The title has absolutely no bearing with what is going to follow in this article. It was just the first thought that popped into my head when I saw that my last post was more than a month back. And to make matters worse, in the whole intervening period, I’ve had FREE Internet!!! Of course, THAT itself could be the reason for the lack of activity on the Blog. I mean, handing over free Net to a teenager is like letting a kid loose in Disneyland...
Actually, I’ve been planning to write this from Independence Day... I’m a fortnight late! Anyway, I got all patriotic and everything and my heart welled with pride on Independence Day to see what great progress our country has made. 58 years of Independence, a 100-crore population, 33 lakh square kms of land area with more than half dedicated to agriculture, ten perennial rivers, one and a half lakh industries...(sounds familiar??? No prizes for guessing the movie;))
And yet...
It’s the small things, which affect our daily life, which play a role in our everyday actions that still remain pathetic. Of course, I could worry about our 8.8% unemployment rate or our imports exceeding the exports by a few thousand billion dollars. But to say the truth, none of those directly affects my life in any way and there’s nothing much I can do about any of them. What DOES make me feel sorry for the state of our country is...
Note: These incidents are not necessarily in chronological order.
The other day, a friend of mine had this electrical problem in his room. The capacitor in the fan had burnt off and now the fan was rotating in the opposite direction when switched on! The burnt capacitor was also giving off alarming smells at levels of calling in the fire brigade. That apart, the monitor was flickering dangerously and basically the wiring system in the room was gone, finished, kaput… So he calls in the electrician, who promises to come at 2 o’clock. 2 o’clock comes and goes, so do 3, 4 and 5 o’clock. He finally arrives punctually at 5:30 and promptly gets himself shocked by touching some unearthed wire. Nothing happens of course, but only then does he realize he has some SERIOUS work on his hands. So, three hours of delay and a “shocking” experience later, my friend has a working electric supply.
This could be a city-specific problem, but it’s a problem nevertheless. For the Autos in Chennai, the concept of meters simply doesn’t exist. It is just an appendage, and they get fancier too, like electronic ones. But step up to an auto and he says “80 rupees”. That’s all, no arguments. Of course, you can reel off all the info about mileages and petrol rates that you have judiciously calculated for your own vehicle, and you’ll be met with a frown or a very disdainful reply. After all, don’t they know best??? Oh, and from the same place that you paid 80 bucks to get to, the return could cost you 90! Why? “Sir, one of the roads is a one way, I have to detour.” Yeah right, like I don’t know that the detour is barely a km extra and surely not worth 10 bucks...
This is a good one. The above-mentioned “own vehicle” is a Kinetic Honda. I had lost the key for this vehicle and as my luck would have it, no duplicate was available. So I had to give it to the service center to change the lock set. He promised to have it ready in two days. The promised day, I got a bit delayed and had to feverishly use some three modes of transport, including a borrowed cycle, to get to the garage in time. There was my vehicle, with a gleaming new lock as promised and its set of keys. I happily take the keys, impressed with the service center, and out of sheer habit, try to lock the vehicle. Wait a minute, the key isn’t turning! Push it in and turn, the mechanic says. OH yeah, like I don’t know THAT. He valiantly steps up to help and makes all sorts of faces in an effort to lock it. It doesn’t happen. With a sheepish grin, he asks me to wait and I spend the next hour sweating in an automobile garage waiting for a vehicle that was promised to be delivered to me when I came...
It was raining in Chennai! Sheets of white water were pouring down on the road and grass and mud and whatever else make up the contours of Chennai. And needless to say, the roads soon became a soggy mess, there was enough water in the middle of the playground to conduct the Olympic swimming trials, and a sewage pipe had burst somewhere and so the stagnant water was not exactly from the heavens any more. All these could be common civic problems that can never be solved to perfection. But here’s the killer. After a walk through this mess, I had mud and water splattered all over me and so I go into the bathroom for a wash. I open the pipe, and I get... Air!!! Hello, wasn’t someone talking about rainwater harvesting??? There has just been a mini deluge and the water pipe still thinks it’s an air pump. I mean, this is where you reach heights of irony...
I could go on- the yellow water called Rasam in the mess (seriously, if they use normal Chennai water, it’ll have enough salt in it to give it SOME taste... but they very hygienically use mineral water!), the loss of a cycle that I had barely had for 8 hours, apparently unfair cricket-team selections, roads dug up at arbitrary places for NO apparent reason, so on and so forth. It’s just that these small things put me off at times, get the adrenalin rushing. I’m a peace-loving man, believing that anything can be solved with a smile and a kind word. But sometimes it is so hopeless, just so irritating and you get all worked up and you just wish that you could... you could...
Anniyan Avadharithuvittaan.
