Sun Set @ Chennai
After days of overcast and sun playing hide n seek showed its full glory today while it set.
The sky looks less polluted and so the beauty of the sun with the sky in back drop looks very picturesque. My daughter living in New Delhi commented that she had not seen a clear sky this and of course the Sun! Well how long Chennai going to have this privilege?
bird on a hunt
A few remaining less polluted lakes of Kovai. This lake used to be abound with variety of migratory birds like egrets, cormorants, wild ducks. But of late I noticed lots of nets being used by people to catch fish. Now if the fish starts to deplete it might lead to the birds stop visiting the lake. Moreover the nets may pose danger to birds and that may too stop them from visiting the lake. There has to be some regulation in fishing and the nets used. The surrounding too abound with rats since visitors carelessly throw rubbish all around that is certainly a big eye sore. Visitors must use the bins or else should be fined for littering the place. Nature has given several wonderful lakes around the town and its our responsibility to maintain them in a healthy state especially when water scarcity is posing a big challenge to every town.
Cattle Corridors
One
frequently hears of wild elephants straying into human habitations in search of
food and often tranquilized by the Forest department and relocated far away
from human habitation. This has become so frequent that in the last few years
either due to encroachment of human habitation in forest lands or thoughtless
development projects like roads etc along the path of elephant corridors.
However
another interesting parallel is taking place in urban areas that are otherwise
has little to do with forests. Most of us in this country are familiar with
cattle that generally are given liberty to frequent and feast on poster ridden
busy thoroughfares and highways by their loving owners. However these
gallivanting bovines unintentionally cause serious accidents resulting in loss
of limbs and sometime lives of drivers of vehicles especially two wheelers. The
hitherto Administration in deep hibernation after much debate and deliberations
finally seized the issue with both the hands and has begun to implement,
operation to clean up bovine encroachments that otherwise somehow defied a
solution so far. In fact the Corporation of Chennai was so serious about the
project that the first seizure was led by the Honourable Commissioner, who in a
true style of a matador or to use a more highly emotional native expression, a
jallikattu hero, secured a reluctant mount road bull and with an expert skill
lured it into a truck and carted it away to the nearest pound. It was truly a heroic
deed much applauded by terrified road uses.
The rather
shocked owners soon made a beeline to release their dear wards and after paying
a paltry fine got them back to their familiar terrain, roads, as they claimed
that they do not have sufficient space to house their chellams. Now we are back
to square one. Soon the owners, ably assisted by friends of bovine(NGOs), may
put forth the argument a la the elephants that the Town and Country Planning
Act has been enacted thoughtlessly without taking into consideration the cattle
corridors that was existing from time immemorial. And who knows they may even
succeed in the Courts in case our Honourabe judges happen to seize the issue and
after good quarter of a century of
deliberations may proceed to deliver a long winded discourse on the rights of
the four legged holy cattle vis a vis two legged homo sapiens. Jai hind!
From Ayodhya Ram to N.Ram.
One more hectic day ends. Really as I received roughly fifty forwards, audio, video n short thesis on history, geography, archaeology so on about
the origin of the term Bharat vis a vis India and a few PhD thesis on the term
Sanatana Dharma vis a vis Hinduism from roughly 5000 BCE to 2023 AD in three
days flat. Mind you not in one language but in four languages, Tamil, Telugu,
English n Hindi. Thank God I didn't know more languages. Not even in three
years of my graduation I came across so much literature on India sorry Bharat
that by the end of the third day my head was loaded so much excess of knowledge that I took a few
pain killers n to repent, sorry relax from the excess, I decided to watch Tom n
Jerry. To be honest I can't for the life of me remember a single damn thing.
That's all folks. bye.
A Postmaster, Milan Kundera and Nietzsche
Full many a
flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air.
The caption
is as the cliché goes is like chalk and cheese. Not so really as I realised. It
was those strange times when one comes across people almost from forgotten
little towns that many a time never ceases to amaze one. It was a professional trip
I was taking to a southern town in a day time train. The chair car compartment looked
pretty cramped filled to capacity. The afternoon was humid and to my misfortune
I had the middle seat. I was cursing myself
for not getting a more comfortable a/c chair car. To divert myself from acute
discomfort with frequent sips of water I fished out some dailies I was carrying
and started to read and do crosswords. A little later my eyes fell on an eldery
man sitting next to my seat neatly dressed was holding a book ‘Immortality’ by
Milan Kundera. He broke the ice by asking me if I was a Professor of English.
As I replied in the negative. Now it was my turn to ask him if he was one. And
his reply took me by surprise. He said that he was a retired postmaster from a
small town called Ammapettai where there was no railway line and only half a
dozen buses pass through it during the day. I became curious about his background.
He then told me that he was from poor agriculturist family and after finishing
tenth standard in the local government his education ended and he was helping
his father. Then he came to know that his village one man post office was
vacant and on the advice of his uncle he applied and got the job. For the rest
of his life till his retirement for about three decades he worked in the post
office as a clerk, postman and delivery man all rolled into one. I was
surprised about his familiarity with the likes of, not just Kundera, but with
numerous others from Bacon to Tolstoy to Gandhi to Nehru to Khalil Gibran. He
even began to quote some interesting passages. His knowledge of Tamiz
literature too was astounding. Right form sangam poetry to the great epics to bhakti
poems, all self-taught. By now I was
completely bowled over then to cap it all he fished out from his bag a book on
the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. By now I was feeling totally inadequate
to continue the conversation with the old postmaster.
The most
interesting was that the postmaster makes it a point to read The Hindu that one
or two people bought in his village every day and notes down author’s name that
he was not familiar with. And whenever he visited nearby town or Chennai he
would try and buy those books. By now he appeared to have collected a fair
amount of books. He also said that he would read “know your English” column
assiduously and improved his language skills. Most of his pension went to augmenting
his library with books and as a policy he also donates everyday a particular
sum to some needy person. His only lament was that his children don’t read any
of the books. I hardly could interrupt the torrent of thoughts that was pouring
out of him. As his station approached we exchanged the phone numbers and the
retired post master profusely thanked me for having spared my valuable time and
apologized if he had disturbed me. After
he got down he came near the window of my seat and bid goodbye in chaste Tamiz
and wished my journey be a safe and happy one. I just mumbled a thank you as
the train picked up speed and pierced into the growing night that I may not
soon forget as Thomas Gray lines came to my mind and in fact I cannot think of
any one more deserving than the retired Postman of Ammapett to grace the yearly
Lit fest that is held in fancies locations.
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