Animals are beautiful people

Every Creek, river, pond in Padova has ducks. I wonder if government decided to let them live there just like that or added them for ambience. But it is a delight to watch them swim and fly. Yeah they fly so gracefully. If I was a duck, I would have wanted to be here because, I am sure ducks here dont end up being Mandarin duck, Chettinadu duck, or Tharavu varatharachathu. So, it's nice to be a duck in Padova. I am not saying people here wont eat ducks but they don't lift them from ponds like we do in our places. I remember how my cousins enjoyed doing that. And the pic below is ducks in India-( Delhi) many I am sure are no more.

Road Rage: a bump on the road or more than that?

Year - 1988, Place – Patiala; a city in the northern state of Punjab. BJP MP and cricket star Navjot Singh Sidhu gets into a dispute with 65-year- old Gurnam Singh over a parking space. Sidhu and his friend then thrash Gurnam on the road until he dies.

This road incident neither covered on the front pages nor extensively debated on prime time, results from a human behaviour which all us have either witnessed or have been directly indulged in. Though it appears to be an event of violence out of personal vendetta, deeper analysis reveal it to be an act of freak violence termed as 'Road Rage’.　　

Road Rage has conventionally meant aggressive or physical conflicts arising on the road between motorists. This conventional definition has often misled us to believe that only aggressive behaviour is road rage and other subtle and instinctive actions like honking and flashing lights excessively, gestures such as “showing the finger", shouting obscenities or threats, cutting others off in a lane, excessive braking, tailgating etc are all natural extensions of the driving process. This strange behaviour has often been met with indifference from people because of its representation as just a minor irritant even though it eventually manifests in the most violent and lethal form.

Lalit Kumar, a Sales Professional, who spends almost six hours on the road every day, says that a vehicle for him is a means of power and speed. The moment he feels himself losing control he promptly asserts himself on the road. He reveals that often he assigns an imaginary space around his motor vehicle as belonging to him and if that space is breached by others he feels violated. Psychologists have revealed that it's not often the damage to a vehicle that irks a driver rather it is the violation of this imaginary territorial space that creates a sense of powerlessness and defeat which leads to road rage.

Dhanya Chaudary, though not often on the wheels herself, admits, “We never learn to swear until we start driving.” Actions like swearing and showing the finger give motorists a means to break the shackles of helplessness and provide an opening to let the steam out. She, travels by company provided bus to office, has another interesting take on the subject. She feels that we tend to think about issues and frustrations back at home and office while driving and then at the slightest provocation resort to road rage. Quite often these thought processes tend to divert our attention from the road and a momentary lapse leads to a bump or a graze with other vehicles. Then, instead of accepting our mistake and apologizing, we tend to carry forward our frustration into actions of road rage. Lack of time or hurrying to reach our destination is another widely accepted reason which leads people to lose self-control and act offensively.

Pankaj Sachdev, Sub-Inspector (Traffic), on the other hand feels that it's the external factors that are to be blamed more than human feelings. Growing number of vehicles, narrow and pitiful conditions on the roads, traffic congestion, weather, pollution and noise levels are the primary reasons that lead to road rage. He opines that our feelings, however subconscious, get triggered by these factors and waits at a conscious level to assert itself at the slightest provocation. Road rage should not be confused with accidents. Accidents on road are generally attributed to losing control of one’s vehicle, which then leads to the mishaps. Road rage on the other hand has more to do with losing control of one’s emotions, which leads to erratic actions and in some cases might cause accidents. Though not all acts of road rage lead to accidents they build up a cauldron of negative energy in people, which is perpetually boiling, and ready to spill over on fellow motorists.

In India there is limited of no data on road rage as it is not officially recognized as a problem and any such incidents are usually bracketed as accidents or physical conflicts on road. But in western countries there is sufficient data gathered to prove that road rage is indeed a problem which needs deeper analysis and attention. A survey, administered by Response Insurance in U.S, revealed that 34 percent of drivers say they honk their horn at the aggressor, 27 percent yell, 19 percent give the finger back, 17 percent flash their headlights, and 7 percent mimic the initial aggressive driving behavior. Two percent of drivers admit to trying to run the aggressor off the road. When it comes to aggressive responses, men are more likely than women to do so (54% vs. 46%), as are drivers age 18-24 (67%) versus drivers 65 and older (30%). Drivers with children are more likely to respond aggressively (59%) versus those without children (45%), and cell phone users (59%) versus those who do not use a cell phone while driving (39%).

Driving on the road is not a competitive sport to be won. It's just a means of reaching from point A to point B. Also while driving don't consider your vehicle as an extension of yourself but just as a tool to get a job done. There are a lot of other little things which when followed can prevent road rage. Detach yourself from all problems in life while you are driving. With driving itself becoming a problem nowadays you don't want to multiply your woes. Instead listen to relaxing music while driving, maybe instrumentals like flute or harp, but avoid hard metal or rock bands. These usually tend to excite people and might prove counterproductive. Always try to give yourself plenty of time to get to where you're going, particularly keeping in mind traffic congestions. People always try to make up lost time, on other activities, by driving fast, leading to carelessness on the road. Respect your time on the road and allocate it the time it requires. Another strategy is to accept that you're running late, inform the other party expecting you that you will be late and that you can't do anything about it. One other major irritant on the road is ‘honking’. Sound the horn judiciously, only as a means of signaling to a fellow driver rather than to get the better off him. Nothing frustrates a person more than the indiscriminate use of the horn by a motorist behind him but the same person becomes so indifferent to the woes of the drivers in front of him when he has a free go at his own horn. Nobody wants to spend his/her whole day on the road and you don’t have any special reason to let the horn speak for your frustration. One another problem specific to Indian drivers is that they try to gain advantage, in a confrontation situation on the road, by making the first offensive move, even when one is clearly at fault; this does not always work to your benefit. Being apologetic or saying 'sorry' when you err goes a long way in preventing a confrontation, be it off the road or on the road. Last but not the least, follow traffic rules meticulously and encourage others to do so.

Driving is no more a pleasure or stress buster as it was earlier, but a chore that people desperately try to avoid, all because of the deplorable conditions on the road and the attitude of people using it. Who knows the next time you are scouting for parking in a mall or a movie hall and somebody might cut you to it. Then it is advisable that you keep your cool and not be aggressive because if the other person turns out to be a Navjot Singh Sidhu then you may have to pay with your life for that parking space. Unfortunately Gurnam Singh never saw it coming.

Marriage matters- Journey to the altar part 7

I wanted a break. Marriage was frightening. But now it hurt my pride to be rejected twice. The old feminist sprang up. I knew ‘Who’ had second thoughts once; but he was more committed when he came back. He wanted to keep his word this time and make up for his misjudgment earlier. I personally felt his father was impulsive and anyways I am not going to be with the in-laws forever but nevertheless how dare they thought they could reject me? The thought irritated me. But frankly I had not expected a Bollywood melodrama. I had friends teasing me for lunch and dinner at the cafeteria unaware of the catastrophe and I managed to dine wearing a plastic smile. “Don’t say things like call wedding off because if I lose you now, I am sure I won’t get you back”, ‘Who’ said. “And why is that?”, I asked. “Because any guy can marry you but no one could accept and love me the way you do”, ‘Who’ was never insecure before because he had never let anyone get so close to him. I felt it took him a lot of courage to phrase those words and I don’t believe he was being mushy in a tragedy. But I am a loser and I admit I had second thoughts; I liked being tragedy queen and suddenly could not reciprocate except to console ‘Who’. God sends angels in time of crisis and I firmly believed in it. Else why would a guy who slept at office, with a spare tooth brush enter the drama at this point? Our celebrated wedding site proclaimed him the manager of the wedding affair. Little did he know he would manage more mess than he had imagined. This was ‘bhai’ – ‘Who’s BHAI.

My equations with him were so-so until then, but the whole turn of events had upset him. The rebel he is and having his own issues with his father he decided this situation required a revolution. I had lost hopes but that evening was the longest evening of my life when I had a series of conference on phone planning strategies for my wedding. It was now war and not love, but I agree “Everything is fair in Love and War”.

Technically bhai could be an atheist for I have not heard him say anything about faith in god. He decided the wedding would happen and in my church because their dad had already called it off so technically it could not happen at their place. His logistics were clear. Reprint cards and pre-pone the wedding. Their parents would not be informed and to ensure they never reach Kerala the first step to be ensured was to cancel their existing train tickets.

I thought my mother would not relent to this but she did to my surprise and I realized her pride was as hurt as mine. I didn’t knew what to inform people about people around for the sudden change of dates and places. ‘Who’ informed his acquaintances that some relative of his has taken ill critically and therefore the wedding needed to be conducted before he passed away and I used the same alibi at the department. It was tough considering I was comparing for a conference and had to repeat the same lie to every person I met.
If things go as planned there would be two people from the bridegroom’s side ‘Who’ and ‘bhai’. A friend of mine said he could arrange a whole group to fake as my in-law’s side to trick the people. It sounded awkward but so did a two people bridegroom party. I imagined what would have happened if the situation had reversed – me all alone at my wedding. Tears welled up as I met ‘Who’ and ‘bhai’ at Cochin airport; they had come down to complete all the formalities for a wedding at the girl’s place. Wedding at short notice needed special requests from the church and I felt ashamed seeing my old mother repeat the same story to priests.

“Our life begins from here, we just got each other, remember that”, ‘Who’ said. “And never ever think of leaving me, I have left everyone for you”. I have heard women say such dialogues. It would have boosted my feminist ego to make a man do this for me but I was not happy hearing it. I felt crushed under the debt of love and respect. A part of mine changed forever.

Was this how life was going to be? I wished we still could have a happy ending. I could not smile but throughout he held my hand firmly and smiled as if he had the whole world with him.

Animals are beautiful people

I loved the background and the model :) thought of kissing him too, to see if he would turn into a prince. But, then 'Who' was next to me and I did not know where to throw him if this fellow really became a prince so I decided to keep a pic of the charming prince and carry on with 'Who'.

Some Nescafe stories

I cherish my childhood days the most. I didnt have much to do being confined to an apartment. Now when I watch children playing in parks and streets I realise I never had any of those luxuries. But it was strange that as kids we never demanded to be let out we were very obedient , my mom says. But within those four walls we had our imaginary world. I consider myself unfortunate as my memories of childhood were never mine. My memories were borrowed from my siblings. All my tales are their adventures. I was precociously mature and wanted to grow up soon. And in this stupid pursuit I failed to appreciate many beautiful moments where I should have just been a kid.

This is an all time favourite episode of my childhood memories. I call it the Nescafe war.

Mom like any other Indian woman had this strange habit of storing spices in bottles of nescafe, horlicks. She was a hoarder of bottles and plastic covers and still is. Dad a supporter in this movement would even bring bottles from office to encourage this maddness. I hope mom is not reading this else she would explain how all the pickles were stored and how many bottles travelled to my hostels.

That unfortuante day my sister decided to start a new hobby a collection of nescafe bottles. What could you expect from poor kids confined to four walls three months of summer vacation. I often found the hobbies of my siblings an insult to intellect and was busy reading a book. My brother was hardly 2 years then and he had problems with his speech. He usually never spoke much but that particular day he made and emphatic statement " I am starting nescafe bottle collection today". Thud!!!! " How can you, I just started it today , you copy cat?", yelled my sis. My brother looked too cute that you would give him anything he asked with that cute smile of his.

He found out that there were just two bottles with which my sister had begun her collection. I could not fathom what interest they had with junk so I continued reading. I could hear my collection, my collection being yelled and after sometime I heard a scream and mom came running from the kitchen.

My brother had long nails and was scared of a nailcutter. Mom could only cut his nails when he was asleep and it was due for quite some time. My brother scratched my sister to get those two bottles. It was a street fight kya family hai, I told myself.

"Why could you not control them , you are the big sister", mom yelled at me. I gave her the

" You- Talking- About- These-Mortals- To- Me look. My sister was screaming for the bottles with a bleeding face and my brother seemed pleased. Mom snatched both the bottles and cancelled the distributorship to nescafe bottles.

Now when I go home I see the same brother make coffee for the same sister who drinks it from a nescafe cup with the scar on her cheek. And I still smile reading my book - Kya nescafe din the

Bachpan bhi gaya , jawani bhi gayi ab jeene lage hai :)

HAPPY BDAY BRO

Animals are beautiful people

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened. I firmly beleive this. And I have often felt upset seeing some of my friends talk about killing animals as they are nuisance. What gives us legitimacy over such acts of perversion beats me. This is chotu and I dont know where he is. He was brought to the hostel by someone who saw him astray at the main gate of IIT. He used to suck my finger because he was just born and had no mother. I tried feeding him with a filler for few days and my friends shrieked seeing him suck my thumb. I am alive and to hell with animal haters.

Marriage matters- Journey to the altar part 6

Sorry people, we got carried away a little bit in this journey. Happens!! right? Then realised that we left behind a lot of friends who were following our journey closely. So here we come back again.

Everything was fine despite the lover’s quarrels and my bouts of depression. I woke up feeling depressive and blamed it on my PMS . The cards had been printed and mom had sent me a bundle to distribute to my friends and teachers. ‘Who’ had sent his share of cards too, insisting I distribute his cards along with mine to my guide and some friends. I smiled looking at his green card with silver embossing; royally done. “It’s my first wedding so let that be royal”, he had said. I was a bit nervous with the marriage taking place at his church.

We belonged to two denominations- ‘Who’ is a Syrian Orthodox and I Syrian Catholic. Technically we are all Christians and believe in the same God. But when it comes to marrying, churches get over protective and possessive. No church has ever explained to me if there are different tracks in heaven to mark one denomination superior to other. However mom was happy about ‘who’ being a Syrian Orthodox which meant I need not convert to his denomination.

I was however asked to go and collect a letter from an Orthodox church in Chennai which I dutifully did. The priest seemed too spirited to give me a dogmatic lecture on joining the new clan. I was fretting over not being able to use a veil for my wedding when ‘who’ called. To have the engagement in my church the groom’s people needed a letter from their church. We had just a week for engagement. His voice was wavering. He was weeping and kept blabbering “don’t leave me”. It took me some time to calm him over the phone. And to think of this was the same guy who had left me once. “Don’t hate me for this but I am told I am not a Syrian orthodox, I am a Malankara Orthodox”. This would look like just two words to many but to me the sky fell that instant.

Catholics pride themselves being the largest section of Christians. They differ from Protestants basically in three ways. 1)They follow a leader- Pope. 2)They believe in saints and have lots of them. 3)They have church practices and hierarchy outside bible.
‘Who’ and his denomination is a group that cannot be classified Catholics because they don’t follow the pope but they have a different leader in Antioch, a place in Turkey. But since they believe in similar practices and have common origins as Catholic church, marriages were possible between these groups initially. Like all political group a recent split within their church made our church cancel these mixed marriages.

I always asked ‘who’ about these stuffs and he assured me he was a Syrian Orthodox. But when I insisted to confirm he called up his dad’s place only to realise what he believed all these years was wrong. And now with cards printed he was hysteric that I would leave him under parental pressure.

The marriage was not impossible all I had to do was to convert to his side. But that would mean I won’t have the engagement at my place and all would know something was wrong. Moreover it would be breach of trust. ‘Who’ could not help yelling at his father who took the matter trivial and said if the girl has to come to our place let her convert.
My mother took it rather well and said let’s see how we can repair the damage. To top it all we were all in four cities and trying to sort things over phone.

Who’ decided to marry at my church to save my mother from embarrassment. She had already gone ahead and agreed for my wishes and ‘who’ felt his father was at wrong for repeatedly saying they were of a different denomination. What irked me most was how unaware they were of their own religion and if it meant nothing to them why were they furious and adamant about marrying from same community? Why did it boil down to the girl always? We take up new names; surnames sometimes even convert to a new religion because that’s what the society prescribes.

But here ‘Who’ had decided to turn tables. We were on voice conference with ‘who’s’ brother when mom called me up. She joined the voice conference and said “who’s dad had called now. He asked her what mom’s opinion was on calling of the wedding? He said he would not let the wedding happen.

Who ‘went silent? He once told me if he had to choose between me and his parents, he would leave both of us. I was angry at the vehemence of his parents who believed they could impose anything they wanted because they were the groom’s party.
“What do you plan to do?” asked mom.

For a moment I wished I was dreaming. I tore the first wedding card. I did not want this whole fuss, I could not dream of entering a new life, a new family in this chaos.
Are you planning to leave me? ‘Who’ asked. “I think we should call off the wedding and think and give some time”, I said.