The only thing constant

It rained all through the evening in Calcutta today and I was forced to shelve my plans of going around town to look for a repair shack for my uncle's record player, grounded by the disciplinarian weather. Instead as the lightning crashed down repeatedly and sometimes fearsomely close, with the rumble of thunder and the rhythm of wind slashed rain silencing the usually chaotic streets of Central Calcutta, I got into a conversation with my aunt and learnt a few interesting facts about the area where my house is located at, about which I was completely in the dark.

The whole chunk of land to the left of the St. James Church compound where my grandpa's house now stands amongst many others was a semi-orchard for the Tagore family. The Tagore family abounded in genius with many a artist and intellectual in their ranks but their name was truly immortalized and cast in gold by the creative output of a certain gentleman by the name of Rabindranath Tagore. Another thing the Tagore family abounded in was wealth, generated by doing huge volumes of business and trading under the patronage of the British rulers. So right where my house takes up space, there might have been a mango orchard where kids ran free of the chains of adult supervision. The huge walled in compound which forms the dreary godown of Crompton-Greaves adjacent to the Frank Anthony Public School was in fact a huge pond ('pukur' in Bengali) - green, teeming with fishes eyed by circling colourful birds and overhung by the lush greenery that is at the root of all of Bengal's poetic ruminations. The red tiled roofed shed located bang in front of my house where the hand pulled rickshaws park for the night and their dog-tired operators cram into to get much needed sleep was a stable for the horses once.

All of that seems to have happened not only in another age but on another planet. What remains is a couple of old buildings, the rest of them taken down to make way for relatively modern construction where ugly practicality has choked out spacious grandeur. The birds of beauty and song had left with the trees, the few that still stand witness house only the hungry hordes of inner city crows. Harsh sodium lights fall on overcrowded solid tar roads where at one time the silver moonlight filtering through the leaves was the main source of illumination as majestic horses comfortable and tired after a day's work snorted and shuffled in their stables.

The rain and the emotions that it washes down from the heavens though are just the same. The smiles that it brought onto the faces of people caught out on the street today said that it is as welcome now it was back then dissolving more pressing issues at hand in its cool embrace. Time moves on with hardly a nod to the past as do people tangled up in their private worlds of worries and desires. After all the endless philosophizing, we do acknowledge what is inevitable, what is indeed the only thing constant... change.

One for a good cause

In a rather interesting incident in this old town, 3 middle aged Income Tax (IT) officers barged into a flat in the Beleghata area. They were on a raid, they said and handed over the raid authorization papers to the wife of the accused. The accused was out of town that day and the officers went through their usual routine of turning everything in the house inside out. They broke open the almirah to find Rs. 2 crore in cash. Again in true raid fashion, they handed over a receipt of 90 lakh to the lady as the amount of cash they were taking away from the house and marched away with the 2 crores.

Flabbergasted and completely distraught, the targets for the IT raid contacted the police. The police of course turned out to be more interested in how and why were 2 crore rupees in cash at home in the first place. Further investigation revealed that none of the 3 visitors were from the IT department. In fact, the IT department had no plans or information whatsoever for any raid to that particular residence. The authorization papers were of course faked and the raid party of 3 are nowhere to be found! In normal circumstances, I am strictly and seriously against any kind of theft by anyone but in this particular case, I couldn't help spending the whole of this Sunday morning... laughing!

Ben Franklin Pt.2 ???

Back in my primary school days when I was quite obsessed with the idea of becoming a white lab coat wearing scientist, one of my favourite stories was the one about the pioneering scientist Benjamin Franklin and his kite experiment. Benjamin Franklin wanted to prove to the world that lightning was not an expression of the wrath of God but the end result of a huge voltage difference between two clouds. So he sent up a kite with silk thread (Good conductor of electricity that it was) on a cloudy day and at great personal, possibly fatal risk brought a metallic object (A key) close to the thread. Sparks emitted by the key proved that there was indeed a great amount of electricity in between the clouds and that there was no angry old bearded man hiding behind the dark clouds waiting to strike down any and all sinners. Point well proven, albeit a little on the edge proof.

Today on the 2nd of May 2010, the evening saw Calcutta consumed by an especially oppressive heat that precedes the Kal-Boishakhi (North-wester winds) thunderstorm. The air was still, the clouds were dark & low and the first little flashes of lightning with the grumble of thunder were already in progress. Then it was, as I strolled onto my third floor terrace that I saw the kite! Yes, a lone plastic red spotted kite being flown by some foolhardy braveheart at that totally unsuitable time from some distant terrace. Most of the human race knows by this point in time & history that lightning is nothing but murderous amounts of high electrostatic discharge. What our brave adventurer/scientist was out to prove lies totally beyond my conjecture. All I can pray and hope for is that by the time the storm was done venting it's anger at the human race at about 10:00 in the night, we do not have to mourn for another martyr to the cause of science.

Surge

PC:  Joe Neric on Unsplash

I was on my way to Bridgeport, Connecticut down I-95 S to drop a friend off. My ever faithful 1999 Corolla struggled on at a steady 75 mph (about 120 kmph) in a 65 mph zone. 

It was still late Sunday afternoon and fellow cars on the road headed down to New York City were at a similar speed knowing that no cop was going to bother over this minor infringement of the speed limit. 

I had been on this journey a number of times before; every curve of the freeway and even the massive 18 wheeler trucks that made up most of the traffic on weekends were pretty familiar to me. Like the sun was losing interest in the activities of that part of the world, so too was I, almost hypnotized by the unwavering repetitiveness of this particular drive.

Then... a ghost whipped by the driver side's window, leaning right into the path of my car and then racing ahead to lean in and out of all the cars that lay ahead. 

There's no other sound like it in the world. 

The super-short whine of a super-powerful machine zipping past your car so fast that in comparison, you seem to be standing still. And then, another ghost flashed by and then another. 

Sports bike gang, alert! 

A few yellow Suzuki Bandits, a couple of lime green Kawasaki Ninjas, a lone Hayabusa and a few more monsters of the two-wheeled variety - all may even have been apparitions for the minimal length of time that they remained within our eyesight. Dancing, weaving taillights; muscled steel bodies, engines powered by hell and speeds ensuring that whatever else happens, the motorcycles would get you there quick... really quick.

My hands on the wheel were trembling for quite a few seconds after the last of the motorcycle gang had whizzed past. 

It was impossible to keep up with them, for us, all those imprisoned by the curse of 4 wheels. 

It would be a joke even if we tried. 

But the speed demons had left behind a black hole, a warp zone which sucked all of us trailing them into upping our average speeds by a good 15-20 mph more for a significant while before we realized the futility of our wishes. 

No car on the road right there and then on that section of I-95 S could claim to have fought off this sudden yield to temptation. 

The Devil cackled in our ears, urging us to heed the message sent out to all of us on the road in his own inimitable way. 

"Go on", he whispered, "You've been a good boy long enough. Now, surge."

PC: Filip Mroz on Unsplash

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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.]

[http://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.in/2010/05/surge.html]

Jack

It's not easy being pals with a serial killer. Not when you have to dedicate an entire lazy office afternoon, screening and scouting victims for him. But then it's not that I want him outed. I find it no small thrill to be a mere witness to his muffled and extraordinarily fierce violence. I always know where to find him, quietly he waits in the little ante-chamber outside our glass partitioned space on the 15th floor of our office building. Still as a statue, he seems to be deep in thought, crouching next to the coffee machine that never works and the water cooler that never fails to spit toxic, unpotable, warm water.

I cast a furtive look around before zeroing in on those unfortunate enough (although some of them do thank their lucky stars for being chosen) to catch my fancy. This is a super collection of oddballs if there ever was one. A posse of rejected ideas which never made the leap from meetings to workstations; a bunch of has-beens whose glory days in the sun were as brief as their wait for annihilation seemed infinite; crowds of those elements which had been used, abused by the system of quality input & output and now needed to be disposed, their lowly duties performed - in short, the perfect targets as no one would really notice when they were gone. What they knew was deemed too precious to allow for them to be dumped in the dumpster as is yet no one cared enough to award them a dignified death. Until today.

I gather them all and walk, the Pied Piper leading them to their demise, an unrepentant agent of doom. "Beep" goes the sensor at the slowly opening glass door as my ID card flicks past it announcing the end of the green mile, the final march to the executioner's chamber. I take a deep breath before flipping the power switch on. Jack is awake now and the stacks of papers in my hands almost leap out of my hands and down his rotating blades of fury. He hacks, he slashes, he chews - all with a deep seated but low intensity murmur at the same time almost begging for more. All that remains of those doodled sheets, changed drawings, redlines, intermediate designs, work completion estimates, loading charts are thin, thin, thin shreds of garbled information, something which even God couldn't put back together if He wanted to. That is all I can offer you for this month, my friend. Thank you for gifting me that true inner peace only attained through complete and final destruction. Thank you, Jack, my office's beautifully dutiful paper shredder a.k.a Jack the Shredder.

It can wait...

A dusty end to a long long day, the ride back home through half-way,

So hot and still the evening air, fumes from vehicles seemed easier to bear,

A TV and a fan the primal needs, poor rewards though for daily heroic deeds,

Momentary desires do really suck, stuck as you are between a bus and a truck!

Then comes a gust, a cold cold breeze,

A giant freezer opened to douse peaking unease,

The rains have come a calling, somewhere in close quarters,

The wind just a messiah, of approaching relief waters.

The drops begin to fall, fat, round on roofs, tarps and laces,

Little circles of joy they form on long parched faces,

Rolling drumbeats of redemption play in my helmet's spaces,

Like everything else right then, singing of life's myriad phases.

It can wait, the four walls of safety, while the world is washed over,

It can wait, the call of mundane duties, when the clouds come down closer,

It can wait, fear of the dark, a blaze of lightning exposes all lying in wait,

It can wait, the life ordinary, when Nature sets up another perfect date.

"Ladies" quota

I was taking Mom to an appointment on a bright and sunny day of this year's early summer before heading off to work. We were in the standard clattery yellow Amby cab of Calcutta, inside which it is forever hot irrespective of the season outside and the mood was anything but bright and sunny on the inside. The Park Circus n-way crossing with its bewildering assortment of one ways, two ways, signals and improbable intersections was the real culprit but here I was putting up with the after-effects of underestimating its complexity. Afflicted with the usual male disease of not asking for directions and an unfounded confidence in finding a way through, I had issued the cab driver a full complement of incomprehensible instructions leading him to join a lane which was headed in the opposite direction to where we wanted to go and then make a U-turn into a lane which was chock-a-block with traffic seething at a red light which appeared to exhibit a strong will to stay that way... forever. As a result, while I sat next to the newly licensed cab driver (hence unfamiliar with the roads) who carried the hint of a smile on his lips, from the back seat Mom was flying off the handle fully intent on nuclear bombing me.

An interminable tirade played away on how irresponsible I was; how much of an incurable ego-maniac I had turned into for not asking my uncle about the route to take before leaving the house; how unbearably hot it was getting stuck in the jam (that it was, even I admit); how being 15-20 minutes late was the difference between saving the world or ending it (this an outcome of my short lived fightback) and how all of this was in my genes (not from her half of the gene pool, of course). As the taxi inched its way towards the red light, there came a screeching sound of hard braking from behind. An auto-rickshaw was trying to wiggle its way down the right side of our taxi when it got accidentally blocked by our cabbie. Eyes glowering with very well faked anger; faked because even getting past our cab wouldn't have been too much help as far breaking free of the backed-up traffic was concerned and there was still a couple of inches of space between our cab & the auto-rickshaw; the auto driver started a quarrel to massage his almost bruised ego.

The auto driver from his tone and attitude seemed to be a local tough or at least someone very high up on the Park Circus auto union hierarchy, the way he instantly jumped to leg-breaking, taxi-burning threats for a relatively mild provocation. Our cab driver, a young fellow, obviously unaware of the pecking order in these parts of town launched into a verbal defense of his own, sometimes a very wrong move to make. I was tempted to let the battle take a physical manifestation considering the secret laughs the cabbie was having at my expense just a minute ago but any further escalation of the face-off meant the spine chilling possibility of further delay to getting to where we were headed and the consequent nagging. So I waited for my cue. I could sense that it would be only be a matter of few more seconds before the warring parties dragged character flaws of their opposite number's mothers and sisters into the conversation.

Luckily for me, it was the auto-rickshaw driver who teed off first announcing something about our taxi-driver's mom that should not be quoted in print. I reacted in a flash, reprimanding the auto driver in my deepest voice possible "How can you even speak in such an uncivilized manner? Can't you see that there are 'ladies' in the cab, you uncultured oaf!"

There. I had said the magic word. Everyone else stuck in the traffic who were just casual bystanders at best and smirking expectant audiences at worst now universally wore a frown of disapproval. The flag of chivalry had been raised and the knights were closing in from all sides to put any miscreants in their place. With a small gulp, the fire in his eyes dimming to a tenth of what it was, the auto-driver had to swallow up a whole lot of his pride. Being publicly accused of any kind of mis-behaviour in front of a woman is good enough to make even the worst specimens of the male species turn tail, let alone a lone feuding auto driver with not even damage to his auto to show for it.

I breathed a sigh of relief when the signal finally turned green as I am sure the cab driver too did in retrospect. I don't know how things are going to turn out in the Parliament and for the future of the nation as a whole, but out there on the everyday streets of every half decent place in India, the "ladies" quota definitely works wonders.