Always Anthony, sometimes Ajooba

[My posts in the next few days may seem a little monotonous with the repetitive theme of my time spent in Bharuch. But considering that it has been my base station for almost 22 years in my 25 years of existence, that is the least that I can do for a place which we'll be leaving forever quite soon.]

When we first moved to Bharuch, we stayed in a remote village of Bharuch district called Valia where the factory and colony of my dad's company was located. It was a beautiful yet mysterious place (vast lawns to play around in the daytime and the blood curdling laughing of hyenas which roamed just outside the boundaries of our colony in the night) and it forms the nucleus of my earliest memories (I was just about 3 years old then). But since I have already written about it once (http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2009/05/exhuming-past.html), I will return to it at a later point of time. From Roopnagar (As the colony in Valia was called), we moved for a short period to the flat complex, Gayatri Flats where we presently stay but to a different building and flat than our present one. That short period too was a significant one and deserves a separate post because the friends I had made in that time became even closer friends on our second and very long stay (till present day) and were at the core of my fun filled stay there. Another interesting bit of childhood history was the time in between our two stays at Gayatri Flats, at the bungalow with the garden in Pritam-I society which I will now proceed to get nostalgic about.

Like every other house where I have stayed early on in my life, I have more vivid memories of what was just outside the house than inside it. I remember the roof where I used to play 'tag' with Anima Didi and from where I could see the house in which for a very short time in its very early days our school also ran its operations. This was long before we had moved into the house and by then my school had already shifted its premises to the village of Vadadla on NH-8, its location as of today. I was thrilled with the idea that someone could actually walk to their school and always wished that our school would move back to its old building. I also remember that on one rainy day when I was trying to run really fast to avoiding getting 'tagged' by Anima Didi, I slipped and fell with a massive thud completely on my own, thanks to the green slimy moss that forms in the rainy season. Anima Didi started laughing hysterically and I was so enraged at this that I went downstairs and tearfully complained to Mom that Anima Di had pushed me and caused my fall! Mom of course was well aware of spiteful child tantrums with me being her third experiment at motherhood. She proceeded to give me a consoling talk and a hug as was the need of the hour and waited for my pseudo-crying to end before stressing the point well and proper with a twist to the ear that it was wrong to lie about people just because you were angry at them. So much for motherly sympathy!

Then there were the peacocks which would fly into in our garden from neighbouring woodlands with their harem of pea-hens, while I would watch them from the window which looked out onto the garden. It was a privilege to have such a beautiful visitor, the national bird of the country after all and I didn't want to scare them away as they explored our garden for their kind of tasty snacks. Dad used to say that they hunt snakes and that made me respect the brilliantly hued birds even more. Not only were they good looking but brave too! On a few occasions, as the sky turned cloudy, we were lucky to watch it open out its eye-catching tail in a fan and dance to welcome the rain. That is such an awe-inspiring sight, one which can never be forgotten.  

What was really the grandest feature of that house in my opinion was the rectangular grassy patch of land where the front door opened out into. Yes, there were flowers and colourful shrubs at the borders of the garden, but what mattered to me was the unobstructed space in between - a grassy cricket pitch with well defined boundary walls. It was tiny compared to even the smallest cricket ground but it was big enough for our fledging cricketing abilities. In the house opposite to mine lived my greatest buddies of all time, all 8-9 years of it, the brothers Pratik and Akshat Gupta. Not only were they of the ideal age group, Pratik a year older to me, Akshat a year younger than me, we also went to the same school, shared the same taste in board games, picture books and casual cricket, and got along with each other perfectly well much to the relief of Gupta Aunty and my Mom as in putting three guys of that age together, there is always a tendency to get into minor tussles if left unattended. 

Fighting was just not us though! Come 4:00 in the afternoon and I would march out to the road in between our houses and holler "Pratik! Akshat!" No further specification was necessary as there was only thing to do on a hot summer or cold winter afternoon and any doubts on the mission would be further resolved when a sleepy eyed Akshat would stumble out to the verandah of their second floor house and get a look at the bat on my shoulders. Then would come his standard reply, unchanged, word for word, every single time I had called the brothers out to play cricket "Not now, yaar. I am sleeping!" How anyone could be sleeping while he was shouting back at me after coming out to the verandah was never really apparent, so we'd always end up playing cricket in my house's lawn. Their pet pomeranian Fluffy would also join us in once in a while, making her the most enthusiastic fielder on the field but being the crazy creatures that dogs are, she would just run around in zig zag fashion as we desperately tried to recover our ball and resume our game.

A real fun trip would be to the Shalimar Hotel in Ankleshwar when Gupta Aunty, a doctor by profession (incidentally a child specialist, so our doctor too) would make a visit to Bharuch's sister town across the river Narmada. She owned an old style red Maruti 800 and she is, hands down, the quickest car driver I have ever seen, man or woman! Two out of our trio would get to sit in the dickey of the hatchback car with our backs to the rear seat and looking at the world outside through the large glassed rear window. It's hard to imagine a time when I could fit into the dickey of a Maruti 800 but yes, there was a time like that too and I still have clear memories of how great the world looked from there as it fell behind us while Gupta Aunty zipped past everything else on the road. Once when we were crossing the Narmada road bridge into Ankleshwar for another trip to the Shalimar, I watched and cheered with breathless excitement, as an express train on the parallel railway bridge fell behind surrendering to Gupta Aunty and her incredible machine. As she went on to do her doctor thing in the city, she dropped us off at the hotel where we spent the rest of the day on the slides, swings and turn-tables of its kid's section seeking the shelter of the hotel only for lunch. A little while after lunch, Gupta Aunty would return, her job done and take us back to our home cricket ground of Bharuch.

The favourite memories I have of our stay at Pritam Society are those of 'Gajar kaa halwaa' and VCR movies at Pratik-Akshat's house. Gupta Aunty makes awesome 'Gajar kaa halwaa' and her child specialist sense told her that the best time to serve it was when we were watching our favourite video cassettes for the 1000th time over. "Tom & Jerry" videos and "Famous Five" videos were standard fare, always enjoyable but at the top of the all time list for us were two Amitabh movies, "Ajooba" and "Amar Akbar Anthony". We could never grow tired of these two movies and the immediate aftermath of watching them was that we would engage in play acting of the lead characters. 

"Ajooba" is a really corny super-hero movie starring Amitabh Bacchan, Amrish Puri and a rather funny looking 'murderous' monster, in a Alladin meets Superman mish-mash genre. We loved it then though and I suspect we'll love it even today just for the happy memories it brings back. "Ajooba" was a tough one to allot roles for, because only one of us could be the hero Amitabh a.k.a Ajooba, while the other two had to share the roles of Amrish Puri, the scheming villain and the giant ugly monster. So everytime we acted out Ajooba's story, the roles were cycled around for the purpose of maintaining peace and harmony. No one wanted to play the losing villainous guys more than once!

"Amar Akbar Anthony" was an easy allotment though with the 3 separated-in-childhood brothers in the film like us differentiated by age. Pratik, by virtue of being the eldest amongst us always got Amar (the honest cop), and Akshat the youngest always got Akbar (the kid and the most innocent). That left me no option but to be Anthony Gonsalves, the brother in the middle, the hard drinking, likable ruffian, the adopted son of a priest. I hated acting out the bit where Anthony gets clobbered by his elder brother Amar but I was putting up with it for the sake of the beautiful Parveen Babi on whom I had developed a big crush further enhanced by the number of times that we had watched the movie. Like that improbable movie, our favourite Manmohan Desai creation, where despite the tragedy of arrested fathers, blind mothers and long lost siblings, things finally come together and you know that every good guy goes home happy, so too was that period of time in our lives, truly madly "feel good"!

Yes, the river knows

From the roof of every building in the flat complex where I had spent most of my childhood and so many incredible hours playing terrace cricket with my buddies, there was and still is visible a very serene sight. A view of the wide expanse of the Narmada river in all its glory is always remarkable no matter what the time of the day may be, in the pale early morning sun, in the glint of the afternoon heat and the silver hue that it sometimes assumes in the moonlight. Every evening that falls on Bharuch, a cool breeze awakens from the heart of the river not only refreshing young cricketers involved in post match chit-chat and heckling but also wanders through every house and street in that region of small town South Gujarat. 

On the rare day that we did not have enough enthusiasm/players for a game of terrace/full ground cricket, a few friends would get together and we would walk past our flat complex; across the huge ground with the palm trees in the middle looking like lost giraffes, where we used to occasionally play "challenge" (Read pooled prize money involved) matches against the kids from the tin-roofed houses behind our complex; past the mosque at the other end of the ground; down the sandy, muddy tracks where the only traffic was the herds of load-bearing donkeys which carried fresh red bricks from the kilns on the river's edge to the inhabited parts of the 'city' till we reached right to the river's edge occasionally dipping our feet in the river and in general having a good relaxed time watching the river flow by, chucking stones into it and hiding each other's slippers in the sand when the enemy was not looking! Whether standing right next to its ripply flow or just fanning ourselves in its relaxing breeze far away from it, there is a strange kind of certainty and acceptance of the fact (at least for me) that the river in its vastness, wiseness and agelessness knows all that is there to be known.

Of how lost a Bengali couple with their 3 kids first felt in the year 1987 when they landed up in then even more tiny Bharuch far away from the sea of relatives and the comforts of a joint family in Calcutta? The river knows. Of how during the summer holidays and for every cousin wedding, the family took a trip back to their 'homeland' on the forever late Ahmedabad-Howrah Express clattering across the Narmada bridge towards Surat and then 1 and a half days later reached Howrah in the effort to keep ties with Calcutta strong? It knows. Of the kids' eagerness to get back 'home' after the initial euphoria of being pampered to death by relatives died down and "Chhutti-chhutti" programs on DD Bangla turn into endless re-runs it knows; home to the scribbling on the walls by tiny hands, home to the cartoon stickers on the steel almirah, home to the precious locker containing the most well preserved collection of toy cars, home to the tamarind tree within grabbing distance of their fourth floor flat's rear verandah where the langurs occasionally showed up to much to their excitement and mild terror, home to the brother-sister fights and then the subsequent reluctant peacemaking, home to the daily intensely contested terrace cricket matches come sun, rain or exams. The river understands personal non-attachment with Navratri festivities which nonetheless had to be participated in due to social compulsions and the joint need of friend circles to check out the 'greenery' as it does feeling detached about Durga Puja too. It understands the inherent crisis of identity in people who have been drawn to its banks from far and wide due to a variety of reasons, the difficulty in finding a sense of belonging, restless as it itself is, never sticking to one bank.

The river knows of the nun-run school which started out small just off National Highway No. 8 as trucks headed to Delhi from Bombay and vice versa rumbled by, unmindful of the hundreds of futures being molded inside the Vadadla building. It is aware of the unbridled joy of "Rainy day" holidays, of sleepy children in early morning assembly lines, of floating paper boats inside the flooded central compound during the divine combination of rain storms and recess. Of the frowns and the giggles, of the "Zero period" hymns and the playground laughs, of the eccentric teachers and their even more eccentric students - it make a note. Of matadors, jeeps and auto-rickshaws waiting outside the school gates to get their wards home safe and sound, it has its updates.

The river does not laugh at the idea of there being only one named road in the town, Station Road which runs from the railway station to the 'city' which basically indicates the older, relatively crowded portions of the 2500 year old port formerly known as Barigaza where the Parsis escaping from Iran landed, then as Broach by the Brits before assuming its Indian avatar of Bharuch. It has seen the three theatres of Relax, Relief and Shalimar invaded by gangs of school boys eager to watch the Hindi dubbed versions of the latest monster movies and double over in laughter as the on-screen protagonist screams "Bhaago! Dinosaur aayaa!". It is familiar with the early morning cycle rides in and around the GIDC complex by a bunch of kids, sometimes being brave enough to touch the distances of Videocon colony and Kabirwad beach, the portion of the river bank frequented by the same bunch of guys looking to beat the holiday boredom and basically splash around in the cool water even otherwise. It encourages reclining on the soft damp grass of the sneakily entered GNFC colony lawns and gossiping about life in general (sports, movies, motorbikes, girls to be specific) after a long evening of cricket or football as the sun slowly goes down. 

The river could indeed reveal many more secrets. Of tuition classes attended solely because of the cricket sessions before and after; of trips to the secluded quiet Gayatri Mandir on the river bank not because of any religious or spiritual reasons but because it was a relatively safe place to smoke a cigarette; of combined 'study sessions' at a friend's place when his parents were away, disintegrating much expectedly into video-game playing madness and climbing onto the house's water tank to enjoy the view and the windiness up there; of aimless Scooty rides out onto the highway & back and of wasting hours on railway platform benches, tea glasses in hand watching the night trains stop and leave - all this and more it has merrily concealed.

The river sends out it messengers daily to the well maintained gardens of the bearing factory which employed my father all this while as toddlers matured (hopefully) into grown men and women. To the kitchen and the flat where my mom spent a couple of decades setting up her house in a way such that she could run through her huge list of domestic chores in the short time that she got after coming back from teaching at school and entertaining my brother's and sister's friends from college. The blazing summer sun ignored by us too hyperactive to stay put at home, its lazy winter 'avatar' when everyone wanted to get their fair share of sunshine, and the rains which every year would invariably would cause it to flood and lead people to come to the Narmada bridge to watch her rising waters - all good friends with it through the millennia. Memories of Uttarayan, when every roof had cassette players blaring the latest Bollywood numbers as hundreds of kites being flown by ages 8-80 crowded the skies and that of Diwali when the day after the festival, the whole courtyard would be strewn with bits of burnt newspaper, proof of the thousands of rupees of firecrackers collectively ignited to fill the night sky with light - bring a smile to my face and the river knows the why and how of it.

The river turns a sombre grey sometimes because it has seen the madness of the communal riots, when blood of innocents was being spilt by both sides in a meaningless battle. Amidst opposing shouts of "They insulted our community.", "They started it.", "They deserved it.", "We have to fight back." etc, none of which are plausible explanations or solutions for the futile (like all violence is) destruction, if the river had a voice it would ask the only question worth asking "So how do we go about finding a solution such that no matter how big the disagreement, no one has to die?" Instead it just flows on. It is aware of our wishes for our pet turtle Michaelangelo who had come to us when a flood carried him to our maid-servant's house after which he stayed in our house, in my brother's MSU boys' hostel room before finally growing too big to be kept inside the small tub we had reserved for him and heart-broken we returned him to the river that he came from and watched him swim back... happily. It solemnly carries within itself the ashes of my dear deceased grandmother, accepting a very lovable lady who had spent all her life in Calcutta and a central figure in many of our most pleasant childhood memories as one of its own.

The sum of everything that the river has seen of my life holds the explanation to why even after having been in and enjoyed Kurukshetra, Bombay, Delhi, Calcutta, Boston, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York and any other place which the future holds for me, the word 'home' will always remain associated with one little town on the banks of the Narmada. Of how empty and hollow, a family of 5 Bengalis will feel when they drive out of Bharuch for that one last time across the Narmada bridge, looking back on 22 years worth of friends, places and incidents of a place that had quietly moved to the centre of their existence? Yes, the river knows.

Blood brother

Sunday morning was a really sticky one today as I dragged myself to Beniapukur bazaar for the bothersome necessity called food. Bazaars are very colourful places with the whole spectrum of colours encompassed by the sellers, shoppers, fruits, vegetables and the other riff-raff. When the sweat is not pouring out of your very own sweat pores like someone has installed a little pump in you and you don't look as if someone has just dunked you in a tank full of sweat, the charms of the bazaar may just work on you. But today was not such a day!

-

So shopping bag in hand, I moved grim faced from vendor to vendor, usually buying stuff from the very first seller of that particular item be it tomatoes, capsicums or garlic not really bothering with what was "the best" in the market or the best priced! Not that I ever took the pains, but today there was even more incentive not to put myself through the torture. Then came a motorcycle lazily gliding through the milling crowds of people parting them down the middle like a swimmer in the pool. As the motorcycle passed me in slow motion (after all, a crowded bazaar is no place to use the accelerator), I saw a very interesting little sticker on the rear mudguard which conveyed the rider's thought process.

-

The sticker said "I don't ride fast, I just fly slow".

-

The weather didn't feel so hot any longer. A cool breeze of release blew through my mind as I thought of my own two wheeled ride waiting patiently inside my garage at home. And I smiled... a very evil smile!
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[Do not be foolish enough to consider everything stated above as an incentive to speed. Drive and ride safe. Reach home. Alive. With all limbs in their respective places. Let others on the road do so too. Please.]

Welcome to my world

I keep getting these snail mail letters posted by Google's AdSense department every two months to "use the power of Google to attract new customers", all thanks to the little advertising bar which appears on the right of my blog page. They seem to be obsessed with the idea that my website is selling something which needs more buyers and therefore more visitors. A part of me finds that amusing and the other makes me curious, really really curious. What if my blog were indeed a real life shop? What if I had a 40,000 square foot of air-conditioned space to showcase my 'products'?

Keeping with that logic, that would make my thoughts the items for sale lining up the shelves of my shop and all the readers who stumble across my block of virtual real estate my 'customers'.

So how can I can help you today? Would you like this mildly humour inducing product, ma'm? Click on it and it'll tell you all about my pet bird, my dear Tweety, of how she literally fell from the sky and into my life.

http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2008/01/she-fell-from-sky.html

There are lots more animal stories for you if you liked this one and have grown up addicted to Discovery and NGC!

http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/search/label/Animal%20planet

Ok, maybe not. Perhaps then, you'd like this serious, nostalgia powered product on how wonderfully sad yet beautiful my last day in college was or maybe even yours was.

http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2007/06/wind-of-yesteryears_1398.html

More funny/sad college stories then?

http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/search/label/In%20deepest%20RECK

No, you say! You want them in red, the colour of romance?!! How about a poem then? Surely you'd like a poem about a grey day at work turning into a bright and sunny one! Here we go.

http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2009/10/daily-grind.html

Oh, all right. I now see that you are the serious type. Then you'd love to know how much I hate corruption.

http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2007/11/its-not-ok.html

Just in case, you are feeling a little patriotic...

http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/search/label/Patriotic%20fervour

What? Too serious for you, you say. Hmm, let's see. Try this one then. No one seems to have noticed this one before even though it remains one of my personal favourites. Maybe you'll like it too. Inside info all of this, I tell you.

http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2007/06/bliss.html

Or how about you, sir? Do you need something really really unique? Does a poem about my motorcycle qualify?

http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2009/09/pulsar-song.html

If you are as car crazy as I am, sire...

http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/search/label/Motomania

You say you need a cure from the travel bug bite. Sorry, I don't have a cure yet but here's a solid product which will tell you why you shouldn't be looking for medicine. All of this is this salesman's humble opinion, of course...

http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2007/11/wanderlust.html

Day-dreaming of travel ain't so bad, eh? :)

http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/search/label/Wanderlust

Sky diving might just do the trick for you, wouldn't it?

http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2008/10/free-fallin.html

No! :(

Childhood! Come on. Don't tell you didn't love your childhood! Sample this product, a tale of infantile naughtiness? I am sure you have many of your own too.

http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2007/06/guilty-pleasures.html

Want to go back to school? Sorry, I am no plastic surgeon or time travelling scientist but I do have a few recordings of my version of those golden days.

http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/search/label/Tales%20from%20the%20past

Sheesh! Nothing to your liking yet. You need some more time to think and analyze, you say? Wow, you ARE very difficult to please. But somehow that inspires me to work even more on my shop. Be my guest. Feel free to roam this huge collection of the most random thoughts you'll probably come across. I sincerely pray that you'll like something. The floor, all of it, is yours.

http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/

My shop is still a work in progress and it may never be complete. Some items may be on repeat display while some a one-off custom creation; some may be yawn inducing while others may be thrilling but they all are copyrighted products of my unnecessarily crowded imagination. So if you did not find anything of interest, please do come back. You see, I have a warehouse too and some folk call it my mind saying that I am always out of my warehouse. But I do venture into it once in a while, to capture, coax or drag out a stowed away thought or two. Welcome to my world. I hope you enjoy your stay whether you be here for business or pleasure!

India needs fast bowlers

As a kid on every trip to Delhi, we always used to head to a house in Greater Kailash where one of my dad's aunts stays. Just above her in the same house, stay another aged couple who may or may not be remotely related to me but they did qualify as another grandfather-grandmother pair and as kids forever hankering for attention, that didn't hurt us. Buchu Dadu of Greater Kailash was equivalent to any other grandfather and had been a leading scientist of India in his time, probably a physicist. I was elated at every opportunity to meet him as my aim in life then was to pursue a career in science. To my dismay however, whenever I talked to him the first topic of discussion would never be science. It was always cricket. Not that I hated cricket but I was more obsessed with science.

At that stage of my life, I was tall for my age and lanky. The first question from his end would always be "Kid, do you play cricket?". Upon my enthusiastic nod, he would enquire further "What is your role in the team?". I would puff my chest up and say "Opening batsman!" and then play a solid defensive stroke in thin air to put emphasis on my role as a batsman in the technically perfect Rahul Dravid mould though it was highly difficult to play a sheet anchor role in a 6-8 over match which I frequently did! He would just shrug and say, "You are tall. You should try fast bowling. Promise me that you will be a fast bowler. India needs fast bowlers!". This would put me up at the crossroads again. I was desperate to be in the good books of this one man who was the role model that I looked up to for my future as a scientist and yet this was the man who was intent on sending me down the path of fast bowling greatness. To top it all, the future of my country was at stake. All this choice making was too much for my immature mind to handle so I would nod my head in subdued agreement and hope that he would jump to discussing science which he did once in a while. Wanting me to be a fast bowler however was part of every single conversation that I had with him. But being a fast bowler cum scientist was too much of a dream for me to aspire to even then at that tender age when nothing seems impossible.

15 years down the line, I am (as expected) neither a scientist nor a fast bowler though I do my best to follow the latest science and cricket stories. India still needs both scientists & fast bowlers and Buchu Dadu with his genius mind was prophetic on at least one count. On the scientist front, I know a couple of scientists in my own family who have come back from labs in Harvard to do their bit for India. It's been more than 10 years since I met Buchu Dadu last but I do know what the topic of conversation will be if I meet him. The question being flung at me at 155 kmph is definitely going to be "Where are the fast bowlers?"

The joker

Arjeplog is a town in northern Sweden on the Arctic circle. According to an article in Top Gear I was reading recently, 7 months in a year it remains ice and snow-bound which is why it serves as the icy terrain testing capital for car manufacturers around the world. Rolls Royce, Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, Ferrari - all use the almost completely frozen lakes around Arjeplog to test their mean mechanical beasts in winter conditions. What a sight it must be to see a Ferrari, a Porsche, a Rolls Royce or a big SUV slide its way across vast stretches of endless ice, being tested at the limits of their design parameters and speed. Everyone has their own versions of heaven and I think I now have a fair idea of what mine is going to look like. Kilometres worth of frozen open space and a very fast car to race and skid across it! So used to icy conditions is this corner of the woods that even civilians can parallel park their car in one single spin. Talk about cool!

Besides putting Arjeplog on the "Must-go-places-before-I-die" list for me, reading the article re-awakened a cold fear in me. "Parallel parking" is a combination of words which never fails to cause me to gulp a couple of times before triggering sad memories of innumerable failed attempts to squeeze my car in that available spot between two available cars no matter how large the space was. 99 out of 100 times, I would turn to look around, then look through the rear view mirror and then turn around again, put my car in reverse and then find myself in a position where half of the city's traffic was stuck behind me and my car was in a position which was sure to invite a ticket from a policeman or the attention of a tow truck. I would quietly get down and ask a friend to parallel park my car for me to my great shame and accompanying sense of failure. I can drive a car for thousands of miles without fatigue because I love driving on open, empty roads but tell me to parallel park my car and the sour expression on my face will tell you what exactly I think of you.

This is why the one of the few times that I managed to parallel park correctly was amongst the greatest days of my life. It was during my road test for a Massachusetts driving license and that is a certification which made me happier than earning my engineering degree had made me such was the intense performance anxiety that overcame me. Driving license tests have a way of doing that. I had already been driving around in the USA for close to 6 months by then using my Indian driving license which was valid for a year from my arrival in Boston. But an urge to save on insurance money forced me to get my driving skills re-certified for an American license. Despite having thousands of driving miles under my belt, in India and the USA, on the day of the test, it feels like the first day at a new school. The same steering wheel, brake and accelerator all seem strangely hostile when a driving inspector is sitting next to you with a clipboard and a pen looking every bit like he was hell-bent on failing you. Clearing the road test carried no value in the office conversation amongst your friends but God forbid if you fail the road test, then the joke would be on you for years to come.

It was early in February 2009 when my chosen date for the road test arrived. It was snowing on that day as it had the day before and the roads were covered with a thin layer of freshly fallen snow while the stuff from yesterday was piled high in snow walls on both sides of the road by the snow plows. I was moving ahead with extra caution going easy on the accelerator as spinning the car with the co-passenger being the old guy in charge of evaluating my driving capabilities would surely have spelt my doom. I got sharply reprimanded by him for holding up the traffic though and so I had to step on the gas to keep him happy. I exercised extra caution and stopped well behind the line at a red light on the test route but then my invigilator gave me a look which said he wasn't too impressed with my safe attitude. Hand signals and the three point turn followed but none of them seemed to bring the remotest smile to his face. At this point of time, I was on the verge of losing it as the tension of not being able to match up to his idealistic standards was getting to me. That's when he asked me to pull up on an empty street and said the two words which were the real reason for my unrest "Parallel park!"

He added "Be careful, son. I don't want to touch the snow...". So, here I was, already taxed by the momentous responsibility of parallel parking between an ice cream van and a red Ford Taurus, even without the don't-touch-snow clause. The snow was piled 2-3 feet high on the side of the kerb such that even the kerb was not visible. The snow was to be my line of reference to put my car in position. A more picture-perfect horror scenario I couldn't have imagined for myself! My mouth ran dry and I twisted around in my seat like it was an electric chair while putting my car into reverse. I looked around, checked around in all human ways possible before turning the steering all the way in one direction and then in the other. Like magic, my car had pushed itself into position or so I thought. My driving inspector was still as silent as a rock.

I drove into the parking lot 0f 10, Washington Street where the Taunton Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) is located. I sat quiet as a mouse as the inspector popped open the lock of his door. On his way out of the car, he leant back, that grumpy old man of the last 20 minutes smiled at me and said "Son, congratulations. You have just become eligible to drive in the State of Massachusetts!" I breathed a sigh of relief and he added with another meaningful smile, "I was never going to fail you. I give you credit for giving the test in all this snow!" It seemed that all his seriousness was a put-on act to have a little entertainment at my nervous expense. I was still too happy then to have parallel parked successfully and earned my driving wings, on the one occasion that it really mattered, to tell him aloud what was going through my mind. I was smiling too but my eyes might have leaked the words that were on the tip of my tongue "Bl***y joker!!!".

Pull your weight

Calcutta is a city of paradoxes. Some uncharitable critics would even accuse it of reeking double standards. On one hand, the city prides itself on its artistic history and a culture of humaneness and on the other hand, it is the only city in the world where hand-pulled rickshaws are even allowed to operate. To a certain extent it is understandable when the rickshaw-wallahs are taking little kids to school or old ladies to the market through Calcutta's serpentine lanes but what makes my blood boil is when I see perfectly healthy guys of my age sitting pretty on a rickshaw with an umbrella in their hands while a 40-50 year skeleton of a man pulls them along. It's a great relief to know that no more new licenses are being issued for hand pulled rickshaws by the West Bengal government and after this current generation of rickshaw pullers, the abominable practice of hitching a ride on the same road that is being walked by another guy dragging you along shall come to an end.

In my childhood, whenever I used to come to Calcutta for the summer holidays, the rickshaw-wallah with his little hand held brass bell (which he used as some kind of a horn), torn vest, sweaty face and the gamchaa (towel) thrown across his frail shoulders was one of the key defining images of Calcutta. I used to look forward to trips to New Market which is only a short walk from my house simply because I loved the precarious weightlessness and fragile balance that comes in a hand-pulled rickshaw ride as it negotiated the madness of Calcutta traffic. I saw nothing obscene about the idea of being rich enough to pay off a poor man to walk a distance which I could have walked by myself and then actually rely on that underprivileged man's legs to do the walking for me. My only consolation is that I was a kid back then and didn't weigh as much!

For most of people born and brought up in Central Calcutta, employing the hand-pulled rickshaw is a way of life as much as say devouring 'mishti doi' (sweetened curd) or riding the rickety old trams which add to the messy state of affairs on the roads. In a way, I do understand the logic behind their patronage of the rickshaw-wallahs too. Jug Suraiya, the famous columnist once wrote about how he had asked a rickshaw-wallah if he could pay him for the ride and walk alongside to interview him (as Jug was understandably queasy about taking a ride on one). The rickshaw-wallah replied with something to the effect of, "Saheb, we may only be rickshaw-wallahs but we are hard workers, not beggars. If you pay me, then I'll have to ask you to take your seat on the rickshaw."

That is indeed a very true assessment of the situation. Here are men desperately poor, who had left their villages years ago in the hope of finding a better life in the big city, a dream which was not to be. Today they still sleep in open tin sheds at night huddled together by the dozens, the meagre amounts of money that they make unable to provide for anything more luxurious. Come 5'o'clock in the morning and they are out on the street again waiting for their passengers. They could have so easily not chosen this path of inhuman hardship. Disgruntled by the horrifying unfairness of urban society, they could have easily opted for a life of crime instead where there was at least fear-induced respect from the masses, shady glamour and potloads of easy money. The honest, moral, humble, hard working ethic couldn't have found a better personification. Unfortunately all the attention always seem to be on the guys who cheat on government taxes and regulations for years, have crores of bad debt on bank loans but who still manage give their darling wives a personal jumbo jet on their birthdays. On bitter dark days when optimism is out on long leave, it does feel like the fate of the rickshaw-wallah is the fate of the honest man.

In an alternative take on the rickshaw-wallahs' life, is it likely that we are overthinking this? Do they feel as sorry for themselves as others feel for them? Is it at all possible that man is both poor and honest, but still happy within his limited universe? Are the rickshaw-wallahs deserving of our pity or is their simple, uncomplicated existence worthy of our respect?

I let the rain wash over all these thoughts as I watch the Hurricane Laila's remnants splash itself down on Calcutta from the safety of my verandah. The thunder is rumbling and the showers play a steady fast beat on nearby roofs as a hand-pulled rickshaw pulls up in front of the house across the lane from mine. I see that the tarpaulin roof and curtain have protected the passenger from the onslaught of water until now. Now that the destination is reached, the rickshaw-wallah slowly lowers the rickshaw and moves the curtain to reveal a 10-11 old boy returning from school. As the boy dashes for the cover of his house, looking thrilled at being caught in the rain, the rickshaw wallah picks his school bag and follows his little passenger towards his home. The boy is obviously a regular customer as a few seconds later, the rickshaw wallah returns having collected his fare from whoever it was who was waiting to receive the boy. I strain my eyes trying to decipher the expression on his face but it is difficult to define through the driving sheets of water. It is definitely not sadness but then again it is not happiness too. It does not look like pride but it is also not one of meek surrender too. Some questions in life will always remain difficult to answer. For all I could see, it was only a rickshaw in the rain.