First leg of my world tour :)

My dream is to travel around the world (ideally, to visit every town, every village). Finally the process has been kick started with a week-long trip to Malaysia. An official holiday you could call it.

The marvel of cutting across time zones for the first time still hadn't worn off before I was overwhelmed by the large open spaces of Malaysia. Starting with the airport and the roads. Miles of greenery and disciplined traffic. Even the smaller terminal for low-cost carriers was better than Bangalore's international terminal. Took it all in with unabashed wide-eyedness.

The first port of call was Kuching in the state of Sarawak on the Borneo island. The land of tropical forests, mangroves and several indigenous tribes. All the fatigue of two flights through the night and sleeplessness vanished the minute I drew back the curtains in my hotel room. Kuching city lay spread out on either sides of the sluggish Kuching river. A golden domed mosque in the distance with a chain of mountains serving as backdrop.

Just enough time for a quick shower and a quicker bite of lunch and we set out. The city has several ugly and huge cat sculptures -- Kuching means cat and the cat is the city mascot. After the thickly populated Indian cities and towns, this laid back place seems almost deserted. There are comparatively so few people you wonder how much business sense the malls make. Some old buildings, Chinese temples, quaint little souvenir shops.

First stop is Sarawak Cultural Village. Spread across some 17 acres of land just outside of Kuching at the foot of the Santubong mountain is this model village. Developed and maintained by the government, it tries to recreate tribal settlements. Something like DakshinaChitra in Madras. A showcase for tourists. Model houses and workplaces have been built the way tribals build them. There are few of the indigenous people in each of these dwellings, doing the things they would do in the forest -- carving on bamboo and weaving baskets.

We see the heads collected by the head hunting tribe, the feathered head gears of the hunters, the magnificent colours of the weavers. My favourite is the Orang Ulu tribe and their string instrument sape. "It's like the sitar," says Francis, one of the tribesmen at the Orang Ulu house and a superb sape player. Mention we are from India, and he is playing Bollywood songs on the sape. The lilting haunting music dies out, and as we leave, we are followed by the strains of a wooden xylophone, which a craftsman is still working on.

Close to the village is the Damai beach, again with the Santubong mountains looming over it. Damai means peace. And peaceful it is.

By the time we return, there are claps of thunder and soon a mist of rain through the golden sunlight. The river takes on a hundred hues as it rains, as the skies clear, as the sun sets, as the lights come on. We venture out for some dinner. There are cafes and food stalls along the river, the city has cooled down. But the restaurants are quiet and empty. The home food must be excellent :)

The next day, we are off to the Bako National Park. A 20 minute boat ride along the Bako river almost right into the sea and mangroves all along. Apparently, 12% of the country’s land mass is mangroves and these wetlands are well preserved.

The Bako park is the smallest in Malaysia and is home to the long-nosed proboscis monkey, clouded leopards and pitcher plants. The last one was the one I most wished I could see. But such was our luck that we did not even see the most common macaques or the bearded pigs that are forever venturing out towards the park’s office buildings.

The trails through the park are laid out with wooden planks and marked with daubs of red paint every now and then. Our guide Rose tells us that some of these trails can take one to quiet beaches, where it would be just you and the sea.

The next day we fly back to KL, yet again by-pass the city, and head to Melaka. Right out of history books, the Straits of Malacca and the old buildings, the narrow cobbled streets and forts. The heritage society has seen to it that the old buildings maintain their facade; you can do what you want to do with the interiors.

Of all the museums I went to in that one week, the most interesting was the maritime museum at Melaka. Not because of what was inside, but because it is housed in a grounded old Portuguese ship.

Much of the city’s recent development has happened over reclaimed land. As we take a ride in one of the colourful trishaws, the trishaw guy tells us how the spot where our hotel is used to be the beach. "Now we have to go 10km to reach the beach. But it is better this way," he says.

The next day, finally, we enter KL. Cannot but marvel at the efficient infrastructure -- fly-overs, subways, metro and monorails. Soon the Petronas twin towers come into view. For the next three days, I will catch it spying on me at every turn, peeking from between other buildings, lording over the city.

Most of the next couple of days is taken up in attending Malaysia Tourism events. But I do get some time off to walk around the streets, take the metro, window shop. Later, we got bird’s eye views of the city first from the KL Tower and then from the "Eye on Malaysia". But come to the city of the twin towers and not walk the skybridge? So Sunday morning saw us waiting in queue for the coupons to visit the skybridge. Only about 1000 coupons are given each day and people start queuing up early morning. We finally bag an afternoon slot and when the time comes, we step into the high-speed lift that goes at 5-6m per second. The bridge is at the 41st level, which we reach in less than 41 seconds. The view is the same, but the excitement of being on the skybridge was something else.

After a week of pampering at the best of hotels, with the best of vehicles, it was finally time to return home. The calling card had been exhausted, patience had worn out and the suitcase was bulging from all the shopping. So it was with a sigh of relief that I stepped into the Bangalore airport. If you think of the KLIA as a football ground, then the Bangalore one is a mere chessboard. And the actual grounding experience was the wait for the baggage. One can get so used to an organised way of working. After a week of that, here suddenly was chaos. The conveyor belt was stuck and passenger were pushing it along. For a long minute, I missed the pampering. But then, this is home.

Ramblings

I wonder
... what Mr Bean does for a living
... how a spic-n-span house like the one in Tom & Jerry can be infested with holes
... when in a fight scene, the hero and villain shatter earthen pots and squash tomatoes, who pays for the shattered pots and the squashed tomatoes -- the villain or the hero? Do the vendors go after them after the fight is over?
... if the hero goes back to look for his sunglasses, which he invariably throws away before plunging into the above said fight

I like
... the smell of a bookstore
... the smell of fish being fried at noon that wafts in from a neighbour's house
... the smell of first rain
... the smell of freshly ironed clothes
... the smell of a hundred flowers and fresh leaves as you walk by a florist's shop

I remember with nostalgia
... the afternoon spent under the mango tree at home, discussing Kahlil Gibran with a friend
... the late evening walk with a friend and someone special, wondering what he was thinking, wondering what he would say, wondering where we were headed
... the walk in the rain with a friend under one umbrella, unmindful of one half of me being drenched
... the Sunday sojourns with my mother
... waiting for my father's letters from Calcutta

Swooooshhh...

Been realising that it is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never able to know ourselves fully as we are.

Oh well

I have given up worrying about the night shift ban. Most of the women I spoke to about this have found it so ridiculous, they are sure none of this will happen or can happen. So then, why should I be the only one worrying so much?

But at the back of my mind, the feeling of helplessness still nags.

Safety of women, my left foot

I guess the only purpose of that bill (see previous post) was to generate some shock waves. In an interview with The New Indian Express (I can't find the link), the state labour minister Iqbal Ansari says that IT , BPO and media companies can get exemptions. Most sectors that have women working in night shifts can get exemptions.

So then why the bill, you ask? In this interview, the minister says that when a woman becomes victim of a crime, the government is blamed for not providing enough security to women. Now when this law comes into effect, the company that employs the women will have to take completely responsibility of the women's safety. Basically, with this law, the government washes its hands off the issue of making the city a secure place for women.

All this apart, I would like to know who came up with this harebrained idea. Was even one woman involved in the decision making? These so-called people's representatives -- did they ask those they represent?

I am being eaten by this damning feeling of helplessness.

When incompetence meets male chauvinism...

... you get the heights of ridiculousness.

How else would the Karnataka ministers come up with something like this? To ensure the safety of women, what do they decide to do? Send all women home by 8pm. No night shifts for women, just send them home fast and keep them out of trouble.

Here is a reaction story to this move.

Each time something like this happens, one thinks this is the heights, it can’t get worse than this. But now I realise, we probably severely underestimate out representatives. They outdo themselves each and every time.

The safety of Bangalore city has been debated time and again. What measures have the government taken? More cops on the roads, well-lit footpaths? None of those. Instead they try say that woman is the root cause of it all, so let her stay home.

I am lost for words…

What happens to the hundreds of women working in BPOs, call centres, media houses? Imagine this:
“Thank you for calling, how may I help you? Oh wait a minute, sorry, it’s 8 o’ clock, I have to go home.”
“Sorry, I can’t finish the page, it’s 8 and I am going home”

Considering the perpetrators of all crimes on women are men, why the hell didn’t anyone thinking of making the men go home by 8??

But the icing on my ire was the fact that two women who heard this said, “Ooh.. how wonderful! So no more nights shifts and we can go home by 8.”

The usually silent feminist RBCs in me are screaming for justice.

Update: Times reports that there really wasn't any such legislation and that the minister merely goofed up by stating so.

A trip home

After nearly a year, I went home recently. What is the point of being just an overnight journey from home if you can’t visit as often as you would want to? But well, that is enough matter for another post.

Anyway, the first two days I found myself struggling not to feel and behave like an outsider, like a tourist. The place had changed, new swanky buildings, more apartment blocks than I would ever have thought possible in that little city, twice as many vehicles on the roads… Ah roads – they were the same!

Roaming around the familiar streets of Fort Kochi, I was fascinated by the many little things that I had merely looked at in passing during all earlier walks there. The quaint buildings, the park, the roads, the cafes, the ancient trees, the “you buy we fry” stalls. Maybe the fact that S was going berserk with the camera helped this feeling. At the Chinese nets, the fishermen called out with a well practiced sophistication that ill suited them: “Come on madam, come up here, take nice photographs, see the fish”.

Drive along the water front and sure signs of the great growth the city is waiting to witness – like a roll call of all the major builders in the country, boards proudly announce the upcoming residential complexes. Advertisements everywhere you look announcing even more such properties, in areas that would have been considered back of the beyond as early as five years ago.

The city is changing faster than I can grasp or keep track of. There’s only one solution – go home often enough!
:)

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.