MMM…

Nothing I say will sound original. How many movies have we seen this in – an urban dood-type going to a village and enjoying the simple rustic pleasures of life? But it really did happen to me! Not that I am a dood-type; more an MGR-Nagar-type, but nevertheless, I had a wonderful time! I guess no matter how many movies we watch, and how many books we have read describing similar pleasures, one’s experience is truly one’s own.

 

Navya’s special report on Chennai’s water crisis required us to go to this little village in Tiruvallur district called Velliyur, which supplies to Chennai, its daily quota of some 15 million litres of MetroWater. Naturally, Navya being from the land of akki rotti, did not know where this place was. And the most rural place that I (her cameraperson – and she’s mine) have been to is probably Salem. So after just having found out that one takes a suburban train from Central Station to Tiruvallur (Madam Nithila also emphasized the fact that it would only take 20 minutes to get there by train), we set out, camera and tripod and bags in hand. The eventually 75 minute-long train journey was mostly spent giggling about the most banal of things, commenting on how demented our families were, wondering aloud if we were heading to Sri Lanka by mistake considering the time it was taking for us to get there, and also generally enquiring about the whereabouts of this place Velliyur to our co-passengers. Needless to say, no one had even heard of it. But since spirits were high and the weather delightful, neither of us complained. We laughed about it good-naturedly and silently prayed to our respective gods to help us.

 

We got off at Tiruvallur, beginning by looking around helplessly for someone who could help us. A sweet man obliged, and told us to get out of the station on the left side of the station and take an auto to Velliyur. No surprises, but very soon we discovered that the left side was not the right side. And an auto driver on the right side demanded 250 holy bucks to get to Velliyur. We shuddered and walked on towards a bus, whose sweet conductor told us that he could drop us off at the Tiruvallur bus stand from where one could take another bus to Velliyur. And we spent the next 15 minutes to the bus stand smiling at all that we guessed must be referred to as ‘town’ by the villagers – bustling streets, a rundown cinema hall, small shops that stocked English newspapers and big restaurants by the name Abinaya Bhavan and the like. We reached the bus stand and spent 10 minutes there – 5 minutes on buying safety pins to fix some essential things, buying kadalai and Cadbury Dairy Milk Shots, and another 5 minutes walking up to each bus to ask if it went to Velliyur until we finally got onto one.

 

It was a delightful red bus that sold pink Srinivasa Motors tickets. It was filled with people who mostly looked curiously at the equipment and my outlandish drawstring pyjamas and T shirt, and sometimes smiled at us reluctantly. All through the 17 kilometre ride, we looked out of the window with awe, at the lush green fields on both sides that somehow didn’t look as distant as they do from a train, the quaint churches, the austere Christian settlements, and people walking about like there was no hurry to do anything. We even caught sight of an old building that claimed to be a missionary-run daycare centre! When I asked, the lady next to me revealed with considerable pride that although Velliyur and its surrounding villages seemed like they were mostly Christian settlements, there were people belonging to all religions coexisting quite peacefully, that the people mainly practiced agriculture although the youth did commute to Madras everyday for work, and that no matter what work you do in Velliyur, whether you are a man or woman, you get paid Rs 100 a day. I am guessing now that Navya and I looked like a couple of fools, with those silly wide-eyed smiles that refused to leave our faces.

 

Even though there was no bus stand there, the kind bus conductor stopped right outside the MetroWater office. We hopped off after thanking him profusely, to the office, where a few friendly-looking men speaking Madras bashai stepped out. After hearing us out, they told us that they could show us the bore, explain the mechanism and show us the water yield at this Bore No 11 that happened to be a kilometer or two interior. And all that we had, were a few bicycles. I enthusiastically grabbed the happy green one with M Nandini written on it in Tamil, and Navya sat behind me with the equipment, as Mahendran, Ebenezer and Guru Devasahayam climbed onto their own wheels. As it always is with shaky starts, I shook the cycle a little, and Navya fell off. The camera bag landed on her legs, and the cycle soon followed as I managed to skip off and avoid a scratch. There was a great deal of embarrassed explaining and loud laughing as the camera bag was strapped to my back seat and Navya got on behind Ebenezer. We started to ride on this little cleared trail, towards Bore No 11. Bhaskaran, the supervisor caught us on the way, and immediately relieved poor Navya’s backside by planting her on the backseat of his motorbike.

 

It had started to rain in the meanwhile. What I felt then, is just indescribable. The mann vaasanai, unlike our Madras concrete vaasanai was unlike anything I had smelt before. It was otherworldly divine, and it threatened to intoxicate us. That little tongue at the back of my mind had already started to sing an Ilayaraja song in tandem with the rhythm of my steady pedaling. I was surrounded by tall green stalks of sugarcane, and there was nothing in sight for miles and miles except fresh greenery, until we reached a little clearing where we caught sight of dear old No 11. We got all that we wanted – shots of the bore and the pure water straight from under the ground that I swear we could have consumed for the rest of our lives straight from the pipe, and an interview with a nervous Mahendran with hilarious prompting and cuing from the others. We cycled back to the office, where a few more curious officers had gathered to catch sight of us peculiar city types. We waited in the shelter of the office, worrying aloud about missing the bus because we weren’t standing by the side of the road and flailing for it to stop, to which Ebenezer said, “Kavale Padadeenga ma. Naanga local boys, naanga sonna stop pannuvanga!” Which they did. The men helped us and the equipment on to the bus and waved cheerfully until we had all settled down in our seats. The rest of the bus ride was a low hum, with me promptly falling asleep, and Navya chattering nonstop on the phone with her parents.

 

After mini meals at Vasanta Bhavan near Tiruvallur bus stand, being attended to by the most attentive of waiters, we took an auto to the station, boarded the train and slept comfortably all the way. 21 took us to Simpsons bus stop, and we trudged slowly back to college, amazed at how un-tired we still were. All the way home from there I smiled.

 

I must admit at least at this point that I am a sentimental fool who romanticizes everything. But what might have been a long ordeal, dealt with fear and apprehension and cynicism, turned out to be an excursion, a real field day. I know Velliyur isn’t really the Kerala or the Sri Lanka straight out of my dreams. It must have its own problems, just like the real Kerala and Sri Lanka do, and all that I saw a mere speck in that universe. But that day reasserted my faith in simple living, the need for clean air and water and in the kindness of mankind. Being a fool is therapy, and fun.

NORMALCY AMIDST TURMOIL

It was a crazy day. I woke up as usual to go to college, only to realize that it was raining like crazy. Stumbling out of my room, still groggy as hell, I caught Amma staring at the paper. “Bombay hotels have been attacked by terrorists. They just walked in last night and started to fire indiscriminately. Encounter still on”, she said. We stood there staring at each other, then immediately rushed to the TV and turned on NDTV.

 

What I was seeing was straight out of some Hollywood movie. Bombs, shame on the country’s situation, we are quite accustomed to. But we had, until then, only heard of school shootouts in faraway America. But this time, it was our own Mumbai. A group of twenty young men had the entire country in frenzy. And the visuals on TV! There we were, looking at pictures of terrorists caught on CCTV, and unable to do anything about it. I remember staring blankly at the screen incredulously, until I fell asleep, curled up on the sofa.

 

When I woke up, it was raining even more violently. There was knee deep water outside my house. My grandparents had come over, because their ground-floor apartment was starting to get flooded. There was no power. We were all sitting inside a dark house, and the rain simply had no plans of letting up. There was nothing we could do. There was no way we could know what was going on, in other parts of Madras, and in Mumbai. It was like we were suspended in an alternate universe. The phone was our only link to the real world. Every thirty minutes, we would get a call from some part of the country – either Appa from Bengaluru, Du from Hyderabad, or Manni from Mylapore – to tell us what was happening in Madras and Mumbai. And with every phone call, the situation in either place didn’t seem to be getting better. And we were completely helpless, literally, in the dark. Not that there was anything we could have done had we HAD power and had there been no rains, but atleast you would know what was going on.

 

I knew I had to be out there, trying to figure out what was going on, how many lives the rains had wrecked. After all I was studying to be a journalist, and took my acads really seriously. But that morning, I don’t know what came over me. After hours of wondering whether to go to college or not, I decided to TRY. And try I did: went as far as Ashok Nagar by car, but couldn’t go any further; so I promptly returned home. And for the rest of the day, wondered if I should have tried harder. I knew I should have. I hated being a chicken. I had always wanted to be, you know, the real thing. And I sorely disappointed myself that day.

 

Night fell, and power wasn’t back yet. I couldn’t even read sitting next to the window anymore, and I had slept enough that day. I had to keep myself occupied in order to not feel guilty, but I couldn’t do anything anymore. The air inside my house was melancholic, until Thatha suggested we play Aadu Puli Attam. We sat down with a piece of white chart paper, 3 big betel nuts (the tigers) and bengal gram that made the aadus. I was quite thrilled. It was like when I was young, and Amma, Appa and I would play cards in the darkness. I was quite hooked as Thatha was teaching me, quite oblivious to Ammamma’s constant cursing of the country’s politicians and Amma receiving constant updates on the phone. I played well. We played for over two hours, with me relinquishing just one aadu. And when we finally declared it a draw, it was quite late. The rains were still lashing my windows. And as I stood, watching the deluge on the road beneath my window, I thought of how detached I was. I had a solid roof over my head, the rains weren’t claiming my life, and Bombay seemed so far away, almost as far away as America. And for a few hours there, there was perfect normalcy in MY life, even amidst all that turmoil around me. And that life thereon would continue to be normal for me. And somehow, it didn’t seem right to me to just count my blessings and live life to the fullest then. I was guilty as hell, and had trouble sleeping that night.

 

God bless all those who were saving lives while we sat in the comfort of our homes.

God save our country, where any shred of normalcy is today under threat.

A NEW BEGINNING

I’ve been waiting for so long. It had been time, but there was no sign of it. I was wondering just for how long I could go on, feeling as repressed and disconnected as I had been feeling for some time now. There were the occasional showers I enjoyed, but the mood hadn’t set in yet. I felt suffocated.

 

Every morning, I would look up at the skies hopefully. Every oppressive muggy morning was not just tolerated, but welcomed; in anticipation of what might follow. And for the most part, I was disappointed. When it did rain, I was happy, but those weren’t thanks to the monsoons. It was somehow, different.

 

Yesterday, I knew it was going to rain. And like in years past, my instinct did not fail me. I anticipated it at just the right time, and got drenched, according to plan. I got home, changed and waited for the right signs with bated breath. They came. I went to bed an excited girl, and woke up to a glorious morning of soft light, lush leaves and heady mann vaasanai that no amount of concrete can ever repress. The monsoons had arrived.

 

For me, the monsoons are a celebration of freedom, of letting go, of expression without restraint. I am a November girl, and it is at this time of the year in Chennai, that I feel liberated, uninhibited, and almost reborn. Gone are the days when I used to run out on the streets screaming and laughing in the rains, whenever I did not have to be indoors, although I do that often enough now. Today I have grown up, and for reasons that would not have deterred me a few years ago, I have not stepped out to enjoy the first monsoon rains yet. Even doing things in wet clothes has now become an inconvenience, like never before. But the monsoons have the kind of power over me that nothing else does – to elevate me to the heights of sheer ecstasy and pleasure, or to reduce me to a maudlin mass of irrepressible tears. But more than anything, the monsoons remind me of all the things I take for granted, and all the things I have to feel grateful for. The monsoons teach me to thank God for life, and usher in a new beginning for me, a growing-up, where things start to look different, and this happens every year. Ever so often, I have watched the monsoon rains as the drops fall on my face, and it has crossed my head that this was probably what people called Enlightenment. But evidently, it isn’t. It is but a temporary phase that rids me of all the cynicism and disillusionment that have frustrated me. It is that time of the year, when my ideals do not sway, and my faith in the world and its people is reaffirmed. It gives me the strength to tackle anything that might come my way. It is but temporal, and as the banality of life takes over after this magical period of three months, far more superficial things start to demand my attention. But what keeps me going is that the monsoons will come again, unfailingly.

 

The occasional showers at other, inevitably hot times of the year in Chennai are the rare loving smiles that a busy, exacting, strict parent treats you to, now and then. But the monsoons are vacations, a time for togetherness, when the parent forgives and forgets all the disappointments you may have caused, and unconditionally envelopes you in the warmth of his love. He no longer feels the need to be self-controlled or controlling; he just gives. You revel in the physicality of his love, unlike any other time of the year. Suddenly, everything is right again.

 

Tomorrow, if it gets sunny again, I will not fret. For, my new beginning is here already.