Falling in love with amaltas in the mad heat of Delhi

Amaltas on a road divider in Delhi: Photo by Sanjay Gupta

 

When people say, “May heaven's choicest blessings be showered upon you”—a  popular wish, spoken frequently at weddings—they could be visualizing amaltas, also known as “the golden shower tree.” 

This yellow beauty wears multiple monikers. Indian laburnum and Cassia fistula (the botanical name) are fairly well known. Somewhat less common, but more significant from historical and health points of view, are Aragvadha (meaning disease killer) and Rajavriksha (the royal tree)—both of which find mention in Charaka Samhita, the oldest Indian treatise on Ayurveda.

There are several other names, too. But I'm particularly fond of amaltas and how easily it rolls off your tongue with a lyrical feel: amal-taas.

Different parts of this tree provide different medicinal benefits. It is said to have anti-inflammatory and laxative properties, and is useful in arthritis and skin diseases, among other ailments. Killer of diseases indeed!

For me, amaltas represents soothing drops of nectar sent from above for the benefit of parched souls. Especially for Delhiites sweating it out in the scorching days of May and June.

The signs of delicate yellow on slender, otherwise-nondescript branches of the medium-sized tree begin to appear in April. Come May and the golden shower works its magic everywhere. On trees planted along traffic dividers. In clusters across city parks. In fortunate folks’ backyards. Just about anywhere.

Take one look at the pleasant flowers twinkling invitingly and the heat that has been oppressing you relents a bit. Pause a little longer to drink their blessings and a cool reassurance percolates in your being.

In the sweltering afternoons of harsh city life, the relief that sightings of amaltas bring to me—and countless others I'm sure—is immense. The yellow petals, swaying in the wind, make your spirit soar and put the bounce back in your step.

Trees remain Nature’s most benevolent, most visible marks on a rapidly deteriorating Earth. Let’s give a shout-out to one of their most lovable manifestations.

“Love you, amaltas!”

Four Life Lessons My Kids Taught Me

In one of his poems, William Wordsworth famously remarked, “The child is father of the man.”

I had read this line years ago. But now, when I look at it again I'm not only in a better position to appreciate its import, I can perhaps make my own little additions to the very notion as well.

As an unabashedly proud father of a 14-month-old son and a seven-year-old daughter, I have spent countless wonderful hours with them—loving, learning and laughing enough to feel a little preachy.

So, my dear poet, not only is the child father of the man, the child is the teacher, guru and even God to man.

If the smiling face of a young child does not belong to God Himself, what else does?

If the whooshing cooing gurgling bubbling sounds of the child do not come from God's own throat, what else does?

If their little innocent pranks and pulls are not rooted in God's mischievous mind, what else could be?

In India I've heard a lot of old folks say, “Children are the embodiment of God.” Not only do I second them but I think the reverse could equally be true: God is made possible by children.

But let me not take you too far into the domain of theistic or ontological questions. Let me only share some of the most vital lessons my kids have taught me.

The first and foremost lesson—though I'm yet to fully imbibe it (revive it, rather)—is to always take delight in the little things around us. The melodious sounds of a toy, the vibrant colors of a book, the playful dance of a piece of paper in a whorl of light and air. Delight in anything that is pleasing to the eye, sweet to the ear, cool to the touch. Delight in anything that is new, exciting, mysterious, inviting...

They have made me discover the beauty of the world and take delight in it through their experience. So whenever my senses are numbed by the greedy and possessive ugliness of the world (and they often do), I need only look at the kiddos laugh and play and share their delight.

The second vital lesson is simplicity of being. A child just wants to be. Period. The thought of emulation or rivalry or the blind pursuit of a vocation is thrust upon them in their formative years. Have you ever heard children spontaneously say what they want to be? It is the parents or other people who usually put the nasty idea of being or trying to be someone else into their fragile brain.

True, sometimes the children say they want to be whatever they fancy at any given moment. But these whims keep changing and no true picture emerges until at least teenage. I've learned—and continue to learn—that we must let kids be. Our role is only to help them identify their true calling and facilitate their journey as much as we can. The rest is up to them.

Another great learning is that, tied as we have become to our clockwork schedules, we must sometimes allow ourselves to be yanked away from the tyranny of time—and be thrown cheerily into the timeless playfulness that is immanent in all children. (And in all Nature indeed.)

By simply throwing their arms around me, or clinging to my legs when I’m late for work, my children have often taught me, without saying a single word, how infinitely better it is to be a willing slave to love than to be a forced prisoner of time.

That is not to say that we do not meet our professional commitment or neglect work we are paid for—but just to reiterate that one thing cannot be a substitute for something entirely different and certainly much more important. (Unless your only priority is to chase greenbacks, in which case you shouldn't be reading this article.)

Perhaps one of the most important lessons children have taught me is forgiveness. They just keep forgiving me for my innumerable imbecilities. No matter how cross I’m with my daughter or how much I’ve scolded her (my son is too young to be scolded, though my wife disagrees :), she hugs me with an unconditional love that puts my tyranny to shame—and makes me want to become a better-behaved father next time around.

And these are not the only lessons. As I continue my parental journey, I'm sure there will be countless occasions for me to learn, unlearn and re-learn life's most vital lessons from children.

And so my education goes on...


-o-

Globalization and its Stinky Contents

For the past few days, there has been a sharp media focus on the stink that garbage dumping has raised in what can perhaps be called India’s first globalized city, Gurgaon. The name literally means a “village of jaggery” and it used to be a typical sleepy town not too far back. Now Gurgaon boasts of countless 24x7 call centers (usually with thousands of sleep-starved workers) and innumerable MNC offices.

Within a few years, Gurgaon has become a sprawling city of malls and offices, more malls and offices, residential gated colonies and, well, more malls and offices. Many of Gurgaon’s buildings vie with each other for supremacy in size, height and abundant use of glass.

The recent ruckus is about the gargantuan pile of garbage riling the wealthy residents of some DLF flats (DLF is the main builder in Gurgaon, whose honcho KP Singh is now one of the richest in the world). The flats in current market value cost upwards of $500,000 and house several senior executives from Fortune 500 companies (hence the group’s influence in the media).

It seems that while the Haryana government and builders like DLF were busy making mountains of money from their hyped high-rises, nobody thought about the piles of garbage that the multitude would generate. For lack of a proper disposal system, garbage is being dumped in open, empty lots dangerously close to residential areas.

As it is, the pot-holed roads in Gurgaon are responsible for causing huge losses in vehicle maintenance and for medical bills incurred in repairing dislocated joints that travelers on these roads must be getting. Power cuts and shortage of water are already well known and widely despised. The stink is the latest in the litany of woes that Gurgaon inhabitants – and visitors and workers – face.

What did the government and the builders think when they built and booked those gleaming offices and spiraling houses? That somehow ‘the stink’ won’t show up?

With 2 million people cramped in condos, malls, offices and cars – and counting – you bet it would!

My guess is it would take a minimum of two to three years in time and at least half a billion dollars in money to set things right. And yes, a whole lot more in political and executive will.

Meanwhile, The Hindustan Times is carrying a series of articles titled Gurgaon Collapsing.

Tale of Two Cities: Bombay & Delhi - Part II

(This is the second in a series of posts on my experiences in Bombay and Delhi.)

During my initial days in Bombay, there was another wondrous thing that I noticed. Something that few places in the whole of India can boast of: twenty-four-by-seven electricity. For the first couple of days after I found a paying-guest accommodation – another Bombay novelty for India – at the Santa Cruz Railway Colony, I was uneasily at rest. And this unease was not from the creaking trains and howling airplanes that went by the house in disconcerting succession, but from the inconspicuous presence of on-tap electricity. Since I was used to sweating it out countless times a day in the sweltering heat of Delhi, the existence of this uninterrupted, unobtrusive supply of power dawned upon me only after I realized that I didn’t have to unduly exercise my forefinger on the switchboard even once in the past two days! This was something too good to be true. I mean, how could you have such a smooth-functioning utility in India! As the days – and nights – went by, my wonder grew into amazement and sheer appreciation at the bounteous fulfilment of this basic need of mine: continuous supply of electricity and the feeling that I live in a metropolitan city belonging to the Information Age and not some godforsaken remote village in the Dark Ages!

Although I took to Bombay as a fish takes to water, I never stopped wondering about how the city continued to survive. For survive it did despite enormous population pressure, including my own which - I can say with some saving grace - was not at all enormous. Despite organized crime and disorganized politicians. Despite huge swathes of jhuggi clusters and growing numbers of skyscrapers, the more recent ones being in residential areas. Despite several metric tonnes of human and industrial waste spilling out into the sea…

Ah, the sea! To me, nothing symbolizes Bombay more than the sea, lapping at its shores with renewed vigour in each successive wave. Never mind that the waft coming from the sea often carries a sharp sting of foul smell, I cannot but look admiringly at the Queen’s Necklace – the epithet given to the crescent-shaped Marine Drive along the sea. Especially as it sparkles with lights from the buildings dotting Mumbai’s famous skyline and the headlights of vehicles moving steadily along the road. The sea also makes an emphatic statement whether you are looking over the romantic ruins at Bandra Bandstand or crossing the bridge to New Bombay (a suburb created in the hope of decongesting the main city). In its vastness, tranquility or agitation; in its expansive beauty; in its calming or prodding effect upon the mind, the sea never fails to connect with you. The sea is there even in the non-coastal areas, through a recurring stench of fish or moist breeze. The first thing I remember when I think of Bombay is the sea – both of water and people.

There’s an old barb I remember about the stifling crowds of Bombay. It is said that space is at such a premium that even dogs in Bombay have to wag their tails up-down rather than sideways! While I failed to spot any canine calisthenics of that sort, the gibe is not without bite. The crowded bazaars from Borivli to Haji Ali bear visual testimony to a space-starved city. You know the real meaning of the idiom ‘rubbing shoulders with others’ in case you happen to be one of the gazillion people forming a part of that crowd! And you need a mix of correct posture, attitude and evasiveness to pass through the crushing mass of people unhurt or without getting interminably delayed to your destination.

Not that Bombay can’t offer you any breathing spaces, but such spaces are few and far between the crammed dwellings that mostly make up the city. Two such breathing spaces I recall are the famous Sanjay Gandhi National Park and Azad Maidan (sadly, the environment of the former is threatened by encroachments while one can’t enjoy the openness of the latter because there’s a large procession of commuters passing through it all times of the day). Another breathing space is the large paved area outside Vashi station, which is in extreme contrast to the packed-like-sardines scenarios in and around most other stations.

In fact, the geography of Bombay offers an interesting insight into why the city is cramped in most places. Bombay is more or less spread out linearly – from the southern thin tip, the downtown, to the gradually broadening northern parts, the suburbs. Put simply, it’s a triangular strip of land, with two coastal sides very long and the third, joining the other two, quite short. The net result: the closer you go downtown, the more difficult – or expensive – it is to find larger areas. So if you go northward into the suburbs, beyond Virar on the Western line and beyond Vashi on the harbour, you are more likely to see appreciable breathing spaces. As I was once told by a colleague: “Go that side if you feel claustrophobic here in the middle of the city.” I considered the idea many times, but the horrors of an increased commute time in locals held back my fetish for open spaces.

Bombay’s peculiar, strip-like geography once made a friend of mine remark: “Bombay is like a dirty drain, and there’s only one way to travel in it - by flowing in that drain from one end to the other!” His jibe, of course, didn’t flow too well with the staunch Bombay crowd but I, as a dispassionate observer (and as a flailing dirt speck in that drain!), could see a ring of truth to it. Later on, whenever I happened to travel in the locals for a rather longish duration, his remark would come rushing to my memory like the reeking smell of a drain. The analogy of the drain is even more apt if you take into account the filth that follows you all along the iron rails.

Railway tracks are perhaps the perfect place for squatters in Bombay. Which may be fine for you as a commuter if it’s not for the muck that this rampant squatting creates almost as sinuously as the tracks go. You can actually see people squatting on abandoned rails a few feet from the track your local is running on - and doing what they must do each morning (or most mornings if they do not have constipation). You pinch your nose with your fingers to stop the inflow of the stench but, pretty soon, realise that you’ve been holding it tight too long and need to take a breath in order to complete your commute alive! Because, it’s the same story everywhere – people defecating on a mass scale and jhuggis lined up along the tracks, their ‘backyards’ serving as convenient dumping grounds for all kinds of waste (I’m sure you wouldn’t want me to name them). I was even told by a ‘long-standing’ fellow commuter, who couldn’t help but notice that my one hand was employed in pinching my nose instead of supporting the other in holding on to the handgrips overhead, that there were accomplished commuters in the city who, blindfolded, could give out the name of each station as it passed by matching the place with its peculiar stink! I never knew the human brain could store, segregate and retrieve so many disgusting smells with such precise efficiency – until he told me, of course.

At this point, let me warn you against making a biased mental picture of the beautiful city called Bombay based on my positive or negative portrayals of its varied aspects. Bombay must be seen, lived and described with a multi-faceted prism capable of reflecting the innumerable hues concealed in its unified persona. The city is, in fact, a mesmerizing mix of glamour and grime, surplus and scarcity, calmness and cacophony…Nowhere else in India can one see the juxtaposition of the paradoxical vagaries of life brought out as starkly as in Bombay. So any attempt to singularize the city’s essence or see its way of life with a blinkered vision will not do justice to its motley character.

Tale of Two Cities: Bombay & Delhi - Part 1

(This is one of several entries I intend to post about my experiences in Bombay and Delhi.)

I had heard a lot about it. Had read in papers how people’s daily lives depended on it. Seen the flashy images in so many movies.

But nothing prepared me for what I came face to face with when my 6:35 Churchgate local began to screech to a halt. It was a fateful evening when I met the fierce reality of travelling in Bombay’s local trains. (I still refuse to call the city ‘Mumbai’ because the word ‘Mumbai’ can’t give you the cosmo, go-getting flavour that only ‘Bombay’ can.)

I casually hung onto the steel pole affixed to the passage of the bogey I was travelling in. I was going downtown to attend my first press conference as a reporter in India’s City of Dreams and I was told that the best and fastest way to travel from Andheri to Oberoi Hotel was to take a local to Churchgate and then take a taxi. What my advisor meant by ‘local’ was local train, but the suffix ‘train’ is considered a wasteful appendage by Bombayites; only an outsider would call a local a ‘local train’. (Just as a Delhiite would drop ‘rickshaw’ from ‘auto rickshaw’ and merely hail, “Auto!”) Since I was moving from North to South - a direction opposite to evening peak-hour traffic – most of the seats were empty and, even though I could sit down, I stood near the door and enjoyed the breeze from the nearby Arabian Sea.

Now, as Churchgate Station approached, I came upon a horrible trait of humans – a trait native only to us Indians perhaps – that haunts me to this day. And as I was standing lost in my thoughts, I first encountered it through the sense of hearing. “Tak-tak-tak-tak!” the sound echoed in my ears like a magnified patter of giant raindrops on tin sheets. Only, the drops were not water but men, women and children hitting the iron floor of the bogey with terrifying speed. In a split-second, I was swept somewhere inside the compartment by the ruthlessly but systematically attacking mass of humanity that descended upon me from both sides. Every ‘occupiable’ inch of berth-space was taken up by this voracious mob, determined to crush anything that came their way. The whole spectacle was over in a matter of seconds. There were a few who, beaten to the punch by their more nimble-footed fellow commuters, could not find any resting place for their eager bottoms and, in exasperation, simply muttered obscenities at their own failure to perfectly time and execute Operation Berth Capture. By now the train had squeezed itself between the two platforms and just taken its last belch before agreeing to a final stop.

Dumbstruck, I slowly popped onto the platform, unable to believe the scale or speed of the entire episode. How could people pour into a train at such speed just like that, with utter disregard to those wanting to alight? Hell, how could well-dressed and (apparently) educated people scamper like raving rats just so they could travel seated? This was not what I had been told what Bombay was all about. If this was the shape that India’s own melting pot had taken, then I for one wasn’t going to be stirred in it. Not in the way the scene at Churchgate unravelled.

As I managed to find a standing space near a ticket-window pillar – without getting jostled around by the milling crowd, that is – my bewilderment continued. I saw tens of hundreds of people coming onto the platform from the subway and from across the road with a determination that belied their harrowing daily routines. Routines they must have been keeping for tiring years. Their gait was bouncy, not from excitement or pride, but from the urge not to miss their almost-always-on-time locals. That they had a few minutes to spare before the departure time did not deter them: they simply had to hurry. As if hurrying about was a prerequisite to being a Bombayite. Even years later, I cannot get a plausible explanation for all the hurrying around going on in Bombay – it must have gotten into their blood!

Leaving the protection of the pillar was not exactly a pleasant thought, but I had a conference to attend and so, plunging myself into the immense sea of people, I made my way to the taxi stand just outside the station. It took me quite a while to brush past that giant swell of human tide. (In fact, it would take me several weeks of practice in the art of dodging and pushing to learn how to negotiate the swarming railway platforms in Bombay while swimming against the tide, literally.)

Thankfully, all my experiences with Bombay and Bombayites were not ghastly – there were several pleasant surprises too. One great thing about Bombay, for instance, is the professionalism of its taxi and rick wallahs (auto-rickshaws, the three-wheeled taxis, are shortened to the spiffy ‘ricks’ in Bombay). The cabbies don’t look at you as if you are from another planet when asked to take you to a place not too far off from where you stand (which is what Delhi cabbies usually do, if they choose not to snicker at you in the first place). You can even hop into a cab before you tell the driver where you want to go. The best part is, you can take a ride in a taxi for less than two tenners – something the Delhi taxi guys would consider blasphemous.

Anyway, I took the taxi to Oberoi and, as the Premier Padmini cruised along Marine Drive, forgot about the hubbub at Churchgate and looked dreamily around me. This was Bombay, real Bombay! For Marine Drive and its line-up of skyscrapers is the scene almost every Bollywood flick shows you when your beloved rustic hero is transplanted from his humble village to the merciless, fast-paced world of a glamorous city. And which city in India can boast of glamour other than Bombay! I looked at the beautiful, placid sea to my right and envied the smartly dressed walkers on the pavement alongside. Especially the business tycoon-types who seemed to be regulars around those hours, many of them restraining their Dobermans or Alsatians at the leash. What would happen if they let go of the raring canines? I felt amused at the thought as the taxi swung into the entrance of the hotel.

Not wanting to tip the heavy-mustachioed janitor, who made for the taxi to open the door for me, I thwarted his move by flicking the taxi door open quickly and getting out in time. I paid the fare and quietly slipped into the hotel lobby. I’m not one of those (often fake) blue-blooded creatures used to other people opening doors for them, you see. I’m also not a person who allocates a good part of their meagre earnings for tipping people (which might be the real issue, actually)!

My first press conference started (almost) on time. Quite unlike those Delhi affairs that were pretty often late by half an hour to three full hours – the equivalent of an insipid Hindi movie. Other professional interactions that I later had with people in Bombay, whether it was a one-on-one meeting or a photo shoot, were mostly punctual. Bombay is more punctual than Delhi, I had always heard that, but now I could feel the difference myself. On that count, the city scored another brownie point in my appraisal book.