On the way from work to home yesterday, I saw a man lying on the road divider at the toll gate. Just in front of him was a dog lying in the same position as him. This made me think about the things that I did not get to do in life or sometimes I did do in life…
Beg
Thousand of people beg in this country. While some take it as a profession, there are many who had to resort to begging because of the circumstances. The closest I have come to begging was on a chilly night a few years back at Madurai. Abhi and me were headed to my parents’ house at TVS Nagar, Madurai from Pudukottai. We had got down at Mattuthavani and were waiting for a town bus to take us home. I had ten bucks with me and so I bought a Polo and a packet of Lays Spanish Tomato Tango chips. (How could I forget?)
We were munching away when I asked Abhi, “Do you have money for the tickets?”
“No! I thought you had the money!!”
“!@(#%$ I was thinking that you had some cash!!”
It was time to beg! We looked around for a kind soul but the place was deserted. Abhi had a packet of Wai Wai noodles with him and we thought we could sell it to a friendly face! We did come close to begging but we did not beg that day…
We took an auto-rickshaw to the nearest ICICI ATM (which was quite far) and withdrew 100 bucks. The driver did not have change and so we walked into a Hot-Breads outlet and ordered something. After paying the driver, we had 10 bucks with us. After eating some bad burgers, we headed home. That 100 bucks meant a lot to us as both of us were on monthly allowances of 1000 bucks a month which included the mess bill. And we had to use this allowance for one way journey home. So you can imagine the pinch…Sigh!
Download
If you have a toilet in your house, feel blessed. Millions of people in this country do not have access to a private toilet or even a public toilet. So how is it done? There are designated places in each village for the purpose. The places are separate for either gender. It is usually some unused farmland or infertile ground. The place is hidden behind bushes. Every morning just when the rays of the sun are lighting up the sky, you have to find a nice little place to do your download. If you are a kid or a teenager, you could find a few friends and then head together to the place. Once you are there, pull up your lungi and start fertilizing the ground while discussing the previous day’s homework. Once the work is done, head to the irrigation stream nearby and wash away.
So have I done this? Not once but twice!! When I was in eighth standard, I visited a friend’s village which was at Sembarpatti near Dindigul. And then the surprise was waiting for me! And yes, I had to do it. But thankfully, we did not have a download conference. Phew! And the second time happened when I visited another friend’s village near Orthanadu in Thanjavur district. And I had to do the same! Thankfully, I did not have to be part of a conference here too…
Two or three years back the government started a Total Sanitation Scheme in which commodes and septic tanks were offered at very low prices to the public. And the adoption rate has been amazing. So in a few years, we could be looking at the death of download conferences!! Hmm…
Platform
A lot of people sleep on the footpaths and platforms. Some people are drunk but most people do not have a home. Sometimes I travel late from Vellore to my home at Chengalpattu. I end up being in Kanchipuram at 11 or 12. When the bus to Chengalpattu is late, I start considering sleeping in the bus stand. But thankfully, this has never come to pass. And even if it were to pass, I seriously doubt whether I will spend the night at the bus stand. There is a GRT hotel nearby and I might just walk in there and wag my debit card or credit card. Sheez! The fun in life is gone…
I have spent a night in a railway station. A few months back, my brother was traveling from Thrissur to Vellore. My Dad and I spent the night waiting at the station to pick him up. I had just arrived at Vellore and we thought we might as well pick up my brother from the station. And we waited and waited and finally he did not come by the train that he said he will be coming in. And so I spent the night sleeping on a bench in Katpadi.
Unreserved
The fastest I have traveled is in a Jan Shatabdi. My parents were at Erode and I used to take this train from Erode to Trichy on the way back to college at Pudukottai. The train was clean and classy. And it almost saved an hour of travel time. When I travel by train, I travel by IInd Sleeper. But sometimes, circumstances have made me travel unreserved.
There was this time when my classmates sent a friend and me to Chennai to arrange for a tour (officially called an Industrial Visit). The class decided that we had to travel unreserved and so my friend and I had to do the same for the journey to Chennai and back. Trying to get a seat in an unreserved compartment is an art form which I have never mastered. Luckily, we got places to even stretch our legs during this journey.
The worst I have traveled in an unreserved compartment is on a trip from Madurai to Nagerkoil. One of my friend’s father had died of cancer and we decided to be with him for the funeral. And there were about 15 of us. Five of us tried to catch some sleep on the luggage rack above the seats. My back was on the rack while my legs were up against the wall. I traveled all the way from Madurai to Nagerkoil in this yoga ashana!! One of the thinner ones spread out on the smaller luggage rack on the side. And another friend was so tired that he spread out a few newspapers and disappeared under the seats for the journey.
There are people who have no choice but to travel unreserved all the time even for long distances. I wonder how it will be…
Home
Have you run away from home? A lot of people do it for a lot of reasons. They end up in big towns and find a living. My first experience with “running away from home” was in V standard when my house owner’s son (This was at Chengalpattu) flunked in Science and ran away from home. The guy did not attend school for a long time due to some sickness and naturally when he went back he could not catch up. So he decided to run away to Chennai for fear of a sound thrashing and he managed to convince another friend that it will be a good idea. A huge hunt was launched. And it did help that the house owner was a policeman. The finally located the two brave folks walking(!) to Chennai near SP Koil. LOLz!!
The closest I came to “running away from home” was at Ernakulam. I had a “small” discussion with my Dad and I stomped out of the house to cool off. I spent the afternoon and the evening looking at everybody and everything at Ernakulam North railway station and then walked back home after I was sufficiently cool. Now don’t laugh!!
Dhaba
Have you eaten in a Dhaba? I moved out of the hostel in the third year. I was not interested in moving to the town and so we (a few other friends and me) stayed in the village near our college. And for one and half years, we ate at a Dhaba in the village. We called this place, “Marna Vilas” or “House of Death”. It was not because the food was bad. It was because from time to time drunken people would drop in from the nearby TASMAC outlet to have some “side dish”. And we would have some nice fun with their antics.
One fine day, the cook from the nearby dhaba was on a full rage in a drunken stupor. He was swearing and calling the cooks and the owner bad names. The owner and the cooks did not respond and this infuriated the man. Suddenly, he sent a wooden log flying at one of the cook. It missed the cook and almost hit me. The cook took the opportunity and grabbed an iron rod and beat the drunken man to pulp. He started bleeding. When the fight started, my friends and I left the food and rushed out of the place. Pretty soon, everybody joined and it was a fight for all. At some point, there was a lull and I sneaked back and grabbed my food. 
The fight stopped only when the police arrived.
I will never forgot the days I spent at that village called Lenavilaku. One and a half years of pure bliss and I miss rural life so much now…
Water
I bet everybody in this world would have faced discrimination of some sort. My most painful experience was at Rameshwaram. Few friends and I decided to bunk college for a day to visit Rameshwaram. In one of the by lanes in the town stood a building with a sign board, “XYZ Caste Rest House”. And near the door was a board which said “Strangers Not Allowed”. On the way to the temple in the morning, I saw this board and found it disgusting. It is OK to have a special guest house and such but the board near the door was too much!!
Sometime in the afternoon, we were thirsty. And as luck would have it, one of my friends belonged to this XYZ caste. He offered to go into this place and get some water. We stood outside the place as he went inside to find out what could be done. After a few minutes, he came out with a few water bottles. And we drank like camels since we were too thirsty. After emptying a few bottles, an old lady came out with few more bottles. But we had enough and so we said so. There was one bottle in which only a little water had been used. The lady emptied this bottle and all the bottles which she had brought with her on to the road. I just couldn’t make sense out of this!! Water is precious in an island town like Rameshwaram and here was a lady who just emptied a couple of bottles after she saw us. Hmm… I was totally disgusted!!
Discrimination is a very touchy subject. Something that is normal for one person might look offending to another. Maybe you found the incident above to be perfectly normal. Maybe I am wrong too. But this incident left a lasting impression on my mind…
When I was back in college the next day, I spoke to a friend who belonged to the XYZ caste. I loved her mom’s cooking and she used to bring a spearate tiffin box everyday with food for me. Hmm… Both ends of the spectrum! Here is someone who found it necessary to throw away all the water and here is another who brought food (carrying it for 30 kilometers daily!) for others. This was a very important lesson: It is the people who matter. And I try and live by this credo now: “Human First. All other tags come later…” There is nothing more difficult than to live by it.
