Category: Social Commentary

  • Ride with a view

    The regular route that I take to the office, and one back. There are buildings, homes, people, shops, and trivia that I don’t notice when I pass them regularly every day. Its not that they’re not interesting, but somewhere down the line, they have become routine, a part of the landscape, something that I take for granted, without putting too much of thought into. It took an auto ride to make me see all this in a different light. Perhaps it was because I wasn’t riding.. I didn’t have to pay attention to the road, and had all the time to leisurely watch the scenes and the life unfolding in them.

    And that made me think whether the same applies to people too. The different people that we interact with, at work, at home. Over a period of time, do they become a routine in our lives? Unidimensional characters in our mind, who have been moulded by our own biases and subjective judgements, and so set in that mould, that we fail to see a human being with its own values, feelings, and a life that’s being lived in myriad interesting ways. Does our perspective become so set in its ways, that we take the people in our lives for granted. And we have to wait for life to give us an auto ride to make us see them from a different vantage point?

    And then, what about people who always take auto rides? Do they manage to have a different perspective, but one that still gets set over a period of time? 🙂

    until next time, look around

  • Withering Heights

    From the balcony on the top floor of the apartment complex, I see the shanties below, rows and rows of haphazardly constructed dwellings.

    On some evenings, when I stand outside, I see them huddled together in small groups, their weary yet cheerful faces lit by the dim incandescent bulbs and the small fires they make, having animated conversations, punctuated with laughter. There are games of carrom, and sometimes, I think, impromptu concerts too, since I hear loud singing. On weekends, there are cricket games, and sometimes, feasts are organised too, large vessels are brought out into the open area, and everyone joins in the cooking.

    One day, as I stood watching them, my neighbour walked out onto his balcony. We smiled at each other. At least, I think it was my neighbour and not a visitor, since I’d not seen him earlier, in 3-4 months spent in the apartment. And that set me thinking on communities, and how, as we move from place to place on account of job and lifestyle changes, as our standards of living improve, as we climb higher in life, we tend to move away from shared experiences and communities, and start having transaction based relationships, established when a need arises. 

    It also made me think about this in the context of blogging, of how we start off as small communities, where almost everyone knows each other, then we grow and move on, and lose touch, not just with each other, but also where we started out from, and how.

    The inhabitants of the shanties below are auto drivers, labourers, maids, dhobis, the people who we depend on to keep the clockwork of our life running smoothly, the people who we pay anything from a few rupees to a few thousands of rupees, sometimes grudgingly, and expect to make a life out of. And sometimes, i wonder, in the community spirit that they manage to develop and maintain, if they succeed in making a better life, if not a better living standard.

    until next time, altitudes and attitudes 

  • Collage

    After a really long time, I chanced to see some college kids in action. Some, would be an understatement since it involved half a dozen colleges and a few hundred students. As part of the program, I got to see them in their natural environment, their college. Did that make them sound like animals? Okay, it wasn’t supposed to. It made me think about youth. Not mine, since my memory isn’t too good these days, but the usage of that word to represent the collective.And i realised it doesn’t really do them justice.

    For I saw dreamers, the silent types who sat in the corners of the college quad with either eyes glued firmly to a book, or absorbing the world around in general, sometimes with an amused smile.

    I saw the show-offs, displaying everything from the latest in gadgets and fashion, to the latest in body art, and equating that in some way with what and who they are.

    I saw the absolute rascals, whose single focus was the other gender, and their attention. From what i saw, I thought it was more hormones than nobler intentions of love.

    I saw escapists, who learned very early, that it doesnt matter if the grass is green on the other side, or any damn side, you still gotta have it, the grass that is.

    I saw those who were full of life, participating in all the contests that were happening, eager to prove, not to anyone else, but to themselves, that they had what it took to excel.

    I saw some who had perhaps given up on all that happened around them, some of them with a quizzical expression and some of them trying hard to populate vacant smiles.

    I saw those whose looks had more than a trace of rancour, was it against what they were surrounded by, who they were surrounded by or was it against those who were happy in these surroundings?

    Youth, the collective term for a population that consists of individuals who are perhaps still trying to find out who and what they are.

    And as i sat watching them,  I saw some of them stare back at me, as though asking me how life goes, years after you’ve left college? Whether the world you are part of now, resembles the world you used to occupy then. And I would’ve liked to tell them that the world outside does change, but for better or worse, the world within can stay exactly the way it is, if you’d let it. And that perhaps is why some of us never grow up, and some of us feel that we grew up a long time back. And both of these have nothing to do with our age.

    until next time, growing up…

  • Parent Traps

    And Abhinav Bindra got India an individual gold in the Olympics. Old story already, but what made me mention him was his simple yet profound act of thanking his parents. What about that? Well, good parenting. His dad knew that shooting was not exactly on the same level as cricket, Bollywood or politics, but spent a crore on an Olympic standard-fully air conditioned shooting range for his son. How many would do that, even if they were millionaires?

    Most parents (let’s forget unborn children and abortion for the moment) want the best for their children, and put in a lot of effort in getting it for them. But I think that in most cases, the good intentions are misplaced. After all, parents are just human beings whose objectivity might be clouded not just by the societal pressure that they have to handle as individuals, but also because of their own inner demons.

    Which perhaps is why I see a lot of kids around who, move around groggily from karate classes to music lessons to tuition classes, and simultaneously use pester power to get what they want, but sometimes, reveal their childhood innocence too. It makes me realise that there is perhaps a huge difference between doing the best for your child and doing what’s best for the child.

    The difference is Abhinav Bindra winning the gold and thanking his parents, and Abhinav Bindra winning the gold, but saying that was never what he wanted to do in life.

    until next time, not child’s play

  • The real inflation

    And the nation cringes as the inflation goes way beyond 8%, and threatens to go even more. A litre of petrol, which was about Rs.20, when i first started using it, now costs well over Rs.50.
    I remember the kind of vehicles that used to accompany mine in the petrol stations. A few Ambassadors and Fiats, on their way to extinction, a lot of Maruti- the normal 800 as well as Omnis and the occasional Esteem, and mostly two wheelers. The scene has changed with global brands vying for the customer’s attention. So we have the Hyundais and Fords and Chevrolets and Skodas bringing out bigger and costlier cars that are aimed to showcase its user’s affluence and highlight his standing, which is er, a little above that of his peers.?
    Of course, the way he behaves on the road would make you doubt this premise.I have very often, in the course of conversations, heard the owners of the big cars complaining about how their cars guzzle fuel. And how they feel the pressure when the petrol prices go up. And i have always wondered that even if we manage to control inflation, will we ever find a way to control inflated egos.

    until next time, pricks… for the ego