of his bummy nights again and somehow, his post took me back in time when I used to drive home late after college.

We used to live quite far away from the city. There were no street lights beyond the highway, the four-five kilometer stretch was pitch dark in the middle of fields and farmhouses. I would be home pretty late. Baba and aaji would be at the edge of their seats, watching TV, but always looking at the gate from the open door. When I look back, I can't really pin-point what to make of their parenthood. (Talking about parenthood, Void has also asked some interesting questions...)

My parents could easily have been those careful, mindful parents who don't let their daughters alone at night. They should have been, if you think conventionally. For there were more chances than less that I could have met with many of those sorry incidents on the long, lonely stretch. And they weren't the mobile-happy types either- 'This and call, that and call... No way! (So when my baba called, it would be a cue that he's really worried and time to move asap, which I didn't...) So what was it that made them let me be the way I was?

Someday, I am going to ask them, what made them give me the liberty they did. And how they managed to keep a tab on their anxiety on all those late nights. But for them, I would not have felt the thrill of being alone, nervous, happy---feeling so completely on my own on the long roads home. Perhaps it was their way of throttling us with cartloads of trust. Their trick was to trust us completely, with a child-like innocence and a fanatic reverence.

Someday, I am going to tell them they have been the most fabulous people I have ever met. My parents may not exactly qualify as guiding angels, the kinds who chalk their child’s future with a neatly planned itinerary of courses, degrees and careers.

Aaji consistently nagged me to work hard, but she never nagged me to be this or that. Baba, when I look back, was only concerned with my being happy. In his vocabulary, perhaps Happy = Full-stop.

I remember once when I was particularly scared before the boards, I sat with him.

“So, you think you won’t even manage to pass, is it?”
“I am not sure”
A short pause.
“Okay, never mind. Nothing matters, actually. Just stop being afraid. I hate it when you move around with that scared and sad face.”

And then, he said something some other time. From his bed where he sleeps all his time after office, shaking the right leg, reading a book, and always ordering this or that (his constant demand is fresh nimboo pani), my lazy, often irritating, but consistently loving and innocent father promised me late one night:

“Remember, no matter what you do and what the world says, I will always be with you till I am alive”.

At that time, though I was touched, what he said really didn’t make sense given that I hadn’t done, or didn’t even intend to do, anything outrageous. But today, I know. And it feels so good.

I leave you with a painting he did a few days back. (I can imagine his child-like glee if he reads this post, especially when he sees his painting online).

Shubho Nabo Barsho

Kolkata is a city that grows on you.

It would be now close to two years here. It is due to the amazing warmth that Bengalis are capable of, I have come to love being here- more than I had ever, ever imagined I could. Warmth is everywhere in the city. Also simplicity. And that hard to miss 'value for money' streak.

I started off hating the city with all my guts. The gloomiest part was sunset around five in the evening. Yes, the street lights are on around five thirty in winter! Back in Ahmedabad, on some days light persisted even till eight in the evening...

So every evening it felt extremely gloomy when the sun set unceremoniously. Mummy would fidget around, looking at me from the corner of her eye. Always around, offering this, that or the other thing to eat or do, her sole mission was to make me comfortable. But come evening and for an hour or two I would feel miserable no matter what. And then she would be at her sweet, confused loss of remedies and settle down in the corner of the room praying. She must have been flirting with bouts of asthama, as her preoccupation to keep the 'notun bau' comfortable just didn't leave her for a second.

Mummy smothered me with a constant presence, unrestrained affection, a stream of compliments coupled with a 'amaar bau khoob mishti' annoncement even to the people she met randomly on the street that left me red faced. I know how little it takes to make her happy. A short call, a dinner, a few chapatis is all it takes for her to go on the 'amaar bau...mishti' routine. I was initially psyched off with all the fuss, but if I love Kolkata today, she has a lot to do with it.

If you have just come to Kolkata and are not a Bengali, you might be grumbling and swearing and making faces about the lazy Bangali babu and the Cholche Cholbe attitude. I would advise you swear, shout, grumble and malign Kolkata to your heart's content. This would only be your initiation in a saga of undefinable love. Kolkata knows her mysterious ways to get loved and remembered.

You love Kolkata for the same reasons you hate it. The traffic jams left me fuming and cursing. I wondered why the hell should I have fallen for a guy from the opposite end of the map and consequentially spend lengthy hours of my newly-wed life in a traffic jam. Today, the same jams come and go and I am amazed at how the city has mellowed me down, made me patient.

I still have not been able to pinpoint what is that one thing that makes Kolkata so lovable.

It may be the passion that flows freely in the city. The passion to dress, to eat, to travel, opine, to lead or follow rallies, attend the Brigade, side with Mohun Bagan (or East Bengal!), to be lazy, to be laidback, pay respect to the thakur, discuss the stock and price of ilish, celebrate the puja, to do the puja shopping, walk miles to go pandal hopping to see the almost identical idols in different decors, to slog in the sun, pull the rickshaw and earn a petty sum, be grateful, to be honest to the point of being naive...

Bengalis come with their eccentricities, but in no time you start loving those. Yes, Kolkata grows on you.

The Beach

Could see the storm scheming up at the horizon. The storm announced itself through a confusion of colours that played smokily over the berserk foam - gray and black, orange and dusty brown, a bit of red overpowered by a blue so dark, it competed with black. I was sitting at the far end of the hotel lobby facing the sea. It was not exactly comfortable, nor could it be classified as romantic. The weather was too sticky and too sullen for any idea of calm to prevail. In fact, too much silence can get eerie for the unpolished soul. Silence was looming large over my cup of tea. Barring the gushing of waves that fizzled out on the beach and the splash of unruly large ones that hit some scattered rocks, all was silent.

A few more days and I would be back. I couldn't decide, what was worse - going back or staying here in the forsaken shanty of a resort. Three days had swept past in the freedom of loneliness, another three would pass in the contemplation of society that would flood me in near future. Soon I would neatly fold a week of recluse and leave it in the pages of a book to lie forgotten, forsaken.

The three-legged bitch was howling again. I could make her out from her silhouette, the way she slumped forward and moved gracelessly about made her special out of all the mongrels. All the dogs on this beach looked alike with their matted brown or black coats, multiple bites, flies hovering behind their arse and fleas hopping above their ears. But this bitch stood out because of her melancholy puzzled with a peculiar will to survive. She had a certain charm. She was strong and high-headed and more than ferocious when need be. She wasn't as reckless as the others, though. She had a certain style, a slow gait which she must have acquired over a painful period of maggots and healing.

I had tried to get friendly with her the first day I saw her howling on the beach. She had shot back a brief, vicious growl with her wet red muzzle stretched back to expose sharp yellow canines in full view. She had dismissed me decisively and limped away further into the sea. I had stayed behind on the beach feeling like a fool rightly snubbed for trying to mix pity with love.

I avoided her on all my walks from the next day and she ignored me just as majestically. I was getting restless hearing her sad, deep howls.

I abruptly pushed the cup of tea aside and started walking to my room. My bed was littered with clothes and books, pens and colour pencils, a cheap drawing book. I made myself some space on the bed and slopped on my stomach, face propped up by my hands, feeling utterly useless. My penchant for mess left me disappointed wherever I went. Even with an army of servants, I could manage to make a pile of useful useless things in my vicinity.

The morning looked a tad meek to glow in full brightness. The storm had apparently threatened the sun not to get to business right away. The morning looked a bit undressed, rather unkempt and unwashed. The beach was littered with carcasses of jelly fish, a huge turtle and innumerable thick, oblong calcium bones of cuttlefish. I pocketed a few for the birds.

I walked till the farther end, just where the beach curved suddenly and a brown rocky range came in view. The beach took a sudden change here, the sand got coarser in degrees till you only walked between sharp rocky edges. Here and there, the sea water rushed into a depression and stayed back for good. Small, colorful fish and transparent fry would dance about from one small end of the stony depressions to the other. At the bottom of dark holes lurked crabs that would wait for their prey with razor-sharp pincers.

There was a comfortable rock that I had mentally marked as my own from the first afternoon. Just below the rock was the largest of such inland ponds with a dizzying display of multicoloured fry. I had found a recluse within a recluse at this silent, risky spot.

No sooner had I sat on a rocky edge and had made myself comfortable watching the school of fry zig-zagging their way aimlessly, than the bitch silently appeared by my side and wagged her tail. I couldn't decide what surprised me more: her sudden presence, or her friendly gesture. I was still stung by her growl and her denial of me and gave her the cold shoulder. I was not going to talk with a dirty, self-engrossed bitch, I decided.

She looked the other way and sat down beside the water, curiously looking at the fry. She struck her paw in and out of the pool and amused herself as the school went off track with each of her well-timed splash. I was too irritated at the invasion of my privacy to actually admit I was enjoying her game.

She stole a glance at me when I unwrapped a sandwich, but a sniff later she looked away unamused and got busy with the fry again. This pissed me off further. I was hoping to have an upper hand by throwing a crumb with a proud swoosh of a hand aimed at her salivating mouth only after she had wagged her tail enough. She had denied me this chance to feel mean. The bitch, with all her attitude, left me fuming with decisive anger.

I knew she didn't quite approve of me. She knew I hated her guts. We both knew. And in full knowledge of our dislike, we struck it big time since that afternoon. For three days, we seemed to meet undecided, un-appointed. For three days, she snuffed off the sandwiches I ate with utter disgust and for three days I grumbled about how bad she smelt when the wind was in our direction. For three days, we kept each other company, a two-legged bitch and a three-legged bitch who both didn't quite like and yet understood the other so well.

Sometimes you don't need love, friendship or pity to strike it big. Anger, envy or dislike works just as well. Only if you don't hide what you feel, that is.

-GG

Of weddings

All those who have married in the traditional Hindu way, tell me what is the meaning of marriage that you gathered when you sat opposite the fire and repeated the mantras one after the other.

After witnessing two-three weddings, including my own, I have come to a conclusion that traditional, ritualistic weddings offer a wholly unsatisfactory insight and guidance to starting a new life.

Wedding ceremonies are simply an expensive social obligation that each man and woman is made to tolerate. You basically wed for your parents, parents of parents, and the 'society' rather than to understand what scriptures say about what a marriage means.

I have no problems with the celebrations per say. Anything that brings joy and people together is justified and a marriage tends to do both. What irks me are the elaborate rituals that boil up to be an aimless, half-baked, commercial and socially obligatory formality. I find in rituals a certain disregard, manipulation and highhandedness in imparting information and insight.

Many of the ‘Whys’ remain unanswered for weddings or poojas are timed in accordance with hall bookings, catering services and other logistics. It seems that the modern day harried ritual ceremonies are for nothing but a placebo effect- to simply give us a moral conviction of having done things the right way than anything else.

On the other hand, if I were to be explained everything in detail, it would take almost a week. I would rather get my hands on some book and read it on my own and get my husband to read it.

The sweaty boredom of sitting beside the so-called holy fire and listening to mantras in a completely alien tongue (Sanskrit is alien, admit it) is not exactly what you call a pleasant experience. They say that the rituals, if performed with the right ingredients and attitude, can invoke the presence of Gods. Never once in my life, can I digest that Gods can actually concede a descent from heaven in the chaos and hullaboo of a few hundred friends of friends and relatives of relatives to make their way through the stuffiness of expensive silk sarees to bless the couple.

An ideal wedding would be under a tree, with a hand-picked few individuals who are close not by relation, but by bonding and understanding. To do the ritualistic honours should be just about any respectful person whose wisdom we are certain of and who can guide us to a new beginning, who can tell what exactly the Vedas mean by a wedding as crisply as he can. And please, no fire and ghee and all that stuff. Or to the minimum- I am sure we have done enough sins in thought and kind to actually expect Gods coming over to say a hello, so better chuck the formality altogether.

Talking about ideal weddings- my mama mami actually tied the knot under a tree somewhere in the USA while studying there. And so they have the privilege and moral right to stiffly admonish the unnecessary extravaganza that has become synonymous to traditional weddings. I had a very clear idea of what kind of a wedding I wanted but my family dismissed my preference as 'impractical'. (I wanted an extremely small ceremony in my own house in the presence of a few hand-picked people followed by a grand ‘free for all’ reception outside)

I believe that a marriage essentially boils up to be a commitment that you make with each other. Rituals and the presence (and approval) of others is a social adage that developed over a period of time.

Tagged

Life Ten Years Ago-Demanded a few things from me that I didn't realise I should deliver. Wish I was more sensitive, more attentive and a little less self-engrossed. People slipped right before my eyes and the doom struck me too late... But yes, life ten years ago was also pure bliss- we stayed far away from civilisation, enjoyed the sight of sprawling fields. Heaven, when it rained...

Life Five Years Ago- Was the best of the best times of my life. College was one storm of blissful abandon that came and went in the blink of an eye. God has been very kind. Touchwood.

Life Tomorrow- I hope, takes the same beautiful turns that it has taken so far. Yes, agreed some shocks I could have done better without, but wiser? I am not sure. I sincerely hope life tomorrow is the one that I can look back fondly the day after...

Five Locations I'd love to run away to-
Ahmedabad, any time...

Somewhere in Himachal / Uttaranchal with a good camping group... I am not sure if I can walk that much, but still...

Beyt Dwarka and Mount Abu, ideally on a moonless night..

The small villages that come on the way up to Darjeeling have caught my fascination. I have wanted to run away and stay in those small homes packed with large dahlia and chrysanthemum blossoms ever since...


Five Bad Habits I have-

Too much of brooding. Gets on my nerves and my skin.

Carelessness. Irritates me more than it does my husband, though he doesn't quite believe me when I say this...

That I stop taking medicines once I feel a little better. Just can't help it...

Too much of sleep...

Anger and what all I say when I am angry...

Five Things I'll Never Wear-

Stilettoes. I get awe-struck everytime I see a friend wearing a pair.. Sadly, not for me...

Anything drastic is not on my list...

Something to achieve by next year-

A goal, a purpose. That degree I want so much and a satisfying job.
Something that impacted me last year-

Hmm... cannot pinpoint anything specific... Few books lasted long though- To Kill a Mocking Bird, The Alchemist, 1984... Also, the dinner and lunch I used to take in that small house in Pune. That family humbled me.

What will I miss about 2007-

I never ever thought I would. But yes, I miss being in Pune a lot and will continue to do so for time to come...

Five things I want to do before i die-

Tough!

Let's see, has to be some land and a nice house. Children. Travel and see the places I read about. And a sense of living a good life. I guess that sums up everything inclusive, no?

Thanks Pranay for tagging me... Please carry the tag on, all of you who are up to it...

How Marathi is Marathi?

How Marathi is Marathi?
How Migrant is Migrant?

I safely landed in Mumbai and zoomed to the house thanks to a very traffic free road left unventured by a scared / cautious public. Mumbai was on fire once again thanks to the ancient 'Marathi manoos vs. others' debate.

All thru my drive home, I met with different opinions, different theories and none seemed to convince me enough. It might be a virtue of having grown up in an environment very indifferent to politics but I, for one, try not to digest any set of theory readily, however logical it may sound, if it has a political tinge of thought process behind it. I take my own sweet little time and exert a lot more caution. Be it the very left, or the very right pattern of thinking, as fate would have it, my origin and my residence, both is so strategic that off late I find myself humouring away the diverse set of clear and crisp ideologies that relatives on each side adhere to.

The argument people put here is simple. That the migrant population is an undue, uninvited burden and hardworking though they may, the immigrants by the thousands fill up local trains, erect slums and flourishing ghettos in no time. The infrastructure of this city (Mumbai) is getting burdened and may collapse pretty soon if the inflow of people is not checked. More, the parent states have 'failed' (and so are to be blamed) for their people need to leave their states in such large numbers to earn their livelihood.

There are a few basic things that come to my mind to counter the above logic:

1) Can anyone in this country decide who can come in their state or city and who can't? Such a notion / decision / belief is unconstitutional, even if we may stretch our imagination to accomodate it as logical.

2) How Marathi is Marathi? I might be a disaster case, for one.

3) How Migrant is Migrant? There must be people, who have accepted this city as their home since more than five or six decades. Will they still be outsiders or migrants? And how illogical is it to expect that a person staying in your city should have a cultural makeover overnight? Is culture such a simplistic thing that can be accepted / modified suddenly? And is abiding by your culture, rituals and language a show of disrespect to the other?

I am a Maharashtrian, born of a Gujarati mother, grown up in Ahmedabad. My grandparents and their parents also stayed in Gujarat for a long time. Aaji can speak, read and write Gujarati as well as she can communicate in Marathi. It would be now close to sixty years or more, that we are based in Gujarat and I have a huge soft corner for Ahmedabad. And yet, it would be a painful and illogical dilemma if I am asked to pick one of my two origins and shun the other completely.

The uproar that arose in Mumbai recently raised a very simplistic and genuine sense of empathy with all those who were bullied and beaten on camera. The question is, how you will measure the marathi quotient of a marathi manoos. And how will you decide how migrant is migrant?

Actually no. The more important question is who, in the first place, gave you the right to sit and judge and sieve out people based on their origin, caste and language in the largest democracy of the world?

Mass Media mush, News & Saas-bahu saga- The quest to find a connection...

We are being injected with millions of sharp little needles every single second we see television, read newspapers, listen to the radio or surf online. Without an 'aah' or 'ouch' even, in fact, so much so that we all happily get ourselves pierced again and again with generous dozes of thoughts, ideas, aspirations and longings.

That's what the Hypodermic Needle Theory, or The Magic Bullet Theory, or the Almacht van de media-theorie is expected to do to us: to directly influence the masses via the mass media.

Just like a doze of injection pierces under your skin and in no time reaches the recesses of your tissue and cells, a doze of media, however small or big it may be, is potent enough to remain in your psyche and influence to levels even you yourself cannot imagine.

Today, the audience is assumed to be far more active in churning out meaning and symbols out of the creative products thrust on its face. And though new research coupled with aggressive market surveys says that the audience is not as dumb as thought to be earlier, I feel the Hypodermic theory still has a huge fan following. In fact, the needle theory seems to be the underlying driving principle of any mass media campaign, be it advertising, politics or PR.

What is it, but the conviction of the media barons that the audience is so dumb, and so much of a puppet, that it will gulp down anything, absolutely anything that is coaxed down their throats? And we, as an audience, have proved their boardroom theories right time and again with a maniacal reverence.

Take immortal Saas-Bahu sagas for example. Though generations after generations face scandals of different social complexities and varieties of extra-marital affairs, these Saas-bahu dramas still have an ardent fan following.

In case of pure entertainment, given films and serials, even these statistics could be implemented straightaway to churn out profit and get high TRP. For entertainment wears no masks of reality or morality in most cases. At worst, even if it were downright vulgar, the audience knows what to expect and makes a conscious choice when he chooses to see serial X instead of serial Y.

The real problem is with the pollution of the media that disseminate news. There's a horrible, and very dangerous mix of 'reports' and features' in the current media fashion.

A report is meant to state what happened, as verbatim as possible, without any leading verbs, adverbs or adjectives that may lend the reporter's personal stance on the matter. A feature, on the other hand, is that powerful tool of the same reporter where he is free to pen his opinions as harshly as he may want and associate those opinions with his byline.

A news reader today does not have the privilege, least of all an opportunity, to make opinions of his own based on a news report. This is because the 'report' that reaches his hands has already been doctored, consciously or unconsciously, by opinions and leading language. Such a carefully toned piece of information hits the psyche so effectively and so stealthily, that it rules out any remote possibility of an unbiased, objective decoding of information.

Newspaper articles today are laced with preconceived moral, ethical and political stances than ever before. This brutal penmanship, in effect, kills the right of the reader to chaff out information from opinion, just as it denies the reader to form an opinion based on unbiased information.

The unfortunate thing is, media today, especially the traditional print and broadcast media, have achieved a God-man status and a large majority still looks up to the media to validate any piece of information. We are influenced by the media more than we may want to acknowledge.

We are still injected with opinions and ideals, we are still driven to think what the media or political conglomerates want us to think, and we are still slaves to the Hypodermic Needle Theory...

-Gauri Gharpure

Read about the Hypodermic Needle Theory

Alert bloggers

I was just checking the Technorati authority of my blog and came across this link...

This blog: http://tatanano.sempros.net seems to be brewing some trouble... I saw a whole long compilation of articles in reference to the Tata Nano car, but the credits go haywire.

I, for one, have not been credited, and someone else, infact two people, are said to have written an interesting post: Do we need one car each? (and so on) which I posted on this blog merely two days back...

As in, at one place it says : "Bob Holland wrote an interesting post today on.....'Do we need one car each? (and so on) and at the other, it goes like this: "Jalopnik: Obsessed With The Cult Of Cars wrote an interesting post today on... Do we need one car each? (and so on) A monologue with the government, or those in power
(This link leads to the article on orato.com and also the link, Read here, but who are Bob Holland and Jalopnik???)

After the on, there's no mention of any website, or any link.

I expect it should be Gauri Gharpure instead of Bob Holland or Jalopnik, is my name that difficult to spell? There seems to be a whole lot of jhol not just with my post, but with many other compilations which deal with any kind of reference to the Tata Nano car in this blog...

If a user is keeping an eye on the net and noting any reference to this blog- Tata Nano on wordpress, whether for some organization or for personal inclinations, The introduction should be "XYZ submitted this interesting post by another XYZ"... Also, the link should be clearly specified as also what is the sense behind these compilations...

Fellow readers, if you have the time and inclination please help and advise as to what exactly this blog is up to. At least, if you are possessive of your work, get a bit more cautious with this little bizzare business...

-Gauri Gharpure

Have you heard the sound of earth?

Happy Republic Day, to begin with.

From January 26, 2001 on, the significance of Republic day has changed for me, and perhaps, for all of Gujarat. A much destructive earthquake chose to happen on a date one cannot possibly ignore even by choice.

It was 9 AM in the morning and as usual, I was sleeping. I had slept off the previous night urging everyone to wake me before the republic day parade began at any cost, for I wanted to see an uncle who was going to lead a battalion.

I heard the shouts of my aaji and my sister, but that was normal when they wanted me to wake up, so I ignored the faint, far away to and fro of instructions. I was in deep slumber and felt I was shaking all over, in fact, that the entire bed was. In that dreamy, semi conscious state of mind, I assumed it was my sister gone real nuts and innovative in trying to wake me up. Seriously, that's what I thought. And then, the entire bed started shaking too furiously for me to ignore it anymore. Almost preceding this tremendous rattle by a split second was the most ominous sound of my life: the sound of earth. The sound of a furious, fearsome earth.

It started out as a mild, concentrated groan and increased exponentially. In the next second, the circular drumming sound was throbbing right through the bed, and all over me. It was not scary. It was sinister. In a second, I was wide awake, and in the next I had jumped out of the bed. I don't know how I had realized that it was an earthquake, but so I had and had instantly started galloping out.

My aaji was more worried about putting off the fan switches and ordering Indi to switch off the gas before they both proceeded out. I was more interested in shoving aaji ahead of me and seeing that she got out. We have three small steps in between the dining hall and the sitting hall; it was a bit difficult to find a footing. But we were out in decent time, so were all the neighbours. Our ailing neighbourhood grandpa was bedridden and father presently came carrying him out as well.

Let me tell you, we were not scared at that moment. The tremors had stopped completely and our houses were intact. We were all laughing and sharing who was doing what when they realized that it was an earthquake. Indi was boiling milk and when the vessel began to shake, she just thought the milk had come to boil. Aaji was doing the pooja and when she noticed the washing machine was shaking a bit too hard, she just screamed at Indi for having done something wrong with it. Sis, where was she? She must have been around and she was definitely not asleep. Baba was reading the newspaper and it is he who shouted, “It’s an earthquake, get out!” I complain till this date that no one actually came to wake me up and that everyone was already running out when I joined them.

The telephone lines and electricity had conked off immediately and so we just spent more time in animated talks. We were saying that finally, now it's here. Bhavnagar, a city nearby, was in the news for a long time before this major earthquake for experiencing constant tremors of small magnitude on the Richter scale. There were already speculations going on, as to if and when will Ahmedabad experience a tremor, and how strong it would be. We used to joke and fantasize about it, the adventure of experiencing an earthquake and living later on to talk about it. And then it happened...

In about half an hour or even earlier, the electricity and the telephones were revived. News then started pouring in. Sanjana said the building which stood two minutes down the St. Xavier's lane had collapsed and people were stuck inside. Relatives called up with news of damage to different localities. Someone told Mansi Towers has collapsed. We realized something of a very serious and destructive nature had just happened in that mere minute. The string of doom was not to be stopped. It took some time for the worse news to start pouring in.

I decided to sleep with my shoes on after reading that after-shocks were possible and sis made fun of me, accompanied with giggles and pinches. But around four the next morning, there was indeed a sudden, solid jerk that pushed me to one side of the bed. Everyone was again out in an assembly of animated discussion and I chimed in to boast of my decision to wear shoes at night. Aunty organized a reading of Sunderkand in the family the next day.

I couldn't imagine, and still can't, how in those very seconds, less than a minute, lives had turned topsy turvy for so many people of the city and all over the state. Entire buildings had collapsed; people were dead or alive under heights of concrete and construction.

Bhachau was flat, Kutchch was miserable. Trucks of food and medicines were dispatched and people were urging for band aids and medicines and ration. In the neighbourhood, two families had arrived with their bags and baggage to take shelter and so, there was an addition of two young girls and two young boys to our highly talkative gang.

The girls stayed just beside Mansi towers that had collapsed. They had seen some gory sights they wished not to discuss and their flat, though still standing, had suffered considerable damage. In any case, flat dwellers were too scared to go back and live in flats. I and sis were to be found there for the better part of the day.

In fact, as I am writing this, I am surprised at how pleased I am looking back at those few hours that we children spent in the sunshine chatting away under the doom of something scary and sad, merely a few hours after the earthquake, not fully aware of how serious and how massive the destruction was. The elders sat inside, men talked over cups of tea, the women cried and cooked and consoled each other for a better part along with serving us something to bite on in between.

Was it February 28th? I am not sure, but I remember a day when the better part of Gujarat Samachar was full of paid obituaries. The broadsheet looked like a systematic collage of passport size photos that day. It was nerve-wracking to look at the photos with the constant fear that some acquaintance may just flash back at you from the newspaper.

I stared at the obituaries for a long time, gaping at the dead passport photos. Some were beautiful and young, some seemed familiar and endearing. Aaji and baba were looking if someone they knew was in it. I was also looking for the same reason. We told each other how familiar a face looked and then we all racked brains to remember where we could have met or talked with them. A few days later, I went to my cousin's house in the city. She took me out on a bike and in less than ten minutes, we had seen half a dozen flats fallen in different levels of destruction. One housed her favourite professor who had lost both his daughters and his wife. He was in the college for the flag salutation.

I went for my math tuitions two-three days after the quake. After the tuition, I inquired about my friend who was not present. Someone told me her parents had died. I was thankful that baba was around and he drove me home saying some beautiful things he always manages to say when the need arises. We reached home and I called Fr. the first thing and blurted out the news more looking for comfort than to let him know. I don't know why and how it occurred to me that I should talk to him, but there's a scheme for everything.

Then I called her. I don't remember now how I got the number of her relatives or how I got the address. I am blank. I just remember driving in Paldi from one small by lane to the other in search of her house. And there she was, sitting in the window waiting for me. She shouted, waved and beamed a smile. She put me at ease, the way she caught my attention.

I was ushered in her room and the first thing she did was to apologize for the mess her room was in. The room was spic and span, the bed sheets were freshly made and yet she was not satisfied. Said not much cleaning was possible for so many guests kept coming over and everyone was busy. I was amazed at how life never stopped its routine and how easily she had accepted the loss and was now playing that perfect host, that charming friend who paid attention to things as routine as a clean bed or a hot tea.

She was getting ready for the flag salutation in school and her father was pressing her uniform. Her brother had already left for school. When the quake happened, her father had stayed behind to lock up the house. She had reached out with her mother to safety, but when the building started collapsing, her father was just about coming out. Her mother rushed back in to bring him. And then the building collapsed taking both of them under it, perhaps before her eyes.

I have been lucky to have met immensely brave people from whom I take strength from time to time. She is one such person. Never once, have I seen her dull. Never once have I seen the reverence and enthusiasm for life diminish in her. She always looks forward to all occasions good, be it a movie, a function in a school, a friend falling in love, her wedding, or off late, some good news from the married friend. Never once have I seen her epitomize sorrow. She's this petite maiden who will surprise many a people with her sheer sense of life and living...

The earthquake, for me, begins with that chaotic humour in our house before we finally got out and ends with the news of the death of my friend's parents. The news, the statistics, the lengthy newspaper articles stopped making sense sometime later.

I have always believed, and still do, that death is a very personal thing. Till it doesn't affect your select group of people, you don't feel the pang in the emotional and physical sense of it. There's some invisible shell around each human body which attempts to save him from all that grief that may be counter productive to his future. And it’s precisely for this invisible shell that protects us from grief, that we get the strength to move on and take loss in our stride. Being strong doesn’t mean you are cold. It just means you want to concentrate on what is left and how you could make it better.

After the earthquake, followed endless examples of the strength of the human mind to move on. For me, it was my friend. For others, the inspiration would be someone else. I heard the sound of earth that day a good seven years ago and the smell of death soon followed. And yet life’s still as beautiful as it should be.

-Gauri Gharpure,

January 26, 2008

Do we need one car each? ( and so on...)

A monologue with the Government, or those in power...

There's good news. And I have already started taking my driving lessons. (It was highly incidental, but what a coincidence!) The newspaper reports say (and so gulp them with a pinch of salt) that the 'Nano'- the cheapest car in the world, will be priced around INR One lakh...

So while I was thinking to save up my money and go for a second hand dabba car within one lakh range sometime in six months, I now might as well wait another few months and add another few thousand and get a brand new Nano. Makes perfect economic sense, nai? So it will, for many others like me... And so in a year from now, we all will be happily hopping to TATA showrooms like we now hop to Big Bazaar and get ourselves a car each for a change instead of a t-shirt or a jeans or steel vessel. I am thrilled, I am swooning in disbelief...

Utopia rings bells of alarms, doesn't it? What's wrong here? What's the catch? Let's rack our brains and think a bit.

Kudos to the Tatas to make a car within the reach of the 'common man'. Kudos to the very communist government for putting a step forward to usher in 'development' and 'industrialization'.

Okay, hold on. I am going to explain the quote-unquote thing.

Common man. Whom are you talking about? Surely not he, who spends most of his time traveling in a bus or a metro, not he, who gets fascinated and starry eyes on being offered a credit card. Surely not he, who sweats each day on his way to office, sweats back all his way, and then haggles over the price of tomatoes somewhere in between. Surely not he, who is still in doubts whether he can afford the maintenance and petrol costs if he buys a scooter.

Development. What are you talking about? I have been walking fairly enough in the city and hopping on many a crowded buses. I am yet to come across a decent bus stand, which has seats where people can sit and wait, and which tells which buses go from that route and where. I have moved around in nearby 'remote places' merely hundred kilometers from Calcutta proper, where the most popular of transport is still the three-tyred cycle rickshaw, where there are far more saree shops than proper medicine shops, where basic medical aid seems non-existent. Take snake-bite for example. Many deaths in the villages occur due to snake bites. And naturally so, Bengal is a haven for most snakes poisonous, including the King Cobra. Can't you make that damned snake anti-venom available at medical stores? No. It cannot be retailed and you need to get it only from big government hospitals, provided the doctors are available. Perhaps such things require legislation and consultation. Development is something that happens spontaneously, isn't it?

Industrialization? What are you talking about? O, do you mean industrialization as that situation wherein you confiscate a piece of fertile land and gift it to any XYZ company. The company will grow, so will the smoke, so will the population density in that area, and so will sprout a few measly tea stalls and bun stalls in a futile attempt. And when the roadside stalls sprout and when a few youths are employed as peons and a few young women are degraded to being sweepers and cleaners from being free-willed maidens who picked up green peas in their fields before the SEZ nightmare happened, of course, you will point your fingers wisely and say: "See, we told you, SEZs generate employment..."

Stop kidding me. I know who will get the icing on the SEZ cake. You want to know? KFC, McDonald's, Burger King and Sify Broadband cafes. Sorry to the bun maska and the kerosene stove tea. Saab log don't eat at down market places and nor do such stalls suit the chic and plush corporate glamour. So please, shove off, you villagers, make way. So what if we now stand on what was once your land...

All the development that is happening is happening to you and me, who have the luxury to type away idle thoughts on the brand new keyboard and who are discussing which next laptop to buy. Development, the real one, out of sarcastic quotes, should ideally happen to those who are sweating day in and day out to and back from bus and trains and who haggle the price of tomatoes. Development should happen to those dark and dusty village children who walk miles to the lone primary school years in vain hope till truth dawns upon them and they give up. Education is still a joke in majority of remote India and development should happen to that sad and different species of human race altogether who live and die each day in an ignored existence. The talks of 'development' and 'industrialization' are mere candy floss.

When I see flocks of villagers marching kilometers, the red flag swinging behind them to come to the city and attend this or that political meeting with religious reverence, I feel extremely sad and pained. Here is one state, and here is one people, who have unquestionable faith in their leaders, or let's say, the communist ideology. Here is a people who believe that their government is indeed for the sickle and the labourer. They might be right. But they might be wrong too...

It seems to me that the communism today, or for that matter any political ideology, is nothing but degenerated and misinterpreted set of basically skewed up ideals. Today, communism seems simply standing up for the poor while keeping them as poor as they are, while enveloping their scope of vision with so many like them that they feel they are happy and satisfied and one of the lot.

Was the communist ideal always like this? Wasn't it always an excellent piece of theory which can never ever be implemented in practice. Like the Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty- it is a fascinating truth, but it cannot be proved experimentally. Isn't communism that perfect synonym of utopia? For when have we, in the course of history from Marx to this date, witnessed the successful evolution of a classless society, where all evolved together and ultimately all were equals?

Why cant there be a sensible development? Why can't there be more public means of transport, more realistic prices of goods and lesser loans and credits? Professor Pinto once thundered in the class in his trademark style: "All this is lobbying. There's this dreadful nexus of car manufacturers and banks and builders and so on. Why don't they increase the number of municipal buses? They won't do that, for then, how will cars and scooters sell by hundreds each day?"

Though the quote may not be verbatim, I hope this is the essence he wanted to convey. For after that lecture, I brooded on and on, and could never shake of this logic.

Think of it. A bus can easily hold 50 people at a time. Why don't you increase the number of buses? Why don't you clean the buses more often and spend some on the interiors of the buses? Why don't you make the mode of transport popular and start brand image advertisements to clean up that snobbish 'O , so down market thingy to travel in a sweaty bus' attitude. Why don't you make the public transport system so chic and so plush, that everyone feels a relief using it and prefers it to driving down the chaos of jam and pollution each day? If you plan it well enough, a state transport system is a winning formula which satiates all the wants- economy, convenience and environment.

Case in point, the famous Neeta Volvo versus the Maharashtra State Buses that ply between Pune and Mumbai. Neeta Volvo (and Konduskar and such alike) reek of monopoly and cheating- the way they hike their tickets on weekends and the way sometimes dump passengers on the worst seats possible in spite of advance bookings. State buses offer the same facilities but at a far cheaper rate. But the State Bus ticket counters are dilapidated, easily ignored, tin-roof structures nearby a urinal and Neeta operates from a plush office. Only a lot of asking will ever, if at all, tell you which are the stops all over the city (Mumbai and Pune) where the State buses stop enroute to pick up the tourists.

As we are talking about the government downplaying their facilities, let me provide you with another example:

The postal letter drop box. I still write a lot of inland letters and postcards, and so I know how difficult it is to convince yourself before dropping that letter thru the flap of the box that this mode of communication is still not defunct. The letter drop box always seems to stand so unceremoniously at some busy corner, with so much of dust sleeping on it, and with so many cobwebs swinging by, I always ask three different strangers to ascertain if this is 'still in use' or is past its expiry date. When you do deliver the postcards and the inland letters in good time, why don't you just make an effort to make the service well known? Why don't you tell the public you offer cheap services and direct them to the letter boxes? Why don't you just colour that damn thing bright red once a year at the least??? Might as well go to some ad agency, get them make some hip direction banners and post them prominently on top of all the letter drop boxes?

So the thing is, all this talk of development and industrialization is sheer humour. You are game for development? Then start sacking teachers from municipality schools this second on. Start some serious re-thinking of what kind of teachers you want to teach at pre-school and primary levels all over the villages of the country. Get some management graduates tell you what product marketing is so that the state transport and postal services and all that stuff you let rot away in oblivion is used by the common man. And for God's sake, hire some dumb advertising agency make some yellow and black billboards to signal the bus pick up points, and the letter boxes.

We want to grow richer and drive that Nano, but we don't want to do so kicking the stomach of someone thin and lean and who sleeps hungry. We want to grow, but we also want those strangers who sweat each day to see a better tomorrow than their disappointing today. We also don't need one car each and we need you to know what development really is.

-Gauri Gharpure