Musings.....

As I was looking through my glass window, while my driver struggled through the traffic, I happened to observe a mother with her baby sitting inside a shanty atop a slab covering a wide roadside drain. The woman was dressed shabbily even though the white pearl neck piece that she wore was quite notable. The toddler sat in front of her and a plate separated the two of them. Though it was not in my line of sight, but the movements of her hands suggested that she was kneading flour and the baby was trying to imitate her action to the amusement of them both. A few meters ahead, in another similarly built shanty another family was having a meal. A young girl amongst them was entertaining herself by watching the traffic.

Don’t get me wrong, during this complete short episode, the human spirit and the similar high fundas didn’t cross my mind. Not for a moment did I think about the bond shared between the mother and her toddler or on any such noble theme. All that struck me was their poverty. I tried hard to imagine what they would be thinking at that moment. I wondered what would be their immediate wishes, aspirations and expectations from life.

My floating thoughts brought back the memories of an accident that occurred a few days back. A tractor trolley, laden with daily wage labourers, hit a speeding train at an unmanned level crossing. There were four causalities, four from a family lost their lives; the lone survivor was the bread earner who was now left with none to earn bread for. This made me think about the lives of these migrant labourers, who spend their days building castles for others and at nights take shelter in these makeshift shanties. Often they are people from far off ‘backward’ states who come to the cities in hopes of a better livelihood and in dreams of a better life. Do they get it? What are their limits? The least and the most they demand and yearn from life? What preoccupies them besides their daily needs (if at all they have the luxury of preoccupation)?

Indulging in such thoughts is not an issue, the main problem lies in calling these thoughts ‘musings’ and allowing oneself to glide over. Exploring further, the problem lies within me. I allow myself to raise the questions but do not allow myself to dive deeper to find the answers. The fact is that my own fake sense of honour prevents me from doing anything concrete. I and people like me need people like them, so that there is always someone available to clean up the filth we generate.

Right now, I am typing from amidst the comforts of a soft bed and an air-conditioned room. However, if fate presents before me a simple prospect of visiting one of these shanties and spending just five minutes with these people, I’ll for sure hesitate initially. Moreover, I am not sure if I’d eventually accept the offer. In all probabilities I need to broaden my mindset first, before I make another attempt to understand something about which my inner most fears tell me to be wary off.

Kandla: Through my looking glass :-)

Yahan hawa nahi dhool chalti hai

Yahan dhool dhool nahi namak hoti hai.....

I have never before come across topography as this and though many people might disagree and grumble, but I find it very enchanting.

Bright skies with patches of white cotton balls; shallow; very shallow swampy ponds on either side of the roads. The vision occasionally blocked by farms of closely built tanks. Few scattered buildings; some abandoned, some rebuilt and some unaffected by the tectonic plates underneath. The horizon displaying shades of grey, skeletons of dinosaur like cranes and of course small heaps of salt displaying shades of white and grey. This is what greets my eyes as I travel down NH 8A. My fellow companions on the highway are mostly trucks of varying stature.

A railway track crosses my path twice and on one particular occasion I found a goods train and myself taking a stroll on the road together, quite literally so. The different varieties of goods wagon that I encounter during my travels, seem to be my husband's scheme for giving me a better understanding of his job.

The picturesque landscape is made even more so by the annual migrants; Flamingos. Beautiful white coloured birds display their true colours when they take off. Strange though it seems but their feathers are a beautiful red from underneath.

Even though each and every inch of land here is reclaimed, and therefore planned, yet it gives me a feeling of wilderness. Looking at it for long seems to put me into a trance and I find myself transforming into a fly on the wall. The undulating topography, the swamps, the bushes, the soil, the salt pans, the roads, the tanks, the piping – Kandla very aptly reflects the never ending tussle between nature and mankind.

Floating through these scenes and thoughts, I am usually busy in ‘backseat photography’ and often a thought crosses my mind, ‘I feel like a princess of pre-independence days travelling in air conditioned luxuries clicking shots of ‘everyday routines’ of commoners, while the ‘commoners’ toil away in sun and dirt for their livelihood.’

However my sham royalty doesn’t last for long. As I near my destination and a particular manufacturing plant becomes more and more discerning, my driver takes a right turn and brings me to my own heaps of sands, morrum and abandoned property which had once been glorious. With a thud I am thrown back to reality and my looking glass slips inside by purse as silently as it came out when I started my short trip.