Train to Chennai

This title reminds me of a legendary title by Khushwant Singh, "Train to Pakistan". 

The title or this post of mine has nothing to do with the gore and riot in Singh's "Train to Pakistan". 

This post is about my feelings and thoughts when I first came to Chennai.

My first trip to Chennai was when I had to attend a job interview. I really can't describe the thoughts I had in my mind. Did I feel nervous, was I anxious, was I scared? I cannot really put my finger and tell anyone what was it that swept my mind as I boarded my train to Chennai.

There are always a couple of young men who are bored, and, who always find a seat next to yours in a train, and who always talk to you though you don't. I would term it unwanted co-incidence. This time around the unwanted coincidence brought to me a young man who without any prompting from my humble self, introduced himself as a Naval Officer who was on his way to Orissa. He started telling me why he took this particular train, (in my mind I said "Why God Why?"), why he had to travel to Orissa via this route, why he was traveling to Orissa, who his parents were, where his family was, what the rest of his siblings were doing, why he likes the navy....... I do not know who trained him to converse incessantly, but there it was. There was no dearth of topics. Do not mistake me for the one who prompted even an article of this conversation. The gentleman went on talking while I read my magazine.

After a bit when I didn't respond to any of his questions, he looked at me and delivered the classic line "I didn't get your name". 

I am not the hottest desi girl in the world. I am an average looking commoner. If this is my plight, I can only sympathize with the rest of the fairer sex which is endowed with the looks to wow.

Anyways, in my attempt to shoo him away I told him I have an interview and I'm trying to prepare for it, so incase he didn't mind I'd like to be left alone.

And the story continued, he started asking me about the interview.

The next time I came to Chennai, it was to take up the job. I was full of anticipation. I felt elated, I was about to be a salaried individual. I was more fortunate than many others who had not made it. 

At a certain point when you are very close to Chennai Central station there emanates a bad stench. I'm not sure if it is from the factories or the handiwork of civilization, but it hammers your senses.

That is the feeler Chennai gave me sometimes. 

Each time after this bout, whenever I reach the stinking spot, there is this rush within me, which wants me to take the next train and go back home. 

I've been in Chennai for a while now, I'm settled here, but I still don't call it home. 

My home is a different place, it is the place where this train starts from. If we go back some 800 kilometers on the same railway track we'll come across a green expanse. A backwater logged somewhere, some chinese nets on the way, where small kids imitate movie stars, where a regional daily rules the thought process of an entire mass, where English is still alien, where people dream of going to foreign lands to bring back gold and wealth, where children go to school in crisp, starched and bright, white uniforms, where the muezzin calls, the church bell rings and devotees chant auspicious mantras. Where there are houseboats, sea-food, and small rivulets for amateur swimmers. Where there are sweets and delicacies and an elderly mother waits with love in her eyes to see her weary children come back home.

My home is where there are feuds, where there are flags: red, orange, white, green, black, where people laze during the day and go on strike to protect, or protest against, egos. Where there are paddy fields bursting with crop, but only demanding workers, who would do everything else but harvest, where work is considered torturous and contemptuous and people love living on another's mercy. Where quacks thrive, where bribery flourishes, where selfishness prevails and truth lives in silenced by - lanes. Where daylight robbery, murder and slander are not uncommon, such is my home.

God's own country.

Thats why I had to take the Train. The train to Chennai, which leaves behind home and hearth. The train which took me to the place where I earn my livelihood. The stench now reminds me of sweat, of toil, of hardships, of life.

In my mind I hear my mother singing a very old lullaby, and when the pitch surpasses the deafening roar of this mill that ages me, I'll return, wiser, never to board another train to anywhere.

what we see , what we ignore

I finally watched "Slumdog Millionaire". 

It came recommended by a friend, and I had to watch it because she said it's worth a watch. Now for all those who think its because of the hype created by the incessant rant of Indian media (which makes false, true and the trivial, news) at the movie doing an astounding round at the Golden Globe awards, or because Anil Kapoor jumped up from his seat enthusiastically when an award was announced for the movie, no, that was not the reason why I watched it.

There is something about movie making and literature about India which strikes me as strange, India's poverty portrayed in its disgusting originality is always award winning material. Don't get me wrong, I love the movie, I love Indian literature and I love another's perspective of India, but what really stands out is the poverty, the slums, the hunger, the struggle for survival, the violence, the corruption and the crimes.

I really needed a reality check, am I choosing to look at only some part of it and missing that part of India which comes under the microscope and becomes a big hit on big silver screens or becomes a bestseller across the globe? 

A small 10 minute  walk away from my place is a river, (or used to be a river, now it's mostly a drainage), there's a huge bridge on it (courtesy: the corporation or the British) and below the bridge are 6' x 6' x 6' shelters made of bamboo sticks, tarpaulin and plastic sheets, which serve as homes for a few members of homo sapien species. I use that name because they have the same physical form, exhibit similar physical processes, but their method of survival, their lives and their worlds seem to be dramatically different from the rest of us. They worry about their daily bread while those plying on the bridge are in a rush to capitalize on someone else's loss.

They live by the streetlights and cooking fires, the stinking river is the source of their drinking water. They bathe and wash there as well. I fail to fathom at what cost do they keep themselves from starving to death.

One evening as I walked back home, from a vantage point on the bridge I saw an India amidst those dwellings which I wouldn't like to remember, the India painted by the literary world. As I walked ahead on a dark by-road where there are only huge bungalows, a small distance away like no normal kid from the "civilized" India I know, there stood a girl probably 12 or 13, dressed gaudy, colorful clothes, face all made up with cheap colors. I saw her face in a feeble light, that of her expensive mobile, which she constantly monitored to check for calls. I walked past her. A motorcycle stopped close to where she stood, she talked to the person, got on his bike and rode off.

As I watched the movie, I had a sense of deja vu, I had seen this before, not to its entire extent or capacity, but in glimpses.It was from the India that we all choose not to see, to consciously ignore, India described by Rohinton Mistry and the likes of him.

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On a brighter note, I felt extremely happy as I saw A. R. Rahman steal the spotlight for the beautiful music he rendered to the movie. I told my husband, "its kind of inspirational, his story." I would love to read a biography of his life. My husband says he must have faced his own struggles to reach where he is. But I feel he is gifted too, there's a talent, a creativity, which was required to make it to this stature.

The best I could get was his story the way Wikipedia puts it. But I cannot contain my joy as I read his birth date: 6th January, the same date on which yours truly made her whining entry into the world. 

Now I wave my hands over the crystal ball and gaze into the future to see if this magic number weaves magic for me :)