A tale of two tales

There are these two incidents that affected me in totally different ways and are absolutely unrelated, but I shall club them together in one post for two reasons - for one, they both brought an amused smile to my face as I mused on how queer and interesting human beings and human relations are; secondly, I'm a lazy fellow and can't be bothered to write separate posts. I'm sorry, it's as simple as that.

The first incident occurred when I was walking my dogs. It was a hot day and the sun bore right into my scalp, leaving me feeling quite weary. But I had to keep a watchful eye on my two pets waddling at my feet. It calls for an almost militant watchfulness as these animals can test every sixth sense that you've ever wanted to have. They are desperate for anything they can snatch up off the road and the least likely of things you would expect them to want to ingest they will surprise you by going for. It may be a small piece of plastic, a bone of some creature that decomposed days ago, or something equally micro and dangerous. You'll be careful to keep them off the fresh cow dung, for which I've noticed dogs have a peculiar fascination (they eye it like any of us would eye a particularly large piece of black forest cake). But you can hardly be careful enough to keep them off the small stuff for which they have the advantage of being able to sniff out and you have the disadvantage of being separated by about 5 feet nine inches of height. Anyway, all this has little to do with the incident I am about to narrate, which actually is quite short in the telling. All I am trying to do is set the background.

So I was walking my dogs and generally feeling hot under the collar when two local men of the streets approached me. One of them asked me in Tamil what breed of dogs they were. I was at a point when I would welcome just about any conversation with a human being, to cool my parched throat. So I replied they were called 'dachshunds'. The guy tried rolling his tongue, missed the pronunciation altogether and then quickly moved on to the next question. How much were they worth? I gave him my regular answer - the right one actually, but it always serves to discourage people from asking me any more embarassing questions as to whether I could supply them with dogs, like I have some breeding machine with me at home. It's about 4,000 bucks, I said, vaguely remembering somebody who had knowledge on the subject telling me some such thing.

Well it worked. But then the guy surprised me by asking me - in Tamil again - if I could give him the pup? I stared at him, not knowing what to say. What? Give her to you? - My bewildered eyes seemed to ask. Why? "Friendship, sir," he replied in English, touching his hand dramatically to a place somewhere in the region of his heart. Wow. This guy couldn't be serious. I slowly walked away. He did look like he wasn't joking, though his crooked smile made it difficult to tell for sure. But would he do something to me? I am, after all, fairly lacking in the biceps on which men usually depend to attempt to defend themselves with. But we kept looking at each other as I retreated, me with that amused expression on my face that I told you about. As I walked away, his friend, who was looking slightly embarrassed, pulled him by the hand and slapped him right across the back of his head.

The second incident happened yesterday when I went out with my good friends for a concert at St. Joseph's Commerce College. In the first place, they took so dashed long to let us in the gate. We stood mulling around outside like a bunch of lost sheep. When they finally let us in, it was in single file, actually two single files - one for the guys and one for the girls - because there were these student marshalls waiting there to frisk us. I was impressed. This was high security indeed. Once they had frisked us, this guy asked to examine my bag. I gave it up willingly. I have always said my life is an open secret - I have almost nothing to hide (except my e-mail password). He peered right in while muttering that he wanted to examine my wallet too. This only increased the smile on my face. "Is it okay," I asked. "You've got a Bible," he said impressed, or at least he sounded so. Well, so I did, and I was proud of it too. I take this bag with me everywhere, to church as well, so my holy book comes along. With the smile only growing on my face I asked him, "Do you want to look through my wallet now?" "No, you've got a Bible," he repeated.

I walked away, feeling a mixture of amusement and delight. It was a strange feeling. Living at a time - what we Christians will call the 'last days' - when almost anything said with regard to Jesus is scoffed at, when being anti-Christ, though maybe not always ostensibly so, is a popular sentiment, it was a pleasant surprise to witness something of the subtle, almost grudging respect that people still harbour for the name they otherwise so deliberately and disdainfully cast aside.

Hanging by a thread

It's amazing how sometimes a single aspect of your life can decide how your day will be. To get more specific, I finished work real early today. It wasn't really because I performed exceptionally well or anything. It was merely because the ad department saved the day, bless their hearts. I was going at a pleasant rate anyway. The correspondents seemed not to be in a real mood to file stories, so for once I was actually able to stop typing at times and look around at the world, such as it existed within the newsroom. Usually you are so hard-pressed for time and the work keeps piling on that towards the end you even seem to almost stop breathing. It's amazing - that's the only way I can describe the nature of my work at this point.

But today everything seemed to be going right. In fact, it has been going this way for some time now. But today was like almost unreal. As I mentioned, not only was I keeping pace with the stories that were coming in, but the ad department too decided to pitch in and send me cruising. My news editor told me I had about half a page of ads but even he was surprised when I took him the page at 10 pm, an unusual time for the particular page I was doing. The tone of the exclamation he made when he saw the amount of ads seemed to indicate that if only he had realised it a bit earlier he might have made some move to get some ads cancelled. I shuddered within me and almost grabbed the page away from him, but held back. When I took it back, I did it almost unnaturally slow and deliberate, he must have surely noticed. I walked away too with slow deliberate steps and once out of his sight didn't look back.

It was on the way back that I realised, beaming to myself, how much my life had begun to hang on my daily grapple with work. It had become literally that - a grapple. I have actually begun counting the number of days I have until my next day off. And I used to be a work horse of sorts. At least at the workplace. But this new job, it had become a bit of a strain, and still is. The last few days have been pretty good, all because things are fine on the job front. It's sad but true. Hey but I started off this piece in a positive mood so I'm not going to ruin it in this depressive philophical strain. So like the positive guy that I am, or am constantly aspiring to be, let me hope this roll I'm on at the moment does not hit any of those huge rude speedbreakers. I could do without the rollercoaster - for now.

Awakening of the sleepy city

As I sped through the empty roads today homeward, I couldn't help feeling this strange feeling. This was the second time in the recent past that Bangalore - a usually peaceful city - was being threatened by trouble on the streets. Only a few weeks ago, I had left office in a hurry in order to beat the curfew and reach the safe and sane confines of my home outside of the mad world that was getting madder all around me. My boss's angry words rang faintly in my ears and I felt a mild irritation at his seemingly unfeeling attitude towards my plight. True he had let me go, but not without spewing a bit of venom that I felt was uncalled for. I knew he was just generally hassled, but I'm only human too and his irritation grated upon my finer feelings.

But compared to that night, tonight was just a mere shadow. True I had not encountered anything untoward that time either, by God's grace, but there was a palpable difference in the atmosphere all around me. Then the roads had been absolutely empty with only a few crime cops hanging around - none of those painful traffic cops who insist on stopping people returning after a hard day's work just to check their licences or smell their breath. That night they were conspicuously absent. But there was a general uneasiness in the air. The air hung thickly all around dangerously low like the drooping wet of a bat's wings. There was a nameless fear and dread, such as can be induced by communal feelings.

Tonight, however, I had to consciously bring my attention to the fact that the roads were empty and the shutters down on shops - all except one medical shop on the way. Only then did I remind myself that there was supposed to be trouble brewing silently somewhere waiting for a chance to erupt. Only it wouldn't be as bad as what it was a few weeks ago when two communities decided to go at each other. This time it would be because of the court's ruling seemingly against Karnataka on the release of Cauvery water. While it would incite many of the baser passions of some of the baser elements of society, the communal feelings would after all be of a different kind, not the sort that would really have people killing each other believing that their respective gods would then accept them into heaven and cast aside the man or woman they had just killed.

It's strange for a person who's spent all his life in this peaceful city to suddenly ride through streets that seem somehow half awakened. True, they would fall asleep very shortly after, but for a city that had hardly ever opened its eyes before, sleep-walking through most of its days, this sudden excitement on its part seemed almost unnatural. Anyone who knows and loves Bangalore as much as I do would feel some pangs at this subtle change that some outside elements have been subtly and insiduously wheedling into the very midst of our society. To be sure, if Mysore is called the sleepy little town, then Bangalore is definitely its older brother - a city that sleeps, but only at the right times.

But this sudden madness that has gripped the city - I wish it would go away and leave us all alone.

So when I remembered that the reason the roads were empty was because there was likely to be trouble (notice I had to remind myself about this), I snapped out of my general dreaminess in which I usually move about and paid a little more heed to the world about me. I couldn't help thinking to myself that at one time, I used to be afraid of dogs chasing me on the road while I rode back home from work. It used to be a regular affair three years ago. But now, I was more afraid of my own fellow human beings, lowering themselves much below the level of street dogs. Fortunately, nothing happened to me along the way until the last stretch. Breezing along, I suddenly saw this dog waiting in anticipation for me to pass, and as I did, he charged.

Advice for the singles

I wish to offer a word of unsolicited advice to all my single friends or even those caught between relationships out there, who at least some times listen to what I have to say. There are some of us on who, after some time of having remained single for one reason or another, the pressure finally begins to tell. We begin to misconstrue our singleness for unloveability and seek refuge in farfetched strategems that merely do little to convince us of the opposite. By this I mean, we start telling our happily 'coupled' counterparts things like, "My dad/mom/kid neighbour/dog is my boyfriend/girlfriend". At the time, we might think it sounds either clever, sweet or, by some strange stretch of the imagination, even humorous. But I must advise against this, out of pure concern for your self-respect (I speak for myself too). Such statements only reek of absolute desperation, nothing else. And 'coupled' people can see through such things faster than you can even begin to shape your mouth to utter some syllable.

I know it's nothing really profound I have revealed, but it's worth a thought anyway. For your own good!