Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Hey... who put that there?

When I was lying with my left cheek plastered to the road, praying that no bus decides to barrel down the bridge while I am stuck under my poor bike, my appreciation for my city's road ripened. After such an intimate and bruising experience with one of Chennai's busiest what else could you expect. First of all I am not such a road slut that I involve myself so completely with every lane and alley. Oh no! it takes a special effort on the road's part to induce my fall, usually I have been a sucker for golden sands strewn carelessly along the turns but this time it was different.

After a delightful birthday party and tonnes of chocolate cake warming my belly I was driving up Chetpet bridge, marvelling at how beautiful the moon looked and the lights glittered and so forth. Suddenly the car in front me gave an ugly lurch and bumped its way but not before I found myself on collision course with a large yellow median rock. A girl can never resist such a surprise so there I was sprawled across the road almost kissing it. How a median rock found it's way to the middle of road is yet open for debate but while my bike didn't fare so well after that incident I have jumped right back from this experience, fit to engage in some more.

The road officials in Chennai are a keen and adventurous lot. At every meeting they crease their brows in pursuit of more ideas to liven up the driving experience for their beloved motorists. They synchronise their road laying with the busiest times of the day so that harried office goers have the time to sit on their vehicles and peacefully ponder about life's happenings. What better time to smell the roses eh? Or in this case the noxious fumes of burning rubber tyres which are used to heat the tar. After they have succefully laid a road, they immediately call the telephone and water department informing them that an even road awaits their attention. So these fellows come barreling down and dig the whole place up so that the office goers are now reaching for their phones and informing home that they will be late or even absent for dinner. After the different departments have done their job and turned the once boringly even road into a challenging mud racing pit, the real fun begins.

Scooterists and cyclists together weave through the ups and downs of the roads without getting run over by the cars and buses. Sometimes a water lorry jerks epiliptically under the weight of a thousand gallons of water while making its way through the roads trying not to kill more than the usual number of pedestrians and cyclists. Its nature's law of survival of the fittest being put to good use on roads. The road officials have also planted man holes exactly in the middle of the roads so that driver's minds stay sharp and focussed on the bumps and ditches ahead. Now and then they rub their palms together maliciously and make big roads into one ways and tiny lanes into two way streets. ' Now lets see how they fare' is what they are thinking. The scene is similar to white coated scientists benevolently looking down on a tortuous maze filled with white mice. Here the mice have three days to find the cheese without getting electrocuted, drowned or chopped bythe obstacles kept in their path.

Once the bumps and ditches have tested your vehicle's suspensions, the brake inspectors are sent in. To keep the drivers on their toes, the city for the most part is devoid of pedestrian crossing lights. Jay walkers are welcomed into speeding traffic like Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. If indecisive pedestrians doing the mambo in front of your vehicle doesn't do the trick, nervous cats, sleepy cows and adrenaline driven dogs roam the city streets keeping a careful look out for complacent drivers or those that look like they are driving on auto pilot. Nothing like a sudden bovine presence in front of your car to jolt you back to the cardiologist. The road officials are still working on innovative methods to check driver's stability of mind and emotion. Perhaps they should consider involving overhead missile attacks but budgetary concerns are high. For now it is more financially viable to remove streetlights from most streets so that the motorist can only guess and work his imaginative juices on what lies ahead of him.

Driving in Chennai is smilar to trekking through rugged scenery, where else would you glimpse deep or shallow placid ponds and green shrubbery in the middle of the road broken now and then by dancing pedestrians and sleepy cows who thoughfully check your brakes every now and then. This city is for the thrill seekers and adrenaline junkies. Faint hearted and sweaty palmed get a driver.

Friday, December 02, 2005

I inherited insanity

I was chatting with my favourite cousin A online and was telling him I had spent half the evening searching for the TV remote and my mom found it in the freezer where I must have left it because the ice cream was making a nasty puddle in the living room. 'Man I must be loosing my mind I told him'. 'Are you kidding me ?' he replied. ' We are kindred spirits, two weeks ago I left the dishes on the washing machine, thoughtfully stacked breakables and others.' Adding that up to my mother who has found a magic remedy for her sinusitus, she walks around now every night with something white smeared all over her eyes and nose giving her a striking resemblance to the Phantom of the opera. Man I think it runs in the family. I inherited insanity.

I had always known there was something amiss with my household. My sister has the brain to stand first in class right from grade 1 through 12 but when she was flying to London on a trip that she won in an oratorical competition, she almost missed the connecting flight because she thought the watches wind themselves up according to the time zones. My younger cousin is something of a mystery to all of us. She is quiet, which by itself is scary given that all of us are considering getting a second mouth because one cant keep up with our thoughts. She is petrified of lizards, so much so that she is recluse in her own house. Even when she has to go to the loo a swat team needs to clear the area before she will venture forth. Imagine her standing with her legs crossed while lizards were being chased out of all crevices.

My favourite cousin A, well he is a darling. But has this biological condition to fill up his bloodstream with sugar. I mean it has to be chronic because who eats idlis and gulab jamun? He out grew that of course but now he limits himself to a couple of pounds of mishti dhoi every other day. His grandmother, who has every ailment under the sun except diabetes competes youthfully with his appetite. I think it is a bonding thing. Gives them something to do together, fight over the last kaaju katli or stare ech other down across the dining table for the shrikand. I heard recently that she succumbed to diabetes as well. My cousin A is alone in his obsession now.

As for me,let me see, I talk in my sleep, just never enough hours in the day to talk I guess so I have to do it at night as well. I used to walk in my sleep, I dont think I do it anymore. Or if do I am covering my tracks very well. I name and talk to inanimate objects. Well not my spectacles and not my watch but my car, bike, bags and dictionary have their own names. I did name my computer but after upgrading him so much I really do not know if anything is left of the old him. He was Ritz for the record. Anyways I also have this morbid fear of losing all my hair in the front of my head. No where else, just the front portion above my right eye brow. I take special care to oil the portion and condition it after shampooing etc. I would talk to it as well but I think the rest of my body would feel neglected. And I get high on iced water or lemon juice. I know what you are thinking. Yo! Cheap date. Oh you dont want to go there. Imagine a nice dinner for two and the waiter brings in the menus and pours the water. Two glasses down and I cannot keep from slurring, forget about finishing dinner someone needs to drive me home!

I realised some thing was wrong when in the midst of a nasty argument with myself at a signal light, people on the bikes next to me started to inch away as inconspicuously as possible. They obviously didnt want the psycho to get more agitated that she already is while talking to her imaginary pillion. So I have a loud conscience, atleast I do not feel good after doing something bad. But lets face it. Aside from my crushes on 60 year old men and talking to my bike and bag (Sharon is my newest addition, she is a chic denim bag). Ok so I inherited insanity.

Childhood misconceptions

Wow, when I think back now, I am amazed at my naivete. As children we had these magical explanations for the most down to earth things. When I read Calvin and Hobbes I keep getting reminded of the silly notions I carried, some for a very long time.

I remember the first time I sat next to my uncle in his new car and he drove us around the city for a bit, I was truly amazed that his car knew exactly where my uncle wanted to go. Wow, every single time he wanted to take a turn it indicated perfectly. How does it do that? I dont really remember when I learnt about the 'indicator' but I do remember turning red in the face and feeling very silly about myself.

Another time when I saw a trailor of The bold and beautiful, there was this scene of two people kissing like it was the last day on earth and the word passion flew into the frame. I was immediately at my best friend's house telling him that another word for french kissing is passion. But we were a little confused about the verb usage. That didnt stop us from using it at school like two drunken braggarts until the teacher hauled us in and made us sit in a corner during playtime.

Owing to my poor memory that is all I can contribute from my childhood.

Excuse me...I am a girl!

I do not know if anyone has had similar experiences but I am going to brave it through. As a child having been born into a family of boys I dressed, acted and looked one. But as I grew older and my body got a mind of its own, the thrill of being mistaken for a boy was getting jaded. While I still had shortish hair, for heaven sake I even wore studs on my ears and still people mistook me for a guy. It gets a little annoying when your father's friend comes home and talks to the whole family for an hour or so and then muses " but Umapathy I thought you had two daughters". Time to leave the room or just sit there and laugh like a hyena, either way my pride left the room in a hurry.

I get into an auto and instruct the man to take me to Egmore. He retorts ' Enna time aachu thambi" I am stunned. Didn't he hear my voice? Oh well I play along because lesser chances of him kidnapping me or something. But when I stepped into the ladies compartment on a commuter train and this old lady gruffly informs me " this is ladies compartment" I really could have done her a favour. But I give a stiff grin and say "I know" afterall no reason to behave unladylike right?

Nowadays the problem has all but disappeared, mainly because guys have started growing their hair and people are a little more careful when they address youngsters . After a few months of being treated like a lady I went to my friend's house for lunch. His grandparents were visiting him and I joined his parents and his grandparents for the meal. It was a delightful two hours of laughter and anecdotes. Two months later my friend sounding a sheepish calls me up and tells me his grandparents had called and asked about me. I was thrilled " wow they actually remebered me?" "Yeah" he retorted "they remembered you alright, they just forgot you were a girl".

Aaah... what memories I have of school...

As I sit down to share my memories on the one and only school I ever studied in I am also a bit guilt ridden. Because the chief topic of discussion is regarding some teachers from my 14 years of education, well, not all 14 years were technically educational per se, but you know what I mean. So here goes, and teachers, if by some horrid luck you read this, no offense what so ever is meant by my words. Afterall, among the thousands that you have tutored what is the opinion of one very disturbed individual going to matter. That off my chest I feel like I just came out of confession, ready to sin again.

Mathematics is by far the most entertaining of subjects for me, I never fared well in them but can you blame me for having the two most colourful individuals for teachers that all focus was removed from the subject itself. First there was Mr. X ( ahem, journalism ethics to protect the source you see), a brilliant teacher who indulged in extensive facial archeology, if you get my drift. Never having paid attention in class, I was the last to catch on to my teacher's tunneling expeditions. The boys in my class used to go through more than their share of jumping out of the way, when Mr. X threw bits of chalk at them for talking in class. At first, naive as I was,I thought they just did not want to be smacked in the face by whizzing bits of chalk, it was only years later did I discover that those chalks held more than just white marking compounds and that my classmates were desperately avoiding all chances of coming in contact with my teacher's nasal residue.

I remember now watching Mr.X slide his hands and do a gentle wiping dance with his fingers on various surfaces he encountered. Unfortunately, my unsuspecting back was one of these surfaces too. I was a bookworm and used to sit in my school corridors oblivious to the world around me. On seeing Mr. X walking down the corridor all the students present used to nonchalantly move into the playground, whistling or just plain running. But as transfixed as I was with the blasted book, I never saw him coming. An affable man, he used to stop and enquire about my sister, his favourite student, do a gentle swipe on my back and be off to his next set of unsoiled victims. Sheesh, I wonder if my sister had similar experiences with the gold digger? But she was a good athelete, maybe she used to make a run for it.

Enough of Mr. X lets move on to Mr. Y. Another mathematician of swarthy complexion, he would come to class with the top two buttons undone. While for most men it is not an issue of hair raising proportion, Mr. Y was gifted with profuse growth of hair everywhere except his shiny head. I have to admit, I am something of a hairophobic, so everytime Mr. Y entered class, beads of sweat used to pop up on my brow on noticing his gold chain glistening from the depths of a hairy chest. But one incident stands out clearly and traumtically. While teaching calculus he blithely walked down the aisle between our benches and perched himself on my desk. With one leg bent upon my desk and the other supporting him on the floor. I looked up from my notebook and noticed a rip in his pants down the side of his thigh. Ughh, I felt emotionally violated. Why should I have to see that bit of hirsute skin so hig up on his leg? Wasn't I emotionally disturbed already? Needless to say I switched seats with my friend and never made eye contact with him again.

Now as a fifth standard kid I never really caught on to Ms. A's funny use of the english language, but as I grew older and my english proficiency increased so did my amusement with her statements. Once a physics teacher she was suddenly assigned to the computer lab when I was in the tenth grade. One day after a mighty struggle with the mouse, she turns to the students using the other computers and says in her breathy voice 'hey who took my mouse's balls eh?' This was the same teacher who one day summoned up so much courage and outrage that she stormed her whithered 5 feet 5 inches frame into our noisy, unsupervised classroom and screamed ' SHUT UP ALL OF YOU. DONT ANY OF YOU HAVE ANY SENSE ORGANS?' She obviously mistook our stunned silence for something of a permanent reaction and left us in a huff while we laughed it off quietly.

Our games instructor was somewhat of a mystery, he had a candy blue bullet for a bike. That by itself is an oxymoron, I mean the bullet is the epitome of masculinity, why would you paint it baby blue? And for a sports teacher he resembled a dumpling more than he did an athelete. But it was his comments that really made his classes fun. These are not the usual PT teacher jokes about 'Open the window,let the climate come in' no siree. After all on the playground where are the windows?After making us run two rounds around the school, he would segregate the boys and girls and send the boys off to play basketball. He will then turn to us girls and say ' ok girls today we will finger with our partners, here Shobana make sure everyone has balls.'

One of my friend's school teacher was just as amusing. She taught them Hindi and had that sleeping disorder where they nod off suddenly and wake up moments later like nothing is the matter. While writing on the black board she would gently rest her forehead on the surface with her chalk making a lazy downward path from where ever her last waking alphabet was written, a gentle snore would emanate sometimes, he told me. She would wake up a minute later and continue as if nothing happened, resuming from where she left off with no evidence of her mid-class siesta, other than the downward lines on the board one by her chalk and the other by her sleep induced drool of course. He told me that while flipping through his hindi notebook, he could tell exactly when she fell asleep while correcting the pages, they too would bear longer than usual tick marks on certain pages when her pen went unattended for a few moments.

Perilious Chennai Roads

From all of you who own two wheelers of some kind, I am sure I will receive a patient ear. For the roads in any city but due to my residence in Chennai, my accusations will be limited to this city alone, anyways, it is indeed a war zone out there on the roads. The front line soldiers are the interpid two wheelers who courageously expose themselves to the perils of nature and mankind. Alright, I got a little carried away there. This is not Braveheart I know. But lend me your ear and I shall recite you incidents that will scar me for life.

It was ten in the morning, the sky was clear and bright, I was riding on my bike to college. As I was passing Queen Mary's College on Beach Road, a whizzing blob landed square on my new Rs. 1000 dupatta that was draped across my chest. First I thought it was a freakishly heavy leaf that fell from one of the trees that I just passed. But when I looked down my worst fears were confirmed. It was those blasted birds. One of them pooped on me. Ok, explain to me one thing, so if you stand under a tree you are an easy target, all they have to do is sit above and do their business. But what baffles me is when I am travelling at 40 km per hour, and I am not the only soul on that road, it was after all office going hours, what are the odds of landing one right where your heart is on a day you wear a new dress?

Cursing like an inebriated sailor I pulled over and wiped as much of it off and continued to college. The day and the dupatta was ruined to say the least. Over the years I have realised that there is this sick magnetic force that draws birds to poop on me but this was by far the most ambitious and loose bowelled ave I had the pleasure of driving under.

Now my experiences do not stop there and are not limited to the animal world. It is four in the evening, as Chennai has it, the sultry weather is on medium simmer. Sweaty and caught in one of those freak traffic jams I slowly maneuver my bike into the shade of a bus nearby. Unfortunately it was at that precise moment some imbecile decided to empty his oral contents on to the road. Jeez, I have a tough time dealing with just watching people spit on the roads but when a stream of tobacco juice and god knows whatelse splatters all over my handle bars and my shirt, I was ready to throw up right there. But as luck would have it, the traffic decides to uncongest itself and move on in lightening speed leaving me, mouth agape in revulsion, coughing in the dense smoke of a baldly tuned bus with remnants of somebody's chew toy drying on my hands and shirt.

Now, when I describe the road as a war zone, do you understand the extent of my fear. Every morning, I do a mirror prep thing, running through all the hurdles I will face between my destination and starting point. Try to stay away from buses, and do not travel under any shady areas, stick to the middle of the roads and move in crowds, keep eyes open for manholes and ears open for chewing of any kind. Avoid gravel, sand, water and oil if it can be helped or do not brake when driving over these surfaces, even if it means running someone over. Because believe me a human is a softer surface to fall on than a heated tar road. I do not mean to sound callous but I have broken my bike several times trying to avoid those wobbly cyclist who decide to change lanes without a moment's thought. The best part is while I am lying on the ground wondering why a man is holding my scooter's engine on the other side of the road, I can the see that blasted cyclist wobbling in front another bike at the next junction, unscathed and indifferent.

Need I even have to mention the horn twitchy ambassador cars and call taxis that drive a millimeter behind my bike's bumper. I have an old and tormented vehicle that refuses to go above forty on a really good engine day, but when these agressive four wheelers start honking as loud as ships caught in a fog, it really pisses me off. Now what are they thinking that I am deliberately driving at snail's pace so that all the people behind me can get to their destination late. Or that I have this sick tendency to drive slowly and smell the carbon floating in the air while watching the blackened buildings on both sides of the road.

Thanks to the copius rains, our analytical brain needs to gauge the distance of oncoming traffic while passing puddles of water on the road as well. One needs to calculate the exact time you will pass that puddle so that you can determine whether another vehicle will splash by you at the same time, and if your calculations say that this is bound to happen, you either pray that the driver has the road manners enough to slow down or stop where you are and wait for the vehicles to pass first. Another concern is the possibility of an open manhole waiting for you in that harmless looking two inches of water across the road. For that the only solution is to follow the path of a vehicle in front of you, but nowadays there are thougtful bouquets of tree branches planted in these holes so that at night instead of falling headlong into a tunnel of sewage you merely topple over some flora and lie sprawled in some slush at the mercy of on road traffic.

In between checking out gorgeous people staring at you seductively from billboards above you, keeping the autos at bay from making spilt second U turns in front of your brakeless bike, I think for all us two wheeler drivers a mere driver's license is not enough. We definitely need a medal or certificate of some kind to voluntarily go out there and face the challenges fate has to put us against on road. It takes a preety sharp mind and thick skin to weather these abuses everyday.