The Bird

As i hover in the maroon twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness,
A black headed mynah enters the white space of my consciousness,
and insinuates herself in the 3-D 70 mm screen behind my eyes,
bird twitters echo inside my head as that little head bobs to and fro,
the hippity hop of tiny feet, the cool breeze of rustling wings, the silken smooth down,
make up the vivid strands of my technicolour dreams,
some may call me poetic, but others will call me bird brained.

A Celestial Spectacle

Alone on my bare terrace at night,
staring up towards the heavens,
I see a vast black easel embedded with cherry white dots of sparkling light,
like a patchwork of colours splashed carelessly on a canvas, the night sky glows bright,
a shooting star, two falling stars,
like streaks of dripping wet paint on an unfinished painting,
or tears of the artist on a work of art well done?

Cyclerickshaw

Cyclerickshaws are one of the modes of transport in Lucknow.

You can’t be very finicky about transport here because the public transportation system is so bad. Public buses were introduced a year ago and are still infrequent. There are no bus stops, so to board a bus you just wave your hand when you see one approaching and the driver stops just enough for you to hop in. Similarly to get off you yell at the driver to stop and jump off when he slows down.

Then there are the ‘vikrams’, basically motorised three wheelers that pack humans in like sardines. The Sumo SUV jeeps are even worse in this regard. You can barely breathe in one, let alone move. The stench of human sweat is nauseating.
There are ’share’ autorickshaws, but these ply only on the major routes. So, despite personal misgivings and morals, you cannot afford to be too choosy about your transport. It is mix and match that gets you from point A to point B.

I first encountered the cyclerickshaws and felt a personal aversion to riding in one. A cyclerickshaw is basically a three wheeled contraption which resembles a bicycle with a large carriage at the back to carry people. The rickshaw is peddled by the driver who is thin and emaciated from the physical toil. There are thousands of cyclerickshaws on Lucknow’s streets.
Now this is the problem I had: There was an odd sense of guilt in riding one. The rickshaw driver cycles all day and late into the night in all seasons. And in Lucknow the seasons can get pretty extreme with brutal bone jarring summers and frigid mind numbing winters. Moreover, the rickshaw driver gets paid pittance for the amount of physical work he does. One rickshawallah told me he earns Rs 100 a day.

I am not being overly moralistic. I can’t afford to because I don’t have the complete picture yet. But the issue of human dignity keeps cropping up in my mind. Riding on someone else’s toil, sweat and, dare I say it, tears. But as I said I don’t have much choice, so I end up rickshawing quite a bit.

Before getting onto a rickshaw, I negotiate with the driver, which basically means haggling over the price. When he demands 10 Rs I am willing to pay 8 and when he pleads for 6 I say 4. The price fixing is not in his favour because there are so many of them willing to undercut each other. If this on demands 2 rs more there is always the next one eagerly waiting to poach customers.

The rickshawallahs have little bargaining power. They know it, I know it and they know I know it. People like me ride these rickshaws and haggle for every rupee like this is our last ride. And yet, when we walk into a store, showroom or mall, like the ones that increasingly dot the urban Indian landscape, we look at the ‘Fixed Price’ notice on the saffron walls and pay up without questioning.

That then is the dichotomy.

The Power of Woman

The sun is scalding the dusty streets outside as I walk towards the administration building. I curse my luck on getting some of the lousiest beats in Lucknow as a rookie reporter. Can’t be helped, since I am the juniormost.

I am covering Lucknow University and it’s not a pretty beat. Posters of 35 year old student leaders stare hostilely at you from every wall. These neta’s do samaj seva and use bombs, guns and knives to persuade the recalcitrant. I met Vinod tripathy and had an almost meeting with Ranjeet Singh Baghel, two worthies of LU. The gentlemen are members of the Student’s Union and hate each other’s guts. Their supporters regularly shoot and hurl bombs at each other in every imaginable place; outside the VC’s office, inside the hostels, under the bike sheds, in the ladies toilets and occasionally in jail as well.

I walk into the Pro-VCs room without knocking. I need some quotes from him. He sits in a run down room with red paan stains on the wall. I sit opposite him. He is talking into the phone and to two people at the same time. Once he finishes he stares at me from behind his half-moon glasses. Next, the pan stained mouth opens and he asks me what I want? I reply I am from the ’meediyah’. He is instantly ingratiating. I begin asking him routine questions for my story and he parries wonderfully. He talks without revealing anything.
The room has a stale smell about it and the overhead fan whirrs disconsolately. His chaprasi is hovering behind him like a cork bobbing in the sea. He has a worried look on his mousy little face and a spitton ready for when his boss will put two fingers to his mouth and spit out a red stream of pulverized pan and beetel nuts. The air conditioner in the room is on the verge of break down.

The door opens and a woman walks in. She is pretty and petit, in a vernacular kind of way. A typical UP behenji. Slim and lithe. Her small boobs peek out from the black chunni. her face is sharp and carries an uncanny sense of awareness and guile. She sits down and crosses her legs slowly, delibrately, but not fully. Five men walk in with her. They look menacing and ready to kill, her bodyguards. The hooligan outriders sit around her. They have the Pro-VC completely surrounded.

There is something exciting brewing in the room. I stare at the girl. I am presuming that they are all students. The girl is the centre of attention in the dull room. She is sexually stimulating; She knows this and makes full use of it. Her demenour is mildly menacing, this is what makes her alluring.

She addresses the Pro-VC, poor chap, with barely concealed contempt. Her tone is not too loud, but ‘dont mess with me’ at the same time. I wonder which of the guys is having a tumble with her between the sheets and feel mildly jealous. Her voice has me in rapt attention. She wants the Pro-VC to give her ‘group’ some university contracts. When she finishes her rant the room is silent, except for the echo of her voice in my mind. I look at the Pro-VC, he’s sweating. the light beads of perspiration on his brow reflect the white light from the tubelight. But he brazens it out well. He tries bluster, she’s not amused. He hums and haws about rules and regulations. She gives him a final look of scathing proportions, gets up and walks out of the room, her hips swinging to the beat of her goons footsteps.
It is moments like these that I love; the hidden dynamics in the air; the unexplained, but perfectly understood vibes; the raw sexuality that pierces the mundane moments of life like molten metal.

post script: The lady is apparantly a junior librarian. She’s called ‘juli’. The name comes from combining the first syllables of the two words, junior and librarian, written in hindi.