Down the Mall

Darjeeling
March 30th

A noisy, bustling, chaotic hill station on normal days.  This is a three-day weekend that promises pandemonium, traffic jams and mayhem, and the only thing I wonder is why I - a certified misanthrope - am here.  But that is a story, not so long, but for another time....

The street markets by the Mall are lively, crowded and filled with the I-want-a-bargain-and-please-can-you-make-me-buy-what-I-will-never-need kind of shoppers, almost all of them from the City of Joy. No one actually says, Make Me An Offer I Cannot Refuse, but this is about as close.  The prices range from the ridiculous (Darjeeling tea at just 500 a kilo? Or is it something else....) to the even more ridiculous, a sweater for 100?  

The stall owners - almost entirely women - have remarkable dignity and forbearance and a couple of them spend their time knitting and crocheting with extraordinary dexterity.  It seems impolite to stare at someone at work, so I take one lady's permission - her fingers move with the lightness of a pianist, even as she chats with me, with an occasional glance at the balaclava that is taking shape.  Is she the last generation of knitter-pianists?  

It is impossible to not admire the tenacity and enterprise of women in the hills.....

In this melee, there are smells too - of mustard oil, for a start, horse dung, agarbathi, unwashed and worn jackets that smell of firewood and perfumes with potency that'd make homeopaths blush and give me a headache.  Add selfies, instagram reels, animated conversations, two arguments and one monk.  

Colour is everywhere, in the flags and the conversations: Nepali, Bengali, Hindi mix in a jumble of words.  

An old house, under the shade of rhodendrons in bloom, reflects on its past with a sigh.  Homes carry history and stories, but today I see no one there to talk to, so I walk ahead. I would have loved to shoot the breeze (and the mist) with an old timer, but those stories must wait for another day.

Ahead is a dignified lady selling corn, fanning it, watching something on her mobile and minding her grandchild with monosyllabic, terse instructions. If she knew Algebra, she'd do that too.  Her grandchild puts out a hand - will I exchange my mobile for some corn?  I know a negotiator when I see one - this little one is destined for Greatness - so, with grandma's nod, I take a photo of them.  

Walk on.

A happy hour in the Oxford Bookstore,- now all of a sprightly 86 years - with its quaint collection of books on Buddhism, Tibet, Himalayas, tea, agitations, a biography of Warren Buffett and self-help (How to win at bridge)  and a book that I will devour on the return flight.

The Old Order Changeth....

Some months ago, Mum passed away.  It was hardly an unexpected event: she had been ailing in her winter years with a frail physique and a frailer mind that was lonely and introverted and worried with the premonition that is hard to accept, even in advancing years despite her brave wan smile, gentle countenance and unfailing courtesy.  Time is hard on the Old Order as it changeth, yielding place to the New.

A few days ago, I climbed up onto the roof of Manas, the family home, to check the water level in the overhead tank and the blossoms on a large tree – not easily visible from the ground – were radiant in the mid-day sun.  A couple of decades ago, she had planted a sapling of this fruit – rose apple -- belonging to the Syzygium family of jamuns; there are a number of varieties of this species and cultivars that have spread across Asia yet it remains a fruit that is, in most parts, not commonly available. 

Chambakya or rose apple was her favourite for it kindled memories of childhood summers in the humid warmth of Ernakulam, a little town as it then was, and of her beautiful old home of laterite-and-mud, with its open well filled with fresh water and orchard behind – a ‘paramba’ - of jack, mango, jamun, bananas, coconut and greens .  We all relive our memories in sepia, yet, in her middle age, those memories were everything.…..

For many years, I hardly noticed the tree as it inched its way up to meet sunlight above a growing, verdant canopy in her tasteful garden and, if patience is a virtue, she had it in buckets.  And then one year not so long ago, it blossomed, as trees will do with panache, its delicate flowers jostling with buds and tiny fruits, yet there was none to eat, for they dropped easily.  This was hardly noticed, for Mum was old now, with a failing memory of her favourite fruit and a self-imposed risk-averse food regimen, so there was no feeling of loss when that happened, no dismay at patience unrewarded, no antipathy. 

And every year, the tree has blossomed, even as fruits remain evasive.  And every year, I have climbed up to the roof to watch the bees at frenetic work in the warmth of the summer day with their sonorific buzz and delightful dance – wild Rock Bees, a species that is worthy of as much worship as the Gods in our temples of elegant, if inert and divisive, stone.  In residences around our family home, their hives are burnt, smoked, sprayed and cut, with a thousand little victims lying as inert as that edifice of stone-and-wall yet here, in this little patch, with its trees, Ixora, anthurium and tiny wild flowers, there is a refuge; they are welcome to forage, the food court is open.                  

This year, as I watch them at work, I wonder.  Did Mum plant this tree for herself? Such is legacy. 

Squeezing A Stone

It’s been a while since I spoke to this elderly gentleman, a nice, unassuming hard-working chap, with large spectacles and an avuncular air about him.  My ‘How-are-you?’ is a regulation question…..

The reply is an absent-minded, 'Fine'. But he wants to say more.....  

‘As you know,’ he begins, ‘my wife and I live on the ground floor and I have built three flats above ours for my three daughters.  The flats are all on rent.  We do not have a municipal water connection and get 8 water tankers every month.  That’s twenty thousand rupees.’

He pauses and takes his spectacles off, cleaning them meditatively.

‘Yesterday, the water tanker driver supplied his last tanker to us.  They have run out of water.’

He sees the expression on my face.  

‘The tenants are all moving out this weekend.  One young couple will return to their home town.   And my wife and I are looking to rent an apartment.’ He pauses, and then smiles, ‘Let’s change the subject, he says, but I must tell you that I never expected this to happen to me.’

I am silent and hopefully my look shows empathy, understanding, commisseration for it is the least he can expect from me.  Walking back, I think of our city, with its profligate, indifferent ways, where entitlement preceeds responsibility, of hotels with jaw-dropping luxury that tell you that water is precious so could you please reuse the towel but allow us to keep our jacuzzis running, of apartment complexes where a call to conserve is met with a howl of defiant protest and of cynics who believe that Economics will solve the problem, for as Oscar Wilde said, they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.  

It isn’t water that is in short supply…..

And I think of those fifty thousand hectares or so of sugarcane by the Cauvery river that are probably still being irrigated; the crop of each hectare will consume 12-15 million litres of water.  

Multiply that by 50,000.

Stories tell us more than facts do.

And, no, we do not need that sugar.

A Different Kind of Procession

It is noon and the hills and valleys in the Western Ghats are scorching.  We walk  up a small stream - my favourite one -  in the shade of a gorgeous canopy and the air is cool, the water inviting.

These are quiet, subdued streams now in these hills and valleys, far from their raging versions in the rains.  The monsoon last year was scanty and, as summer sets in, coffee planters commence their annual irrigation to help the blossoms along.  The picking of coffee is nearly done, the chatter of workers replaced with the sound of irrigation motors and the swish of jet sprays of sprinklers that reach for the sky: a six-hectare plantation will soak in about a million litres of water.  Yet, there are livelihoods and plants to take care of and the blossoms for next year's crop.....

As dusk and night set in, human footprints fade away along these streams.  And then the denizens of the stream take over, their movements soft, silent and cautious.  

A romp of small clawed otters,  civets - the small Indian civet (with rings on its tail) and the palm civet, a porcupine, leopard cat, a brown fish owl, these are the denizens of the stream ecosystem.

Why am I in the limelight?  Three small clawed otters aren't a crowd, but a romp

And there are the bigger boys too who visit.

The streams and the trees along these streams are for them to hunt, fish, drink, rest, move, wait and hide.  The stream is theirs,  yet they take nothing away and leave nothing behind that can harm its flow, for it is their home.

Each is fabulously adapted to this system and moves with genetic dexterity; in its absence, they wouldn't have lasted the purge of evolution.  When these little streams dry out because they lose their tree cover or have their sand mined or we aren't prudent in our usage of water, or when they are empty of fish and crabs, these denizens of the stream fade away, their lives overturned.  And how does that affect us?  We do not know what we do not know, yet we do know that our world becomes impoverished in every possible dimension, not just the biological chain. 

Only when we truly understand this will we accept that owning land by the stream isn't a right, it is a responsibility.

Of stewardship.

Why I need Learn Malayalam in 30 Days

It’s a wet, rainy, nippy day in our field station in Coorg, so we are indoors, with project conversations, banter and my admittedly ghastly, inept attempts at humour.  But, ever so often, it is time for a cup of tea - this weather doesn’t just suggest the idea, it demands it - so we make the pilgrimage to my favourite tea stall.

In case you didn’t know (which would place you in a rather delicate position), I take my tea seriously - black, orthodox, brewed for flavour, if you are taking notes. But what one gets in the vast badlands of India is an awful, effluent-brown syrup that needs two doses of promethazine, immediate fresh air and ambient light and a Vicks inhaler to prevent feeling dizzy, because the tea is generally a mix of three unnerving ingredients:

a) Something dazzling white that is alleged to be milk (Nandini-Aavin-Milma genre) and, if chemistry becomes a miracle science in future, might even become so 

b) Tea dust that was once a self-respecting leaf and should have stayed that way

c) Sugar, stored in an Asian Paints bucket, tightly sealed to protect the flies inside from harm  

The only people - the only people, I repeat - who make good tea with these usual ingredients that promise perdition come from the southernmost state and that is because they aren’t tea sellers, but artists in disguise (be warned that, on this issue, I take no prisoners).

The artist here is the laconic sort, one of those strong, silent types, and the epitome of focus.  His tea is superb.  No, there is no paint bucket in evidence.

And he is busier than a woodpecker.  

A glass of tea.  Twelve rupees on the counter.  

As I am about to leave, I decide to check if he will be open tomorrow.  

Now, the only thing that is as bad as my memory is my Malayalam.  So, amidst the din, the bustle and the hum of conversations in that little shop, my question to him is not if he’d be open the next day, instead I ask him, “Will you be there tomorrow?”  

He does not flinch but continues making tea and, when it has been poured out, points a finger up.  “Depends on Him,” he says, meeting my eyes for the first time.  And did I just see the hint of a trace of a smile?  

He is back to making tea now.

I walk away from the meeting determined to improve my Malayalam.  I know I need to improve something else, but now I have forgotten what that is……

SIUYAWYAHAB if you put me on a WhatsApp Group

I have closely read the new criminal law in place.  It has removed Section 420, which is now a verb in Indian-English, but has done nothing, I repeat nothing, that prevents Someone from adding you onto a bloody WhatsApp group.  According to me, that Someone should seek my consent in triplicate and get an affidavit by a notary in Lakshwadeep attesting to his sound mind before doing this. But no.   

Even now, after being known as a crusty, nasty, lurking, ominous presence on some groups, people still add me on every group and its mother-in-law.  I seem to be spending about half my daytime getting out of WhatsApp groups that I never opted to be in, and then explaining, with appropriate contrition and fake remorse, why I did so. 

I am on groups of friends, friends who are classmates and classmates all of whom are not friends, friends without some friends who are, by mutual unspoken consent, in friends’ groups but not friends, friends without friends of these above friends, friends who are friends because I did not un-friend that friend somewhere, and I am just beginning.  

The most traumatic – my conclusion, after judging all the entries carefully - are the groups formed for surprise birthdays (I was on a group this year for a surprise birthday for a fellow I have not spoken to – out of choice - since 1998). 

Sometimes the birthday person is accidentally co-opted into such a group and then there is great entertainment, with everyone blaming someone, but that, unfortunately, does not seem to happen often enough. 

When a poor faultless soul has his/her birthday (in case you had a doubt, we all have one), that original Someone starts off with ‘Happy birthday So-and-So’ and puts up a ridiculous meme like the one below.  

Now, this Someone is generally a kind of mob instigator in his part-time.  Soon, the WhatsApp group gets into action.   After an hour, those who have not yet said something will, in sheer panic, just say ‘HBD’.  

What HBD actually means is: “I sort-of have to wish you and am doing my duty and thank God you have only one birthday a year and this is to let the group know that I am wishing you”.  So, they should actually say, ‘IMHO HBD, BYE’ 

Generally, it all starts when Someone forms a group and appoints another part-time human as co-Admin. Then, they start with photos or Good Mornings or videos of dogs or little children in parks in Toronto, all of which were circulated in my first WhatsApp group at the time of the Battle of Panipat. 
Then I leave. 
Then there is a phone call or message to know why and I apologise. 
Then I am co-opted. 
Then I leave. 
You get the drift. When you leave a group, the general feeling is that you are the sort of person who would spray graffiti on Humayun’s memorial or support open defecation in Rashtrapati Bhavan. It’s hopeless and is a big reason for the revised GDP growth figures of our country being only 5.3%. 

In a couple of days, we will see a new tsunami of messages wishing everyone a happy new year, with a meme which has about as much feeling and emotion as a cement pillar in the Regional Transport Office. Some will say stuff like HNY, in which case I will reply with SIUYAWYAHAB.  

That should get them to think.  
For a change.  

Shell Shocked

 In early August this year, a deep pond was dug in one corner - the lowest end - of Random Rubble to harvest rainwater.  Sure enough, despite the sparse rains, we had it filling up a bit and, in mid-November, I fetched up as usual at the pond and took a look.  

There was little water left, a few inches of it, yet resting comfortably in a corner on wet mud was a lovely large Indian Pond Turtle (also called the Indian Black Turtle, I am told) with a couple of tiny turtles in the water.  Mother and babies, if you’d like to be mushy and sentimental perhaps?  Not having a particularly vibrant, rocking social calendar at that moment, I sat down by the pond to watch this regal lady.  

Now, if you are the kind who gets your adrenaline fix from watching the Grand Prix or the death overs of T20 or the Indian Kabaddi League, I would recommend giving watching Indian Pond Turtles a miss.  Nothing happens.  Ever.  Like me, they don’t have a busy social calendar, in fact, they probably have no calendar at all (and I have done a Google search to make sure and asked Quora, "Do turtles party?”). 

This lady had figured out my presence, so she was as still as a pole’s shadow.  Yet, a quarter of an hour later, when she thought that I had left, she poked her dainty head out, lifted herself - carapace and all - moved a few steps and then plonked again and I thought I heard a satisfied sigh.  

Ammumma and Princey - two lazy people

All of which, of course, reminded me of my delightful Ammumma or grandmother, whose maiden - if that is an appropriate term for grandmoms - name was Madhavikutty (and after whom I named a stern smooth-coated matriarch otter).   Ammumma - niceties be damned - was the fattest person I had ever seen while growing up, beyond all competition where undiluted, sedimented, comfortably ensconced fat was concerned, exactly as grandmoms are meant to be.  I made fun of her often and she would shake with laughter, the tyres around her tummy rolling over in undisguised bliss, as she removed her specs and wiped off the tears (which may also have been shed for having a distant role in producing this aberrant grandson). She had keen native intelligence too, which, when added to her girth, made her, shall we say, a rounded personality.

(as an aside, grey matter in Malayalam, is oddly termed ‘tala-chor’ or rice in the head, largely because no one asked my opinion)  

What Ammumma hated was any form of exercise, which, she believed, was a deeply suspicious conspiracy to ruin an otherwise normal day.  If pestered, she’d waddle three and a half steps from one chair to the next and collapse into it with a satisfied sigh of having achieved a day’s arduous workout and stay there till Kingdom came over for coffee.  

All of which is why I thought of her now.  

It would be good, I decided, to take a photo of Turtle Lady, so I took a brisk walk to the kitchen where I had left the mobile.  When I returned, three minutes later, well….the Lady had vanished.  Gone.

Now, I was brought up on Holmes, Hercule and Hitchcock, so I searched all over, missing no detail however slight, but the Lady had bolted (which is hardly a word we use in conjunction with turtles). Someone once said - in another unsavoury context - If you gotta go, you gotta go.  And she had taken him at his word.  

Ammumma would have strongly disapproved.  But then, grandmothers aren’t turtles.  

Even fat ones….

I saw this guy on an earlier occasion