Swachhta!

She sighs, tired from a long day, and sits down to scribble a few lines in to her journal.
She rarely does that. Something really profound must have happened.

May 2nd 2012,

My cousin and his kids came home from the U.S. of A last week. I ve been spending a lot of time with them.

Cute kids, they have a lot of energy,so many stories to share, it is so much fun being around them.. Well the younger one is a peach, the kid is in that place where they learn to talk, precious right?! 
Had a really long day. But one incident just baffled me.

My nephew was filling his 'Ben 10' fanny pack with wrappers from all the chocolates and ice creams he had. It was so full he started holding them in his tiny fists and  washaving difficulty holding the other things. 

So my cousin says 'Why aren't you throwing all the trash away?? Why are you collecting everything?' 

The kid complained, 'I couldn't find a trash can dad!'

For which he got a reply, 'No no, you need not search for a trash can , you can throw the wrappers here or for that matter anywhere!'

The kid obliged. What else would he do? He is four!!

Well thank god there was someone who cleaned up right behind him.

I grew up with 2 siblings who did not give any thought before throwing juice boxes, wrappers or cartons right in the middle of the road for 22 years. I even got into a huge fight with my brother over a Frooti bottle and didn't talk to him for hours and got into trouble with my parents for being arrogant, obnoxious and some other things I shouldn't even reveal here <Well, sounds stupid now I guess>. And today, this happens!!

Well I guess you tell and tell, but you only end up being such a bore to your own cousins and nothing ever changes!!


August 16th 2012,

It is one month since Tinku returned to India after her long trip from the U.S. of A, and I couldn't help but notice that she is being really clean about everything around her, conspicuously putting every juice box every small wrapper nowhere but in the nearest trash can.

I was very intrigued and grilled her for the reason [well my wicked plan was to work it on Pinku so he could change too.. ;) ] when she said that she was shamed by our nephew (the four year old with the fanny pack) in-front of his foreign friends. He said, and she quoted 'Se,e don't litter this place with all this plastic,if it is India, you can.. But you are not in India anymore,so here you ll have to put it in the trash can.'

Though I can't play this card on Pinku, it got me thinking. It took a long expensive trip and shaming by a four year old for Tinku to realize.. And the worst part is, she is educated and all!

I wish I could smack on Pinku's head and the keys fall in the right place, that would be so much easier!!

October 2nd 2014,

My cousin and his kids are visiting again. The kid threw some trash on the road.
I asked him to pick it all up and hold it till he finds a trash can when Pinku said, 'Well I don't know which India your father grew up in little fellow, but here, we don't do that anymore!'
He happily obliged!!  Well, he is just six, but he ll never do that again. Not here!

<This is not fiction. It is very much veridical!>

Might not be as moving, but we are literate and sensible right? 

So the next time you mindlessly stop to pee on the roads, realize that you are making approximately 60% of India's population vulnerable to cholera, diarrhea, typhoid etc..

The next time you drop a juice box on the roads, realize

that there thousands tourists who dread coming to India,well you are just slackening up the chance for a low paid employee to construct his own toilet.

The next time you spit on the road, the next time you throw a still- on-fire cigarette butt on the road, realize that there are many girls dropping out of the school because they don't have good sanitation facilities, you are robbing them of their future and dreams.

'Nirmal' or 'Swachh', good intentions can never let us down. 

Every effort to fulfill our duties is also patriotism.

I am that change. I hope you are too.. 

So we can meet on the other side where the grass is greener and India is cleaner!

The Two One-Liners

The two lines I want, etched into eternity,what better place than here... 

Honesty is an expensive gift, Don't expect it from cheap people.



Once you start changing for the better, everything seems to magically fall into place!


Just to make sure I wouldn't forget,ever!

So Close, Yet So Far!

Only 2 days before the journey I was looking forward to recently, I came across this really disturbing article, which got quite popular on the social networking sites, claiming that the death of the rape victim was hushed up for a few days with money. My friends were also a little sceptical about that. However, I chose not to believe some random article to blame the system to be so corrupt, we've seen the protest was profound.I just made peace with people having different lookout on different things and moved on to other articles. May be, I was not ready to accept the fact that those in such responsible positions, by saying responsible, I don't mean the officials alone,will be using such a sensitive issue to take a chance to make money.Naive! That is the only word I can think of for describing myself!

Days after she lost her life,Just when my friend was telling me today the rape, in a two or three days there will be some other thing, we ll turn the pages of the newspaper and forget it, I had to take a cab, the very next day, not so early in the morning, but quite early at 8 a.m and I was glad even though the police stopped the car just 2 minutes after we started and I was getting late, but I was glad because they stopped the cab because the glasses were tinted light grey, translucent vision for the outsiders, not the completely opaque tint, I felt good, as the repercussions of the rape case brought in some really strong measures, and unlike the traffic rules, which are more often than not violated are being strictly mandated and taken care of. I felt proud, to have known that all is not lost. A moment of happiness and reassurance for not taking into the articles. Well that didn't long last!

After about 10 minutes out of the cab, the driver came back in and started driving towards the destination. I was curious to know how he got off from the police. He casually answered 'I gave him Rs 200!' . I can't say I was shocked,but I felt really sad. Just when I thought, we are getting close as nation, a step,though tine, closer to making women feel safe, this incident took me light years away,pushing hope into abyss! Oh! So close, yet so far! Reiterating, yet again, that laws can not be all.. I shut my brain up! Not one is to be blamed. We are all the same, and that is a shame!

Just when I thought the taint of this city, I love like crazy, of being a rape capital can be washed out, with organisational determination, the malady of corruption comes from behind with a dagger,betraying while making space to restate inefficiency in every form possible. Are we really hoping for too much? Can the dreams of the head being held nigh ever come true? Well even if there is a remote chance of that happening, the fare seems to be too high to pay.

Money!! Money!! Whether we sail or drown, whether the terminus will be sought in good shape. Yeah, true but tragic, money, it seems is the one thing that deceives us from dreams and makes vulnerable enough to succumb to the desires! 

Why was I so upset, when I already knew what was going to happen? It was nothing new. Well, I could answer that only with one word 'Hope'. Hopefully, atleast that ll never die. I guess I am too curious to know the power of unity to say 'No'. The collective urge to realise that 'Being Human' just means, a little trust and faith, a little give and take, a little philanthropy and selfishness, a little rage and equanimity,a little sorrow and a tad of happiness, all put together. May be that is the miracle we are all working together for.

Yesterday it was a brutal rape, today a sewn time bomb inside a jawan's belly.What all we get to see!! And we talk of being human! The only things being constant are corruption and deception, and they always give ample space to the acute veneration for tomorrow. Is any step we take really taking us forward?

Sigh!

Namma Ooru!!

I have always had a special place for Chennai and Bangalore in my heart, while the same has never been true with Hyderabad! Seriously, all my Hyderabad friends, trust me when I say I have many, will kill me reading this, but that is the truth.. I never hated the city, it is just that I did not have anything worthwhile there, that could make me love the place. May be I ll alter my opinion to subsequently falsify what I said earlier if I have a better Hyd-experience, sometime later. 

Coming back to what I actually want to say, I can't vouch as much for Chennai as I can to, for Bangalore, as my stay there was not considerably that long.. I heard many of my friends complaining about the dirt, noise and the autos (Haha! ;) ). But,I must say,Chennai! What a place! I loved the food(yeah, I am a foodie!), the vivacious places, the unfathomed history the place holds, the serenity and the revel of the beach, I can go on for two days non-stop, in praise of that place. The second best thing about this place is it's unique, relentlessly vivid betiding surroundings, wherever and whenever you go. That would only be the second best thing because, the best-est (Sorry, one superlative will just not do, for what I am about to say) thing about the place is wait-for-it the People. Everyone is ever-ready to help, and anyone answers to the call, 'Anna'. There are malls and fastfoods,but there is always Dosai (yum!!),Idli and Sambar. They can all speak brilliant English, but when they meet a Tamilian they never speak in anything other than Tamizh. The love they have for their language and customs made me admire the language ever more. They have everything about modernity, but they graciously embrace their culture in tender care. I think I made my point clear enough.. I love that place..
Need I even start speaking of Bangalore? I did not even feel like I was away from home. Everyone speaks English, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil, God! they are adaptive, and they are very helpful. I never saw a city that has access to modern amenities and yet so carefully has greenery embedded right next to it. May be, the place I spent most of the time was like that, but that was in the heart of the city, what can I complain about. You get everything in Bengalooru, everywhere. And the best thing is you always see someone you know(Mostly BITSians ;) ). That was the first time I actually felt bad I was leaving a place to go home.. Well it was not just about the place, it had many other people-reasons.I have had some really bedevilling experiences in the rainy season. One of my colleague got mugged(yeah you read that right, he got mugged).Nevertheless, it is one place that changes people to their best. A place no one would ever resist to fall madly in love with..

When it comes to these two places, I would never think twice before saying "They are 'my' places! As good as Home" <gladly, with a grin!>

The point is, the other day when I was reading the newspaper, I read about the Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bombay exodus. It made me sad. The places which many people considered their homes were not so welcoming anymore, rather they were threatening the crap out of them. That lingered, as later that evening I was checking my Facebook profile and there were so many morphed humour images about the 5 SMS per day thing. First few, I was fine, reading and enjoying the humour, later on it got a bit too much of me I guess, got rubbed the wrong side. I think I was sad about the jokes that were circulating, more than I was irritated, I was sad.Or may be I lost my sense of humour, you can play the jokes on me, but these days all the jokes are about relationships,after a point of time it gets boring you see, there is so much more in humour than that(Sorry, but I grew up watching Jandhyala movies, so I think I enjoyed better jokes).Anyways, "Marry the girl/guy who sends you all 5 messages"???!!! Really?! When people are so concerned about  the national security and the crisis being faced by so many Indians that are dealing with a scarred psychosis of fear and anxiety, all we are concerned about is the messages we can send to our friends? Pardon me, but that was what I felt. It all dishes out to be.. Hmm.. may be it is a bit too strong a word to use but that was 'Shallow'. Thousands of people are moving away from what they called their home for years out of the fear of ferocity, they left behind their dreams and aspirations, education and achievements, oppurtunities and incentives, just to stay alive, in their own country, where they have the complete freedom to move. And all this, happening in the places I love so much made me even more sad. Deplorable and distressing. The first verse that our parents taught us, was "Athithi Devobhava". The first pledge we promised to honour, at school was "All Indians are my brothers and Sisters". We grew up listening to mythological stories, of Mahabharatha and Ramayana, which led to seriously endangering curses that were only a result of minimal mockery. We learnt better. And this exodus happens just after the Independence day after we all replenish our pride in our country. It is all just too ironical. And yet, there is no place, time or space for us to give a soothing to the people who are the victims of this exodus. Ok! May be I am being too heedfully grevious about this. For me to tell in the same tone as the jokes,to me, these jokes on SMS look like this: Imagine, a software engineer, had a completely screwed up day with his Project Lead shouting at him infront of all his subordinates,a huge set back in the code he was brainstorming on for months,everything that could possibly go wrong in a day went wrong to the rattling extrema and when he came home frustrated, his wife at home was complaining about her broken nail. Yeah, it is THAT lame. May be I would expect someone to be less sarcastic about the whole SMS thing and realise how essential it is to control the whole situation. It is not that I am taking a political stand on this issue, but when people can't trace the root the next obviously logical thing would be to take the situation under control by calming the nerves. It is only coherent. With the raging mobiles and multi-media services it only becomes imperative for the control to be on what quantum of information that can best be committed to the public. One need not support the SMS control actions, but one need not be so visible of their brassy sarcasm either. I am not being judgemental of the humour or the people here, it is only an opinion. One of my close friends found it to be plain humour and could pass it off in a whiff too. But only, I was expecting us to be more concerned about the greater good. This is not, having an exact idea of how others around me should be or passing judgements on people. This is only an opinion of how the events can turn into being better, if we were more sensitive to the issue. It is not a judgement. It is only reminding me of what we were taught to live with, and how paradoxically diametric our choices really are. No one would want people to speak ill of their home. May be the love I have for the places is making me say this, I do not want people to speak ill of those places, I don't want them to leave distressed.

On a larger note,coming to the censors that took course in the social media, the life line of today's communications, that friend of mine, who was actually having a stand against the course of blocking the communication quantums, and me, had a huge debate on this. Censorship regarding the tweets was being perceived as a set back to the Right to freedom of speech and expression and that the events unfolding were only being looked upon as the state's aggressiveness, barging into privacy and other issues of it's citizens. I did not want to assert my opinion on  that friend of mine but I had a different tone to set. We discussed. I was reading the paper for quite sometime now, having catoons about a famous personality I admire the most for some years now. But those cartoons did not get to my nerves, freedom of speech and expression I could respect to,then. But when the question is about national security it has to be in a safe position for whatever it takes it to be sure. Again, I can not stress this enough, but that is my opinion about the events that have been unfolding lately..

May be we can all  find a way to make peace with the SMS strain posed on us and make efforts to make people feel at home. May be, we can stop pulling jokes to make way to images  and texts that can soothe and calm their nerves. May be, we can make our homes, their homes too. May be, we can all share the fruits of falling in love with a place with asuring them that they are safe in a place where they are surrounded by fellow- citizens, their brothers and sisters. May be we can replenish their faith in the solemn avow of 'All Indians are our brothers and sisters'. May be, we can all make them love the simple phrase of 'Feel at home'.
This greatly reminds me of a Telugu song that is really thought provoking..

"Kanapadevi ennenni keratalu kalagalipi samudram antaaru, adagare okkokka ala peru..
Manakila eduraina prathi vaaru manishi ane sandrana keratalu, palakare 'manishi' ante evaru.." (Gamyam)
[The number of waves in concert together, make an ocean. We never ask the identity of each wave in separation. The populous we see everyday are the waves of humanity.. But why is it that no one responds to the call of 'human' ]

May be.. we can all prove to be more relaible and more welcoming for them, not to leave out of fear, but stay out of love! We can all,together, fly free, to chase the wind and touch the skies, only to realise our dreams and aspirations, Feeling at home, with every step we take, everywhere!

Ithu Namma Ooru!