Where art thou my dear Delhi !

Ok this is one blog that I been wanting to write for years now.Its about the then-not-so-crowded city called Delhi.The Delhi that I new.The city that is so so different from how I have known her.A Delhi, that has known me for 35 years and yet seen me only for the first 18 of these.Like a mother who despite living far away waits patiently for years together for her children to return home (atleast for a short while).Who tries to give them the picture that things are exactly the same as they were when they parted ways.

The thought of those hot summers and excruciatingly cold winters bring back so many memories.Where summer holidays were eagerly awaited despite the knowledge of the fact that there would be absolutely nothing to during those long dreary afternoons.No so called hobby classes,no piano,horseriding or swimming lessons.Things which kids nowadays take for granted.No cable telivision and absolutely NO computers (these machines were unheard of then..)When every house had a minumum of three (if not more) children and all that they could do was sit under shadey trees or under the musty landing of a staircase which stared dimly at a locked door or gossiping about non existent creatures or people.Holiday Homework was actually something to be researched and completed painfully albeit in fits and starts throughout two long months rather than something that is outsourced to someone much elder sitting in a swanky office.No coolers and obviously no airconditioners were used in those days.The only respite from the heat was a slow moving humungous grimy fan and some cool water from a swan necked surahi.

 

Winters on the other hand meant huddling under thick razais and blankets and sipping hot chai.Waiting for the beautiful festival of Lohri to sit surrounded by the warmth crackling fire, popping every now and then with the corn and the nuts being tossed carelessly into it.Of the sweet strings of the a veena playing out the Thirupavai or a murphy radio siting warmly at a corner of the house broadcasting the intonated voice of Amin Sayani.

 

Then came the monster of development, slow moving initially and then large,loud and all persavive. While modes of communication improved , money and a false sense of superiority increased distances.Metro made distances shrink but tore apart the heart of the city. It brought in the mad rush which was known only to Mumbai.Flyovers made people zip past places that they would normally want to stop for a while and observe.Crime and lawlessness skyrocketed but no one bothered.Visits to temples / concerts were few and far between because the only religion and hobby that one learnt was the art of making more and more money.

People no longer wanted to look eye to eye.Family gatherings became less and less frequent and all one heard was a son or a daughter leaving the city or the country to earn or study in some other unknown strange land.A place that they would initially not like. a place where they get bouts of tummy upsets and  pangs of separation.But a place where they would slowly make friends and start calling their own.A place from where they will come back again and again after some so-called "quality time" with parents.Parents who are growing old but keep their empty nest fresh and ready for the kids to come back again and again in the hope that one day they would settle down with them for good.......but something that may never happen.Never happen because its too painful to adjust in a system from which one ran away in the first place.So there would always be an excuse of bad infrastructure, kids schooling, pollution and low mindset.Till one day in the middle of the night one would be woken up by the shrill ring of a telephone sitting in a cold dining room.A long distance call one would not want to take but a call that would change your life forever.A call that brings bad news that you have no one to share with or cry over.So all you do is stand on those unstable feet and look outside from your house's warmth onto the street outside slowly being flooded with distinct flakes of snow.Feeling that life has just passed you by as you too could be one of these falling flakes...............one day.

Why ?

Why

In today’s world we live in an atmosphere of uncertainty. Whether it’s reaching office or coming back home, the health of a loved one, the global economic scenario or even something as basic as the security of human life in a crowded market. Every act has a certain degree of uncertainty to it. Then why is it that to further add to this confusion we go about behaving or reacting in inexplicable ways to reasonably straightforward situations. Why do we knowingly or unknowingly face situations which are beyond logic…some funny, some interesting and some totally beyond comprehension? Read on…

Why..

..do parents who wanted their children to be engineers and doctors less than 2 decades ago want their grandchildren to be singers, dancers and painters ?

...do people curse recession but rush to buy houses at the same time, not aware of their repaying capacity 5 months hence ?

...don’t friends change when they move to another school,college,locality or even another country  but do so the very next day after their marriage ?

...is the Indian postal department ramping  itself up a solid 6 decades later, when people no longer write, read or respect letters ?

...are superstars of yesterday, far from being stars mere actors today ?

...is the waiting time longest in the shortest queue just because you are standing in it.(no !next time don’t try standing in the longest queue, the law reverses then) ?

…does everyone crave for it to rain and when it does rain goes about cursing it?

...are children so heartbreakingly cute?

...is work inexplicably hectic on the last day before you leave office for a long vacation?

...are colleagues just that....colleagues and nothing more. (in hindsight..thank god for small mercies) ?

...are arranged marriages so rare nowadays?

...are kids so intelligent these days?

...do kids see through a lie so easily?

...is it that you wait with bated breath to achieve something for a long time and when it does finally happen you are hardly excited about it?

...doesn’t money supposedly bring happiness and yet is craved for each single day ?

...does every work in India from building a house to changing a light bulb require so much of follow up?

.... does the common man talk so much corruption and still doesn’t accept that he is also is a part of the so-called “system” ?

….do people talk less and fail to communicate even though the modes of communication have gone up many manifolds?

….do people understand complex technological concepts so easily but fail to understand the simple facts of life ?

The list is endless and many questions don’t have straight forward answers, but one thing is sure, human beings have the ability to complicate things beyond the realm of normal understanding so that they motivated enough to move from one unfathomable situation to another. This is probably the only driving force for existence in this century.

Home Alone

What is it about an apartment which is shut for the major part of the day that is so unsettling ?
Is it the bed that sits stoically in a corner amidst dishevelled clothes,combs and winter wear ?
Is it the window left ajar in a hurry ?
Is it the forgotten light which dimly lights a cold store room ?
The small amount of milk left in an open pan covered slowly with a skin of fat ?
Or is the incense sticks thats makes the redolent precincts of a spacious pooja room almost ethereal ?
What do these inanimate (?) members of a family do when no one is around ?
Talk to themselves or gosssip ?
Or Discuss events more important ?
Feel bored ?
Wait for the owners to return Or move around and go back to their original locations the instant that the rough key forges ahead and fits perfectly in the ageing door ?
Leaving behind a wisp of cold air in the dark hall surfeit with spoken words and unspoken emotions...

From Green to Grave : Bangalore

I had come to Bangalore for the first time when I was eight years old.Everything from the weather to the people was completely different from what it is now. I stayed at Jalahalli then and distinctly remember being down with flu during my entire stay but still loved every moment of my visit.The colours and the flowering trees of the city tugged at my heart everytime I passed through a quiet street lined with these huge , green trees bursting with red leathery blooms.The streets used to be completely carpeted with these flowers falling gently in the wind .
For a city which got transformed from a sleepy 'Pensioner's Paradise' to being the hub of Information Technology, the change has been anything but smooth.It's true that development brings along with it changes in landscape, people and the attitude associated with any location. But how does one ensure that important characteristics of the city stay as it is ? When I look around Bangalore I am painfully aware of the frenzied pace at which it is moving and somewhere unlike other cities totally forgetting what it was meant to be....what it stood for.The people,the visitors,even the animals here seem to be in a hurry always.The terms 'Pensioners Paradise' and sleepy city have been relegated to the background.Probably for growth and progress all this was essential, but still it does cause a lot of pain.If this is the feeling of someone like me who had visited Bangalore just once during childhood and then came years later to a city bursting at it seams ,I wonder what would be the feeling of thousands of those citizens who are in their seventies,eighties and even nighties(yes thats true,I know for sure that there is a nonagenarian lady living somewhere in BTM.) who were born and brought up in this garden city.
Circa 2000 : There was no BTM flyover,no Richmond Road flyover,no Silk Board flyover and ofcourse no (old) Airport road flyover or Marathahalli Bridge (The last two are my favourite topics to crib about,so I would cover them in a separate post).So here I was trying each and every day to cross Hosur Road traffic and still maintain my cool.But one fine evening in 2001 august (or was it 2002 ... my memory fails me here),I was caught in the worst traffic jam of my life.So I happily board the shuttle at 5 only to reach home at (hold your breath) 9:45 PM.I slept off at 7:45 (the shuttle was yet to reach Silk Board after crawling for two and a half hours in the rain from electronic city.).Thank god for small mercies I finally moved from that company as well as south Bangalore only to be blissfully caught in the Koramangala and Old Airport road traffic melee very soon.
So,thanks to the traffic I have visited Iskon temple only twice in eight years,Seshadripuram once in 4 years and have never been to Sadashiv Nagar ...never.
Circa 2008 : New Airport,Whizzing traffic,speeding metroes,perfect connectivity and no traffic jams....Ha ! ...Get real.We are still stuck,perpetually stuck and in case things continue the way they do we would be stuck forever.The progress is slow,mired in metres of red tape and slugged down by callous authorities.And yes unlike other cities, with the exception of a few the majority of the population here which cribs most does not do anything about it.Taking the authorities to task is a far cry,they do not even bother to make sure to exercise their fundamental right of franchise.
So till the attitude of people changes they would be taken for a ride and terms like 'Public-Private Partnership','International City', 'Well Wired' , 'Bangalored' and all such similar Wifi...oops HiFi terms coined by geeks and wannabe geeks would fall flat against the crumbling infrastructure.They would amount to nothing but mere rhetoric in this city that doesn't want to sleep but is forced to do so by 11:30 PM every single night.