Such is life!

This happened at Coimbatore Railway Station. I was waiting for my train back to Bangalore. I was about lunch time. I was carrying a heavy bag and had just put it down on a bench on the platform. There was this little girl (of about 10-12 years of age), her head shaved, thin, with dark lips and sharp eyes. She had with her a box of railways’ food (which most of us despise because it is utterly tasteless).

She asked me, “Akka, where will the train go?”

I asked, “The train that is going to come on this platform?”

“Yes.”

“It goes to Bangalore.”

She asked, “Akka, will there be buses from there to Ranipettai?”

“Ranipettai? Why? Do you have to go there?”

She nodded, “Hmmm.”

“I am not sure if there are buses to Ranipettai from Bangalore. But there are buses from Chennai.”

“Chennai? Will the train go to Chennai?”

“The train that is going to come doesn’t go to Chennai. It goes to Bangalore. There will be some other train in some other platform that will go to Chennai. Ask somebody which platform and get into that train.”

She thought of something and nodded and said, “Ok.”

There was something about her that made her look very vulnerable. It was probably her dress – it was a very old, dirty, cotton dress. Or probably because she was bare-footed; I felt very bad for her.

I added, “If you get into the train to Chennai, get down at Katpadi Junction and go to Vellore bus stand. You will get buses towards Ranipettai from there.” I had known this information because I had been in that route a couple of times while visiting a friend’s house in Andhra border. Otherwise I wouldn’t even have known that a place called Ranipettai even existed.

She was trying to grasp the words. “Katpadi? How far is Katpadi from here?”

“6 hours in the train that goes towards Chennai.”

“How will I know when Katpadi has come?”

It was then that I realized that the poor girl might not know to read boards. I told her, “Ask somebody to tell you when you reach Katpadi.”

“Will it be night when I reach there?”

“It will be around 7:30 in the evening when you reach there. Then go to Vellore bus stand and get a bus, ok?”

She nodded, but didn’t speak anything. I wanted to know what was wrong with her. Why was she alone in a railway station when she doesn’t know anything? Where were her parents? Has she run away from her home? I couldn’t stand it.

I asked her, “Who is there at Ranipettai?”

“My mother and my one big sister and small brother. My father passed away, no?”

“Ohhh, then how did you come to Coimbatore?”

“My mother didn’t have any money. She sent me with my uncle to work here. He was a very bad man. I came out of his house without his knowledge. I want to go back to my mom.”

And then she showed her feet – there was burn marks on both her soles. I wondered how she managed to go through such torture at such a young age and what an impression the world has left on her fragile mind.

And then she said she was hungry. I asked her to eat the box of food that she had by her side.

She said, “This is for my mom. She wouldn’t have eaten anything too. I am taking it for her.”

It killed me. She herself hadn’t eaten anything since morning (and it was already almost 1pm) and she was taking food for her mom whom she will meet very late that night (if she manages to go all the way without any further obstacles).

I told her, “The food will get spoilt by the time you go home. So don’t let it go waste. You eat it. You can buy something for your mom later.”

“But I have only 10 rupees.”

I was shocked. She didn’t have a train ticket, she has to take the bus from Vellore to Ranipettai after that and she had only 10 rupees and a packet of food in her hands. I didn’t know what to do.

At that time, the lady who was cleaning the platform came up to me and said, “This girl has been here since morning. I feel so bad for her.”

I told her, “Please tell her when the train towards Chennai will come. But she doesn’t have any money with her. How will she go?”

She said, “She is a small kid. She can travel without a ticket and even if someone asks, she can say she has come out of her house and they will understand. They won’t harm her. There is a train to Chennai at 2:20pm. I will put her in that train.”

My train was just pulling into the station. I knew it will stop at the station for 5-7mins. I had to find my compartment and board into it. I had 5mins to do that. I started walking towards the place where my compartment was most-likely to be when the train stops. But my mind was with that little girl – that helpless, powerless kid who has seen and been through what she was not supposed to at that tender age. I realized I wouldn’t have any peace of mind if I left her there, knowing I could have helped her.

I could not go back and wait for the Chennai train to come or go and buy a ticket for her – I cannot miss my train to go to Bangalore. My train had already come to a stop and I had to walk a little further to my compartment. I turned back and walked in the opposite direction towards the girl. I took out a few bucks from my purse and gave it to her and asked her to keep it for her ticket expenses and asked to get some more food for her.

Those few bucks will probably remain the best-spent money of my month. I felt a lot lighter. It was as if that one paper was weighing my bag down and now that I had given it to her, it felt lighter and easier to carry. This is not exaggerated one bit.

I am still worried about her and now, at work, I am thinking if she would have indeed reached her home safely, met her mom and I hope she is not sent to such filthy uncles in the future.

Semmozhiyaana Tamizh mozhiye...

This time around, I am at Coimbatore to attend my friend Arch’s wedding. The city has been decorated as nicely as a bride-to-be – all for the Tamizh Semmozhi Maanaadu. The flyovers have been painted, the roads widened, new traffic signals, a lot of police at the Railway Station, a lot of traffic police deployed – all this for just the next one week. Lot of Tamizh cultural art forms are going to be performed at different venues in the city. I feel proud to be a Tamizhian. The schools and colleges in Coimbatore have been asked to declare holiday for the next one week. How I wish I were in school now! All city buses will be ticket-free. There is no need to buy bus tickets for the next one week. Food festivals are being organized. Now is the best time to be in this city; well, if you like crowded places.

I miss my dad now. He would have really enjoyed this Semmozhi Maanaadu – being a staunch Tamizh-patriot himself. He would have forced me to take a week’s leave and taken me to all the programmes and lectures and made me listen to the glory of my mother tongue. I can almost see the pride in his face when someone praises Tamizh.

But the city has lost a lot of its trees in the name of road-widening. The programme will last for about a week or so, but the city might never get its climate back. Sigh…

Although so much is being done to ‘improve’ the city and its infrastructure, the people of the city still remain the same. They still talk with so much respect, throw rubbish on the streets, wait for TASMAC (wine shop) outlets to open in the morning and form a queue in the counter there, the auto-drivers still demand exorbitant amount money from the people, the city hasn’t changed one bit in its character.

But no matter what happens to this city, no matter what the people are like, this will always be my home. This is the city that I have grown up in, the city that has made me what I am through the school and college I studied in, through the innumerable people I have met; it is my favorite city (ok, next to Chennai). Chennai is still my most favorite J

I have a couple of good news to share with all the kind people who visit this space. There will be an announcement in a few days’ time (if all goes well). Pray for me, people!!!

Kosu Tholla...

Four days of rest and relaxation at home (not to mention made-by-Amma food) is a bane. No, I haven’t become any fatter (in fact, becoming a little plumper would make me extremely happy). It is a bane because at the end of four days, I have got to return to this city which is very similar in climate to Coimbatore, but horrible in terms of water, food and most importantly traffic. But return I did and stuck I got at work. And it does not help that I have a teamie who can’t see through a prank and escalate it to all managers (yes, I have multiple managers… sob, sob). It is certainly not easy for a small (read: shummall) girl to handle all this. I just turned 24 for crying out loud.

Just when you think it can’t get any worse, life bowls yet another one of its bouncers (IPL effect, you see) and says I will have attend a training from 10am to 7pm everyday for two weeks and then do the support activities from 7pm to 10pm. WTF!!! And any training is bound to put you to sleep. Don’t you lie to me that you have always been awake during any training you have attended! No? Not even during the post-lunch sessions? Then you are either a compulsive liar or an alien. Now is a post-lunch session and I am terribly sleepy.

I haven’t read a book in months, I haven’t read the newspaper in 3 days now and I don’t have time for anything besides work. It sounds nothing like me. I have always been the person that gives more importance to personal life than work. My priorities were and are and will be this way for the rest of my life. But I have to go through this for the next couple of weeks and I will have to put up with. There might not be further updates in this space until May. I hate me for quarantining myself from the outside world. I hate this job. I hate my work. I hate myself now!

My teamie (who I disgustedly call “kosu”) is getting on my nerves and is hell-bent on getting everything from high priority issues to pranks I play to his digestive disorders escalated to equally incompetent managers (when have we ever accepted that managers are competent?). He manages to piss me off and irritate me and make me want to pull the hair out of my head – ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Now I understand why Goundamani said his infamous dialogue “Indha kosu thollai thaanga mudila da Narayana… Marundhu adichu kollungada idha” – the same dialogue that I have been using for quite some time now and had mentioned the English translation in my previous post. As I am writing this now, kosu is showing off in front of everyone how resourceful he is by running up 4 floors to get different color markers for our trainer. Hold on a sec… that is the job of the Admin/House-keeping department staff.

Before exiting the door, he asked, “Do you need anything else?”

I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “Some coffee, perhaps?” And everyone (including the trainer) burst out laughing.

What pleasure he gets out of asking questions that in our domain are as dumb as, “How is 1+1 2 and not 11?” (The same dumb question multiple times and still not understand…) beats me! I have heard God helps those who help themselves. That explains my need for all the Tortoise/Mortein/Good Night/All Out. Hayyo Hayyo!!!

A February Saturday in 1998

Feb 14, 1998

Thank God, it was a Saturday. That meant my mom had to work only half-a-day and therefore left office before 3pm on that fateful day. It was 12 years back – 1998. It was when people came to know Coimbatore as the ‘Bomb Blast’ city than as an industrial city. At first, when we heard the news of a bomb blast within the city, I was scared – Amma hadn’t returned home after office and there she did not carry a cell phone in those days and she was practically not reachable. After what seemed an eternity, she reached home. After that, we were kept updated by friends and colleagues (of my parents’) about the various bomb blasts and the riots. It all sounded so unreal – there was no way so many people could have died, there was no way anyone could have planted bombs in the Govt. Hospital (no one was THAT insensitive), there was no way people could set fire to shops in Town Hall and loot stuff from burning shops, and there was absolutely no way there was a 3kg RDX bomb right in Amma’s office building (that was diffused later). I was 12 years old. I thought the world was full of nice people. And villains who murdered people existed only in movies (this was when I was ‘innocent’ as I claimed in my previous post). All the same, I was excited too, because schools declared holiday until a car bomb was diffused and that took around 4days.

The fact was that over a hundred people died (although the official figures claim that it was only one-third of it), and so many were injured and the incident changed the image of the city in a flash – suddenly, people were more unwilling to come and work in Coimbatore (even though it is a beautiful city with a great climate and awesome water), Real Estate prices hit rock bottom (of course, I didn’t realize it then), and business slumped and it took half a decade for it to come back to normal. And for the first time in my life, I felt unsafe. I felt afraid to go out; little did I know that such attacks would become a way of life in the years to come!

I think that is enough and more reason why, as a Coimbatorean, I won’t celebrate Valentines’ day – the day that made my city weep and bleed. To me it is a day of mourning. Celebrating is the last thing that I would do on February 14^th.

Fell in Love - Part 2

It is the one place on earth that is close to my heart. It is a place that has seen it all – my happiness, my craziness, my sorrows, my confusions, my stupidity, my anguish, my fears, my adventures, everything. It is the place where I was born and brought up, the place that has taught me to be talkative, a place that has offered my solace when I was depressed, and confidence when I was confused. Coimbatore. I know I have written so many posts about MY city but still I can’t help but write more as I find myself loving it more and more by the day.

• It is a place which is surrounded by mountains and is a treat to watch during the rainy season. And when it rains, it doesn’t rain like it does in Chennai where in November and December somebody from upstairs is pouring down buckets and buckets of water for over 3 days continuously resulting in flooding - rain water + sewage water + urine + spit mucous (ewwww). In Coimbatore, it drizzles ever so lightly, not even enough to get you wet. When it does rain heavily, it doesn’t last for more than 2hours, 4 at max. And some summer showers bring in small pieces of ice which we used to collect in jugs as children.
• It is a place where people are so warm and friendly and treat you with respect. Oh and the language – it is so sweet to hear. No wonder I am a lot more talkative when at Coimbatore. I just talk so that the other person would respond in that wonderful slang and I would keep listening. I am just used to addressing my Amma in singular (without the ‘nga’ in after each verb, or in cases after each word), I address my neighbors with full respect – so it is not “Illa, aunty”; it is “Illeenga, aunty”. Otherwise, it is considered rude.
• The city is a paradise to trekkers. It is at the foothills of the Western Ghats, what did you expect? There are a lot of different treks for trekkers of different stamina and skill.
• The water in the city is among the tastiest in the world. The Siruvani river flows through the forests where a lot of Amla trees exist and since the water touches the roots of these trees while flowing, it tastes super-good. I have seen the water flowing in small streams and it is so pure that you can see the sand and pebbles underneath it very clearly. And that water tasted great.
• The people of this city have unique, unmatchable sarcastic streak. The ‘Coimbatore Kusumbu’ and my talkative nature have combined together a lot of times and made me speak and gotten me into trouble big time. But I am proud of my kusumbu!!! :-)

All these reasons apart, Coimbatore is so good for me because it is HOME to me. That is what it is – HOME :-)

Enna koduma sir idhu...

The last two weeks have been most eventful. And I’m a lot wiser now. Really. Not buying it?

I have interacted more with managers in the last two weeks than I have in the last two years and learnt how to talk to them – the choice of words in an email, the tone of your voice in a telephonic conversation, to be persuasive in a subtle way – I am well on my way to become a manager myself. :-P But then God help those who become my subordinates! :-P

It is so funny when you go and stand in front of your manager and tell him,

Me: I just came to remind you that I’d be on leave next week.
Manager: Which days, Sandhya?
Me: Hmmm, three days and the other two weekdays are holidays.
Manager: What? The whole of next week?
Me: No, just three days.
Manager: But you won’t be at office throughout the next week?
Me: (Silly fellow, isn’t that obvious?) Hmmm, yes. I’m planning to go to my hometown, you see.
Manager: Why didn’t you inform me earlier?
Me: Actually, I did. I informed you three weeks back that I need three days leave and you actually approved the leaves.
Manager: I did?

It’s so funny when managers try to think hard, you know? The look on his face made me think that he badly wanted to answer nature’s call, but somehow nature wasn’t calling him as often as it has to. :-P And needless to say I was controlling my laughter and had to rush out of the ODC to a nearby conference room to laugh it off.

And then I headed to Coimbatore – to spend an awesome week there with Amma and Gaya and Paatti. As usual, the city was at its enchanting best - not very hot, not very cold, chilly wind and the slight drizzle and the magnificent hills surrounding the city - they are all still there. The city is just soooooooo beautiful. Since it was Navrathri time, we had visitors during all evenings to see the Golu. My cousin Nithya had come with her two daughters, aged 4 and 2 to see the Golu and the elder one – Harsha – sang devotional songs so beautifully (with actions) as her teacher (who was also my teacher when I was in school) and I couldn’t stop moving my hands in action just like her (although I stayed away from singing along for good).

For years, it has been me who stayed back while the others said ‘bye’ and left and come November I would be the one taking off – away from Chennai, away from my work, away from a lot of great friends I have made here, away from the beaches, away from my extremely patient roomies, away from a great team at work, just away from life as I have known it for 2 years now. And I do hope everything goes on well post my ‘bye bye’ from a city I have grown to love.

But of course, ‘Lighter Side…’ will still be alive and I will continue to post here – all the details about where life takes me and what it offers. And yeah, I will be available on Orkut, FaceBook, Twitter, etc. So, I don’t really think I would be missing the gang of friends I have made in the cyber world. :-)

Fell in love!

Something is wrong with my net connection at home. I have Reliance NetConnect using a USB modem and it has not been working since last week. Now, that is what has been keeping me from blogging (much to the relief of readers). This morning, I called up the customer care and they said something about a credit limit. Ridiculous concept – they give you a USB modem, tell you that you can download/upload up to 2.5GB and that your monthly bill would be 850+taxes (unless you go beyond 2.5GB of usage) and then your internet doesn’t work (even after you have paid your bills well before the due date) and they say, your credit limit is only 500 bucks and you can’t use more than that. What the heck!!!

I had gone to my home town (Coimbatore) for two consecutive weekends (some thing that I rarely do for fear of tiredness throughout the following week). The first weekend of June, I landed at Coimbatore North railway station at 6:30am and it was drizzling ever so slightly – a drizzle that could wake you up from sleep, but not make you wet, a drizzle that is like the droplets of water that hit you on your face when you are walking beside a waterfall. In the distance, I could see all the hills surrounding the city – the hills and the drizzle and the fresh, unpolluted air and the serene city (so far away from the rush and madness of Chennai) and was interrupted by, “Enga ammini pogonum?” – a burly auto-driver who, for some reason, reminded me of Teddy Bear and I fell in love with my home town all over again. The people here are, by far, the most respectful of the lot. Even fathers address their sons with respect – eg., instead of “Enga da pora?” (Where are you going?), they ask, “Engainga thambi poreenga?” The majesty of the hills (the elephant hill right behind my college, the Western Ghats where we used to go for summer camps/treks), finding virgin streams of delicious nectar (siruvani water), taking bath in small waterfalls which requires quite a few kilometers of walk into the forest and the amount of greenery (there are two institutions that keep the city green – The Tamil Nadu Agricultural University and The Forest College campus) both within the city limits! All these (combined with the piping hot Chennai during the following week) seduced me into going there for the second consecutive weekend.

During the second weekend (yesterday and the day before), there was no slight, cool drizzle, in fact, the sun was out and although it couldn’t be called hot, it was warm outside and we (myself, my sis, and a couple of my coolest cousins) could roam around the city. We went to the zoo (I know what you are thinking right about now) and then to Pizza Hut – initially we decided to order pizza from home, but I decided against it because of this. :-) Anyways, we had pizza and fun and quite a bit of yelling from my mom who had cooked lunch for all of us and all the food had to go waste! :-)

Here I am back at Chennai and all the heat it offers. I guess the next weekend is going to be a visit to Pondicherry (with friends) or Kumbakonam to a few temples.