January 7, 2012
25 sacks filled with fertilized soil and variety of vegetable saplings will soon make their way to our terrace. Part of a government program to encourage home farming in the city. The distribution was initiated at the new year celebration of our residential colony association. I skipped the initiation part that included something called "high tea". Since I have been warned off alcohol, I didn't want any of that.
I showed up fashionably late by two and half hours. By then other events of the evening were in progress. The crowd was slowly gathering since there was a dinner as well. The big banner stretched on the back wall of the stage read 'Resident s'' with a space between t and s where the apostrophe had been avoided by the printer who realized his mistake a little late.
It has been 15 years since I attended any event organized by our resident's association called EGRA, with the EG standing for Elankom Gardens. Except for the fact that the events are now held in a public auditorium, nothing much has changed. That was clear as soon as the organizers approached me to go and "do something" on stage for 10 minutes because next speaker was running late. I feigned the traditional Indian shyness. Luckily a representative of the eye donation campaign took over the 10-minute slot filling. For the whole ten minutes, she repeated the ideas she expressed in the first minute itself.
Following her, the local circle inspector of police showed up to speak about traffic rules. He started off by mentioning that we should all be careful about "trafficking" and noticed that I was smiling in the third row. He said that usually this is a presentation using a projector,so now he was pretty much lost. But I liked how he stood for the entire duration with his hands akimbo, ready for action. Well, except when he had to reach and silence his phone every few minutes.
First he talked about pedestrian rules. In an attempt to engage the audience, he tried asking questions to the kids sitting in the front row. But an old man from the very last row ruined it by insisting on shouting out the answers.
"Why should we walk along the right side of the road? you, boy in the white tshirt," he said pointing to Achu, Omana's son, sitting in our row. Achu flashed a smile that belied a gnawing deep seated fear of the khaki police uniform.
"Which class are you in?" the officer persisted
"9th"
"So do you know..."
Smile weakens but sustains.
Old man from the back to the rescue.
Throughout his speech, the officer used two phrases repeatedly: 'in foreign countries' and 'in a democracy like ours'. He will use the first phrase before talking about some rules that need to be followed. He will use the second to justify why the police is not able to do much about repeated offenses by politicians and big business houses.
Stressing the need for helmets, he said some people try to provide fake medical certificates to say that they have a condition that prevents them from wearing a helmet. "If you have a medical condition, you shouldn't drive a two-wheeler. Only fit people should drive!" That last sentence turned out to be an inadvertent joke.
'Fit' is the common local expression for drunkenness. Faint chuckle in the crowd. He cleverly used it to segue into the topic of drunken driving.
Towards the end, as he took questions from the audience, sadly it reduced into a grand exercise in excuse-making and passing the buck.
The father sitting in front of me was busy training his little boys towards an attitude of not differentiating between home and a public place. Wherever you are, my kids, he seemed to say, be noisy and obnoxious.
A pretty young lady sang a recent Malayalam movie song. Fantastic rendition. I asked Dhanush, who was sitting next to me, who she was. He told me her name. That wasn't much help. He saw my expression and told me her nickname. Much surprise. I had carried her around as a baby in the mid-90s. Great to see her blossom into a talented singer and dancer (I am told!)
A group dance followed. A mother-daughter duo along with two other girls. All the three girls had braces. The mother did not. Great commotion among the audience about a mother-daughter pair doing well on stage. Apparently,maintaining oneself well as one ages is a trend that is still catching on in these parts. Having a daughter or son is pretty much considered a license to let oneself go...so to speak.
Final remarks from the husband part of the IAS couple who lives in the colony. He quoted some parable about seasons and keeping equanimity. Vote of thanks. National Anthem.
The final verse of the anthem screwed up by the old uncle who was leading it over the microphone.
Dinner buffet. Many familiar faces aged by a decade. A few strangers.
Tomorrow, off to the IAS training academy for the lecture on financial crisis.
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