Turning them into White Tigers

So what if we have a Dalit woman Speaker? The scene for the urban poor and unprivileged is not changing. Because our attitude is not.

We were just finishing our meal at a bbq place, when a platoon arrived – four urban bitches (well, I’m not given to calling people such, but you will soon know), three kids with their customary attachment of maids, girls of barely nine- ten. The women and their brats were seated at the table next to ours. The wonder-eyed maids remained standing. They looked about self-consciously as most diners stared at them and waiters flitted about ignoring them. It was obvious that the maids would not be eating there. That they would be standing, feeding the kids, accompanying them to the wash rooms, apart from picking up cutlery after them, keeping them from putting their hands into the grill and other such that ill-mannered rich brats are likely to indulge in.

The lipsticked and streaked hair mums would not want to be bothered while they discussed important life and death matters like John Abraham’s derriere and their new solitaire collection. So while the girls would stand and watch everyone feast on the sumptuous buffet, they would have to wait to get back home to their humble dal and rice. No doubt about it.

How fair is that! How many times have you resisted any food when you’re hungry, or even when you’re not. How many times have you not spooned into your own mouth something you’re feeding the child? How fair is it to expect the little girls to watch and not want the food you’re literally eating in their face? The women had no business putting them through this and causing others such embarrassment and outrage. They could have very well left the minders at home. Yeah, it would have inconvenienced them a little to take care of their own kids for the bit. But they could have also left the kids at home if it was so crucial to eat out with friends. I could have slapped those women!

A few days later, another one of the species was spotted at a high-end organic food store. She was billing in front of me. I recognize this species by the look of irritation they carry at such stores. It is meant to show that they’re overly used to such. That they cannot possibly be excited over such mundane as the redness of US apples (which incidentally look to me like they have been dipped in red nail polish) or black sapote from Australia.

So madam finished billing, paid by card, as was expected and walked out. At the Exit, the guard demanded to see the bill. What cheek! How dare he! Madam was totally mad. She looked about and located the bill and threw it at his face with disgust and stomped out. The poor man just looked away. I guess it wasn’t the first time.

Why is it that they treat people like this? Same people go update their Facebook status with ‘proud of the first dalit LS speaker’ and suchlike. Why? What are they proud of? Does it matter to them how the majority of the poor and lower castes live or make their living? Do they desire dignity for them? NO. Sadly, they mess up with their children’s upbringing too – desensitizing them to the extent that they feel that the domestics deserve no better.

कि खुशबू आ नहीं सकती, कभी कागज़ के फूलों से!

All winter I bought tuberoses. Every time I looked at the other plainer or fancier flowers, the soft fragrance of Rajnigandha held me back. Then summer arrived and though the trees outside were dressed in amazing yellows, lavender and pinks, and very soon in flaming oranges; the flowers with the florist began to look dull. Rajnigandha disappeared and one was forced to look for substitutes. Carnations were tried and so were tiger lilies – extremely beautiful to look at but I missed the gauzy fragrance wafting through the house in the evenings.

Last Sunday, at the insistence of Mummy visiting from Bhopal who thought my flowerless existence had something to do also with the soaring prices of summer flowers, a bunch of white lilies were bought. To say that they blossomed into an amazing sight will convey nothing – look at the pictures.

Now I know why poets have called the lily (Lilium, Archu insists) the lady of the garden, the plant and flower of light.

Lilies are growing on me…

Fruit of Labor

Sitaphal, Ramphal, bull’s heart, poor man’s apple or custard apple whatever you call it, the once-humble Shreefa (as we called it in Bhopal) is not everybody’s bowl of dessert. Everyone in the family stays three feet away from it and constantly scowls and expresses incredulity, How can you like that, its so full of seeds? What’s there to eat in this? Try once, I thrust it before them. Nooo.. they turn their faces like I was introducing dope. Is it addictive, I wonder? I never stopped to consider it too full of seeds, too little for the effort and suchlike they fault it with.

It started when I was little. Hundreds of bushes laden with shareefa grew wild on the hill beyond the campus. The raw, hard fruit was not good enough to be eaten straightaway nor worth taking home to be carefully wrapped in newspapers and buried within the wheat in the drums to ripen.

When the teacher asked to draw 3 fruits, I hurried through the apple-shaped apple, the mango-shaped mango and then leisurely, passionately drew out each hump, each bulge of the custard apple tarnishing meticulously its green skin with black, its sweet-sour taste bursting in my mouth.

Before you know it life takes over from teacher. It draws a curtain over our simple pleasures. We hanker after career, love, achievement, house, children. When the time comes for us to look back much of what we left behind is gone or altered beyond recognition.

Looking back, I see Papa rushing to New Market on my arrival from Delhi, and returning with a bag of custard apples. Only parents remember.

Now when I can find time on weekends, I visit the HAL vegetable market to buy my north-Indian vegetables - tinda, parwal, bathua, sarson, raw jackfruit and red carrots not heard of in Bangalore five years ago. Subzi done, I walk into the narrow lane leading to the exit of the mandi. Fruit sellers smelling of the ripeness of fruit call out to me, I hopscotch over the squashed fruit on the ground, I have to go to the end, exactly three stalls from the exit, to the smiling lady. She weights papaya, banana, apple and pear. Then she waits. I wait. The two baskets in front of me are precariously laden with sitaphal. I ask her to pick. I don’t want to run the risk. She picks three. Just three. My longing stretched out like a rubber band neither too much nor too little.

बदलते वक़्त का इक सिलसिला सा लगता है कि जब भी देखो उसे दूसरा सा लगता है ~ मंज़र भोपाली

During this trip to Bhopal, a Bhopal Carnival was on. Cultural shows, food festivals, and heritage shows were held at several venues across the lake city. Bhopal Haat on the lines of the delightful Dilli Haat is an ambitious and well-intentioned initiative but it was thanda-thanda.

The handloom and handicrafts exhibition at Gauhar Mahal was enticing as always. But I guess it’s more for its historical, architectural and romantic ambiance than for the shopping that I’m drawn there. When the evening lights come on and the lake in front shines like an endless sheet of glass, reflecting the lights of the city, the green-glassed windows from the turrets of Gauhar Mahal lend the evening a mystical charm.

The other delightful experience was the late-night mushaira held at the Iqbal Maidan surrounded by as much history as any place can hold  – remains of three palaces – Shaukat Mahal, Zeenat Mahal and Sheesh Mahal and two beautiful masjids - Moti Masjid and Heera Masjid. The poetry echoing from the lighted facades created a surreal experience.

This is where the mushairas are held.  Photo courtesy: Gulrez Raza Khan

Now for the heartaches.

The Kamla Park so seeped in my personal memories had grass and weeds growing out of the statue's head. It was unforgivable.

The beautiful new road along the Bada Talaab is incorrigibly called VIP Road! I hoped and prayed all these years that a namkaran would happen but the name has stuck. It is like a slap on the face of the Bhopali ethos. Imagine getting out of the magnificent Gauhar Mahal with the grandiose Bada Taalab in front and then on to the VIP road !! ?? The options are lovely - Gauhar Mahal Road, even Begum’s Necklace or Begum's paajeb, kangan, bajuband... anything.

Then, Hamidia (College) became MLB (College) and MLB became Hamidia much like the Karva Chauth kahani – Rani bani dasi aur dasi bani rani. As if it was that simple! To rip-off an entire living, breathing milieu – identity, aura, history and thrust it on to another bleeding trunk with no concern of whether these will live – take root?

The loss is more MLB’s than Hamidia’s, in my opinion. Generations of girl remember the dipped in, tree-covered haven right in the heart of Ginnori; a world of their own next to the Chota Talaab. Imagine the girls’ hostel across the lake and the girls coming to college by boats. It was a way of life. Now I hear many girls from conservative families will not go to college.

I asked many passionate Bhopalis how they could let this happen? Why was there no public outcry, movement, protest? It seems it happened overnight. The reason given was Hindu girls run off with Muslim boys, it being predominantly a Muslim area. God!

दे और दिल उनको जो न दे मुझको ज़बाँ और