Take a walk...

I cycle to school. Its good fun to cycle, especially if one has company, the only irritating problem being signals, which by Murphy’s law, never favour you. And, that when it rains, you should have alternative modes of transport. I do. My dad drops me to school on such days and my mom picks me up.
Today was one such day. My dad drops me as usual, and promises to pick me up after his meeting at around 4:15. I didn’t have any major issues with that because I knew most of my classmates would hang around in school till then.
So I wait. And wait. And wait, but no dad comes. It is 5. I try to pass my time by looking at people playing throwball. They play pretty badly, so I give up on that. I decide to study, so I open my bag, only to find that I have left my text book at home. Brilliant. I go to the office to make a call and ask my dad if he was planning to come. He doesn’t pick up his phone. Neither does my mom. Another alternative- I could go to my friend’s house, two streets away, but I realise that she may not be at home (it does not strike me to call her up then). So, what do I do? I decide to walk, applying the simple logic: If I can cycle, can I not walk? So I begin to walk, all the way from school at Gandhi Nagar to home at Shastri Nagar. What happened throughout the way is what is worth mentioning. In the beginning, I walk , singing to myself my favourite songs. I can feel the stinging glares of the passerby’ s but I can’t care less. I have to keep myself occupied, and I can’t think of anything else. Until I cross the signal. I suddenly realise I could count the number of steps it would take me to walk from school to home, though I had already walked more than half the distance. I start counting, but I am walking faster than I can count. Somehow, I seem to be looking down all the time, as though counting with utmost concentration. I hear a whistle. I look up. A desperate guy was trying to make a pass at me. I say desperate, coz no guy in his right senses would have made a pass at someone who looked like I did then; - my hair was a complete mess, I dripped sweat and my face looked like I had been dipped in a pot of oil ( I can say this because this is how I looked when I saw myself in the mirror once I reached home). Totally angry with that dim-witted guy who made me lose count of my steps(remember, I was still counting my steps), I resume both my journey and counting. I reach the signal. I cross it pretty comfortably. ( I think the signal doesn’t like my cycle!) I’m very close to home now, continuing my counting, an auto stops in front of me. I look up once again, irritated at being interrupted. He is an auto driver, who is generally around the auto stand near our building. He offers to drop me home, which is just down the road. I first refuse but on insistence I agree, because me legs were really hurting now.
He drops me home, I thank him profusely. I reach home, only to find it locked.
In despair, I go to my neighbour’s house. A neighbour with whom we haven’t been on very friendly terms. They kindly allow me to make a call. I call my dad who is in school, searching for me. The rest is pretty normal. They come back home, while I spend some uncomfortable moments, searching for topics to talk about to my neighbours. Once they come back, Im terribly angry. I throw a tantrum.

Then again there are some nice things about what happened. I never thought that auto drivers could be nice, certainly not in Chennai. We kind of patched up with our neighbours, she gave me some yummy tea, and all the unpleasantness just seemed to have disappeared. I really learnt to walk a long distance, previously being spoilt by the luxury of cars and bikes. More than that, I learnt to walk patiently. It was nice to just gaze at the models of cars, the grains in the smoke from their vents, the traffic inspector’s paunch, a pup putting its head out of a car window, the misery of a street beggar, the schizophrenic at the end of the street, and many more such sights that I wouldn’t see if I were in a car. I wouldn’t have the time to either.

Now as I write, my mom still thinks I’m angry with her. She gives me a soulful look and I give her a smile. And she gives me a hug. After all, how can I be angry with her for being late once when she has made sure I always am early to school, even if it meant her getting up at 3!
My dad thinks I’m angry too. I flash him one of my toothy smiles and he melts in to a puddle. Ah..there he is! How can I forget the times that he would go early to his workplace just so that I don’t get late, and be angry with him?

And so, everthing is normal again. I look out of the sky to see the weather. Its dark, but I can still see clouds, and it is threatening to rain. That would mean I can’t go to school by cycle tomorrow also. I think I should try walking down, shouldn’t I??

Religion or Torture?

It is very depressing to know that there are some people who would go to any extent in the name of religion. I am not singling out any one religion at this point of time, there is fanaticism in every religion, but a recent incident was what made me think so deeply about it.
I had only heard of Thaipoosam- I knew it was a Hindu festival widely celebrated in the South East Asian Countries. Little did I know what really happened during the festival!
I saw people who had imposed self-torture. They passed sharp objects, considered holy and revere, through their cheeks and tongues. Many had taken the vow, not knowing what they were setting foot into and were not able to bear the pain. I am sensitive by nature, though many prefer to term me “over-sensitive”, and these sights really made me feel miserable. I fought back my tears, but apparently, I did not do a good job of it, as I was noticed and questioned about my gloomy mood. Not able to bear it any longer, I broke down when I was questioned. I confessed, and I was advised to take life more easily and to be tough because there was a lot more to life than appalling sights. I realized this was true. I was consoled, by all my near and dear, and I calmed myself.
I wondered where our world was going. On one hand we talk about globalization, and on the other we still believe in such antiquated superstitions?
Here again, I hope you are not getting a wrong picture of me; I’m not an atheist, only agnostic, but yes I am not superstitious. I pray in my own way, I don’t like to be forced to adopt certain ways of praying. These are the times I feel that the Indian Government is too lenient with their rules. Every citizen has a right to practice their choice of religion and anything in the name of religion cannot be questioned, may it be self-torture or blaring megaphones!
Besides this, we have old-fashioned people who believe in fasting whether they are diabetic, or have high blood pressure. They really think they would go directly to heaven if they do such things. I don’t mean to be discourteous, but doing such things would definitely send them somewhere, but I have my own doubts whether that would be heaven! Fasting is an excellent practice, no arguments, but it has its own dos and don’ts.
It is time we get more practical. It is time we think. It is time we are avant-garde.

Stop the adulteration

It’s a while since the Rajasthan Royals won the first ever DLF Indian Premier League after a close match with the Chennai Super Kings. After 44 days of “cricketaintment”, people are still searching for programmes to substitute the entertaintment provided by the IPL . The league was a welcome change after a horde of reality shows, which seemed to be the success mantra of several channels, desperately trying to pull up their TRPs. None of the shows provide quality family entertainment as the IPL did. In fact some reality shows attributed their failure to the IPL. (All I can say is, it wasn't too intelligent of them to start relaying their shows at the same time!!)
e IPL concept recived a lot of criticism in the beginning, and I don’t deny being a part of it. It would have been more easily accepted if there was not so much commercialism in it or so much of money involved. The auctioning of the players seemed a ridiculous idea at first. But nevertheless, the man behind the whole concept, Lalit Modi, was confident of its success and went ahead with the idea.
Everything depended upon the janta of India, a cricket crazy nation, and the people supported the league whole heartedly by turning up in large numbers to support their favourite teams and favourite players. As T-20 is such an exciting format of the game, it seemed to be a crowd puller.
Another aspect was the involvement of Bollywood stars as owners and ambassadors of teams. A majority of the crowd would go to see Shah Rukh Khan or Preity Zinta support their teams, rather than to watch cricket.
Another negative to the league was that the teams were based on states and cities of the nation and this was not promoting national unity. I found myself rooting for the Chennai Super Kings, not because they were a good team or because it had my favourite players, but because I belonged to Chennai; it gave me a sense of pride when my team was winning.
So this leads to the question: Should the IPL go on at all? (Its not that if I say it shouldn’t, it wont, but anyway). I am a cricket fanatic, so I’m not going to say that it shouldn’t, but some changes ought to be made to it. If not, money is going to lose its value, cricket is going to get adulterated and it may not be a gentleman’s game anymore!
Hats off to Lalit Modi for have thought of such a brilliant concept, but lets hope that the Indian Premier League will give cricket a new impetus for the better!