Photo of the day: camel cart cab

To hug or not to hug is the question. A damn tough question :)

All my life in India, until I left for the US, this question never, ever, came up.  Because, in the culture in which I grew up, relationships were non-contact sports.  As kids, we might have clung on to grandmothers or uncles, but as grown ups we maintained our distances.  A shake-hand was the most we ever got to in terms of bodily contact to express anything.

A magazine, I am sure it was Ananda Vikatan, once even featured a short story that was built on this idea of no physical touching of any sort.  In that story, a father visits with his grown up adult son, and is returning home.  The young man accompanies his father to the train station.  The father boards the train, sits by the window while the son stands on the platform.  During the conversation, which itself was not a freely-flowing one and rather awkward, the son places his arm on the window and it accidentally grazes the father's hand.  The son realizes then that it has been years since he even touched his father ....

I don't recall how the story ends, but it effectively captured the non-contact nature of relationships even within the nuclear family.

And then I left for the US, where it is a completely different world when it comes to expressions.  As Elvis put it, a whole lot of shakin' goin' on :)

Every hug became an awkward moment for me.  How do I approach them--from the left or from the right?  And, what if they lean to kiss me on the cheek?  Aah, the endless frustrations!

It took me years to get used to hugs from females of all ages.

And then the hug from men.  Oh boy, that was yet another learning experience all by itself. 

Finally, I reached a stage where it no longer mattered to me if people wanted to hug me, or expected me to hug them.  Life became stress-free.  Contact or no contact did not bother me.

But that was with life in America.

Confusion started all over again every time I visited India. 

Especially as an academic who understands the need for cultural sensitivity, every trip to India becomes all the more a struggle to control myself from the parting goodbye hugs.  Particularly with women--friends and cousins alike.

During this extended trip here, during the first few days, I suppose I was continuing way more with my acquired American habit.  Slowly, as I consciously settled into the Indian way of doing things, the more I re-learnt the non-contact hellos and goodbyes. 

But, sometimes, I find that only a hug really says that I will miss them after we part.  So, I have now worked out a compromise: with my arm over the other person's shoulder, my shoulder squeezes their shoulder that abuts, if you get the picture.  A win-win, it is, at least the way I look at it!

Perhaps I am over-thinking life.  But, stupid is as stupid does :)

Did you know smartphones have built-in display projectors? I did not know that!

Far away from metropolitan Chennai, which is very slowly becoming cosmopolitan in nature, here in the small southern towns near the southern tip of the peninsula, electricity is in severe shortage with about eight hours of power outage every day.  That sudden darkness and the stopping of ceiling fans is yet another reminder of the phenomenally luxurious everyday life that I am lucky enough to lead back in the good ol' US of A.

The night sky is full of stars as soon as the lights go off.  Venus and Jupiter are so bright that they could even cast shadows of us mortals here on earth. 

This brilliantly lit night sky is, however, nothing compared to the diamonds that glittered after nightfall in Pommern, Tanzania, thanks to that village without electricity being a lot more isolated from the rest of the electrified world.

Kids being kids, they seem to have even more fun than they usually do, when the power goes off.  I bet that the first thing that comes up in their minds is that they have a wonderful excuse not to do their homework!

Yesterday, there was a great deal of noise next door, with kids screaming in delight.  I stepped towards them; it turned out that one kid was projecting a movie from a cell phone on to the wall, with the sound blaring from the cell phone.

Back in my childhood, excitement was when we found a couple of negatives and projected that image on to a wall using a flashlight.  That is so, so, so lame compared to these hi-tech kids' excitement.

When I asked them how they were doing it, an older person in the group replied: "It is my phone and I had no idea that it has such a feature.  These kids, they figure out everything.  It cost me 7,500 rupees for the phone, and now they are using it as a cinema projector"

After the show was over--because the power supply was back on--I walked up to the kid and asked him what phone it was.  "G5" he said.  I didn't recognize that brand name.  I asked him whether I could take a look at it.  It was a G'Five "wisepad" model, and it comes with a bright built-in projector light.  How awesome!

In the US, I had never a smartphone with a projector feature.  Perhaps this is one of those features customized for markets like India--similar to how Nokia had introduced a few years ago a cellphone with a flashlight. 

I imagined my students doing presentations in the classroom with their smartphones and projectors.  No need then to even boot up the big time display projector in the classroom.  Or public health officials in developing countries doing their campaigns so easily with these smartphones and built-in projectors.  Just awesome.

I ought to thank the power shortage in India; else, I might never have known about smartphones with projectors.  Things we learn, and the strange ways we learn.  But, hey, something new everyday!

"He is from America, and wanted a photo of my dog"

Somehow, it feels like it was my last hurrah at Sengottai. 

I am so convinced about it that mentally I said goodbye to the town as I walked around earlier this morning.  It was, therefore, quite fitting that I even swung by what was once home where "V's" grandparents lived.

Though "V" and I were not best friends at school in Neyveli, we were more than casual classmates because we also knew well our Sengottai origins.  Our parents interacted as well because of those same geographic affinities and also because the generation even older to them were great pals in the town.

So much so that as a kid visiting grandma for the summer holidays, I have been to V's grandfather's home whenever dad or my great-uncle asked me to accompany them.

This time around, when it was about the time last evening for me to step out for a walk, dad came along.  As we crossed the street, dad said, "shall we go to MS Moopanar's home?"

I was, of course, delighted with the idea, though the old man himself is no more.  I have clear memories of a narrow alley and a passageway, which then opens up into a courtyard and a huge house.

V's uncle was home and recognized us without us introducing ourselves.  "There is nothing like the old friendships" he commented and added, "that kind of love and affection for people doesn't seem to come by anymore.  Times have changed."  They have, indeed.

After tea and a few minutes of chat, we continued our walk.  As is customary in this part of the world, women and girls were cleaning up the homes and the street in front of their respective homes.  Two women were chatting and cleaning and behind one, sitting on the front steps, was a dog.

Well groomed and happy, he looked.

I was blown away, with a second successive sighting of a pet dog in such traditional settings.  And both in two different towns.

I told dad that I wanted to take a photo of the dog, but first wanted to ask for the owner's permission.

Dad being all excited, jumped ahead of me in asking that question and prefaced it with an introduction of sorts about our Sengottai origins, walking from MS Moopanar's home, and that I am from America.  I am not sure which of these three segments of the introduction excited him the most :)

After all that, he asked her, "my son wants to take a photo of your dog.  Will it be ok?"

She seemed to be confused.  Understandable. Strangers we were.  On top of that, there I am with my shorts and camera, looking Indian and yet not looking Indian. And wanting to take a photo of the dog.

She was ok with it, and clarified it was her dog. 

After thanking her, I took a couple of photos of the canine who was enjoying it all, and thanked her again as we started walking.

I heard her in the background telling the other couple of women, "he is from America, and wanted a photo of my dog."

Not only dog ownership in such a traditional setting, but also a pride in that pooch being hers.  I tell ya, India has changed a lot.

I told dad that it was not the photo of the dog itself that I was interested in, as much as it being yet another symbol of changes in social norms in India.

Later in the evening, I heard dad narrate the entire incident to the aunt and uncle, and underscored how this was a symbol of social changes.

I suppose he agreed with my interpretation then.

Even dogs' lives have improved in India!

When I was about eight or nine years old, a puppy strayed into our yard.  Perhaps a six-month old pup.  It ate whatever was thrown out, and seemed to have decided that our yard was his place in life.

One day, when mom gave him--well, tossed to him--something to eat, I remember watching with utmost fascination this puppy seriously digging a hole in the ground, burying this food scrap, and then covering it up.  My first puppy love it was, I suppose :)

In a couple of days, however, it was time for us to travel to Sengottai and Patatmadai for the annual holidays.  That is what we did most summers--we went to grandmas' homes.  We had to board the train at vriddhachalam, which, during my childhood days, felt like a gazillion miles away from Neyveli.

As we started driving, the puppy followed us.  Initially, with the car slowly inching out through the gate and then onto the road, he had no problems keeping up with us.  Then, as the car started accelerating, the pup started racing as fast as he could.  Soon, he fell behind, and was gone from view in no time at all.

For a family that didn't have animals as pets, those couple of days we were a family with a dog.  Every once in a while, during that summer break, I wondered whether the puppy would be waiting for us when we returned.  Of course, that was not the story.

Years later, in the US, I have had dogs at home, but my memory of this first dog has not gotten erased. 

Now, decades after that--almost four decades after that accidental puppy interaction--here I am walking around in some really, really, traditional and old parts of Tamil Nadu.  While stray dogs are everywhere, the kids seem to far too busy with their own lives to even bother the sleeping dogs. 

And then I see this, in an absolutely traditional home in an old street in an old small town of Srivaikuntam:

The door was ajar, and there was a dog happily sitting there watching the comings and goings.  He didn't even bother when I stopped there for a few seconds to take a photo.

If in such a small town, in a traditional part of that town, a dog gets this kind of a treatment, then I can only think that India has changed a lot. For the better.

Roach Express, Air Roach, and Roach Home. Well, coexistence!

For a few years now, I have always opted for an aisle seat in planes primarily because of the need to get away from a psychological feeling of being trapped if I am in the window seat.  Turns out that choosing an aisle seat has another advantage in India--away from the creepy, crawly, ones!

A couple of weeks ago, I was in the plane on my way to Delhi when all of a sudden something seemed strange at the peripheral end of my vision.  I turned my head to my left.  One row ahead of me, on top of the window, was a medium-sized cockroach slowly moving.  I hoped that it would not switch into a reverse gear and come towards the row where I was seated.  Thankfully, it kept going towards the front, and soon it disappeared from my view.

Later, as I narrated this incident, a friend remarked that I ought to be immensely relieved that it was not one of those flying roaches.  Imagine that!  Such a scene would have been hysterically funny in a movie--"Airplane" would have been even more hysterical with a couple of flying roaches--but, in real life, it would have become something like snakes on the plane :)

At home, it seems like I spot a roach on an average of every fifth day.  I grab the can and spray and kill it.  Sometimes, it is a dead roach that I see and am glad something else got to it before I did.

But, neither the dead roach nor the live one seem to cause any discomfort to people as much how I react to them.  I come across, I suppose, as a wimpy American.  So be it; I prefer an existence without such critters saying hello to me.

In the train, it was even more an intense interaction with roaches.  Small and big, they were casually roaming around in the pleasantly air-conditioned coach.  I pointed out a roach that was very near a fellow passenger, and suggested that she kill it.  "No, let it be" she said.

While internally all freaked out, I was trying my best not to jump out of the moving train.  I kept an eye on the roach, which had escaped death.  Unfortunately, in its wanderings, the roach came near me.

I raised my feet without trying to be obvious about it.  Quietly, but surely, my shoe came down on that roach.

One dead roach, yes.  But, I knew there were more in the coach.  I was sure it would be a near-sleepless night.  At least, mine was an upper berth, far from the terrestrial critters, I hoped.

Yet again, evidence for me that India is not for the faint of heart, and I am one big wuss who cannot handle even a small roach!

How do you solve a problem like ... mercury in lightbulbs?

I went to meet with a friend, who teaches at a leading and prestigious university in India.  We walked about the campus, and at one point we were up on the second or third floor when I saw a couple of maintenance folks working.  All of a sudden, one of them walked over to the edge of the walkway and dropped to the ground a fluorescent lamp.

It fell on top of a few other objects, large and small, on the ground and promptly shattered to pieces. 

I suppose my friend noticed my shocked body language, which was more involuntary than a conscious one at the instant.  "Yep, this is how it is done here in India" he remarked with what seemed to be a mix of disappointment and cynicism.

"But, this is a leading university" I said.  If this is how it is done at such an enlightened place, then elsewhere?

The Hindu today has an opinion piece on the very topic of mercury and fluorescent lamps. 

Annually, a large amount of this toxic, complex metal is simply dumped into municipal landfills or released into the air from a “green” source — the millions of fluorescent lamps that are at the forefront of efforts to reduce power demand and carbon emissions. 

Yep, casually tossing them away, and the mercury seeps into the air and land, and water, all around us, as the experience at the university campus showed.

The opinion essay also notes that "the lamps made in India have a higher mercury content than those in the developed world."  Ouch!

What is the way out of this?  Any alternative?

In the case of fluorescent lamps, the solution lies in providing a cash incentive to consumers to hand them over to civic or authorised recycling industry workers, with the recovery paid for by the manufacturers as part of the extended producer responsibility principle. 

Sounds good--especially to make sure that the producers are made to take on some of the responsibility.

When I return to the US, I know I will be that much more responsible when tossing away batteries and CFLs.  Join me in this, will you?