Morning

One memory stayed with me from my previous trip to Lucknow. I was sleeping at the marriage hall when an old man, a relative of my friend from Varanasi who had just got married that day, snapped at me. "What's that?" he asked sharply, pointing at my wallet and phone which I had kept near my head. I was sleep-deprived and the frigid December air had sapped the last of my energy reserves. I tiredly replied that it was my wallet and my phone. "Keep it inside!", he bellowed. A stranger was yelling at me.

I kept my wallet inside my pocket. He was not happy. "What's that?". Pointing at my phone. I was in no mood to repeat my answer. I wanted it near my head for my alarm. He yelled at me to keep it under my blanket, well hidden from view. I didn't understand, since all the people in the room were his relatives and friends, invited by my friend for the wedding. Surely, it was in no danger. Didn't he trust his own family? Perhaps he heard my thoughts. "Yeh Lucknow hai, koi bhi utaa le saktha hai. Agar Varanasi subah hai, toh Lucknow shaam hai." (This is Lucknow, anyone can pick it up. If Varanasi is the morning, Lucknow is the evening)

My fatigue, his sentences belted out in rapid Hindi and my perplexity at his choice of words sent my head into a tizzy. I decided to grab what sleep I could before my early morning flight, his continuing rants about Lucknow and Uttar Pradesh and India notwithstanding. But the words echoed in my head, trying to understand what it means. "Agar Varanasi subah hai, toh Lucknow shaam hai". Varanasi is the morning, Lucknow is the evening? I dozed off.

On the current trip, I was worried. The news reports emanating from UP are rarely positive. This time, the marriage was at a small town near Lucknow and the train was scheduled to reach there early in the morning. I was travelling alone. I had tried in vain to remember the name of the station, but it never stuck. Some town named after a female deity. Meenakshi? No, that was too South Indian. I gave up and slept, setting my alarm for the early morning halt.

It would be a miracle if the train made it under 4 hours late. The fog was thick and every deserted station was a scheduled stop. I had to travel in this passenger train if I needed the train to stop at my destination. I could have gotten down at Lucknow or Kanpur and taken a comfortable taxi ride, but I thought this would be a better way of having a new experience. Immersing myself in the land. We all make foolish decisions. For some reason, as Uttar Pradesh drew nearer, a sense of foreboding exploded in my mind. Varanasi morning, Lucknow evening. The land of darkness? The land that's about to be destroyed? I slept.

When I woke up, the day was bright outside. The train was at a small station. I pulled out my phone and frantically searched for my friend's message naming the station to get down at. I found it. Some lady deity, starting with M. It escapes my memory now. "Is it M station?", I hurriedly asked my sleepy co-passenger. He grunted. I grabbed my bag and ran to the door. The train began to move. I said a prayer to Goddess M and jumped out. Safe landing. The train seemed to zoom away in earnest now that I'd left it.

A girl appeared at the door. She was really beautiful. She was carrying a large bag. She wanted to get down as well. Her hair and white dupatta were already flying in the cold wind as the train picked up speed. She hadn't even had time to put on something warm. Come to think of it, neither had I.

I ran and took her bag. Then offered my hand. She gripped it firmly and jumped out. I handed her bag to her and tried to smile at her, my mind calculating how old she might be. She hurriedly walked away, her white dress melting away into the fog.

I shrugged and gathered my thoughts. If Varanasi is the morning, Lucknow is the evening. The words would not stop echoing. Well, it was early morning near Lucknow, so perhaps the outlook was not as bleak. Still, the deep sense of foreboding persisted. The cold was bitter. I put on my jacket and gave my body a new lease of life.

The station was beautiful and deserted. A shady, wooded area began where the platform ended. I could see the colourful outline of what was surely a temple. Perhaps it was the temple of Goddess M. Frustratingly, the name still eluded my memory despite reading it just under a minute ago.

I decided to walk in the direction of the temple. Was there a station building? An exit? Were autos available? I thought of calling my friend, but then decided against it. Why disturb him on his wedding day unless I'm completely lost. I was armed with the address of the marriage hall.

I finally saw a person. He looked like a respectable man. I was relieved to see him. I approached him to ask for directions. For some reason, I slowed down as I moved closer to him. I was acting on pure instinct here. Lucknow is the evening. This was Lucknow district. My body began to shiver involuntarily. I moved closer. He was wearing white too, with a welcoming smile, but for some reason, without showing his teeth.

He was looking straight at me, then turned a little to the left and spat. The paan left his mouth in a glorious stream. His blood-red teeth betrayed the pratice he had of spitting the paan. The image of respectability immediately deserted him and I was on my guard. Which was a good thing. The next thing I knew, a knife flashed in his hand and he moved towards me.

I was too alert. I ran, quite fast despite my bag and jacket. He was making up ground on me, but that was due to his head-start. I was young and sprightly, he was a middle-aged man. I thought of losing the bag, but decided against it. Let's see how long the chase is on. Should I shout? Would that attract helpful by-standers or more thieves and muggers? I was in Lucknow. Immersing in the land indeed.

I was just beginning to tear away when I lurched forward violently and fell, tripping over seemingly nothing. Shit, I'm done for!

The lurch of the train had woken up half the compartment.  I woke up sweating despite the frigid cold even inside the AC coach. I searched for my phone in my pocket. It was missing. I sat up and smashed my head on the roof of the train. I cursed. Bloody upper berth, freezing cold and my phone's gone! Then I felt it near my arm.

It had just fallen out of the pocket. Phew! I looked at the time. 4:38 AM. I calmed down. I was going to get down at Lucknow and take a cab.

Looking for the Clouds

Right now, I'm reading "India After Gandhi" by Ramachandra Guha, a book which describes itself as "The History of the World's Largest Democracy". Guha is clear, concise, chooses his quotations well and overall the book so far has been enjoyable. However, I do wonder if a person with absolutely no interest or knowledge of Indian history and present would find it as compelling as I am currently finding it. I am trying to imagine myself reading the post-colonial history of say, Namibia or Argentina and wondering if I will like it. I'm not sure if I will.

It's interesting to note from the book that so many of the "recent" questions and ideological positions taken up by various people are actually just unanswered and unresolved questions from independence and partition. In fact, if the three main (to my knowledge) movers of India's intellectual space (the Congress, the Left and the Right) of 1952 were taken and thrown into a newsroom with a shouting Arnab Goswami or a subtly partisan Burkha Dutt, they would seem out of place for their manner perhaps, but certainly not their content. The lines have been drawn 70 years back, the shots being fired across the lines are the same. The characters are different. The successes of each side have varied.

Guha absolves Nehru of the charge that he was the main proponent of the Socialist system soon after Independence. It was, says Guha, the Indian industrialists of the time who proposed what came to be known as the 'Bombay Plan', a plan whose spirit the budgets of newly independent India would heavily borrow from. As I read this, there was a voice at the back of my head that was extremely cynical of this due to all the renewed debate about Nehru's steering of the early economy. 'Ha, you commie!' it said. 'You Congress apologist. Nehru ruined India, haven't you heard?'

I read on.

There was a rather evocative section that, frankly, gave me goosebumps. Guha describes the building of a dam (a temple of Modern India, according to Nehru), how water flowed to villages that had never seen flowing water. Firecrackers were burst, he says, all along the 150 mile path of a new canal that was fast filling up with water. Heart-rending. Then this voice again assailed my mind. 'Ha, what temple?' it said. 'Dams flood huge areas of land, displacing marginalised sections of the society such as adivasis and destroy the ecology. Typical capitalist, just praising the damn dam.'

You see, I don't know whether it's the issue with me and my general politically mostly aware, reading newspaper a lot, nature. Or whether this is the nature of growing up. I couldn't just take it for granted that a great figure of the Indian freedom struggle and a towering figure in international diplomacy had great ambitions for his and my country and steered it ably on the best course. I couldn't just enjoy the beautiful description of the feat of an entire river being diverted into the path of a dry village. I had to think of the caveats. The costs. The hidden agenda, the hidden backdrop.

It's like the first instinct on seeing a silver lining is to look for the cloud. It's like the first reaction to seeing a light in the tunnel is to listen for the roar of a train. I know those who will call this "objectivity" a virtue. But it becomes a habit. And you start doing it all the time, everywhere, even when you want to just sit back and read a book. Yes, Indian history is a most loaded subject. Every detail is bitterly contested, every man and (less often) woman has her greatness defined, redefined and refuted. Gandhi was a Mahatma. Gandhi was a pedophile and fraud. Nehru was a charismatic and visionary leader. Nehru was an anglophile elitist who hid behind his charisma to get what he wanted.

With learning more about politics and ideologies, it has become difficult for me to read about my beloved country and just enjoy the journey, from a British colony in a wretched state to swatantra, and then swaraj with democracy in a much much much less wretched state.

I wish I could switch on my objectivity for news and doing my 5th year project and switch it off for daily life.

Arranged

"It may have happened. It may not have happened. But it certainly could have happened." - Mark Twain. 

A sort of preface to the post for once. If you wish to skip the preface, just skip the part in bold font.

The main point of this blog is firstly, for me to not lose touch with writing, which I love doing and secondly, frankly, sort of obviously, the praise and the compliments I receive for the blog. Perhaps I like writing because I like telling stories. Ultimately, everything is a story. Even in life, it's rarely facts. It's not my facts versus your facts. It's THE facts embedded in my story versus THE facts embedded in your story. According to your story you may hide some facts or think some others are not important. According to somebody else's story, the same facts you flung to the side are the main element of the story. One fact that can be a source of outrage for one person can be a fact that brings about mild amusement or even disinterest for another. 

Until now, I felt the blog has had a universality to its stories. I don't think anyone has been "outraged" by anything. And no one will be in the future as well, I hope. But I felt my stories must evolve. From the universal, with great breadth, to the more local. To something closer to home. To something that would likely happen in my house or my friend's house or in my neighbour's life, specifically. Why, you ask? Why not, I ask? 

When I was young and started my "novel that I would complete by the age of 13 and become the next Rudyard Kipling", my protagonist had the names Mr. and Mrs. Watson. The people in it were Philips and Betty and Andrew. The setting was a "cave in a mountain in Scotland". I was telling stories of the kind I had read until then. No story I'd read ever had a Mrs. Radha or an Ayesha Begum. 

And then I saw this Ted talk. And I agreed. I need to do something like this as well. I'm not a crusader. I'm just doing my bit to fill the world with all kinds of stories, where people not only look like people I see, but they think and act like that as well. Nothing against any other kind of story, but I felt like this little story should be a start for several more stories like these rather than some general themed post. Sermon over, blog post start. 

One would have been hard-pressed to find someone more satisfied in life than Nagraja Rao had been at that moment. He had just had idly with ghee and coconut chutney. His stomach was full and his off-late burgeoning belly was touching the bottom of the newspaper that he was reading, chuckling while he read. "Sonia and Rahul Gandhi summoned to court for hearing on National Herald Case" was the headline that seemed to have his attention. He muttered something about "family" and "ruined the country."

In the kitchen, Kamala was humming "Krishna nee bega ne baaro" while preparing coffee to wash down the idlies in her husband's stomach. The relaxed Sunday evening was ideal but for one point - their daughter was absent. Lakshmi had as usual said "I'm going out with my friends" without delving further into who these friends were, something that infuriated Kamala. She hoped Lakshmi was not up to no good. She hoped Lakshmi was in good company. 

Lakshmi was turning 24 in some time. A bright kid from the start, she refused to pursue engineering after 12th standard. Instead, she went into some design or animation or something like that which Kamala didn't approve of. Kamala felt that the main motivation for her choice of course was because Kamala didn't approve of it. 

In an attempt to coerce her daughter into taking engineering, just before a decision had to be made, Kamala pretended that she didn't disapprove of the design thing anymore. She counted on her husband to take over the disapproval mantle. Instead, Nagraja as usual dilly-dallied and eventually gave a meek blessing to Lakshmi to go ahead with the design course. Kamala knew that he was as uncomfortable with this as her. 

This further infuriated Kamala who, in a last ditch attempt to save her daughter from making a big mistake, told her that it was a terrible plan bound to give her no career and hence a lack of independence in her marriage immediately afterwards. Lakshmi was surprised and hurt by her mother's sudden u-turn after being so supportive and also thoroughly enraged by the idea of getting married so soon. Her indignation helped resolve her confusion and she took up design without any further ado. 

After the design course, surprisingly, she got a respectable job. In fact, a very good one. Designing logos and stuff for a company. Kamala however, had had enough of this charade. She refocused her energy into getting Lakshmi married. Nagraja was keen enough to help but wary of how his daughter would react. He was a man of strong opinions but liked to keep them to himself in the interest of a peaceful home atmosphere. He hating being disturbed while reading the paper or drinking coffee. 

Today was to be the big day. The battle plan had been drawn. The parents would spring a boy on Lakshmi. "We've found this boy. Horoscopes match. We're going tomorrow to meet him. Tell your boss to give you a holiday." 

When Lakshmi came home that night, after reprimanding her for coming home after dark, the couple (Kamala) followed the battle plan to the letter. Lakshmi was shell-shocked. "I'm not seeing a boy! I don't want to get married for another 3 years. Why do you need a horoscope? I can't just tell my boss I'm taking leave, I need to give her some notice!" It came out in a frustrated stream. 

The argument took the well-charted course that such arguments eventually take.

You haven't even seen who the boy is!
I don't want to!
What are you going to lose?
Why can't you just leave it?
He's a very nice boy!
No, his family is nice, you probably don't know anything about him!
No, we checked facebook, he puts very nice statuses and photos.
Oh curse Zuckerberg!
Don't change the topic.

Thus it went on back and forth. Until the most explosive moment of all. 

"I want to marry someone else!" Lakshmi shouted. And every sinew of her being regretted it a micro-second later. They weren't ready to hear it. She should have worked it slowly, the way Swetha did. But Swetha's parents were so much cooler. Oh God, no! 

Kamala's eyes opened wider than her forehead. Nagraja was stoic. He was conflicted on what to say. He was sure that he would not say it until the situation had cooled down. Maybe a few days later.

"Don't tell me he's a Muslim!" snapped Kamala. "Is that whom you were with today? Have you been roaming around with him? Do you have any sense?" 

Lakshmi was reeling, regret building up further with each passing moment. "He's a Hindu only, but why does that matter? What's your problem as long as he's nice to me?" she shot back. 

Brahmin?
OMG, yes ma, Brahmin only!

Kamala was relieved now. But she was in no mood to stop.

Where's he from? Is he Kannadiga?
Amma, Malleshwaram only, speaks better Kannada than you.

Kamala breathed a sigh of relief. Not some wretched Tamilian, or worse, an unruly North Indian. 

Lakshmi sensed this relief and the glint of mischief entered her eyes. "You know, ma, you only said 'him', 'him'. I never said it's a boy" she said teasingly. And for the second time that night, Lakshmi felt regret. Her mother sent down a barrage of angry words her way. Even her father seemed to furrow his brows a little deeper. 

While Nagraja had preserved his equanimity, he had still gone through a gamut of emotions. He was initially alarmed at his daughter's revelation, then relieved when he heard the boy was a Brahmin and a Kannadiga. Here he entered the conversation. "So, what Brahmin?" Lakshmi rolled her eyes. "No clue." "Oh, does he do Sandhyavandane?" "No, daddy. How does it make a difference?" 

"See, you may not appreciate it. But in the old days marriage was a social contract and these were useful references and pointers...". "Ayyo, ok! Something!" Lakshmi interrupted. Nagraja didn't mind this discourtesy, but his curiosity gnawed at him. "Give his father's number, let's see."

Lakshmi's eyes nearly popped out of her socket. "What? Why? No way! Why do you? Uhh?" She was lost for words at the sheer absurdity of the request. 

Nagraja was confused at her confusion. He was proud of himself. He'd kept calm when his daughter told him she is interested in a boy, a father's biggest fear. Then, when she'd come forward, he listened and now he actually volunteered to talk to the boy's father, the most logical next step for things to go on. What an ideal father he was! His self-congratulations were brought to an abrupt halt.

Where the Clouds are Darkest

I can imagine a person driving past Agumbe on a summer day and not being overly awed by what he/she sees. Having read about the significance and the magnificence of this little village and its surrounding areas, its initial low-key appearance somehow added to its allure.

I visited Agumbe in July 2015. 2015 was not one of India’s best years – the monsoon, India’s lifeline, had failed for a second year running. Drought was widespread and, while we have come far from the days of scraping the bottom of the food reserves in low rainfall years, farmers suffered great financial losses. Newspapers were full of stories of farmer suicides. Prices of vegetables and essential food items soared.

In Agumbe though, one would never have guessed it. The weather had been tempestuous over the previous month and power had been restored only a week prior to my visit after almost a fortnight in the darkness.

Picturesque, peaceful and rather unassuming, Agumbe is located on the western edge of the Deccan Plateau. Along this western edge is a range of hills called the Western Ghats which run parallel to the coastline of the Arabian Sea.

The Western Ghats are a UNESCO World Heritage (Natural) site and are also recognised by the UN as a biodiversity hot-spot. What was once a contiguous belt of thick tropical forest stretching parallel to the nearly 1000 mile long western coastline of peninsular India is now a patchwork of vegetation and forests often existing solely in government surveys and records.

Inarguably, the defining feature of the Western Ghat environment is the Indian Monsoon. Every year towards the end of May, almost like clockwork, moisture-laden winds from the Indian Ocean make landfall at the western shore of India. Confronted by the Western Ghats, these cloud-carrying winds rise and lash the windward slopes of the range with rains for nearly four months a year.

Several belts on the Western Ghats find themselves in contention for being among the wettest places on the planet. Agumbe is one such spot, receiving upwards of 7m of rain every year. The vast majority of this precipitation (over 70%) occurs in the monsoon months of June-September.  The high rainfall has earned it the sobriquet “Cherrapunji of the South”.

Cherrapunji is located in north-eastern India and for a long time held the record for being the wettest place on earth before recently being usurped by Mawsynram, a nearby town.

My visit to Agumbe in early July was quite a damp affair. Agumbe is located in the Shivamogga district of the state of Karnataka. The district is known colloquially as Malenadu, a portmanteau of Male (meaning rain) and Nadu (meaning land). The entire district of the “land of rain” receives almost continuous precipitation for three to four months a year.

My accommodation was at the biggest house of the small village. The house was named Doddamane, a portmanteau of dodda (meaning big) and mane (house). Apparently, living in heavy rainfall lends to people not bothering about sophisticated names.

‘Big House’ has a history of its own – the cult show “Malgudi Days” based on the eponymous book by the legendary RK Narayan, was shot in this very house. The house boasted a courtyard and spacious rooms built in the style of most large houses in the Malenadu region. The current inhabitants belong to a caste (Goud Saraswat Brahmin) famed for their culinary delicacies. They allow people to stay at their house and serve fresh-food on banana leaves. The meals are unlimited, much like the flavours present in the food, it seemed.

The “establishment” is run by the matriarch of the family, who at over 90 years young, engages one and all in lively conversation and very early in the stay lays down the rules – 8 pm curfew, no staying in bed beyond breakfast time and alcohol and tobacco are big no-nos. When I enquired about the rent, she replied, “Whatever you feel like giving.” (While it sounds rather flippant in English, the actual Kannada phrase used is closer in meaning to “how much ever you find it in your heart to give, I will accept”)

I was initially cynical and thought it would be the first step of the bargaining process but I was new to Agumbe and its homely honesty. She meant it. At the end of my stay when I did hand her what I felt was due for her family’s congenial hospitality, she cackled and said, “I don’t count what anyone hands me” and added it to a pile of money in her locker while hardly looking at it.

I stayed at Agumbe for 3 days during which the rainfall was subdued by Agumbe standards - Agumbe’s own version of the nation-wide drought. While on the evening of my arrival I was greeted by light showers, through the first night I could hear the wind howling outside and the rain lashing hard on the sloped roof of Doddamane.

On the agenda for the next morning was a trip in an auto to the top of a nearby hill whose name escapes my memory. (A simple Kannada name, perhaps?) The driver would serve as a local guide for the duration of my stay. The overnight rain had left several puddles on the way and the auto slowly wound its way to the top of the hill via steep hair-pin bends. The driver claimed it could carry 5 people - I was at times doubtful it would carry just the two of us. Mentioning the doubts I harboured seemed to offend the proud owner of the auto.

The view at the peak was about par, a few adjoining hills and a precipice. The real charm was the wind that raced in from one direction, ceaselessly carrying clouds that moved under my feet, often hiding the valley floor for minutes at a time. The rain was horizontal, not vertical. I was right in the clouds, below them and above them and the constant spray was refreshing. I thanked my stars the wind was far milder than the one I heard roaring past the village the previous night.

On descending from the hill, the road seemed different and the driver made what I thought was a wrong turn. I enquired and he laughed it off. “No way”, he boomed. He pointed to a band of particularly dark clouds in the sky and proclaimed, “If you’re ever lost near Agumbe, just check in which direction the clouds are darkest. They’re always the darkest over Agumbe.” That sentence stayed with me.

That evening found me at “view point”, a comfortable 20 minute walk from Doddamane on a highway through a thick forest. The drizzle was constant but there had been no downpour all day. This vantage point overlooked a deep cliff and was really the edge of the Western Ghats, the first elevated land encountered by the inrushing monsoon winds. The road from there winded and descended rapidly on to the coastal plain. My host assured me that on clear winter evenings, one could enjoy an unobstructed view of the sun setting over the Arabian Sea, about 25 km away as the crow flies.

Given the timing of my visit, there was to be no stunning view of the setting sun but rather the sight and sound of winds driving the clouds up the hills. The view point gives one an appreciation of why Agumbe enjoys (or suffers) the kind of rainfall it does. The clouds here allow one to “see” the wind and its trajectory much like a dye allows an experimenter to follow the trajectory of fluids in labs. Perhaps due to the shape of the surrounding landscape or maybe for some other inconceivable reason, all the wind over a large front seems to get funnelled into a narrow region. This narrow region lies a little to the side of the view point. Agumbe lies right in the path of these winds.

I stood transfixed by the view for a while, enjoying watching and listening to the wind while relishing the constant spray of rain it brought with it. One of the most peaceful and serene moments of my life.

My hypothesis about the funnelling of the wind into a narrow strip being the reason for the unearthly rainfall over Agumbe remains sadly unconfirmed.

According to the internet, Agumbe is home to a Rainforest Research Station, supposed to be devoted to the study of the Spectacled Cobra, the most majestic of snakes and also one of the most venomous. No one there knew much about this organisation. My rickshaw driver-guide assured me it was defunct. “The only use of that place existing is so that I can answer when people ask me the same question you just asked”, he cackled in his own inimitable style.

The following evening and last day of my trip involved a light trudge up to another vantage point. This time though, the rain wasn’t as kind and I got a chance to use the wet weather gear I'd carried. I also had to bring out the salt to detach the leeches that gleefully latched on to me. A view of the mist-cloaked valley from the vantage point encouraged me to whip out my phone and exercise the front camera for a bit.

And so I left Agumbe, a village spanning no more than a kilometre in any direction. A village that lies in the path of one of the most awesome forces of nature. A village with locals who fed me, housed me without asking for money and taught me how to find the village if I’m lost. They have come to accept lots and lots and lots of rain as a fact of life.

Ecologically, the area surrounding Agumbe is extremely sensitive. It forms a crucial albeit fast dwindling habitat for the King Cobra, the world’s largest venomous snake. The regions slightly inland from Agumbe and the surrounding districts form catchment areas for the tributaries of the large, seasonal rivers of south India which are vital for large agricultural as well as urban populations. These rivers are completely dependent on the monsoon.

Agumbe’s most striking and immediate problem though is of another nature. Yes, you guessed it wrong – water shortage.

Despite the massive quantum of rainfall that this region enjoys every year, the long dry period between monsoons means storage of water is essential. In Agumbe, the ability of the soil to retain water has been seriously compromised due to the loss of tree cover. Soil erosion and the host of ecological concerns that it entails have come back into sharp focus.

In this regard though, Agumbe needn’t feel too ashamed of itself - it is in elite company. Cherrapunji and Mawsynram, two towns vying for the top spot in the list of wettest places on the planet, share the same problem as Agumbe but to an even worse extent. People, mostly the women-folk, are seen every summer day often trekking for miles for their daily bucket of water.

It is cruelly ironic that these parts of India should be facing this particular problem. These are lands that experience outstanding weather and their ecology has been fine-tuned to a large degree. The human hand here has managed to take the defining feature and the most bountiful entity of the region and render it scarce, in a terrifyingly effective manner.

The monsoon is extremely Indian in its nature – unpredictable, often undependable. Almost unfailingly beautiful. Chaotic. Seems to be going back and forth with no discernible pattern yet somehow moves in a general, forward direction. The gifts of this monsoon are being put to waste as the face of Agumbe and several other spots in India undergo rapid change.

A Metro Ride

I’m always scared to describe India, because it’s simply too vast (that’s a description) and I’m too young and too confined to a corner to have seen enough to have the right to pass any kind of judgement about the entire country. All I can say is I love what I’ve seen and it makes me want to see more. 

Last month, amidst much pomp and grandeur, Namma Metro was thrown open to the public in Bengaluru. The President, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, flew in all the way from New Delhi and in a ceremony at the Vidhana Soudha, pressed a button, or did something just as mundane, with mental drum-rolls perhaps, and declared the metro open to the public. Except, it really wasn’t. Only select media people, politicians and a renegade 77 year-old Malleswaram resident got to take a joy ride in the coach. The first train open to the public was the next day, at 4 pm.

And so the other day, at 6.45 in the evening, when I found myself in the heart of Malleshwaram, my body content after some delicious obbattu, kodbaley and idly at a relative’s place, I decided I would go to JP Nagar and back to visit a friend. What would have been a foolhardy decision weeks before was a simple decision – thanks to the white, air-conditioned, BEML manufactured chariots of Bengaluru. I ran to the nearest bus-stop while holding my pockets down to stop my wallet and phone from bouncing awkwardly with every step and climbed on a bus to Majestic.

Yellige Saar? the conductor asked. Central, I said. And I smirked. I was proud of what I’d said. And I was sure the bus conductor got why I felt that way. After all, he was a crusader of sort who held the spirit of this great city intact and formed a link with what the city of yore was when I grew up. You see, I said Central. Not Mantri Mall. Or Mantri Square. Those were, to me, new-fangled additions to the serene landscape of Bengaluru, bringing traffic snarls, pollution, water-woes and eroding a deep feeling of belonging from within me. That bus-stop would always be Central. I’m not sure what it is Central to, to be honest. Etymology isn’t my strong suit. But bus conductors called it central back then. Only new tri-lingual metro boards called it "Mantri Square". Do we even have squares in India? To my knowledge, we have only sarkals.

And so the Rajiv Gandhi statue approached. There’s a little park around the statue and on either side of this park is where buses stop to form the “Central” stop. I readied myself to get down. The conductor shouted, “Mantri Mall!” I left in a hurry, disappointed.

After expertly navigating the traffic, I walked up the stairs to the swanky metro station. Bengaluru has always been a hub of innovation and technology [citation needed] and the metro isn’t lacking in any way. The first sign is the security check. I remember seeing the scanner-machine thingy that you’ve to walk through just lying at the entrance of CST in Mumbai, like a prop. Or was it some other station? I do remember it was unplugged with a disinterested, khaki-uniformed, pot-bellied mustachioed man looking on as people walked through. Ok, I made that up. I have no memory of what the security man looked like, but you could assume the above.

At the entrance of “Mantri Square”, the machine was up and running, beeping for every soul that passed through. The security guy vaguely waved the beeping detector in my direction and let me through without a frisk.

Firstly, let me say, I didn’t mind not being frisked. In fact, I have some insider information about this. You see, the detectors and expensive x-ray machines are just a ploy. They’re always beeping. People carry knives, keys, loose change, guns, the whole lot. And the machine knows. A top-secret security briefing has been received that if the machine fails to bleep, clearly the person is trying hard to hide something. I mean, this person stepped out of his/her house without their mobile phone! What are they going to do? Be aware of their surroundings? Talk to people? Socialise? God, I need a breather. Such thoughts!

Clearly, these are desperate people ready to take desperate measures and the security mechanism will swoop into action at the first sight of a non-beeping machine. Until then, the security men have to look busy.

I bought my swanky ticket to the nearest station to my destination, more than a (traffic-plagued) hour away by road. The “ticket” is a little coin that has to be scanned by swanky ticket machines lined by hawk-eyed security guards who will not let two people pass with one ticket. Else society will crumble. The more I see what happens at metro stations, the more I believe that somewhere on the contract between the Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) and the govt. of Karnataka is a clause that they will employ some minimum number of people to run the metro.

I will be a little political here. I think we in India need a law to protect whistle-blowers. Repeatedly we read in the paper that those who brought corruption and other wrong-doing by people in power to the notice of the junta are not safe. Whistle-blowers also care for your life. At the Bengaluru metro stations, on each platform there are multiple whistle-blowers. Who whistle at everyone who enters and instruct them to walk. After the initiation whistle upon your appearance on the platform, there’s a warning whistle should you venture too close to to within about 50 feet of the platform.

That’s clearly hyperbole, but yes, they are instructed to not let anyone stray too close to the platform, a job they complete with the kind of zeal whose fraction I wish I could muster in my daily life for anything, be it professional or otherwise. These concerned citizens will whistle and yell at you “walk forward”, or “come this side” while motioning away from the platform and whistle at you for existing. One day, someone is going to lose his/her cool, irritated by the constant whistling and barking of orders, and that day, that security guard will be glad for the whistle-blowers protection legislature that I strongly advocate.

You see, I don’t think India, of all the places in the world, needs a person at a railway station minding human traffic. Every day, millions and millions throng already crowded railway stations, squeezing and shoving their way around with trains thundering past every second. I’ve done, you’ve done it. Now this guy with the whistle mollycoddles us like we’re buffoons who can't walk straight. Just attach a really really loud horn to the train and we’re done. We’ll manage.

As the train arrives, the whistling becomes more desperate. There are markings on the floor to show precisely where the door of the bogey will be and we’re whistle-guided into adopting these positions while the train arrives silently. They should have made the trains loud and rattle-y if they really cared about our safety.

On the Indian Railway station platforms, the little boards with bogey numbers like S1 and B2 are only rough outlines of the master-plan. If we’re lucky and it all goes to plan, about 25 minutes later than scheduled, a bogey with approximately the same number as what it says on the board will most likely stop somewhere near here. Out of habit, when the train slows down to a certain level, most people, including me, trot next to a door that has been identified for attack, ready to pounce as soon as the door opens. And this causes great angst among the whistle-blowers at Namma Metro who blow their whistles even louder, reiterating their wish for you to stand near the markings.

Much against my intuition and going against all accrued experience, I reasoned that a guy blowing his whistle that loudly must have a measure of confidence in his knowledge and while coming back, actually stuck to the floor markings. The train door appeared precisely in front of me. It was good.

Once on the train, the excitement is palpable. On every occasion that I’ve been on the metro since its inception, I have overheard at least one loud conversation about where the tracks run and how they will help ease Bengaluru traffic. It’s a feeling of hope that only something new, even if delayed by 6 years, can bring.

At Nadaprabhu Kempe Gowda Metro Station Majestic, the rush is always huge and here, the whistle-blowers organise the crowd into queues at the floor markings. I can only imagine how much whistling that particular effort takes, never having boarded or alighted at Majestic. I shudder to imagine the racket that all those people and all that whistling creates, bouncing off the tunnel’s underground walls.

While the queues are aesthetically pleasing, as are the floor markings, I simply do not see how they aid commuters. The train will stop for the prescribed time, people will get off and people will get in. Somehow. The door won't be more than 20 feet away from any point on the platform. I believe it is a standard that we needlessly hold ourselves too. The Indian model has been working and apart from aesthetics, I don't see what's wrong with it. If a guy misses his/her train, they have to wait a maximum of 15 minutes for the next train to take them to a spot inside the city. Long distance trains which can't afford to be missed have no one manning the platforms. The chai shop owners are the only "officials" around. We manage.

Convenience is not something we should stress on. Enabling is what we must stress on. Does the metro enable quick transit? Yes. Is it convenient? Yes, very. Do Chennai and Mumbai’s local train system enable quick transit? From what little I’ve seen, yes. Are they convenient? Most of the time. They’re sometimes really crowded and can often be cripplingly so, but hey, a crowd is a sign that people are using it. It is helping people travel. Does the AC really make a difference? The fancy coaches? The whistle-blowers? The queues at the station? And the metro could get equally crowded as well. Or maybe it’s still pricing out a lot of people who could do with the transport. Which isn’t good news either.

I’m sure the denizens of Bengaluru would have loved any railway transit system completed in 2011, as initially promised. Perhaps 1970 was the right time to build it and dissuade millions from buying cars and choking the roads in the first place. But expecting a mortal with that level of foresight is a tad much.

Thus musing, I get down at my destination station, drop my ticket-coin into a machine that beeps agreeably with green lights flashing and I’m free to climb down into the city, to take an auto to my eventual destination. A trip to a far corner of the city I call home, a trip unimaginable just a few weeks ago.

I’ve travelled in the metro thrice since its inception. Once for the sake of travelling in it. Once, to get back home from somewhere, and once to meet my friend in JP Nagar, a trip I couldn’t and wouldn’t have made without the metro. And each time, what strikes me is just how many things are done to keep it manicured and aesthetic. And whether that’s really worth the effort.

The Swach Bharath program has an idea that I really like – if each of us took a bit of responsibility and worked towards something simple, like cleanliness, then together we can truly effect a massive change. However, when we think of cleanliness, we usually think of aesthetics and beauty. In fact, cleanliness is desirable in much more basal forms in our country. Sanitation, garbage disposal, pollution of water bodies. These problems cause diseases far worse than the eye-sores caused by old, worn out walls.

But aesthetics has two great benefits to my mind. First, it makes you feel good. Secondly, if something is aesthetic, it is far less likely to be vandalised or despoilt. And perhaps that's why Namma metro has zero littering, an aesthetic ideal of cleanliness. In fact, even the railway stations in Bengaluru are clean with very little littering and the cleanliness at the Pune station has improved remarkably over the last 4 years from what I've seen.

So while I bemoan the lack of necessity of aesthetics, maybe that is how it will and should start. Top-bottom rather than bottom-up. But that bottom-up should be the priority shouldn't be lost in the aesthetic cleanliness drive. We shouldn't forget to build toilets while painting dirty walls in bright colours, literally and figuratively.

So here I am, having successfully made the trip back home before too late. Deciding to pen my thoughts about Namma Metro, starting the piece somewhere and ending the piece somewhere else with a rapidity I didn't believe possible in my mind. Just as the train took me from one place to another with a rapidity I didn't believe possible in Bengaluru.

What can I say? I really like the Namma Metro.
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Mindfulness

"In science, computing, and engineering, a black box is a device, system or object which can be viewed in terms of its inputs and outputs (or transfer characteristics), without any knowledge of its internal workings. Its implementation is "opaque" (black). Almost anything might be referred to as a black box: a transistor, an algorithm, or the human brain" - This is the introductory paragraph to the article titled "Black box" on Wikipedia. 

In a sense, until we know exactly how everything in our universe works, the universe is itself one massive black box. (Over to you, physicists) We keep doing stuff and our senses keep sensing some "outputs". But that is at a needlessly deep level. In our daily lives itself, we have so many black boxes. Perhaps for many of us our laptops are black boxes. (even literally, haha) We click a button, some moh-maaya occurs and the screen lights up. I'm pressing keys on the keyboard and I'm not exactly sure how, the letters are appearing on the screen. My input is a force on the key. The output is the appearance of the corresponding letter on-screen.

Cars are black-boxes to those of us who don't know the workings of an internal combustion engine. Bicycles on the other hand work very overtly - we can clearly see the chain attached to the back wheel and understand intuitively why when we push down on the pedal, the cycle moves forward. 

There is however a new type of black box that I would like to introduce, a more abstract kind of black box. The things we take for granted are black boxes. We don't really bother with how they work. They just work.

When I was in school, the wall next to the bathroom door at home was a black box. I would throw my clothes there after a bath and the next morning, I would find the same clothes folded and sorted in my cupboard. Or on my bed. The sink was a black box - I would put my plate there and by the next day, the plate was back in the right kitchen cabinet or rack. 

So what happened after school? Well, I went to college and lived in a hostel. Hostel had it's own black boxes; the world's full of them. But it had fewer. Whenever I ate in my room, I would finish eating and keep my plate on the shelf above my table. By some skulduggery, I would not find it washed the next day! I had to wash it by myself. For mysterious reasons, the weight of my laundry bag kept increasing, the clothes never turned up in my cupboard washed and folded. Scandalous! All my life these things had taken care of themselves and suddenly they had to be taken care of by myself. 

In my 4 years at hostel, I've gained an appreciation for what I used to take for granted. My house maid servant and my parents conspired to keep the inner machinations of these boxes secret and I never once bothered to find out. Now, every time I throw my clothes next to the bathroom door at home, the journey of the clothes flashes through my mind - my father will take them down and load them into the washing machine, (another black box where input = dirty clothes and output = clean clothes) my house maid will come in and hang them for drying. The next day she will remove them and dump them at the designated spot. There my mother will take over, fold and sort them and dispatch it to our respective rooms and that's where I find the clothes again. A most critical journey. 

Then I got thinking further - almost everything about our lives can be described in terms of black boxes. As we grow older, the number of black boxes keeps reducing. Once upon a time our only input into the world was carbon-dioxide, a yellow, urea-rich aqueous solution and processed, undigested food. In return we feasted upon milk, some food, smiles, love, vaccination injections, clothes and almost every comfort. And then one day when you're an old man, almost everything you receive is because of you. Your children are from one sperm cell of yours each. All the comforts are bought from the money you earned from your work, skills and application. At some stage, you washed your clothes, did your dishes, took the trash out (still a black box - it would be fascinating to follow where trash goes from our doorstep) and eliminated so many black boxes from your life. 

But here's the thing - there's only so many black-boxes you can eliminate. Everything that you pay for comes to you via a black box. Every machine ever created is soon to be a black box. It will soon be taken for granted. You give money at the store and receive say 5 kg of rice flour in return. Think of all that the money is concealing from you. Where the rice came from. The grains might be from several farms. On each farm, several pairs of hands have toiled to make sure the paddy grows well. There's tonnes and tonnes of water involved. Then there's transportation, separating the husk, making flour from the grain, probably at a flour mill. 

For primitive man, there weren't nearly as many black boxes. The food was hunted, gathered or grown. Clothes were simple materials like bark or leaves. Then there was the ultimate explanation for every black box. The supernatural. The divine. Him. God. These explained things like lightning and rain.

Now that I've ended hostel life (for now) and am back home, I got to thinking about what has changed in these four years. And rather underwhelmingly, I can't really point out too many changes, in me. But living alone, (without having to cook yet, thankfully) I did crack open some black boxes and turn them white. Now, I'm way more mindful, in general, of where things go and the effects of my actions that I used to take for granted. And in this weird way, by reducing the number of black boxes, coupled with some great trekking experiences, I feel like I've become more grounded and closer to nature. In a kind of twisted path, yes.

I think this mindfulness has crept into other spheres as well. I'm more mindful of how I react to every situation - you can't afford to pick a fight with "that irritating guy" because you've to stay in the same floor as him and share the same public spaces. Mindful of how different things affect me differently. Mindful(ler) in terms of health and things I value. And I would pick this out as the biggest change. Of course, for all the terrible habits I've picked up along the way in terms of the way I live, I'm sure my parents can enlighten you better than anyone else.

So (signing off with a dreadful joke), the "four-year transform" (gedit?) when applied to me gave a more mindful me.

Echoes

Note - I actually wrote this on April 2nd, just got round to editing and publishing it much later. The date of the narrated events hasn't been altered for poetic purporses. 

In a community such as a college hostel, with a large number of like-minded students all living at the same place, several little groups develop over time. These groups are living, heaving entities, some ever-changing, some constant for the longest times and each with their own little idiosyncrasies. It isn't always obvious how these groups come to be. Some have a clear common interest - like say the friendship between all the members of a club - and some just happen to be because of some intangible factor - perhaps a group of people who happen to have lunch at the same time and place everyday.

Some people are part of several groups, some are part of just the one group. One group that I'm part of (at least the WhatsApp group) is the group of people who play football. Every day one brave man takes the initiative and posts something to the tune of "Playing at 5:30?" while others reply "In" or "Out". There are yet others who lurk and watch how the situation develops and will be "In if enough people". Some bypass the group and just come down to play football if he sees enough people playing on the ground. 

Today, the denizens of "The Football People" weren't too keen on playing and the plan to play football petered away after just three "In"s were registered on the group. I went down anyway, replete with shoes and socks when I saw a group of football regulars striding towards the cricket ground donning shorts and a comfortable, faded T-shirt, tell-tale signs of someone going to play. 

I'd heard accounts of another group of my peers playing football bare-foot on the cricket ground but had never joined them or even seen them. Deciding to give it a go, I sauntered towards them, waved and soon joined them on the smooth, grassy cricket ground. I could see why they enjoyed playing barefoot on this ground. There was no danger of blisters or injury. The grass was like a carpet under the feet. 

The pre-team-selection tradition is to just juggle the ball, try to keep it off the ground for as long as possible, this task requiring at least 4-5 people. There were, of course, several groups of people playing cricket. One of them was a group of my batch-mates, whom I greeted. "Can I play cricket with you guys?", I casually enquired, half-jokingly. The reply was a yes. After this match. Alright.

I went over to the football guys and did my best to keep the ball in the air using only feet and head. The football match didn't look like starting anytime soon. The sorting process was just beginning. I just didn't feel like football. I got a shout from my friend playing cricket. "Khel rahe ho kya?" (Will you play?)

I remember once when I was about 12-13, my sister came home with an acquaintance and he was far older than me. In his mid-20s, if my memory serves right. I was playing cricket on the street just in front of my house and he asked if he could bat a few balls. After playing a couple of deliveries awkwardly, he remarked on how it had been over 5 years since he had picked up a bat.

I was absolutely shocked and appalled. That day, that instant, I vowed to myself that I would never become like that - losing touch with the game I love and grow up to be a man who doesn't touch a cricket bat for years at a time. What sort of a man was that? And what kind of a life was that?

And now here I was, playing cricket after over 2 years of not playing. To be fair to myself, I haven't stopped playing altogether. Cricket has merely been superseded by football and basketball. I like their constant action and the fact that they are contact sports. Yet, I do feel like I have betrayed cricket, my first love.

And so I took to the field to play a 4-over game on grass. (The pitch and the outfield were identical, with soft grass. Good length balls were bouncing into the batsmen's forehead) I fielded first, watched as my team restricted the opposition to 15 runs in the allotted 4 overs, setting a target of 16. A tricky target.

Since I didn't bowl, citing the divine laws of gully cricket, I was given the opening slot in the batting line-up. The rest, as they (or maybe just I) say, is history. I coolly batted through the innings and clinched my team a thrilling last ball victory in the fading light, even as wickets tumbled at the other end. I did not make that up, I can find my friends to corroborate the story.

Needless to say, I was ecstatic. And for me, it was a throwback to childhood, a childhood dominated by cricket. The hot weather reminded me of summer days back home, playing often the whole day. Hide and seek in the afternoons and nights, cricket in the mornings and evenings.

Now I've lost touch with cricket. I've lost touch with my childhood. The date is 2nd April 2017. It was on 2nd April 2011 that India won the world cup at the Wankhede. It was my greatest moment following cricket. From then on, anything India did was compared to this dazzling achievement. We lost two consecutive test series away from home in the same year. Both humiliating 4-0 whitewashes. Who cares, we're world champions, I told myself. The IPL  DLF Pepsi Vivo IPL happened within a week after that world cup. What is this circus of a competition with players constantly changing teams, I asked myself. It was no world cup, and hence it wasn't anything great. Perhaps I had been saturated by cricket and the euphoric moment of winning the world cup offered me the desired closure.

Thus cricket slowly became distant. Football took over my life. Today, I'm a football man through and through, casually checking cricket scores sporadically. My life has altered significantly. I have lived away from home for nearly 4 years. I am about to complete my 4th year at college. The 5th year will consist of active research and thinking about the future. College applications, job applications, statements of purpose, recommendation letters, the whole package. I will be preparing for the true outside world. I've been phased into it quite well, but now is where it truly begins. I'll have to start thinking of my own finance rather than asking my father. I'll have to truly start taking more independent decisions.

This was surely my last moment of cricketing glory, 6 years on from my greatest moment and the last time I could remember being completely engrossed by cricket. It was also perhaps the final, dying echo from my childhood, the last vestiges of which are finally being extinguished for good. I'm moving from the safe confines of a gentlemanly cricket world to a rough and tumble, abrasive football world. Here people try to deceive referees. They happily chop down another man while he is running and pretend they did nothing. It's fast and ruthless. And so, while I continue to immerse myself in and actually enjoy football, cricket will always have a special place in my heart.

This isn't just a story of me playing an insignificant game of cricket. It's a requiem, for my love of cricket, and thus a requiem for my childhood. 

Breaking Point

When he stared at the computer screen that day, he knew it had come to a breaking point - he would write that day. He'd thought out a revolutionary and novel way to ensure his concentration didn't waver. He would unplug his laptop from the internet.

The greatest plans are all simple. It's always a tiny detail that's coming between us and unleashing the full force of our potential. Here the tiny detail was the giant network of the web, constantly luring him away from the Word document which contained only bullet points, catch-phrases and a smattering of plot points. No sentences. No tangible story. It would soon be his grand novel.

Yanking out the LAN cable was cathartic. It was akin to a climactic scene from some dystopian movie, fighting past the droves of robots attempting to take over the world and finally disabling their main up-link. The seductions of social media and football columns and banal online humour were the evil robots stopping him from being the master of his own world. One pull to end it all.

The 'not connected' notification made him smile. It seemed absurd - a laptop not connected to the internet! What purpose would that serve? Hasten the completion of his would be masterpiece, he hoped.

The Word document was whipped open and his mind got whirring. The words flowed and his manuscript emerged from the chryalis of his LAN cable connected laptop days, sometimes limping, usually sauntering along and occasionally galloping swiftly. Slowly, surely, a dream pushed to the background ever since he picked up his first book was becoming a reality, enabled by a single pull of a wire.

Or so he wished. Perhaps the excuse of the Internet was the mask wielded by him to save his self-esteem. Perhaps all that praise he'd ever received through his life was all politeness and pity. Maybe even as he reread his written work every time, he knew deep down it didn't cut it. And it could and would never cut it. No one used to quality writing would ever read his bilge.

How would he ever face himself knowing his greatest dream was a far-fetched fantasy. His own estimation for his writing was a deception. His flair for writing never existed. There could be no other explanation.

Without the great distraction of the internet he stared at the still blank document. Each idea that crossed his mind was frivolous. His mind stuttered and stumbled and faltered at every paragraph. No plot held. No string of ideas followed from each other and he had to erase it all to take it from the beginning. Again and again and then one more time.

He felt many things. Indignation that no one ever told him the truth. Betrayal and confusion. He would be a run of the mill person after all. His autobiography would never be written, leave alone widely read. A 9 to 5 job in a cubicle for 40 years for a pension and a car and a house was what it would be. Nothing wrong with that, right?

He slumped on his bed and gave up for the day. A whole Sunday night wasted and now he would attend the week's classes sleep-deprived and always playing catch-up in every lesson, if he did manage to wake up in time for the class.

The music blaring on his ear-phones rather inconsiderately reached a crescendo of trumpets and drums as the end of Beethoven's 5th symphony was reached. It would have been poetic - a moment of inspiration, a bolt from the blue just when the orchestra ended on a high, a cue for the thunderous applause that followed. But it wasn't. The music stopped and he could hear his thoughts buzzing. He closed his eyes and brooded before sleep inevitably took over.

His next week was a daze. He'd missed the first Monday morning class and miraculously dragged himself to the second one, eyes and shoulders drooping. "Where am I going with what I'm doing?", he pondered constantly. Would he gain admission to study further? Would he find a job? Could he build a successful career anywhere? Yet another man in the swarm of humanity.

Maybe it was the sheer love for doing it, maybe it was a hint of masochism or perhaps the last surviving shred of belief in himself, but the next Sunday night found him at the laptop again, LAN cable out, blank Word document staring at him. He'd whiled away the week and here he was, back at it again with a childish, naive conviction that this week would be different, certain he would spend the next week chipping away at the word count.

The 10000 hour rule - that you have to "deliberately practice" something for 10000 hours to become world class at it - would be his only rule now on. So even when he wasn't working on his great novel, he would make sure he was pushing himself trying to write something, a short-story, an essay, a poem or just pen his thoughts as they came. It after all made sense to start somewhere and go in small steps, he told himself.

And then the idea struck. Not earth-shattering but something that gave him hope. He could pen a short story on just what had happened over the last week. His grand idea, the equally grand failure, his mental distress, the dilemmas and the doubts. All in third person. He sat up alertly. This was something.

It would certainly be no masterpiece, but it was words. Maybe he could squeeze a thousand words off it. And more importantly, it was an hour of deliberate practice. Only 9999 to go.

He closed his eyes and recollected the previous Sunday night. He rethought his thoughts and revisited his emotions. The story was beginning to consolidate. He turned a few phrases over in his mind before he began to type -

"When he stared at the computer screen that day, he knew it had come to a breaking point - "....

The Reverie

He stared at the mountains from the solitude of the forest. He had found the perfect spot at the edge of the woods, peering over the precipice into the faintly glistening river in the distance that meandered merrily, blissfully oblivious of his presence. From the vantage point, at this distance, the river looked serene. It was anything but. It was ferocious in fact, its roar diluted to a ceaseless whisper where he was.

Was it all real? The snow-cap, the forest beneath, the river further down. It looked like a postcard. He’d seen it too often on screens and on papers and never in real life. The reality had to sink in. It wasn’t a prop, it wasn’t fiction. They existed. The mountain he beheld in the distance was as real as the one he was perched on. It was not the imagination of a mortal.

The silence was eerie. The flow of the river was no longer a noise, it was a constant background over which all was still. Every step he walked would take him a step further from civilisation, a step closer to the peak. He would see for himself if the peak looked like the one across the river. He hoped it did. He vaguely feared that it would all evaporate. Maybe it would. Maybe he would wake up.

The cold that so effectively teamed up with fatigue to bite into his calves was all too real. It had been a hard climb so far but the hardest part had been done. He decided he could rest a few minutes longer. He could enjoy the beauty.

But would it be beautiful if he were here everyday? Was it absolute beauty or only a relative beauty perceived by the nature starved city dwellers on their overdose of concrete and tar and humanity? Relative or absolute, beauty still felt the same, so why did he bother wondering? What is beauty? He wondered why he wondered what it was rather than enjoying whatever it was.

Ugly, that’s what it was. A pile of land folded upward irregularly with rocks and boulders precariously holding on, sometimes letting go and tumbling down. It was not in good repair, no real paths across the terrain, the greenery was erratic and wild, not groomed in ages. The cold alone could make one despair. No sign of other living beings here, no comforts.

That was the hypocrisy. At home, comfort is a good word. It’s a well made bed and a soft blanket. Up here, on walks and vacations in places of natural beauty all the overnight outdoor enthusiasts spit out the word in derision - comfort! Ruined us. Look at the lifestyle problems we all face. Get Pune out of our lungs. Breathe-in the air of heaven. We live for nature. Reconnect with our roots. Pah!

They wouldn’t last a day in nature. They wouldn’t last a day without comfort. We wouldn’t. Nature is living and dying by the sword. We’re evolved to survive somehow to age 40, procreate and get on with it. Instead we dangle limply from canes and walking sticks, wired to machines to die on our beds long after we’ve become walking corpses, useful for no function.

Nature would give us disease and cold and fatigue and wounds. Not to mention predators. What we live for is comfort. What we live because of, is comfort. More civilisation and less nature. Let’s not kid ourselves.

He looked up from his reverie and reminded himself of where he was. The sun was still high up in the sky, the river still glistened and the mountain stood motionless and grand as ever. He was transfixed and mesmerised again by the beauty of it. It was still there. It was probably real. It was certainly beautiful.

He reached the very top. And there he felt elated and exhilarated. It was worth it despite it all. It was good to be in nature. Good to get Pune out of his lungs. Nature wasn’t a killer, nature was beauty. We live for beauty, for never do we live in it. We find it where we seek it. 

It Went Dark

Disclaimer : The following is purely fictional. No part of it should taken as fact or as a reflection of how any aspect of a profession works. 

It was exactly 3 pm on a Friday afternoon when he walked into her office. She was a little more unprepared than she ought to have been given that it was indeed a 3 o clock appointment. She liked the clients who took an extra couple of minutes to walk in, usually awkwardly. She mostly used those precious few minutes to unwind between appointments. It was like sleep, somehow the hours of sleep you're slated for are infinitely less sweet than the few minutes extra you grab after your alarm rings.

So when he staggered in exactly on time, she hurriedly stashed away the magazine she was reading, turned the pages of her clipboard and very deliberately looked up and smiled at him, gesturing him to sit down. 

It was kind of a ritual, a different one with each patient. Some of them walked in and almost ran down into their seats and slumped. Some waited politely, others awkwardly. There was always a lot of awkwardness and he was of the latter type. 

While she smiled and asked him to sit down, she studied several things - his expression, his eyes, his posture, limbs. Sometimes her mind did it automatically, sometimes she had to force herself. This being a Friday afternoon, and a hot summer afternoon to boot, she had to labour to note his facial expression. She tensed immediately and braced for a hard session - something big was coming. Progress hadn't been made. Some major event, maybe trauma. 

"Soooo, been writing in your diary this week?", she asked him as an ice-breaker. He murmured something about busy and by the next moment, he was in his usual rip-roaring form. Spittle flowed down his chin as he bawled about difficulties and emotional upheavals of the preceding week.

She behaved as a textbook therapist should, dispassionately and patiently looking on, chipping in with the appropriate phrases, words and interjections at the pauses. A full ten minutes later when his monologue faded away into stifled sobs of gradually decreasing intensity, she gently nudged the tissue box towards him and began to speak. She asked probing questions that would enable her to assimilate more information about exactly what went wrong while he answered in gasps. She asked him to take his time, drink some water and settle down before speaking.

Her mind though was less lenient. "What a big baby! What a cowardly man! Can't pull himself together for a week and clear his mind. A few steps was all I asked him to follow and instead he comes here and weeps about a fresh load of problems residing solely in his head!" She'd seen patients with far more serious problems make conscious efforts to aid in the therapy but instead she had to spend time with this man. Well, they pay the same every hour, she smirked before instantly inwardly condemning the thought.

"Well, I'll see you next week," she smiled at him as he made his way out at the end of the session with familiar promises of introspecting rather than reacting to certain situations and maintaining his diary. She hid her contempt well and placed a mental bet with herself on the updating of the diary.

She settled down. Was she a bad psychotherapist for having such deprecating thoughts about her patients? She was human after all. All the learnt knowledge about childhood scars and behavioural theory could not eradicate the instinctive answer to why someone was the way they are. They're weaklings. No will power. And even though she knew it wasn't so, she couldn't help thinking so. Who knew where the line was drawn? Not psychologists, for sure.

She sipped some water and settled down in a chair with a magazine without really reading it. She was thinking about how the session had gone. Maybe the marathon-sob would help him, but it was a purely professional concern she felt. There would be no tearful goodbyes when this patient's therapy ended someday in the future. He was something of a mercenary she felt. His attitude was often akin to "I've paid you, now make my sadness go away" or sometimes more insultingly "I've paid you so shut up and listen to me whine and bitch. Don't interrupt." Therapy worked for the patient types, the respectful types who actually bothered to give your words some weight, not those who thought they had everything figured out. Therapy was never going to work on anyone who used the words "new fanged" to describe any aspect of it. Sometimes, blindly believing someone and toeing their line helped a lot.

She often knew the gone cases within the first ten minutes of the first session itself. Ethically, she had to stick with them until she believed they were truly rehabilitated and capable of handling themselves unless the patient himself/herself decided to discontinue.

The problem is, she thought to herself, most people that walk in here are so certain that their problems are the least trivial, the likes of which no one else has seen before. It was easy to be abstract when it concerned others. Great pearls of wisdom such as "Life is fleeting" or "This too shall pass" can easily be meted out to others but when the suffering is yours, it's suddenly earth-shattering. She understood this full well yet found it hard to not be contemptuous of some of her patients who waltzed in and told her about the weight of the world on their shoulders.

Her thoughts thus immersed her until her next patient walked in. She was almost startled when he did. Off late, she had been thinking too much between sessions. Her own sessions with her therapist weren't going too well. She'd been ranting  and fussing about her patients far too much and didn't know what was the cause. She'd lost either patience or spirit. Maybe a bit of both.

Her last patient for the week was neat and trim as always. "He always appears in HD" was the standing joke about him while she gossiped about patients with her therapist friends. She never gave away names or personal details though - professionalism was key. And she was in therapy too, she knew how vulnerable it felt to confide in a stranger your deepest feelings. She couldn't imagine her therapist speaking about her to anyone else.

Mr. HD wished her a good evening and took a seat after she pointed to the chair. There was no flamboyance about him. She didn't mind him. Her feelings for him could be described as a mild fondness, if there was such a thing. He was the earnest type. Not the brightest, did everything asked of him with a degree of meticulousness, sweet and reverent. He would probably be some time in therapy with his degree of trauma but with his steady work, it would happen without any major relapses, she was sure.

Near the end of the session she allowed herself a private smile - the week was done. She could now spend the weekend at home with her husband and maybe her daughter would come over. The clipboard that her husband used as evidence of her lack of tech-savvyness to repeatedly tease her would be put away for two days. She would study it a bit on Monday morning but that was that. She was hoping that there would be no distress calls of the kind that had occupied so many of her weekends in the past.

Mr. HD showed himself out and she collapsed on her chair as one as soon as the door had been shut. As was her norm off-late, she grabbed a nearby magazine and went into stupor. She was thinking about her favourite patient, wondering how she had done this week.

She was a really sweet thing, driven to mental and emotional troubles by her family mainly. It was to her the classic case of how small things add up to really big difficulties - she could not pin-point a single great trauma or event this patient had undergone but everyday that she sat down with her, she understood with new depth how the universe had conspired against this pleasant woman and given her a life of hell.

Something was playing on her mind as she turned the page of the magazine. Even when she wasn't reading, out of habit her eyes glanced over the page from top to bottom and her arms turned the page. She wouldn't be able to recall a single word later.

The previous weekend, she'd had one of her regular dinners with her therapist pals where they were often scornful of patients while somehow maintaining their confidentiality. On some nights when they were a tad generous with the drinks, their patients' confidentiality really hung by a thread. At this dinner, a friend was theorising how a patient would react to overhearing their conversation. He asserted that while being shocked at the tone in which they spoke of their patients, when the discussions went to individual patients in not very flattering terms, no patient would ever think they are the subject of the discussion -
"No patient would think they are the wuss we are discussing. For them, they are at the centre of the great warrior stories of their lives, the great champions, living legends. Take Shobha's favourite patient - the one she cares about so much. Do you think she ever considers herself the coward? Nah, she thinks she's bravely fighting her mind when she's actually a feeble minded creature. No rendition of terminology from the glossary of psychology can change the fact that she's just a weakling, nothing more special. No erosion of reward cycle bullshit."

Shobha was taken aback by this brusque and scathing assesment of her patient and wouldn't accept it. There was a small ensuing argument where he even attacked Shobha. "You're just like your patients, so emotional. Be rational and keep a distance. It's the difference between us and them - we know how our mind works. They don't. Don't let this knowledge be clouded by your attachment for this patient. But oh wait, you're seeing a therapist too. No wonder." He was gloating and goading her.

"Rational!" she muttered with grit teeth. If he was so rational, he wouldn't be using words such as 'weak' and 'wuss' and would see it for what it indeed was - systematic downing of the reward system over a lifetime of steady and covert, often unintentional, undermining. She'd spoken to her patient at length, she knew it best. She resented his statements and had stormed out and they hadn't spoken since. His apology would probably involve the words 'regret' and 'alcohol' and 'heat of the moment' but she was not going to have it. What had been said couldn't be unsaid.

She snapped out of her trance, stuffed her magazines, books and other personal effects where they belonged and rode her gaadi home. She'd see next week.

When Shobha's favourite patient walked in the next week, Shobha looked up almost immediately. Speaking to her felt better than speaking to her own therapist. But something was off today. She started weeping almost as soon as she walked in. It was Shobha's greatest struggle to remain stoic and merely push the napkin holder in her direction. She wanted to hug her and wipe her tears and comfort her.

The troubling sign was that this emotional attachment was not one way - her patient was clearly verging on dependence on Shobha - dependence on the therapist was one of the first things they were told about as students. And even though she could see it, her own personal affection to her patient was crippling her, stopping her from nipping the dependence in the bud. It was now too late perhaps. She might be forced to (ethically) refer her to another psychotherapist. The term was interminable therapy where the therapist can't foresee a successive conclusion of the therapy the way it was going and hence opts for a change, sometimes in method, mostly in therapist.

Her friend's words played in her mind just then. Was her patient really just a wuss? Was it Shobha's own emotional attachment that stopped her from seeing this the way she saw it in other patients? It was hurtful to hear him speak that way about her patient but on the flip-side, it should never be hurtful to hear something about a patient - you must be detached.  She could see clearly how unhealthy the relationship was. Maybe it was holding back the positive effects of therapy. Maybe her patient still not being rehabilitated was her fault. Was she a bad therapist? Self-doubt gnawed at her all of a sudden.

That's the thing about self-doubt, you can build the strongest wall to stop it yet the wall needs to be fortified constantly. And should a sliver of it come through, all the self-doubt you've ever kept out will suddenly enter too. She knew this, but she was powerless to stop it.

Many people couldn't believe therapists needed therapists. But you know how the brain works, don't you? You know how emotions work, the stuff with serotonin and dopamine and other neuro-whatsit stuff? Knowledge about emotions meant nothing in the face of strong emotions though. Understanding the chemical base of an emotion doesn't mean the chemical is absent or that it won't act as per usual. Knowledge was just scant consolation. It's like the difference between being mauled in the dark by some unknown large animal and being mauled in broad daylight but knowing it's a tiger.

Here she was, armed with a full understanding of addiction to therapy, how it's common for a patient to get too attached to the therapist and vice-versa and still struggling to hold back her tears.

It felt like a massive weight was lifted off Shobha's shoulders when the session ended. She gasped, already thinking of her own therapist. She failed to give her favourite patient her customary, broad-smiled send-off. Maybe she could talk to her husband or her mother about how this was troubling her. Amma was old though and would probably be unable to follow the story. Her husband had enough on his plate with his work, this would probably sound trivial in narration. Most things sound trivial in narration except to the self. She sighed and hardly paid attention to her patients for the rest of the day.

When she got home from therapy that week, she felt listless. She'd had a massive row, wept, had a philosophical and ethical argument about therapy and man's purpose on earth as well as sulked and remained silent. All in one session, inside an hour.

She suddenly realised that she hadn't been feeling more desolate only in the last few weeks, that it had started months back. Her mind flashed back to an incident three months back that had had her feeling the same way; and then one more, a couple of weeks before that even. She was fried. She somehow just knew what she was going to do. She didn't know why but she was sure that she would, sure that the reason, whatever it was, was valid - it felt too strong not to be. She was immolated by self-doubt. The wall had been breached well before, she realised.

She knew it all about the mind and she was powerless and helpless. Overrun by the magnitude of every day. And she simply didn't know where it all stemmed from but she'd lost all the fight in her. That her patients looked to her when they felt the way she did now felt like life's last cruel joke. Her husband wouldn't be back for a few hours. He was in for a rude shock. She had to be quick lest she changed her mind. She would apologise of course. And wish her favourite patient a speedy return to normalcy along with a reference to another therapist. Maybe the therapist friend who'd deemed her weak and deemed Shobha similar to her patient. Let's see if he could resist her charms, fail to grow fond of her and keep it "professional"!

Why couldn't she care about the people her education had equipped her to "heal"? Why did she have to be held back by this cry for "professionalism", a code of honour that she had to follow? Why would caring cloud her judgement? How would one be committed to anything if one didn't care? If it was a chore, why do it? She could have taken a 9-5 job and done chores on computers. Why stop yourself from feeling human if you're working with humans? Humans who are emotionally investing in you? The emotional inhibition for the sake of keeping it professional was burning her from the inside. She would feel better soon.

The rope materialised seemingly out of nowhere. She didn't know how she managed to contort her legs to kick away her chair, but she did. She thought about her patient, then her husband. She could see a million dazzling lights. Before long, it went dark.