Swings & Roundabouts

The first and only time (so far!) I visited Taj Mahal was also the first and only family trip I took along with my parents and the sibling. I had just finished my Class X Board exams and was feeling like I had conquered K2. Wandering around the streets of Delhi in the mad May heat is something I wouldn’t recommend to anybody but the madcaps that we were, we did it anyway! The day we landed in Agra was one of the hottest days of that summer and I could feel the leftover grey matter getting fried.

The first sight of the Taj Mahal was indescribable. I had goosebumps on my arm and felt the hair at the back of neck stand up. I couldn’t believe that in front of me was the Taj Mahal, one of the Wonders of the World, a love icon, standing in that very same spot from the Mughal times.

I have, since then, seen other Wonders like the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Eiffel Tower but none infused me with the same sense of awe like that first sight of the Taj. This majestic building, standing impressive and somehow lonely, standing all by itself amidst this vast expanse of land stirred something deep within me.

Having grown up reading about Shah Jahan and his testament to his love for his wife, how it took hundreds of men, years and years to complete it. And of course, we’ve also read about how he allegedly blinded the labourers so that they could never build anything half as grand elsewhere. All of which made for some fantastic build-up and the Taj lived up to every bit of the hype – and then some!

As the sun was blazing overhead by the time we reached the monument, the white marble was hot enough to fry eggs. So we didn’t get to do a gentle stroll around it, taking pictures hither and admiring the friezes thither. It was more of a mad dash from one shady spot to another, even as your feet tingled in the contrasting temperatures. And jostle twenty others as we fought for the vantage point to get that particular shot.

Once we came back into the gardens, sandal-ed feet and all, we were hailed by the special photographers milling around us. They promised to get that popular pic of the Taj, wherein you make it seem like you are lifting the impressive monument off its feet by holding to the tip of its dome. My momentary fascination with this vanished when I realised I had to stand there like an idiot, with my right arm sticking up top to complete the effect. Though I balked at this, many people stood so like lemons, though the resultant image made up for it, I suppose.

I have only seen the Taj in pictures and on the telly since and it is my dream to see the Taj at night, to see the marbled structure gleam in the moonlight. I keep telling myself that I’d do it one day, show my son the magic and hopefully see the same awe written on his face.

Living now, amidst the British, I have found that it is the first thing that pops into any firang’s head the minute they hear the word ‘India’. Though the country has a great many icons, the Taj Mahal is our biggest and brightest. Without it as the gateway, the myriad treasures of our country will be lost on the world’s population.

On 7.7.07, a brand new set of Seven Wonders of the World is going to be selected out of 21 worthies. The Sydney Opera House, Petra, the Pyramid at Chichen Itza are some of the icons shortlisted, apart from the Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty etc. Not many Indians have heard of this because, as usual, our insipid government hasn’t jumped at the chance to promote this great icon, the one thing that put India on a world traveller’s map. Other countries are vying with one another to get the coveted ‘Wonder of the World’ tag for their treasure. Why isn’t our Tourism industry lifting a finger? As always, it is up to us, the aam junta, to show to the world what a treasure we have in the Taj Mahal. So please, fellow desi bloggers, pass the world – blog about your feelings about the Taj Mahal. And please vote for the Taj! Let the world know it fully deserves to be known as a Wonder of the World.

There’s a WHO report floated about the place that states that India has the highest number of AIDS sufferers in the world. One in seven Indians are HIV-positive, reads another scary report. But the one thing everyone is harping on now, is the smackeroo Richard Gere planted on Shilpa Shetty’s cheeks. The media went to town with it; so did some idiots who decided to make a bonfire out of some effigies in honour of the occasion; la Shetty managed to get more than a few sound bytes in Indian and British media while quite a few bloggers made their feelings known on their blogs for all the world to see. That pesky little thing called AIDS awareness, the actual reason why Gere was in India had, by now, slipped out of most people’s minds completely.

But there was something happening quietly in the background, that has made me sit up and take notice. Hopefully, this will make people realise what a bunch of silly fools we are and get down to the matters at hand instead.

I am talking about the launch of the Condom Bar, in Chandigarh. What a brilliant idea! Here, at last, is some positive action. Instead of taking the usual route of sweeping things under the carpet and pretending nothing is amiss, here are some people who are actively looking to counteract the rising levels of HIV in the country. And I, for one, salute them and their spirit.

The Condom Bar is a novel initiative to increase AIDS awareness in the country. It is a proper bar, serving drinks and what nots but instead of stopping there, it also does its bit in helping promote the use of condom to its patrons. Firmly believing in going the extra mile, it also has place mats offering some well-meaning advice blurbs like “Enjoy safely” and “Don’t just get on. Get it on! Protect yourself, protect others”. Instead of the useless chunk of mint you’d find in the saucers along with loose change, at the Condom Bar, you would find a few colourful condoms instead.

What is most commendable about this venture is that this is wholly government backed. Chandigarh Industrial & Tourism Corporation (Citco) is the driving force behind this enterprise and in order to keep the place affordable and accessible to the aam junta, the bar is doing to be run as a “non-profit operation with low-priced drinks and wholesome vegetarian food at cost prices.” I am well impressed! The idea that the local government is tackling this awful issue of steadily increasing HIV victims in an informed and progressive way is refreshing and real welcome.

According to news reports, the club was opened by Pooja Thakur, a young mother and president of a voluntary counselling group for people living with HIV and AIDS. When the whole world is going hammer and tongs at amassing wealth, it is rather humbling to hear the club owner say, “Our earnings will be the awareness and the message we will help spread”.

I am all for new and novel ways of finding solutions to problems. A few weeks back I saw a programme on the telly where the host Davina McCall was walking about the streets of Amsterdam’s Red Light district and talking to teachers there about sex education. Why? Because teen pregnancy is on the rise in Britain and everyone wants to figure out a way to curb that.

Likewise, HIV and AIDS are on a steady incline and the more we see innovative initiatives such as the Condom bar and the better chance we have at combating such issues. I hope they succeed and we are able to see Condom Clubs across the country, promoting safe sex and AIDS awareness.

Fellow blogger and one of my oldest mates, apu tagged me on this. And she says we have good ole Ams to thank for it. As it is a tag, I’d like to tag my fellow fem bloggers – Suj, Dee, Premalatha as well as my fellow mommy bloggers – Mad Momma and Tharini, as well as Kishore to take the baton from me.

Right, now let’s get started. What is feminism, exactly? According to the dictionary, feminism is the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men. Feminism in an Indian (or desi) context is a wierd thing. It is like Antartica – everyone knows what it is but no one wants to go there. To most, life goes on as it always had, as if feminism never existed.

Like I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I realised what feminism truly is and that I am a feminist only after I started blogging actively. Till then, I was going along with the Antartic effect. Having been brought up to be fiercely independent, I did not question my right to do things my way. I always thought that that was mostly thanks to my folks’ outlook towards most things concerning self and sibling. But I realise now, it is thanks to them being feminists (in their own setting) that they could go with the choices they made, which in turn made it easy for me to go with my choices, my way.

But to many, this is not the case. I have heard of many, many cases where the girls were so ‘protected’ that many had hardly ventured into the Big Bad World on their own. S frequently jokes that I had a lot more freedom growing up than he did!

In that sense, I feel feminism is linked to your basic freedom as a child. If you, as a girl, are raised as an equal to your male siblings, then you (and your siblings) will grow up to think the same way. If, on the other hand, you are told right from the time you were a child that you must defer to your male siblings or that they come first, then chances of both sexes retaining this and forming a template to their lives, is very high.

So, what has feminism given me. Well, it has given me the right to be me. I can be my own person and not be defined as someone’s child or wife or sibling or mother. I can be my own person, in my own right, charting my life the way I want. It lets me be what I want to be. Heck, it gives me the right to make that choice. It puts me in the driving seat of my life.

This basic right is denied loads of women across the country. For them, the alpha male has to make the decision – should they work full-time, do they stay at home,
can they do this or should they do that. Every time a woman is unable to act independently, she is denied the right to freedom.

In my opinion, feminism is synonymous with freedom. And for feminism to truly flourish in a desi setting, it is imperative for not just the women, but the men to become feminists as well.

Read Ams’ and Apu’s view points.

As a child growing up in Madras, I remember my granny telling me every summer during the baking ‘kathiri veyyil’ days (when the sun is reputed to be at its peak) that if I went out of the house, I might come across the dogs that were driven mad by the heat. Of course, I made sure I stayed put inside the house, all the while looking out of the window for any stray mad dogs, rather like Scout.

Why am I thinking of mad dogs now, you wonder. Well, in the past few months, the news reports I have been reading / watching about the doggie antics, makes me wonder if it is the mad dog season world over.

Things took a decided turn for the worse in England on New Year’s Day when five-year old Ellie Lawrenson was mauled to death by her uncle’s American pit bulls. Young Caydee-Lee suffered a similar, horrible fate – her parents were pub-sitting and whilst they were away, couple of dogs dragged her out of bed and killed her. As a mum, I cannot even imagine what those poor parents must have gone through and what they have to live with for the rest of their lives.

Last week on TV, there was a special news programme about the dogs suddenly running amok and turning on the people. One lady who was a victim of such attacks, talked about how her whole life is in ruins now. Apparently, as she was walking down a park near where she lived, two American pit bulls latched on to her and tried their best to drag her away. She held on to the railings for dear life and it was a good twenty minutes before a passer-by braved the dogs and helped her out. She’s in excruciating pain now and is unable to use her left arm. She needs a full-time carer to help her and it was real pitiful to see this once confident and beautiful woman broken up in pieces.

There has been a widespread dog amnesty in Merseyside as well as in other areas of the country. Police have had owners of Rottweilers, pit-bulls and other ‘danger’ breeds come in and leave their dogs with the authorities, without fear of punishment. A lot of dogs have been culled, much to the RSPCA and animal activists’ disgust. But even the police admit that the ones that really breed these dogs to become nasty killers are still at large and the public, still at danger from these dangerous beasts.

Around the same time this is happening in the UK, similar events have been taking place in India as well. By now, you might know the story of the children these stray dogs attacked and the resultant culling. Whilst the act has upset animal lovers, the sadness over what happened to the poor children reigns supreme. After all, we have all looked at these mangy curs askance at one time or another, wondering if they are going to take a chunk off you that day.

What has happened to these dogs to make them go on a rampage? Why are these random dogs across UK and India turning on the people? More importantly, what is the solution to this problem?

In the UK, the general belief is that these dogs, that have been especially bred to be aggressive killing machines, possibly for ‘entertainment’, must be culled and their owners, severely punished. Though it is no fault of the dogs that they are so, they still cannot go against their nature and it is in our best interests to protect ourselves and if the only way out is to put them down, then measures must be taken to do so. The ones that must be punished are those short-sighted people that bred these dogs in the first place, thereby putting the unsuspecting public in danger and causing untold grief to the sufferers. At the same time, proper legislation must be put in place to protect the innocent dogs , so that they aren’t mindlessly killed.

In India, the situation is completely different. As the dogs involved are not all domestic pets, one might think the prospect of putting these dogs down might not be such a wrench but these are still animals, and we need to think how we ended up with so many strays littering the countryside in the first place. We need to get some more dog shelters and find ways of funding them so these dogs are rescued from the streets. We must find it in our hearts to set up organisations like the Battersea Dogs Home, where these neglected and discarded animals are given a new lease of life.

Who knows, by doing so, we might make sure that these sort of horrific events do not take place ever again.

Holi. The festival that heralds spring. Living in Chennai, it didn’t mean much to me. Life went on pretty much the same as always.

But whenever I think of Holi, I remember the gulmohar trees that dotted the grounds of the apartment block I grew up in. Red, yellow and orange coloured blossoms used to cover the green foliage and from the terraces, it used to look like the trees were on fire! Every spring, the trees would be full of the riotous colours and so will the ground around them. The fallen petals would deck the brown ground so that it looked like a beautiful carpet has been spread all around the area.

But, of course, growing up in India, you do hear and see images of how the rest of the country celebrated this rather rowdy-ish festival. Holi also brought to my mind, images of Amitabh Bachchan singing ‘Rang barse’, multi-coloured kurtas and general all-round mayhem. I remember wondering why the North Indians always wore white on Holi when they knew well that there would be folks chucking colour at them from all directions.

There were pockets of Madras that used to celebrate the festival. The streets of the Hindi areas of Sowcarpet, Vepery and the surrounding, would be chock-a-bloc with girls and boys of all ages running amok, covered from top to toe in the most lurid colours imaginable. If the day fell on a Sunday, Monday morning these girls would wander into college, still multi-coloured – partly because the colours were real fast and partly because they wanted to show-off.

Those were the times when I wished I lived in one of those ‘cool’er cities, where Holi was a definate day in the festival calender, where folks drank bhaang and sang drunken songs and danced in the streets. Alas! That never happened. I was stuck in staid Madras all my life. Now, sitting a gazillion miles away in staid-er England, I am wishing with all my heart that I can play Holi. I could toss colours at folks, folks would toss colour back at me, I would get gloriously drunk on bhaang and sing silly songs and dance in the streets. Oh, clad in whiter than white salwar-kameez, too! I want to wake up the next day with the colour still sticking to my skin.

Maybe I should sign up as an extra for the next Bollywood Holi number!

We gave P a big bday bash yesterday. We’d been telling him for quite sometime that for his 5th birthday, we’ll throw him a big party and we did. We invited every one of his classmates plus a few of his nursery friends as well as some desi friends whose kids fall in the 4-6 category. The pains started fairly from the word go. I did not have a complete list of his classmates and made do with an incomplete birthday list compiled by a mom and random inputs by P. Still, I managed to leave two children and when his teacher pointed that out, I furnished extra invitations for the two.

Then there was the RSVP. I thought it was the desis who could not fathom the whole RSVP concept. Turned out, the Brits were too. Or maybe they just decided to ignore the invitation. When there were two full days to the party, I had heard back from 30% of his classmates. But text messages kept coming in till 3 hours to the party from mums of supposedly eager children. We never said ‘oh no we can’t take them as we’ve finalised numbers’ as in typical desi style, we had ordered extra places.

Then there was the actual event. We arrived at the venue to find some parents already there. Though none of them had deigned to say more than the occasional ‘hello’ to me till that day, I still knew them all by face and welcomed everyone and tried to get the party started. None of them had a clue who I was. I am sure they must have walked past me most mornings. But none chose to retain an Indian woman’s face in their posh brains.

When the kids were busy bowling, S and I went around asking if the parents would like drinks etc, generally trying to play our roles of hosts to our best efforts. The firang had all gathered together, like nails to a magnet and S and I and our desi friends were stood a distance away from them, as always. Every now and again, the two of us would bridge the gap to ask them if they were comfy, to which we normally got curt nods. Though I smiled till my teeth ached, all I got from the other mums was random stern glances but no answering smiles. After a while, I got tired of being sidelined in my own son’s party, gave up the Brits as a lost cause, sat down with couple of friends and cousins and watched my son enjoy his party.

Then came the time to say goodbye. Other than P’s best mate, whose mum is the only one who treats me like I am human, NONE of the others remembered who the birthday child’s mum was. They ALL went to S’s cousin and said ‘thank you for inviting us to the party’, to which she said ‘thank you and there’s P’s mum, why don’t you say that to her?’. I ask you! Is it that hard to be nice? I am no alien, I assure you but I swear, last night, any alien would have been welcome in that gathering, not me!

To everyone thinking of the Brits as racist or discriminatory, I say this: they are not racist. I am no Shilpa Shetty but I tell you they are not. Why? Because they can’t be arsed. Intense feelings of any sort requires an effort and these lovely folks cannot be bothered to waste half that effort on the likes of me even to discriminate against me; so they just go on like I am invisible. Of course, our paths might literally cross again from Monday morning but they don’t give a shit. Even if they collide headlong into me, I would never cause a blip in their radars.

Sod you!

I was reading this article about Reliance Fresh shops and the quality they offer. When I read about their rates, the first thing that came to my mind was what would happen to the regular kaikarikaran / sabziwala? They won’t be able to compete with such a venture, surely?

But on second thoughts, I realised that the door-to-door vendor’s market is safe as no one offers what he does. He turns up like clockwork, builds up a good rapport with his customers, chats them up and cajoles them to buy more than they intended and if you have a special do in your house, he could be relied on to bring you some extra special veg, at a special rate, of course! As no Reliance Fresh or any of their ilk could offer this, the vendor’s market is safe.

The one that is getting affected by this new chain to hit the market in Chennai is Pazhamudircholai. For the non-Chennaivasis, Pazhamudircholai is the name of an exceptional fruit and veg store that held sway near Kasi Arcade in T Nagar for many years before spreading across the city. This store had the freshest of fruits and vegetables available all year and though they were on a slightly expensive side, they were a very welcome addition to the market place.

Once you set your eyes on their fat, juicy, glistening wares, you cannot walk away without getting your hands on at least a few tempting fruit or that rare veg. They do not employ any ‘buy one get one free’ gimmicks and rely purely on the quality of the items they sell. At the front of each store there is also a man selling fresh juices and he is normally surrounded by hundreds of maamis and aunties, vying with one another to get their hands on the day’s special. The fact that they do takeaways made this hugely popular and highly successful.

This chain of stores quickly built a name for themselves and if one outlet opened in your area, it generally meant that you can now shop for good quality fruit and veg in relative ease. No Food World or Nilgiris could do much to stand in the way of this store’s success – after all, no one went to Food World or Nilgiris to buy their fruit and veg now, did they?

But this new kid on the block, this Reliance Fresh, with its real cheap rates and marketing gimmicks, seems to be changing the status quo. The Reliance Fresh outlet in Ashok Nagar, for example, is right opposite the Pazhamudircholai one and has already stolen most of the latter’s client base. I, for one, am much saddened by this, as I really liked that store and am against the big name brand stores changing the face of the arena anyway. Though this turf war could mean that the public may be well be getting some really good deals (Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda vie with one another here in the UK to inundate us with coupons and other enticing offers) the sort of aggressiveness they display is a big turn off.

Other big disadvantage of having these big name stores coming everywhere is that pretty soon, the local colour will get wiped out. Every market place or mall will have the same group of stores – Reliance, Music World, Landmark, LifeStyle, etc and slowly, the variety and the abundance that exists now will slowly get replaced with this sort of corporate uniformity. In Britain, for example, every High Street boasts of a Body Shop, Marks & Spencer’s, Monsoon, Regis, Pizza Hut, Clarks and at least one Tesco or Sainsbury’s or Asda store. The smaller shops are slowly going out of business and high streets across the country are all beginning to look eerily the same. It is surreal how familiar a Brentwood High Street looks to a small town high street in Yorkshire.

With every facet of Indian life undergoing radical changes, it won’t be too long before we end up with a similar set of circumstances. Though with our population, the Nadar kadais will still have its patrons, I hope that the average Joe has a fighting chance against the big bad corporations. I sure hope so.

For a long while, India was famous for its brain drain – we used to read about the myriad ‘India Born’s’ who went on to become leading lights in their chosen field in their adopted countries. With the new IT boom, India is becoming the chosen destination of the First World countries to house their call centres and, in increasing number of cases, their development teams.

Now that the Western world is slowly getting convinced of the fact that we don’t travel to our workplaces on our elephants, have pet snakes, do the rope trick every night before dinner and sleep on nailed beds, a lot of them want to sample the country’s natural beauty. This is good news for us in terms of the revenue tourism would bring.

But the increase in our international profile also means that things that had so long remained in the dark now will be put under the global microscope. Lack of basic facilities in public areas, sloppy customer service, non-existence of emergency services and civic sense are things that every Indian knows and shrugs off – but these are the same things that are causing the well shaped Western brow to lift in alarm and/or derison.

Real estate in India is booming – land value has sky rocketed and there are malls and IT parks coming up everywhere. The picture that is being painted of the country is that of a prosperous nation on the brink of global leadership.News reports claim that the Indian economy would be much better than that of UK’s by 2015 and by 2030, China and India would be among the world’s greatest economic super powers, just behind USA. While this sounds fantastic, the reality might be a completely different thing. Political sociologist Amandeep Sandhu argues that “although it is often asserted that India’s democracy allows it to manage diversity, a greater threat to India’s growth can come from within. In the recent past, India has experienced or is experiencing conflict in Kashmir, Punjab, North East India, and it experiences regular urban communal riots between Hindus and Muslims.”

One of our biggest problems is that India’s accelerated growth is neither multi-dimentional nor is it well thought out. IT and manufacturing sectors are reaping the rewards of this boom whilst others such as farmers, artisans and the other regular folks are languishing in the wayside. Whilst throwing open our doors to international trades, we haven’t safeguarded our own homegrown industries that are now bearing the brunt of the government’s short-sightedness.

Our own police force has come under fire following the murders of Welsh charity worker Mike Blakey and Englishman Stephen Bennet within the span of two weeks. Their sloppy detective work, lack of professionalism and conduct has created waves here in the UK and are putting the country in a very bad light.

If our country is to really prosper, then a multi-dimentional overhaul is necessary. Our basic infrastructure needs to be vastly improved. Frequent power cuts, roads riddled with potholes, lack of emergency service facilities are not features of a successful economy, much less an emerging world superpower. Other industries such as the small scale industries, agriculture, tourism and other non-IT fields also need to be encouraged and their grown furthered. Ultimately, we need to slather a layer of professionalism over our good selves if we were to compete in the global market and emerge victorious.

All of this and more, needs to be done and needs to be done now. Otherwise, this boom will be more the bang with which our glorious future came crashing down.

I am tired of Jade. Tired of seeing her carefully school face showing remorse peering at me from every street corner. Tired of hearing her well rehearsed apologies ‘I am not a racist but I can understand why you would think so’. Her well oiled PR machine is working overtime to clean up her tarnished image and I, for one, am tired of being played like a banjo.

Jade is using the ‘tu queque’ argument someone accused me of, to excuse away her actions. She keeps saying what she did was wrong but is repeatedly pinning the blame for it on her upbringing, her social class, her parents and anything else she could think of.

Couple of other ‘interesting’ repercussions of the BB row are Danielle losing a £100,000 modelling contract and worse, being dumped by West Ham footballer Teddy Sheringham, the same man she slept with to win the Miss Great Britain crown last year. Of course, Danielle doesn’t know that she ins’t a WAG anymore. Jo, on the other hand, didn’t have much of a career to speak of since her S Club 7 days so doesn’t have much to lose and is carrying on as before.

Whilst I have had my fill of the Jade Baddy Saga, I feel Danielle and Jo, who have said more racist comments and have egged Jade on, deserve to take on the blame as well. It was Danielle who said ‘I thought you were going to punch her’ after Jade’s pronouncement ‘you are stuck up so far up your a**e that you can smell your own s**t’ and even said ‘your mother would be so proud of you’ and even called Shilpa a dog. Jo has generally been nasty and while I cannot remember what pearls of wisdom she dropped, she has been coming across as the type of person I would cross the road to avoid, purely for my own personal safety.

I was watching The Wright Stuff earlier on Channel 5 (young P’s down with chicken pox – hence am cooped up at home!) and today’s panellist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown said something that seemed real sensible to me. Jade was the ‘expert’ on the show today and after 30 minutes of ‘yes I can see how it will be construed as wrong, but I wasn’t the only one’ and many rueful shakes of her head, Yasmin adviced Jade to use the next three years to get a proper degree and…. well, we never heard what as Jade butted in, prattling about the same old stuff and made Yasmin gave up what she was trying to say. But I can see where she’s coming from: one of Jade’s biggest reasons for being such a bully is that she learnt those at her mother’s knee. Well, she’s in her mid-twenties now and cannot blame Mum for teaching her every wrong thing under the sun. It is time she learnt few good things on her own, especially with two young children to raise. Yasmin’s advice strikes me as an exceptionally sound one, as well as her view of it will take a long time for someone to change their views (the racist or the bullying sort) and will not take place in the span of three short days, as we are seeing in Jade’s case.

Education is the only way to open people’s minds to the world out there. Respecting others’ differences and not feeling threatened by them will only come with time. Britain today is as multi cultural as it gets, a fact that threatens many, many people. One of them decided to show their distaste by spitting in front of me as I was out for a walking with my little one and shouting ‘Go back home!’ Another one did his level best to push my husband on to the rail tracks by catching hold of his shirt fronts and yelling ‘You bl***y Paki!’ As more and more Asians come to the UK as skilled workers and as more and more jobs are being sent to the subcontinent, the ire of the locals who perceive us to have cheated them out of their jobs is on the rise.

Being different always makes us fair game and this is true none more so than in our own country, which is as widely diverse as it can get. State, language, religion, social / economic strata – we have innumerable things seperating us from another. Try to imagine the case of a Madrasi amongst a group of Hindi speaking Bombay or Delhi folk. Attire and accent are just two of the things that are causes for mirth. My telugu neighbour still speaks to me like I were from a planet many light years away rather than from a nearby state when she speaks of the ‘customs and traditions of Nellore’ (my husband is Telugu while I am Tamil). Couple of my tam-bram friends changed their minds about me in a hurry once they heard of my own mixed parentage.

While I do not rue the loss of their so-called friendship, I rue our own penchant to divide ourself so neatly. Even after paying with our own freedom for celebrating our differences hasn’t stopped us from going back to doing the same. What is needed for us to look at one another as just people, instead of ‘Jain, rich, gujju’ or ‘Hindu, Tamil, padayachi’? When will we stop judging one another? Isn’t it high time we changed our outlook for the better?

What price humanity?

On Bhogi, an aunt of mine lost her life in a road accident. The car in which she was travelling lost control and she was thrown out. As she lay wounded and bleeding, my uncle begging passing vehicles to stop and help them. For forty-five long minutes, he did so, with folded palms but none did. Finally, one kind-hearted gentlemen did but by then it was too late.

A life that could have been saved, has gone. All of those people who travelled on that stretch of road in Thirupathur on the Bhogi morning have blood on their hands. Maybe that comes across as really harsh, I don’t know. But how else could I term it? How could one justify not stopping to help a desperately wounded family? What sort of reasons does one give to assuage their conscience so that things like this don’t stick?

Isn’t this what being human is all about – lending a hand to someone in need? The mere fact that so many people have just shrugged it off and carried on with their lives galls me. I have seen scenes like this in movies, when car after car drives past a broken, bleeding man and have just shrugged it off as over-sentimentalism by the director. I always firmly believed that, when push came to shove, one cannot ignore such an event and turn a blind eye.

Was I mistaken in that surmise or what?

I know what most people think: why would I want to get involved in such a thing, as it will only mean unnecessary hassle from the police? True enough. Who needs it anyway? On the other hand, if you had the power to save a life, would you throw that power away? Had it been your loved one lying there, would you not do anything in your power to make sure they were saved? Or would you shrug it away as needless hassle?

As I think of what is going to happen to that fractured family, of my young cousins devoid of their mother at such an age, I am filled with so much rage. Impotent rage as sitting many miles away, safe in my home, I had carried on with my day as normal whilst my aunt was breathing her last. Chatting away on the phone whilst strangers were driving past her with no concern whatsoever. If it had been me in the car driving past a family needing desperate help, would I have stopped and done so?

If I had said ‘yes’ to that glibly before, I can now say with absolute conviction that never will I ever be able to see things like that in a detached sort of way like those uncaring strangers did. Because I now know, the price you pay for not heeding someone’s plea for help.

And I know that never will I be able to look at Bhogi in the same light again. For it will always be etched in my mind as the day humanity died a violent death.