inspiration

Journeys

Travel Tales, , , ,

The roads of Mumbai offer strange sights. Sights, that sometimes are difficult to swallow. And others that take a permanent long term lease in your heart.

The seamless merger of the world can be confounding yet be a thing of amusement. Wonderment. Inspiration. Or even, activism. And a countless other things, depending on what pervades the mind at that time.

Here is one such seamless existence. On the road. Wearing seat belts in a car is mandatory here. Cops get mentioned as ‘zealots’ or ‘duty conscious’ depending on who you talked to and how much they have had to pay for not wearing seat belts.

All this for travelling without seat belts. In a car which has crash bars. Side bars. Air bags. And of course, which has been crash tested. Built to X sigma quality. Marketed by God. Or Shah Rukh Khan. ( Now that the film celebs think of themselves as God, God can well be having a befuddling identity crisis)

Here are the other passengers. Without seat belts. Taking on life daily. With smiles as cushions. Daily living as crash tests. Built over many years to exacting requirements that life throws that can beat the best simulation game, hands down !

Battling an inflation. In prices. In population. In difficulty of life. And of course, in aspirations and dreams ! Life needs to be met. And lived. Happily so. Too.





This was clicked on JJ flyover. Sunday morning. Vegetable retailers. After picking up their stuff. All set to sell it to different markets. Perhaps in the suburbs. Holding on to carefully dangled ropes. Perhaps, with life and living as the carrot !




This on the Western Express Highway. Early in the morning. Young men, who perhaps have been up since the middle of the night, catching a quick wink. Atop, vegetables that they perhaps helped load. And will unload in sometime.



A milk van and its attenders. The crates that held milk packets support their backs, as they catch a quick wink. They sure have been up and awake. Supplying milk. And running about.







Fish vendors. Driving back from the wholesale market. Boys. Women. Men. Chatting. Smiling. Sleeping. Holding on. And of course, there is a mezzanine floor over there. The floor beneath has, yes, fish !






An empty minivan. With ropes hanging all over. The gent putting some pink on a circus gymnasts face, by just adroitly holding on. As the tyres find new potholes and the non-existent shock absorbers get tested !




Wonder if you notice the human element here. two legs popping out of the window ! Here is a man ( i think ) who is lying down on the hard surface of this van, his legs atop the open window.


Piped natural gas. Emergency Van ! hmm.

So, people buckle up. Its law. And if you would care, look around. At life and people. There is an amorphous beauty in life and living. In getting by. And getting ahead.

Oh yes, buckling down, is not an option.


Drives. Part – II

Travel Tales, , , , , ,

Read Part – I here

Its morning. Meenakshi temple at Madurai. We stand outside in the queue. There is a puja on, inside. And we are in the queue. And i watch this man, with a giant ‘fan’ made of peacock feathers.

With one sweeping movement of his old frail hands holding the giant fan, he directs some still air onto sweat drenched devotees.

Young. Old. Rich. Poor. Everybody. For a brief, a very brief moment, are comforted with that muscle powered gust. And i watch. As i have been watching him ever since i was a small kid.

His frail frame gives away the fact that he has kept at ‘fanning’ for a long time. And he keeps at it. Even when nobody was watching. Even when nobody specifically asked for it. His body is frailer. The man himself has become older. The fan, though, with peacock feathers et al is the same.

What must drive the likes of this old man? I don’t know. He doesn’t give a clue.


Its another morning. Madurai. And i walk by this sugarcane juice machine. Its too early for the familiar sugarcane juice vendor. But he will be in. Soon.

To stow in the sugarcane, and give that wheel a strong twist, arching every sinew and causing his biceps to bulge. And of course, some there would be some fresh juice for thirsty throats ! My brother has been a regular here. For 20 plus years.

Ever since the price of sugarcane juice was Re. 1/-. In 20 odd years, the price of sugarcane juice has moved by all of 6 rupees. And the chap is still at it. At the same roadside. Sugarcane. With the same Wheel. And all.

He gives you a good glass full. His glasses are clean. He does not overcharge. He adds that dash of ginger and cuts open those giant ice cubes. To be just right for the juice that you are drinking. Every single time, with a perfection of a 6 sigma factory ! For 20 plus years. Modern day corporate world will dub him strange names.

Thats immaterial. For he is a happy man.

What is material to this post is this : What drives this man? I don’t know. The wheel doesn’t give a clue.

And then these last lines on the memorial rush back to the mind. ‘his love of justice and his kindly heart endeared him to all classes of the community. and thus he bore without abuse, the grand old name of Gentleman’.

There is an elegance in a pioneers work. And theres another elegance in the lives of ordinary men and women. Who go about living this ‘one life’.

And i think. Of that giant peacock fan. And that wheel. And wonder. About life. People. Men. And their drives.

Transformation !

Word Cache, , , ,

To the uninitiated, this photograph may pass to be a boy next door. Or perhaps a snap from some nondescript place. To me this seems like a boy pulled out from the the middle of mid summer day cricket match. Or out of a juvenile home. Or out of typical scenes from a movie. And so on. ! I mean, the ‘next-door’ ‘ next-door’ type.

Wouldn’t you agree ?

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And so, it must have taken a awesome effort, mindless grind, endless passion, untold determination and some sprinkling of luck to emerge as this man.


Personally, the music this man composes just blows a whole lot of people away. And if there are any left standing, the humility he exudes, takes care. Some people inspire by the way they are. He is one.

It must have taken all that awesome effort, mindless grind and endurance to get there ! And of that this man is testimony to. And sure he has found riches awaiting !

Whilst there are others who rake in the riches by making a story of the transformation ! Just putting photo one and two together, writing well, and putting it out as a magazine !!

And to see this wall poster advertisement for a Tamil magazine, right here in Mumbai made the missus nudge and my camera capture !

And her comment that about those that still believe that ‘hope is a method’ was of course not directed at me. Really.

She told me. Ok ?