Goa

(this is a long pending post...)

There's something to Goa that you never tire of. Is it the sight of the green expanse fringed with silver and gold that you see from the skies? Is it the comfort that you can indulge in laziness as you sit in one of the beach shacks for hours together without as much as moving a little finger, while beer and sea food flows? Is it the tangible energy of the revellers that enfolds all, young and old, within its pulse? For all you know, it is just the sea breeze.

Is there anything that has not already been written about Goa? In this attempt at a travelogue, will I be able to say anything new? I am sure the answer is no. But then, Goa inspires. To write, to sing out loud, to live.

When Sunday melts into Monday, there are no blues to shoo away, no deadlines to keep. There is only the promise of the never ending waves, the omnipresent breeze and incessant energy. The promise that there is something for everyone. The snooty restaurants that serve Thai food and would rather serve only foreigners. The road side eatery exuding old world charm with comfy wooden furniture. Today's Special boards written in pink, blue and white. The ubiquitous Kashmiri shops selling Pashmina shawls to sun-burnt Europeans. Catchy Goan rhythms wafting alongside aromas of the vindaloo or xacuti sauces.

But this is the happy face that Goa puts up for its tourists. It is writhing within. Families are selling off family bungalows to developers. They are adding more rooms to their old houses and turning them into hotels. Locals are protesting the blind destruction of ecosystems in the name of development, done in favour of the tourist. They dread the end of the "season".

Driving us from one beach to another, the taxi driver says, "The season will soon be over. In a month's time, we will be sitting at home killing flies. Whatever we have earned now will be over in a flash. And very soon, we will fall into the debt trap. This happens every year, nothing new for us."

It is easiest to close your eyes to what lies beyond. And all I do is to wish him a good season, add a little tip to the actual fare, wave good bye and return to the party.

Beat

Healthcare is a scary beat to follow.

Lifestyle diseases on the rise, India the diabetic capital of the world, they say, shaking their heads in dismay but eyes shining in excitement -- Think of all those people who will need to come to us for treatment, medicines. Oooh!!

Healthcare industry is booming, we are expanding, a 300-bed super-speciality hospital here in six months, another 400-bedded one there in one year, more more more. So many more people falling ill, so many more rich hospitals to cater to the rich, what happens in the villages?

More and more clinical research process being outsourced to India. More and more Indian patients playing guinea pigs to MNCs.

Disgusting after a point. So I wear blinkers, see only what is shown to me -- growing economy, booming sector, money money money. The crumbling health conditions can go take a walk.

Chocolate Mudpie...

... must have been what manna from heaven was...

Mango blossoms

Everywhere! Along the highway, by the city roads, peeking out from behind high compound walls. Bringing with them the smell of summer and the promise that golden mangoes will soon flood the markets.

What joy! :)

01010101

We have consigned our memory to 0s and 1s.

How was your holiday in the mountains?
Oh it’s all on camera.
Remember how you used to describe the resort, the flowers, the mist?

Do you have so-and-so’s number?
It’s on my phone, I will SMS it to you.
Remember how you could reel off tens of numbers off at the drop of a hat?

Naah, our memory is for better stuff, we can’t waste it on remembering stuff like this! Even our thoughts – we pull out strands and put it away on our blogs, like Dumbledore’s Penseive, so that you can go back, read it, and rethink that thought. But what then do we use our memory for? To remember the details of the most mindless TV shows, all the spicy gossip, the worst of swear words, passwords, pin numbers.

A typical day, and a letter

It could be the middle of the night as far as sleep was concerned. Through its shadowy depths, I hear an alarm that is quickly shut off. I sink back into the dream, holding on to the last fleeting image, hoping the thread has not been broken. After what seems like merely a few moments, am woken up by a gentle "Wake up Sav, I am leaving, lock the door." In the dark of early dawn, fighting the urge to stay under the blanket and keep away the slight chill, I see him, dressed, packed, ready to fly. A quick "bye, take care, call me when you reach" is all there is time for; the cab is waiting. Lock door, wave good bye from the balcony, stumble back to dreamless sleep till daylight streams in. And then thoughts of "Would he have reached, when did he leave, what was he wearing, has he forgotten anything?" The memory of dawn pretty much a dream now.

For how long, this same routine?
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A letter from home. I wave it around in glee, colleagues tell me it is great that we still send letters. The letter... only a chronicle of a dream. But the emotion, the joy, the desperation of the dream is too strong to stay on paper. It jumps out at me, envelopes me, throbs within me. Mother's voice asking: "Why do we have to live like this, miles apart?"

What for, this kind of life?

Anything for the camera?

Was stuck in traffic today on way to work -- as usual -- and got to watch a demonstration by MG Road. A camera was rolling. And in front of the lensman, the leaders of the protest in a semicircle, shouting slogans, passionately pumping their fists. The cameraman decided he had enough footage, replaced the lens-cap and the slogans died down. Down came the raised fists and the resolve in the voices dissolved. The protesters stood around, listlessly holding placards, seemingly waiting for the next camera crew to come along and show some interest. Apparently, it's not worth protesting if there isn't a camera to see it.

Few days ago, was watching David Blaine on TV. Watched without emotion as he jumped from a 90-foot pillar (where he had been standing for over 30 hours) into a stack of cardboard boxes placed below. Only one of his many stunts. Would he be doing these insane things if there aren't all those cameras pointed on him? To what extent will he go, if ensured it will be taped?

SMS your vote

SMS to select your favourite singer on the talent show.
SMS to vote out the worst person on the reality show.
SMS to get yourself into the 1-crore game show.

You think general elections would be more effective if votes were to be sent in as SMSs? Imagine... Big-budget glamourous TV promos. A series of numbers to SMS to -- 1231 for Candidate 1, 1232 for Candidate 2 and so on. Reminders running as tickers even while the evening news is on. Suspense filled music as a booming voice (preferably AB) asks, "Who will win?"

Think it will work?

We are growing up

Friends from childhood remain children for ever in one’s memory. Until one sees a picture of the person, all grown up and minus the baby fat. In the cold storage of memory, they are chubby cheeked or awkwardly lean and tall. They have impossibly curly hair and a shrill loud voice. They wore neatly ironed school uniforms or dirtied and torn play-time clothes.

Then one day you run into one of them on the streets. The hair tamed, the voice broken, dressed in the best, on a diet. And you realise -- time has passed, we have grown up, s/he has changed and so have I.

Back then, you shared every little secret, every object of interest was discussed, every minute of the day was spent together. Now, you look into the other’s eyes and see the reflection of a world you are not familiar with, and you realise the other is seeing the same in your eyes too.

No, I did not recently run into anyone from the past. But I would like to. It’s like a refreshing blast of wind. To catch a glimpse of a familiar face in the crowd, to relate it to the impression of a much younger, much smaller face in the mind’s vault, to see the same light of recognition growing on the other’s face, to shake hands, to say "How are you, lovely to have met you", to exchange contact details, to realise how much you yourself have changed, and walk away with the warmth, with the freshly evoked memory of the security of childhood, with a smile that will linger on till a sigh of nostalgia escapes.

A spot of nostalgia

Have you tried catching a spot of sunlight? I have this old fragment of memory -- of dappled sunlight on a verandah on a warm afternoon when I tried desperately to get one spot of sun to stay in my hand.

My memory also has mango trees, like many old Malayalam film songs. I remember having asked my mother long ago why so many Malayalam songs alluded to mango trees when attempting to invoke nostalgia. Her reply was that almost every house used to have a mango tree in the yard. All the houses I stayed in during my childhood had a mango tree. The home -- to which the mind remains anchored to -- now has four. From my room, I could see two. But here, that green shade exists only in my mind.

"Bullywood"

...says The Hindu. Heheh! Apt, isn't it? Read it here. It seems to be a reaction to this year's IFFI. And he deviates to the north-south debate as well. But felt happy reading it!

First there was the IIFA awards -- International Indian Film Academy Awards. Now comes the GIFA -- Global Indian Film Awards. And what is "Indian Film"? According to these two awards, Bollywood and only Bollywood. Celebrate Bollywood, by all means celebrate the colours, the drama, the glamour that is Bollywood. But why give the world the impression that all of Indian cinema is just Bollywood?

Why why why?? What happens to all the other languages then? What happens to all the other regional film industries? The Assamese and Bengali films? The Malayalam and Tamil films?

Two years old

It's been two years, this new phase in life. And as I look around the house, I realise that most things in the house have also turned two. The appliances apart, there is a collection of things that should ideally have been used up in these two years, or at least gone into the waste bin, but have miraculously survived.

# A box of those long Homelite matchsticks. Someone called it the "theft proof" matchbox.
# A bottle of Dettol, used once long ago. Must be past expiry date by now. Should be poured down the drain.
# A bottle of liquid soap that I bought in the first "shopping for home" spree. It was then a spare, it still is. Because I keep forgetting I have this in store and continue buying more soap.
# Half a packet of soya chunks which I bought because someone said is very nutritious and forgot after the first trial because I certainly don't like it. Must get rid of it at least now.
# Battered water bottles that haven't been replaced out of sheer laziness.

These I spotted in the first round of looking around. Am sure to find more.

Hola!

After a long time!

A period when I had nothing to write. Or rather, when I had nothing good enough to write on. And now I have things swimming around in my mind and no time to write.

Because now, the sea calls. And when the sea calls, the only thing to do is drop everything and rush to the waves. So I am off to Goa in a couple of days to refill my reserve of salty breeze and sand.

Randomness

# I watched Sholay. Finally. Yeah, all you people who gaped in disbelief when I said I haven’t yet seen it, and all of you who said my life so far was a waste because I hadn’t watched it – I have finally seen Sholay.

# How can a plywood company advertise itself with the slogan “Powered by nature”? Cutting down trees is being powered by nature? Saw that ad on an auto.

# How many lifetimes will I take to visit every city, every town, every village in the world? See all the great rivers, see all of India, the rain forests, the European countryside, the beaches of the Caribbean. Oh and, who will sponsor me for this world tour?

Editorials

In your school days, were you told that you should make it a practice to read the newspaper editorial everyday in order to improve your language? I was. But I hardly read any. First, because they were immensely boring; and second, because I hardly understood what they were getting at. I still don’t, and for pretty much the same reasons :)

Anyway, now I have more reason not to read them. This is from Jyoti Sanyal’s Indlish – The Book for Every English-Speaking Indian. Sanyal was with The Statesman for 30 years, and was later the dean of Asian College of Journalism when it was in Bangalore. Anyway, after pointing out some really badly written editorials – one from “Bangalore’s leading daily” and the other from “a Karnataka daily” (not difficult guesses which these are) – he laments how the Victorian model of writing seen in these edits trickles down to children. He says:

And the moral of all this: teachers, please stop crippling children with crude didactic essays of the Victorian model; parents, never encourage your children to read those repulsive Victorian-vintage editorials in English-language newspapers.

Ha!

Travel

When I was a child, a lot of our not-so-long-distance travelling was done by the state transport buses. And later when the rail lines came, some of it by train too. One’s only pass time in a bus was to either sleep or watch in a daze as the landscape whooshed by.

It was utter joy, to press my cheek to the thin iron railings across the window of the bus and feel the wind try to rip my head off. The strong metallic smell of the railings would stick on to me for a few hours. The feel of the wind on my face would stay on for a few minutes. Though the route would be the same each time, the places we rushed through always looked different. There would be something new to gape at each time. The black tarmac, fringed by white sand or red gravel depending on where we were, followed by dense green, followed by sun flecked sky. That is the lasting memory of those journeys along the highway, though blurred because that was how I would see them through the window.

Distances have shrunk. Earlier, a one-and-a-half-hour journey to the neighbouring district was a long one – one packed clothes and tooth brush into an overnight bag, one looked up bus timings, the journey would be tiring. Now, you wake up in the morning, decide to go make a visit, hop into the car, think nothing of the one hour because it is probably as much time as you would take on your daily commute between office and home, and are back home by evening.

The whole reason I started on this when-I-was-a-child trip is because it seems incredulous to me that children these days seem to have no interest in looking out the window and just looking at things. The minute the engine wakes up and the vehicle moves, they are bored. “Let’s play a game, I am bored, give me something to eat, I am bored, are we there yet, I am bored.” Look out, look at all the pretty sights, look at the people! I can still gape out for hours, I still stick my head out to feel the wind, I still love to watch the road fly away beneath the wheels.

Last day, stuck in a traffic jam, we watched the people in the car next to us watch videos on the LCD screen hanging in the car in place of the rear-view mirror. I watched in disgust – bad enough that people go on holidays to exotic locations only to get there and watch TV, now they need to be staring at a screen even when travelling around city. But S watched with much interest, and said, We should also have a DVD player in our next car, that way our kids won’t get bored when we are going somewhere. I let out a silent scream, but S didn’t even notice the look on my face, he concentrated on the traffic. Wonder how many arguments lie ahead!

Punctured spellings

You know these small puncture fixing shops that one finds on roadsides? If anyone ever sees puncture spelt right on the boards of such shops anywhere, please send me a picture. I am yet to see one with the correct spelling. I have seen everything from "panjar", which was in Chennai, to a slightly better "puncher" in Bangalore.

Bandh

Karnataka shut down today. State-wide bandh. It's been a long time since there's been a bandh. Probably because back home, there was at least one bandh every month at one point. When there were too many bandhs, the court banned bandhs in the state. How can a concept be banned? It is not like banning smoking, is it? So people assumed that it was only the word that was banned and introduced hartals, which at some long-ago point had meant that shops supporting the cause would remain closed while vehicles would ply and offices would function as usual. But once bandh was "banned", hartal became the new bandh. So the court went ahead and banned the hartal. But the same bandh continues under various different names. I am not keeping track, don't know what its latest name is.

Anyway, there was a bandh here today. From last night, the roads have been dotted with police vans and bus-loads of the rapid action force. And today, deserted roads, closed shops and offices. All by force, isn't it? If given a choice, how many of us would have stayed indoors? How many shops and offices would have remained closed if they were given a choice? But in a bandh, there is nothing called a choice, at least not anymore. If you are not a hospital or a newspaper office and yet you are open, we will shatter your glass facade. If you are not an ambulance or a press vehicle, we will stone you. If you as much as dare touch the shutter of your shop, we'll beat you up.

How can a handful of people and their decision to paralyse life affect the collective psyche so much? How can they put fear into minds so that we would much rather sympathise with the cause (by force, let me add) and stay at home rather than go out and carry on with life?

I want to protest against bandhs. Someone tell me how.

Oh by the way, one good thing came out of the day's shut-down in the city -- the traffic police got the road markings re-painted!

Gandhigiri update

In Bangalore this time. A teacher and her students are flooding a difficult tenant with flowers and cards. Good days for the florists. :)

This car is backing up

When will it occur to someone that these backing-up music of cars/lorries/vans/bullock carts must be banned?

I wake up everyday to a medley of this irritatingly high-pitched noise. A truck in the neighbouring compound trying ot get itself out. See, it is a large empty ground. I have not yet discovered why the truck's driver needs to shift to reverse gear so many times to get it out of there. And each time, the Airtel jingle is flung out into the world. Why isn't AR Rehman protesting? Doesn't he realise how bad his tune sounds when it comes at as a sad string of beeps through loud and jarring speakers? Anyway, if that doesn't wake me up, there is plenty of choice. As in, I can choose what music irritates me the most and wake up to that. Because shortly will follow a version of Neele neele ambar par. Which will be followed by two other versions of the Airtel jingle. And then will come the Happy birthday song. Which will be followed by Raghupati raghava raja ram and Vandemataram. Why bother about anniversaries of songs and Gandhi Jayantis and so on? We can sing it everyday as many times as we want to reverse! So anyway, all these songs play in the morning, in this sequence, everyday. And in reverse order at night. What joy.

Oh, at 4 this morning I was treated to a Tamil song. I hope that car doesn't decide to stay on in this area.