Bangalored!

When we shifted from Chhattisgarh to Bangalore two years back, I had made a silent vow that I would not buy a car in the new city. It was a sentimental decision, not wishing to contribute further to the traffic mess and the spiraling pollution of the once-lovely city. But circumstances forced me to eat my unspoken words soon.

First concern - distance from home to office. In my case it is thirteen kilo metres from Malleshwaram to Koramangala which takes almost an hour on the congested and pot-holed roads of Bangalore. I googled the website of BMTC to find out any direct bus connectivity between these two points. No luck. ‘We had a Volvo service before. But there were hardly any passengers and all those who did travel, had passes! So the bus was cancelled’, informed the helpful bus depot manager at the Malleshwaram bus stand. Then I tried carpooling. I surfed various websites and registered my name and address, place of work and convenient timings for travel. My wife teased me that I was desperate to find a young female partner for travel. I ignored the taunts but fondly hoped that her words would come true. Nothing happened! A good sixteen months later, I did receive a response from a lady but I had to inform her with a heavy heart that I was no more looking for a companion, for carpooling or otherwise. Like they say in cricket, timing is of utmost importance.

For three months I traveled by bus and my boss in the office refused to part with an unused office vehicle. Since there was no direct conveyance to the destination I had to switch buses. In the evenings, I hated to pay through my nose for travelling in overcrowded Volvo buses, with the smell of stale perfume from hip co-passengers (mostly software guys) mixed with sweat assailing my olfactory senses. Once, a young man in sleeveless shirt standing next to me pushed his hirsute, open armpit right under my nose. Revolted, I shoved him hard and ducked to regain my breath and some fresh air. In the mornings, auto rickshawwalahs refused to ply short distances. I took down the numbers of errant auto drivers but lacked the perseverance to pursue. In the evenings whenever we wanted to go to a hotel for dinner, again, the omnipotent autowalahs spoiled the party (and peace at home) with a casual shake of their heads. If the school van failed to turn up one morning, I had to borrow a friend’s vehicle. At long last, I listened to the advice of my wife and children, swallowed my pride, broke my vow and quietly bought a ‘pre-owned’ Maruti car.

For close to two years now, it has been my habit every evening before I leave the office to part the blinds of the window to peer at the overlooking streets below to gauge the mood of traffic. Is it all clear? Is the vehicle movement maddeningly slow? Is it gliding smoothly, like a knife through amul butter? I perform this ritual with trepidation. Not that a roadblock would stop me from heading home! But a traffic jam when you hit the road is a harbinger of a long, long journey ahead.

        When the drive begins, I try not to see the madness outside. I close my eyes and struggle to catch my forty winks. I fail. Then I turn on the FM and try to listen to some new Hindi or Kannada songs. But these days there are more ads and less music in radio channels. Dejected and defeated, I look out.

        Traffic is senseless and depressing in Bangalore and the hapless traffic police are responsible in the least for the chaos. In fact, they respond to your calls with alacrity and try their best to mitigate the havoc. Motorists break the rules at will and honk at the slightest of pretext and sometimes for no reason at all. I have drawn two conclusions after prolonged observation of motorists in Bangalore. First, the number one culprit in breaking traffic rules are two wheelers, followed by autos, taxis and buses in that order. Secondly, women are in no way inferior to men in violation of road codes.

        But there is also another facet to Bangalore, which makes this city definitely livable even to this day despite all the pockmarks. A part that struggles for survival in the face of unimpeded growth of population, vehicles, malls and indifference. The weather is wonderful here and this is the biggest draw for most outsiders who once in Bangalore, do not feel like moving out. A considerable part of Bangalore is still green, especially the older neighborhoods. Of course, green zones and the lung spaces have shrunk and you can hardly find fluttering leaves against the sky in the new localities. But random efforts are on by active NGOs and foresters to bring back the lost glory. This city has a vibrant middle class which still cherishes the values of a decent, dignified living. People are courteous and helpful. Private schools are not only about air-conditioned class rooms, ipads and NASA visits. MTR (Mavalli Tiffin Room) is still there and so is the charming Gandhi Bazar. Darshini hotels are ubiquitous, clean and serve tasty food at reasonable prices. Where else can you have a glass of fresh fruit juice for ten to fifteen bucks? Lalbagh and Cubbon Park are serene and enchanting, even today. The only question is, for how long.

Taare Zameen Par ?

Why am I writing this disheartening piece? I really don’t know. The bitter truth about the abuse of innocent children assails us every day but nothing seems to change. As a parent and also as an ordinary citizen worried about the falling quality of life in every sphere, this topic has been troubling me for long. So, it is an effort to scribble something about this national disgrace, a kind of catharsis. Even if a few of us try in our own little ways to mitigate the misery of the luckless souls, what could be better than that?

In India, one child goes missing every eight minutes. This translates into 65,700 disappeared children in one year. So says the National Crime Records Bureau. Forty percent of them never get to see their parents again. This is a chilling statistic which unfortunately gets buried under the din over secularism, GDP, sliding rupee and growth rate. The children are kidnapped for human trafficking, begging, as domestic slaves, bonded labourers in factories, prostitution and child porn racket. Many are mutilated before being forced into begging to evoke sympathy. This is horrifying, shameful and extremely disconcerting.

The response of the police (after granting the requisite latitude for all the handicaps faced by the force) and our society towards this shocking chronicle is typical. We remember the horror of Nithari but initially when the slum-dwelling parents went to the police to lodge complaints about their missing children, they were shooed away. In sharp contrast, when the Adobe India CEO’s son was kidnapped for ransom, senior police officers paid visit to the house of the CEO and everything was done to ensure that the boy was released unharmed.

Why millions of children are suffering this fate when they should be actually enjoying their precious childhood, playing with toys, attending schools? Is the administration doing anything to provide some semblance of dignity and happiness to these poor kids? Or rather, is it nigh impossible in a stable democracy like ours to plan and execute dedicated welfare schemes targeting such children? How many tiny tots we see on a daily basis, begging, rolling in mud and filth near construction sites, on the roads, train stations and footpaths? God forbid, but let us replace, only for a moment, the face of a child begging on the street in Delhi with that of our loved one. Does not a shiver  run down our spine?

   In ‘Brothers Karamazov’ by Fyoder Dostovsky, there is an interesting discussion between the brothers Ivan and Aloysha on God. Ivan cannot reconcile the existence of a loving and all-compassionate god with that of the ineffable suffering of blameless children. He questions Aloysha, ever the believer, about incidences wherein parents themselves punish their children cruelly, and the crimeless little souls are terrified, confused and shattered. Many of you might have read about a father and stepmother assaulting and maiming their five year old son last week in Kerala. I am not philosophically inclined, but even then, the logic of karma seems absurd here.  

While I was posted briefly in Nagaland in the year 2004, I regularly used to travel via Kolkata and Guwahati by train. I would be disturbed by the sight of young street urchins at railway platforms, sniffing at a piece of cloth in their fists, dipped in some stimulant, having nasty physical fights with each other. They were foul-mouthed and violent-pelting stones and crushing bandicoots near the train tracks. Almost every one of them had one open wound or a leaking abscess on his little body. What circumstances might have placed these young ones in such a pathetic situation, I used to wonder. Later, when I was working in Durg district of Chhattisgarh, I was privileged to be associated with a program which aimed at educating the homeless, street children in special, boarding schools. One lady from the town used to voluntarily visit the kids every evening, teaching them alphabets and telling stories. I was moved by the response of these juveniles when they were shown love. Till then, perhaps throughout their childhood, what they had experienced was only scorn, abuse and hardships. When they were treated with tender words and kindness and when they realized that are some people who care for them too, their reciprocation was touching.

The plight of children is the same in most of the poor countries of Asia, Africa and South America. It is possibly much worse in the war-ravaged zones. Perhaps, as the great man Buddha once said, life is nothing but suffering. The world is of course not perfect but what makes this fact more poignant is the misery of the little angels of God. 

The Wrath of Gods

              The Himalayas have this unique ability to force even an atheist to wonder about the possibility of the existence of a superhuman power, although ephemerally. These were my thoughts when I came out of the Gadhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam (GMVN) hotel at Ghangariya in Chamoli district of Uttaranchal one August morning in 2001 and looked around. The weather was cold, crisp and enchanting. Towering mountains stared down majestically at the tiny hamlet. Lakshman Ganga river gurgled through the small town before it merged with Alakananada at Govindghat further down. On that day, we enjoyed a short trek of six kilometres up to the famous Sikh pilgrimage centre Hemkund Sahib. After a tiring walk, we had delicious khichdi at the langar, gazed at the amazingly blue lake near the shrine and on a nearby hillock, touched the Brahma Kamal (Saussaria lappa) flowers. The experience was pleasant and unforgettable.

Govindghat is a ghost town now. The villagers have locked their houses (or whatever remained of them) and disappeared into the safer plains below. On the day when the disaster struck in the form of foaming, muddy and ravaging waters cascading from the hills in a flurry of fury, everything on its path was destroyed. Houses, hotels, dams, road, vehicles and people. Multi-storied lodges crumbled like castles of sand kissed by the lapping sea waves. This tale of disaster was repeated in other hill towns of Uttarakhand and in some parts of Himachal. The wrath of nature and the mayhem it brought on its wake is perhaps unprecedented.

On the expected lines, we see Barkha Dutt, Arnab Goswamy and Rajdeep Sardesai on prime time television crying hoarse over the environmental degradation in the Himalayas over the years which has pushed us to the edge of the precipice. The sad fact is that this calamity will soon be forgotten like all other breaking news before this. Do we see or hear anything about Commonwealth Games, 2G, Ponzi schemes of West Bengal these days? People move on and life goes on. But mercifully, this tragedy in the hills is different and it has given a rude wake up call which should be reverberating through the lengths and breadths of the country. We can forget this at our own peril.

As on today, around 600 small and large-sized dams are either operational, under construction or being planned on the river Ganga and its various tributaries like Alaknanda and Bhagirathi. If all the projects go through, 60 percent of Alaknanda and Bhagirathi would permanently dry up. About 130 kilo metres of the rivers would continuously remain tunneled. These ‘developmental activities’ would drown thousands of hectares of forests, twist and turn the course of rivers, dig burrows and stuff concrete, bring in heavy machinery to the tranquil lands, and finally kill the soul of the place. But even after all these, the stated lofty objectives are almost never achieved. Here is one small example.

 On 15^th May, a Member of Parliament, Rewati Raman Singh made the following statement in the Parliament. “Having commissioned the Tehri dam on river Ganga as the irrigation and environment minister of Uttar Pradesh, I have no qualms in saying that it was the biggest mistake of my life. The then Union Minister for Environment Ms Maneka Gandhi was opposed to the project. But we were somehow led to believe that the Tehri dam would generate 2400 MW of electricity and irrigate 1.67 lakh hectares of land. Nothing of this sort happened. Not even 400 MW of electricity is being generated. I am reminded of the words of social reformer Madan Mohan Malviya, who had said that if we construct dams like this in the Himalayas, then the whole of north India will be destroyed” (Source-Tehelka Magazien, Issue 22, Vol 9)

According to several independent observers, the major purpose of all these projects (does this not apply to most of the civil works executed by various departments in our country?) is only one-contracts and commissions.

On an average, nine to ten lakh pilgrims visit Badrinath and Kedarnath annually. If you take a conservative estimate of half a kilo gram of non-biodegradable waste generated by one pilgrim, it amounts to a staggering 450 tons of junk every year. How this is being segregated/managed and disposed-off is anybody’s guess. The stench of our footprints on rivers, mountains, streams, air and the soil - all divine blessings of nature - is nauseating, all-pervading and impossible any more to ignore.

In these times of rapacious greed, where it is difficult to tell the wrong from the right, where the suave and genteel are taken to be sincere and honest, where the rulers and the ruled do not think twice before poisoning the fountains of our very sustenance, it is indeed pertinent to take a peek into the pages of history. During the treaty negotiations with the colonial whites in 1852, the native Indian-American chief of Seattle gave a now famous speech in response to an offer by the US government to buy two million acres of Land that belonged to the Indians. He said;

“How can you buy or sell the sky? The land? The idea is strange to us. What will happen when the buffaloes are all slaughtered, the wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forests are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe mountains is blotted by talking wires? Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone. End of living and beginning of survival”.

It is time to pay heed.

A walk through the magical land

            As the curtain of mist slowly lifts, we make out two dark, hazy, rock-like structures, about a hundred metres away from us. Then the rocks move, forward and backward and we see two fully grown elephants blocking our path or is it the other way round? Sajeev Kumar, the forest guard who is walking ahead of us, slowly places his right forefinger on his lips and swiftly and silently walks up the hill with the objective of skirting the saddle path. Excited and terrified in equal measure, I and Praneetha run after him. Those who have encountered the elephants in the wild and who understand the unpredictability and the resultant danger of these colossal giants would be able to appreciate our thumping hearts!

who is there?

now you know!

              Eravikulam National Park is a small expanse of wilderness in Idukki district of Kerala, created with the purpose of providing a safe sanctuary to the rare and endangered Nilgir Tahrs. As a part of Forest Inventory works being conducted by Forest Survey of India in Kerala, I am here to see the forests and our field work. We start the trek rather late, at 3.30 in the afternoon. Pre-monsoon showers and thick blankets of mist could make the walk tricky, the wildlife warden Mr Saju had warned us. But the weather holds and we strike gold even before our walk could begin. A mountain-hardy jeep is ferrying us to the starting point of the trek and suddenly a big herd of Nilgiri Tahrs runs across the road and stands watching us from a safe distance. As the vehicle huffs and puffs towards them up the torturous bends, bouncing over liberally strewn rocks, the Tahrs bolt, jump down a fence of slab-stones and vanish into the trimmed tea-bushes.

               The long march starts from the point where the tea plantations end and the shola forests (a typical forest type found at the valleys of rolling grasslands in the high altitudes of Western Ghats) begin. The ground is wet with the previous evening’s rain and the leaches are waiting on the trail eager to latch on to warm skin. It begins to drizzle a little but the shower fails to dampen our spirits. As we walk up, the valley below is a carpet of greenery of tea plants and other flora speckled with sparse habitations. After a climb of about thirty minutes, we come across the first of several Rhododendrons. The trees are in bloom in a mass of red petals. I remember the refreshing drink I had five years back, made out these flame-like petals in the hills near Manali.

Rhododendron

Gaurs grazing

Tahrs from far

 Another thirty minutes of gradual ascent and we reach a plateau. It is five in the evening and Sajeev assures us that the difficult stretch is behind us. It is only grasslands and more grasslands from here with forests confined to the valleys below us. The weather is a bit chilly and crisp now. As we look around us, we realize that this place is no less than the valley of flowers of the Himalayas. Whichever direction we see, the views are mesmerizing. The floor and the sides of the hills are carpeted with a cornucopia of flowers - asters, wild lilies, ground orchids, begonias and daisies. We spot numerous Nilakurinji (Strobilanthes kunthiana) plants which flower once in twelve years and are scheduled to paint the hills blue in 2018. A small brook flows silently, meandering down the hills along the valleys and forms a puddle of clear, sweet water. We quench our thirsts and Shankar, a forest watcher and our companion hands us a few wild raspberry fruits-bitter-sweet, fresh and rejuvenating. We sit near the creek for a while. It is serene and peaceful. Sajeev shows us several insect catching ‘drosera’ plants by the stream and indeed a couple of flies are trapped in the glandular tentacles of this carnivorous plant. The sun has already set and we make haste. Then from nowhere, a small lake appears in the gorge below us. ‘Bheemnaoda’, or the pond/channel of Bheema, Sajeev explains. It is straight out of a picture post card and the bewitching spectacle is beyond words.

Bheemnaoda-picture postcard

blues, bees

drosera, the insect catcher

solitary beauty

white and wild

yellow bloom

star flower

the ensemble

It is dusk when we stand in front of the small forest guest house, or the Eravikulam hut. There is a fading, dreamlike, mildly glowing but soothing light on the landscape. I quickly click a few snaps before the moment slips into darkness. A saddleback (mature, male Tahr) appears on the ridge of an opposite mountain, tilts his head a wee bit looking in our direction, turns and slowly walks away. We drench in the moment, gazing into the horizon and standing still, with a cup of black tea in our hands. It is quiet all around and the world is at peace.

after sunset

a vine snake poses briefly

mini valley of flowers

Nilagiri langur, near the base point

The lessons they teach

I have been postponing this decision to start a blog for quite a long time. 'Who are going to read my blogs anyway?', I thought, was a reasonable assessment both of my abilities to write and readers' ability to endure. Secondly I was worried whether I would be able to sustain the flow. 'Aarambhashooratva' (a Sanskrit phrase), a common human weakness that afflicts many a well-meaning endeavors, applies to writing as well. But then, suddenly I discovered a purpose today. May be, if I stick to writing two pieces (okay, one) in  a month, I would be doing something creative. This could perhaps keep my sanity intact and give me a well-deserved break from the monotony of file-pushing, travelling in the maddening traffic of Bangalore and umpiring during the fights between my two sons. Or so I hope. Though a forester by choice, I will not be restricting myself to all things green and wild. Ok, here I go.

The lessons they teach

            About twenty-five years back, on a cloudy-sky gloaming, I climbed up the stairs of the Syndicate Bank building in my village with mounting unease and sweaty palms. I was returning home after the school hours when suddenly a thought came to my mind. Why not go to the bank and ask my father to buy me an ice-candy? My elder brother, who has always had a more mature head above his shoulders, had assured me before walking home that father would not agree as he had acceded to my demand only the previous evening. Undeterred, I ambled up, my spirit a little dampened by my brother's refusal to accompany me. Familiar faces of my father's colleagues greeted me as I entered the office and someone called out, "Shastriji, your son has come to meet you". 

Busy doing some calculations on a thick register, my father raised his eyebrows and looked at me, without lifting his head.

"I want one ice-candy', I mumbled, a little shaken by his stern countenance.

"No", my father shot back almost immediately. "Not today. Only yesterday evening you had one".

"But appa I need only one", I pleaded.

"Today you will not get any ice-candy. Just go home. I have work to do".

Tears welled up in my eyes as I realized that all the staff of the bank was looking at us and I shrunk with humiliation. Determined not to end up a loser in front of others, I tried again, "appa please".

"Look here son", my father told firmly with a raised voice. "No more arguments. Go home now and do not irritate me any further".

"Shastriji, why don't you get him a candy? Poor boy, he is almost crying", a sympathetic lady staff told my father. Encouraged by this support, I ventured once more, "appa, it's only ten paisa".

Perhaps that was the proverbial last straw.

"Enough of it son. It is not the question of ten or twenty paisa. You will not get candies everyday. Is that clear to you? Now, will you go home or not"?

I realized that my father was in no mood to relent and I certainly did not relish the prospect of getting a beating or two in front his colleagues! I was left with no option but to walk home swallowing my pride with my mission unaccomplished.

          This incident comes to my mind whenever I see young kids being pampered by their doting parents these days. Chocolates, chips, ice cream, toys-whatever the little ones ask for, the parents are more than eager to grant their wishes, just to see their children happy. Is it not worth to pause for a moment and reflect-are we doing the right thing by acceding to all the demands of the tiny tots? Will it not make the kid think that she can get whatever she wants? Will it not make her trash the idea of thrift? Will it not make her indifferent to the fact that every kid in this world is not as fortunate as her? Will it ever make the kid realize the value of money? Will it not make her more materialistic from a very early age?

          When my father refused to buy me a candy on that evening I realized that had he wanted he could have mollified me by spending ten paise. But he wanted me to understand and accept that I will not get whatever I want or demand. Perhaps he knew that his denial would teach me this important lesson. Not to be greedy and to acknowledge the truth that in life we do not get everything we desire. Values that are arguably of high relevance for today's generation.


rajesh kallaje
bangalore