Tongue Lashing

Manmohan Singh hasn’t forgotten his skills as a Professor in Delhi School of Economics for his tongue lashing to the powers organizing CWG and the Chief Minister of Delhi has obviously met its mark. As I traversed the twenty five kilometers to office today morning, I found that my city had transformed in the past twenty four hours.

The mounds of mud lying on the roads like landslides in the Himalayas have amazingly disappeared. Each and every bus stop now has a rain shelter and has been decorated with splendid photographs of beautiful women dancing, shopping or posing in skimpy outfits to slogans of “Shopaholic Delhi”, “Amazing Delhi” and other similar corny captions. It’s a good time to buy scripts of companies that manufacture paint and road signs as the roads have received a new coat of paint, zebra crossings have appeared and the cement tiles at the edge of the road are painted in red, yellow and white. Road signs like “Stop”, ”Pedestrian Crossing” that I had only read about in Automobile Association of India manual in my youth to acquire my first driving license are now visible on the road. Each and every government office has large blue and white signs in English and Hindi. Leafy plants have been planted in the dividers between the road lanes. Every monument has a red signage and the multitude of informative road signs makes one feel like one is in the pedestrian tourist district of Rome.

Hundreds of traffic police seem to have appeared out of thin air as every signal now has both a man and woman cop. They have obviously been given new uniforms which all of them have inaugurated today. The sleeves are rolled down to the cuff and buttoned up. Belts hold up the perfectly pleated trousers. The slums on the way have either disappeared or been pushed back from the periphery of the road.

This transformation has taken twenty four hours. The city is once again buzzing as every hotel lobby is streaming with visitors for the games. The area around Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium looks rather spectacular with the stadiums rising into the well lit sky like space ships. Apparently the army has been called in to repair the fallen pedestrian bridge in record time.

I know, one is shaking ones head and wondering that if we have the potential to transform in such a short time why did we have to face such international disgrace. However, it’s not a good idea for “Delhiwallahs” to pack their bags and depart for holidays at this juncture. Even visitors who are planning to cancel their trips to India due to bad press coverage and mismanagement of the preparedness should rethink their move. I told the kid in the morning that she did not need to put the regular mosquito repellent for her practice at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium for as a veteran in the Rajdhani one knows when the last straw is about to be placed on the camel’s back and when the government will get its act together.

I propose that all cabinet ministers are put through teacher’s training to augment their disciplinary skills, what say thou?

CWG

Thousands of people picked up the morning paper in disbelief and I was one of those parents who incredulously thanked destiny. The Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium was supposed to host the first complete rehearsal of the opening ceremony today morning and my daughter was among the thousand youngsters who would have walked over the ill-fated pedestrian bridge after disembarking from the buses provided by the CWG organising committee. I picked up the paper with trembling hands and read about how this large pedestrian bridge connecting the parking area and the stadium had collapsed yesterday, critically injuring 27 workers and one engineer.

I have really tried to embrace the upcoming CWG with graciousness and joy. I have bought tickets for many of the events. To get into the spirit of things I ask all young MBAs who apply to my firm to name three Commonwealth countries. Sadly, the five girls I have interviewed last week could only name India! I have sponsored and organised police verification for all my staff. I have watched the maid and worker populace diminish as the migrant workforce has been banished from the vicinity of the Rajdhani. The kid is perennially tired with practice and the newly scheduled opening ceremony practice will now make her miss her fresher’s party where too she had a part in a play. Cest a vie....

Remember the time we hosted the Asian Games? We were a country that had humility and graciousness and not the arrogance that we now possess. Lalit Bhanot, the OC secretary general says westerners have a different standard of hygiene than Indians and refuses to admit lapses in the preparedness of the athlete’s village even as the Embassies of various countries send squads to clean up the premises. Twenty years ago I had to postpone my engagement for over six months and compromise on the ring since my fiancée had sheepishly spent the money he had saved on a colour television to watch the Asian Games.

People are angry and ashamed at the disgrace we are facing on the international arena with our state of preparedness. Indians are gracious hosts and the organisers should have to face the repercussions of such lapses in preparedness. I recently met a lady who used to be a neighbour and has now moved to a farm house; the family has built a few of the stadia for the games. It is nice to know that not everyone is suffering due to the CWG.

MRI

My friend blames my Columbian dance instructor in the fitness DVD, Ma blames the hours hunched in front of the computer while I take turns in blaming my "naseeb" and MCD for the pain in my back. My orthopedist grimly asked me why I was ignoring his repeated requests for a MRI.

In my worst moments of claustrophobia my behavior would knock Scarlett O Hara over as I swoon in the darkened auspices of lifts which grind to a halt during power failure. Even the gods cannot protect any gloomy zealot who at such junctures prophesies the worst for I would make Mathilda’s school principal look like a timid mouse. I marvel at people who pay money to climb up stairs located between the upper and lower domes of cathedrals and wriggle on their bellies to go through a cave to reach the Vaishnav Devi mandir. Ever since a friend mentioned in conversation that he thought the pyramids in Egypt should have ventilation in its inner sanctums I have dreaded visiting the venue. When I visit the Vatican and gaze at Michelangelo’s frescoes, the dizziness I feel with the heat and the crowds is often mistaken as a profound spiritual experience.

To ask me to spend good money and crawl into the tiny aperture of a MRI machine is therefore an act of sadism. To expect to leave a claustrophobic’s survival tools such as the mobile phone and IPod in a locker during the episode is cruel. To add to my misery I have witnessed someone dear to me being stuck inside a MRI machine for an hour due to power failure. The logical part of my brain however decides that this is ridiculous behavior and I dial the radiologist. I ask about duration of the procedure, size of aperture and cavity, distance of machine to face, if one’s position could be reversed with the feet entering the machine first, if one could lie on one’s belly, why does the machine make such a lot of noise and sadly the result of my study is not a very happy one. The radiologist says he can give me anesthesia to put me to sleep and the orthopedist says he can stay inside the room to give me moral courage.

I have decided that my errant vertebra will soon get frustrated with its Attention Deficiency Syndrome (ADS) and realize it will have to settle down with its brethren in the line set down by creation for in its battle with the non logical paranoid section of my brain, there is no way it can possibly win.

Murky waters of Delhi

As I was returning from a physiotherapy session yesterday morning in an endeavor to alleviate the effects of the roller coaster rides over the roads of Delhi on my back, I was greeted by two distraught faces. My daughter and her friend were set to depart for their regular marathon dance practice session for the opening ceremony of the commonwealth games. The dear friend had slipped in the muck outside the metro station, hurt her back and had to be rushed for an X-ray. My daughter had to catch the metro and go to Ghaziabad since a friend and colleague from her college had expired due to Dengue.

The boy was twenty years old, a star in a prestigious college in Delhi, his school and hometown. He had gifted his beloved mother a gold chain a few years ago with the money he had accumulated from various scholarships and prizes from extra-curricular events he had won in school and college. He was in a good and expensive hospital in Delhi but complications prevented his recovery.

When my daughter went to school and one read of Dengue, one wasn’t worried since the school also tutored the children and grandchildren of the super powers of the country. The authorities promptly fumigated the school at regular intervals. However University is a melting pot which does not warrant the same attention.

The citizens of the capital are beyond reprimanding the current government for its apathy. The recent elections in Delhi University ousted the congress backed NSUI and voted for the BJP backed ABVP. The students have been unceremoniously thrown out of their hostels to board the CWG officials without alternate arrangements as the owners of neighborhood PG accommodations are making hay while the sun shines. The Professors are on indeterminate strike over the semester system as dengue, malaria and typhoid are rampant. My fifteen year old niece has just recovered from viral meningitis.

The Congress seems to be taking the anger of the citizens rather lightly for CWG may well be exactly what the opposition needs to win the next election.

Cars over the years

Despite living in a bungalow and having two gardeners who watered the plants in shifts, Baba pledged his Provident fund at the age of fifty to buy our first car in India. The old faithful was a second hand voluptuous turquoise colored Ambassador with the number plate MXT 8153. She spent most of the time parked in our garage and had an acute attention deficiency syndrome (ADS) for unless she was started every alternate day, she would throw a tantrum and refuse to work. In cold weather she needed the engine to be flooded with warm petrol and would splutter to a start in an intoxicated manner. When she went on long journeys, she got unbearably hot and her radiator would start to steam in fury until we gingerly opened her radiator’s cap at the roadside and fed it cool distilled water. I bought a fan and installed it in the car since Ma would get very hot trying to maneuver the lady into the narrow confines of double parking outside our flat in Kolkata. However one had to chose between the fan functioning or the car since the batteries could not handled two prima donnas at the same time.

My boyfriend’s father was one among a few hundred thousand Indians who had booked a Maruti 800 in 1982 and was one of the fortunate ones to be awarded a bright red Maruti in 1985. The family resisted all offers to make a huge profit by selling the booking and it was the car of my youth. Those were the heady days when one drove the car at a speed of close to 100 kmph, the windows down and the breeze blowing one’s hair amuck. As built in music systems were not a regular feature, one would have conversations and sing in the car. Our lovely red did get a trifle giddy when climbing the circuitous routes of the Himalayan roads but faithfully let us traverse to all corners of the country since holidays were usually planned at the spur of the moment with the number of passengers always being an unknown figure.

With progress and a child, our organizations asked us to choose a fancy air-conditioned car which in our case was the Premier Padmini Deluxe. Since we were “bal bachchewala dilliwallahs”, we decided to take this car - the first in our name, to the mohalla mandir for blessings. By the time the pujari located his sindoor dani and followed us to draw the mandatory swastika on the white bonnet, a friendly Dilliwallah had deflated all our tyres since our shiny new car was parked in an inconvenient position. Hanging lemons and chillies at the rear of the car, reversing over eggs and the puja had no impact on the destiny of the car. The white elephant refused to budge on most occasions and was a perennial source of frustration.

When Maruti announced that it was going to launch the luxury car - Esteem, every self respecting yuppie who could get financing scurried to book the car. Being part of the banking system which was financing the booking certainly helped in getting a preferential allotment and we were thrilled to be in a car where the air-conditioning worked, it had no ADS and had a built in music system for casettes. Our elation was short-lived as the economy opened up and a multitude of cars arrived on the scene, each bigger than the other, making the task of one-upmanship impossible.

As I reach middle age and now posses a mammoth petrol guzzling machine that has been primarily bought to boost my ego and ensure that people in snooty establishments open the door and smile a greeting, my life has taken an about turn. My elegant car is nowadays parked in the university precincts and ferries my daughter’s nukkad group buddies. I am contemplating a new car and the only thing that interests me now is high fuel efficiency, a sturdy body and low cost of maintenance. The kid mutters that such parameters are surely an indication of a complete lack luster approach to life while I argue that being green and conserving fuel is the correct and fashionable attitude today.