Life out of a suitcase

In the span of the 20 or so odd years of my life, I have taken many a trips with my family to various places around India. I have never had the opportunity to visit any place outside of India and although I’d have loved to do I hardly find myself regretting it. My father’s job with his various transfers and the LTC’s he is entitled to every 4 years have facilitated an eventful life which other than the hardships of a life on a move have also made it possible for us to visit different places and not only live there or observe it, but to imbibe and inhale the various customs and idiosyncrasies particular to a certain place. I am not denying that some of these trips have proved to be failures and have ended up disappointing us bitterly but they have not failed to reveal to us a part of India that would not be made available to us but for these various planned or unplanned and impulsive trips we have taken. So I dedicate some of the following blogs to the places I have visited and the impression they have left on me while I just splattered through their streets not knowing that these fleeting moments of glee or dejectedness could actually stand the test of time and be as fresh in my memory as if it were just from yesterday.  

I may not have been to all the best possible and sought after places in India, but to those I have been to have been etched in my memory and my conscious forever. And it might sound poetic and lyrical but it is indeed true that every city has its own life breath and fingerprint, peculiarities, distinctive places to visit whether or not a tourist city. Every city will have a quaint temple, mosque, gurudwara or church which the city people swear has its feverish following and is significant in one mystique way or another. In a country like ours where mysticism is not a taboo but a celebrated preoccupation we can never run short of it and it is wondrous to see how almost every city thrives on it and would have accompanying stories that amend to the mysticism aroused. Besides all this mystic charm, every city harbours a set of people that are characteristically distinct from those in other parts of the country. Being a multilingual and multicultural society this discrepancy within even similar religious beliefs is not a thing of surprise. We have made trips to certain places where few would have considered going to, one of them being a suburb town/village called Khambhat, Siliguri in West Bengal where we had to escape to when there was political turmoil in Darjeeling, to Ratnagiri, place more remembered for its mangoes than being my birthplace and several such cities that don’t even mention in people’s bon voyages.

I’ll begin with a city that will most unlikely feature in any tourist catalogue or in the anecdotes of people who have visited several cities. I remember the modest house and simple attire of Hasib Bhai in Khambat, it was difficult to believe that he had been an exporter. He had three sons all of whom engaged in their father’s business, all married with wives that were both modern and yet subtly so. All his sons had been educated and had had a taste of the city life and yet chose to take refuge in the weighty tranquillity of their hometown. He introduced us to his business in polished stones and how Khambat was famous for natural stones dug out from the pit of the sea and had a huge demand in international market for home decor, as jewellery pieces and for several other ostentatious purposes for which the West has a fancy due to the oriental and exotic feel that is associated with them so that they are adorned as carefully collected relics in the systemized European houses. As we visited the marshy beaches which were highly unsuitable for anything other than salt cultivation because of the uncanny saline deposits, he told us how, Khambaat was one of the biggest salt suppliers of the western coast. He then took us to the cottage mills of the city to show us one of the oldest occupations that had stood the test of time and had been passed on from ancient times to the modern, viz., the art of making handmade silk and in that remote village/town of Khambat we were surprised to find south Indians who had housed themselves there centuries ago and were now meshed with their surroundings making you wonder with disbelief if they could really be called south Indians at all.

 The government guest house where we were put up was a lone colonial squander that stood out amidst the placidity and the murky ordinariness of the rest of the city, looking nothing short of a haunt from the past qualifying itself to be the stage of some nerve wrenching horror flick with its measly staff of two odd looking senile men. I’d be lying if i said that i didn’t feel freaked out sleeping in that old rickety place even while with my family. This eerie looking staff however was very efficient and industrious and attended every complaint whether it be of the fan making squeaky noises, to the A/C that puffed more than it cooled or to the disoriented and dislodged geyser in the bathroom that needed immediate attention with utmost urgency and alacrity. Despite or maybe because of its remotedness the people in that town had been given to a warmth and hospitality that is rare in the urban cities. One is treated not with servility but with an air of familiarity that is more becoming and comforting than pretentious deference. The morning breakfast and the late evening dinners were met with a geniality as if these men were grateful to us for bestowing them with human company in that otherwise shanty vestige of the British, perhaps the only building other than the deserted and rather ignored wobbly church in the city square. Sitting in its cosy rooms as we snuggled in the blankets me and my brother squealed with excitement about the quaintness of the city and its potential to be the site for a racy thriller or a queasy morbid horror masterpiece, its Gothicism inspired both awe and terror. Maybe that’s why I could never get the picture out of my head despite the fact that we have no photographic memoir from that place, if it exists in my head it does by virtue of its distinctiveness that engraved itself into my memories so that i don’t have to even strain myself to remember the picture almost 8 long years since we took that 2 day trip.

The other thing that was noticeable in that romantic other-worldly town and about the people over there was that you could never tell what caste or religion the various people belonged to. Despite the horrendous and disastrous riots that gripped the state into a bloodbath in 2006, the town showed not even minor signs of religious animosity or bitterness. The city was an exemplum of communal harmony, its people just thankful enough for their daily bread than care for rooting out each other’s guts for difference in religious loyalties. These people were not atheists because, other than the sorry church, the mosques and temples were flooded with people in the mornings and evenings and both commanded equal visits from the forlorn tourists who’d visit the city by mere chance or fluke.

So we came back with several stones. Stones to be used as showpieces, stones to be set in leather threads and worn around the neck, stones to be worn as bracelets believed to control blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, and behold, even AIDS (how, is still mystery to me), stones carved in perfect spheres believed to have soothing effect by lulling you to sleep if you rolled them consistently over an hour and stones that had no specific use but were brought because of the charm they exuded. And besides these also with the knowledge that life existed out of the racy conundrum of the urban cities in which we have entangled ourselves, that one could be at peace and be content with whatever one has like Hasib Bhai and that one could retain their basic nature despite the adulteration and the corruption of the world that chooses to see itself as more modern. The visit gave us several stories, various souvenirs and a memory that still holds itself as I pass it over to my readers. 

A Romantic Affair with memories

I heard Joan Baez sing away the other day, memories bring diamond and rust, I have no old lover, nor a romantic affair that can bring back its memories, but I do have romantic affair with old memories themselves. Memories that peep out of old dusty cartons, throwing up flashes from the distant past that have been long forgotten and got over with. I have a romantic affair with all these memoirs from a past life which has been left behind.  An old dress that you no longer fit into because you have grown older, the old notebooks where you scribbled nonchalantly and had silly remarks made by friends on the pages that have now turned yellow. Photographs do rekindle moments and memories but only of the time when the picture was clicked or of the people in the picture generally. However, what lingers on as definite etches in the mind are these mementos from a life that appears almost a light year away now.

Being in a transferrable job, my father often makes us move from one house to another, sometimes even to different cities. In this flux what is retained with us of each house, each city and each neighbourhood is these random items we might have collected over years.  So yet again these old boxes have come out to haunt me. I have never regretted moving to so many places, it is difficult initially and to be honest we crib a lot for the initial few days, but it has taught me to learn to make homes out of all these houses that we have moved into, making them our own for the brief period that we get to stay here.

An old school t-shirt where people wrote how they are going to miss you and that you have been special, an old scrap book where you and your friends have scribbled the silliest of things and now get too embarrassed when you mention it; the yellowed and dusty school photograph in which once you could tell the names, surnames and even roll numbers of most of your friends, a pack of crayon colours your mother got to keep you busy in the summer break, the jumbo colour book where some pages are beautifully and sincerely painted and others are left in a lazy give away and half hearted way-I found these and a lot more in my old boxes. Add to these countless copies of tinkle magazines, tinkle digests, old borrowed Archies comics, reader’s digests and several other magazines collected over summer vacations and at other times of the year. Greeting cards bought and received on birthdays, anniversaries and father-mother-son-daughter and all other concocted days. My father asks me what should be done with these, there’s a suggestion that since I don’t need most of these there should be a way to do away with them. But even if I part with these assorted items that I have collected over years, will I ever get over the memories they entail. Good or bad, they are a part of me and define who I am today. In fact I am quite glad we move so often how else would I get a chance to revisit my childhood and recollect moments from school and my homes that have not only taught me how to live life but also to cherish it.

My mother takes out a small teddy bear and tells me how I had thrown tantrums to get it, as I dig further I find my old Barbie’s, if you ask me I can give you several reasons why I hate the idea of the Barbie now, but at that age it was every girl’s fascination and each Barbie had a story of how and when I procured it. As soft toys and Barbies kept appearing from the cartons so did my childhood, and with it the stories that my mother had to tell. Some were got by my father for he went on long tours outside the city, some by my mother to award the successful completion of an academic year and some others on special occasions like birthdays or Diwali. I never played with them as such except for the Barbie, cause Barbie actually made you believe you could be anything in life :P but they still were my possessions that had to be preserved and also guarded when raided by rowdy grizzly cousins.

Then there are the shells that we collected from the beaches of Goa, and even though they are broken and of no aesthetic or other value, they are still carefully carried from one house to another for they are souvenirs of the amazing trip we had there and the fun we had while collecting them. There were books too, lots of them, books that I read and loved, books I bought and never read and books that I had exhausted and could still read one more time.

Finding certain things, that you had momentarily forgotten or had regressed in the memory, gives you a sense of pleasure that is unmatched and irreplaceable. The romantic idea of living on the move, out of the suitcase, life being a journey and we being voyagers and the motif of constant flux then seem more enigmatic than the boring monotony of everyday life and may cause you either to philosophise or otherwise inspire enough to share it with others like I am doing now. The fact is that I was so overwhelmed by the whole experience, of realising the fact that my stay at my current residence is another stage another epoch in my diasporic life that I couldn’t resist talking about it.

The Exam-Summery

So after more than a month of sabbatical I return to my blog, and I must say I really missed blogging. In these days when I could not blog, sometimes due to a wrecked laptop charger or at other times, due to overload of work (you can’t expect yourself nor bring yourself to write just anything after keying in close to 30,000 words for your term papers). But it feels good to be back and I have promised myself that I will not take such long breaks unless necessitated by exams or ill-health or other electronic glitches which have become a commonplace for my laptop.

Anyway, as the sultry scorching heat of May approaches and threatens to dry up my thoughts along with my cognitive potential, blogging is one respite that salvages by giving me a chance to exercise my brain that is shrinking every minute. Sometimes I wonder if this lethargy of mind is because of lethargy of the body or vice versa, well either way, it is obviously not helping and definitely not desired. A few days before one of my friends complained about every corner of her house feeling like a blast furnace, and I couldn’t agree more. And much worse in such situations is to write exams, straining every grey cell and each muscle of your body to keep on moving despite the sweltering heat threatening to take charge over you, so that you want to throw away your pen, pour that water bottle over your head and declare in a shrill shriek, “I can take no more, I know what to write so could you mark me on my knowledge?” If you are in an approved degree college, however, this doesn’t work. You still have to sit through and rummage your brains to complete the rest of the paper somehow. I wish Einstein had tested his relativity theory on the hapless exam takers who have to go through this torture in the months of unexceptional heat and sweat. I am sure he’d have answers that would have corresponded to his theory to the wee bit. Every minute counts, and so does every word even if it slithers across the sheet as the invigilator is pulling the sheet away from you.

 I have always wondered how some people manage to finish the paper before time. However, after much contemplation I came to the conclusion, that these early birds who finish the paper while others still have their noses buried in their papers are generally of two kinds, one are those, who know exactly what to write and how much of it and so do just that and finish on time. The others, after having spent enough time roving their eyes here and there, observing people, after several failed frantic and desperate attempts at using vile means, having exhausted their capacity to use other means to while time, or have just laid their weapons because of the futility of trying out any foul means in the presence of the invigilator. Examinations are a part of the conspiracy of a defeatist world, where the paper setter invariably knows what you left for studying, what was the question you prepared on the first day of the 4 day break and the answer you just saw before entering the exam hall and now despite innumerable frustrating and self defeating attempts you can’t seem to remember. In fact I often feel exams are a way to test how you can still manage to survive three hours of this gruesome mental crusade and are able to retain your sanity and good belief amidst such debilitating and overwhelming circumstances that incessantly go against you by the cruel work of fate.

The worse being, you look up having given up all hopes of ‘passing with flying colours’( or any colour for that matter except obviously the ‘red’) and look around trying to find a camaraderie, a companionship in your suffering and sadly find almost everybody else writing so feverishly as if earning extra life points with every written word. And as you skim through the classroom searching for a soul-mate whose condition is as dreary as your own, you find in the other corner of the room some other cheeky lost soul whose also looking up and running his eyes across the room, but before you can meet his eyes and exchange a mental hi5, the kid gets himself busy again, leaving you alone to resume your penury. Finally, it dawns upon you that you have come to write an exam and not a thesis on the report of human behaviour in examination halls. You grip the pen firmly determined to get a go at the last answer you know, but don’t want to write for some no god forsaken reason. However, as soon as you get at it, the invigilator announces in her shrill voice that only about 5 minutes are left.

The world comes crashing down, the illusions of time are shattered, the relative theory requires to be turned around its head, and in what seems like a race against time, you wonder if the limits of 5 minutes can be stretched. Suddenly, everything starts running in your mind, but alas all in a haphazard manner in random order of importance and priority. You begin eating up words, believe that you have already written something when you have not, and the conclusion is never out of the mind, because the teacher taught, never leave the answer without concluding it, you may fudge the other portions, but conclude!

And after all the tussle against time, escaping the hawk eyes of the invigilator to catch that one word from a friend that reminded you of a whole answer, and through the several bouts of water gulps between answers to give yourself time to recollect and reassure yourself that all’s not lost, you somehow finish your paper, with random scribbling across the question paper, with doodles, remarks about how you don’t get a word and random calculations of the anticipated marks taking up the entire body of the blank space on the paper.

But what pervades all these dismal details, is the joy and the exhilaration of getting free, rather getting rid of an exam, a subject, of something that wouldn’t haunt you for some time at least. As opposed to some people, I never relook at the paper, what’s done is done and now will R.I.P. I can’t fight the determinism and fatalism that is entailed in exam giving, and so I submit almost unquestioningly to this barter of knowledge for marks.

The Annual Homecoming

As I try to fight the mosquitoes away, I am reminded of our old ancestral house in a suburbia village in Rajasthan, of the name Raamganj Mandi. A village/town so small that most trains would swish past its rather forlorn and empty station, so cramped that you had to squeeze your way into the by lanes contesting space with motorcycles, cows, goats, and little children fooling around the streets. A visit to this place was part of our customary yearly visit to Kota to where the rest of the family (other than my grandparents of course) had moved to in the name of progress and development. However, none of our trips would be over without getting an attendance check at our grandparents’ abode. Although we loved our grandparents and they doted over us, it is still difficult to convince children from urban metropolis to live in a suburban semi-village-setting for a whole week. My grandfather being strictly old school, we didn’t have a running television, the one that was available would be lying in one corner eating dust as if it were an article from Arabian nights, almost ancient, archaic to say the least. I am not sure if they still own it, but if they do I am sure it would be a collector’s item, like those 19^th century Rolls Royce cars adorned in the palaces of Rajasthani princes, much less in worth though. Despite, the protests from our grandfather we would still put it on in his absence. The fact that it even showed the screen covered with a zillion black-white dots, was no less than a wonder. Then we would fiddle the knobs of volume and channel tuner as if rubbing Aladdin’s lamp (yes, the Arabian Night trope continues). Then suddenly the DD channel would show up, with the characters swaying to and fro to perhaps to some inaudible platonic tune of spheres. And for some ill play of fate they’d always be showing The Ramayana, and our grandmother, otherwise pretty dormant and droopy would be instantly alerted, in fact almost inadvertently and much to our displeasure, our tirade and adventure with the tv had to be given up for her to watch the ‘Holy’ show. As if the Lamp had its own will. Not that we were not religious enough or were averse to the bemusing tales from scriptures, but for kids of the age of 8 to 10, religion is fairly in the deep abyss of the immediate conscious.

On some days we would visit the neighbours who had the privilege of a cable connection, which seemed like an oasis in the desert. However, paradoxically we would go to their place to watch tv and end up doing everything else but that. We’d chat with the women of the house, play with children of our age group and make boats and sail them in the open water lanes running outside the house. And we would notice how our grandmother had devised a unique setting where she would socialise with almost everyone from the village sitting on the porch of the house. From the daily vendors to maids to neighbours to relatives, everyone was greeted from the alley of the porch.

Having nothing better to do we would run to the kitchen to see what our mother was doing, which was being invariably busy in her share of household chores. There was no point looking for our father, he had way too many old cronies and relatives to attend to. These trips would always be made in the summers and Rajasthan is sweltering and scorching hot in this time of the year. And with no generator in the house, the coolers were as good as mere blowers. The electricity would come and go as if it were mocking us, making us realise indispensability of luxury items. It is here we learnt that watermelons can be cooled in the kitchen sink and that hand fans are multipurpose, they fan in air and fan out mosquitoes. Since electricity played peek-a-boo now and then, even the tv would be inaccessible every few minutes. Me and my brother would lurk around the house aimlessly, me, with mostly a copy of Tinkle in my hand and my brother busy with a rubber ball or a catapult that he might have picked up at some odd station, trotting along with our father who often got down at stations in order to fetch some munchies to cope with boredom. There was also an old carom board in the house, and we’d always need to hunt for it; for the set of cousins who had visited before us would always hide it before they left, and there was also an old pack of playing cards. Now the ace in the deck of playing cards and the striker in the carom game would be perpetually missing. So we would wait for our father to go for a market trip for groceries and other items so that we could tag along and make arrangements for the frugal means of entertainment at our disposal.

However, the trips wouldn’t be all that bad, we had our share of fun times too. In the afternoons when our mother would get free, she’d play a round of carom or a pack of cards with us. When she we got tired she’d put us to sleep with her stories, stories of rabbits and squirrels living in secret burrows, with lots of munchies like cakes, muffins, ice-creams, chocolates sneaking theirway in and out of their boarding trying to escape tigers and lions. She would create an alternate world and we would always have appetite for more until she’d scold us and forcibly put us to sleep. Also since our grandfather had his own farms we would visit his ‘khet’ on his bicycle and the enthusiasm and alacrity with which he would show us his crop would make us want to leave everything else and become farmers ourselves, there’d be tractors bullocks, cows, buffaloes. Daadi would make makkai and saag for us (all from the ‘khet’), she’d bloat us with milk and butter, and there’d be no dearth of gud and ghee and lots of love poured into all of this.

Then there’d be the excitement of bathing from the huge cemented tanks that were filled up with tube wells, and the several stories that us cousins would pass each other that the tanks had no abyss and we could drown in them if we fell into it. Surprisingly, our trips never coincided with that of our cousins, it would have been much more fun otherwise; in fact I sometimes even wonder if the trips were strategically designed by our parents to avoid the rancour that we might create as a group. Anyway, the trip made us realise the importance of our lives in the cities and the comforts that we usually take for granted, it made us aware of the fact that alternate means of entertainment could be sought when tv wasn’t an option. It exposed our mother’s creative potential to us, her ability to make her own fables and create a world out of her imagination, more beautiful and vivid than any story book with pictures. It showed us that new friendships and affinities could be formed even at the most unknown places and lastly it gave us a home to go back to for us diasporic people who’d have to constantly keep moving by virtue of a transferrable job.

The Angoor that didn’t taste sour

I know it’s not convention to write the review of a movie that is about 40 years old, but since i have watched this movie as a part of my paper in class for translational studies in JNU I could not help but pen a word or two about it on my space, my blog. I am talking of this hilarious laugh riot and delightful piece of work called Angoor directed by lyricist/director Gulzaar, who in his impeccable style, and neatness only matched by his own immaculate dressing, has made the bold attempt at adapting the Great Bard himself (commonly known as William Shakespeare to the world). Most obviously neither Gulzaar nor the Grand Master himself, need any introduction. I know most of us have watched this movie at some point or another irrespective of the era we are born into and the kind of cinema that is fad in the contemporary times. In fact it is much rather the simplicity and directorial nuance with which this movie is made that one finds lacking in today’s cinema. For those who are not aware, the movie is a direct adaptation from Shakespeare’s play, Comedy of Errors. Despite the fact that Gulzaar in the very first scene pays his due to the playwright and also acknowledges his source when I told some of my friends that I am taking Angoor as a discussion for translation most of them reacted with surprise. It is perhaps because Gulzaar has adapted the movie so well and in the process made it his own. Nowhere can you see the overbearing presence or the anxiety of doing justice to the playwright. However, the movie is as much appropriated in the Indian socio-cultural context as it is alienated from the times, and the place it is adapted from. It is as much attached to the original as it is free as an independent work of art. All in all it remains to be a 2 hour 10 minute entertainer of splitting laughter and situational humour.

It is quite surprising how a play written in the 16^th century and performed for the European audiences in the reign of Queen Elizabeth is so easily adaptable and reproducible in mainstream Indian cinema and not only works well but can be recorded as one of the most successful comedies ever; so much so that it has been loosely copied as late as the 90’s in a very shoddy movie otherwise, viz., ‘Bade Miyan Chhote Miyan’. If you strain yourselves the pair of similar looking men, the instance of mistaken identities, and the confusion resulting from that, followed by a misgiving about a jewellery piece are all picked up from Angoor. While the original shows men in believable circumstances where the mistaken identities can be accorded to a certain logic, David Dhawan’s movie goes berserk with Govinda and Amitabh Bachhan (and sadly so) bobbing around in multi coloured attire that is a sore to the eye and looking nothing short of smug and overconfident buffoons, reattempting the classic, however the director appears only too earnest in his endeavours.  But, then to surpass or even stand shoulder to a man of excellence like gulzaar is quite a task.  No effort has been spent or wasted on any magnificent sets, locations, or even costumes, it wasn’t even found necessary. The introduction of the bhang element makes it characteristically Indian and adds that much required theme of madness that gels perfectly with the events that unfold.

Its heart warming to finally watch a movie, that is successful in making the audience laugh and strike that perfect note without cheesy and corny slapstick dialogues nor any banal or forced attempts at sounding funny (as is the case of most David Dhawan movies). The actors slip into the characters with an ease and grace that makes them a delight to watch. The performances are nuanced and well scripted. All the chief protagonists, viz., Sanjeev Kumar, Deven Verma, Moshumi Chatterjee and Deepti Naval put on a show that didn’t let a single moment be dull in the movie. The scenes that I found particularly funny were the ones with the squeaky crooning of ‘Preetam aan milo’ that wouldn’t escape your mind even as you finish the movie and get on with other things. The fact that the movie is only 2 hours and 10 minutes on screen the scope of being tired and disinterested is tactfully checked. All in all I am glad that I was made to watch the movie for the presentation that was thrust at me last week. But all the more it was an absolute pleasure to watch the movie. While researching on the movie I found out that there are attempts made for its remake. Lets just hope that the new makers don’t make the Bard turn in his revered grave.

The Space Wars

As I took a metro ride the other day (now don’t get alarmed this is not in sequel to the previous article, I don’t seem to have the Indian cinema mentality to cash in on the tried and tested over and over again, so coming back) I found myself plugging in my head phones to the exhaustive list of 5 songs I had in my playlist. In a journey over 50 minutes I heard these 5 songs over and over again. The point is that this is no handpicked list of my favourite songs ever, nor am I particularly crazy about any of them, it’s just that my memory card is out of order and there’s no radio on my cell. But again, despite being nauseated with even the most beautiful tracks I kept listening to them, as I fidgeted in my seat with a book of short stories in my hand. So what was I doing exactly? Besides, shutting the world outside I was defining a private space that I didn’t want the others in the metro to impinge. I have observed several men and women (women more than men), especially those who regularly take the metro, doing just about the same. Do you think that all are great music lovers, even if they are I read it more as an exercise in making an invisible bubble around them and marking their space.

If you look around the struggle for space is everywhere around us. In fact the most primary struggle that defines our lives is that of negotiating our spaces. As much as man is a social animal, like any other animal it likes to demarcate its space, its territory, in mannerisms that only differ from the animal kingdom in varying degrees of politeness and sophistication. It’s everywhere around us, when it comes to spaces nobody is kin. Whether you are a sibling, parent, friend, partner, colleague (more so if you are none of these) one needs to categorically define space. One of the most strongly felt, although, also one of the most polite struggles for space is the one where you civilly try to parley the armrest that is common for two chairs. The one who wins in this silent war of dominances enjoys the privilege of that little extra space and establishes his pre-eminence in this short lived conflict. In trains I have seen people literally stretching themselves(pun intended) to the limit of taking part of others' seats so that you don’t impinge on the space allotted to them according to their seat numbers.

It begins right from the earliest days of childhood, the young infant wants to be held by some and not by others, it is s/he who chooses whom to bestow with its grace, it knows its toys from that of others and holds onto them dearer than life. When you are toddlers and go to school for the first time and get your benches, there begins your first ever struggle in the public sphere. Some want to sit inside because they don’t want to be disturbed, some outside so that they don’t feel inhibited. The left handed have to have that extra space to place their hands, some like a particular place in the class and even make an attempt to colonise it with their names. The struggle continues all through school life, the strife in the playfield, the hegemony on the swing and slide, the ‘it’ and ‘non-it’ groups. And then the epic war of spaces between spouses. I wonder if Adam had given Eve her due space and let her be his equal, we’d all not be in this post lapsarian fallen world, fighting our guts out with each other over issues of space. Most relationships see their end for this lack of understanding each other’s space culminating to separation where all they finally acquire is space for themselves and nothing else.

Despite the fact that our ancestries have lived in joint families, with several  other things we have also adopted the liberalist humanist living ideals of the American way of life, where the teenager makes it clear to his/her parents in their characteristic accent, “Mom, I need my space.” As much as we would want to say that to our parents (with or without the accent) we cannot. Even if the mother gives in, there is your brother/sister to tackle and the constant inflow of desired or undesired pack of relatives that have no regard for your strategically acquired privilege. However, to no good avail. The illusion is shattered and we are made akin to the reality that we need to share that space.

We accuse the western nations to be colonialists but to think of it we are all little imperialists ourselves. We want that particular side of the bed, that pan-view chair on the dining table, that window seat in trains, buses and planes, that nicest parking space in the colony parking (our society just finished allotting parking spaces to each flat by marking lines recently). And if you are wondering why I suddenly came to discuss space, it was only after yesterday when my brother physically dislodged me from his side of the bed citing that it is his area no matter what, that I landed upon this issue as a topic for discussion. So while I invite you to my space as a blogger, I am at the same time trying to figure out the way to get around and contrive it from my brother.

A day in the life of Delhi Metro

The phone rang, I was still half asleep, it was my friend on the other side. In an excited high pitch tone she asked me to hurry up and make it to Cannaught Place in Delhi by an hour cause we were to meet and she had limited time. Getting to Cp in an hour would mean, to get up, brush, attend nature’s call and bath, all in a matter of 15 minutes (humanly impossible) followed by an almost sprint to the metro station, bypassing the semi molesting check by the women guards, getting the bag cleared and then making a dash to the stairs leading up to the station. All that done and in an almost a blow to your panting, losing breath efforts you see the metro you wish to take gliding away with people from within passing that sadist smile making you aware of your failure in the game called, ‘survival of the ‘swiftest’’. Once inside the metro begins the game of exchanging gazes. The fact of you being an object of observation fully dawns upon you once inside the Delhi metro. As if the semi-molesting guard woman who checks you at the entrance had not done her bit, there’s another eye scanner you are put through by your fellow passengers. The girls might scan you for your clothes and men? Well they really don’t need a reason.

Well now that we have a whole compartment to ourselves, women can breathe easier (both metaphorically and literally). However, earlier, the mere task of getting into the metro made you feel as victorious and triumphant as Alexander himself. Being short in height by conventional and all other standards, I have had some terrible experiences myself. Standing amidst tall towering men I have had to struggle to find place to perch my feet and contest for the limited breathing space with my fellow passengers. And then the nose lacking the necessary filter for foul smells and pungent odours, there is not much one can do but to incorrigibly wait for your destination. Then there’s another struggle for holding on to the handles meant for support, well for those as short as me, we have to make do with body balance, stretch out your feet wide, arms on side, and pray that the metro doesn’t take abrupt screechy halts.

However, direct your attention to the people around and you might earn yourself a little entertainment for no cost. Wailing babies, men sleeping and even snoring even while standing, people with headphones in their ears harmonically bobbing their heads, conversations of last night’s match, the latest movie, who died and made a comeback in the daily, share market, love, friendship and the usual cribbing about the Delhi weather which is more often than not disappointing and debilitating.

Then a look at those who are regally seated; they appear to almost recreate the look of a peaceful serenity that Buddha would have reflected under the tree where he got enlightened. If getting in the metro was Alexandrous, then getting a seat is like a colonial conquer. Those who are left standing are the damned lot who curse their Karma for being so unfortunate as to not get a seat. Over the months some even devise a scheme of prowl and vigil and sneak a seat when it is vacated on the rarest of occasions. It’s a 3 step deal: look, lurk and grab. However, the calmness and contentment of those with seats is fairly short lived, because invariably there’d be someone to dishevel their god-sent peace, trying to adjust his/her ass for that little extra space left in the otherwise packed bench.

However, despite all this and more, metro still remains to be the most preferred medium of conveyance. It’s air conditioned, takes lesser time to reach any place in Delhi and is a much better alternative than the overpriced autos and the much maligned blue line. So I brace myself, walking to the women’s compartment with a cheerful gait ignoring all the snide looks that men pass at any women for stealing away the special privilege of reservation. But do I care? I deserve it for all the lecherous and scathing glances I have endured and besides I have a friend waiting, who'll leave if I don't reach on time. :P