Irritated as hell!!

So you may think what the hell am I doing here at 2:00 in the morning. And this when I don't even have the excuse of a project submission or exam tomorrow! The thing is after lying in bed for 3 fricking hours and not falling asleep...now I've abandoned all hopes of waking up 'early' tomorrow. And since I'm going to hell as it is... might as well do it properly!

What scientific study was it that said your mood when you go to sleep governs how you feel the next day... I already know I'm going to be a grouch tomorrow (or later today!). Actually for knowing this you don't need a couple of scientists armed with silly questionnaires! Har baccha jo apni ma ke pleadings aur dad ke gaaliyan sunkar jaaga hai woh yeh jaanta hai!!

Okay... I'll just follow the example of fellow blogger Schizophrenic and list out some of the things that caught my attention:

1. 1000 awesome things which I've been mentioning to almost everyone I saw this week. Only one word for the site- its AWESOME!

2. Fell in love with the song "She's a Lady" by Tom Jones... upbeat, catchy and perfect for listening to while on a walk!

3. The Majak Blog! Have a nice laugh!

Neighborhood Kid

Kids observe so keenly!!! Adi is in junior k.g and just for fun I asked him to write his name in cursive. He didn't know how to write 'h' and 'y' so I showed him (the top one). He noticed the minute, unintentional curve my 'y' and tried to reproduce it in his own 'y'. Bending his little fingers to shape out that 'y' and even his tongue was imitating the movement of his hand!! Tooooooooooooooo cute, endearing and adorable!!!!!!

That's 2 little boy incidents... so I'm creating a little boys label! Long live all little boys... for making someone smile every single day with your cute antics!

Happy Place

Rita was a professional. She could go from hideous reality to her happy place in minutes. Which is what she did every morning when she boarded the 9:43 am CST fast. Most days she would rush into the station to look at the indicator and experience 1 tiny second of relief on seeing that the "9:43 ST" indicator was still on- meaning train hadn't left. Only to experience 1 expanding-to-infinity second of terror on seeing that the very same train entering platform no.4, the most dreaded, the most crowded, the most hostile of platforms on weekday mornings. After that, everything was a blur for approximately 10-15 seconds... In those 10-15 seconds her brain would only register self-preservation and the aim to get to the train, 10-15 seconds of climbing up a crowded staircase and running across the bridge dashing into people and dodging dogs (no time to say 'Sorry"! And simply forget about 'Excuse me"!!). Finally she reaches platform 4, almost everyone has squeezed themselves into the train (there are always people who pass the train on without boarding it). And since last minute entries always get abused if they try to squeeze in too, she grabs the bar, gets a foothold on the very rim of the carriage, the train starts to pick up speed and then she aligns herself with the train so that she can breathe (the wind literally slams your face if you don't do that right).

Next- 2 minutes of morning review... "It's so horrible having to walk soooo far before finding a rick gahhh...MUST. LEAVE. EARLY. TOMORROW. I wish 9:20 milta... MUST. LEAVE. EARLY. TOMORROW. Oh my God I can't believe I'm hanging from the train... if dad comes to know I'm doing this he's going to KILLLLL me... MUST. LEAVE. EARLY. TOMORROW..."

"Wish I was a bird...just spread my wings and fly over this city instead of have a train chug me along! Crow, Kite, Kingfisher... being a part of this crazy city, but still aloof... Zen. Above and away... where it's just a symphony between me and the air... no noise, no smell, just free space to explore and explore... Wonder how the world will look from up there? Human beings like little ants all over the place and trains must look like those little fat black worms with yellow dots on their sides. And all the factories will be the smoke from the chimneys of the underground beavers... like the ones in Narnia! No pushing and jostling, no being a Rude-erella shoving people away to get to a train, no having to claim my inch of space like a aadhunik-manav, no being accused of being a lesbian and no being accused of thinking someone else is a lesbian!!!"
"Dadar?!"
"What...oh yeah..I mean Haan.." she smiles. Rita always comes back to reality like this. Sometimes she's jolted out of it with a sharp "Dadar?", sometimes its a nudge and sometimes, a pleasant "Dadar na?" That one additional syllable adds all the warmth that's hidden inside a tough Mumbaikar. But no matter how she's asked she always replies with a smile...to show that every toughie Mumbaikar has a heart!

Tying up the loose ends

I just realized that I have more drafts than published posts! Not a good thing for anyone who writes! If you pour yourself some Pepsi and keep it lying around its gonna lose its fizz!

Project Get-my-act-together is so on! Speaking of projects, Gotan Project makes some wonderful music.

Also a BIG THANK YOU is long overdue... a big thank you Sneha, Richie, Shrijit and DJ for 'following' my blog... which I take it means you like what I write enough to publicly acknowledge it!!!!! THANK YOU! I'm so glad for your support!

Thanks to Riddhi, Jeeva and Amruta who always ask me about the haal-chaal of this place! Feels awesome to know you care! Thanks to Alison and Mrun for having a look!

Thanks to Siddharth... for giving me a couple of days in the limelight of 'Facebook Status Appreciation'. It was a GOD-AWESOME feeling!

Thanks to Thomas and Arvind for the comments and checking out my blog every once in a while!

Thanks to every single person who lands up in this place... even if it's just by clicking on the "Next Blog" link on their own blog- hey its fun to do that and I've come across some pretty nice sites by doing that myself!

Thanks Sneha for giving awarding me a Versatile Blogger Award!! *Hugs*

Little Boys

Who can be more adorable than little girls? Little BOYS!

Was just standing in the mile-long bus line, trying to get the bus to come soon using the Secret (it comes and goes!) and looking at the bat in tree right above the bus-stop pass droppings or something and right behind me there were these 2 little boys joshing one little girl about being dressed in 'gulabi' from head to toe. I guess one of them was the brother and the other was a friend of the brother and the little girl was the sister. They teased her endlessly about wearing a 'gulabi' raincoat and the kid got so annoyed that she removed it and tossed it over to her Aai. Only to reveal a completely pink uniform, 2 small fountain-ponies with pink rubber-band and pink bag! The boys went crayy-zzzzzy teasing her! Trust little boys to make a little girl hate her favourite colour- Pink! Couldn't help but smile at their antics! Of course I had to turn my face away and smile coz nothing stops a little boy from doing masti then to see an adult (in their 9-year old eyes, I probably, no definitely am) enjoying their inside joke!

Also let them cut the line and go ahead and haul their little sister up the steps of the bus! By luck got the seat right behind them. So I had a little bit more fun just observing them...they lost interest in their 'gulabi' sister and started looking out of the window. Have to hand it to the Maharashtrians... kids know the language well enough to use the Marathi word for pink rather than use the word 'Pink' which I do. Infact I don't know what the Tamil word for Pink is... even my aunt describes it as 'Rose-colour'...

What can I say?

Rain is using the principle of "Preparation is half the battle won" today. The scarier version of the rains is so unlike the showers that make the trees, flowers and children smile. Too much rain is as much an unstoppable force of nature as an earthquake. Thunderstorms are like the sky's version of Joker. Alfred says about the Joker "Some men just like to watch the world burn" and Thunderstorms- means no harm, just likes to drench the world. But a city which has seen 26th July would'nt quite have the same opinion. Having concretised the city to the extreme (just 0.3 acres of open area per 1000 people in Mumbai. Even Delhi has 4.4 acres per 1000 people) we the people of Mumbai are not entirely blameless. So if the rains decide to jazz it up a little bit, thunder, lightning...you know, the works... we really have no option but to put our tail between our legs and scurry home right this moment, or atleast as fast as the delayed locals will take you.

And today its a whole lot of jazz. Sample:

At 3:30 I could read a book without the lights in my pretty shady room. Then Dad called.

Dad: How is outside?

Me (*Is that an ominous opening line or what?*): Fine..cloudy and cool. Why?

Dad: Here the streetlights are on, lights are on in shops and offices and everyone's driving with their headlights on. It's like 8'0 clock here.

Me (*uh oh..*): Better leave early.

This conversation may be repeated about a million times by everyone who works in the city, lives in the suburbs, and calls home. Thunderstorm fires the first salvo. Fear created in the mind about an unknown, powerful entity coming soon.

Over the next 1 and 1/2 hours the exact same thing happened right outside my house. The skies darkened slowly, as if the Rain... God? yes definately a God summoned his cloud minions to march forward in an unbreakable line of dark. With the winds driving them on, slamming every open door and rattling the windows... drawing people's attention to it. Every now and then there is a low rumble of thunder, like a war horn. We watch uneasily, yet mesmerized... thinking 'This is probably what is known as a Terrible Beauty...'. A run through of bad rain incidents starts in our mind, like an old slide film. Stage two accomplished by the rains. The very sight of the clouds and accompanying orchestra has scared us. Even before the battle, we have started imagining visions of defeat.

Then as if on cue, the lights go out. It's just 5:58 pm and its pitch dark outside. Not 8'0 clock this looks like midnight on a new moon's night. The cool winds which we would have loved not 20 days ago feels like the hand of a psycopathic stalker on your neck. Rain chooses its props well... just as we are adjusting to the darkness it sends out one gigantic flash of lighting. Lightning which shows you a teaser of a drooping black tree against a bleached sky. Our hearts are on the way to our throats when a huge crack of thunder wallops it right into our mouth. That's it.Now the slideshow starts running faster in our minds... you can see your face or the face of your loved ones wading through the water, hailing ricks on a road full of people hailing ricks, discovering the umbrella is *aarghhhh*, trapped in a train and the train going nowhere... complete frenzy begins. If you are at home you call up mom, dad, friend now. If you are outside home, you recieve a call from home at a freaking wrong time, like when you are readying yourself to jump into a running train entering the platform, standing in a bus that breaks every 5 seconds, trying to remove your windcheater as other passengers abuse you...so much for 'family's concern' :(.. Stage three reached. We are scrambling over one another in a frenzy to reach home or wherever.. to avoid an event that has not even happened yet.

And it didn't happen afterall. For all the drama, all we recieved was 10 minutes of medium rainfall. The lights came back on, the wind has rested its whip, the orchestra is taking a water break. Sitting at home it feels like much ado about nothing. The ones who come home may have a different answer, maybe there was utter chaos where there is no roof over the head.

But tomorrow is another day. And Thunderstorm like Joker is a mad genius... maybe its just waiting for the us to let our guard down.

TIGER: BEAUTY & BEAST

The first trip to see any predator in the wild is an unforgettable one. Actually every trip is. And why wouldn't it be? You know you are travelling through the very same lands where the animals roam free and hunt. We sit in tidy little jeeps and go all over the place looking for His Majesty. We tremble when he nonchalantly walks past the jeep to a water body. We either feel disappointed on not spotting him or feel satisfied seeing abundant wildlife in the form of birds and other mammals. There's a board at the exit gate of the park which depicts a tiger saying something along the lines of 'Even though you haven't seen me, don't feel bad because I have seen you.' Touche Tiger.

Night and Nature take over the forest when the sun sets. None of the tourists know exactly what happens after the park closes. They sleep in their hotel beds, shivering at the thought of a hunting tiger. But the ones living in the forest know. They dread an attack by the tiger on one of their people. The poor farmer living in the outskirts of the park knows. He fears a tiger may snatch away a calf from his cattle shed. He worries that Sambhar or Cheetal will eat his crop. The forest ranger knows that there may be human beings in the forest with no right to be there.

Most of all the tiger knows that there is something else lurking in the grass other than food. What it does not know is the trap of jagged iron laid out on the forest floor. That once trapped by it, his screams will only hasten the poacher to shove a spear into his throat to hack his vocal chords. That once muted, the poacher will proceed to electrocute him. His being the national animal of India matters very little to the poacher. His huge fangs hardly scare the poacher, trapped as he is. And the more he struggles, the more he is hurt. What matters is that a whole, undamaged skin fetches a larger sum of money. That the fangs, claws, bones and other organs will be hot property in the black market. The life of the tiger has no value. The animal does not even have an easy way to go like a bullet in the head. It's slow and painful electrocution. Why slow? Because by God, the poachers for all their brazen courage will run for cover every time the trapped animal struggles violently and snaps at them.

After my first visit, I promised myself I will go back to Bandhavgarh Hills in my lifetime and see the tigers again. The 'Save Tigers, only 1411 left' program couldn't have come at a better time. To me, 1411 no longer looks like just any number. 1411 is the legacy of our nation decimated so greatly it can be counted on fingers now.

Those of us who have never seen tiger land will probably never understand the magnetic attraction it holds for the people who have been there. But every one of us who has been to any national park and seen the beast in all its raw glory have a story to tell. A wish to make others see the magic they have seen. A desire to save it- so they themselves may see it once again and so that others may see it atleast once. That future generations see it. I am one of them. I say it out loud and clear:

"SAVE TIGERS! THEY ARE NATIONAL TREASURE. SAVE THEM BECAUSE
THEY ARE LIVING BEINGS. A TIGER SKIN CARPET ON YOUR FLOOR IS PROOF ONLY OF THE FACT THAT YOU ARE A GREEDY MURDERER. TIGER FANGS, CLAWS AND BONES HAVE NEVER CURED AILMENTS NOR GIVEN SPECIAL POWERS TO HUMANS. DON'T LET GREED WIPE OUT AN ENTIRE SPECIES.

As a common man far removed from the world of poachers and black markets, this is the least one can do. Spread the work, speak out against poaching, be informed about the status and the numbers of the animal, blog about it etc.

Greed is one part of the reason for such a demand of tiger products. In China, tiger bones, eyes and even penises are used in local medicine. On February 14 this year, the Chinese Year of the Tiger began. There are fears among conservationists that this may lead to an increased demand for tiger products. Many Indians too have a love for tiger skins.

The other part is need. Would not an utterly poor man, with no land ownership, hardly profitable crops and a large family to feed begin poaching which offers huge, lump sums of money?

To tackle poaching as a livelihood, WWF- India has begun courses which educate the childeren of a nomadic tribe called Pardhis in Madhya Pradesh. Pardhis are traditional hunters who make a living by killing wild animals. This is a firm step in reducing poaching and one that attacks a problem at the grass root level. Change through education is a superb idea and I fully support WWF- India's initiative.

http://www.wwfindia.org/?4301/Change-through-education

WWF- India also organized a marathon supporting conservation of tigers in Central India to create awareness and garner support on the issue. Such marathons should be held all over India. A 'Run for the Tigers' would be great.

http://www.wwfindia.org/news_facts/?3980/Run-for-the-tiger

Make a noise, roar for our tigers. Tiger Supporters pledge your support:

http://www.saveourtigers.com/JoinTheRoar.php