Of a bewitching damsel, Kaveri by name!

The journey is not much,  just  500 odd miles  from Talakaveri to Poompuhar.  The traveller too is certainly not in the league of a Ganga or Narmada, let alone an Amazon or a Nile.  But this traveller is not like any other.  She  is much more than an Amazon or Nile.  She nurtures and nourishes every blade of grass that is strewn on her path.  She  stirs up emotions like no one else  can. She is intertwined into the lives of millions of people.  She gives without asking and she bestows boons without a prayer.  She is  God. She is Kavery!

The genesis of her journey is from a small pond-like enclosure in Talakaveri, nestled among the woods of the Coorg.   Which actually does little justice to the great bursts of energy, verve and raw power she exudes during the rest of her journey before she finally  curls up tired and sick, in Poompuhar to meet her destination, the Bay of Bengal.  No one would believe that this placid enclosure of water in Talacauvery would, only a 100 kms later, metamorphose into the mighty Shivasamudram falls. 

Where exactly did she  pick up the fearsome countenance during the course of that 100 mile sojourn? What made her transform from a cuddly infant to an angry, lissome brute?...

.....Well, after expending some of her fury there, she regains a little composure and flows quietly and majestically up to Mysore, to be again stymied by that mammoth Krishnaraja  sagar!

The beauty of the man- made gardens there fails to soothe her and she is again back to her unbridled ways of an unkempt lass.  She again erupts with full force as she nears Hogenekal. This time, at Hogenekal, she unleashes an awesome  power that stuns the onlooker.  Is she the same quiet infant one just saw at Talakaveri?  Is she the same little brat of a girl who has now blossomed into a beastly yet beautiful girl? 

After pounding the earth with trillions of gallons of water, and the skies with the spray of her watery scent at Hogenekal, she once again recoups  some composure and begins her gentle trudge through the Tamil Nadu plains. This is where she is venerated and worshipped.  This is where she enters her in-laws' domain. Leaving  her violent temper and tantrums behind, she evolves into adulthood, dons the garb of the ever-beautiful Bahu and steps into her husband's abode, right foot first, into the home that she would never leave till her last breath. This is where she plays the loving wife, adoring daughter-in-law and compassionate mother to the denizens of the state.  To the multitude that look to her for soul and sustenance.  Where would Tamil Nadu be without the Kaveri? And can Kaveri be identified with the same love, lust and adoration had she not ventured into Tamil Nadu? Where she always belonged, by destiny or otherwise?

Bowing to the wishes of her children, she once again gets enchained at Mettur, so that the people can partake a bit of her boundless energy in the form of electrical energy.  That task finished, she gently trundles along, playing hide and seek here and there, curling and twirling at places, before she reaches Trichinopoly.  Parts with the company of her sister Kollidam there and chooses to garland Sriranganathar, just as Choodikkodutha Andal did. From Trichy, she meanders along, gently flowing into  Thanjavur.

A smosgarbord of emotions  do Thanjavur and Kaveri conjure to make.  As if made for each other.  An indelible page of history Kaveri and Thanjavur together create.  The mighty Cholas looked upon Kaveri as their very own daughter as also the protector mother.  Karikalan, the black- legged warrior, wished to leash Kaveri  at Kallanai, and with a wist of playful laughter, the lady obliged. That  piece of history still stands today, weathering all of two thousand years. 

No sooner did she enter than the parched plains of Thanjavur became the granary of the south.  Kaveri sauntered along in her wily gait. Sweeping away all flotsam and jetsam along her trail.  Lush green paddy fields sprouted enroute,  feeding millions. All made possible by that benefactor, Kaveri.  Leaving behind Thanjavur, she deigns to favour  the magic called Karaikal with her silken touch, just a tangential touch and that task fiinished, she steps gingerly into Poompuhar.  

Having arrived at Poompuhar, she realises that her journey is complete.  It's time to take a big breath. Time to say "my journey made, it's time I merged into the vastness of the ocean".  "My time has come.  I'm tired. I'm done". "Good bye, folks, I take leave but I will ever be with you".  And thus merged the legend Kaveri, into the Bay of Bengal.

That's the end.  That's the end of the mysterious legend spanning 500 miles. But is the end for real?  Does Kaveri really ever bid adieu?  Can she really?  Leaving behind thousands in mourning?.....

.....Kavirithaye, kavirithaye, kadhalar vilayada poovirithaye!.....

Our mother, where do we look to for a helping hand  but you,  when we wish to unfold the carpet of  flowers for our  sweet-hearts?

Adi velli, thedi unnai naanadainda neram, kodi mutham nadi vandhen, kaviriyin oram....

Again, when the urge to kiss my valentine overwhelms me, where do I descend but on your banks?

Nadanthai vazhi kaveri, nadengume chezhikka, nanmayellam sirakka..

The world is fertile but because of you, the goodness pervades but because of you..

Kavirippenne vazhga, undhan kadhalan chozha vendhanum vazhga...

Your love saga with the Chola emperor is legendary, does it need any further elucidation?

Adiyile perukkeduthu adi varum kaveri, vadiyamma engalukku vazhithunayaga...

When shall we again witness those Adi perukkus when you used to swamp us with your vigour and vivacity?  When we used to immerse ourselves within you and and you used to besiege us with your mind-blowing velocity?

When will we ever again wake up to the nostalgic memories of the swirling Kaveri in Thiruvaiyaru, the low pitched swoosh, the quiet roar to the accompaniment of divine Carnatic music?

You are now caught in a bind, my Kaveri, between the violent shackles of your home, by birth, on the one side, who suspect you are ill-treated at your in-laws and thus bay for divorce and your pugundha veedu on the other side, who  see you as their own daughter and will brook none of the interference of your parents...You yearn for your parents but your heart is still with us.  It is a long drawn battle, between the hearth and the heart.  But we can wait and we will. Till you become all of our own.  You were born into a wealthy clan, well endowed, but married into a family of small means.  But you are a true-blood Tamil lady.  You have the capacity to discern  what lies close to your heart - wealth or well-wishers.  And we will wait till eternity, even if our land you trod upon once with mirth turn into long stretches of barren sand and wilderness!

P.S.

Countless blogs of a superior quality are available in cyberspace about the great river's meandering 500 mile journey.  I neither have the wherewithal to compete with them in quality, nor was that my intention in the first place.  The idea was Kaveri, the intention was Kaveri and the end result is hopefully Kaveri.

And  Thanks, internet, for the photos, whoever took them---.endharo mahanubavulu, antariki vandhanamulu

The wizard of Pannaippuram - keep weaving your magic!

Certain beautiful things are only experienced and enjoyed.  They cannot be described in words , for words fail miserably to adequately bring out the import and poignancy of the moment.  Of all the five senses god has bestowed on us, speech is perhaps the most ordinary faculty.  At dawn, just before day-break, the sparrows chirp. Ears hear the chirp but can words do ample justice to portray the lilt on paper?  On a drizzling afternoon, at the eastern horizon, a rainbow suddenly spurts.  Eyes behold the magic but can words convincingly describe the beauty the eyes witness?  On a wintry cold night, when we are half-asleep snuggled cozily inside the blanket, you feel the chill fingers of someone lying beside on your bare chest!  Ah, the silky touch, but words could hardly narrate the ecstasy felt. When at night, after a  hard day's labour we are tired and famished, the smell of food being cooked wafts inside your room.  The nose captures the heavenly sensation, but the words just fail to keep pace.

So is with music.  So is with Ilayaraja's music. It can only be felt, touched, breathed, smelt and even seen but not adequately described.  The man and his work have only been so far loosely described as something approximating to genius.  I am not very sure about the appropriate context in which the adjective should be used but the word genius itself can, at best, aspire to only skim the surface of Raja's repertoire.  There are  millions on this earth, who have discovered deep inner peace and eternal bliss in Raja's works. Millions like me, have  managed to wade through the mundane wretched moments of daily life only by seeking solace from Raja's songs. 

I once read somewhere that writer Sujatha once  referred to the 'small surprising sweet shocks'(or something similar to that effect - edhirparadha siriya inba adhirchi) one gets from countless of Ilayaraja's compositions.  I am not sure about the writer's references, since I could not cross-verify it from any source.  But I have no such doubts about the inba adhirchigal Raja's songs regularly throw up at every nook, at unexpected moments, like mild electric shocks, producing minute,  tingling, ecstatic sensations all over.  A few of such I may wish to share:

In 'Attukutti muttayittu...' from 16 vayadhinile, in every charanam, after the 3rd line, the accompanying percussion beat in the background produces that one extra beat..(after 'pattathu rani, adhula 18 peru..... & medaikkuppona enakku eedilla ponnu...) which any other ordinary mortal would never even have conceived of.  Just an extra fleeting-second beat, many would not even have noticed  but the effect it produces on the discerning listener is incomparable.  In 'Sundari kannal oru sedhi.." after the first stanza, the drums start playing.  Listen minutely to their gradually slackening tempo and then rising to a crescendo.Exhilarating effect.  Or in 'Pon malaippozhudhu, after the first charanam finishes, listen to the interlude- a beautiful piece of orchestration beginning with the guitar, and then the flute, and then the violin crescendo each beginning and seamlessly merging into the next one....

In "paruvame pudhiya padal padu...", after the pallavi, the accompanying jogging- beat rhythm prolongs for a while.  Even as it does, the guitar effortlessly takes over soothingly.  Even before it finishes, the violin ensemble begins and reaches a crescendo,  The interlude then ends with a solo violin and then for a few magical moments, everything is silent except for the jogging steps which in turn fuse ever so effortlessly with the singer's arohanam.  It takes more than mere genius to even attempt such mind-blowing compositions. And can anything hope to  match the interludes of folkish lullaby and  the high-pitched male scat- singing to the accompaniment of the beating of udukkai in 'uchi vagudeduthu..."    I could have tried to tag the individual songs here but thought better - for one, I am very clumsy when it comes to use of technology and more important, I am talking here to my fellow Tamil film-music lovers only.  For us, Raja songs play inside our heads 24 x 7 and it is no big deal to press the play-back button inside the head.

Connoisseurs go gaga over the violin concertos and symphonies of Bach and Beethoven. Terms like adagio, allegro, C major and stuff like that do add a snobbish value to many but for them bandishing such terms in the cocktail circuit is more important than the music itself.   Our own Raja, within the suffocating confines of film music, has managed hundreds of gems of violin symphonies, as in "madai thirandu thavum siru alai naan...", "Edho mogam.."  "Raja raja chozhan..."  and many more.  Our Raja has straddled with elegance all forms of music, western to Carnatic classical, folk to reggae, jazz to hard rock.  He has ventured into territories competition was barely aware of.  He has, with aplomb, brought glory back to the much-maligned film music.  He is capable of much more, to reach further heights and to lord over the rest of the world. But his best  probably is destined to never come out.  We are so used to relegating film musicians to the realm of the scum of the society.  We take pride in deriding film music, specially the pundits among us. It's a tragedy but certainly, the loss is not Raja's.

I did not exactly mean to start this as an eulogy for Raja.  His works are much more sacrosanct for any ordinary fan to even attempt to eulogise. For Gods are seldom eulogised.  They are just worshipped.  Comparisons, encomiums and even brick-bats  would be trivialising the genius.  Kalidasa remarks in the opening stanzas of Raghuvamsa 'Kva surya prabhavo vamsha, kvachalpa vishayamadhi..' (loosely translated as 'where is the great Surya dynasty and where do I stand, me the dim-witted?") Same should apply to any one venturing to eulogise Ilayaraja.  In the virtual world though, one can find some quality material which would help one appreciate what the phenomenon called Raja is all about, the music  he has made, the music he is capable of making but has not made and the output the world is fortunate to have received.  One such site is geniusraja.blogspot.in. which I would strongly recommend all music lovers to visit, not just Raja fans.  Of course, the bloke who writes there deserves a doctorate for his painstaking research of Ilayaraja's works and alpa vishaya madhi guys like me have only the faintest idea of abstract musical terms like rhythm arrangements, scat-singing, counterpoints, counter-melody arrangements etc. the writer Ravi speaks of.  But that does not matter.  As long as I am able to appreciate Raja's works.

Thank you Raja, for all that you have given me and the world.  Thanks, Raja for lightening up my moments of gloom.  Thanks for the joy and ecstasy you have shared with humanity all these years. You are brilliant, you   transcend borders and you come close to genius.  You are well, God, since pudhu ragam padaippadhale neeyum Iraivane!

Birthday greetings, you 373 year old monster!

So today, you  grand old lady just grew one year older, didn't you?    All of 373 years now.  Phew, what a journey!  A long way from the cradle-infant born as a small strip of land in what is today Fort St. George, sired by Davis, mothered by your own quirks and fate, blossomed as a lovely lass somewhere down the lane and pretending to be  just as lovely even today, even after 373 years.  Many happy returns, my Madras, I love you.  I adore you.  I shed  tears of joy when you are praised.  I cringe when you are besmirched.  I cry when you suffer.  I discover my courage to rebuke when you are ridiculed.  I do all this because you mean so much to me.  Despite all your faults.

And faults are aplenty with you.  While no birthday child gets chided on her birthday, you are going to get an earful from me.  You remember, I used to defend you to the hilt despite your occasional manifestation of ugly behaviour?  Used to shout over the hill top that you are the best, the very best, way above other children?  But that was for public consumption, this conversation with you is private. You have disappointed me, you have grown up to become unwieldy and unkempt.   Since when did you start meandering away?  Is there any hope still for your unabashed lovers like me, the die-hard tribe of Madrasis?

Perhaps you started withering away, when you turned 120.  Or 250. Or 350.  It does not matter at what age.  But it does matter that the rot has set in within you and the rot is very discernible.

Starting with your infrastructure.  You were okay with a population of about 2 million. You were good enough for another million. But you now are pulled down with your own weight of 6 million, obscenely obese and bursting at the seams.  You took into your fold whoever came your way from all over India and the result shows in your girth.  You are now fat, struggling to breathe and adding more calories by the day.  You need to keep a watch on your weight, old lady, if you wish to see your 400th birthday alive.

Your traffic is terrible.  You have mindlessly let vehicles multiply by geometric proportions over the last few decades.  The result is absolute chaos with deadly pollution and dwindling road space making you one of the worst cities for pedestrians.  You need to keep a watch on your traffic health, old lady,  if you wish to see your 400th birthday alive.

And the volume of waste you generate!  Again, a direct consequence of your overweight.   You have nowhere to dump your waste and so you think it fit to turn your entire body into garbage dumps.  Mounds of such stinking stuff greet one at every street corner, even at important thoroughfares. We have heard of garbage strewn cities but you take the cake, being a city situated right amidst an ocean of garbage.  You need to keep a watch on your waste disposal metabolism, old lady,  if you wish to see your 400th birthday alive.

Ah, the traffic!  Your people like to be called conservative, rule-abiding and even taking some pride in being timid.  Rule-abiding? my foot.  You have the worst traffic-rule offenders, I make no bones about it.  No vehicle stops at the stop-line, at the red-light, unless the junction also presents a cop.  And the cops have a very funny way of managing traffic.  State buses are exempt from obeying traffic rules.  So are two-wheelers. And cars driven by the wealthy and mighty.  And bicycles.  And government vehicles.  Compliance is restricted to all other classes of vehicles (if anything is left).  And so, my dear Madras, this is to remind that you need to keep a watch on your blood circulation, if you wish to see your 400th birthday alive.

And there are other signs of terminal illness within you

    - potholed roads.  (perhaps you wished to make things easy for NASA for their Mars exploration-they could as well have used your roads for a perfect simulated Martian environment;  the fools instead chose to spend billions in sending a probe to actual Mars)

   -  urine drenched walls ( I agree, nature's calls have to be answered, but I marvel at nature's special affinity towards Madrasis to call so often, that half of Madras's daily egress of the uric acid is done on the streets!)

   -  Buckingham Canal ( it once was a waterway carrying salt to Andhra? ever since I heard this story, every time I take salt, my hands involuntarily reach for the nose!)

   -  torrid climate ( well, there is very little you can do about this, but I will list this out all the same, such is my anger)

If you have the will, you can even now hope to get proper medication for the above ills but there is one devil that is slowly devouring you, that has no ostensible cure.  Your Tasmac liquor shops.  These stinking, vomit filled,  pestilence-stricken hell-holes are typical of you.  You are broke, have no money to buy medicines for the other illnesses and so you sell your kidneys and liver to keep your heart and other organs going.  Fine logic.  My dear Madras, you are doomed.  There is no salvation for you.

Wait, wait, I have not finished, don't interrupt,  let me complete.  What? What do you say?  Culture capital?  Carnatic music?  Coffee paradise? Cinema tradition? Don't fool yourself.  These are for the suckers, without an idea of what you really are.  I have also extolled elaborately on your these 'virtues', but that is to fool others. Don't try to fool me with this crap.  Every city in India claims to be the culture and music capital of the country and so you too have a right to stake your claim.  Your claim ends there, just a claim and nothing more. Aha, now what? Temples? Beach?  Medicare?  Education?  But they are just a cloak to shield your decaying innards.  Don't ever try to placate me with these, I know you better, what you have to offer in reality. I have lived with you and suffered you.

Yes, the final one.  No, no, I have not forgotten. Your auto-rickshaws.  What, you don't want to hear about them?  Okay, I will rest, I will reserve the last one for my next bashing on your 374th birthday, assuming you live to see that one, that is.

    

The India, that Bharat forgot!

Game for a little general knowledge test?  Here we go:

1  How many of you have heard of Majuli?

2  Does Mawsynram ever ring a bell?

3  Katakhal is where or what or who?

Sounds all Greek and Latin? Or Mandarin?  I will shift to questions in simple English.

4  Which state is suffering from a perpetual economic blockade?

5  Which state has the oldest oil refinery in India and is the largest tea producer?

The last one was thrown in so that you don't get a zero.  (which leads to the sixth question-What  is zero apart from being nought?).  Yes, the answer to the fifth question is Assam. Congrats, you got at least one out of five. Not bad at all, considering the North East occupies only about one fifth of the total land area of India.   By the way, Assam  does ring a faint bell, doesn't it?  We have all heard of it, yes, of course, Assam, some ugly appendage of the Indian union, out there in the North East, a hilly state infested with terrorists.  Right?

WRONG!!!

Assam, for that matter the entire North-East, is wrapped in a shroud of mystery for most of us Indians.  For most of us, it is an alien state.  It just stands out there in the north east corner of India, counting for nothing, with its tribal denizens just whiling away time, drinking tea and inhaling pot when not killing each other.  It is one among the seven sisters, the other six being... hmm..er...Mizoram, Nagaland and .....and....Meghalaya and .....hmmm....forget it.  How does it matter?  Great task, remembering all the seven.  It pays to remember the 50 states of United States, instead.

For far too long a time, we have excelled in being blissfully forgetful of North East India. Until once in a while, the national newspapers remind us of its existence by deigning  to allocate one column in page 5 to sundry news bits like fifty dying in Brahmaputra floods, or insurgents kidnapping a BDO or  an earthquake of 5.2 intensity striking Jorhat. With somewhat greater frequency does  some politician of some weight   from New Delhi remind us of its existence by blurting out words of statesmanship like the importance of 'integrating the North East into the mainstream'.  Whatever he means!   For the ignorant souls, take it from me,each state in the North East is a mainstream in itself and it is we, the mainland snoots who need some integration into their mainstreams.  For far too long, we have ignored them, from time immemorial we have looked down upon them with condescension and derision.  For far too long, our awareness of the North East is restricted to tidbits thrown in in TV channels like some Union Minister attending some development council meeting in Nagaland, clad in the Nagas' traditional tribal outfit, trying out a tribal dance (his idea of integrating into the mainstream) or on Jan.26th when a gaudy Mizoram Govt. float passes by in the parade in Raj Path.

Does the North East begin and end with such trifles?  Read on....

.....Assam, the land of the Gainda.  The one-horned Rhino, to be seen nowhere else in the world.  The land of the mighty Brahmaputra.  Could easily have been God's own country, if only our tourism department opened its blinkered eyes a little before they discovered Kerala.  A paradise of lush greenery, misty hills and fertile plains.  The abode of a people of a rich cultural heritage.  A land that has produced great luminaries in literature and fine-arts.   The land that speaks one of the oldest languages in the world.

For those enamoured of the Darjeeling mountain train and the Swiss Interlaken, this might be of some interest.  There is a railway line in Assam from Badarpur in the Cachar plains to Lumding, passing through some of the most beautiful landscapes one can ever set eyes on. It is not a toy train, it's a full fledged passenger express.  Board the  Barak valley express at Badarpur and be prepared for the unbelievable. Winding its way through more than two dozen tunnels, over countless high bridges spanning gurgling rivulets, amidst snow-clad verdant greenery of the North Cachar Hills, this journey is to be experienced to be believed.  At a leisurely, lahe-lahe pace.  Yes, lahe-lahe Assam, not for it, the mad rush of the modern world....

.....Manipur.  One of the most literate of Indian states. The place which gifted the game polo to the world.   Where the vast expanse of the blue Loktak lake beckons you.  Where a 2000 year old history  unfolds and charms visitors.  A land of great warriors, literateurs and fine arts.  Where in a quaint little village called Moreh abutting Burma, trade is still by barter, no money exchanged....

.....Meghalaya, the switzerland of the east.  Of misty mountains and barren coal-fields.  The momos of Shillong. The colourful Gharo, Khasi and Jaintia tribes.  Ever taken a drive on a rainy July afternoon  from Shillong to Guwahati?  Ever passed by the blue glistening Umiam lake on the way?  Ever experienced pristine nature, minus the touristy crowd?  Ever visited Meghalaya and experienced life?......

.....And then Tripura, cozily nestled between Comilla and Chittagong of Bangladesh .  A smorgasbord of Bengali culture and native tribal hues.  Where people of a hundred sects live in peace with each other.  Where even the Chief Minister's retinue is much smaller than our Chennai local ward councillor's.  Capital Agartala, only  3 kms from the Akhaura border of Bangladesh, from where Kolkata is just a few hours away, as the crow flies (as compared to a few days if travelling around the chicken's neck).  A beautiful, endearing town, of enterprising  and intelligent people, trying to break into the company of more modern cities elsewhere......

...And the other sisters Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunahal Pradesh.   Each unique in its own way and each with a rich history, waiting to be discovered....

Does any one know that the literacy rate of the North East is much higher than some of the biggest of the Indian states?  Does it surprise anyone to know that in all the social indicators like women's welfare, child mortality, health or education, the NE scores high above the others?  Why then we still carry stereotypes within ourselves about the NE?  Like making fun of their appearance or passing lewd comments on them?  And refusing to recognise their worth and contribution?  But from Assam and Tripura, where do you get the oil and gas for your Fords and Mercedeses?  But for Manipur's lithe lasses, where do you get your wrestling and archery medals from?  But for Mizoram and Nagaland, where do you get your bamboo cane furniture from, to adorn your drawing rooms?    But for Arunachal Pradesh, where do you get the land buffer from the Chinese from?  But for the North East, where does India get its colour and flavour from?

The sun rises in India first in the North East, dawn after dawn.  Its people wake up and arise before we do, morning after morning.   It's time we also woke up; and opened our eyes to the wonder that is North East India.

Ah yes, the answers to the quiz:

1  Majuli - the largest riverine island in the world in the mighty Brahmaputra in Assam

2  Mawsynram - the place with one of the heaviest rainfall in the world, in Meghalaya 

3  Katakhal - India's first and only rail-cum-road bridge, still in use, in Assam.  Not a bridge of the two-tier  variety, but a single bridge with railway tracks on it, where vehicles pause to let the train pass.

And Zero, apart from being nought, is a beautiful valley surrounded by majestic blue hills in verdant Arunachal Pradesh!

The answer to the 4th question sums up the tragedy that is North East.  It is Manipur. For no other Indian state has endured so much pain and agony, not even Kashmir. Manipur is under a perpetual blockade, cut-off from the rest of the mainland for more than eleven months a year.  A state rich in natural resources and endowed with a beautiful people-but torn by sectarian strife.  With a shamelessly callous Central Government looking the other way, not caring to lift a finger to alleviate its misery.  Not just for us common folks  from the mainland, for even the powers that be in New Delhi, Manipur, for that matter, the entire  North-East just does not exist! Its citizens can go to hell, for all it cares.  No wonder, several shops in Imphal, display the sign board "Indian goods for sale here!" - that is,  when the shops are open during the 'strategic time-outs' of about 2 hours a day.

Farewell, Dhairya Lakshmi!

It is only the dream that keeps one going.  The fuel that propels the vehicle of life is but dreams only.  Dreams make it possible to camouflage the past, endure the present and look to the future.  Dreams nurture hope and faith. Dreams are what we all we live for.

But what if the dream is shattered some day?  Of what purpose can life be, if the dream of your life is blown to smithereens? Preachers constantly din into our ears that it is only the current, the present moment that is available in full to us, which has to be savoured at any cost.  The past is but a vast expanse of sand the foot prints on which we cannot alter.  And the future a mere mirage, largely illusory.  "Live in the present", they preach.  But live for what??  Is not the very purpose of living  in the present to chase the dreams of the future?

She also had a dream to chase.  As her father, a poor farmer from rural Tamil Nadu, also had.    With a heart full of hopes and eyes full of dreams, she descended on Madras. The cruel city!  Not, her fault though, since, Madras beckoned her.  With 1102 out of 1200 in Plus 2, Madras is the natural destination.  Breezed through the counselling and interview sessions to get admission to College of Engineering, Guindy!  The hallowed portals of the temple of engineering studies in Madras.

The claustrophobic city intimidated her;  she did not flinch.  The hep urban crowd heckled her; she did not cower.  With single minded devotion, she finished her first semester in Civil Engineering. She had a point to prove.  After all, not many gave her a chance.  A village bumpkin in Anna University?  Fat chance!  No one in her village had even ventured anywhere beyond SSLC, what to speak of a college degree? A 92% score in class XII notwithstanding?

And here she was, in one of the top technology schools in the country, rubbing shoulders with the city-bred! Having been taught in Tamil Medium till class X, she was initially confronted by the enormity of the language burden.  She did manage passable English but that skill held its own only within a 5 km. radius around K.V.Palayam, her home,  she realised, two weeks before her suicide.  It had a slim chance of holding its own against the high-street convent lingo.  She still grit her teeth and valiantly strode on.  Chasing her dreams, enduring the pain of life, not living in the present, but for the future! The future, four years hence!  The future of a civil engineer from K.V.Palayam. A  future that was never to be!

The first semester was not bad though.  She did manage a decent 80%.  She was not chicken-hearted, for sure. Any one in the college would vouch for that.  Especially her room mates.  And she knew what struggle is all about.  As did Manivannan who knew what struggle, especially for adolescents from the mofussil, is all about.  She respected Manivannan.  Both from the same village, having spent their childhood in rural environs far removed from Madras, both grew up on a staple of MGR films  and both having experienced fate suddenly throwing them into the cauldron of life in a metropolis.  Into an environs where they felt alien.  Into an ambience  where inability to speak in fluent English was laughed at.  Into a culture which ordained that speaking in one's mother-tongue was taboo-if that tongue is different from the Queen's English!

But she did not give up at first.  She saw what she and others of her ilk are up against.  And she decided to fight.  She and Manivannan formed 'Siruthuli'- the 'small drop'.  An initiative that could relate to other students hailing from small villages, all from the'Tamil Medium', a small effort in infusing self-belief among them that they too can compete with the Holy Angels and Padma Seshadris of the city.  Most in the group were poor, even by the condescending standards of our learned economists.  They were, but poor in the economic strata but not in mental faculties. They were poor in understanding what 'aerodynamics' was, but were proficient in what made rockets and planes fly.  They were poor in comprehending the term 'calculus' but knew what 'nunkanitham' was.

But why Manivannan had to die?  That too of suicide?  Did he not realise that his act would break her?  Why did he not endure life till his 'Siruthuli' became 'peruvellam'?  She could endure the derisive comments.  She could endure the sleights, She could endure life itself - till Manivannan was alive. But she could not endure it any more after Manivannan hung himself. She thought she should follow suit; And that's what she did after attending two hours of morning lectures on the 18th of April, 2012. The reason she proferred in her suicide note was "inability to cope with studies". The actual reason being "inability to cope with anything un-English"!

The Kotturpuram Police are still investigating the case registered as 'unnatural death'.  Coming to think of it, nothing about it is unnatural.  What else can be expected from an 'ugly duckling' from Villupuram in the English-infested women's hostel of Guindy Engineering College? What else can be expected from a village belle, bereft of any English speaking skills, lost in the madness called Chennai? It's only natural that she bid adieu! It's only fair!  As Sakthivel, the grief-stricken father would concur.  As countless other Sakthivels, fathers of such 'Siruthulis' would concur. The tragedy of 'Siruthulis' who could not make that  last lap of the Peruvellam marathon..

P.S. 1 Yes, the Page 3 story of today's 'The Hindu' is behind this.

P.S.2  The irony of it all, the girl went by the name 'Dhairya Lakshmi', the Goddess of courage.

Shanthi, Crown & Bhuvaneswari!

No,the halls were definitely nothing much to write home about.  Creaking fans, broken seats with torn upholstery, stinking toilets &  rank bad audio-visual systems.  But what gorgeous names they went by!  Wellington, Paragon, Plaza, Gaiety, Globe, Casino.....And on the distaff side, Chitra, Shanthi,Kamala,  Bhuvaneswari....not to mention the royal clan comprising Maharani & Maharaja....

Ages ago, when Chennai was still Madras and Jayalalitha was still our endearing Ammu, our salvation lay in our cinema theatres.  Cinema was, and still is, in the life-blood of the average Madrasi.  Fridays were eagerly awaited not for the succeeding week-ends but for the latest block-buster from Kodambakkam.  That was when, if MGR fans swarmed to Devi Paradise & Agasthya, the army of arch-rival Sivaji Ganesan stormed Shanthi and Crown.  Towering cut-outs then too dotted our promenades, as they do now, only that the local ward councillor's cut-outs dwarf the tinsel world hero's, nowadays.Those were the days when every Tamil movie was released in three theatres! In a combination that would not be altered. (Sivaji's were always in Shanthi, Crown & Bhuvaneswari.  One other well-known combination was Devi Paradise & Agasthya.).  Around a 100 metre radius of Mount Road's Anna Statue were at least eight temples promising instant deliverance - eight edifices housing cinema theatres, witnessing influx of pilgrims from Mannadi to Mirsahibpet,  Aminjikarai to Ambattan Varavathi.

Going for a movie was an elaborate exercise those days, requiring careful advance planning.  Much thought went into the planning and execution.  The movie's release would be announced about a week early.  Advance booking would start 5 days early i.e. on Monday.  The first two weeks bookings would be gobbled up by the fans associations and so the commoners can plan advance booking from the third week onwards.  The ticket rates those days strictly classified humanity into three distinct classes without much fuss - lower class, middle class & upper class.  Rs.1.50, 2.90 and Rs.4.50 respectively.  The rate band for the top and bottom rungs slightly varied from theatre to theatre-oscillating within a band of 50 paise but 2.90 was always 2.90 in all the theatres for about two decades; middle class was so clearly identified and defined.  The 2.90 middle-class!

And how proud we were to be in that 2.90 class!  To appreciate the art of movie-going and experiencing the chaotic bliss, it pays if you hail from Triplicane.  Oh, what a place!  All the heavenly destinations were just a furlong away from Triplicane.  Marina at the eastern end, Chepauk stadium at the northern & all those majestic picture halls of Mount Road at the western. 

Yes, coming back to the 2.90 class experience.  Show starts at 6.30 in the evening.  The entire day in school spent day-dreaming about the adventure for the evening (if the film-going event is slated for a week day, that is).  Return from school at 4.30. Drape yourself in your elegant best.  Walk the half  mile if the destination is Star or Paragon.  Better still, catch a PTC bus from Ice-house, pay 10 paise for a ticket and alight at Adam Market and walk through the gully to reach Devi theatre's rear end.  Enter through the back gate, enjoy the cool spray  from the building's air-conditioning plant up there, exit through the front gate, take a right turn and there it is, Shanthi theatre in all its glory!  As you enter, seeing the milling crowds, your spirits wane.  A long queue in front of the 2.90 counter.  You join the queue and immediately start praying.  Invoke all known Gods. And make a secret pact with Big Street Pillayar to enrich his coffers by  10 paise the next day, if in turn, he manages to transport you to the inside of the hall this evening.  A bell rings.  The matinee show crowd rushes out.  You scan the faces exiting.  All seem smiling.  'Well, the film is good, then.' Your spirit soars.  Another bell!  the ticket counter opens. The heart just started beating louder.  The queue moves forward inch by inch.  You crane your neck and try to see the man behind the counter, dispensing tickets.  He finishes one bunch  and stretches his hand to reach for another. Your heart already misses two beats.  'Sold out so early?'  the mind races.  The stretched hand resurfaces with another bunch.  You heave a sigh of relief. 'Another 100 tickets are there'.  You start mentally counting the number of heads in front of you.  98.  Or is it 99? Count again.  'No, it's 101. I am sure I will not get a ticket.  Pillayarappa, don't desert me.'  The queue moves further up.  Only three in front now.  'Will I, won't I?'  Two exit.  Just one left.  You crane your neck further to look at the inventory at the counter-man's hand.  Is it one or two?  To add to your misery, the man ahead just bought two tickets.  'How unjust' you curse, 'only one man at the counter and how could two be given away?'  Miraculously it is now just you in front of the counter-man with no one in-between.  And bless the lord, he still has one ticket left.  You tender the two rupee and one rupee notes, carefully tucked between your fingers for the last 10 agonising moments, the lone ticket is transported to your hand with the change of 10 paise.  No sooner did you  retract your hand from the counter than the sign-board 'House full' was placed!

 How can this moment of triumph be adequately expressed?  Even as you exit the turnstile, you can't resist turning  back and witness at least another 100 people in the queue behind you, disappointment writ large on their faces.  Your heart swells with pride and involuntarily you lift your head,  heave your chest and exit the queue with a feeling of exhilaration. Triumphed against all odds!  Beat 100 men  in your quest for a tryst with destiny!

You enter the hall and take your pride of place.  The first feeling is one of relief that the newsreel is not already running. The 2.90 class in me expects full paisa-vasool for the hard labour just endured.  That means being parked comfortably in your appointed seat much before the lights dim, thoroughly savour the moment the screen is lifted and "Shanthi welcomes you" slide is displayed, followed by "No smoking",   "Head ache? Take one Saridon",  " Relax, have a Charminar" , "Daily 3 shows".  The slide show ends, the ad-reels now roll out.  "That's why I always use Palmolive shave cream", explains the original Tendulkar.  This is  followed by the news reel which is, as always,  abruptly cut off even as Indira Gandhi is half-way surveying the floods in Bihar.  The main movie begins, to the accompaniment of the orchestra of whistles and cat-calls.  What an experience!  The 2.90 experience!

Where are those Paragons, Plazas and  Wellingtons gone now?  Movie going is a lot hi-tech today, what with DTS, surround sound, net-booking, 3D et al. Getting into a hall now is simple but the movie, as life itself is, has become a lot more complex.  Those were the days when the three hours preceding the actual start of the movie were more adventurous than the movie-watching  itself.  Those were the days when spotting a "100th day" wall-poster of your favourite hero's picture plastered all over town made your heart swell with pride. Those were the days when 10 paise change was returned by the ticket vendor. Those were the days when a bombshell called Jayamalini attracted half of Madras to Paragon over a 100 day period to watch her 'horror'-cum-historical magnum-opus called 'Jagan Mohini'.

And those were the days when two care-free adolescents from Ice House, Triplicane, had the gumption to watch Jayamalini's gyrations in Paragon just 15 hours before the commencement of their SSLC public exams!  In 2.90 class splendour!  One of the two is yours truly. The other, though at the other end of the globe now, would not deny this either!

The Ratabari Rishkaw walla

This is a story about Ayub Ali of Ratabari.  No one has heard of either him or the place and no one ever probably will.  Nothing about them merits any serious attention.  Then why do I bother to tell his story?  When he no more walks the earth?  Because it is non-entities like these that still keep the world going.  It is these characters that still offer a glimmer of hope that doomsday is still eons away. 

By the way, I must warn that this account will be a bit lengthy.  Great tales about great people can’t be put in a nutshell.  As some wise man said, if something can be told in a nutshell, it belongs there.

First about the place.  Ratabari is a small village located at 24/36 N and 92/24 E coordinates in Assam.  It could not have cared less if it is, one squally day, transported to 92/24 N and 24/36 E.  Life and time whiz past Ratabari without so much as touching it, caught as it were in a time-warp.  Some fifty years back, all it boasted of was a road bisecting the village with lush paddy fields on either side, a few ramshackle shops, mud houses, an elementary school and a police thana.  Fifty years hence, nothing much has changed, except that the shops sport a more decrepit look.  The road sees respectable traffic, with doggy buses (trucks past their shelf life, converted into buses) transporting goats and humans between Dullabcherra and Karimganj.  There is a rail line connecting these two places and Ratabari has the privilege of being one of the stations in between.  One train plies daily making one up and another down trip.  Bangladesh is only a few miles to the west and Ratabari’s citizens, most of them at least, have ‘dual citizenship’.  Many of them during days ply their trade in Ratabari and the nearby big town Karimganj and as the sun sets, cross over to their homes to the neighbouring country.  Passport? Visa? BSF? You mush be joking.  Who bothers with all these hassles when in Ratabari, India’s international village, with no cross-border barriers?

On one cold February morning in 1990, I landed up in Ratabari at about 9 a.m.  As I got down the bus from Silchar, I looked around and was pretty certain that I had got down at the wrong place.  Damn! I could not understand Bengali, much less Sylheti, one of its variants.  As I was standing, looking very foolish and very lost, I had already become an amusing exhibit for the small crowd that had gathered.  Two urchins were tugging at my luggage and were laughing.  One old man with a goatee white beard, puffing a bidi and clad in lungi, looking very much our cousins across the border, was asking me something.  I pretended not to hear since I could make nothing out of the blabber.  I could have as well landed in Conakry, Guinea.  The thought suddenly struck me that  I had to spend the next few years here.  My bank is known for having offices at God forsaken places but this one takes the cake, I thought.  This place looks even ghost-forsaken.

As I was contemplating my misery, I heard a voice in Hindi.  Suddenly Hindi appeared to be the sweetest language on earth.  I turned to my right and saw the hero of this tale.  Name of Ayub Ali, I learnt later.

 ‘Saab ko Kahan jana hai?’ he asked.

  I mentioned.

 ‘Boitiye Hum le jayega’

And then I spotted his rickshaw.  Cycle rickshaws sport different colours and designs throughout India.  But the rickshaws of Ratabari really deserve a place in the British museum, after they become extinct.  Their ‘aerodynamic’ design assures maximum discomfort for the passengers in the least possible time.  It is meant to seat two but one and a half men of medium girth can barely park themselves in.  The seat slopes downwards at about 30 degrees with the result that unless you apply full pressure on your legs to bear your body weight, you just slide down.  Definitely the Ratabari rickshaw is an engineering marvel designed for some purpose by a genius engineer, only the purpose eludes me, the  hare-brained.  Well, Ayub was the owner of one such locomotive on which I climbed and sat.  The 2 Km joy ride to the bank started.  I preferred to keep to myself but Ayub would have none of it.  And so thus went our first conversation, reproduced in English.

‘Where are you from Sir?’

‘From Madras’

‘Madras, near Kolkata Sir?’

I knew of no Madras near Kolkata but poor Ayub’s world extends to a radius of may be about 10 kms around Ratabari, so for him Madras could as well have been near Dhaka.

‘You, the new field man in the Bank Sir?’

News travels fast here, I thought.  But ‘field man’?  Sounds like a post man.  Over time, I understood the lingo of Ratabari.  Rural Development Officers in Banks (a grand designation given to me by my Bank- does not it sound more pompous  than ‘Chief Operating Officer?) are called field men.

‘The old field man was very good, sir’

As if I would be no equal to him.

‘He gave me this rishkaw, sir’

For many in Sylhet, rickshaw is rishkaw and risk is riks.  So, if you are in Sylhet, you can be sure of a rishkaw ride full of riks.

‘But this rishkaw has gone to dogs.  Taking too much on repairs. I need a new one.  Can you give me one Sir?’

I suddenly felt like Emperor Aurangazeb, doling out gifts to his courtiers.   From a crouching position, I straightened up.

‘How much does a rickshaw cost?’

‘Now Rs.3500, Sir.  This one I bought for Rs.2400.  Bank gave 1600/- and balance subsidy from Government’.

We arrived at the bank.  Pretty imposing structure, I thought.  A cloth shop at the ground floor and bank at the first.  The cloth shop owner owned the premises and very often thought that he owned the bank too. 

From that day on, Ayub voluntarily became my personal chauffeur.  My home was at Sugar Mill staff quarters about a kilometer away.  The mill itself is now defunct, only the skeletal remains of the machinery remain inside a haunted factory;   Intriguing, how factories shut down and decay so fast in Eastern India.  The Cachar Sugar Mill was perhaps the biggest industrial hub in that part of Assam and so many families depended on it for sustenance.  As did many shopkeepers and rickshaw pullers.  Ayub had seen better days when the mill was running.  The mill shut down, his income dwindled over the years and he now barely manages a living.  He had five mouths to feed and he himself was not keeping very well. 

But not a single repayment instalment of our bank loan he missed.  A princely sum of Rs.80/- per month.  We would not have minded if he skipped an instalment or two.  But he seldom did.  Rain or shine, on the first of every month, he would come into the bank, softly panting, sweating from head to toe and hand me the money.  I would fill up a pay-in slip and he took great pride in signing his name, in English!  He is an illiterate but some how he had managed to learn how to write A U B A L I – his autograph.  The only rickshaw-wallah in may be the entire Karimganj district to sign in English!

‘Kya karega saab, Kishthi (instalment) tho dena hi hai.’

‘How much do you earn per day?’

‘About Rs.30 daily.  When the mill was running, I used to make much more.’

‘But if we give you a new rickshaw, the instalment will be about 140 bucks.  How will you manage?’

‘Hum sakega saab’

‘Kaise sakega? Tell me’

‘My daily repairs cost will come down and may be I can make more trips on a new vehicle’ he would justify his business plans based on his own viability study.

I had to visit several villages far away in the course of my work, and always took Ayub Ali with me.  When I say villages, picture in your mind a contiguous formation of about 50 mud houses, with thatched roofs, right in the middle of paddy fields and slush, covered by dense foliage, far away from the nearest road and have never known luxuries like electricity and water supply.  To such villagers the bank has lent and most of the time they would be unable to repay.  One may personally commiserate with their plight but as a responsible ‘field man’ of my bank with authority,  I had to at least pretend to collect the dues.  So off I used to go to about 10 villages per week in Ayub Ali’s chariot.  The undulating pathways over which Ayub pulled his rickshaw by hand were so narrow that the danger of toppling over always lurked.  The thrill of the  rides was nothing less than  what the giant ferris wheels in big amusement parks had to offer.  Ayub also earned handsomely by ferrying me on such trips which always cost about Rs.30 per trip. 

A year went by.  Ayub’s loan was almost liquidated and we thought may be now we can give the new rickshaw.  The sheer joy we spotted on Ayub’s face when we handed over the sanction letter still remains etched in my mind.  As if he had been sanctioned  a million rupees!  He immediately took our cheque and fled to Karimganj town, in searchof his dream machine.  At about 8 p.m. some one knocked at my door. Ayub with his gleaming Ferrari was standing outside.

‘What happened Ayub?  At this hour?’  (Midnight descends on us at about 7 p.m.)

‘I came to show my new rishkaw, sir”

‘Hmm. Pretty nice’ I went around the vehicle and officially made an inspection of the asset we have financed.  Though, I cannot tell a nut from a bolt.

‘Thank you very much sir.  You were of great help’

‘Oh, nothing.  Now remember this is bank’s money and you must repay 140 bucks from next month.’

‘Sure, I will, sir’

And sure he did.  There was again, as expected, no default.  How he makes ends meet has always been a topic of discussion among us but the regularity at which he repays has never failed to astound us.  Over a period of 5 years in that place, I had given (or rather persuaded my manager to sanction) scores of Goru, Chogul and Hans (cows, goats and ducks) loans and several rickshaw loans too but the repayment record of Ayub Ali was always unmatched.  After a couple of years, I told him that the bank would be ready to finance him for another new rickshaw or may be a cycle repairing unit but he was not very willing.  ‘I have to repay this first sir, and then I will take further loans.  May be, some day, I will own ten rickshaws.’ He would say. We wished he would. Ayub was our bank’s model borrower.  Our poster boy.  On our field trips to villages,we would show-case him as a role model for other borrowers.  ‘Repay promptly you must, then only you will get more loans’, we would preach. Other rickshaw wallahs were secretly jealous of him as he had become a chamcha of the bank sahibs. But he did not seem to care.

 

And one day, he died.

In the morning, I was waiting for him at my home as usual to take me to the Bank, but he did not turn up.  Instead, the news of his death did.  He fell ill suddenly at night and did not wake up from sleep in the morning. ‘TB’ someone said, ‘he smoked a lot, you know?’  And some said he used to drink like a fish, though I had never seen him in an inebriated state ever. The news shocked me.  Shamelessly, my mind immediately did a quick math of how much he still owed the bank.  May be about Rs.1000/- and now there it goes, down the drain, I thought. A borrower is only a book asset for a banker.  That he is also a fellow human being, with his own trials and tribulations is rarely appreciated by him.  I still look back with guilt at that moment when I heard of Ayub’s death and when the first concern that overtook me was his loan..  I still wish I could somehow rewind the tape and over-write that episode.

A month passed.  I had almost forgotten about him.  And then one Friday evening, a middle-aged lady with two children in tow, turned up at our office.  She had a cloth pouch in her hand.  The elder of the two kids had a terror-stricken face and his younger sibling with a running nose, perched on his mother’s waist, was bawling.  She was simultaneously trying to keep him quiet and talk to us.  She introduced herself as Noor Khatun, wife of Ayub Ali.  I exchanged a perfunctory condolence with her.  I was not sure about her purpose of visit.  By that time, I had managed to speak a smattering of Sylhetti and I asked her about her mission.

‘I came to repay the rishkaw loan my husband took’. 

I was dumb-founded.  How on earth did she manage Rs.1000?.  I knew for sure she and her kids were starving right now, with their only bread winner gone. I asked her about the source of her funds.

‘My husband sold off his old rickshaw two months ago, saab.  He got Rs.800/- out of that and had told me to safe keep it for emergencies.  The balance I somehow managed.’

My heart refused to take that money.  But my bank does not pay me for compassion,  it expects me to recover bad loans. 

‘What do you do now to maintain the family?’ I asked.

‘Doing odd jobs, saab.  My eldest son will now ply the rickshaw.  We will manage, saab’, she said without a tinge of emotion. Her eldest son was all of 15.

Trying to keep a stone-face, I collected the money and made out a pay-in slip.  Involuntarily, I pushed it towards her, expecting A U B A L I to miraculously appear on the depositor’s sign column.  Instead, she pulled a stamp pad and affixed her thumb impression on the piece of paper. The money was deposited, the loan was closed.  And a treasure snatched from a family wallowing in abject poverty.  That sum could have kept her going for another few months.  Provided succour to five starving stomachs.  But the bank, a sarkari appendage at that, does not take cognizance of starvation.  It snatches from whoever it could bully and meekly prostrates before whoever it gets bullied by. 

That is how our system works.  That is what our system does to the Ayub Alis of the world, who borrow in four digits for his lowly rickshaw.  If only he had managed to borrow in fourteen digits for jumbo jets, it would have been the lot of the bank to run after him, beg him and cajole him to take more.  And after the loans go bust, the banks would fall head over heels to restructure the same and if possible, lend more and go bust themselves. 

Myriad hues of Mylapore

Glistening huge expanse of water in the tank reflecting a thousand images, seemingly dancing in the rippling waves. The majestic tower as the backdrop. A clear night sky above, strewn with a million stars. A riot of colours emanating from the illuminations of quaint old buildings. 'Rasi' neon glow signage holding centre-stage, further adding charm to the ethereal visage.... This picture-perfect setting, the signature motif of 'Discovery Tamil' channel is not from a glitzy, distant Paris. Nor is it a Diwali night. It's much nearer. At the heart of Madras. It is Mylapore!

Not without reason has the motif been so thoughtfully chosen by Discovery. The imagery captures the essence of Tamil and Chennai. Just as Chennai is a microcosm of all things "conservative" south of the 'cosmopolitan' Bangalore, Mylapore is the symbolic leitmotif of the wonder that is Madras. The venerable jewel in the crown.

Mylapore sports different colours at different times of the day. At dawn, it is the intoxicating aroma of Kumbakonam degree Kapi wafting from all around. At noon, even as the blistering 'winter' sun scorches the streets, it is the bangle sellers in North Mada street, milking roaring business out of the fair sex just disgorged from the tourist bus from Gujarat. At evening it is the throng that strolls the inside Prakarams of the temple, savouring every gentle whiff of the cool breeze from the beach a furlong away and every gossip from Meenatchi Mami's house-hold a couple of continents away. At night, well past 11, well past the REM sleep phase of the rest of Chennai, it is the odd drunk with the single chappal splayed on the steps of the tank, the intake of Tasmac brew an hour ago still working wonders inside his head. Mylapore is all this and much more.

What more, one may ask. First, the Kapaleeswar temple. It is not the biggest of its genre even in Chennai. If I were to say so, one Mr.Parthasarathy with the handle-bar moustache, about 5 kms. away, lording over nearly twice the built-up area would take offence. The number of occupants inside the temple (the permanent inmates, not counting the human visitors and members of the canine family) is also not big. Just the family of four and the Navagrahas for company. It is just a well-maintained (in the inside, that is) timepass hangout, a rendezvous for the retired post masters and elderly mothers-in-law of the neighbourhood, suddenly remembering their 'roots' in religion, pierced by pangs of guilt and yearning to atone for their past 60 years' misadventures and seeking 'punyam' for 'pora vazhi'. It is also these days, a hip-joint for the youngsters for whom being seen in temples is the in-thing nowadays, next only to perhaps Express Avenue. It is also in the must-see list of the tourist from Japan and Jhumritelaiya, the former scrounging for something he is sure he has missed in Osaka and for the latter, the stronger his outpouring of his favourite Bol Bam, the nearer is salvation. 

I do not mean for a moment that no fourth variety enters the temple. It does. For this ilk, it is impossible not to experience a light-headed feeling of happiness inside the sanctums. If inside the 'Ambal' shrine (idols of our Goddesses can be real beautiful! come, see and experience!) automatically switches on the i-pod pouring out lilting Ilayaraja masterpieces at the back of your mind (partha vizhi partha padi...., Masaru Ponne varuga....), once inside her spouse's sanctum, his 'Kunitha Puruvam' and 'Kovvai chevvai' makes you feel, well, happy and long for more! Pure happiness, unadulterated by any religious or mystique connotations.

What more in Mylapore? There is this Giri trading agency, at the eastern end of the temple - the haat that sells beautiful things like incense sticks, dhoop, trinkets, khadhi wear, books on Ramana Maharishi, tomes of a best-seller titled Gita as told by one Krishnan Vasudevan hailing from Mathura of UP (his only best-seller) and other sundry items. Oddly the store calls itself the 'one stop shop for Indian culture and tradition'. Debatable, unless all things cultural and traditional are beautiful.

What else? Oh yes, the daily 24 X 7 chaos of the vegetable market south of the tank, the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan to the east, another Bhavan (Saravana) to the north, its competitor Sangeetha to the south. And the Chitrakulam, Dooming Kuppam, the pure South Indian Udupi 'Brahmanal' eateries, the sprawling Ramkrishna Math, not to mention the omnipresent lovely ladies and the jolna-bag mamas (I mean uncles, not Vivek's 'mamas'). And then the seasonal flavours of Margazhi month Kolams on the Mada streets, the Oduvars in the temple, the Kutcheris and Bhajanais.

Emperor Jehangir is said to have famously said, 'Agar kahin jannat hai to bas yehi hai, yehi hai, yehi hai!' - meaning if there is heaven on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here. For me, I need not look far for my jannat. It is here, it is here, it is here in Mylapore. I would consider my life's purpose served if I manage to acquire its citizenship at least for some years or even a few days and enjoy the associated privileges in my own small hut right at the heart of Mylapore.

Love thyself - and show the world that you do

Narcissist - Excessive love or admiration for oneself.

               - A personality disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance...

A quick google search of the definition of 'narcissist' throws up the above dictionary meanings. Sample specimens can be  an actress spending hours before a mirror, admiring the reflection of her beauty, deluding herself for a moment that she is the most gorgeous female that ever walked the earth.  Or a six pack ab body builder for whom the daily push-ups and weight lifting long since ceased to be mere efforts to improve physical fitness but have now become an end in itself. Or  even the street corner mongrel  which fancies that its bushy tail is the most beautiful posterior appendange on any earthling.  

Or perhaps the face book user next door who spends the better part of his waking hours daily, 'liking', 'sharing' and 'commenting' on 148 things day after day, month after month and displaying no sign of tiring!

The social on-line network has today become the most fertile breeding ground for narcissists the world over.  A typical addict of face-book logs in at least five to six times a day, 'likes' whatever trash appears on his home page, has a comment or two to offer on about anything under the sun, rummages his friends list about twenty times and posts his pearls of wisdom on each one's wall and assaults us with pictures of his whole clan, grand mother to pet dog.  He started net-working initially out of curiosity, which later turned into a daily habit, which later metamorphosed into an addiction and eventually unabashed narcissism. 

Narcissism?  Of course, but I shall come to that later.  We do quirky things in face book which in real life we won't dare to.  Would we ordinarily yank out our kids from our homes and parade them on the streets imploring every passerby to have a dekho?Would not we be too embarrassed to proffer our unsolicited opinion on the profanity your next seat traveller on the train just dished out to his next seat friend? And that too loudly, for everyone to hear?  Would we, in our senses, while walking the streets, spotting a filthy dog rummaging the garbage vat, approach the animal and whisper "like you" in its ears?  Will we, witnessing a particularly gory accident on the road not only "like" the spectacle but also "share" it with others? (Strange, there is no 'dislike' button in FB). All these things and many more weird ones, we routinely do in face book daily.  Because it's cool.  Because it's the fad. Because it's not entirely unlike alcohol, which intake rids you of inhibitions.  You swig a peg or two and you tend to open up.  People seem more friendly and the whole world more likeable, and you enjoy the float and conclude life is sweet, yesterday's hangover not withstanding.  Also because, we may hate to admit, we crave for attention all the time.

I am not sure, but fabbing (if a twitter user can 'tweet', an FB user can surely 'fab') would surely be a subject of psychological research.  About why people do things in FB which they otherwise will not?  It may be because of a deep desire to get noticed.  You post something, you get noticed.  You comment on something, the comment gets noticed. You upload a photo and the thing gets noticed.  With each activity, you get increasingly noticed.  And when you get noticed, you get responses. The responses add to your number of friends. More friends means more posts, more traffic, your wall is splattered top to bottom with posts each time you log in.  So it is more of everything, you can't have enough and eventually you begin to feel important in cyber space. That sense of feeling important is, aha, intoxicating.  You begin to feel big, you start loving yourself and you increasingly yearn to love your alter-ego in FB and you turn a narcissist!

This may all sound warped logic but there is a pattern to this FB behaviour.  Unconsciously we all tend to fall into this trap of bloated egos and megalomania, at some point.

Me not excluded.  So lemme rush and share this crap with FB.  After all, all crap gets noticed in FB, at least by accident if not by intention, once in a while, and mine too will be.  So all you folks, read this once and make my day!

A tale of three cities

A city is not just an agglomeration of assorted homosapiens that inhabit it.  A city is characterised not just by the number and height of its imposing glass and steel edifices. A city is not just wide promenades, glitzy malls and mega-slums.  A city should be  much more than all these.  A city can and must exude life and vigour.  Its inhabitants may sleep but the city itself never does.  Like a woman, every city has its own smell,  feel and texture.  You only need to gently remove the outer veil and discover the beauty within.  Over the years, I have also tried to and have managed to get a feel of what lies beneath - in case of three cities. This is a tale of three cities, three special places in each of which I have lived for quite some time.  This is a tale of Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai.

Amar Sonar Kolkata

Everyone loves to hate this city of joy - but still can't have enough of it.  Its decadence, at first sight hits you like a hard slap on the face.  Calcutta stuns our senses, scalds our innards and simply overwhelms us initially.  As we gradually get accustomed to its ferocity, Kolkata charms, seduces and ensnares us and we fall hopelessly in love with it! Like an insect  rushing towards a mothball, we fall for it.  We fall in love with the glistening Ganga meandering across its belly,  with its quaint trams, with its puchkawalas dotting the New Market in the evenings, with the Victoria in all its colonial splendour, with its imposing old mansions in Girish Park, with its hand rickshaws and a million other things.  Typical of the Stockholm syndrome, we also fall in love with its squalor, filth and muck.

While other cities just exist in brick and mortar, Kolkata not just exists - it breathes, it lives with a capital L and it thrives.  Did some one call it a dying city?  Well, if dying can be so beautiful a process, let Kolkata keep dying forever.  Kolkata exudes vitality and energy like no other city does.Even as you get over the initial shock, Kolkata takes you into the embrace of its protective arms, as a womb would envelop the foetus and you would wish you continue to remain in such warm environs forever.

Every city is only as good or bad as the people that live in it. The Bengali majority among the Kolkatans is what has made the city what it is - warm, loving, caring and affectionate.  They are always there when you need them ( and many a time also when you don't!), they astound you with their wisdom gleaned from their travels throughout India and the globe (without Bengalis domestic tourism would have ceased to exist).  A typical Bengali can be equally at ease with a Kafka, a Kareena or a Kaka;  He is proud of his city, his culture and his discerning taste for food, particularly of the piscean variety.  He is firm in his credo that what Bengal thinks today, the world will, tomorrow. He is sure that he is far ahead of the times, notwithstanding the wag's quip that he is so ahead in a circle that he actually trails the others! 

Volumes can be written about Kolkata and Kolkatans.  That would still leave volumes about the unhonoured and unsung.  Suffice it to say that if India was the jewel in the British crown, Kolkata was and continues to be the jewel of India.

Aamchi Mumbai

They call it the maximum city not without reason.  Everything about Bombay is breath-taking in scale and scope - be it its suburban rail network, its sky scrapers, its teeming millions, the opulence of Malabar Hills, its glitzy shopping malls and the number of vada pavs sold daily on the streets. If Kolkata epitomises a typical laid back and desi metaphor of chalta hai, the Mumbai metaphor is one of 'go for it, at any cost'.  Rarely anywhere else in India would such industrious people be found, who value  and worship work.  The most abused term 'work-culture'  finds its true meaning in Mumbai.  The average Mumbaikar's penchant for discipline, not only in work but in everything he does (except when jumping into a train to grab a vacant seat, when his animal instincts get the better) is legendary.  Concepts quiet alien to our Indian "we are like that only" culture - like forming a queue wherever there is more than one person, switching off the fans in a train at the last station, refraining from littering etc. are what have made Mumbai the best city to live in for many.

Enterprise, energy, resilience in the wake of adversities are synonymous with Mumbai.  This megapolis never goes to sleep.  The Mumbai suburban network is a perfect example of what Mumbai stands for - the 'never say die' attitude.  Come rain or shine, floods or blasts, the trains chug on relentlessly, transporting in a day more than the whole population of half of europe. Plying along such congested networks, what with tracks passing through dense slums and lines interspersed with so many level crossings, the motormen of Mumbai are its real heroes - all the Khans may take a back seat.

Several other real-life heroes also abound in Mumbai - the housewife from Ambarnath reporting to her office at Nariman Point, sharp at 9.30 in the morning, every day, despite everything that the daily train commute has to throw at her (experience it and you will know), the enterprising idly/dosa seller at the basement of Churchgate station, who landed in Bombay penniless  from Ramanathapuram while he was 5 and now makes much more than the Reserve Bank Governor, that wondrous tribe of dabbawallas who, till the other day, was non-existant in the mind of the average Mumbaikar but who has suddenly become their pride - just because one Gora called Prince Charles managed to spot their talent...... heroes are aplenty in Mumbai.   Each sub stratum of the Mumbai society is a hero in itself - kindness, bravery, chivalrous, hard-working, all attributes of a hero are found everywhere in each human specimen of Mumbai.  Unlike Kolkata and for that matter any Indian city, no one identifies Mumbai with Maharashtrians only.  Mumbai was made by Mumbaikars hailing from all over India.  A pot-pourrie of  a hundred languages, cultures and tastes, that is the miracle called Mumbai.

Yes, jeena yahan is a bit mushkil but where else do we go?  Mumbai is where genesis is, Mumbai is our present and Mumbai is where we would vanish into the elements. Jeena yahan, marna yahan, iske siva jaana kahan? Salaam Bombay!

Namma Chennai

Long long ago, so long ago, where no human inhabitation existed, there suddenly sprouted a small fishing village by the Bay of Bengal.  It prospered and thrived.  It begot another hamlet nearby, and then another and a large agglomeration came into being.  It assumed the name Madras.  The die-hard natives called it Chennai.  Until one day, the conflict ended and all of Madras came to be called Chennai.  Over the years, Chennai grew in geometric proportions in population and size and is now one of the largest cities in the country.  

So what? yes, what is the big deal?  That exactly is the irony.  Namma Chennai is older than most of the other big cities in India, but still Chennai seemingly has no history to brag about.  Delhi was the seat of many a great empire and had always enjoyed clout in the power corridors.  Kolkata was the seat of the great British empire till a century back.  But Chennai has nothing to bandy around.  It started off as a single village and at best it now is a large collection of villages.  It never was 'cosmopolitan' and never will be.  It always was 'conservative' and ever will be.  Its climate is insanely hot and will always be.  Given all these, why Chennai even merits a discussion? 

Because it is simple.  Chennai never went attention-seeking, but on the contrary, attracted attention and continues to.  Some of the cliches the snooty cousins of the west and the north heap on Madras have never really affected the city's progress in any real way.  Chennai is not 'cosmopolitan' because there is a serious dearth of sleek high-end cars zipping about in the streets.   Chennai is 'conservative' because there is not much public  display of kissing  and hugging (only relieving oneself is quite public in Chennai but so it is with other cities)  Chennai is 'not hep & happening' because malls here find it difficult to sell astronomically priced junk.  Ah, yes, Chennai 'does not have a night life' because its liquor outlets do not vend their wares after 10 and its denizens still believe nights are meant for sleeping.  Well, if only other cities were as conservative and boring!  Life would be much safer and easier.

But Singara  Chennai has much to offer, for the benefit of ignorant souls.    It still is the capital of music and fine-arts among the big metros.  It has its unique December music season when it witnesses the largest ever gathering at one place of great musicians of all hues.  It has a 5 km long stretch of heaven called Marina beach.  It has the Theosophical society.  It still has arguably the finest film-production infrastructure and continues to produce the largest number of films in the country. It has produced highly skilled and acclaimed film technicians and has  given the world Ilayaraja and Rahman. It has produced several Chief Ministers out of film personalities who have fared far better than what the cow-belt could ever proffer.  It has some of the finest educational institutions and hospitals.  Its infrastructure is still holding and public transport has still not gone to the dogs. It is still the only city where auto and cycle-rickshaw wallahs can be routinely seen browsing through newspapers when not carrying a fare! (show me a similar sight in Delhi or even Mumbai and I will show you a scam-free politician).

In short, Chennai is where the typical middle-class Indian would want his kids to be brought up in.  He is game to watching sex and violence on screen but in real life would yearn for the safe haven that is Chennai, for the sake of his family.  He relishes being a peeping tom in his wild dreams  but would rather prefer to be esconced in his own safe flat in a quiet neighbourhood in Chennai with his wife and kids,  where the neighbours strictly mind their business and only their business.  Because he knows Chennai is safe. Chennai is comfortable.  Chennai is laid-back, yet happening in the real sense.  And of course, Chennai is 'hot and sultry' as the latest Bollywood heroine is.  It is hot but seductive too!  Fall for it at your own peril.

Now your vote goes to which city?  Whichever way it goes, you will not regret your choice.  Every city is but a microcosm of India, every city has its own story to tell.  Our cities may not be in the same league as a London or a Paris but they can very well hold their own among competition.  Because our cities are not merely tall buildings, swanky cars and tourist sights - they are but  mirrors reflecting the spirit and vivacity of our great people.  Our cities were not built with a plan and purpose.  They evolved into their own purposes.