The Auto-man Empire

Life in any city can never be complete without a travel story; one of epic proportions or of incidents that stay indelibly in one's mind. And no such story can ever disregard that one vehicle of all that is not reasonable or relatively fast: the humble auto-rickshaw. Many have travelled by this princely pauper of a vehicle but few have ridden to tell tales worth knowing. Now me, being fresh out of my cast but still chained with a brace, I had to take one everyday back from college for an entire month. Exorbitant fare non-withstanding, I found out that my affinity for strangeness follows me even here. Also, taking an auto instantly classifies you as a 'rich bastard' (though I prefer the more unheard of term 'Chutney Bastard', courtesy a certain son of an English teacher). But more than anything, my auto rides helped me find out more about the their drivers than any newspaper article or assignment ever could.
Let's begin from Day 1. Me being the bargain-challenged kid that I am, I waited for hours for an auto-driver who would agree to my reasonable price without argument. Suffice to say, I got enough dirty looks from the auto-drivers to last me the week. Now, in my desperate state of mind, I began to walk towards a parked auto a little distance from where I was standing. As I reached the man, I saw him quickly draw his hand away from his nose and as he did so, I notice a white streak on his palm. Of course, I thought nothing of it...till he started weaving through traffic like he was playing Roadrash. To add to this, he began talking about how he would disfigure the campaign posters of candidates for the Karnataka elections, while also laughing maniacally. I presume the white mark had something to do with this. Fortunately, I got home safely, though I wasn't sure about two other people crossing the road at the time.
A few days went by without incident. My next encounter was with another one of them, sporting brilliant white sneakers and speaking perfect English, though he had an affected Rajnikanth accent. Along with the ride, he also gave me a bunch of stickers with a cartoonised version of Rajni on them. But the most shocking part of this journey was that I found out he was Bihari....as a friend of mine would say, "Tamil has no boundaries, though it tends to weird you out sometimes".
But more than all of this, I also saw the other side of their lives. Three of the drivers all began to pour out their life-stories to me, of their problems with educating their children, old men being thrown out of homes and even deeper understandings of politics than any journalism student would envy. Some of them were even top rankers during school and college but couldn't continue, either due to a lack of funds or bureaucracy.
Angry old men as auto-drivers are never a welcoming sight. But I'd just like to say that maybe, just maybe, people will be considerate enough to know that they have something to be angry about...

Çiao!

Temple Run

Being from an extremely orthodox Brahmin family, temple visits are as unavoidable as the rolls of fat that overflow from the not-so-young mamis in their saris. And my palace of constancy is the Guruvayoor temple in Kerala.
Now, I have no problem with coming here since somewhere deep down, I love the atmosphere around it. But it's hard to get excited about the atmosphere when you have to get up at 3am to beat the rush and get a glimpse of the idol. But then, no one ever said God sleeps (though I'm sure he does wink or two in an attempt to deal with what is expected of him). But, as with every trip I go on my family with, it always seems like there's an appointment to attend at every temple so all it boils down to is a sort of 'temple run' as we move from one temple to the other in an attempt to cover as many of them as possible, to have an insurance policy of sorts; if one of them doesn't hear us, the other 20 definitely would have. To my knowledge, it's been a very long time since I ever went on a proper vacation with my family; no temples, no prayers and definitely no relatives whose names and relationships I can never seem to memorise. This inability to have a virtual family tree spanning at least 2 generations at the tip of my fingers gives my mother another weapon to tease me: "How many times do I have to explain who Jaya akka is? She's Ammaji's cousin's daughter-in-law and Rammohan mama's sister. Don't you remember how she got you cashew nuts when you were 5 years old? How can you forget these things?..." and so on and so forth.
Food seems to be the only solace I gain on these trips, seeing how I get a full breakfast, lunch and dinner to make up for the constant energy drain of standing in lines, travelling several kilometres and appealing to a dozen Gods to provide happiness and a good future. I gave up questioning these constant temple trips long ago and just follow my parents wherever I must go in order to maintain a façade of family time. "We're doing this for you only! Stop sulking so much and pray properly. Otherwise God will not take care of you", a constant refrain of my mother's. With the recent demise of my MP3 player, I've also lost my only source of release from the boredom of the trip, both during the journey to and from the temples. Staring out the window during a train journey has replaced this pastime of mine, but with the person beside you trying to engage you in a treatise on morality and Tamil literature, even that has begun to lose its charm.
And so, I do my best to survive these trips of torturous boredom with my camera as and when I can, but it remains to be seen if I shall ever be rid of them. I can almost smell camphor burning again...

Çiao!

Picture Perfect

Photography is a tough business. It involves the suppression of morals, the booting of inhibitions and a iron-hard will to stand people's opinions. In my case, it involves theft, absolute disregard of privacy and the ability to not care what people say, think and most importantly, what they come chasing you with! I've had my fair share of incidents when I've gone on my trips around the locality. But before all that, I must commit the greatest act of theft and secrecy possible: I must steal the SLR from my father under his very nose and leave the house without said crime ever being detected.
Now, I've always held that a camera offers you the greatest freedom ever. To me, the very act of taking pictures is an ideal of liberty. They preserve moments in time you want to cherish and capture people most candidly. But such freedom comes at great price, as I found out one day. It was a time before I knew my university existed and was on my summer break. I had promised my father that I would take a few pictures of houses so that he could get some new ideas for the house we were building. I knew the best place for this would be the locality nearest to where I lived and so spent every day going over and taking pictures. This was also before I knew the magic of SLRs so I was still using a digital camera. As I was idly walking around, I found a bungalow with some really nice features. Moving closer, I started taking pictures of it when the gate opened and there was a 60 year old man with a shotgun pointed at me. Now, it's very hard to stay calm at gunpoint, but I tried my best. Keeping the gun pointed at me,he began questioning my motives for photographing his habitation. As you all may have heard, I have the curious quality of being truthful under pressure so I told him exactly who I was, where I lived and even showed him my college ID (yes, I was carrying my college ID out of habit). With absolutely no change in expression, he ordered me to leave and stop taking pictures in the locality. Shaken, I staggered back home and didn't leave it for almost a week.
Yet, the next week I was out again, performing the same exercise. I'm anything if not persevering. I decided to steer clear of the previous locality. Moving on, I ventured further away and found another place full of beautiful houses. Yet Fate never lets me settle and a few days later, I made the seeming mistake of taking a picture of a pretty girl with her dog. I assume that it upset her and that caused her to set said dog on me. I looked back to see the Great Dane running towards me at full speed. I panicked and started sprinting, knowing full well I could never outrun the dog. For all those who assume you know Great Danes....they are nothing like Scooby Doo!! The dog was fast closing in on me when I, in my absolute scared state of mind, jumped over the nearest gate into someone's house. Thankfully, it was empty and I was able to hide till the dog moved away. This incident left me with more nightmares though I didn't want to give up.
I finally decided it was too risky to venture so far from home, so I began just walking around within close radius of home. Even then, I seemed to have upset a old woman by taking a picture of her house and the last I saw of her, she was picking up a log of wood and looking menacingly towards me. Since then, I've never gone out of the house until recently, when I took to exploring the walkable world in my spare time. Having an SLR now, I've had much more fun than before and no untoward incidents so far. It amazes me how people react when they see someone with a camera. There's so much joy in their eyes when they ask you to take their picture. And I'm never one to deny them, though random people off the road seem to stare like I am some freak show. But they have their opinions and I have mine. The pictures I take have a certain humour to them, something that a lot of people appreciate, though there are a few detractors. Let's hope I live long enough to achieve a level of some recognition. Although, men with guns, dogs and logs seem to be waiting at every turn..... :P

Çiao!

Such Beggary

It's always been said that India is a land of diversity; but what people (including me until recently) fail to realize is that this diversity even extends to India's beggars. Just as handicrafts, cultures and languages change as one travels from one region to another, so does the type of beggars one encounters.
Chennai hosts a very aggressive breed of beggars who take pride in their occupation and don't take no for answer. I was recently on the receiving end of one of the above mentioned society's wrath. While minding my own business, waiting at the bus stop, I was accosted by a woman asking for money. With a turn of my face, I attempted to dismiss her but the next moment, I felt a stinging slap on my cheek (It's amazing how often I seem to get slapped by random people off the street) and felt my face being turned to her. With regal demeanor, she began yelling at me in the filthiest of Tamil terms asking if I considered myself too high brow to give her money and how dare I turn away from her. Thankfully, the bus arrived just then and I escaped with nothing but a bruised ego and a burning cheek.
 Hyderabad offers yet another view of this diversity. Though similar to Chennai, these beggars take it one step further by adding competition to their personalities. When I was 9 and before I was sentenced to a prison term (read: shift to Saudi) I was walking down the road and found a 10 rupee note lying on the ground. Not knowing of the words 'good Samaritan' at the time, I took the note and continued walking. Later in the day, when I was travelling with my parents, we stopped at a signal and a beggar passed us. I decided to give him the note I found on the ground and once done, I was sitting contentedly when another woman clouted my head and asked me for money too. When I refused, she began yelling at me asking how I had enough money to give the other man but not her. I explained how I had found the note but she still did not relent and followed us for 2 more signals before giving up. Ever since then, I've resolved never too use any money found on the ground for personal gains.
 Delhi truly offers some of the shadiest beggars I have ever seen. They will literally do anything but beg to obtain money, even if it involves a little bit of 'golmaal'. Once, my uncle came to drop us off at the railway station and as he was backing up we heard a scream and something falling. After getting out of the car, we saw then an old beggar woman had been knocked down. After being helped up she began threatening my uncle with the police and other such stuff till he loosened his purse strings and let a few 100 rupees fly. Later, in the train, a fellow passenger told us he had seen the whole thing and that the woman had thrown a stone at the car and fallen down at the exact moment to simulate the entire episode. Such is life in the capital of 'the greatest democracy in the world'.
 Mumbai offers a more business oriented outlook to beggars but not all. When I asked one of them why he was begging when he was able bodied and could go find a proper job, he replied,"Mere paas time nahi ahi, saab." I guess he hasn't heard of the spirit of Mumbai where holding just a day job and not multi-tasking is considered lazy....
 Finally, Bangalore offers us a very cosmopolitan beggar as well as the pinnacle of beggar evolution: Eunuchs. I recently dropped a coin in a beggar's bowl and was shocked to hear him say, "Danke" which is  thank you in German. Eunuchs on the other hand need no introduction. They are literally highly evolved beggars, steeped in the nuances of the science of beggary. They hunt in packs and rob you of more than just your money. A recent auto ride was the scene for one such encounter where I escaped pretty much unharmed while my friend was poorer by 300 rupees and suffered a traumatic experience that isn't going away anytime soon.
 Thus is the geography and diversity of the Indian beggar. I wonder what international ones would be like.....

Çiao!

Travelocity

Vehicles have a very weird effect on me, almost stuporific. I can never stay awake for more than a few minutes in any moving mode of conveyance, which really surprises me. Supposedly, my grandad used to simulate an auto or a scooter with me on his lap when I was young and I'd instantly fall asleep. If that didn't work, a simple stroking of my head would be enough to take me off to Dreamland. I still have no idea why or how this happens but it does make me feel better that insomnia will always have a simple solution for me.
Moving on, I recently went on a few trips with my family to Mysore and Udupi. On the way, I was discussing with my Dad how franchises like CCD and Kamath have become so popular and widespread. He said it was because of standardisation. Now I didn't probe furthur because he was a bit tired and had other things on his mind. Plus, being essentially me, I wanted to find out for myself what he meant. What I found was that standardisation meant making things exactly the same everywhere. Now, I can understand McDonald's doing that since they've got the food to taste the same everywhere. But CCD and Kamath have gone one better and made the DECOR the same everywhere. The same tiles, same layout and even the same smell in the toliets (air freshner, I mean)!! Now, I can understand why everything has to be the same but after a while it becomes monotonous. When you travel, you expect variety, the uncertainities of the road. But if every rest stop is the same, it kind of defeats the purpose. Now, all these are the problems normal people face. With me, things tend to be a little different. I have this absolute brain freeze, almost like amnesia when I take a nap at anytime other than at night. So when I wake up, I have no idea what the time is, where I am or what I'm supposed to do. It's gone so far as to me waking up after an hour's afternoon nap during my vacations and running to the bathroom and taking a bath to get ready for college!! On trips like this, due to the above mentioned vehicular stuporification, I face this problem when we stop to have a bite. With every place lookingf the same, déja-vu sets in and I keep questioning myself whether we've travelled any distance at all! But then, I learn to adjust and this amnesia never lasts long.
Even now, my parents are planning another trip to Vellore or some other place. Déja-vu, you had better stay away this time. I don't think I can handle one more coffee-coloured tile or Combiflam smelling toilet anymore.......

Çiao!

My Spy Family

Everyone has a little quirk somewhere in the family. An uncle who's irritating, a negligent cousin or a loud aunt. My family is no different. There's a lot to go around since my Dad DOES have 7 brothers and 1 sister. Most of them are these orthodox families with tarditional values and then there are some slightly 'liberitatrian' families. But they all have one thing in common; a passion for secrecy. I admit that just because we're family, you don't need to tell everyone exactly what you're doing but I think we'd like to know if we invite you to a party and you tell us you're in Amsterdam! The problem's become so acute that one of my uncles is always a question mark. We can never tell exactly where he'll be the next day so we actually have to tell him a week in advance and keep reminding him everyday to make sure he actually turns up and has no excuse to, for lack of a better word, 'bunk' the celebrations. And then there's my aunt. She is like the epitome of secrecy. Till now, she's conducted both my cousins' thread-ceremony at the crack of dawn and informed us within the hour to come collect the......alright I'm not too familiar with what it's to be called, so lets just say the stuff they give after such a ceremony. We actually fear she'll even marry them off without telling us and call us out of the blue to come attend the reception. Now, I'm one for family unity so I do wish my family wasn't divided into groups the way it is, but I guess that isn't for me to decide or even change. They're family and they have their reasons. All I can say is, I hope to God I don't wake up to realise my parents and I are in Kanyakumari on vacation while I was sleeping.........

Çiao!