Vellichor

The rain had stopped but big grey clouds hung low in the sky. Why do I find grey skies so endearing when it is almost always considered symbolic of gloom? Maybe because it represents the reality of human life. Neither black nor white. Neither here nor there.

Uncertain. Unforeseeable. Unpredictable.

I looked at my wet umbrella as it dripped and made puddles around my left foot. It’d rain again soon and I’d need to hide under it. But for now it was an inconvenience. I walked past shops not even noticing the people buzzing in and out.

Ezra Pound was speaking in my head,

“The apparitions of these faces in the crowd. Like petals on a wet black bough.”

Stop it. Stop this murmuring about the transience of human life.

Ezra, I’m too young to think about it.

I walked hurriedly. I had to get to the used books shop. Why do I feel like I’m going to adopt abandoned children when I go there?

Dog-eared, uncared for and strewn across the floor, I’d meet them.

Aren’t they saving from me from whatever I need saving from?

There’s an element of certainty between their pages. That each page I turn will bring me to another and when I finish, I’ll have a story with a beginning, middle and an end.

Certain. Foreseeable. Predictable.

I picked up three of them and carefully wrapped them up in plastic bags.

I needed my inconvenient friend. It had started raining.

Should I follow the Crowd??

It takes a lot of courage to study arts in today’s world. When everyone is grappling for a B.Tech or MBBS seat it is very difficult to opt for an arts subject. I don’t exactly know the reason for it. Being a student of English language and literature I have often had to face contemptuous looks from both my parents and relatives alike. It felt as I was doing a crime by learning about the great Shakespeare and Milton. When education is being commercialized, every individual aims at securing a high paying job. Lack of ethics is a major drawback of such education. I am not claiming that all arts students are ethical but education isn’t always a means to fancy cars and luxurious bungalows. I remember the look on my aunt’s face when I told her about my plans of taking up literature. It was indescribable. It was something of a cross between a smirk and a contemptuous shock. She did not ask any further questions about my education. My choice of arts had sealed and declared me as a definite loser. There have been times when I regretted my decision of taking arts because of everyone trying to convince me about a dark future with me flipping burgers in some filthy kitchen. The words of T.S. Eliot would often ring in my ears,”…..with the voices singing in our ears saying that this was all folly.” Was it a folly after all? But after a year or so into my course I realized that my subject was not all that easy. It wasn’t a cakewalk like how my relatives had described it. Amidst the piles of books I started seeing a future brighter than a filthy kitchen. A thousand opportunities lay open before me: law, journalism, marketing, politics, teaching, advertising, civil services and the list goes on. The fact that 74% of all Indian prime ministers were liberal arts graduates ignited a spark of hope in my otherwise depressed heart. I slowly learned to discard the looks of everyone around me. Studying arts is like playing the different levels of Candy Crush. It looks easy, interesting and colorful, but no matter what you will never get a good score. Your victory lies in the way the candies are arranged just like how the mood of your evaluator determines the quality of your essay on Macbeth. There are no facts, no truths but only beliefs and opinions and views. That is the part that makes arts much tougher than science. I wouldn’t like to begin a clichéd debate on Arts vs. Science because I believe that every subject is important in its own way. We need to be more inclusive in our options and views about others. Being a doctor or engineer doesn’t always guarantee you success. That is a misconception created by a money-crazed society. It is a misconception that should be hastily brought to a declining influence. Those who follow the crowd, usually get lost in it.

How one book made me feel guilty!!

I recently finished reading Behind The Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo. The book deals with the lives of a group of people living in the makeshift slums of Mumbai, the sparkling city of Bollywood. The one reason why the book touched me so much was that it was of the non-fiction genre. Every single word, character and event is true!!! The Annawadians(Annawadi is the name of the slum) live in such deplorable conditions that the very mention of the situation can nauseate a normal human being. If mosquitoes are a nuisance to the middle class man of India, rats are the nocturnal partners of the slum dwellers. Rat bites are considered as normal as an ant bite. The facade of an all-is-well society is torn away in this brilliant book by a foreigner. Boys who collect garbage for a living, humans who take bath in a sewage lake buzzing with flies and toxic chemicals are common sights. The children have no access to education. The slum exists in between the five star hotels and spas looking like relics from the past. Mirchi, a character in the book, correctly puts it this way, ‘Everything around is roses and we are the shit in between.’ After reading the book I took some time to take it all in. Where was I when compared to the slum children?? I had got quality education, had access to internet, television and almost anything I wanted. But what about these humans?? The usual pictures followed. The ones that occupy your mind after reading a book on the lower sections of the society. Every time I turned on my laptop, a feeling of guilt gnawed at my heart. Am I too not playing a part in making them poor?? Was there equal distribution of money? Is it wrong to use modern amenities when a majority of the population was denied access to it?? One of my literature professors always repeated a statement when teaching Dalit literature and African-American Literature ( all those works which portrayed the sufferings of the poor): I am poor because you are rich. I am uncomfortable and suffering because you are comfortable and enjoying. So are we the fortunate ones to blame or is it the government, legal system or the society to blame??

Leave us alone (from an arts student)

Yes we accept,
Our books are measly and thin.
They sometimes look frightened,
Sitting beside your mammoth sized books.
“What do you learn?”
“Are you not a good student?”
These questions are thrown like bricks,
At our faces every time we step out.
Sometimes baffled, sometimes confused,
We listen quietly while our inner strength disappears slowly,
To all your questions with a heavy heart.
We say we learn about life and its ways,
You scorn and ask, “Don’t we live?”
“Why should you spend your golden years for that?”
You say our reasons are not good enough,
You say we are sinners for we love to sloth.
For there are no complicated equations,
Or names that don’t fit in mouths,
In arts.
But we learn the history of mankind,
From where all the sciences began.
We learn the languages,
Without which no man can express his thoughts.
What about the books that you read?
Books that took you on a joy ride to a fantasy land.

So please don’t scorn or mock,

For we too are worth something, if not everything.

So just one request, fellow beings,

Leave us ALONE.

What is the purpose of technology?

It is not easy to find a mobile without apps. The so-called programs which claim they make our lives easier. But is it entirely true? Sometimes an app can be a pain in the neck. I am not actually a very techie person but I get along well with mobiles and laptops. Nowadays there are so many apps that you literally drown in a deep pool of confusion while using these. A small malfunctioning can lead to great problems. The voice recognition feature is present in most mobiles, but I have never found it useful. I need to scream out the word ‘Bluetooth’ a billion times and then the much dreaded message appears on my mobile screen: ‘Not recognized. Please try again.’ The voice recognition feature was present in mobile phones long ago. Some of the new features actually makes me want to laugh. They include, blow on the mobile screen to answer a call, stop blinking your eyes to pause a video etc etc. But does all of this actually make our life easier or does it make it more difficult? It was a moment of celebration and extreme happiness when my uncle bought a smart phone. He was completely ignorant about the modern stuff and I wondered how he was going to operate this extremely complicated and delicate phone. He couldn’t read English. He was long-sighted but refused to wear reading glasses because he thought that it was an unwanted luxury. What more is needed to make the life of that poor smart phone more miserable? I looked at the sleek body and shining screen of the phone. Oh! Poor thing?!! My uncle entered the room and took the smart phone in his hands. I was surprised to notice that he knew how to turn on the device and make calls. It was the eighth wonder. Then he went on to write a message. As I had mentioned earlier, he didn’t know English and he decided to type out the message in his native language but using English alphabets. The phone had auto correction and it corrected all the words he was typing out. In the end the message read as follows:

‘Nanny original poor kite.’

My uncle was frustrated. He was a short-tempered man and couldn’t make head or tail of how to use it. He had actually meant in his native language: I am going to sleep. The vast difference between what he meant and what appeared on screen blinded him with anger and a bit of despair. He had spend his hard earned money to buy a phone that wouldn’t succumb to his needs. He was too clumsy to use the touch screen. At times he would swipe the screens and then forget on which screen the dial pad is. He couldn’t call anyone because the call went to unknown people as he didn’t know how to use the contact list. In the process of scrolling he would accidentally press some contact number and the call would go to that person. Within two weeks he stopped using the phone. He went back to his old mobile phone which was more convenient and was much more easy to use. This story of my uncle may look hilarious to some and some may say that it was because he was not educated that he was not able to use it. But I have one question in mind. The purpose of technology is to make the lives of people easy and less stressful irrespective of education, gender or any other factor. But the modern technology of today goes against that in some ways, especially when it comes to electronic gadgets like mobile phones and laptops. Some of the procedures are so complicated that we literally give up hope and become slaves of these gadgets, hoping everything will change for the good. But as technology progresses, it somehow pushes away the less fortunate and makes itself available to the rich and fortunate people. Does technology have to be complicated to make it more useful? Is it the duty of technology to make itself more comprehensible to the less fortunate or is it the duty of the people to learn the complexities put forward by technology?  Now, I leave that to my readers.

 

End of living-Beginning of survival

The first day. The very first. I was suffering from severe home sickness. So severe that I was breathless. Mobile wasn’t allowed but I wanted to call my mother like hell. There was a coin box type phone in the office room of the hostel. I ran down to it. But the sight bought tears to my eyes. There was a queue leading to Dubai. The queue was that long but I was not ready to give up. I went to the warden and acted out really well. I had all the possible pains you could think of. Head ache, loose motion, nausea, stomach pain, breathlessness. But then it was then I realized that some people were born without a heart. The warden was ruthless.

” All the students standing in that queue have all your problems, but they are also standing there without complaining.”

And with that she resumed reading the Bible. I wondered what she learned or absorbed from that great book. I was defeated. So I had to wait. I stood there for almost an hour. After an hour, there were almost forty children left out. The warden closed the booth. You could use the phone for only 1 hour. I returned to my room feeling dejected and defeated. There was no escaping this jail and I was not ready to accept it. All the memories from my childhood and my school came rushing back to my mind. At 7:30 pm there was the call for dinner. I went to the mess with the other room mates. There was rice and some other dish which required Albert Einstein to name it.

“How do we eat this?”

“Well let us try it out.”

We took a portion and walked to the tables. We had to be experts in hurdles to get a seat. We had to jump over the benches with the plates in our hands. We started eating. I felt as if I was chewing a piece of cardboard. The unidentifiable nameless dish would be a tough MCQ question for the greatest chef alive on planet earth. Veg or Non-veg? We had no idea. The only option left out for many of us was to dump it. We returned to our rooms with half-empty stomachs or should I say fully empty?

“How are we going to survive with this type of food? Why can’t they at least boil the rice properly?”

“Well, Wini, you should have known how it is in hostels.”

I had no answer for that. I went to bed with disturbing thoughts. Within 1 day I had learned to watch movies in my dreams and listen to songs in my mind. I had no other option. The next day there was the wake bell in the morning at 4:30 am. We had to go to church early in the morning but I was too tired to get up. But I had to. I had to get up. As I said before, hostel life did not provide me with many options. In fact I should say that there was no such thing as options. I realized how within one day, one experience could change a person completely. One day in that hostel, I painfully realized, that for me, it was the end of living and the beginning of survival…………

The Safe

 

I have been here for more than 50 years. I still stay but I wonder if people need me anymore. In my glorious years, I used to carry dreams and fortunes of many in my belly. Not much has changed through all these years. People are the same and so is their thinking. The so-called moving machines have tried to safe guard certain pieces of paper and stones reshaped into different objects by keeping them inside me. I have always done my duty by keeping it safe. That is what they expect me to do. When I was new, I resided in a place called locker inside a bank. I have seen many things there during my duty of 50 years. I have seen women inspecting my insides and discovering their very precious reshaped stones which were mostly yellow in colour. I have seen tense men inspecting my insides for pieces of paper and other chits of paper. I never have understood what these humans actually want. Do they want happiness? Will they get happiness from stones and paper? I have wondered this for the last fifty years of my life.

I used to see different faces everyday. Sometimes youngsters and sometimes elders. Some used to starve me fast and some used to keep me full. But one day or the other all the things inside me would be replaced by new things and new people would start to visit me, but the routine used to remain the same. It was keeping, checking and then taking back and never returning. I, like the humans, used to think that I would stay here forever. But now I’ve realized. When my outsides turned brown and when water seeped into my insides they threw me out of my home where I had stayed for more than 50 years. So now, here I lay, along with all the other debris. I have realized that nothing can be kept safe from everyone for a long time. Everything is distributed. Nothing is secure or safe, not even me, not even ‘the safe’.

Past

The past looked at me with round, glistening eyes as if it had tears in them. She was my memory. She was my gateway to whatever I have ever known in my life. She appears in front of me every time I listen to my old time favorite songs, or see my kindergarten report cards with shining stars and funny faces and bunnies holding balloons. Once I tried to get hold of her, but she dissolved in my hands like the wind. Sometimes I didn’t even want to know her but she would drift into my room unknowingly and sit in front of me as a silent spectator.

Once she showed me the silent corridors of my school. She showed me and my friends walking down that corridor laughing. She was not bothered about how I felt about all this. She was an invisible companion. She sometime showed me my despicable side and sometime the kindness in me. She showed how foolish I was sometimes and how brilliant I was at other times.  As years and days passed by, I turned to her every time seeking answers for questions that no one else could answer except her. She was sometimes like Google to me, the greatest master we turn to for every single question and answer in our life. She was sometimes harsh and sometimes kind.

She never spoke a word to me. She just enters my mind and I can see everything, from the time I was in kindergarten crying for my mommy till I was all dressed up for my farewell ceremony. Everything.  Just everything. She was immortal and there was no escaping her. She was everywhere for me and suddenly it seemed as though I could not live without her. Her presence became necessary for me, like oxygen in the air. She led me; she showed me my mistakes, my rash behavior to some people in my life. She never advised me on anything; it was my job to figure out what was right and what was wrong. I could never believe that she was just a mirage of life. She was invisible to others, but she stayed by my side always.

At last I made friends with her, I made friends with my past…..

Who are we?

It’s that time of the year when the results are announced for the board exams. It is the exam conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education, India for all 12 standard students. It is the exam which determines the future of students in India. When the results are published, there is a lot of celebration by the media for students who scored above 90% in the examinations. The news is all about the success stories, time tables and hobbies of the successful students. But like how there are two sides to a coin; there is another set of students who were not so successful in the examination. There is a weaker half who didn’t fare so well in the exams. These are students who are considered as a waste of space. That is the attitude towards these children. Some may have extra ordinary talents, but getting low marks and being bad at academics is always the end of the story for most Indian students. Everyone cannot be Albert Einstein. So what happens to these not-so-smart students? Where do they end up?

They are forced to take up a course which is not of their interest and that will remain as a chip on their shoulder forever. They are either insulted in front of relatives by their own parents or are isolated from the society. Students who don’t top the examinations are considered as non bio-degradable, non recyclable waste in India. They are an unsolvable problem with no possible solution. I have always wondered if you can assess a human being by counting their marks. Maybe that is the way in the materialistic way of today. Many commit suicide out of frustration and depression. They lose their identity.

They ask themselves, ‘Who are we?’ 

Journey In Hell

It was the normal journey to my cousin’s house. But it wasn’t in a BMW or Cadillac. It was in a private bus in Kerala. From my previous experiences I knew that my journey wasn’t going to be easy. It was a battle, a battle to be won. And it was a battle I had to win. Accompanied by my mom, I stepped out of my house praying everything would go well.

I was brought up in a foreign country and wasn’t well versed with the norms of life in my native place. I wasn’t sure footed in the bus and was wary about the glances of the public on the road. I and my mom waited in a bus stand for a bus that would take us to the desired destination.

“We will get into that one.”

“Is that even a bus? That is a moving human jungle!”

“It’s not time for one of your jokes. Get into it.”

Before I could even ask anything, I was hauled into that so called ‘moving hell’. The conductor was a fat man whose belly needed another bus for accommodation. I couldn’t see anything except for people. There was no place for even the smallest fruit fly. I was pushed into a crowd of sweating people. I held on for dear life. At each stop the conductor hauled in more people than a Boeing 777 could hold. I wondered if there was any law for overcrowded buses.

“Move backward. There is lot of place at the back. You girl, move.”

I looked back. There was not even place to insert a needle. I wanted to tell this to the conductor but before that he took in two more people. I was breathless. No option. This is life if you are born in the second most populous country in the world. At the next stop, some people got down. I could now see light. But with each brake and halt I shook violently stamping people on their feet.

“Ouch!! Watch it girl.”

“Sorry!”

We were approaching an important stand. The driver gave a sudden brake and with that all hell broke loose:

“Oh no, oh no, we are going!!!”

“Hoooold on to that, no to this!!”

“Oh my God!!”

“AAAAAAAAAAAhhh!!!”

If you thought these were the dialogues of soldiers from the Trojan war, sorry, you thought wrong. These were normal things in a bus ride. These words came out of people as a part of a natural phenomenon. Fear. I looked back at my mom. She was fine with it. People returned to their normal positions. At last we reached our destination. Getting down was another dangerous feat. The drivers are always in such a hurry that they don’t care about the safety of their passengers. I held on to the two rods on the side of the exit and got down. The conductor was in a hurry, he yelled at me,

“Get down, you little girl, are you dreaming?”

 I wanted to reply something nasty. But it wasn’t the right time. I reached my cousin’s house half dazed. She asked,

“How was the journey?”
“Great.”

I replied, not forgetting the journey in hell.