Diatribe

I was one of the invitees at a house-warming ceremony. The owners performed the rites under a shamiana that extended from the gate in front of the house to the back. Under its shade the owners served dinner to the invitees who ate in batches. I finished mine and found a place near the gate to relax and watch the people milling about. A ragamuffin appeared outside the gate just behind me. I saw him ogling at the diners. He soon launched into a diatribe. Mouthing expletives, the urchin vented out his ire at the abundance of food so close, and yet so far out of his reach. Someone from inside shouted to shoo him away. Only in an unjust world can abundance and scarcity live side by side? Karma justifies it, politics sustains it and the individual goes through hell.

Catch-22

The city traffic is a snarl in more ways than one. Every day at the same time on the same road it takes a different duration from point A to point B. While talking about it over a dinner, I said that since most people don’t stick to lanes but pan out and take up all available space it leads to the traffic woes we are used to. A lady in the gathering shot back: In India if you stick to the lane rules, you would definitely end up being late, or worst, perhaps never reach your destination. She had come back from the US for a short visit. I thought that it was a sure recipe for disaster. While it certainly ensured that only a few intrepid ones got their way, most people were going to be late anyway. And the accidents that have been on the rise tell a different tale. When a river flows out of its bounds, it is definitely going to wreak havoc.

Perspective

Two powerful bombs exploded one evening killing a score of people and maimed several in the city. Investigations by the police pointed to the handiwork of a terrorist group. For days after that the townsfolk felt shell-shocked and avoided popular haunts such as eateries and parks like the plague. One day I was traveling with a grand old man of some repute, who had held an important post in public relations. Naturally, the conversation turned to the recent man-made tragedy. The venerable granddad brooded for a while and asserted that one community had from the beginning a tendency to violence and that its effects were felt worldwide. “But terror has no religion,” I protested. Are we discussing the violent human mind, I wondered, or a particular form of violence, which inevitably leads to a biased perspective?

Tragedy

A great cyclonic storm was raging along the eastern coast. Back bays overflowed with sea water and inundated the hamlets and agricultural fields along the coastline, destroying lives and livestock. As news poured in of thousands perishing in what was regarded as the worst annual hurricane that battered the sea coast, a friend remarked with great satisfaction that it was so much better for this over-populated country. To him it was an act of purgation as the earth was much lighter now and none the worse for the loss of its lives. What was the real tragedy?

Status overshadows function

Today almost everybody owns a mobile phone. I was once talking to my boss, a wealthy Realtor from the South. On his desk he kept two mobile phones – one for personal use and the other for official purpose. Each gave a different ring tone so he could identify which one to pick up when a call came. When the personal phone rang, the lines on his face creased into a smile. He spoke in low tones and he became at once a father or a husband. When the official phone rang, however, he became serious, his tone took on a rather hard note and he was instantly the boss. Once he remarked, as he put down the official phone after an unsatisfactory conversation, that “every useless fellow now owns a mobile phone”. It no doubt seemed to him that the ubiquity of the mobile phone had somehow robbed the symbolic association of his stature as a successful Realtor to the electronic gadget that served his needs. Does a thing hold a value more than its function that even its maker is unaware of? Or, is the value addition an illusion of the user, unrelated to the maker?