Strength of unity (and virtues of social living)

I normally sleep for some extra time on Saturdays and Sundays. But last Saturday was different. I woke up to a loud noise created by a bunch of crows outside my bedroom window. When I peeked out of the window, I saw a bunch of crows on the electric wires and nearby houses. They were looking down at the ground and crowing as if their lives depended on it. They used to take to air every few seconds, scoop down to the ground, then fly up into the air and settle again where they were sitting. This activity was drawing the attention of other crows nearby and they were quickly descending on the scene of action to join this activity.

For a minute I could not figure out what was going on. When I looked at the ground, to my surprise, I saw that a crow had fallen on the ground. It's legs were entangled in some rope, making it unable to fly. It was twisting and turning in the dust, trying to free itself from the rope. Meanwhile, a stray dog was eyeing this rare opportunity to lay it's teeth on the crow. That is when it struck me what exactly was going on there. The crow population was making all the noise to encourage the fallen one and they were hovering close to the ground every few seconds to scare off the dog from going too close to their friend. The amount of noise they were making and their intimidating behavior was enough to keep the dog at bay.

After a while, the crow had freed itself from the rope around it's legs. Now it's friends were even more enthusiastic in encouraging it to take to the sky. But it was just sitting there motionless, making me wonder if it had been too hurt to fly. However, after taking a few more minutes to regain itself, the fallen crow finally took off into the air! This was an incredible sight to me. Because of the single-minded, selfless, dedicated effort of the crow community, one of their own escaped what could have been definite death and flew back into the air. The stray dog, which came back after a few minutes, must have been disappointed to find no crow on the ground, no crows hovering around, just a rope lying in the dust. Unlucky day for him. I started my day being impressed about the unity and mutually helpful nature of the crows.

Ooh!

That must be my longest post till date!

Normalization of India

When somebody goes to US for the first time, he/she is obviously very excited. There are so many new things to see and do, everything there seems to be very exciting and nice. This was especially true of me when I first landed in a small city called Salt Lake City in Utah in the year 2000. During then, Food-World was only just starting off in India, malls and multiplexes were still a few years away. Four-lane roads almost didn't exist either. Hence everything I saw in that small US city seemed to be wonderful. But as time progressed and I visited other places in US, I realized that all cities of the US were very very similar to each other. Similar freeways, similar roads, similar road names (Cedar street readily comes to my mind), McDonalds, Burger Kings, Mixican food joints, Wal-marts, 'Target's, down-towns with high rises. If you had seen one city, you had seen them all. Unless of course you were visiting a national park or other such tourist attraction.

India is not like this. Every city has it's own character and uniqueness. This is especially true for cities in different states, but towns within a state too are never a replica of each other. Compare Hubli and Mysore, you get the idea. The people in US speak about 'cultural differences' between various states/areas of their country, like east coasters and mid-westerners. They have no idea how much diversity can a country can possess until they learn about India.

I have observed a trend recently that is just a trickle now but I expect it to speed up in the coming years. Indian cities are slowly losing some of this diversity and becoming 'normalized'. This trend can now be majorly seen with higher middle-class and high end of the society in bigger cities, fast spreading into smaller towns.

I was in Chennai recently and since I had a few hours of free time during one evening, I roamed in and around Spencer's plaza, the most famous mall in Chennai. Outside the mall, I saw a billboard for 'Fitness One' and I exclaimed "Hey, they are in Chennai as well". In fact, most billboards were of national brands. Inside the mall, I got a sense of deja-vu when I saw outlets of so many familar brands Ihad seen in Forum Mall or Garuda Mall in Bangalore. Cookie Man, Samsonite, Pizza Hut, Subway and so on. In fact I returned from the mall being kind of disappointed, because it felt like I could have seen all that in Bangalore. I should have go to Marina beach instead, that is something that will never come to Bangalore :-)

I had believed that people in Chennai just can't speak Hindi. So I believed that anyone who doesn't know Tamil should try to speak in English. However, to my surprise I found that I was able to get more mileage out of speaking in my broken Hindi (theirs was worse!) than with English. I had found this to be true in Cochin too an year ago. So I am now convinced that within a few more years (or a decade), it will be possible to converse in Hindi almost everywhere in India.

As brands spread their wings across India, they will slowly erode the uniqueness of all places, making them look more and more like each other. It is already possible to go anywhere in India, transact on your ATM card, continue to use your cell phone, visit a cyber-cafe, buy your favorite brand's bottled water, eat your favorite food, buy a flat built by the same developer and feel at home in many other ways. As time goes by, this trend will only increase, making all cities and towns 'normalized' across India. We are miles and generations away from making our cities replicas of each other like it is in the US, but the trend is definitely in that direction.

Chennai is wonderful!

I was in Chennai last weekend. While returning, I was sitting in an auto-rickshaw to reach the airport. It was going at approximately at a speed of Mach 2, with it's wheels barely making contact with the road, narrowly missing other similar autos and cars by a distanceof approximately 2 air molecules. My mind, when it got a bit of respite from being scared to death, was thinking about this wonderful city.

Chennai has always been a fascinating city to outsiders for various reasons. This is the city where if temperatures drops below 20 degrees the entire population could go on hibernation due to cold weather. Due to this weather, air-conditioned cinema halls were common here long before PVRs and INOXes came to Bangalore. I am a native of Udupi district, which is also on the seashore and is approximately at the same latitude. But Chennai heat is different.
An outsider who is not overcharged on a Chennai auto-rickshaw is yet to take birth on Earth. I have once paid Rs.20 for a rickshaw journey and Rs.80 for the return journey on the same route.
This is a city where most restaurants are very strict about their timings. If you enter a restaurant at 1:30PM and ask "What is there to eat?" the only answer you will get is only "Lunch". It is quite likely that they don't even sell idlis during lunch hour. If you go at the right time, you will get to savour a very tasteful Sambhar in most of the restaurants. I don't like their Rasam, though.
This is probably the only state where almost all advertisements, popular TV shows and Hollywood movies are translated to the local language.
Chennai is the headquarters of the strange Tamilnadu politics. A politics where every movie star worth his/her salt dreams of becoming the Chief Minister of the state some day. Of course, the only qualification is that his/her fans should have built some temples for this star. A politics where the leaders, often called Amma or Appa, are literally worshipped by their followers, often by prostrating in front of their leader in public gatherings. A politics where electorate always gives a clear majority to one of the political part
ies, as long as the name of the party contains the letters D, M and K.

Chennai is interesting and fascinating.

Gautham, on my previous post.

Gautham's take on my previous post. I decided that it deserves more limelight than what it can get in an obscure comment in my hardly-read blog. Hence I'm posting it here.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Jobless that I am, I ended up composing this verse.
[Should be sung in the tune of Yankee-doodle-doodle-do!]

Shilpa Shetty goes to london
With her chicken curry
They call her paki, dog, poppodum
n' Shilpa ends up merry.

Yank-the-media out of town
Yank-the media into ground
Thrash the media once for good
And let them lay there buried.

Salman, Vivek and Abhishek
Ash is on a date-fury.
Media goes to hotels and temples
To tell us she'll marry.

Yank-the-media out of town
Yank-the media into ground
Thrash the media once for good
And let them lay there buried.!
-------------------------------------------------------------