India's underbelly

I am almost 39 (gulp!) years old, and must have traveled on Rockfort express at least 40 times- an average of once a year. Never ever have I ever imagined that I would be sitting in a first class compartment, with my daughter and wife snoozing in nearby berths, typing my blog, and uploading it.

I could easily Google and find out who said that India is a land of contradictions. But I won't. It is indeed a place of spellbinding contradictions. One day, I am paying 8000 rupees for a hotel room in New Delhi, and waiters show me bottled water as if it were a bottle of wine! The next day, a barefoot coolie is lugging my extra baggage for a paltry 80 rupees. And here is the rub, he thought I would bargain him down. As we waited for the train doors to open, I struck up a nice conversation with the man. He looked all of 55 or so, and missed a full front row of teeth. He broke into english as we talked, I did a double take. I asked him where he was from, and he said from Andhra, and went to english and telugu medium schools there. He was learning tamil so people wouldn't make fun of him. He wore a nice looking clean dhoti, and walked barefoot in the rain. I guessed he might have been a man who had seen some prosperity, but who had fallen on hard times. Perhaps a wayward son had thrown him out on the street to fend for himself.

The ever-observant Maya watched him heft the suitcases up, and piped up her first series of questions:
Mays: "How is this mama so strong?"
Kala: "Because he eats all his vegetables. If you did too, you too can be strong like him and appa."

Maya:"Where are his shoes?"
Kala: "He left them at home honey. What do you want to do?"
Maya: "I can give him my shoes. Will he take my pink shoes?"
Kala: "I think they will be too small for him Maya. Can we buy him red shoes? Red will match his shirt also?"

Maya: "Okay, but you need to buy them. I don't have any money...

I was talking to the man, and couldn't help smile as I overheard the conversation between mother and daughter.These days, I find myself talking to people who work in the service industry here. So many stories come out, waiting to be told. One was a security guard in a now-defunct lock factory in Chandni Chowk, another was a maid with this family for the past 35 years, another is a 15 year old girl who works to support her family, another is a single mom working as a maid in 3 houses to help her daughter married off, and put her son through college. Another is a waiter who was working 2-3 shifts back to back, while nervously awaiting his pregnant wife's phone call that labor pains had started. It is easy to sit in a car and lose out on interactions, too easy in fact. the 1 foot distance between the driver and the passenger might as well be 12 miles long.

Now here I am, 4 feet from a smelly lavatory with a broken door, typing in my last words before I turn it in.

London Bridge is falling down

I wonder why epiphany hits you only when you are driving. I am willing to bet that it is due to the inactivity of it all. In the US at least, driving is more or less a mundane activity. There are no trying to squeeze into the square foot of space beside you, or a lorry truck driver barelling toward you on the highway. You are on auto-pilot here, so the car essentially drives itself. All the driver needs to do is stay awake and brake once in a while while listening to music. So the brain is free to do other things.
In this case, it pondered the meaning of the song emanating from the car's speakers. It is my daughter's favorite rhyme:"London bridge is falling down". Boy how she loves that song. It is fun to listen to her as she makes up words in the lyrics, and she makes me sing along too. The first time I heard it, i did not think anything of it. After the 10th time, I paid close attention to the lines of the song. This is how it goes:

London bridge is falling down
Falling down
Falling down
London bridge is falling down
My fair lady.

Presumably its sung by one of the lackeys of the queen of england, worried that the bridge was about to fall, probably after years of neglect. I can only imagine the panic the person felt to run up to the monarch to complain and/or seek refuge. Lets see what the fair lady said.

Build it up with iron and steel
iron and steel
iron and steel
Build it up with iron and steel
My fair lady

Thats what an engineer would also say. Assuming that the bridge was all brick and mortar, it would make sense to think that an iron bridge would fair better.

The smart-alec lackey replies with a very practical answer

Iron and steel will bend and bow
bend and bow
bend and bow
Iron and steel will bend and bow
My fair lady

The resourceful queen is all ideas though. She continued, without stopping to gather her thoughts. She decrees again;

Build it up with silver and gold
silver and gold
silver and gold
build it up with silver and gold
my fair lady


Expecting this from a rich queen, who knew not how expensive gold and silver can be, the henchman (or woman) responds

Silver and gold will be stolen away
stolen away
stolen away
silver and gold will be stolen away
my fair lady


I have to appreciate the honesty of the henchman. For he could have said "right away mlady!" and built the said bridge. And then gone on to chop up a bit or two for himself and blame the public for it. The queen, the patient woman that she has to be, to have to put up with such insubordination, persists to dwell on the issue, and comes up with another good idea,

Build it up with wood and clay
wood and clay
wood and clay
build it up with wood and clay
my fair lady


Her henchman, still unconvinced, retorts (almost haughtily)
wood and clay will wash away
wash away
wash away
wood and clay will wash away
my fair lady

By now, the queen, probably exhausted from all this thinking and the tiresome rebuttal from her servant who ought to obey her wish and command, gives up.

Join your hands and
all fall down!!

Its almost as if, she thinks "To hell with it! I give up"

I had a good laugh about it afterward, just narrating it to my daughter. She didn't care. She was just happy that someone else appreciated the song and was game to sing it whenever she wanted. I am sure she didn't care what the fair lady thought either.

Just an epiphany that's all.

A reason to raise a child.

What would you say if someone asked you the reason you had kids? What would you say if you knew that there was a good chance they would hang on to every word you uttered? Lets say, that for years to come, they would hold you responsible for a critical life-altering decision they would make. What would you tell them?

Lets say that there was a good chance that whatever you come up with, may be noted in the annals of your friendship as the most stupid thing you ever said. That people would remember it, and make it the watermark of stupid statements that a man made, one that would draw laughter in comedy clubs. Then there is that thing that your own family is watching. For not only can you not say things like "When kids come, your social life which may have been twitching like a fish out of water, officially gets a mallet to its head", but you have got to use the opportunity to dig deep and come up with something profound.

I had an epiphany not too long ago. I thought about it for a few minutes while I deferred and talked about the latest Bond movie. It was a worthless distraction from such an important topic of course. But I needed all the time I could get to come up with a thought that would appeal to an intelligent person.

Why does one have kids? The biological need to procreate notwithstanding, there has to be a mature explanation for the reason we put ourselves through years of trauma, and make severe adjustments to our careers and lives. We stay in the same failing cities in dead end jobs, since our children are in schools and have found best friends there. We end up taking jobs in far-flung places and are forced to be weekend fathers and mothers, just to ensure continuity in their lives. We are more willing to forego our own successes and happiness to ensure theirs are fulfilled. By the time the work is done, you end up looking like hell, with a few missing teeth and half the hair in landfill, and your heart shot to hell. If you do the work right, and learned that patience was a virtue, there might be a few days when you relive those few moments that you handpicked for your memories of their growing years. That may be when you find yourself smiling at yourself, and the wife or a friend might ask what you were thinking. God forbid your brain hits old age before the rest of you did, and that joy too is taken away. So why does one do it? Why does one have children and raise them?

If your parents did their job right, and smacked you around a bit so you had some sense when you needed it, you probably made a few good decisions in your life. You probably went to the right school, married the right person, followed the right career, said the right things at the right time with not many regrets along the way. All that came from something your parents did right. So you end up with a good conscience that guilts you when needed, makes you extend a helping hand, and lets you sleep well at night. Lets say you are well off in that category, then you have picked up a few skills that might benefit someone else. At this point, I am thinking this is a training issue. Most of us get better with training, and some of us get better providing said training. I know I get to be more patient when I teach someone. So here is my thesis on why one might consider raising a child: If you have something good to give to your community; something you may have that is unique; then it becomes your responsibility to pass that along. If you gave when people in Haiti cried, if you were a prudent investor but honest, if you loved to travel and meet people and make longlasting friendships, if you generally did not swear or hold illwill to other people, that is something we need. If someone actually said "I wish there are more people like you" to you, thats a reason right there. I think we have more than a few times over of selfishness, greed, intolerance and just about any other nefarious trait that one can have, in our society. It is time we considered it our civic responsibility to push back and even things out a bit. Give the civic person a fighting chance to succeed in our community.
This is what I would tell the person if he were to ask me why I think he should raise a child: "I think we need more people like you." There is nothing more gratifying than that.