Back to Pondy!!!

So after 3 weeks of sleeping, watching T.V., and GORGING on home food, woh manhoos ghadi aa hi gayi. It was time to go back to Pondy. So I embarked on this ominous 28 hour journey to Chennai with my friend. So far, we have taken this journey 6 times, and each time our moronic luck would put us in the company of some or the other kind of freaks in the train. This time was no exception. A 28 - 36 hour train journey itself is an ordeal, and the effect is amplified ten times if your co-passengers are annoying. All I wished for was a quiet, comfortable trip. But NO!!!!!! I had to be clubbed with a bunch of intrusive Haryanvi senior citizens, out on a pilgrimage. And it wasn't just those five who occupied the seats around us. It was a BIG, extended family - extended to the point that they themselves really didn't know much about some of the others. And they were spread throughout the train. However for some reason, they all chose to come and chit-chat in our seats for most of the trip!! So me and my friend, two poor, little, hapless chaps were surrounded by 4-5 aunty jis, (who all seemed to have a loud speaker built into their vocal cords) and an equal number of uncle jis, who had an opinion on each and everything in the world! But none of them were as much as thorn in my flesh as compared to their guru ji, the guy who was apparently the head of the family, and ran an ashram. My entire journey was spent in focusing all my energy towards ignoring and tolerating this guy and his bigoted pravachans (sermons)! And they all started their hobnobbing at 4 am in the morning! No wonder I had a splitting headache throughout the day. What is more, I gave up my lower berth to one of them, cause of her age, and took a middle berth. And how do they thank me? By unceremoniously kicking me out of the berth at 9 am (I had barely manage to fall asleep again after the rude 4 am wake up alarm), telling me that berth reservation is not valid throughout the day!!! Boy, that sure was an exercise in self-control!!! Later on in the day, one of the aunty jis insisted on dragging us into a conversation. After interrogating me about my entire family history in a manner that would put an FBI agent to shame, a marwari connection came up and all my hopes for a quite afternoon to recover from the headache went poof in the air! And my so called friend decided to make hay while the spotlight shone on me, and crawled into the upper berth for a nap. I was left alone to tackle her incessant queries. The only bleak, bright spot in this whole ordeal was that they took us for working professionals, and after being constantly mistaken for a school kid by people (and watching their jaws drop when they learn that I was pursuing my post - graduation), it was nice change to be considered your own age!

Anyway, the worst was yet to come. So we managed to survive the journey from hell and reach Chennai. We got out of the railway station, managed to avoid the thieves (read auto wallahs), cross the road and take a bus for the inter state bus terminal. All was fine. Bus was as usual crowded. No big deal. WE bought the tickets. Ours and for the luggage. I had the latter. A lot of pushing and shoving. I managed to get a seat. Actually, I was pushed into one. The bus terminal came. We got down. Police standing just out of the bus to greet us. "Ticket please". My friend shows the tickets and gets ready to leave. "Luggage ticket???". I put my hand in my pocket. "Oh crap!!!". I check all my pockets. "Oh Shit!!!". My friend looks bewildered. I say "Sir I think I dropped it in Bus". "---something in tamil I didn't understand-----". Then basically I turned all my pockets inside out a zillion times, looking for that magical bits of papers that will land us out of this soup. But I guess my pockets didn't have the ability to produce them. I must have lost the tickets amidst all the pushing and shoving. I thought I'll look in the bus, and ask the conductor to be our witness and tell these people that we did buy the ticket. And sure enough when I looked up, there were the taillights blinking and mocking me from a distance, as if saying "haha, ur screwed boy!!". Meanwhile, The man who kept shouting "no arguments, no arguments" at us, and simultaneously pretending that he didnt understand a word of english and whatever we were trying to tell him, now threatened to pick up our bags and keep it in his jeep if we didnt shell out Rs 1000/- as fine. My friend by now had gotten all hot and fired up, was ready to fight with them. I realized there was no way out other than paying the fine. And after all, it was kinda my fault, not being able to keep hold of two tiny pieces of paper. I was ready to pay the fine. Especially after the guy offered to be generous and only charge fine on 1 person, i.e. Rs 500. But my friend would have none of it. Finally I managed to convince him, and tell him it was my fault. Actually, After such a long train and bus journey, I was in no mood to take another trip in a jeep, and that too, to the Police station. Basically after a lot of bi-lingual (english and tamil) arguing, shouting, and turning in and out of pockets, I paid the Rs 500 fine, signed a paper and we were left off. But obviously not before a sizable crowd had accumulated, whispering in an alien language and pointing fingers at us, and made us feel like a couple of petty shameful criminals.

The next five minutes went in calming down my friend. A silent dinner followed. Then we got into a bus for Pondy. It was almost 11 in night. Bus started at 11:30. Now it was my turn to get silent. The combined effect of the humiliation just suffered, and the fact that I was back in this part of the world, away from home, away from my warm quilt, away from my beloved T.V., away from the delicious delhi winters, away from the wholesome ghar ka khaana, away from di n ma, took its toll on me and withdrew me into my silent reverie. My friend tried to cheer me up by telling obnoxious, bachpan waale PJs, and they kinda worked. We covered the three hour journey mostly in silence. And then we were there. Pondicherry University. At 3 am. Same as ever. And it felt like, I'm finally out of a dream, and back to reality. Back to what will be for the next 4 months more, my home.

What's happening down there!!!??

I mean Australia.......... A spate of fresh attacks on people of Indian origin has got the Indian media declaring war against Australia, while the Australian newspapers are busy lamenting the hysteria created by Indian media!! Our politicians find themselves incapable of doing anything other than issuing periodic, hollow threats to the Australian authorities. And even that is passe now. Now they have begun to tow the Australian Government's line, and calling upon the Indian media to exercise restrain in reporting. Within a week or so, a guy is killed, another burned alive, another set on fire, and another two guys attacked. A guy was actually beaten up by a bunch of locals on the beach yesterday!! And what's common between all of them? They are all of Indian origin. Doesn't take a genius to figure out that the attacks are racially motivated. But I guess even that is beyond the scope of the Australian authorities. In fact, they seem more keen on proving that the attacks are not racist, rather than on solving the cases, and putting the assailants behind the bars. Never seen such an extreme case of "living in denial". Hardly any progress has been made, in any of the cases which happened last year or even this year. They seem more concerned about the severe blow all this will cast on the Australian economy with the obvious loss of Indian students, rather than bringing the perpetrators to justice. One can only imagine what the families of the victims have gone through, and what the thousands of families with there kin in land of the ozz must be going through. And all we can do is hope that we have seen the last of such attacks.......!! :-/

The homecoming - Part II

So, my new year's eve, as I said earlier, was nothing special. I ended up channel surfing and watching a bit of each of those horrific New year specials. I was actually playing a game with myself, trying to adjudge the worst one. Expectantly, it was a tough competition, with no clear winner. It seemed like each of those channels were trying to outdo each other in mediocrity. What really bugged me was, do these program editors and directors think their audiences are fools??? Remember those days when programs like award shows, stage shows etc. were actually beamed live into your living rooms by the good ol' Doordarshan? Though the production value those days may not be have been as appealing as nowadays, and can be even considered tacky and sub-standard, it was still entertaining. And more importantly, truly LIVE. Nowadays, with all that jhintak light and sound effects, the shows may look better, but the feeling of watching a live show doesn't sink in. And they are not live. The whole thing just seems a facade, specifically done up for television. A couple of shots of the celebs in the audience are projected intermittently throughout the show. It's like Do they really think the people watching at home are dumb? They expect us to buy that the likes of Aishwarya rai, Amitabh Bachchan and other people in the audience sit throughout the 3-4 hours of the show in the same pose, with the same facial expression and laugh in exactly the same manner at each and every joke and/or performance? I mean, come on!!! But I guess it's just a part of the whole "The audiences are stupid, they'll lap up whatever we throw at them" attitude adopted by the entire television industry nowadays, whether its soaps, entertainment or news.

Amidst all this Great Indian T.V. tamasha craziness, the only constant is the good ol' Doordarashan. You can count on it, to always remain the same, and never change!!!! Star plus aired an event which was hitting the news since weeks before it was televised on the 31st, (cuz of the spicy encounter between ash n vivek), and to think, at the end, the anchors were trying so hard to make people believe that the are watching a live event, and it actually is 12 am on the 1st jan 2010, and wishing a happy new year, with fireworks n all the other drama!!! While our DD national, had those good ol' staged shows, with famous singers lip-syncing to their popular tracks, and with no intentions of making it look even remotely believable. They were dancing away to the tracks like they'd in a disco, while actually pretending to sing the songs live!! :-D The lighting, the stage and set design, the costumes, all were an instant flashback to the 80's and early 90's, the era where DD seems to be stuck in forever. In fact, travel shows which aired when I was in primary school are still airing!! And no, not new episodes! those same old episodes shot way back then!!!! Really Doordarshan does bring back a lot of fond memories of childhood.....and I'm sure not just for me...! But we'll talk about that some time later.........