My Summer Dirge

The Cannonball Tree outside my window is in full bloom. Its white and pink and yellow refuse to merge with and dissipate against the dreary darkness of the cityscape. They obstinately crowd my window and hide the black, tarred roads from my vision.

It reminds me of similar windows from other times. A white window and yellow flowers with a black tarred road for the backdrop.

There's something about black tarred roads that make me love and despise them at the same time. I don't think I would see the beauty of the pinks and yellows if it weren't for the black. But then again, I don't know.

What I do know is that my city is summer struck again. It makes me feel and want to do all sorts of things. Every year.

It makes me want to hop onto a train for a hot, breezy train ride to South Mumbai - to soak in the art deco buildings, to tread cobbled stone roads, to linger in the arches, to finger through moth eaten second hand books, to walk around aimlessly.

It makes me feel cranky and whiny and impatient.

It makes me want to quit my job.

It makes me want to guzzle ice cold beer with a bunch of boisterous friends every other evening, to wash away that everlasting, lingering sense of ennui that overpowers me ever so often. Especially during summers.

It makes me want to sit by the sea and cast away that part of me which is pessimistic, resentful and confused.

It makes me feel impulsive and whimsical.

It makes me find solace in pinks and whites and yellows, in black, sun dappled alleys tucked away in my city, in ancient banyan and jamun trees.... in open windows.

All in a day's work

7.30 a.m. Text Received.
"Anther dull, grey, smog filled morning. How far?"
   " 10 mins away, but half hour of traffic piled up in front of me. How 'bout a sunny side up with some hash browns?"
" Wt! Why remind me of hash browns n coffee n town when you and I are caught in traffic snarls en route to work?"
   " Letssss go!"
"Pch. Duty calls. Let's bunk a working day next week for a scrumptious morning meal."
    " Deal. I can't bunk Mon, Wed, Fri absolutely. You?"
"Not Tues, Thurs, Fri.Absolutely NOT"
     "Wt the ...!"
"See you in ten. Not the hash browns for another week."

********************************************************
5.20 p.m. Tired, fed up, craving coffee and hash browns.

Day 3. Consecutive Meeting no. 3. At the same spot.
(I Flash a smile 'coz I'm a nice person and oh-so-bored)

(Familiarity could breed friends.And of course it does.)
" Hi!"
   "Hey!"
"Late today?"
   "Yeah a bit."
"No bus?"
   " Not in the last ten minutes."
"Oh!"
(hesitant silence)
"What's your name by the way?"
    "Jennifer. And you?"
(incoherent mumble)
    "Sorry?"
(a phonic jumble)
     (Very apologetically)"How do you spell it?"
"S-h-r-u-g-a-l"
   "Ah! Very unusual. What does it mean?"
"It's MY god's name. "
   "Oh. Nice."
And the bus arrives. S-h-r-u-g-a-l offers me a seat but no more talk.
Probably 'coz I didn't have a god for my namesake.
But I  thank him and his namesake for the seat :-)

****************************************************************
8.00 p.m. En route to the local grocer. Pavement.

Day 2 after a random, brief walk under the umbrella over 2 months ago.

(Again, I smile 'coz I'm a nice person and I'd forgotten familiarity breeds friends.)

"Hiiiiii!"
  "Hey."
"Should I call you didi or aunty?"
  " Neither, Jennifer. Did you reach school in time for your basket ball practice?"
"Not Basket ball. TT!! Thanks for letting me walk with you that day.
  "No problem! Which grade are you in by the way?"
"9th. Don't you stay in Silver Arch?"
  "No I don't."
"Can I have your number? I promise I won't give it to anyone.
  (puzzled) "Hahaha...but why do you want my number?"
"Arre give na. Ok, you don't want to give? Ok you store mine. Here.And my name is Nikita."
  (I feel bad) "Do one thing, I'll give you mine. And you give me a missed call, I'll save it."
"Ok!! Great! I'll add you on FB ha."

Reason no 36286352 why i like my city - It's as easy to pick up and drop a conversation with strangers as with friends.

At the Bus stop

Her face crumpled into a grimace as she skirted the last of the mucky puddles and reached the bus stand.Despite her best efforts, she noticed, her foot was studded with fine brown dots of muck.A fine wind had been blowing since the morning and it had played truant with her hair. Holding on to her umbrella and her printed cotton duppatta, she stood in queue, waiting for the bus.Idly, she went over her day so far.She had skipped breakfast, missed her usual train and was late yet again for work. But seeing the people and places around, always comforted her. She amused herself with inconsequential details.

Her walk from the railway station to the bus stand was delightfully amusing.It was lined with distinct sights and smells. The earthy smell of wet mud fused into the smell of the fat man's Navy Cut smoke, which mingled with the aroma of steamy, crisp vada pav, which finally merged into the fumes of the taxis in the taxi stand. Then there was the bovine cow, just at the steps of the foot over bridge. It was always there, ruminating on cud while commuters hustled past it, making a pit stop only to touch it for a moment and seek its blessings before the lugubrious work day started.  

There were many more. But today something else amused her.She quizzically looked around as she heard a Bollywood song playing somewhere in the background. She thought she saw a pair of roving eyes staring at her, from behind a tattered curtain. She had often noticed this shop, but had never cared to look inside. The curtain always religiously veiled the doorway and she had never stood long enough at the bus stand to watch anyone emerge out of the shadows of the room. She tried to catch a glimpse of the interiors, as the curtain slowly moved in the breeze.

Intrigued, she looked skyward. The name board, was a modest work of art. A huge red rose stood between two words, also splashed in red, against a dull white backdrop - "Red Rose." Scrawled in the subscript was "Deshi Daaru Bar." Suddenly a man darted out from the shadows. He was beaming at her, as he walked past the queue at the bus stand and disappeared into the mass of moving bodies on the road.

She smiled to herself as she got on to the 8:20am bus. There was always a new reason to smile in the city.

On Doorways

Jew Town Road,
Fort Cochin

The narrow stone cobbled streets seemed like they had meandered out of a book of illustrated Fairy Tales.Now, black tarred roads stick out only as a unsure memory.Here, feet mostly tread on age old stone, bathed in a film of sand blown over from the thin shoreline. 

Every other street corner was splashed with color or bedecked with beads, flowers, clothes or jewels.Resplendent.

In the midst of this extravagance I spotted a humble door way. Welcoming curious feet was a worn out but formerly bright yellow wall. Leading on was a cobbled stone path. Hovering over, cautiously was the blue sky.

Where will it take curious feet?
I have yet to find out.

This is as far as my camera's eye could see. 
But does another door always open when one shuts?
Is everything illuminated?

An Evening

One wall of my living room has been broken down to make large french windows and a glass door. This allows for a judicious view of the world outside. The odd days that I am at home, I dislike being indoors between five and seven in the evening. I often get a glimpse of the dark dusk sky invading the blue of the day. As the lamps are lit, the soft yellow of the 40 watts bulbs mingles with the dark blue of the sky outside.All doors and windows are ritualistically closed, to keep the errant mosquitoes out. All this somehow often makes me feel a little somber, and all I want is to be swallowed by a dark, warm blanket.

Today, as I went about with this routine, I unusually heard a lot of noises outside the window. Beyond our compound wall is a small field, with a few trees. Curiously, I peeked out and saw winged creatures swarming around it. The evening sky was full of them, all probably headed back home. Caught in the dull mechanics of urban existence, I often forget this city doesn't have just black crows and noisy pigeons. As I surveyed the sky, it was checkered with birds of different sizes in hues of black, grey, white, brown and even red and pink ! This evening, one tree was particularly abuzz with a flurry of conversations. I've often heard a stray koel or a crow, but this was different. The members of this housing colony were innumerable green winged beings. Their loud, incessant chirping was accompanied with an ocassional angry whosh of a wing, as someone stormed out of the branches, or someone fluttered back home.

The humdrum of the approaching night and the drone of the electric fan was drowned, if only temporarily by their magical conversations. Indecipherable.Magical.

I think I have found reason to be a little less unhappy between five and seven p.m.

At a station.

The black beads of her mangalsutra glistened in the light of the noon sun. For a moment her worry knit eyebrows relaxed as her lips creased into a fleeting smile. Sometimes she allowed herself the indulgence of footboard travel, she liked the wind ruffling her hair. The subji she had prepared that morning had turned out to be a little too salty. Varun, her son had complained, as always. Nonetheless it had gone into all three dabbas, Varun's, his father's and her's. They would have the same subji for dinner too, when they all returned home after a long day. She couldn't afford extravagance. As the 1:10 Churchgate local entered Dadar station, she gathered the pleats of her startched cotton sari , held on to her bag and prepared to alight. An arrogant sunbeam caught a thin silver strand in her hair. She swiftly alighted and walked towards the foot over bridge.
Just as the train blew its whistle and inched towards pulling its serpentine self out of the station, a young man came rushing down the bridge steps. In his pin stripe pants and crisp white shirt, he wore the look of a successful professional. There was a rush of heady determination in his gait. With his eyes fixed on the train that threatened to move any moment, he did not see her in his way. He ran, his arms flaying in the air. She tried to dodge him. Unsuccessfully. They collided.
He twirled her around with his flaying arms now enveloping her in a disarming embrace. Neither knew what was happening. The unwarranted, amused stares of curious onlookers broke the spell. He rushed to hop on to his train.
She was still wide eyed with the joyful excitement the twirl had whipped in her. She coyly smiled as a young bride would, trying to hide from the gaze of the amused bootpolishwala, the chaiwala, the paperwala and others . She didn't yell at him or slap him. She only carried the happiness he had unknowingly passed on to her in those brief seconds.

Khaali Pretensions.

A cool February evening. Scrap metal gods riding in on cycles. Tall plastic pyramids rising over the art deco buildings. Mobile toilets the city carries on its feet, railway tracks and pavements. Centre stage: a smorgasboard of culture to tingle your senses. Books, plays, films, art, dance and more. A riot of color. A heady mix of pavements, people, pretensions and paisa.

Amidst this cacophony that was the Kala Ghoda Festival, seated on a wooden pedestal was an urban hermit. A grubby beard that ended in colorful rubberbands adorned his rather emaciated face. A Jansport backpack carried the burden of his worldly possessions. His hair was bundled up on the top of his head in a bun. A few stray matted locks hung over his forehead. When he jumped off his pedestal, his pants precariously hung on somewhere in between his waist and feet. He bore a sign. He was giving away something. FREE! The moment I walked up to him he opened his spindly arms in a warm embrace and greeted me with the most cheerful smile I'd seen in weeks.

I din't know him. He din't know me.
I was free hug number 61.
Those were the most honest three seconds of my evening.
It drowned the din of all the pretensions that floated arounded me.

The Highway Man

Toll lines in my city are long and tedious. I curse toll lines every time I'm in one. I curse the guy in front of me, I want to hurtle invectives at the guy blasting his horn behind me. I throw an angry scowl at the guy who flags down my car and asks me to cough up the toll.

As I drove down the highway a couple of months back, on a ruddy morning, the radio played an all time favorite number on Bombay..Yeh hai Bombay Meri Jaan. How different my Bombay now looked from those forgotten black and white images of the silver screen. My head was in a twirl and I felt a gush of happiness for no apparent reason. Surprisingly, I noticed that there wasn't a queue at the Toll Station. This was going to be a beautiful day.

As I braked, I suddenly realized how doubly boring it must be for the guy collecting the toll from the passing cars. Everyday he'd have to stand at the same spot, waving down grumpy motorists, handing them the ticket and collecting the money. A mere exchange of paper, both worthless, if not for the legitimacy we give it. Not a word spoken, not a glance cast. If at all words were spoken, they would be angry bursts of "chutta nahin hai" from the motorist or a curt command of "dosra note do" from the toll guy. Didn't he have more reason to complain than a grouchy motorist like me, seated inside a car with music playing?

So that day instead of arrogantly handing out the money, while looking straight ahead at the road, I turned to the mechanical hand that thrust the ticket in my face. I gave him the money, he gave me the ticket. It was well rehearsed. We did it everyday. But today, I gave a small smile and I coughed a thank you. He didn't hear. I whizzed past, just like any other car on the highway. As I drove away, the smile lingered on. I felt good. I felt happy that he was the first person I had greeted that morning. It probably didn't make a difference to him, but it did to me. I felt more human.

Since that day I've been dropping by my thank you at every toll station. Sometimes it goes unheard. Sometimes its just heard. Very often there is a suspicious quizzical expression on his face. Sometimes he looks back with a look of surprise, like he didn't hear it right.Some times, there is a "okay madam."
Today, there was a heartfelt, "you're most welcome, madam."

It probably did make a difference. :)
Random acts of kindness never gone unremitted.