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Of Grasshoppers & Locusts

2009 was the year of Revelations, whatever Nostrodamus had earmarked for it. Scandals galore rocked our nation- lawyers, judges, terrorists, politicians, personal trainers, filmstars [ this goes without saying] techies, airhostesses and their husbands, schools, secret agents, and ex-policemen and states. Astrologers said, I told you, Saturn [ the old order] and Uranus[ the new revolutionary] were at loggerheads. Whatever, it is, long may it continue, until our Augean stables are hygienic once more.
Trawling trough the net, I came across a comment in Sepia Mutiny that Arundhati Roy was getting shriller, though her book was condescendingly put up for nomination as best book of 2009[non-fiction].The book is very timely as it deals [ inter alia] with one of the terrible happenings of 2008- the Bombay blasts, which saw a very small turn-out, for the anniversary candle-lighting at the Marina in 2009, in Chennai. Her introduction, ‘Democracy’s Failing Light’ deals with the premise that the book examines- shining the torch on her murky corners. As she explains- it is not about uprooting democracy but realigning tottering structures. As she says-“ ‘Freedom’- has come to mean ‘choice.’ It has less to do with the human spirit and more to do with different brands of deodorant.”
If we listened to the grasshoppers she lets loose- Gujarat riots, anti-Sikh Delhi riots, Nandi gram, Dantewada, Kashmir, Geelani’s trial and the Parliamentary attack, Supreme Court’s injudicious[al]judgments, all at the head of armies of facts, then we would realize that our beautiful ‘ democracy’ is just a shade away from Hitler’s Nazi Germany. All of these, delivered in a package of media access and apparent transparency provided by ‘Inquiry Commissions’. We should ask the survivors of the anti- Sikh Delhi riots, or the anti- Muslim Gujarat riots, what they think[ one TV channel even did this- ask the Sikh survivors and bitter memory became a soundbyte of infotainment] of our democracy. That she escaped the fate of Hrant Dink, who was imprisoned several times for his attempt to write about the decimation of Armenians by the Turks and finally succumbed to the bullet of a boy right wing assassin, is nothing to be proud of. If we can rape and murder ordinary citizens with government complicity and never even provide adequate reparation or solace, we have already killed our collective conscience. And anyway, in a society where the peccadilloes of filmstars get more attention than even the shameful news that ‘shining India’ does not fulfill the most basic development indicators except for the very rich and the growing, upwardly thrusting middleclass which seems to have boarded a magic carpet to the Land of Plenty; where kindles and iphones are way more interesting than reducing carbon footprints, which anyway is merely one more thing on the babus’ agenda, is it not death to become passé, merely a ‘shrill’ voice whom nobody hears? By the way, who is shriller? Arnab Goswami who was engaging in an embarrassingly long rightist rant during the Maoist attacks in West Bengal or ‘ Grasshoppers’ which reads like the quiet voice of despair?
Despite all this, Roy ends her introduction saying that the book is just intended as a tool of correction, not a feral howl [did she hear the dissent even then?] and with a message of hope from Faiz
‘ If dreams are thwarted, then yearning must take their place.’

Serendipity

I was walking along, my brain busy with the day’s to do list, until, I came to a doorway and stopped.Thinking only of the notice I had to serve on a fellow advocate, my foot entered the stairwell, but my eyes called a halt. The stairs, in this old, slightly shabby building, were of teak wood, polished by years of feet drumming up and down, perfectly circular, venerable and awe-inspiring. The lawyer I was going to see was surprised I had even noticed, so commonplace had this piece of history become.

When you live in an old city, familiarity with heritage breeds contempt for it. The façade of the Madras High Court, with its Indo-Saracenic onion domes and steeples, stained glass and stone fretwork can become commonplace to those who go about their daily business within such gob-stopping environs. Down 1st Line Beach, the commonplace and often grim going-ons of the GT criminal magistrates’ court can obscure interest in the beautiful mosaic facings on red brick and stone pillars of the hoary building. When the prisoner in the lock-up gazes impudently at you, you often forget that he is last in point of time of many, going back to colonial times.

A beautiful red brick structure with graceful pointed arches and slim pillars houses the Aavin milk bar among others. Twisted gates open into a courtyard. If one can forget the commercial activity of the 21st century and the traffic just outside on Anna Road, then one can hear a nineteenth century horse’s neigh as it turns into the courtyard.

Grimy, neglected, forgotten, these signposts of memory still stand, mute witness to a new century and new echoes of humanity.

Of Grasshoppers & Locusts

2009 was the year of Revelations, whatever Nostrodamus had earmarked for it. Scandals galore rocked our nation- lawyers, judges, terrorists, politicians, personal trainers, filmstars [ this goes without saying] techies, airhostesses and their husbands, schools, secret agents, and ex-policemen and states. Astrologers said, I told you, Saturn [ the old order] and Uranus[ the new revolutionary] were at loggerheads. Whatever, it is, long may it continue, until our Augean stables are hygienic once more.
Trawling trough the net, I came across a comment in Sepia Mutiny that Arundhati Roy was getting shriller, though her book was condescendingly put up for nomination as best book of 2009[non-fiction].The book is very timely as it deals [ inter alia] with one of the terrible happenings of 2008- the Bombay blasts, which saw a very small turn-out, for the anniversary candle-lighting at the Marina in 2009, in Chennai. Her introduction, ‘Democracy’s Failing Light’ deals with the premise that the book examines- shining the torch on her murky corners. As she explains- it is not about uprooting democracy but realigning tottering structures. As she says-“ ‘Freedom’- has come to mean ‘choice.’ It has less to do with the human spirit and more to do with different brands of deodorant.”
If we listened to the grasshoppers she lets loose- Gujarat riots, anti-Sikh Delhi riots, Nandi gram, Dantewada, Kashmir, Geelani’s trial and the Parliamentary attack, Supreme Court’s injudicious[al]judgments, all at the head of armies of facts, then we would realize that our beautiful ‘ democracy’ is just a shade away from Hitler’s Nazi Germany. All of these, delivered in a package of media access and apparent transparency provided by ‘Inquiry Commissions’. We should ask the survivors of the anti- Sikh Delhi riots, or the anti- Muslim Gujarat riots, what they think[ one TV channel even did this- ask the Sikh survivors and bitter memory became a soundbyte of infotainment] of our democracy. That she escaped the fate of Hrant Dink, who was imprisoned several times for his attempt to write about the decimation of Armenians by the Turks and finally succumbed to the bullet of a boy right wing assassin, is nothing to be proud of. If we can rape and murder ordinary citizens with government complicity and never even provide adequate reparation or solace, we have already killed our collective conscience. And anyway, in a society where the peccadilloes of filmstars get more attention than even the shameful news that ‘shining India’ does not fulfill the most basic development indicators except for the very rich and the growing, upwardly thrusting middleclass which seems to have boarded a magic carpet to the Land of Plenty; where kindles and iphones are way more interesting than reducing carbon footprints, which anyway is merely one more thing on the babus’ agenda, is it not death to become passé, merely a ‘shrill’ voice whom nobody hears? By the way, who is shriller? Arnab Goswami who was engaging in an embarrassingly long rightist rant during the Maoist attacks in West Bengal or ‘ Grasshoppers’ which reads like the quiet voice of despair?
Despite all this, Roy ends her introduction saying that the book is just intended as a tool of correction, not a feral howl [did she hear the dissent even then?] and with a message of hope from Faiz
‘ If dreams are thwarted, then yearning must take their place.’

The Loves of My Life- oruba

I have had bad luck with cats recently. Our first cat, we acquired when we were first married. He was black and white, with a perfectly round head, white nose, black patches, like a pirate’s, around his eyes and a very pink nose. We bought him off an old man who had him in a sack. We heard plaintive meows issuing from the sack, as we walked home, one night and Oruba, bought for one rupee, hence the name, walked into the house, tipped his saucer of milk onto his head and took charge of our hearts. He soon grew into a tough Tom and vanquished all opposition. As he grew older, we let him roam around at night, but he spent the day with us. We kept a bedroom window open for him and often, of a morning, I would find his round head on my pillow or on my out flung arm, though my husband got more cuddles than me and it was frequently a cause for our early tiffs.

Oruba was a great hunter and I lost count of the poor squirrels that fell a prey to his killer instinct. But one day a parakeet proved to be his undoing. We tried to rescue it but he gobbled it up in record time and slunk off presumably to snooze. Imagine my surprise when I found him, with a tortured, faraway look in his eye, constantly trying to jump at an imaginary foe. I gave him a homeopathic drug and was happy to see him lie wearily down.

This incident did not get him down for long. In a few weeks, he was up to his old tricks, but this time, he had met his match. Oruba sneaked out one day and got a crow. The crows showed their remarkable talent for organization and battle by establishing a guerrilla intelligence unit right on the garden wall. Every time he was seen, dive bombers would peck his head until I had to stand guard whenever he wanted to use the facilities!
A well chastened cat quietly went back to chasing the hapless squirrels.

Oruba had the last laugh. When he was four years old, we found two little tabbies abandoned on the street and brought them home. Disgusted with the attention the interlopers were getting, Oruba decamped to the gardener’s quarters, three doors down, and took up with the female there. He would wait on the garden wall for me to pass by on my way home from work and would follow me, yowling invective, until I had calmed him down with milk and fish and cuddled him. The kittens would invariably rush up for their share of the food, when Oruba would spit foul language, put out his claws, take a swipe at the nearest one and watch balefully from the garden wall, until the kittens were sated. With a final wild yowl, he would then go back to the gardener’s hut, tail waving, eyes glaring yellow daggers with every backward glance. He lived for another two years, until a new kid on the block, took over and Oruba went down, like a tired boxer, gloves at the ready, belligerent to the end.

The View From My Kitchen Window

The View From My Kitchen Window

A narrow strip of mud escaped the cemented driveway, but it is home to an astonishing number of trees and plants. Some are crotons, but some are fruit bearing trees! A large fig tree grew all by itself, sideways, so its broad trunk is flattened against the walls and its roots have pushed up the drive into a tiny cement mound. I have been told that its fruit is edible in a kind of stew we call kootu, but I have never dared to try cooking it. Further down is a guava tree which is generally denuded of fruit by crows, squirrels and street urchins. Still further down in a lovely tree with soft, big tear-shaped, light green leaves which can be cooked into any number of messes and is good for catarrh and ulcers.

The fig tree is home to a number of birds. Early in the morning, generally before dawn, as I sleepily wait for the microwave to defrost the milk, it begins to rustle and I know dawn is breaking. It starts with the muezzin’s call, from the local mosque, which at this time, spring, is still before dawn. Then slowly, beginning with a sleepy crow from the cockerel on top of the pile of stones near the local slum, the momentum builds until a full-bodied cock-a-doodle cuts the silence. The tree begins to hum then. The crows are always first: raucous, loud and quite joyous. Then begins a series of cheeps as the squirrels advertise their awakening. The dawn light brings the pigeons from their perch, with much guttural cooing and flapping of wings. Then there is a bird which has a loud, hooting call. I’ve never been able to catch it.

Sparrows had disappeared for some years, but this tree brought them back to my garden. Come summer, the brown and yellow mynahs and fat brown seven sisters come for the fruit. If one watches for them, one might see a tiny green bee-eater and the ubiquitous red-vented bulbul. Careful listening for a loud tapping will lead to the brown and orange, cockaded wood-pecker. Sometimes, a flash of brilliant blue, heralds the kingfisher. The crows have a running battle with a cuckoo couple every summer. The black male alternately sings and scolds, while the grey striped female does screeching battle with the crows for their nest. I think the cuckoos usually win.

The tree is also home to a fairy or so the locals believe. Certainly, it is home to several cats, which wait on the wall bordering our garden, near the tree, sphinxlike, unless chased off by the dogs, for the unwary squirrel, or for stray mice, which also make their home in a hollow near the roots. One year, my little girl saw a grass snake. As a child, my garden had a mongoose, but now we have only caterpillars and millipedes, frogs and snails which wander in to our house quite happily, watched stilly by the lizards on the wall and the chameleon in the garden.

Night brings the fruit bats, flying erratically round the tree. The cicadas chirr softly, while a sleepy crow caws goodnight and the cows and buffaloes head home, in the street outside, lowing softly.