Who is there for you........ Oh Traveller ...??

 Now this one seems to be relating to me as I tried to snooze in the night!!

(Darn all things strike only while trying to snooze, except the snooze itself…)

This one is a very old song, from Guide, by SD Burman (vocals), music by brother RD.

Who is there for you…….. Oh traveler ……. Where will you go….
Have a fag and relax for a while …. Oh traveler……… When will you find this instant… ever again?

Gone are the days.... the days of love
The nights ………..are now the substance of only dreams
They have forsaken you…….. forgotten you…
All the memories of love... All the memories of hope......Are lost………
There is darkness all around…. 

Who is there for you…….. Oh traveler …….Where will you go….
Have a fag and relax for a while …. Oh traveler……… When will you find this instant… ever again?

Nobody awaits your return…No eyes search for you at all…
Nobody cringed at your hurt…no eyes shed any tears for you...
Who do you call as your own ..Who indeed? 

Who is there for you…….. Oh traveler …….Where will you go….
Have a fag and relax for a while …. Oh traveler……… When will you find this instant… ever again?

All the learned say….the world is just flowing water
The water has it all written in itself…..about everything..
Everybody…….. Can see it…everybody can feel it…but nobody can hold it….
There is nothing for you…….. Or for me….

Who is there for you…….. Oh traveler …….Where will you go….
Have a fag and relax for a while …. Oh traveler……… When will you find this instant… ever again?

If you are Happy and you Know it Clap your Hands

Kiddish , juvenile, nonsensical..................but its causality cannot be refuted, for I experienced it first hand, just some time back(about thirty minutes) .

The reasons for a big, colossal celebration popped up. My escape from this place has been under preparation for quite some time, but  all the routes it seemed were blocked, manned heavily by gatekeepers, or plain just not a route. God’s grace and my frantic praying coupled with involuntary fasting seem to have worked out, and I got an escape route, exactly the way I desired.(btw prayer works, it really does !! and isn't that a source for imminent misery to some !!)

After the final confirmation note, I decided to break the news of her son’s imminent escape from Alcatraz to Amma.

“ Tring ”, one ring down and  immediately I hear “Main Spiderman bol raha hoon”, the 3 year old niece of mine in India currently. She has big gender usage confusion, which is pretty evident!!

“Ok, Mr. Spiderman, you know I am very happy today”. The word happy seemed to be a cue, “If you are happy and you know it clap your hands…..clap clap, “singing merrily and on top of her voice, she dropped the phone and started dancing around, promptly forgetting about the me or the call. (I envy the short memories of kids; I really do, because there are a lot of things I would like to forget!!)

Hey why not I try it?! It helped that I had a hands free plugged in. So off I went, singing and clapping my hands prancing about my room in abandon. My son is mad, definitely mad, comes the chuckled response of my mother on the other end.” Madness is perceptual, madness is subjective, madness ……..is good” I reply back.

“You have a lot of brain, I know that, in classic Tamil came the reply, I guess you got it right?!

Hell, there are no secrets……….. None............. from your mothers or grandmothers……… Fathers and uncles maybe ……..but mothers have a tendency to read you like an open book with a highlighter run over it.


What plans for today then ? I dont know , I replied....

Just then Khan pops in heaving heavily laden bags and says, hey today is iftiar..... and I am making a feast don't have any plans for evening.

It couldn't get better it seems, even the gods seem to be conspiring to celebrate !!

Darn !! It is Just some Hair Sticking from your Upper Lip !!

“Sir, what would be like to do? “ Asked the barber rather sweetly and anticipated as I sat on the chair.

Snip it all out, leaves enough to be not called a Tiurpati Tripper.

Aha ....that seemed to light the devil in him.

Spray…… spray ………spray...he gets my hair wet... .Takes a comb and drags it with a vengeance imprisoning it, struggles a bit when he reaches the back of my head..Giving up he then takes out a broader comb and pulls it back, satisfied.

Once all the strands are slicked back...he begins.....

Snip ….. Snip…… snip…… snip.

In 2 minutes it was over, he then says..." sir might I make a suggestion?”

Sure...

“Sir Keep a moustache”, and then he adds which loosely translated from Tamil, means “A man's respect is by his moustache"(a very specific saying in Tamil, I don’t know its meaning, and that’s a pity)\).Aha that possibly could explain why middle aged, mustached uncles dance with absolutely pretty damsels, half their age.

Sure!!

Now it takes thirty minutes, not two!! Thirty minutes of meticulous snipping of stray hairs on my face, after which, Anna takes an admiring look at his handiwork.

I thank him and walk out, it’s almost 1.30, not enough time to go and cook, so I head out to Udipi.

As I cut out a bill, the man kind of recognizes me, and says, "haircut??” I nodded, and he says "Which place, do you come from sir (referring to my native land,Again in Tamil).I wanted to say Noida but said Thanjavur.

Vadagali/Tengalai, he said dispensing off with obvious need to determine my lineage, the moustache had made things pretty obvious and also added a good five years (not that I needed any!!)

I don’t know what it means, but for good measure I said "Vadagali".

Nodding his head as though he was sure of my response, he hands my counterfoil and I sit down with a mound of rice to devour. Travelling around India, I could discern one thing that despite the decades that have passed by, the caste of a person seems to be a very interesting piece of information for locals everywhere. But in Chennai this tendency is very…very pronounced, much evident by our recent house searching, where I did all the talking, because my Tamil is weird!!

Land , Land Everywhere but not an Inch to Till ....or lets say Build ?!!

Vedanta, Yamuna expressway,and about a little while ago, we had Nandigram.

Historically disptutes have arise over 3 Zs ......was told to me by a grand old daddy in a village off Meerut, (Shamli). These are Zar , Zameen and Zaan....loosely translated its gold , land and women.Step back and recapitulate the maniacal highs of gold ETFs and futures just about a couple of months ago....... it was a fight for gold.

Women , it always happens too many to recount !! And land it is the same............

But the three Zs are just the end results the fight is for something that the 3 Zs, are seen to provide, And that is....read on .....

" Bloody famrers, they dont know that the upcoming features will rasie thier level of living "  growled a collegaue of mine over fags and coffee.There is a fundamental flaw in the argument, not everybody wants "development " the way we see it.

For some elegance is in simplicity.....or rather tradition.There are people I am aware of  who are still not comfortable using a toilet soap, the prefer their variant of raak(ash) and two trips to the fields."Arree baba, jab tak mitti jki sungand nahi aati tab tak saala pressure hi nahi banta", same grand old daddy opined.

Yuck is what I thought , and still do.

And these people wont give upo their land for a fancy new building to come up , where people stare at boxes all day long....or a swank metal plated road where huge cars whizz at rocket speed. And all they have at the end of it is a corner stool, and a life pushing files., which is insignificant,.

Hence it is a battle for significance, not of development.It is not about us vs them , it is rather of us vs me, and it is this desire for significance that they opt for a collective identity of poor farmers since it is easier to relate to rather than an individual identity.

Once they give up their land and take money, in return they loose their significance.

They are not price gouging opportunistic villagers, they are simple people who want to be significant.Viewed from this angle, money does not seem to be a barrier for them give the right transaction they would take it

What exactly would be the right transaction ?

Hell , I don't know, if I did , I wouldn't be dispensing of this free gyaan :)