Cause and Effect

Two men met under a board at a station. It was early morning, and there was no train on the platform. The two men carried identical suitcases. They exchanged them without further ado.

No on saw them. A group of coolies stood nearby, but they were busy commenting on a girl. The girl went away soon after, and the coolies quietened down.

The first man went to a room in the station house and opened the suitcase. It contained, among other things, a set of freshly laundered clothes. He quickly changed. While he was changing, he heard the train chugging into the station slowly.

He spent some time praying. The babble of voices outside rose steadily.

He came out of the station house. Earlier, he had been an anonymous man in a checked shirt. Now he was an authoritative clipboard, and a dark jacket over a white shirt and trousers. A crowd of people converged on him, gesticulating, negotiating, pleading, arguing.

The unlucky ones got seats. The lucky ones went away, cursing the clipboard and the dark jacket.

The man suddenly realized that he had forgotten the suitcase. He went back inside the station house and got it. He tucked it safely under his seat. The train left the station with a final whistle.

The second man went back to his house and opened the suitcase. The suitcase contained money in thick wads. The man had not seen so much money in his life. He went to a nearby hospital and paid a bill. They finally released his daughter's body.

A while later, there was an explosion. Several bogies of a train fell off a bridge. Others hung down from the rails, and it was like a garland of bogies on the neck of the bridge. The river was a deep one, and it flowed on, unmindful.

Open Letter

Dear Elderly Person my Mum Knows,

I'm sure this letter is a big surprise for you. You've probably never received a letter from anybody in my generation. Trust me, I'm not very used to writing letters either. But I figured that this would be the best way of getting my point across to you.

Do you know what Facebook is? I guess you probably don't. It's this magical place where I can instantly tell my friends where I am and what I'm up to. So a couple of weeks ago, I updated my Facebook status with the line ".... has the coolest and awesomest parents ever." This was post a phone conversation with my Dad, during which he'd told me that an uncle of his had recently asked him when he was going to get me married off. My Dad's response (loosely translated from Malayalam) was, "We didn't raise her for that." Which I thought was very cool and awesome, though you will probably disagree with me.

Unfortunately, I think I spoke too soon. While my Dad continues to remain 'cool and awesome', my Mum seems to be becoming less and less so by the week. And no wonder - look at the amount of harassment she goes through ever day. Everywhere she goes, you apparently pop up and ask her, "So, have you started 'looking' yet?" During accidental meetings at supermarkets, during weddings, during her work hours at her bank, during routine visits to relatives' places. So much so that she has actually started shying away from elderly people on the roads, afraid that they are also going to ask her The Question.

Ah, so now you understand what this letter is about, right? Yup, I need you to stop bugging my parents. Don't get me wrong - I understand that you're doing this for my good, of course I do. Now that I've finished my education and am safely ensconced in a job, it's time to get me married off, right? After all, that's how it goes in the already-laid-out script for the life of the typical Nair woman. Birth > Education > Job > Marriage > Kids > Grandkids > Death. And before you accuse me of being bitter, let me tell you that I do appreciate and fervently applaud the addition of Education and Job to that script.

So why should you stop, you ask? Because I want to live in peace. I'm twenty-two years old. I've finished my MBA, I've got my job - I've done everything that society has asked me to do. Mostly, I confess, because I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do in life anyway. But now that I've done all that, I want to take a deep breath and rest for a while. I want to coast along, be self-centered for a little while longer, make sure that I do end up spending my life the way I want to. I sure as heck do NOT want to be saddled with a husband and kids to look after.

And also (sorry, but the bitterness is creeping in a little bit here) what I don't understand is - how is it any business of yours anyway? Marriage is such a huge “oh-my-freakin'-god-i-couldn't-possibly-do-that” sort of life-changing decision that it should really be mine to make, not yours. Most definitely not yours.

Right now, I don't think I want to do it - it's too huge. Maybe I'll change my mind if I ever meet a guy I think is worth it. Or maybe I won't - I don't know. My point is that right now I'm definitely not mature enough to take such a decision on my own, and (unfortunately for you) it IS a decision that I want to take on my own. Some time in the indefinite future.

Which leads me to my next point - how you can possibly ask this of a TWENTY-TWO-YEAR-OLD, for God’s sake? I thought our Kerala society had evolved beyond that. My mother got married when she was twenty-seven - and this was back in the eighties! So have we devolved or something, in the last twenty years? Or wait, she probably went through the same thing when she was in her early twenties?

Either way, I have no intention of giving into your evil machinations. I haven't met the right guy yet, and I definitely do not want to go down the arranged marriage route. I have a couple of friends who're doing that right now, so I know what it's like. Putting Photoshop-ed pics up on matrimonial sites, writing 'wheatish' instead of 'dark', comparing horoscopes before anything else - not my kinda thing, thanks. Also, I think there might be a couple of things about me that would probably NOT go down well with your nice Nair boys, eh? (Ha - that makes me happy!)

So the point of this long letter once more - stop bugging my parents. For the above four reasons. Especially the last one - the fact that's it's completely pointless. Thankee.

Love,
Jade.

Then and Now

Do you remember how crushes used to be when we were little kids? I don't know about you, but I spent most of my school years in a small city in Kerala. Every day, I wore my blue and white school uniform, pulled my hair into pigtails with red ribbons at the end, and went off to school. I had crushes because every other girl in my class had crushes. Mostly, they were on senior boys.

I remember I spent most of eighth and ninth class madly in love with a senior who had sat next to me during exam time once. My friends nicknamed him Silver because he had a huge silver turnip of a watch. I thought Silver was dashing, mostly because he was on the basketball team. He hung out with a bunch of other cool kids who were also on the basketball team. He knew of my crush, I think. How could he not have noticed the bunch of giggling girls who kept following him around?

Back then, crushes were about accidentally running into the guy somewhere in school, snatching opportunities to walk in front of his class, meeting his eyes for a second before quickly looking away. Giggling behind open palms. Walking with eyes peeled to spot him. Hanging about the basketball courts. It was fun.

And now? They have to satisfy so many criteria. Does he read? Does he like my type of music? Does he drink? Can I take him home to my Dad? Is he sweet, is he fun, is he mature, is he nice? Can I be arbit with him? Does he give good hugs? Will he hold me during my frequent bouts of depression? Can I be my possessive self with him? Is he less than 25? Does he like experimenting? Does he want kids (cuz I don't!)? Do I respect him?

Sigh. It used to be so much simpler.

_:

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Smoky Days

Ticking away the moments
That make up a dull day
Fritter and waste the hours
In an off-hand way

A hot heavy afternoon in Trivandrum. The sound of machinery outside. The fan revolves noisily above, in tune with the loud ticking of the wall clock. I've just woken up from hours of heavy sleep, and my mouth feels cotton-woolly. I fell asleep reading, and am now about to go back to the book.

This is how days pass in this house. It's a mess of books, tottering in drunken piles all around. And there's no particular genre either - if you pick up a dusty book off a shelf randomly, you're as likely to find a Jeffrey Archer as a Doris Lessing. But every time I come here, I feel so dumb. Two people with M.A.'s in English Literature, and a third on his way to one. Me, I'm the only one who sold her soul to the Corporate Devil.

Dinner table conversations now go above my head. Faulkner and insanity, linguistic oppression with respect to a Trivandrum accent (eh?), "the burnt-out ends of smoky days" - where do I contribute? Ah yes, I do believe an appraisal discussion is an integral part of a good performance management process.

Yes yes, I do know what I lost out on when I chose this route. But then - maybe I can do both? Read all these books and know what the hell they're talking about? And also write a book somewhere in between? Time is the question.

And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun

Secret Knowledge

It's a stupid little thing. But it makes me happy. It's like a tiny glowing light inside me. During the drudgery of the day, I come back to it, i uncover it and look at it, like a little kid peeking at a firefly in her cupped hands. It makes me feel nice, it makes me feel warm, it makes me feel wanted. The realization that I'm not a robot after all, that I'm not the outer skin that I've wrapped around myself. It reminds me of smiles and jokes and fun, of walks in post-rain coolness, of pushing each other randomly and laughing. The knowledge that, no matter how bad the day is, I will always have this. And that feels good.

Life

It's been raining for three continuous days in Bangalore. Lovely wet weather. The entire world is gray, it reminds me of foggy winter mornings in Delhi, waiting for the school bus and shivering in my short skirt. But now it's seven years later, and I'm waiting for the bus that will take me to office. I tweet from my phone about the song playing in my head. I think of how much my world has changed in seven years.

Inside the bus, it's too dark to read my Murakami. I settle back with headphones plugged in and the music on shuffle. The first song is Blue October's 18th Floor Balcony, which doesn't quite suit my mood. Skip. Next up is Norah Jones, and she is exactly, exactly right.

I open my eyes and stare out through the window at the Bangalore traffic. Honking motorists, construction work, wet orange mud by the side of the road. The proverbial traffic jams of Bangalore, made worse by the unceasing rain. I float above it all, uncaring. I'm inside my exclusive shell, and nothing can touch me here. The rain makes wet channels on the window, wiping away the dirt. I watch the water flow down and wish it was that easy to cleanse human souls of all the bad things we accumulate. Not just sins - attitudes, habits, resignation, blind acceptance.

Vellai Pookal. Ah, even better. Such a beautiful, comforting song. The very first strains make me happy.

A flyover is being constructed, and we get stuck at the junction. I can't see the sky, or anything remotely green. A monstrous pillar rises up high next to my window, drowning out light, sky, nature. At the base of these pillars, scattered all around, are iron rods and heavy machinery, rusted metal and concrete blocks. Holes gape open for no particular reason. It's a sea of heavy sticky brown mud, thankfully fenced off from the road. I close my eyes rather than have to look at such vileness.

Tum Ho Toh from Rock On. We move on from the junction, and enter the road that leads directly to office. The land is more open here. Fields on either side, waterlogged now and waiting for the sun. A solitary lake, fuller now than I've ever seen it. The gray sky, heavy and roiling with rain. Apartment buildings dot the horizon, and more are under construction. Soon, I'm sure they will even fill up the fields to build more of them. I hate apartment buildings.

The office is two minutes away. I sigh. I open my bag and take out the tag with my office ID card. I used to hate it so much, it was a sign of my selling out, almost a symbol of slavery. But now I'm resigned to it. It's there around my neck, the whole day. I barely notice it. I put it on, and step out of the bus with the rest of the sheep, heading in a straggly bunch to the office building.

Delhi's Ridiculous Minimum Drinking Age

When I moved from Kerala to Delhi at the very awkward age of fifteen, I joined a posh school in one of the most elite localities in the city. The school was full of the kids of Delhi's top businessmen and socialites. And to my innocent small-town eyes, they were so impossibly sophisticated and polished. They made being 'cool' seem hopelessly easy - hopeless for people like me, that is.

They smoked and drank and spoke of making out at the age of 12. They listened to 60's bands I'd never heard of. Names like Jim Morrison and Bob Marley and Robert Plant tripped off their tongues like those of their nearest and dearest. Though they also knew all the latest heavy metal music, of course. The guys boasted about doing 140+ on the highway. They wore only branded clothes. (Sarojini Nagar? Like seriously dude?)

I listened wide-eyed as they spoke of going to clubs and pubs. They had their favourite haunts, where they would go and drink every other weekend. I wondered how they got the money. I wondered how they could afford to stay out that late, why their parents didn't care. But I never even considered the most important aspect of their activities. And that's what this post is about.

These kids were sixteen or seventeen back then. And they were going out and drinking. Do you know what the minimum drinking age is in Delhi? Twenty-five. Yup, that's right. I just googled it and confirmed it again - twenty-five.  Hell, those friends of mine are STILL not above the legal drinking age. So if I go to Delhi today and order a drink, I'll actually be breaking the law. Even though I'm twenty-two years old and can vote and get married legally, the Delhi government doesn't trust me enough to let me drink in restaurants in the city. Even though I can legally drink in practically every other place in the country, I can't in the capital.

But even more ridiculous than this draconian rule (made in 1914, apparently) is the state of its enforcement. As my friends' experience showed me six years ago, even teenagers can order drinks in most places in the city. In fact, there are several pubs that cater almost exclusively to the Delhi University student crowd. Nobody asks for ID. Ever. My friends  (all my age) routinely post Facebook pictures of parties at Delhi's top clubs and pubs. When I visited Delhi last December, we drank at so many places, without even realizing that we were breaking the law.

So why does the law exist? Two reasons. One, that the party in power is too scared to revise the law, because they know that it'll create a huge controversy and cost them political mileage. They had actually considered doing that last year, but then pulled out at the last minute because of upcoming elections. Two, it's a good way for the cops to make money. Threaten any pub or restaurant owner with a raid, and prompt will come the moolah, because most of their customers are below twenty-five. And the cops can even target the customers directly.

Bur rather than asking why the law should exist when it's not being enforced anyway, let's ask the counter-question. Why take the pains to amend the law when you know very well that it's not causing anyone any harm? The people get to drink in peace, the policemen get a little extra money, the Delhi Government continues to rule without tension, everything's alright with the world. (Well, except for the restaurant owners.)

My simple answer is this - the fact that there are so many things that we SHOULD be doing instead. Rather than having a rule that's neither followed nor very practical, let's relax it a little bit and THEN make sure that it's enforced. Why not make the  minimum age 18, and make it clear to the business owners that this time it's serious? (Call me conservative, but I honestly do not think that 16- and 17-year-old schoolkids should be going to pubs and clubs and drinking. Whether they drink at home with their parents' permission is their own business.)

Secondly, I think we need to be much more conscious of the phenomenon of drunk driving. To be honest, I shouldn't be preaching about this, because I'm a hypocrite when it come to this issue. I might yell at  people when they tell me that they drove back home after drinking, but when it comes to myself, I have no qualms about taking late-night lifts from friends who've had a drink or two.The next morning, I remember that scene from The White Tiger and feel ashamed of myself. But when I as a girl am stuck in a place (whether a pub or a friend's house) with no Meru cabs available and autowallahs not trustworthy enough, then a lift from a kind, even if not fully sober, friend is the only option. No, I'm not trying to justify it - I know it's completely unjustifiable.

But drunk driving is rampant in Delhi. The papers feature only the high-profile cases of people being run over by drunk drivers, but those are very few of the zillions of drunk twenty-somethings on the road in Delhi on Saturday nights. These guys (yes, mostly guys) drive their Dads' flashy cars - which they can barely handle when they're sober, much less when they're drunk.

So, Delhi Government, why not take up this challenge of mine? Relax the minimum age to 18 or 21. And after you do that, make sure that the rule is followed absolutely. Conduct a couple of raids so that people know you mean business.  Revoke licenses in case of persistent violation. As for the drunk driving, I've heard that the Delhi police is reasonably strict about it. But why not conduct a campaign to raise people's awareness?