Chalo Dilli (BH:D198)

February 17, 2012

I have been noticing a bunch of people who sit and stand on the lawns right outside one of the entrances of the Kananakunnu Palace early in the morning, all of them facing the east. After the sun rises above the tree line of the palace garden, they pack up. While they are seated, a couple of times, I have heard one of the men who stand at the back say something. I couldn't quite figure out what. They are not doing Surya Namaskar. I am familiar with that exercise and there isn't much chance of my forgetting it ever since Anunay Jain attempted a display on a branch overhanging a tributary of river Colorado few years ago leading to what became a series of great photographs of human panic and of evolutionary ape origins, and an unforgettable road trip.

Interestingly, more and more people are joining this group every day. Usually by the time I climb up the flight of stairs and reach that spot, I find old aunties in various stages of getting up from the lawn and folding the mats, sheets and newspapers on which they had been sitting. I am sure in a matter of few weeks, this group will grow big enough to occupy the entire lawn. This is a society of high spiritual enthusiasm. As long as it does not involve any kind of physical labor. As long as it looks like the folks doing it might be getting something out it. Nobody wants to miss out. No questions are asked. And as always, the newcomers become the most vocal marketing agents for the fad. 

The tea/coffee portable business that manifests in the form of two young men outside the palace gates just in time for walkers and joggers returning after their morning rounds, has taken an organic turn. The fan base has exploded now that the business has become one of vegetable juice. Surely, mixing carrots, cucumber, beans and something green on the spot in a blender is much more appealing than ready made tea and coffee with questionable sugar content and unknown sources of milk. 

For some inexplicable reason, the city corporation has made sure that there is not a single garbage bin that the public can use anywhere in these most public of spaces. Perhaps they are afraid that the uber clean population of the city will overuse such a facility leading to joblessness for the thousands of sweepers and cleaners that the corporation enjoys unionising. 

Shashi Tharoor, the member of Parliament for the city, was in all the newspapers today. He took the initiative to reopen a railway crossing gate right outside the famous All Saints women's college the day after he found the newspaper reports about pretty college girls struggling through the closed beams of the gate and coming dangerously close to a death by goods train fate. I am glad Mr. Tharoor reads the newspapers and takes action immediately.

I am sure he has been doing it through out his tenure but it is the newspapers that are reporting it only when he gets to be photographed with college girls who treat him like a rock star. He has promised that the government will pay the railways the money it owes soon so that the gate stays open more than the one month arrangement that he has scored for the time being. I wish we could get pretty college age girls to represent most of the woes of the city. The handsome Mr. Tharoor will more be in the papers then for all the good work that, I am sure again, that he has been doing. The city anxiously awaits the nation's tallest flagpole that he had promised and half a dozen other extra tall lamp posts he has promised to erect all over the city. Great to hear about all these erections among a generally dysfunctional administration. 

Surprise in the evening at the Cafe Coffee Day. Neighbors from College Station who I haven't seen in 7 or 8 years. They are on a two weeks vacation from Boston. A friend of theirs with them, I recognize the name from facebook. Small world. The little addition to their family seemed excited about the vacation. 

With the blog and FB notes, it's not difficult to keep track of my life these days. The blog is currently around 75 days behind the notes. But it was heartening to receive "Get well soon" messages from soon-to-be-friends strangers who had only read recently about my hospital stay on the blog.

Stopped by the Spencer's grocers to pick up some tissue paper on the way back home. At the check out counter, yet another face I hadn't seen in 7 or 8 years. "I think I recognize you," she said. She has been working in India after getting her degree from Texas A&M. 

While getting dropped off at home, wondered if there would be anymore blast from the past before the flight tomorrow morning. We are scheduled for the 6 am flight to Delhi. Delhi started off for me as Ranji Panicker wrote unforgettably in the King's screenplay "Aksharangal Achadichu koottiya pusthakathalukalile" (the one in the pages full of printed letters) Delhi. It was by far the most frequently mentioned city in the school history textbooks. The sought after capital. The iconic capture of which stood for sway over an entire subcontinent. Delhi of the monuments, Delhi of the Sultans, the Mughals and the British later gave way in my mind to the Delhi of the much loved writers of Malayalam: VKN, Malayattoor and Mukundan. Delhi of the political machinery and machination, Delhi of the fabulously rich and the abjectly poor; Delhi where friends went to study; Delhi from where the 'DC's of IIT arrived; 

My 200th day in India this time around, I will be in that capital. I look forward to the Delhi that I will see. My 100th day here was in the hospital. Despite what I have read and have been told, I don't think the experiences will be comparable! Agra and the Taj will be a bonus. Will be back with the travel notes on Wednesday.