"Gittu"

Part One: Fiction vs. Reality

What makes for a better story? Pure work of fiction or something right out of the hidden, forgotten lives of ordinary people? Judge for yourselves.

My boss, Mr. Vishwajit Pandey is your run off the mill middle-ager with a happy family and two young kids...I never yearned to explore his life beyond the professional but ironically came to know of this fact today when I am leaving my job for good. It was just a passing question which brought to fore an experience so dramatic and chilly that I cannot resist sharing it with anybody who cares to know.

A jolly man, Mr. Pandey, looks like he would never have the guts to walk out and have a chat with a pretty damsel, let alone being extraordinary in any sense of the word; he was an exceptional person for me. The fact that made him exceptional was that he was born and brought up in Srinagar, Kashmir. Heroes they say can be identified by their looks; I disagree. It was a chilly night in February of 1990, since when he has never been to his home town again. The following was the experience that led to it; I am taking the liberty of narrating it in the first person because I heard it from the horse’s mouth (literally if you consider his size) and want you to share the same experience as I did while listening to it.

Part Two: “Gittu”

“Vishwajit! Yaar (mate) lets meet up after you get back from work, we’d go to Lambert Lane, hunt for the new girl, Javed was so crazy about the other day”, called out Satish. Satish was one of your small town machos, well built and a real maverick. He maintained a general store in Karan Nagar, downtown Srinagar. A bull of a man, he would run headfirst into anyone who even suggested bullying him.

Going to Lambert lane was our regular evening exercise. Every evening with itself brought about the most difficult task of our pre-college and college; that of distributing the most beautiful girls as our prospective future targets, let me clarify before your imagination takes you to the other side of decency, for becoming our girlfriends that is. We had a simple funda about it as well. “Woh! You see that pink one their, yeah the one with the red Duppatta, yeah that. That’s, mine.” “Yeah serves you right that pinky with that wonderful nose of hers, Pakoda. Look at my choice, you see that blue on there, yeah, the one in that group of four, isn't she a chobri (isn't she a "bomb").” And so went our evenings hopping around and living the bird’s life that youth brings along with itself.

The late teens had brought that “take on the world’ attitude to us youngsters and we were the "men" of our colony. From beating red and yellow, the boy from the next neighbourhood for hanging around with a girl of our colony to doing all the ‘social work”, helping elders carry heavy packages and cross roads to maintaining the locality temple, we did it all which makes youth take first tiny steps of responsibility to prepare itself for the big one; Life.

I had a four storied house, in Karan nagar, an atypical area of old Srinagar and a typical mixture of the ever-been-together Hindus (essentially Kashmiri Brahmins) and Muslims. The house campus had a small temple and the behind the temple was the silver stream of Kashmir, Jhelum. My father was a contractor and mother was a regular housewife. I was doing (or trying my best at undoing) a B. Sc in pass course from the University of Kashmir and used to work part time as a Medical Representative to earn crucial sources for our Lambert Lane excursions.
I was popularly known as Gittu.


Part Three: The Unwanted Guests

Our pretty lives, as you all would have guessed by now, were obviously affected by the recent exploits of the perpetrators of Azad Kashmir. However, we all knew, and behaved in the manner as well, that the general public of Kashmir was noncommittal to the issue. Incidents of terror were for us the whims of some fanatics who had conceived the impossible notion of a Kashmir separable from India. We simply did not think about it, apart from the times when some individual sorry incident caught our attention and we went about condemning it, all the communities together.

The temple I mentioned earlier, the one that was situated in the campus or the veranda of the string of houses was a derelict old construction. Not very well kept, it was seldom visited by any of us youngsters apart from the odd festival. The only regulars were God-fearing oldies who would “rotate on their own axis”, with hand cross holding their own ears, everyday, asking for deliverance from God as the community kids would looked on, astonished as to why Dadi was behaving like a chimp!

The area from behind the temple right down to the stream of the Jhelum (the whole bank that is) was populated the by the spoil that every city has. Essentially slum-dwellers, these people would work as day laborers or other such wok of drudgery. Thoughts of blocking out the area from the colony crossed the minds of people several times but would be given up due to lack of initiative. We also wanted to do something for the renovation of temple but as school or college kids would never have ample funds to initiate it.

The result was that the slum people slowly but surely were growing up to the colony. With time their belongings started to appear around on and over the roof of the temple like an algae growing and engulfing the landscape. We too as we grew older were growing restless about it. Also some of us had started earning, however meager but still money in our own hands. So the pot was brimming, waiting to explode.

Part Four: Our Promotion To The Post Of Colony Heroes

“Vishwajit, pick that log there, yes, that one; throw it away, right into the river.”, “Satish, the tin shed there, yes that has been causing the most trouble, tear it into halves and it will be easier to carry to the river.”, “Don’t forget that large piece, yes the one they use to close their back door at night. Remove that also, they always keep it over the roof of the temple”.

One early morning in early 1989, the temple was rescued thus, with the entire “stray” stuff thrown into the Jhelum and the area around the temple cleared. A wall was constructed overnight to block the whole area and thus cutting off all the contact between the refuse of the society and us.

We did not do it as a conscious response to an encroachment by Muslims against Hindus. They did not perceive it as a conscious response of Hindus to an act by Muslims. It was a mere coincidence that they happened to be one and we the other. It was not done to prevent “a” Temple as a place of religious importance. It was done to prevent “the” temple to insist the ownership over one’s property, the temple becoming merely a rout to it. But each one of us knew that there was an undercurrent of this feeling. We simply rejected it or perhaps did not think of it as it was never shown to us.

We were happy after the incident; the mavericks of the colony; the torch-bearers. The young-guns, on whose shoulders rests the responsibility of preventing the colony of such impending disasters as lack of civic facilities, overflowing drainage or as I mentioned earlier the prevention of a colony girl from unruly pursuits of neighborhood boys. The collars went up in a flash and we were sure the young girls looked up to us as their heros. The colony uncles and aunties would remain happy and some of them even silently hated us for our “guts”. We relished it both ways.

Part Five: “Jisko Kasmir me Rehna Hoga, Alah-o-Akbar Kehna Hoga”

The winters of Kashmir, no matter however beautiful they look on TV, wreck havoc and affect the daily lives of Kashmiris severely. While almost everything visible to the eye in good old summers almost unrelentingly goes out of sight under a ton (sometimes literally) of pearly white snow, the peoples of Kashmir strive to live through it with their everlasting zest for life. The Dal is frozen. But that does not matter to the mavericks of Srinagar. The sons of Dal, who take it upon themselves to challenge the worst fears of the lake and the sizzling chilly waters (and I am talking about summers here) to cross the Dal for the annual Dal-cross swimming championship, challenge the strength of the frozen Dal as well; they ride across the lake, ON THEIR BIKES! To win the Dal-cross indeed, but in a different manner all together. Srinagar is heaven in not just the sense that people of the whole world have proclaimed it; the physical beauty. It is lot more of a heaven because of that one element which makes the Kashmiris toil through the unbearable winters. The desire to Live!

Though some timid people like me and the government of Kashmir would rather run away from the adventures of Srinagar to the comfort of Jammu, and so was the schedule for my family every year. We would, every winter, go to our winter house in Jammu. This year, though, was different. It was January of 1990. I had a new-found job, the mark of my growing into a responsible young man from a college-brat, the power that enabled me and my friends to carry out the temple rescue the year before. The job changed the situation for me. I had to stay back. Perhaps, it was my first independent holiday; at home. I would work my day through and eat in the evenings at a friend’s place. Life was good.

The insurgency in Kashmir hand increased a lot over the period of last one year. Common people from our surrounding areas were becoming aware of the antagonism prevalent in the air. We could not discuss it as freely as we used to with our Muslim friends. But still that one crucial link, the open public support, was missing, in the absence of which militants were making little impact.

I woke up to distant chants if slogans and sounds of drums. The kind of sounds that run a chill through your spine. The sounds of a mob moving and chanting like a single headed monster with no objective but destruction, with no logic but just the same crude kind of passion with which a passion-struck bull chases cows. The animus of a mob where individuality is diluted and the heard and the moment guides your energies. It was late night on January 20th, 1990.

“JISKO KASHMIR ME REHNA HOGA, ALAH-O-AKBAR KEHNA HOGA”, “ASIGASI KASHEER BATAV ROS TA BATNIV SAAN (we want Kashmir without the Pandits but with the Panditayans-females)”….rose the chants of the monster. The first public display of people’s support to the quest for Azad Kashmir. No one in the crowd would have been able to give one logical reason for the demand. How could they? What does a child, eight years of age, Not one in the whole would have accepted the same chants against their community. They demanded equality and chose the path of treating their fellowmen with inequality to achieve it. It was crude, dirty, un-Kashmiri.

You may call me a coward, but I admit I was afraid that night. The Muslims of our colony did not participate in the procession. They also appeased us calling it only a procession. But I knew that night standing there, witnessing, the worst trauma of my whole life. It was not the fear for my life. It was the end of Kashmir-heaven on earth, that I was seeing that night standing there cowering in a forlorn corner beyond the sight of the monster. The zest to kill had won.

Part Six: The Act of Bravery?

“Where is Satish? Tell him to come outside and meet us. We have to settle some account.” It was a young chap of eighteen who was shouting from outside Satish’s house. He used to live in the slums behind our temple until recently. But over the last few weeks he had not been seen often. “Satish Bhayia has gone out of town”, explained Satish’s sister as Satish, in spite of his utmost attempts, heard the conversation from in side his room which he was confined to for the last two days, since the day of the procession that is. “Tell him to come and meet us if he is a man. Tell him his days of heroics have ended, the coward, and we are the people who rule now”…… “What did you say you Kafir, you bloody coward”, before anybody realized and thus restrain, Satish stormed out of the house and the Bull, ran headfirst into the “Kafir”.

They say Satish fought till the end. Even as he was falling he tried to grab hold of a brick and throw it at the head of the Kafir. But it is difficult to do, particularly when you have been shot twelve times, at point blank range, off an AK 47.

It was the third week since the incident. Unlike the winter schedule when we shift down to the ground floor due to cold and discomfort, I had moved right to the top. Fear was greater inspiration that winter. My parents, being in Jammu had not known of the incident with Satish, perhaps not.

The evening of February 21st, 1990, I had left for my evening meals to the friend’s house and was beginning to forget the series of unfortunate events. I don’t know how it feels to come back to your home and find a corpse in your bedroom. It must be terrifying. But I wonder if people know the experience of something a lot more grotesque, walking home to your own corpse. When I walked back to my house that night I came home to a sign at our house’s door, as if it were waiting there for me welcoming me from a long journey to a sudden realization. It read: “May we please request you to forgo your actions, which are becoming a discomfort to us or maybe you would meet the same fate as Satish.” I locked myself into the second floor of my house, out of reach of my unknown nemesis that was waiting to hunt me down, perhaps on the top floor or was on his way to it, entering my house that very moment. I was an animal ready to flee or bite at the sight of slightest movement.

I fled.

The definition of fear is so supple that you can only surmise various degrees of it when you come across one. The actions which you yourselves might have considered utterly foolish before then become an act of safety. I was alone at the house. This was my introduction to the highest of physical fears, that of danger to one’s life. One of the basest feelings common to both the animals and humans is the survival instinct. The difference is, for animals it is an act of no deliberation. It comes naturally to them. For Satish it was a matter of choice, like every other human being.
The definition of bravery too is supple. I realized this fact then. For Satish, bravery was to walk out and face the challenger who dared to challenge his manliness. I respect him for that. But that day I realized also, the amount of bravery it takes to run away. The bravery it takes for a man to forgo “his” manliness, when he thinks of his family-The parents who have brought him up with desires and expectations, the mother for whom, the son is the extract of every ounce of effort she put into making of a young man, the father who sees in his son, an image of his own self. Satish’s bravery was because he sacrificed his life. I had to sacrifice my self-respect. Which one’s a greater sacrifice is for you to decide.

Part Seven: The Reality That Fiction Cannot Conceive

As Mr. Pandey works away on his laptop, I realize the various roles he has been playing; forty year old father, a responsible son and most importantly a book. A book of memories that he has preserved over his quest to remain attached to his homeland.
I wonder only one thing. Can fiction think of such a reality?

After-word

The night Mr. Pandey fled, he was almost shot down by an armed guard. The whole of Srinagar witnessed a curfew for months at a stretch. He could not carry even a pair of clothes to his parents in Jammu. If it were not for an educated army Major he might not even have been able to reach the taxi-stand, some eleven kilometers from his house. All that can be said is that he was destined to survive. He drove overnight to reach Jammu in the morning. His instructions to the driver were simple: “Take me beyond the Tunnel (Jawahar tunnel) please, as soon as possible.” His parents were under the impression that he had come since he felt bored and they did not realize until one day accidentally in the market, his mother was informed by some of his Muslim friends about the whole incident. She fainted.
Today at forty, he is forbidden to go to Kashmir. The insurgency might be dying out, the fears survive.
Ashish Thakur

The Greener Grass

“The monsoon in Kerala evokes no feeling whatsoever in the locals’ hearts. For the people of Kerala the monsoons are as much a part of their lives as the overgrowing, at times even overbearing, greens. The only difference is that the umbrellas which had to deal with the heat of summer get to quench their thirst as the first raindrops pour in…” So went the letter from Ajoy, a really good friend who had relocated to Kerala on a corporate assignment.

That makes me muse. Rajasthan is a land of valor. It is represented not only in the countless fortresses and legends that run through the pages of history, but the mere existence of people there. Take a walk through any village of the state and the ever-smiling, welcoming faces of the people of Rajasthan would not so much as give you a hint of their daily stories. That old woman there yeah, the one with that funny nose piercing, she walks 15 miles, sometimes with no footwear, everyday to gather that priceless one pitcher-full of water. Only so she could feed her family of twelve and half-satiate the thirsty husband who’s toiling through the boorish earth which refuses to respond. Her walk, the husband’s efforts to derive respect out of a dead land, the child’s silent even peaceful wait, everything justifies the proud Turban (Safa) the eldest member of the family adorns on his head. His generation is fighting…true to the spirit of Rajasthan. I wonder why the world is so full of differences. What could possibly bother a land of such amazing greenery? Life comes easy for some people.

“...you know Avish (that’s me) it is amazing to see how much the smiling faces of funny young men and their half raised lungees conceal about their real lives. Every morning the Fishermen would venture out into the open ocean, their families praying not for their lives but for a good catch, that would feed the whole community after all. Death is a part of their lives, an accepted truth which may or may not happen; life is what they are concerned with. Some day when one of the boats would go missing, the families don’t stop they carry on. The boats would again venture out into oblivion…

The urgent brisk walk, that look of perpetual purposefulness, that slight rhythmic nod of the head to show gratitude, everything in return of the hardships they get. They get life easily there in Rajasthan mate…

With Love
Ajoy”

The Disappearing "Lifafa"

He began the evening with "Sason ki zaroorat hai jaise..." And as if that let loose the 90's man in him. Memories came gushing in with every note he changed..."Ai kaash kahin aisa hota...ki do dil hote seene me...", "Tujhe dekha to yeh jaana sanam....", "Dheere dheere pyaar ko badhana hai...had se guzar jaana hai...", and so on. Sitting in a forlorn restaurant of Chandigarh listening to a fantastic voice singing Hindi songs accompanied by the traditional "orchestra" style banding...was a welcome change from the cacophony of a Mumbai Sports Bars. But much more than that they were a reminder of the glorious past the orchestra enjoyed as an inseparable part of Indian marriages. And in fact how well these marriages reflected the changes our society underwent…or the ones it didn’t.

During our early years North Indian marriages, were typically accompanied by an Orchestra playing on stage beside the massive Red Thrones of the bride and the groom. I would scramble up onto the stage dancing along with the other kids on similar songs showcasing my talents to the world (I was 5 ...OK!! Well...maybe 10.) ...it was a tradition then wasn't it..your parents would hi-hello the other parents while whining kids would suck on their thumbs hiding in their mothers' Sarees and us cool kids were up there...in the lime light. The marriages would begin with parents running into people who you had no clue were, people you have never seen before, pulling at your cheek, kissing you on the forehead and noting how you had grown chubbier since the last time they saw you before "Mom" would correct them...."...arey he is Montu my sister's son....". Ashu is dancing up there on the stage!!"

With laughter all around, the procession would then move towards the fast food stalls. Scanning through the stalls like professional wine-tasters sharing notes on the sourness of Pani-puri and chaat and how they were far better at the Khannas' wedding, people would eat enough to last them an year's hibernation. "Montu's" expert eyes would by now have noticed the ice-cream stall and like a master-spy he would have sneaked away without leaving so much as a hint to mausi as to where he was. The food would however soon follow and Dahi-badas, Kaju Katlis were the show-stealers then with people loading themselves up until the next marriage season. Then would come the ubiquitous "Lifafa", an envelope filled with cash, slipping expertly into the groom's hand and then to the kid standing beside the groom and then to the groom's mother (such was the talent of our fathers at this particular act that in New York restaurants, they could earn a living as "Tippers" helping neophytes tip the restaurant staff for getting them seats) . The groom's mother would then record it in annals of their memory (the same aunty who confused Montu to be you)...the exact same amount would be duly returned to you when a marriage in your family occurred and so the chain would go on...the more money you paid on that one day, the closer relative you were deemed to be..."Hmm...500/-...must be a chacha - mama"....Smarter people however knew exactly same amount was going to return to them soon...they had decoded the "Lifafa" far better than miserly wives pushing their husbands to put in 25/- bucks every time.

The marriage reception was (and has been) the playground of our favorite sport. "Who's got bigger". The Fielding Side (or the couple's families) would leave no stone unturned to ensure the incumbent batsmen felt the awe. The location (vast lush gardens or pool-sides of posh hotels), the extensive menu and most of all the number of "Stalls" were definite markers of the strength of the fielding side. The batsmen meanwhile also came well prepared...women sported (apart from their own belongings) their cousin's best Saree and neighbour's gold bangles along with a million other trinkets to add to their batting form. While husbands took out that precious little bottle of perfume (or scent) and spray it sparingly (even lovingly) on their collars and cuffs and bathe their kerchiefs.

But in a few years this would change drastically. The first in the series was the Chow-mean generation. Suddenly the Indainzed dish became the litmus test of a successful marriage. "Chow-mean nahin hain...?", asked the drooling nasty neighbour with menace in her eyes.. " Haanji..chow-mean to nahin hai...par hame to bas bachchi acchi chahiye thi...aur koi demand hamne nahin ki!!" would come the reply of the poor father of the groom...he had been subjected to the worst torture ever....his sone was getting married without chow-mean!

But a poor dish was not able to sustain the rich people trying to make a mark in every marriage possible. Sooraj Barjatiya pounced on the opportunity and came up with a mariage salvagin masterpiece. Suddenly every marriage became more about the groom's shoes rather than the poor guy himself. From being a primarily Hindi-speaking belt phenomenon, shoes-stealing became the national rage. All of a sudden, Punjabis, Sindhis, Marathis...everyone seemed to be running behind an obscure pair of rented shoes! Guys would defend their brother's / friend's / neighbour's / friend's brother's /or practically everyone's shoes hoping someday Madhuri would come along looking for...."ahem...ahem"...shoes.

Sooraj immidetly knew he had hit a jackpot, the new "formula" for bollywood! The last of HAHK hadn't even died that in came in 2000 another of his Torch-bearers in form of Hum Saath Saath Hain. And it was turn for us kids to pass expert comments on snacks while the adults danced around trying to introduce the new family members to the bride!...That beacon has held fort for the Barjatyas for some time now...I am sure he has sensed the need for another one of those show-stealing marriage-enlighteners...and we will have an all new avenues to play "who's got bigger"!

But the truth is the match (the function) here was mere culmination of a series of mind games and off the field tactics. It would all begin with invitations.

The invitation card itself was like the Brahmastra of the whole affair. The kill-all solution. In earlier days cards would fashion a jamboree of Indian Gods as the protagonists with big pictures on the front, back, overleaf, inside, envelope and covering every available inch of the limelight. The second fiddle were all the fathers, mother, grand-fathers, grand-mothers and a couple of Family-guru's thrown in for good measure. Finally cowering in some obscure corner would be the name of the groom and the bride.

But soon things changed here too. Turned out the "special relatives" weren't satisfied with the courtesy phone call and exclusive Barat invite. They wanted in on the card too...after all the family guru was there as well! So came the addendum to the card. The groom and the bride would further reduce in font to make space for two conspicuous lists. One was "Aapke darshan ke mahtvakankshi" (Desirous of having you at the function or something to the effect) list. All the uncles and aunties and brothers and sisters would be fitted in here. And then on the opposite side, for the balacing act came the RSVP list...and for some obscure reason I have even seen the groom's business partners' names adorn this one. Its not as if there was a standard however as to which list belongs to whom...some cards fit in the children into one and adults into others..while some make the division based on men and women...

The Gods soon lost their top spot as loving messages and designing effects took away the remaining space. Now they generally peep from a small portrait on the envelope and guard the couple's names in small ikon avtars! To top it up...a most recent deft touch has occupied the final inch left at the bottom of the page. "Mele mama ki shaadi me jalul jalul aana!" or "Please come to my XYZ's marriage" in child lingo. (Invitaion cards in South Indian villages in fact are even more interesting. I was invited once with a card fashioning two famous south-Indian actors flashing their big hearty smiles from the front....but thats another story.... J )

Then came the innovation generation. Beginning with a folded paper sheet regular rectangle with all things neatly printed, cards came easy to fathom. You open them round the middle and there it was...all the information you need. But then they started dressing up. Initially merely cosmetic changes were added like a string of silk or a lace informing you where exactly the middle of the two-page card was. Then as if to add to the enigma, a couple of butter-papered pages were added. Sizes changed and shapes became weirder. People started sending cards made of cloth, polythene. But for me the real jolt came when, I was summoned by a Maharaja. On returning home from college one day I found a red scroll asking me to “grace the holy union of two souls (souls of two VERY rich people let me assure you)”. I sincerely thought that was it. The rich had achieved the Moksha (or the orgasm) as far as invitation cards were concerned! Little did I know that along the way was the “Power-shift”? It had been only a few weeks after my post-graduation that the rumors of a marital-website of a certain duo from b-school started doing the rounds…and then…there was another…and another, asking you to drop comments, look at photographs…even specifying present requests that the happy couple would appreciate! Really…tech-savvy MBA grads…are the reigning champions of Marital Invitaions.

It's Just Dadar

It's Just Dadar.

A day spent at Dadar Suburban Railway Station and you begin to question yourself..."Just how important getting on to a local train can be??". People start running alongside the train as soon as it enters the station. The adventurers on the foot board swing sideways, with less than half of one foot still on the train, holding the nearest window grill with one hand and the water-conduit on top of the entrances with the other, to allow people getting off and on. Within milliseconds of the train stopping a hoard of people just gush in irrespective of whether the alighters have finished or not...and in that small instance a train that looked way too full for any more people to put even a foot in somehow fits in as many more! (This whole exercise would also be accompanied by a particularly vicious and scary sound as if a million hoofed animals were scrambling for their lives). Incredible.

One really can put some logic to the fact that people really are desperate. To get back home in time in Mumbai where commute kills possibly all the time one could have for oneself, their kids, families...in a city where everyone is scrambling to make ends meet...all this mad rush, it is faintly understandable. But the point is...the madness is not just limited those few hours when everyone is scrambling home. Most any time of the day, irrespective of the fact that trains move fairly frequently and most of them are quite empty so as to accomodate all and many more of the commuters during those off hours...come Dadar and the sound of hoofs is still there and you'd still see the mad rush. People would start running alongside the train and hop on to it as if this was the last train of their lives! People would still rush to cross the railway-tracks to catch that one local lest they become 3 minutes late!

Maybe it's really a matter of habit. Its just the way we are expected to behave, in a given set of circumstances. Talk about Indian bad habits and we HAVE to become defensive. Praise the beauty of a city / country in fornt of us we HAVE to go "Oh but India / my city has better...". Come Dadar...we HAVE to get on, on the train first...even if doesn't really matter.

It's just Dadar.

Walk when you talk...

“No papa!! Don’t turn it on…the plane hasn’t stopped yet”. “Arey it’s alright…the phone needs to be turned off because it disturbs pilots’ communication…now we have landed…now who needs communication!!”, “No papa…they said not until the seat belt sign is turned off…and please don’t get up…the plane hasn’t stopped!!” and so went the conversation when I recently landed in Jaipur, a father trying to convince his 10 year daughter that it was okay to break rules because they knew better than a zillion experts who made them. In another instance at Chennai a suited-booted thirty year old snapped out his phone and chatted away to glory in the middle of the aisle completely ignorant of a hoard of people standing behind him not able to walk outside the plane. When pointed out his response was: “Are you new to India??”

When finally Police officials started acting on people using mobile phones while driving, we started a new trick…to hide the phone below the steering wheel as soon as we spotted one of those Khaki clads and then cheerily carrying on with the conversation, or to fix the telephones inside the helmet and give people driving around us the weird impression that we were speaking to them. “They are watching you”…went the PVR ad…“Let them watch” went we, and while the hero’s mother is dying on the screen a Gujju bhai sitting next to you, invariably is discussing Reliance’s fortunes on the stock market. Hutch should be made our national cell-phone operator…at least dogs aren’t allowed inside theatres or planes!

How is it that the simple logic of a 10 year old could comprehend a simple instruction so easily when a grown buffoon of a father refuses to! Who do we think we are fooling by hiding our cell-phones while driving…do you really think it does not affect your driving? Next time look around and see if someone is driving weird around you…9 out of 10 times it’s someone on a phone (except for Bombay…there it’s just the way they drive). And dude if your turning on the cell-phone was really so crucial as soon as you land your last name would have been Tata and you wouldn’t be flying coach (sorry sorry...the "Cattle Class"), so listen to the girl!!

"Chaliye sahab...aapko aaj chai pilate hain..."

“Bag!! My bag!! Where’s my second bag!!”

The harried looking Amby driver looked in the rear view mirror and asked in a tone which could mark his origins out in a zillion. “Ka hua sahib….ARE KA HUA”!!

I’d arrived on an overnight train in Patna and still half asleep caught a cab to my hotel.

“Mera bag kahan hai??”…”Are yeh kya rakha hai aage…itna bada”, he shot back. “Not this baba!! Woh chhota wala…”, “Hum ko to ek hi bag diye the aap sahib….hum nahin karenge aisa, humko to roj station pe hi rehna hai…”, he said almost pleadingly…the years on his face growing more pronounced. Suddenly he was looking guilty; as if it was his fault somehow, that I had lost my bag.

“Train!! Train me reh gaya hai!! Who agla station hai na…wahan chalo….jahan train jaati hai!!!” My laptop, blackberry and some very important papers had already started making me sweat in spite of the early winter chill of the morning. “Aree kaun sa station…kaun sa gaadi se aayein hai aap?? Reservation to tha na…!!? Dekhiye ghabrayiye nahin…mil jayega”…he said sounding more worried than I was!!

While I had gone completely numb, he made the decision for me and turned back towards the station. His ancestral Amby putting all her heart into the 43 kmph we managed. Danapur express it seemed went two further stations and if I went to CRPF and was in reservation dabba, I’d get my bag…probably, he assured me.

As soon as we entered the driveway, we noticed that the train hadn’t yet left the station, and I jumped out of the moving car, to start running towards the train, only to find the coach in which I was traveling locked when I reached the train. The attendant opened the doors as I rushed in shouting absently “mera bag…bag reh gaya hai mera!!”, “Kahan….kaun sa seat number??” His partner was wrapping up the blankets and broke into that same apologetic tone as the taxi driver. “Yeh sab chor ke kahan jayenge sahib…hamare liye yeh zaroori hai…humne nahin liya aapka bag…”, he said pointing towards the heap of linen and blankets. The same pleading look came to both their faces, as if they were responsible for the whole mishap. Meanwhile I let out a loud cry, because I had located the small red bag lying under one of the berths.

The driver and 5 other people who had found a conversation topic beside the daily news broke into a toothy grin as I walked in carrying the red on my shoulder. “Hum dekha, bhaga ke le ja rahein the wo Kotwali ke saamne se 100 ka speed pe…hum bola ee bhaiyan ko ka hua…dhuriya udaye chale ja rahe hain…”, one of them was saying... “aree woh bag rah gaya than a bhaiya ka”, the hero of the day responded as the knight restarted his Ambassador Classic Isuzu engine.

As I was sitting in the car, I pondered over this. Everyone I met during the past 1 hour seemed have assumed I was going to blame them for losing my bag. They were suddenly defensive, apologetic, even pleading in the manner they tried to assure me that they had no role to play in it. Why?

Bihar enjoys a terrible image amongst us. For an Indian living elsewhere, it is a state of miscreants, Gundas, Lalus and a state of anarchy. Bimaaru rajya. The state that took away the livelihood of all Marathis according to Raj His Highly Moronic-ness Thackrey. The state where Christian missionaries are murdered. The state where caste system is at its worst. The state where trains are looted. The state where you do not want to drive through at night because…hey….its Bihar.

The apology in those people’s eyes…it was the look in the eyes of an abandoned child who is cowering in the corner, scared. A child who has been pushed to the wall, by the bullies: this country which has all but forgotten about it except for in its jokes or for years, has tagged it as a blot on its name. Its own leaders, who robbed the state as its people died of hunger. Somehow, it felt, that those people had come to accept it. That it really was their fault, this image…that they really were the corrupt, thieving, uncivilized lot we make them out to be.

“Chaliye sahib…aapko chai pilate hain mast…sara tension door ho jayega…”, cooed my driver as he guided me to a hidden tea stall where lots of cowering children were laughing out loud enjoying a hot cup of morning tea.

"Rang Rangeela Parjatantar"

To the fancy MBAs,

Dear Sir,

My name is Gajendar Kumar. I own 15 different companies in various parts of the country and don’t do about 15 different businesses. I own Jaipur Textiles, and we are supposed to be exporting traditional handicraft fabrics around the world. The business model is simple. I manufacture something for Rs 10, bill it at Rs. 500. Since the government of India and Rajasthan give an “allowance” of 20% of billing, I get a “push-back” of Rs. 100 on each unit I export. The money I receive from the importers of-course is diverted to make payments for other stuff they have imported, from my other friends here. Since my friends under-bill their goods by as much as 90%, they need to receive the payment somehow. Since Traditional Garments are tax-free I don’t pay taxes of any kinds, and divert the money to these people who would have to pay taxes otherwise. Some years ago I was manufacturing pig-iron furniture because the push-back in those was 100%. Alas, my margins have dried up…and I have to do with a BMW 7 series instead of the Maybach always dreamt of.

But soon I think I will get the opportunity. You see I have started other businesses I’ll not do. For example I have started buying the wheat that the government is importing in the name of trying to prevent inflation. Those fancy Business Worlds say inflation goes up because the government support prices have gone up…pah! Sometimes I wonder if the Economics they studied was based on real world at all! Its I who keep the prices up, see. I bid for huge quantities of stocks from the government agencies. But since the obligation of actually lifting the stock from government storage houses is not really expensive, we never pick up the stocks. Which means government can’t now sell this into open market (Cause technically I won the tender and now own it) and I will not pick it from their storage. The market demand would go up, the supply not so much. Voila!! Inflation and great margins! The penalty for not picking up the stock for months is after all only minimal…I can manage that from my 300% profit. After all our Agriculture Minister, it is rumored, owns multiple sugar mills and several such. I wonder if he is such a stupid businessman to ruin his own profits. Our President's family has a history of Bank Fraud (never proved I am guessing). I am merely an 8th fail farmer who got up at the right moment.

I also am the Sarpanch of Khetarwas, a small village where my fathers were landlords, Meenas. My father was the second generation of IAS officers (oh its easy see...they were from the SC community). My third business is here. The Government gave us rulers our right-full by launching the multi-thousand crores worth National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. My village has 300 citizens, and I am paying the money to 3000!! :D See how simple, and know what these people do…na, they do not construct roads or sewage or schools. We ask them to construct boundary walls around the village and then ask them to break them down. Perpetual work!

Now I may go on…on how I was one of many people who conspired to take the Commonwealth budget from 900 crores to 11000 crores, or how I got bought a land worth 400 crores for just 30 lakhs or how the total amount of tax I have paid, including the government push is negative multi-crores. But what’s the point? Instead I will just tell you what my Australian Media agency says best describes you…
You Dumbass.

Disclaimer: All the situations given above have absolutely no reference to anyone living or dead or any kind of truth, all resemblance is purely coincidental. If they had…wouldn’t we be doing something about it.
More Disclaimer: I am not refering to any caste to be pejorative about it. I think most people within these castes should perhaps do an introspection as to what the reservation system has become. By the way you are all invited to drink water from the same well as I do.

The Big Bazzar Experience

I walked in to a Food Bazzar yesterday and was greatly impressed (not for the first time) by their most recent marketing gimmick, a recreation of a Sabzi-Mandi. The green-clad youngsters were calling out from various make-shift stalls just like hawkers do in a typical Mandi. In the past as well Future Group has displayed great insight into the Indian consumer behaviour by running the "Exchange" scheme where old clothes could be exchanged for store-credit. Later this scheme was stretched to almost every "Kabad" item.

Social Activists have reviled it and even gone on hunger strikes. Enraged masses even broke into some and ransacked the property. Industry experts have crooned in equal measure on both the ultimate opportunity it is made out to be or the horrible mistake it is. Most units in the business are either shutting out or making a loss. But somehow Retail seems to be clawing its way deeper and deeper into the country.

The economy and the viability of the business is obvious. Supply chain efficiency, the option of creating own brands (thus promising a minimum denominator of quality and benefit of price at the same time), the freedom from a having to shop in a disorganized market-place, which are unclean, inconvenient. And of-course traditional retail does not offer the satisfaction of "feeling and thus experiencing the product" that a consumer gets before actually buying it in modern trade. But the Indian market is slightly different and Retail has faced challenges. The number of footfalls, average ticket-size remained lower while losses owing to shrinkage and D&D stock-loss remained high. The traditional Indian markets (particularly fresh-foods) on the other hand had mastered the art of targeting their products beautifully apart from providing a holistic buying experience to their consumer.

Lets look at the back-end first. When fresh vegetables /fruits come to market, they go through a grading exercise at each node. Before the farm releases stocks grading occurs and multiple agents, large scale food-produce manufacturers and government agencies grade stocks and buy out. The remaining stocks are then brought to small-town mega-mandis (Raver in Maharashtra for example is India's largest market for bananas, Baran in Rajasthan boasts of being the food-grains market of reckoning). Here again fresh produce is graded, auctioned and dispatched for the cities. In the city, main mandis host further auctions every morning before dawn and the goods are bought by the wholesalers once again based on the quality and state of goods. Finally the local vendors buy out these stocks, take it door to door or smaller mandis for retail. While this process adds a lot of middle-men and their margins, since the "at-risk" stocks at each of these stages is sold away so as to ensure optimum utilization. While the freshest grades of stocks come to retail, restaurants, local ketchup, pickle and other food industries gulp up the second tier, followed by road-side eateries and so on. This process in fact explores the efficiencies far more effectively than what modern trade might offer, owing to their cost of wastage.

On the front end, local vendors often form a very close relationship with their customers. The entire process of haggling for a rupee or two, which both could let go off easily adds spice to the exercise. I have actually seen a lot of young and old vendors flirt with their customers or update them on the latest gossip. Discussions of what is good and bad with the world and other shared experiences make this a very important exercise. The vendors also find traditional ways of keeping their stocks fresh (or at least make them look fresh), apart from knowing an appropriate time for discounting.

The earlier examples of Big Bazzar's expertise show that they have started reading these signs. There latest gimmick solves a lot of problems. It makes the customers aware of the latest offers, discounts and schemes in an active manner. It also ensures that people at least have an opportunity to immediately spot what they came looking for (sometimes finding home in the maze of a zillion identical boxes and racks is one of the most difficult tasks). This is where posters, placards or banners or other inactive engagement tools leave a lot to be desired. It also ensures that active selling takes place instead of inactive selling, which means there are people actually trying to sell you stuff and would therefore be willing to tell you about the product, interact with you. A lot of us now have faced the anal and unresponsive attitude of people manning some of the stores. Most are simply rude and don't care what the customer is looking for. From an employee point of view, it gives them a lot more to do with their time, rather than inactively waiting for a customer sleepily (and being personally experienced in doing it on a few occasions, raucous selling can be amazing fun). Apart from that, it provides an easy pedestal to create a competitive environment (for examples, in-store branding competitions could be organized where the best branded stalls or the best looking stalls could be rewarded, stalls with maximum number of tickets and maximum ticket-size could be rewarded - which means both "up-selling and customer acquisition" concepts could be explored). Moreover, it will replicate the environment which the consumer is used to and perhaps would feel at home in. All this in the air-conditioned environment and the impeccable order of modern retail.

Perhaps there is one more step which can make this a master-stroke. A thought which will play the role of being a Corporate Social Responsibility, an operations efficiency initiative, an effective selling exercise and a good marketing tactic all at the same time. There are multiple small-time hawkers who are effective sellers but have to operate on very thin earnings because of lack of capital. Also a lot of factors result in there businesses becoming cyclical, margins and income being variable. If organizations like big bazzar were to hire these hawkers instead of the people working as of now, it would mean a regular and promised income for these hawkers. It would also mean that their immensely long working hours (which begin with early morning buying exercise to hawking in the streets and generally stretch well into the night) could be condensed into a regular work schedule.

For the Retailers it brings the expertise of these people to the table. Not only the hawkers are experts at engaging the customer, up-selling products, enriching the buyer experience in many ways, they will also know the traditional methods of making stocks look/ feel good and fresh. Experienced hawkers will help the retailers grade stocks and therefore create better value for money for the customers and better realization for themselves. It will also help reduce losses because experienced hands would spot the stocks that are about to go bad if stored and would therefore effect an early sale. For all we know, the Big Bazzars might be able to bring in that quint-essential element of buying behavior into play: Bargaining. The promise of a minimum quality will hold, but the buyer experience maintained.

Just a thought.

Much Hair-do about Nothing

“Rihana! Rihana!”…called out the gaudily clad and made, desperate-to-look-young Gujju aunty opposite me, and launched into an expert diatribe on how exactly she wanted her hair done. A few murmurs later it was decided that the tails needed to be shorter by a couple of millimeters. She confirmed with an emphatic “yeah…we’ll need that much anyway”. Next to her a young girl in her teens was stealing furtive glances at a hunk sitting next to me, getting his eyebrows done. They had both held their positions since I had arrived, through an hour long waiting period and the inexplicable microscopic chiseling away my “personal service executive” (PSE) , decided to do on my non-existent hair which had already taken another hour (they’d still be there when I leave after a good 2 hour long haircut).

“Sir…we’d need to give it 20 minutes of steam, so it sets in well”, quipped the PSE (wtf??). So I was left there, unable to move my head, with a bowl inverted over my head and hot steam rising through, a position I’d never put my enemies through, all because I had made the horrible mistake of walking into a branded “saloon”, to get a haircut.

It used to be easier, this hair-cut stuff. Every month, on a pre-fixed ritualistic Sunday, Papa would take me to our good old middle-class Nai. His massive metallic chair would get adjusted for our puny heights with a wooden plank kept over the armrests. The holy process would then begin with the mandatory official warning: “Don’t move your head or you’d get your ear chopped off”. Invariably though, since 9 AM used to be the screening time of “He-Man”, our heads would involuntarily home in on the TV. Papa meanwhile would share every single sheet of his newspaper with all other parents waiting for their children. With the efficiency of an assembly line, the baby-cut was churned out and the Nai would move on to his next victim. Not before, however, he’d had an opportunity to whip out his ustara or razor, and wipe out the remaining traces of out of shape hairlines. The sole Old-Spice after-shaves weren’t meant for children as Alum bars would be used to clean up any mess. The blade even didn’t demand changing…these were times before we knew of AIDS.

In my younger days I used to think that Nais were the smartest people around. You could enter a “Nanhe Hair-Artiste” shop and strike a conversation on any given topic in the world and find the Nai equal to it. They were also infamous in the north for being a cunning and wicked caste. And not without merit was this dubious title gained. While they might not have been necessarily wicked, Nais were the best diplomats you could have found anywhere. You’ve got to be if you have to smile at the faces of all kinds of people, bad-mouth every single one of them same people and still be in everybody’s good books! A smart comment about how good your hair look here and there, and a strategically placed “Kyo kya facial karwaya tha na aapne? Kyo Chhotu…chamak nahin rahi hai chhore ki skin aaj?(So…did you get a skin treatment…it seems to be shining)”, and the poor fellow had fallen into the trap of the great schemer.

And then behind your back, your darkest secrets would be chopped down with slurps of a hot tea, with their other “shining skin” clients. They were after-all the male equivalent of dais. The single most important source of gossip and the goings-on in the society. Every time Papa and I went for our Sunday appointments, Papa would find himself amidst a rich (for it was so detailed and seemingly well-informed) conversation on whose business was about to go bankrupt and who was going to be raided next by the income-tax department.

While I found it mildly demeaning in the days of old, it was perhaps the need which had made them seem like the scheming lot. Whatever they were, it was a promise of a fully entertaining 30 minutes at the Nai’s which made you go again and again to that charming little bugger on a chilly - sunny Sunday winter morning. Somehow, a 3 hour long, Rs. 900/- worth hair-cut just doesn’t cut it, no pun intended. The boring plastic smiles of “PSEs” who I am sure must take one look at us and think, “Come in you moron…you must be one…if you think I can make that look any good”. The air-conditioned room full of girlie perfumes of all those hair-styling products just can’t replace the whiff of early morning tea and smell of fresh newspaper. And the 50 year old 20-something Gujju aunty is no replacement for the goofy kid next door, who’d be holding those ancient hair-style charts and picking the good old wedge-cut!

“So sir, how would you like your hair done today? I think I would leave it tailing at the back and look for slopes on the side” chimed my PSE, in spite of having my whole of 3 cm long hair right in front of his eyes.

“Just get it short”, I said.

Hinduism: the monkey religion

Came across this story from a most improbable source, a finance chap. A bunch of scientists decided to put a bunch of monkeys together in a room with a step-ladder in the middle and some bananas on the top of the ladder. Every time a monkey would attempt to go up the ladder, the rest of the monkeys got sprayed with icy cold water. After a while, the moment a monkey attempted to climb the ladder, the rest of the bunch would get together and beat the poor fellow up. And in some time none of the monkeys even dared to attempt the pursuit. The scientists then turned off the sprinklers. A while later, the scientists replaced one of the monkeys with a chimpanzee. The poor fellow being the chimp he was made a bee-line for the fruit, and all of a sudden he was being dragged by the neck and beaten black and blue by the bunch. The poor fellow had no clue why, but after a couple of beatings he got the message. Another monkey got replaced by a chimpanzee and attempted the stunt. The result was the same...the remaining monkeys and even the first chimp got some good muscle training and our friend learned his lesson too. The experiment continued and one by one, a new member would join, get beaten his behinds off and turned, until every member of the initial squad had been replaced. Even then, none of the chimps was allowed a shot at the Banans. They all got used to the "way things are done" and accepted it without question.

And as I was listening to the story, images of Khap Panchayat Sarpanchs and pandits outside various Hindu temples swam before my eyes. People blindly performing random rituals, not even able to hear the rattling blabber of the priest, let alone make head and tail of it, or an old buffoon of a sarpanch passing diktats to mulish folks who have no idea why they had to listen to old farts who had absolutely no stake in the young lives they simply decided shouldn't begin. I have had the bad fortune of living amongst some of the worst exclusive societies in some of the most traditional (read backward) parts of the country (MP and Rajasthan of course). And it was amazing how some very well educated people were so over-ridden by the "traditional values" of their community (read caste) / religion and simply refused to question them. Well..monkey see...monkey do.

It was in some wild way perhaps acceptable if people followed their own set of values...after all it is within their rights to want to question a system or not....but the Khap Panchayats are a great example of how those flawed ideals have come to be demanded of others. Ok...so monkey see...monkey do...and monkey make the chimp do too!

Even more incredible is how we seem to have assumed that these values are indeed a matter of pride. And as if that wasn't enough...we completely ignore the incredible sorry state our religions and castes have led us down to and even claim that other societies are worse off for not being as stupid as we are. The best paraphrasing of this I remember was watching Swades and the specific sequence where a similar panchayat boastfully declared that Amercia didn't have Sanskars and we did. So we went one more step...we prided ourselves in our blind ridiculousness and claimed superiority over peoples who have done far better on almost all indexes than us. In fact....while the world is attempting to become inclusive....our Marathi brigade would have us throw out all Biharis. No one questions why only Biharis...how about throwing out Gujjus, Marwaris and Parsis...? They are outsiders too, but the very backbone of Mumbai's riches! No one would question the hypocrisy!

Congratulations. We have surpassed monkeys too!

I Hate Flying

I hate flying. The rush to reach airports through messy traffic, the queues waiting for check-in and then security check and then boarding the coach and the airplane and then to de-board the plane. All this while glaring at insolent fools jumping queues or reclining straight into your knee or loudly socializing on an ungodly early flight, comprehensively crushing the feeble hope of catching a wink or two before a grueling day. In some insane way you end up associating flying with the worst side of us. For, what passes off as illiteracy or lack of social skills on a train or a bus cannot quite hide behind those cloaks in the playgrounds of the rich. And that final hope, the omnipotent Ambrosia: Education also seems to fail against our…well humanness.

But all those losses I could have accepted, what so saddens me is how easily this rude side robbed me of all the charm and memories and hope which that first flight and many subsequent ones stood for! My first to the airport was as an impressionable 5-year-old, who went to see-off a rich NRI cousin. Looking at that aircraft take flight, nose pressed against the glass windows on the first floor of Ahmedabad airport, the young kid was over-awed by everything flying represented. The huge aircraft met every expectation of an infant imagination and then some more. The airport was a departure from the untidiness of railway stations, the language a sign of refinement and most importantly the wealth, all of which which left a yearning to be a part of that elite group. That simple visit to the Ahmedabad airport set off a long string of firsts which would come to represent emotional and important moments which I so cherished and then somehow forgot.

If there is one thing I have inherited from my parents, it’s their audacity. Ever an independent man, my father didn’t see eye-to-eye with his brothers and one fine day he had had enough. He collected his all of 17 days old son, a devoted wife and nothing else to his longest and most amazing adventure. For a wanderer far greater than I can hope to be (he measured every nook and corner of this country over and over) flying should have been merely an extension of his success. But the wonder in his eyes and the pride when he first bought a plane ticket for the three of us told a different story. For this was a testimony to the maverick, the adventurer, who had simply staked it all on his self-belief and found a willing and able (and many a times better) partner in my mother. And as if to extend a cosmic justice, we flew from the same airport at Ahmedabad.

The next time we flew, my doll of a sister, had joined us and that became her first flight. The previous flight, as much as it was a statement, was also a necessity. Jaipur had been burning because of communal riots and all road & train services had been suspended, rendering flying the only option or waiting for tensions to subside. Her first flight however was a choice, a reassurance of sorts. And the culprit was again that same Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Airport in Ahmedabad.

Many other firsts would follow: A flight to Hyderabad to appear for Google’s interviews, where I was one of the only 2 people out of a staggering 5000 who appeared for the long drawn process to have made it to the HQ of the internet giant. The first corporate flight in summers which felt like a silent whisper in my own mind: “You are someone”. The first flight abroad, which befittingly was me, flying alone and perhaps free.

Looking out of the window on a clear night, as I looked at the Bombay sparkle disappear beneath me, suddenly all those memories came rushing back in. For the darkness of the Arabian Sea somehow seems to engulf all the glitter of Mumbai into a sudden full-stop. As if a power beyond ours has drawn a neat little limit, reminding us of its totality. “This is it…play all you can but remember you are only human”. And just when you begin to accept this pivotal truth you notice jetties extending into the seas, awash with light, fighting the finality of darkness. Sparkling with the joy of everything that defines 'human' and more than anything else…that one thing which is our most incredible ability: Audacity.

I started off from Mumbai airport about an hour back, having waited for a few hours for a long delayed flight, crabby and worn-out. Perhaps the next time I am frustrated, I’d remember the worth of that next flight, which could turn out to be another glorious first and accept the existence of that greater hand at play and yet know that to make the best of that hand…I’ve to be human.

Child in Us

On a train yesterday, a small child, wearing the make-up of “Hanuman”, accompanied his father with a “manjeera” (a percussion instrument). The father walked through the passage singing his music and the child trailed behind him asking people for alms. His manjeera was filled with coins but no notes yet. One of the gentlemen took out a 10 rupee note and put it inside. Without being prompted, the child began counting coins from his manjeera and tried to hand over a significant part of the 10 rupees back as change. The innocence of that gesture and his expression brought a smile to all our faces. When the old man, refused to accept his change, the child automatically gestured towards all of us with a questioning look in his eyes, as if to say, “So this is from all of you?” The old man nodded, and with a disarming honesty, the child walked away without asking anyone else for money. The child’s understanding of honor, was far superior to many people I know. I wondered if I had as much honor left...as the child in us.

The incident was so rankling, it triggered a series of memories...of children...and the pure simplicity of their approach to life. In another place, many years ago, I was helping a class 5 child (quite a brilliant class 5 child at that), prepare for his examinations. In the course of things, he asked me the meaning of the word Agoraphobia. I could see the cheeky sparkle in his eyes. The question was his response to my pedantic style, a result of my assumed superiority. When I couldn’t answer, he went on to explain it meant “fear of open spaces”.  The importance of that incident had yet to dawn on me, when I appeared for the XAT, a very competitive examination for MBA entrance, a week later. Staring back at me from one of the pages was that same word…”Agoraphobia”. Thanks to that little child’s cheek, I had an unfair advantage in an examination where one mark means life and death. The child’s knowledge was better than mine. Who knows what else I might have learned, had I respected the child in us?

A nephew of one of my umpteen crushes found himself and his family entering a temple in the Himalayas. The temple belonged to a small religious community, which forbids people from anyone outside the community to enter the temple. The child asked his mother, “Why are those people standing outside”. The mother explained, “Because they are not the same as us, God does not want them to come inside the temple”. The child’s response was pretty simple, “When I go and meet God, I’ll strike against him with my friends. How can he not let some people not enter his temple?” I remember listening to the story...and wondering, how different our societies could have been, had we listened to the child in us?

I was watching my sister in law, feeding my nephew. The young fellow had only just learned to crawl and was giving her a horrid time. And to add insult to injury, he did it all with a delighted giggle. Every time, she reached his open mouth with a spoon, he would close it shut and refuse to open it. The moment she gave up, he would crawl to a distant corner of the room, pick something up off of the ground and play with it, until eventually, he’d put it in his mouth. My sister-in-law would then run and wrestle his mouth open to deny him his prize. In exasperation, she screamed “Kya bevakoof hai, jo cheez mooh me daalni chahiye tab to mooh band kar leta hai, aur jo cheez nahin daalni chahiye, use kha jaata hai!! (What he should eat, he shuts his mouth to and then he’ll start putting all kinds of dirt in his mouth!)” I'd understand flight the significance of this moment years later when I struck up a conversation with child psychologist, years later, on a random flight. Turns out, the nature has taught the child to resist anything happening to him by force as a part of his survival kit. Which is why, when we try and force food into a child’s mouth, even if he is hungry there is a chance he’d resist it. It’s just his way of staying safe. On the other hand, his mechanism of perceiving his surroundings is the exact opposite. A child, when he notices an object of curiosity, uses all his sense to comprehend that object. So he would touch it, play with it, smell it, see it and finally…put it in his mouth to taste it. Here too, the nature has given the child his defenses. He would not for example try a shiny or bright colored object as easily as the opposite.

So it wasn't really the child who was being ignorant or foolish when he resisted force-fed food or tried eating everything that came his way. The child was merely telling his mother all along, what he thought was fun doing. The conventions of bringing up a child meant that mother simply failed to use her instincts and read him. The child’s instincts were far stronger than the grown up mother. Haven't we all been conditioned to think in a pipeline...quite unlike the child in us?

Maybe next time I'd have the brains to slow down...and listen to the child in us.

Opening the Life-lane.

While the report of Chennai police making elaborate arrangements to ensure a donated heart reached intended recipient in quick time was very heartening, the amount of enthusiasm this report was received on the social networking platforms is more a reflection of the sorry state of emergency services in our major cities. Particularly in rush hour traffic in our major cities and highway jams which tend to last for hours the ability of an ambulance to reach hospitals in time would mean the difference between life and death.

Unfortunately, it is not a very uncommon sight, ambulances stuck in rush-hour Mumbai or Delhi traffic. And while I've encountered ignorance and apathy in equal measure by fellow drivers (which I find profoundly disheartening), part of the reason is, in the chaos and noise of our cities we are not very sensitized to the sounds and signs of medical emergencies and neither are we trained to be particularly cognizant of our driving surroundings if and when we do "learn" driving. Which in turn affects the acuity and quality of our response to an ambulance (or any emergency vehicle) behind us. To make matters worse, while advanced countries lay enormous emphasis on Uniform Traffic Control Devices to achieve synchronization, traffic system in India can range right from Stone Age (manually controlled traffic signals in Kolkata) to modern (Lutyen's Delhi). In a country where 290 people die and over 1200 are injured every day in road accidents alone (source: ICMR), a permanent and more lasting solution is desperately needed.

Many solution models exist around the world which range from creation of basic traffic infrastructure to creation of elaborate systems to ease the flow of emergency vehicles. Basic infrastructure seems like the stepping stone to achieving a creditable emergency response system. Kuala Lumpur is one of the cities which has a dedicated emergency lane in blue on major roads where driving discipline is admirably followed even during rush hour traffic. But in a country where basic traffic rules are flouted both out of ignorance and arrogance as an unsettling routine, that kind of sensitization / education and even basic respect for life would take years to achieve.

Additionally the ratio of Emergency response team personnel managing smooth traffic per incident, can never be anywhere close to what the advanced countries manage, because of the sheer weight of the population. Therefore basic tasks like managing Advance Warning Areas to clear traffic (sort of like what happens when a VIP passes in state capitals) are not even attempted. Which means adding manpower (while being necessary and perhaps a more profitable use of mandatory "government job vacancies" ) would not resolve it alone. It is thus that one wonders if the answer lies in rapidly evolving technology around traffic both directed at emergency service or aiding personal transportation.

The basic steps towards a resolution are clear. Uniformity in Traffic Control Devices. Creation of a team whose specific job it is to manage emergency traffic. And basic capability to coordinate with regular traffic management. Traffic Signal Preemption is one such system which allows the normal operation of traffic lights to be preempted such that they can be manipulated to assist rapid travel for the route carrying an emergency vehicle. This is achieved by stopping conflicting traffic (traffic perpendicular to / merging) with emergency vehicle and allowing the emergency vehicle right of way. Additionally, UK had evaluated transponders in all emergency vehicles which would give them the ability to change traffic lights from a distance, via sensors fitted n traffic lights. While this solves the problem for smooth flow through conflicting traffic, it does not quite solve the problem of competing traffic (traffic in the same direction as the emergency vehicle) which remains the core problem. It is here that we need an innovative solution to be layered on to a TSP equivalent.

It is after these simpler aspects are achieved that the complexities arise.

1. Is there even a set of do's and don't people "know": Creation of Life-Lane protocol to allow emergency vehicles to pass.

2. How do we let people imbibe these: Training and education of drivers on the protocol. 

3. Implementation of the protocol itself

4. Implementation: Information  Flow - In the maddening chaos that Indian traffic is, how do we make drivers aware of an emergency vehicle behind them.

5. Implementation: Once aware, is there even space for them to actually cede way? If not what is an alternative?
6. Ambulance Management.

among others..

The moment you begin to identify problems, multiple ideas pop up right away in your mind which could easily handle each of these. For example RTO Jaipur launched a brilliant campaign where errant drivers had a court mandated 2 hour "Driving Basics" session to attend before they could get their licence back. This could be made slightly stricter by suspending the licence of the driver pending an "Emergency Driving Protocol" session instead of fines. This would be followed by a 2 day session at driving schools to understand how to follow it on the road. The fine would instead becoming fee for the driving school. And if the driver errs next time, the driving school is fined along with the driver. Also designating the first lane or first lane on the opposite side of the road and color coding it could let people know which lane to vacate for an emergency vehicle. The opposite lane would also provide for smoother passage given traffic flow seems to be unidirectional. The color code created for this could be added to traffic signals as an additional Distress Light. If the light is turned on, both the traffic and the traffic personnel are warned of an impending emergency vehicle. An advance warning area therefore begins to be vacated. While the ambulance receives the distress call, basis location of the patient, they key in a probable return path via GPS. Which in turn helps turn on Distress Lights.

The solution obviously sounds way more simplistic and does not account for a million complexities. But the purpose here is not to solve the problem. The purpose here is to, at a bare minimum, get an argument going. And perhaps build a semblance of sensitivity.

And maybe...we could be opening the Life-lane for someone.

Life. It sucks. You're gonna love it.

It is a horrible life that of a sales-person in one of the world's largest healthcare companies operating in the worst of economies . It is a particularly pure form of heinousness, trying to convince people that they NEED your criminally overpriced product, knowing full well that the poor guys would do about anything out of the fear of dying. And as if that is not enough, you end up in the field, working with your sales rep. Sales rep, whose behind you have been riding for "targets", whose job and livelihood you are after, convinced that he's just not making enough effort. And then you land up at the doorstep of a small home, in the backstreets of Villupuram (Tamil Nadu), which pretends to be a doctor's clinic. You end up staring at the helplessness of parents worried sick that their children just won't recover or of the son who has to attend to his unwell mother AND have 12 hour work days so he can pay the doctors fortnightly fee of Rs.50. You look back at the questioning eyes of your sales rep and read the scorn. That. That is the baptism by fire an MBA needs to finally break his soul. When you for the first time survive the collision of board-room talk of "potential" and "under-penetrated market" and the earnest helplessness of a patient's eyes reflecting the reality of that "potential". It is a horrible life. In many ways it was worse then selling cigarettes.

But there was a last leaf in those nightmare of days. Those days fulfilled the insatiable traveler in me beyond any expectations. It landed me in places I would have never imagined visiting. One day I would land in Doctor-Mandi of Muzzafarpur in Bihar and be amazed by how this country adopts to its needs and lack of resources. Next day I'd be in Nagapattinum, a town that was devastated during the Tsunami killing 50,000 or more. And I got to stare at that fateful shoreline and go for a slow and silent walk as I imagined that fateful day. A chance to imagine how slowly the fear would have begun to creep in replacing the nonchalance of people on that beach. The panic, mad rush to non existent safety. Or did they feel anything at all? Did they even get the time to feel anything at all? And I became witness to the spirit of life, greeted by a bustling small town which had put its past behind. Nothing in Nagapattinum reminds you of the day, apart from the two new constructions, one is a brand new SOS children's village that is coming up close the beach and the second a colony set up for the relocation of people who were displaced in the Tsunami. Awesome.

Then there were people. There were people I met in Kuala Lumpur...a Malaysian born ethnic Chinese woman who was a follower of Sathya Sai Baba, never having met him. Or the Gujarat born professional who didn't know who Sathya Sai Baba was. Tan and his family who would converge, all 4 generations of them, on a small pub near Bukit Bintang, every weekend. And drink and make merry while Blind Louie played "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie..." And there were people back here....when I sat with a Sadhu, blissfully unaware of the world or time, in the confines of the Brihadeswara temple. Or when a completely unknown family in the hinterland welcomed me and fed me.

And finally there were the experiences. Staring at an 8 foot long wild shark, 40 feet under water, in her own territory....and understanding for the first time what being helpless really meant. Hearing the unbelievable roar of formula one cars blazing through the Sepang circuit. Falling from the sky in Genting. Sleeping in the shadow of Anak Karkatoa. Playing cricket with village kids in Red Bengal. There were the beers at Deutsche Bierhaus. Or Roti Chennai in Brickfields. Lemon rice in Chennai. And Nasi Lemak in Mallacca.

As the years pass on, once you start working...the reality of life that hit you very hard in the first few days from college becomes surprisingly bearable. You find your absolute idealism give way to realism. Is that a good enough argument to justify what you do from there and beyond? I don't know. Does the money and the fringe benefits of working compensate for your absolute love for who you used to be? I do not have the answer to that either. I did learn two things though. First. There is evil and there is not. No middle path. Any shades of grey are just concoctions of our minds which help us deal with things. And second. Perhaps the only thing that can help you remember and preserve a tiny bit of who you really are / were....is to travel. Not to the fancy resorts or exotic cities but the backstreets. To places which do not find honorable mentions on the world's tourist maps. Random turns on the road. For it is with travel and travel alone you get to retain your feet on the ground. See, meet and feel for real people. Their joys and struggles. And wonder in absolute awe, how truly amazing a life well lived is.

And therein comes the submission. My work pays for my travel. That's all the justification I need. How ironic though...that you have to sell your soul to find some.