Sunday, November 13, 2005

people gazing

i hate this but can't help it. when i wanted to put shutters down totally and being totally enveloped by a phenomenon called sleep, i came about this memory about my house of 72 doors. one of my future writing if one day would do that.
but here it goes.. part of house of 72 doors.

people i saw from house of 72 doors on the road or from the roof or through the windows. somehow i could never see outside humanity through any door. doors led me to windows or roofs or balconies.
i spent many hours standing, many a times sitting on a chair all along parapet, cemented painted yellow outside and white from inside and using it as my companion i watched people. sometimes alone, sometimes with dog or few times with relatives and very few times in company of monkeys.

i watched hundreds no thousands, may be tens of thousands faces, heads. some coming from left and rest from right. many as pedestrians, in search for something, looking for something they could not find easily. many looking around on tractors, some on bikes or scooters or cars or jeeps. but i liked people walking as they were easy to track and more time to follow.

will write more later as its past 4am now... need to catch some sleep before it catches me.

There was no specific class of people i looked at. It was all and everyone, there was hardly any dislike but definitely some people could struck a chord easily.
There was a certain group of people, around 4-5 who used to come to clean the big naali in front of house and they used to clean those on both side of road as well as on the street. As the sanitation schema was open. They used to come with these huge brooms and those long wooden logs with one end like a broom or a bucket and they used to cream in everything and would pour a significant black and surely not sweet smelling waste outside and usually that would lie as a gathering on side of road. There was a man which i remember still. He used to come in a light colored shirt with sleeves folded and a khakhi colored trouser and that too folded just below knees. Dark skinned fellow was always holding huge broom and he looked the stronger. he had nice strong moustache and was so active always. I never saw him lull. Watching him at first look, i knew everything would get going and he can clean everything. Always looked so meticulate but never had any talk with him.
His group had some ladies who would use their brooms to clean up the road sides, i somehow never could debug how come the road gets such a significant layer of dirt and sand everyday. They used to sue their huge brooms and try to clean up the sand but i could always see that how sand particles would subside nearby. They also used to bring some iron /*stuff*/ to carry the waste mud and put it on the waste carrying vehicle. But he is one man i would not forget who made a difference somehow in our lives.

Then there was tailor who used to sit just outside the shop right in front of house of 72 doors. Will tell you more about the house in front later.
This man was stocky, short, dressed in a trouser with untucked shirt. He had a cool moustache colored black and pepper, giving some date for his age. He was the man who sued to return our tennis balls or sometimes even football, that sued to cross the roads from the verandah where me and my cousin used to have a blast. He was very talkative as i saw him talk while he sew the covers for tractors. He was usually busy on his machine but had time for bidis or tea and for some talk. I don't remember how he sounded now, but he is remember as our ball returning man. Sometimes he used to warn us but always had a funny smile on his face as if to encourage and hit more towards there.

Then there was this couple, i was always more intrigues towards them. They were old fellas, face of the old mans till fresh in memory. Largely build, always had this whitish small size beard on his face. I don't remember the face of old lady but i do remember they were always a company. They had this tea stall very next to the gate of the adjacent school. I don't remember the name of the school now. they had this shop and a covered area leading more towards the road where the desks would be put on. If i fainly remember there used to be someone who sued to keep his empty vegetable cart during night and sleep there. the old man usually was in his white kurta and lungi. they were a typical punjabi couple, always chattered in quick punjabi. I remeber very well that i sometimes had bought nice biscuits from their shop or had always looked for muching those salty or sometimes tasteless fun. These tea corners place those funs in glass jars and i simply adore and have hardly ever asked to eat those.

then there is one other tea stall which was on the left side There was a father son duo. this was again a punjabi family running the business in a very small stall right on the corner of the street that led to arya nagar. there's was very popular as that tea used to get boiled over and over all the time perpetually. And i do remember taking breads from there so many times and many a times Gold spot, then it changed to Coca Cola, thums up or Mirinda in new era of Coca Cola and Pepsi. the old man had his teeth broken all brown saying mroe about his age. His son matched his face but had kept moustache of late. Father always clad in white kurta pyjama while son usually had moderm look of shirt and trouser.

then medicine shop.
then omelette wala
the house in front.
the school kids and teachers
the baniyas at the back.. kalu, leela, their kites, their fights, their cries, their anger, their speech, their words, their coughs, their blows.. all got shared.
the suave baniyas in front. marriage, death.

the flood and the water marks on the other side of street.
the electric pole, transformer which used to blast itself or triggered by monkeys and the monkeys than used tog and bang the whole road.

the dharams and his sons. vedpal, the printerwallas.
the tenants on the ground floor. uncle aunty, their sister and her daughter kiran. how he used to wash the jewel which i never thought was actually a jewel. the way he used to cough. the aunty ji whom i was afraid somehow as i never could understand her language as well as could not get through her eyes.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Why are we so horny?

Why are we so horny?

Disclaimer: Read the content below with as much perverted mind as you can be.

Yes we Indians, we Bangaloreans. Why are we becoming so horny? Why do we love to press and keep on pressing, why do we like to blow and blowing continuously, why do we like to press and blow and on each curve, each turn, be it day or night or any hour of night for that matter. What do we get? Happiness and comfort and pleasure or sadistic pleasure seeing others writhing in pain or its for fun or its comes handy and comes out on its own. What has got into us, that we keep on doing it everywhere on each nook, corner, every stop or no stop, be it over a small or big huge hole. Everyone does it and making it the latest IN thing, right on top of all IN/OUT charts. Everyone wanting to be ahead, irrespective on whatever they are riding on, try to go as fast as one could, some groaning and no one moaning.

Disclaimer: Please change your perverted mindset and hear some sounds. Have you ever heard a horn, ok how many kinds of horns have you heard? OK better how many different emotions have you gone through when you heard horns? Now read following without any of those perverted thoughts in the real world. Yes the world is this much hypocrite so live in it.

Could anyone explain a good reason for blowing those horns, those shriek sounds that I get to hear on every red light, over every pot hole, from my left as well from the right, those cries or blows that simply want my sensitive ear canals to blow and flow like nullahs were doing sometime back during rains. Can anyone explain the blowing horn on the innermost streets where my home is at 2am when you got those 2 halogen lamps which can guide one and tell if someone is round the corner, or that was just a new technique to show off that “I” exist. What does one get when the clock on red light shows 120seconds to go? One wants to fly or blowing horn would suddenly make everyone in front disappear like my horn has David Copperfield magic. Maybe someone think that by pressing that button on that handle for would widen the already encroached road by maybe 100 meters. And it would get more widened if more pressed. If you know that the front vehicle is dead as a dodo then blow more and pump more as that might make the dead vehicle run like a horse maybe or vanquish as if it never existed and blow horn till the driver of front vehicle get so ashamed of his vehicle that he vanishes or the very next minute would change his vehicle however new it may be. Blowing horn is new IN thing, inspiring even driver of lightest vehicles to do something. It slike harder or more sound you make, more quickly the front one vanishes also rating of blower get enhanced and move ahead in the race. Moreover horns are somewhere we can see equalities. Some buses would have horns as if a old ambassador is about to lie in trash or some new bikes would sound as if they are the real ‘mukkaddar ka sikandar’ trucks.

Could anyone explain what has happened that we have become so horny?

I had never thought that Sufi music could be so sleep inducing or better I’ve this nonsense to give it this credit so I better keep quite and myself from horniness.

Friday, November 04, 2005

No more an aam aadmi

I recently realized that I’m keeping myself aloof from many things and no more than an aam aadmi anymore. I’m simply not getting effected by anything as aam aadmi is. No onion prices effect me. I hardly knew that what was I paying for a simple ring of onions I cut and then get tears due to that same onion. I now realized that those were not simple tears those were onion tears, coming right at the plight of this unknown Indian and now not so aam aadmi. I was hardly having any effect of prices of onion or other vegetables until I went home this month. Much before I read or saw reports of rising onion prices in markets, I came to know what had I lost already. Cauliflower being sold at Rs.10 per kg and onion at Rs. 15-16per kg and Apples at Rs.20-25 per kg and suddenly that huge roar by one hawker for selling his huge bunch of cauliflowers had done the effect. Those rs.10 per kg roar, made a huge cry inside and created a sort of turmoil in my mind. Somehow now everytime that Rs.10 per kg was roaring every now and then as I knew it was almost half the price I was paying for that same thing in Bangalore. And this price in Bangalore was totally unnoticed and I was not doing anything about it at all. Never even looked at price tags, just picking those from racks and putting those as new replishments onto my buying basket. And, finally paying the whole amount by the big spoiler credit card, that final signature completing my cycle of being no more an aam aadmi anymore; as if the whole amount paid for being an non-aadmi had gone for the polybags that covered the pack of sand socked potatoes, or washed and rewashed lady fingers or sometimes extra red tomatoes or sometimes blackish onions who would give me back those onion tears again.

The story does not end here as I lately realized that I’m also even living in non-aam aadmi society now. Again the same city Banglaore made me realize this, yes I’m talking about the latest talking point rains of Bangalore. Its just not raining water, its raining marriages too. It feels sometimes as if the whole world is getting married and I’m left alone for my own cause. And when its raining marriages how could it not rain honeymoons. And now these guys and gals marrying from this November till next February are simply not talking about spending some time. Mostly are going for foreign lands, even though spouse does not have a passport in pocket at present. Its amazing to hear that these sons and daughters of aam aadmis are thinking of going to Thailand, Mauritius, Seychelles, Europe, Star cruise in Singapore etc. and these days tea time or lunch time gossips or knowledge sharing or brainstorming are about the pricing, rates of these trips, and sharing the details by someone who has already been there. And I silently calculate my budget of going to each of these places with friends and then friends roaring back, which ‘honeymoon’ place is left in your visited places now. Then suddenly someone bring up that his wife asked for bringing vegetables etc and I again remember my Onion tears and realize where have I entered again.