Realizations Part 1 - Monsoon wedding.

July 2008

Monsoon is that time of the year when nostalgia somehow runs high. After all, dampened souls can cry their hearts fill in the rain without anybody noticing their tears. It is also the time for weddings. A time when two people find redemption in each other, be it for money, security, sex, love, companionship, providence, adjustment or simply a helpless surrender to fate. But for some it’s also a time for heartbreak, if it’s not the way one had intended it to be. A time when tears down our cheeks are enough to bring a deluge in itself, sans the rain. A time when we wish we cease to exist. A time when we curse God for our lot. And surprisingly also a time when some people rise above themselves in an amazing display of character as I witnessed in one of these weddings and gained many a realization in the process. Here goes the story:

There is a tea vendor in my locality by the name of ‘Kompaani’ (I have his pic somewhere in my Orkut or Picasa albums). A young lad junior to me by two-three years, hardworking, honest, good guy and basically quite serious about life. He runs the local ‘chai ki dukaan’ as I mentioned earlier which is a stone’s throw away form my house. U might imagine the crowd at his place in the evenings when people come for tea or an evening snack. I don get to meet him on most weekdays when I’m away at work but I make it a point to pay him a visit in the weekends and spend some time with him over tea. And whenever mom is out of town, I take him and Paanu (works for us) to eat out (he incidentally is Paanu’s best friend and hence the attachment). The guy is doing quite well going by his economic background and limited education, has his own bike and runs his family that lives just behind his cabin. The guy like any other lad of his age, dreamt of settling down with a nice girl and live happily ever after in conjugal bliss. So far so good.

A few days ago, on returning from work, I saw a marriage invitation on the desk. It was from an old man in our locality who sold vegetables in the local market. He was getting his daughter married and had come to invite us. Mom had taught stitching to the girl, something mom herself had learnt back probably in her home science honors days I presumed. Hence I knew the girl. She was a nice, decent girl by all accounts.

Mom asked whether I would go. I decided to go as I thought it would be a great opportunity to meet some of my friends who drove autos or ran betel or chai shops like Kompaani himself (social bonding is quite strong around the old town area where I live). Everybody knows everybody. It’s a small world here. I like making friends with these people and have a decent rappo among them. Though downtrodden, these people stand by u in times of need. To cite an example, the local auto driver just needed a call to attend to me when I ran out of gas midway while returning late from office. It was past midnight but the guy came. The surprising thing is that I usually don pay him any more than the actual fare. I guess all they crave for is recognition as equals in a somewhat divided society. That is all I gave them and I guess that was enough for them.

The wedding was on a Sunday. I came to know from Paanu that Kompaani had been invited and Paanu had told him that we would all go together. So in the evening at around seven Paanu and myself went to Kompaani’s house to pick him up. We found him lying on his bed in his small room. He said he wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t join us. I said the chicks at the wedding might make him feel better and pulled him out of bed. And that’s when I saw it. The guy was crying. The silent crying I mean. His eyes were wet and his body shaking. And that’s when it dawned on me – he loved the girl.

He burst out and broke down. His body was shaking even more and the silent suppressed crying had been replaced by the crying of a child who had been denied his toys. I was speechless. Maybe I was overawed by the sudden outburst of emotions and didn’t know how to deal with them. Or may be I freezed like a eunuch. Paanu comforted him and after some time the guy regained his composure. He said he feared that his emotions might get the better of him and that might create a scene at the wedding. Hence he didn’t want to go. But all the same he didn’t want to spoil our plans and so requested us to proceed. At that point of time, for once I thought of skipping the wedding to express solidarity with him but went anyway.

This was the wedding of a vegetable seller’s daughter, so obviously it was a simple affair. But what really touched me there was the fact that the emotions were all the same as those in the big weddings that I had attended as well. The girl’s father personally came to greet us at the door of the pandaal. While Paanu departed to help with the arrangements, I decided to catch up with the community people. It felt good meeting the guys after a time. Ant then it happened. Around 40 mins into the wedding Kompaani arrived. Neatly dressed, tears gone and smiling (probably fake). He delivered an envelope to the girl’s mother which probably had some money and promptly came back to me. I jokingly asked if the lure of the wedding girls was too strong to resist, hoping to add some cheer. I guess it din help much or may be it was a bad joke on my part. After some time we had dinner together. It was somewhat different to have a sit down dinner with people serving you rather than the do-it urself stuff that happens these days. While the menu had only four items, the hospitality made a big statement in itself. I told u these poor people have a big heart! After some time we all met the father and thanked him and left.

While returning, none of us spoke much. I decided to accompany my friend till his house. It was 10.30. Kompani told us to come in and prepared paan. I knew that he wasn’t in the slightest mood to do this. Probably it was just a gesture of thanks. I decided to stay back for some time. I somehow felt that if the man could find someone to discuss, it might just lighten his burden. So I asked him why didn’t he ever tell the girl or her parents. After all I had come to know that financially, there wasn’t much of a difference between the groom and my friend. Probably they wud have agreed. He replied saying he never had the courage to do so. The reason was the girl belonged to a higher caste. But then they say hope is eternal. We live in hope. That is what makes us go through the drudgery that is today in the hope of a better tomorrow. He told me he had saved a decent amount to improve his standing if he were ever to ask for the girl. She was the reason he worked so hard, keeping open till midnight and opening at 6 the next day. Didn’t want to miss a single penny. All his hard work had gone down the drain he said and started cursing himself for not keeping his emotions in check. After some time he broke down again. This time I didn’t want to stop him. I guess it’s tough to live with coughed up emotions. Sometimes it helps if they find an outlet. Besides I figured the tears that I wished to wipe away will run unchecked in my absence. A teardrop is insignificant in a pool of water, but it can touch the soul as it runs down someone’s face. When he was stable I left, but with a heavy heart...

That night while I lay in bed, the images of the day flashed in my mind one after the other. I figured every thing in the chain of events had some message. I had made many a realization in the anatomy of love.

Pain

May 2008


Have u ever felt like hurting urself outside so that u dont feel the pain within. Broken arms and legs can be mended but there is nothing like the sight of an amputated spirit. There is no prosthetic for that.

Zindagi dhoop, tum ghana saaya.

February 2008

I dont seek the treasures of the world.
I dont seek the pleasures of the flesh.
If your black deep shadows cover me against the scorching sun of life,
I dont seek to bathe in the bright colors of the rainbow.

The CNN debate.

February 2008.

Today was one of those rarest of rare days when I wasn’t working on a weekend. Hence I got up at 12.30 and straightaway went for the remote to watch the India Australia T20 match. But I somehow settled upon the Democratic debate on CNN. What started as just an intention to take a peek into the two contenders for the American president ended up in two and a half hours of my undivided attention (I forgot the match totally !!!).

And boy what a debate it was !! Two people who may hold the destiny of a nation in their hands being thoroughly grilled by their countrymen before they decide to pass on the baton to either of them. And then what struck me was the stark contrast of the state of affairs in our country when it came to electing the president or the prime minister where the peoples’ will is totally overlooked and often subverted (Kalam vis-à-vis “some” Pratibha Patil). And it made me admire the great country and democracy that America is. That is how a nation should be, I thought. Here was a country where the future president had to walk on fire and prove himself worthy before his countrymen before being elected and in comparison ours was a nation where an unknown lady became the head of the largest democracy in the world on the mere whim of some Italian who din bother to give an ear to the voice of its people. A lady who had absolutely no stature or locus standi whatsoever was elected (appointed rather) over a rocket scientist.

One of my favorite movies happens to be ‘Swades’. It had a scene in it where Shah Rukh Khan is asked whether he believed that our country was the greatest by virtue of its ‘Sanskriti and Sabhyata’. What he replied was further confirmed today when I saw that debate. Only our culture and all that bullshit won’t take us anywhere unless other things that matter in the present are put in place. One of them is our electoral process which is fundamentally flawed and needs to be overhauled. I wish we had a debate on Star or Times where Sonia or Manmohan or Rahul pitted their wits against Advani or some other hopeful which the people got to see and only then vote (I wun hv voted since thay all appear the same to me) but at least the citizens can put things in perspective before making a choice (The ‘Lead India initiative is a good step in this regard). No wonder why America is called the greatest democracy and why is it called ‘the American dream’. All the same I felt helpless and thought the minimum I cud do was write about this so that I can spread this thought to at least a few people who read this. Maybe greater things are to come.

As for the debate, I must admit I had really underestimated Obama until I saw this. He was awesome. There really must be something in this man that is making it so tough for Hillary despite the rich legacy of her husband.

The American president Woodraw Wilson had said ‘We are the citizens of the world’. If only we stopped looking at that great nation with eyes of envy and suspicion and imbibe the good things that happen there. Maybe this is wishful thinking, but I wish someday I see this again on CNN except that it hosts the debate for the Indian elections. Amen !!

From the arabian sands

January 2008

First things first. I got the feedback that my previous posts don’t carry a date and hence this blog suffers from the lack of a timeline. Well the only reason I dint include them earlier was coz I usually wrote them over a period of time – around 2-3 days and hence thought that tying a post to a particular date may distort things. But all the same I do see a point in the feedback and hence have decided to write the month before every post (as u can see above this). As for my previous posts I have done the same with them.

Its been quite a while since my last post and a lot of water has flown under the bridge since then. Firstly I write this from a foreign soil, and every gasp of my breath craves to go back to my motherland and smell the air of its soil. I really find it tough to believe sometimes that we human beings become so intricately attached to the stuff we grow with until at some point they become as good as soulmates to us.

Dubai is by all counts a mind blowing city . I would say it’s a case study in the human history of development. A perfect example of how to build a metropolis from virtually scratch out of sand. It competes with Singapore and to some extent Hong Kong and Tokyo (I still wouldn’t include Shanghai ) to be Asia’s global cities . But while Singapore has built itself inspite of the absence of any natural resources whatsoever Dubai has had the benefit of having tons of oil to itself and thereby enabling the administration to run the city on oxygen (without any tax payers money that is). But this doesn’t take away anything from this place. Afterall there are north African nations and even asian (ever heard of Brunei!!) floating in oil with the higher powers being among the richest on the planet but people go hungy there. But not Dubai. King Rashid is almost worshipped by the people here and he has lived up to it. He made sure that the money from oil was ploughed back into the system. You just have it all here. From the world’s costliest hotel to the world’s tallest tower to the world’s largest mall. Its all in the superlative. And all in the space of 35-40 years.

As for the people u find them all here. Hindi is everywhere and so are Indians (7 in 10). And somehow Filipinos go everywhere. Keralites with their usual ‘Yaai cyame tyu the middle yeast to yearn meney’. Enterprising people indeed. They are the single largest community here.

But I don’t know why inspite of all this the mind wants to go back to India. There is nothing like India in the whole world. Indeed home is where the heart is !!!