Horrible!!

I was having a pleasant evening yesterday. Went out to the city with a couple of friends on our bicycles, ate chaat on the way and joking around. Coz’ of the light and nice mood I was in, I called up a school friend of mine after coming back to my room. And the first thing she said, “Ya, am all right. Don’t worry!” It didn’t take her long to realize that I don’t know about the Delhi serial blasts. I was repulsed by the news. Just when normalcy was starting to set in, such a nefarious act spoilt the relaxed mood that I had been carrying the whole day. Firstly, I called up my dear ones in Delhi and then went online reading about the news. The gory sites of blasts, at three different places in Delhi, present a picture of utter sadness and gloom. I read the Government’s address and statements which were the usual banter of how the nation is ready to face such acts and smeared with the usual cliche - ‘fight against terrorism’.

It’s the fourth city which is being attacked in this year from b’lore to ahmedabad to jaipur to the capital. Inspite of such news and advanced knowledge of an impending disaster being planned, the security fails and there is utter chaos. Is this a failure of the government machinery, or the smartness of the terrorists to know about how to find loopholes and flaws in the arrangements? There will be a lot of questions and an equal number of ‘politically correct’ answers. No matter how much we Indians hate destruction and genocide, the face of terror always catches up at the most festive and most fraternizing times.

Of Maps and Meanings

The other day, looking at a map, a thought came to me, as it often does when I find myself with maps and globes. I realized yet again, how different my map of the world was from its representation on the paper in front of me.

A small river of the Kashmir valley – the Lidar (which I have yet to locate on any map of reasonable scale) is as significant if not more in my mind’s eye as is the mighty Ganga. And an obscure little town nestled in the Himalayas, which I have never been to, seems to stand timeless because of the childhood stories of a friend.

Surely India exists south of the Vindhyas, I have lived south of the Vindhyas for the last six months in fact. Yet this part of the country figures on my map as a nameless blob. But as I turn northward, the topography becomes vivid and rich in detail.

Emerald isles in the Bay of Bengal glitter like jewels in the sunshine of beautiful memories. The rugged terrain of Afghanistan, the streets of Kabul and Herat- their chequered history and the terrible human suffering they have witnessed are etched on some canvas of the mind through the words of a well loved book.

A quaint old town in Scotland, the picturesque countryside, I remember through seven year old eyes. A motorcycle trail in South America, the depths of the Amazonian forest, and shifting continents we come to Africa- the snow capped Mount Kilimanjaro on the equator, a vast forbidding desert north of it- each finds its own special place on the map. Perhaps it was a geography lesson that caught my imagination. Sometimes it was a story I loved. More recently perhaps, it was the breathtaking cinematography of ‘The English Patient’.

And so in this map spread out before me, certain names leap out, I see some things that are not marked. A line, a dot translates into images and words...a peak is taller, a forest lusher, larger , a bit of the sea surging and in foment- a little more known, a little of my own.

And it fills me with wonder, to think of the millions of world maps that exist- each deeply personal, unique. Not just maps we draw of places with lines and contours but the many and complex maps which we use to navigate our way through life situations without even being aware of them. Maps which have been born of experiences, sometimes very early experiences, which linger not perhaps as memories but more as instincts, habits, as an old love or fascination or fear, as multi-layered ways of thinking and reacting; prisms through which we see ourselves and the world.

Even as I write this I realize that things are not this simple. It is not just about the unique ways in which we experience the world but also about the shared ways of looking at things which we imbibe from the family and community. Our maps, I guess reflect not just our individuality but also the ways in which it is lost, amalgamated into collective identities.

We journey with the aid of our maps, learning much, absorbing much on the way. But perhaps there is another learning which lies in examining these maps itself, in turning one’s awareness not just to what we see but to how we see it.

Carl Jung, a psychoanalyst wrote

Who looks outside, dreams
Who looks inside, awakens.

To look inside, to touch our maps, experience their texture, their ridges and furrows, might be scary I think, like being an infant again in some sense- like being born to a whole new world which one discovers with wonder and pain, joy and fear, sometimes helplessness but finding slowly one’s own place, one’s own strength.

And it could also be richly rewarding. Because seeing our maps with increasing clarity also allows us to change them. Personally, I also hope that getting in touch with my own individuality would bring me closer to an appreciation of the individuality of others, to respecting that perhaps there are as many realities as there are people, each rich in personal meaning and sacred in its right to be. How much misery and conflict between individuals, communities and nations ensues because we do not give space to this multiplicity to exist.

And maybe, one becomes strangely, achingly more in a moment when one finds again a poem within, which had got lost, not a poem of words perhaps but an essence…

How much do you have to fight for your Water?

We use water in a variety of day-to-day activities. Brushing our teeth, having a bath, washing clothes, preparing food, washing utensils, cleaning cars, scrubbing the floor.... and for drinking. Given that it is such an important part of our daily existence, it's somewhat surprising that we take it for granted. Or perhaps it is precisely those things that are so essential that they have been provided for us (you and me) for over two decades (assuming you're 20-odd, like me when you read this), such as food, clothing and a roof over our heads, that we tend to take for granted.

Anyhow, every summer in our house in Delhi, we have a water crisis. Being in a rented accommodation, we don't have our own water supply connection. We do have pipes, but they run dry over the summer, when Yamuna becomes a black puddle swarming with flies and Delhi sucks up all the potable water it can find thirstily, even when it is from the Yamuna. We have a borewell - tapping ground water is still legal in North Delhi (and I was shocked to know that the government mixes it in the drinking supply over the summer quite openly) - but it dries up over the summer months from April to August every year.

In such a situation, our family has learnt to scrounge on every drop of water we get. And why not, for we have to fetch it ourselves! In the early morning hours, a solitary tap on the ground floor provides a thin trickle of the élixir, which we tap by putting a bucket underneath. We then wait patiently for it to fill up and then fetch it two floors to store for drinking. Every morning, we pour over 10 liters of water into the overhead tank. My mother has all the pots and pans in the kitchen full of water to tide over the kitchen activities for the day. We also recycle water. The water used to rinse vegetables and pulses is reused for watering the plants (which are now being slaughtered, to save ourselves, since they consume so much water) and that used to wash clothes is poured into the WC when needed.

Why am I telling you all this? Because of the incident that took place this morning. It was 6:30 AM. I had been running and had just come back and was walking down the alley at the back of my house, homeward, when I saw these two big black plastic tanks on overflowing with water on a ledge on the first floor overhanging the street. Then I saw him - a young fellow in a banyan perched on the ledge in between the tanks, dipping a large dabba into one of the tanks and throwing precious water onto the road below. He would have thrown about 7-8 dabba-fulls by the time I reached him. He then stopped to allow me to pass. I crossed the place where he was standing above me and he then proceeded to carry on with what he was doing - pouring out water from the tanks onto the street.

I went further ten paces and then stopped. I thought I should ask him what he was up to. Normally I would have muttered to myself and carried on - and now I know why that has always been my better counsel. Anyway, so I stopped and went back. The fellow had kept up his water-expelling drive, but was now hidden somewhere behind the tanks. I called up to him, "Bhaiya!" No response. "Suniye zara!". No response (splash). "Bhaiya ji!" (splash, splash). "zara suniye to!" (splash) "Hello, bhaiya?" Still no response. (splash, splash).

I decided to wait for him to appear. He took a while, throwing water onto the street all the time (splash.... splosh... splash...) , but I can be very patient. The water was somewhat muddy, though it is difficult to tell the colour of water when it is flying through the air, and by the time it landed on the ground, it was brown anyway. I had a watch (I wear one when I go running) - and I stood there for a good 12 minutes. All this time, he was pouring water onto the street, first from one tank and then the other. Finally he popped his head out and I caught his glance. "Bhaiya, zara suniye to!" He looked at me. "Kya main aap se poochh sakta hoon ki aap is tarah pani vyarth kyun jane de rahe hain?" Silence. "Bataiye, jawab deejiye. Aap ke pas koi to wajah hogi?" No answer. He was getting restless. "Pani zyada hai to bacha lijiye, balti mein dal lijiye|" No answer. He turned away. Then I got angry. I said, "yahan se panch ghar door hamein pani peene ko nahin milta hai, or aap is tereh sadak pe baha rahe hain?". No answer. He wasn't even looking at me now, but fiddling with something with his back turned. "Aapki chuppi se main yahi samjhoonga ki aap ke pas koi wajah nahi hai|". No answer. There was someone else behind him whom I couldn't see and they were exchanging some words. I could understand snatches and am quite sure it had nothing to do with me anyway.


So I turned away from there, totally humiliated. When you don't do someone the courtesy of replying when that person is obviously talking to you, it shows the contempt you have for what he is saying. Maybe I didn't start very well. Perhaps I should have asked his name, told him mine, made friends and then asked what he was doing. But I don't think so. Rather, it seems to me that I understood why I was going to pass by without talking to him in the first place - because something told me that he was not going to listen.

And I break the ice

My sincerest apologies, Aloke. I cannot wait anymore. For when I'm bored, or want to avoid work, or am in these creative moods, I have to write. And an untouched blog is simply too tempting. The first issue I propose is:

Background: Today morning, I concluded that true happiness is people-independent. In the sense that, although we care and love and are hurt and all of that, there has to be this untouched inner core. Otherwise 60 years of ups and downs in human relationships will drive us crazy. The conclusion seemed pretty reasonable and indeed, wise.. until today evening. I was feeling a bit depressed, just one of those moods when you feel you can't do anything and don't want to even if you could. And then my little cousin came over. He thinks I'm probably his age, and he treats me like that. :) And after 15 minutes in his company, I felt happy, light. Like I could do anything, be anyone. All I needed was people who loved me and people I loved. (Hopefully, they won't ever be disjoint sets. :))

Question: Which stance is right?