I have these sudden awakenings of memory and all of a sudden something long forgotten comes alive fresh and vivid and I can almost see it as if it happened a few moments ago. Sometimes it comes with side effects like memory of the smells and sounds. This morning I woke up thinking about what constitutes "dignity" and suddenly I remembered one of my mother's short stories. My father ran a publishing house and he and my mom were writers of sorts although my mother's love for writing got lost in her struggles to balance family life and her own serial illnesses that plagued her all her life. My father had published her short stories in a book which I had read when I was about 10. Recently when i looked for a copy of the book , I felt sad to realise that we did not have a single copy of the book in the family.But today one of those stories came back to me.
She wrote mostly from what she saw rather than from her imagination so I am sure this was something that actually happened:
When we were young, we used to have these travelling street performers coming to our streets. They were called Thommankoothadis.The group consisted of a man, wife and a brother or sister , a few kids of assorted ages and a monkey. They spoke a funny slang of Tamil, played the drums or sang songs, balanced on ropes held tight by bamboo poles, the monkey somersaulted and obeyed orders and the highlight was when the man would tie his infant on top of a pole and balance it on his palm or his stomach. They would come , set up the props and the whole performnce would last about half an hour; people would stand around in circles or in their balconies to watch the show. At the end of it, the lady would come around with a bowl for money or for clothes from the people watching from houses. Apparently one afternoon there was one such show outside and my mom was watching from the balcony with my younger sister who was about 2 years old while the rest of us had gone to school. My mom was engrossed in the show while little lalitha ( my sister) decided to get a closer look at the whole thing and slipped on to the street unobserved. When it was all over and the infant had safely come down from the pole, my mom realised the absence of lalli. She could find her anywhere in the house or in the crowd which was slowly dissipating. She panicked at the idea of her child being kidnapped for performing on the streets. She was about to call the police when she heard footsteps outside the front door. It was the thommankoothadi woman holding little laitha's hand. She scolded my mother for having allowed the child to walk away into the street. My mother was overcome with relief and gratitude as tears streamed down her cheeks. She was also ashamed about having suspected them of kidnapping. She told the lady to wait and when she came back with money she was shamed a second time by the woman's reply: "Ma, we are so poor that we have to make our children perform to earn our food. But please do not pay me for saving a child, If you want to give me something, give me your children's used clothes to keep my children comfortable."
Now I think this is what dignity is all about. It is not about your comportment, your manner of speech, your attire or your gait. It is not about keeping a stiff upper lip or keeping your feelings to yourself. It is about an acceptance of your lot and not letting anyone make you feel inferior for that. It is about not being self-pitying or making excuses for what you are or being bitter about your circumstances. It is about not putting your basic humanity, kindness,grace up for sale irrespective of what you wear, what you eat, where you live or what you look like.

The following is an interesting excerpt from the book "freakonomics:
"There is a tale, "The ring of Gyges" .. It comes from Plato's Republic.A student named Glaucon offered the story in response to a lesson by Socrates, who, like Adam Smith, argued that people are generally good even without enforcement. Glaucon, like feldman's economist friends, disagreed. He told of a shepherd named Gyges who stumbled upon a secret cavern with a corpse inside that wore a ring. When Gyges put on the ring, he found that it made him invisible. With no one able to monitor his behavior, Gyges proceded to do woeful things - seduce the queen, murder the king and so on. Galucon's story posed a moral question, could any man resist the temptation of evil if he knew his acts could not be witnessed? Glaucon seemed to think the answer was no."

I think the answer is "yes". What do you think?

One thing that strikes me in my conversations with the bright young generation of college students and fresh graduates in family gatherings, at the French class etc, is the narrowness of their goals. For example I was talking to my niece who is in her 5th semester Comp Sc. in a very good engineering college and was shocked to find that she chose to limit her life to a job in an IT company, with a starting pay of around 20K, had no plans for further studies, because she felt that her basic B.E. in computer science was “enough” to get her a job in a reputed IT company.
Here’s a young person who is smart, has tremendous potential and has no pressures to start earning immediately. Should she not be setting her goals higher or even hitching her wagon to a star? What was disconcerting was not her attitude but the realisation that she is perhaps representing the majority of undergraduate students in India. There is so much pressure throughout their schooling, that students don’t want to study any more at the slightest given opportunity, especially when they can land a job that guarantees a “good life’. Additionally the system has nothing better to offer them as an incentive for further studies - all the job opportunities they have are in the IT companies, where they get sucked in 9 to 9 in a job that gets monotonous after 2 years of initial euphoria ( for most) and leaves them no time for any other pursuits. But most are stuck there for there is no ”greener” pasture – it is all the same in all companies, give or take a few thousands. There is ample compensation in terms of money, foreign travel and associated dollar income but is their full potential being utilized?
India is blessed with a rich base of human capital, but the system is merely blunting the potential of college students and causing them to burn out by their middle age. Companies hijack them from campuses ( one company has offered jobs for all the 1st semester students in Anna Engineering college, another recruits 100 per year from each reputed engineering college). There could have been some brilliant inventors, scientists, teachers and authors among them, but it seems that today the system wants only engineers and programmers . I think the ad for GNIIT shows this brilliantly – well dressed HR folks of IT company waiting at street corners to grab an unsuspecting guy with a GNIIT certificate – 600000 IT jobs and not enough GNIITians to fill them!!!
For years, degree colleges offering pure science courses have had few takers and even the paltry few who join are mainly those who haven’t got an engineering or medical seat. People prefer to get an engineering degree from a mediocre college than a science degree from a reputed one. Who is going to teach science to the next generation? Who is going to carry on research work in our prestigious laboratories? More engineers? Doctors with five years experience are still earning about 15 k while a raw engineer starts at 20 k plus and other benefits. Why blame the kids when the system is bad? IT companies are able to give the young people the motivation in terms of a huge purchasing power and promise of a good life – even if there is nothing beyond it that is still enough compensation for the individuals. But can the system sustain on this lopsided growth – do we plan to become so rich like the gulf nations or some of the western nations which are able to attract immigrants to do other jobs?
And what about the engineers themselves – they are some of the best talented kids of the country. Are they satisfied to be mere software clerks or as a magazine called them -“IT coolies” ?( of course it was talking about the hordes of warm bodies that were being shipped outdoing the Y2K. I am sure it happens for other projects now.). Do these young people know where they want to be 10 years , 20 years, 30 years from now – apart from a lakhpati, crorepati. Are they happy with that vision?

Adelbert Chamisso has written a touching story about Peter Schlemihl, a man who is lured by the devil to sell him his shadow in exchange for a purse which would give him unlimited supply of gold. Soon after he realises that he is a non person without his shadow, which all the gold at his disposal cannot buy back. The shadow is an image of one’s real person, a constant reminder to be in touch with oneself and not lose it. Perhaps that is why most IT jobs ensure that their young employees do not see the Sun or their shadows!

I saw an ad in the newspaper last week which offered a gift of a designer watch (allegedly worth 20,000) on purchase of jewellery worth 40,000. There was a picture of this watch in the ad and I looked at it with great curiosity - perhaps it was cased in 22 carat gold or studded with precious stones? No. It was just like any other watch. Or perhaps it doubled up as a computer or a television or a music system? Else why would you spend 20k on a simple device that told you time which is admirably done by electronic throwaway watches available at Rs.100 in china bazar? In fact you don’t even need wrist watches anymore as your cell phone, fm radio, and computer tell you the time. So then why all the fuss about a band around the wrist?
When I mentioned this to a yuppy friend, he looked at me like I was low life(I get these often for my naive statements)and explained that designer watches were style statements. And he also let me know that designer stuff did not usually come as packages of x cum y cum z. They were just it – a watch or a handbag or a sunglass with a enormous price tag from a reputed house. They indicated to the world that you have “made it” in the world. Since the world does not have a way to know your designation or your accomplishments or your bank balance – this is how you let the world know that you are successful. How dumb of me, not to have understood these “fine” aspects.
I can understand people wanting to own a Mercedes car – that wonderful machine that gives you so much safety while making driving a pleasure. I suppose that these designer products guarantee good raw material, fine finish, unique design and of course that most valuable name of the designer house prominently displayed on the product. But how much functionality can you add to a watch in any case? I guess the more money you have the more inclined you are to throw it on least useful stuff and the stronger the statement you make. But does someone who really feels that he has made it, the complete man or woman need this piggy back ride on designer labels to prove it to the world?

She is the third of four children in a middle class family from a town in North Karnataka. She had a traditional South Indian middle class upbringing and was quite happy to let her parents choose her groom. She had no great expectations from life -all she wanted was a normal happy life. But for some people even that is too much to ask! On the evening of their marriage the groom helped himself to all her jewellery and gambled them away. What seemed like the beginning turned out to be the end. But that was a beginning in another way. The docile, protected girl decided to take control of her life. She refused to stay with him and returned to her parents' house.The father said there was no place for her in his house and she should return to her "lawful" husband. The girl stood her ground, argued that it was the father's fault in having found a gambler as her husband; she also told them that all she wanted was a place in the house and that she would pay for her keep with a job she would find. And she has kept up her word and he determination. Since then She has worked in NGOs to earn her living and to keep her busy. She reads a lot,she is never depressed, has a positive outlook on life and never says "Why me?'
As for the husband, he is shamelessly fighting for restitution of conjugal rights, refusing to give her a consensual divorce for after all the great indian marriage laws do not allow a woman to seek a divorce on the ground of a husband being a gambler or alcoholic or liar. For six years now she has been married in law without being entitled to any of the priveleges of a marriage. She is punished for just taking the seven steps with him around fire while he is not hauled up for not sticking to the mantras he said while taking those steps!! The case goes on...
But she accepts it all in the right spirit for she knows she is right and that is what real heros are all about.

I feel sorry when people
rush past old people and people with children to deplane or at immigration counters
cannot think of offering the first auto to someone with a lot of stuff or a child
cannot let someone with just one item to bill at the check out counter to go first while waiting with a cartload of purchases.
These gestures cost a few extra minutes but cause so much gentileness to go around in the world.
A simple act of kindness has such a cascading effect in making the world a better place to live in.
Whenever I am in such situations I always remember how good I felt when I needed the favour and somebody let me pass before them and it feels good to be able to pass on the favour to someone else.
Perhaps these other people have never had such kindnesses shown to them? And that is why I feel so sorry for them.

“To maintain order, enforce the law, and prevent and detect crime” – that is the dictionary definition of Policing. One assumes that there would be more stress on prevention than detection which would be necessary only when prevention fails. At least one wing of the police department seems to be in disagreement – the traffic police. Anyone who has been driving in Bangalore is familiar with the following scenario:
You need to quickly pick up some medicine or bread or whatever,look for a parking lot and finding none, park it under a tree near the shop and when you return after 3 minutes you find the policeman asking for your licence - the crime? You parked in a no parking zone. “But there is no sign?” you mutter in a puzzled tone and he points to it. You needed him to point it out because it is strategically placed close to a tree, visible only from certain angles. This is something you can try in any new route that you take. Try spotting a traffic sign while managing to negotiate the car through the traffic in any commercial area and nine out of ten times you will fail. The most prominently displayed boards will only give you information on the number of accidents and deaths in Bangalore over the past 3 years or the details of the penalty for every traffic violation.
And if the policeman had to police the no parking zone why is it that he does not make himself visible preventing you from parking there like the security guards in apartments? How come he hides behind the tree, waits for you to park and then pounces on you with a wicked “got you!” leer?
The answer is not hard to find. He will tell you to pay up a fine of 100 and then return you Rs.50 if you do not demand a receipt!! So why prevent a lucrative source of income? And even if you demand a receipt, it goes under his record of “number of crimes detected”. So it is a win-win for him right?

This neighbour's house is being painted and these days she seems very busy and active; normally there is a lost look about her when we meet during the evening strolls. Yesterday she was glowing as she told me that her son from the U.S. was coming on a holiday after 5 years - she was bursting with the news and it seemed like she wanted to announce it to the whole world. Humouring her I said, "Ah, now i see what's with the painting and all" and she told me how she had been waiting for this all these years and how she has not had the enthusiasm to clean the house or decorate it or cook special things ever since he left. Every day of her life in the past 5 years has been spent only waiting for the day he will come back.I am happy for her but I am more worried about her return to misery after he leaves. For a while she would show us the photographs and the gifts he brought her , the home videos and all that and then slowly she will sink back into a void, steeped in her memories oblivious of the present, suspending the whole process of "living" until another visit from him.

This is the case with most people who shrink their lives into roles - defining them in relation to another person in their lives - a parent or a spouse or a child. The minute the other goes out of the scene, you cease to exist for yourself. It is like he / she rolled up your life and walked away with it.

I was reminded of Mrs.Ramaswamy, one of the customers of the bank branch I was managing. She was 65, drove an old fiat and very well read. I used to wait for her visits to the bank and our interesting chats. Our pet peeve was the horrible Bangalore traffic (and this was still 1988!!) She was 35 years my senior but we could talk about everything as if we were contemporaries. Her husband had died some years ago and her children were married and lived in different cities. She chose to live alone in the charming villa in Indiranagar. First time she called me over for tea, frankly I went more out of sympathy for the widowed old lady living alone seeking company on a quiet afternoon. But what greeted me was an elegantly furnished house with a cheerful garden- no signs of emptiness or depression. Even her sons' rooms were kept in order as if they lived in the house. A cook and a young maid lived in the house and the meals were simple and tasty and varied whether she had visitors or not. She explained it during one of our conversations:"You cannot stop living because people have gone away to have their lives or your partner's time has come. You have to go on living until your time comes." She is thrilled when her children and grand children visit her but does not go into depression when they leave. She has her own life - a full and meaningful one that is not dependent on anyone else, even her children.

She is happy to play her roles by them but she wont let them walk away with it. She is firmly in control of it.

Yesterday I was at Forum mall and while waiting for the lift, i was amused to watch a young boy pressing the lift call button impatiently every 5 seconds. Actually it had taken just a minute and a half for the lift to arrive at the floor but he had already pressed it some 15 times.And once we were in the lift he could not keep his hands off the "Door close" button - he wanted the lift to descend straight to the basement without stopping in any floor. He wanted to save those three minutes - too long a time for him.
The speed that we have got used to as a result of all these machines has completely spoilt us - people are always complaining of poor response if it took more than a few seconds between the time they press the send button and the acknowledgement that the message is sent. And we get panicky if a mail does not get a response within the day. Tempers rise at every red light and the instant the light turns green horns start blaring. Now we dont have just 24 hours to do things but 24*60*60 seconds or perhaps subdivisions of it by which we count our time.
So with all the time that we save should we not be having more leisure time to do the things that we want to do? But I find people complaining all the time that they have "no time" for anything. They are sleeping less, playing less,reading less, meeting friends less. So where is all the time going? And why is it all going there?

Shelly, the tortoise heard a loud knock on his shell and peeped out cautiously.
It was Mr.Fox. He was agitated.
“What is with this race tomorrow – you taking on bunny rabbit? Don’t you know you will be humiliated? “ asked the Fox.
“It is alright, foxy, it is only a game;and all for a good cause. The money is going to the SPCA. Winning or losing does not matter. It is the participation that counts!” replied the wise tortoise. Anyone who had lived as long as he had to be wise and know what he was doing.
They had no idea that bunny was behind the bushes overhearing the conversation.
The next day, it was the tortoise that showed up at the finishing line first and the rabbit hobbled behind claiming to have fallen asleep mid way.
“Bravo” shouted everyone “Slow and steady wins the race!”
As Mr.Fox gave him a searching look, bunny winked at him and said “hush!”
Source: Aesop’s Fables
Retold: Usha Vaidyanathan

I have never been so obsessed with windows like these past few days – oh no, not the microsoft variety but the ones you have on buildings, the ones that let you see what goes on in the world outside the house apart from giving you the control to keep wind, light and rain out of the house. The steel frames of many of the windows in the house had got corroded and hence we are replacing them. They knocked them off in one go but took their own sweet time to fix them back (welder came but not the carpenter; carpenter came but so did the rain and so on….). So we have been exposed to dust and chill nightly wind and daily bright light as well as mosquitoes and a few rodents creeping through the grilles making the dog neurotic. The well settled rhythm of the house is temporarily suspended as everything is unplugged or rolled up or stored away and the house has the look of a house usually locked up and visited during holidays .You wipe the dust off the space you want to use and happily ignore the dust all around. You stop being conscious of being watched by the construction workers from the next site and oh, they love to look inside whenever they get some time ( of course, they do not mind you looking at their homes, do they?)

It is interesting to see how the shape, size and positioning of windows has changed over times. In my grandfather’s house, they were placed at such a height that an adult could look out of the windows but no one from the street could look into the house ( we kids climbed on the sill and stood their holding the grilles for hours and watched the happenings on the street) Now I recollect that in that house built before 1930, all the windows from the women’s area overlooked some other part of the house but none directly to the street! The main source of light and wind in the women’s area was the courtyard which was open to the sky. Women did not care too much about what went on outside their families. They did not need windows to the outside world. Perhaps that was the assumption.

Later too, in the houses in which I grew up, windows were placed appropriately for cross ventilation but girls were gently admonished if they stood near the windows looking out. There were all sorts of “bad things going on out there” from which one had to protect the girls.

Today things are different. These are golden times for windows - there are French windows that double up as doors and bay windows that have seating areas and then there are the louvres and so many fancy versions. They are not only functional but add to the aesthetics. Most office buildings with their centralized cooling systems have windows that allow only view and no air (tinted windows that allow one way view). Buildings make statements with their windows – the material used, the colours, the shape, the positioning.

No one to stop you from standing near the windows and observing the world – but there are no interesting things happening on the road – no monkey performing somersaults or jumping sticks (“ cross the sea to lanka Rama!!”) , no bangle seller, no painted man performing gymnastics, no mini carousels for kids – only speeding vehicles raising dust. No wonder Microsoft windows is more popular than the original one.

The prize winning "surprise look"?

Not the practised eyes wide open , carefully manicured hands on the cheeks , real action in slow motion "oh my God" look popularised by ever so many Miss Universes.

Not the shell shocked , "Damn,this is my 30 seconds of glory;lemme say it all;but I cant seem to remember a single sensible word" look at the oscars.

It is a puppy letting out a cute, tiny bark for the first time, looking all around to see where that sound came from and freaking out all day everytime that sound comes from his throat!!!

Now that is definitely a winner!

A mother's joy is great when she bears a child ; but greater is the joy when she hears others praise her child.
("Eenra pozhudir peruduvarkum thanmaganai
saanron enakketta thaai")
That is a Kural by the tamil poet thiruvalluvar(first century B.C.)who in two lines packed all the wisdom, philosophy and human psychology one possibly needs in life.He said little and kept it very brief but said them all!
I knew the full import of this couplet today when I read Harsha Bhogle's column in the Indian Express today:
"For years there were hypotheses; based on stray observations and a deep concern for cricket in India. There were theories, opinions, a lot of us were like the philosophers, or like scientists of old to whom ideas in the mind were the drivers of thought because numbers on paper hadn’t appeared yet.

"Now we can rejoice because of a pathbreaking piece of research by Siddhartha Vaidyanathan, another of our highly promising young breed of cricket writers. He has looked at data from domestic cricket over the last five years and his findings are like music to the ears. I have read his article twice and each time I have felt like old scientists must have as elements were discovered where they ought to have been in the periodic table......
And the whole column is about siddhu's article in Feb Issue of Wisden Asia Cricket.

To hear anyone say this would have been music to my ears ...and coming from Harsha, this is a very proud moment for me.
Felicitations Siddhu! Thank you Harsha!!

Blind , deaf and Mute.People and objects in their lives are just smells, a sensation, a warm hug, a rough touch, a soft kiss, a cold splash , a painful sharpness, a soothing coolness!Their ideas have no colour, shape or name and no expression.There are no words as theirs is a soundless and lightless world – it is all a silent darkness. I do not know if it is black or gray or a muddy brown – anyway how does it matter what colour infinite sadness is? To be sitting in front of the sea and feel it only as a cool touch, not to be able to be awed by the majesty of a mountain except feel it as a hard surface under your body;not to be moved to tears by music and yet to be alive? Did God forget to say “let there be light” when he created them?
I hung my head in shame for all those times I had complained about my lot – every day of my healthy life has been a blessing and I am not sure I will have enough days left to say thanks for all the simple blessings that I have so far taken as given.
Now I know what Purandaradasa meant when he sang:
Narajanma bandaga Naalige iruvage
“Krishna” ena barade?*
(When you have been blessed with human existence and have the power to speak can you not say Krishna's name?)

Saw the movie "Million dollar baby"- great performance by Morgan Freeman, Hilary Swank and Clint Eastwood. But I just simply could not watch the boxing scenes - could not understand the heroine's passion for this sport or anyone's. Is it a sport at all when it seems to be founded on the principle of hurting another person fatally? It is not something which tests your defensive skills but positively all energy is directed at offending - the intimidating looks , the posture, the jabbing, slapping, and flurry of blows - how can civilised people enjoy something so bloody? Or is it an outlet for the animal that lurks inside that civilised exterior?
One of the arguments offered against ban on boxing is "when a person chooses boxing he is aware if the danger to his life and he makes a free choice. So why ban it?"
What kind of an argument is that? When you are not allowed to choose death when you are terminally ill, how can you allow a healthy person a choice of death in this manner?

Outside a "fun" school for kids I saw a board saying they took kids in for
Play school,pre school, nursery,L.Kg and senior Kg. Now is this how many levels that kids go through before entering std.1? so when exactly do they start - right on the day they are discharged from the maternity ward?There was also something on the same board about "young achievers" in the age group of 5 to 10. So the pressure to "achieve" starts from that level!!
That same evening,while waiting for asha and company before the Indian ocean & strings show at IIM, amboj and I did receive a lot of curious glances from the 20 something crowd waiting impatiently to get in.
But the best part came at security check point. Amboj opened her bag to reveal the contents when she saw asha's being checked but the supervisor quickly walked over,stopped her and asked her and me to pass. We heard her scold the younger security, "don't stop the senior citizens!!" yeah, that is us!!
So you start your race of life , the "achievement" path sometime around 2 plus when you have bladder control and can speak . And at 45, when you stop running because you suddenly realise ther IS no race, you are a senior citizen.
When does one actually have fun??

Jagjit was melting hearts on a moonlit night in the open garden of IIM.Wonder if God cast that voice in gold and wrapped it in velvet before putting it in ( well, souvik, THAT voice needs a God!) A voice meant for singing about love, life and God - the theme of all ghazals and the result was magic. People of all ages were remembering the time they first fell in love or if they did not have the experience , they were falling in love with love itself.(It was agelessbonding!!-like what he sang in one of the songs: "na umr ka seemayein; na janm ka) The setting was perfect, the weather was just right and there was love everywhere. But then there was a separation between the singer and the listener - a clear gap.It was a brilliant performance but a "performance" nonetheless.
And then it all changed when he switched to punjabi folk music.The audience became part of the performers, adding the ahas and ohos at the appropriate moments and danced. That was lovely. The abandon, the participation, the obliteration of distinctions - you did not need to be a professional,it was souls dancing to their inner music, a complete identification. Joy filled the air.
It is extremely cathartic to let go and sing and loosen up completely and dance to the music making your own steps. Most villages and tribal cultures have this tradition- time we revived it to relieve all the stress that city life imposes.
Anyone willing??Aha! oho!!

Accompanied Vaish on an important mission before the class last saturday - changing the water and food for Kitkit, Anita's cat as she was away doing Tsunami relief work at chennai. Both of us were nervous to say the least as we hadn't the tiniest clue about cat behaviour. On top of it Anita had warned that kitkit waits behind the door when she hears it being opened and charges out as soon as it is. The last thing we wanted was to lose her cat as we were pretty sure we would never know how to coax her back if she decided to charge out. So we opened the door ever so gently like two thieves and entered the apartment with our hearts going thud thud thud. No sign of a cat....I lay flat on the floor in each room and turned my head around looking for something like a stuffed toy....Nothing.....Sniffed around...couldn't smell a thing...Finally I sat in one corner and started chanting what I thought was cat language "....psss...pssss...kitkit...kitkit...where are you..pss.pss.." And it worked....There was a plaintive "meeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaoooowwww" and it was not particularly friendly...perhaps my pronounciation was so awful that she decided to protest ( happens all the time in French class!!!)
Then a tiny white thing peeped from behind the fridge assessing my philistine self. I was shaking as I obvioulsy smelt of Amigo who was all over me just 15 minutes earlier and Saba. Fortunately Kitkit just concluded that I was too weak to confront and slowly marched past me while fixing her gaze on me as i withdrew more and more into the wall...and I called out to Vaish that she had emerged.Vaish was so excited that she did the most sacrilegeous thing: she said, " nice puppy.. where are you?" yes,she actually said "puppy" and that was it!! Kitkit decided to hide herself from us for ever and never said another word or came out until we finally left after changing her food and water. I bet she later complained to Anita about her taste in friends!!!
God, we were miserable and shaky for people who communicate with dogs so effortlessly. Thanks to the hype that cat lovers do about the superiority of cats, we felt like slum dwellers looking at people from page 3. And the worst part it, cats seem to believe it too.....god, wonder which paper they read....

"Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this."
whatever.......

They sit in the park benches placed around the walking path - these very old people,in sweaters and mufflers,alone.Sometimes two of them share a bench without uttering a word to each other. Would you forget words if nobody spoke to you for days on end?I look for the feeling behind those faces - are they sad, are they worried, are they contented? Or do they just wait helplessly and alone with only Death to claim them as his own?
What happened to all the people who they thought "belonged" to them, the ones with whom they laughed and cried and LIVED? These faces betray no emotion - they look like faces in a long shot,indistinct;lost to the present and future, they seem frozen in some remote past.
Perhaps they do not have use for their "feeling" faces in a world where no one seeks them out.Do they keep them "in a jar by the door"* to be worn when someone from their past drops by to see them and talk to them?

Eleanor Rigby (The Beatles?)

"Ah, look at all the lonely people!
Ah, look at all the lonely people!
Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?"

Have you been on Bannerghatta road recently - specially the part that leads from JP Nagar to IIM? Yeah, the potholes have been covered,a layer of tar has been poured and the road is divided and looks broader. People driving the economy (as well as qualis vehicles and fancy cars) to and from call centres and Mantri Paradises look happier - at last "Bangalore is catching up", they say!
Only the birds sit pensively on the corner temple looking lost.They are confused by the sudden disappearnace of those large trees that used to line the side of the road which used to be their home or rendezvous point - now gone with only the stumps left to mark their graveyard!Those trees under which you knew you could find the tender coconut and mango venders on summer afternoons, under which the cobbler sat with his dog; those trees that were covered in red and yellow and lavender every now and then adding colour to your day; where you stopped your scooter and waited for the rain to stop while taking in the smell of water mixed with the leafy barky smell of the tree.
Of course all this was when Bangalore was a small town - now it has grown big and perhaps needs to "catch up". In any case people do not have the time to listen to the birds or watch the colours on the trees - their cars need broader roads.
Perhaps this is a small price to pay for all the dollar income from the call centres and technology companies!