Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Dust cloud


I sleep in a bedroom. Or should I perhaps say I try to sleep. The place where I live being the beautiful metropolis that it is, simply a pleasure. Last year this time, a whole series of earthquakes caused by passerby lorries ROCKED the bedroom scene every night. A very nursery-rhymish scenario, is it? Statutory warning: Construction of a nearby flyover dispels sleep. But (almost) every flyover once begun was soon completed. So that should have meant sweet dreams again, then? Far from it. I think the stray dogs in the street began missing the noise and the stream of cars that used to pass through our road instead of the nearby main road... In any case, they more than made up for it by scheduling nightly howl-concerts between midnight and One A. M. of excellent quality. And totally free of cost. One of those dogs developed a regular, perfectly rhythmic bark-pattern with a time period of about five seconds. I am certain that the ratio of intervals noise to silence in those dog-bars was none other than the Divine Golden Ratio.

A lot of vehicles, a lot of noise and a lot of dust. How unfortunate it is that we cannot just sweep and mop the road the way we are supposed to sweep and mop our rooms and houses. Going to the supermarket never used to be something I avoided. A short stay in this city has changed this. The problem with most supermarkets being that I need to cross the road to get there. Now tell me, how am I supposed to cross the road? It takes five minutes (alright, let me not exaggerate, three minutes) for one side of the road to get clear. By which time the other side has already got frightfully full of vehicles driven by people who need to honk incessantly to ascertain their own existence. So full I feel that perhaps if I tried to swim across the road I would be more successful than if I tried to walk.



I wonder where all the sand at the edge of the roads comes from. Alright, I know Chennai lies on the coast. But does that make it a beach? If a city lies on the coast does it mean that the sand will be everywhere? Most major roads are swept early in the mornings and that makes it a pleausre to go for a ride anywhere by bus, car or otherwise before the office rush hour traffic sets in. Just observe the roads, say, at 10 am. Just about two hours after their daily sweep. Already there are clouds of dust swirling on the roads, sand is fast collecting close to the sidewalks. I conclude that not only is Chennai a coastal city, it is a desert too, with dust clouds blurring the vision of every pedestrian and polishing people's hair thin. Long live the shampoo industry.

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons, Marina_Sandstorm_Chennai)


Tuesday, March 22, 2011

On the variety of balcony grills

Perhaps this is a post which I should not write but rather photograph. Sadly for those who sit down to read this I didn't have my camera on me when I wandered with a friend through the little roads tucked away in Indira Nagar. Ever built a house? Yes? Does it have a balcony or a gate that leads to it? How much thought did you spend on choosing that particular piece of appearance?
These are the details which make up a locality. Do I just buy the stuff that is available nearby or do I make a conscious choice according to preference and decorate carefully?
The balcony and gate grills I saw were all of similar shapes and patterns. Four-leafed clovers as shown in the picture of the blog title, and a lot of similar four-and eight-leafed clovers. Maybe this just tells me when the house was built. Maybe that was the fashoin of the day in the 1970's. Or are these the patterns typical of houses in Tamil Nadu in particular.

Variety is limited because variety implies lower efficiency. Have a look at the major shopping streets for apparel in European cities. What makes the difference between such a street in a metropolis and a small city are merely the small boutiques. Major shops are the same in all cities. If there are warehouses, then most products are made by a small number of manufacturers. Pencils are made by Herlitz, Faber Castell or Staedler in Germany. With pencils this makes sense. But with clothing this is monotonous. People allow the manufacturers of major brands to determine the colours, the shapes and the materials of the clothing they wear. Just because smaller shops "don't survive".

This feature of the globalized market we have today for most goods struck me as I saw the similarities in iron grills during my walk. It seemed unexpected to see any product look so "standard" in Chennai, India, where to some extent the clothes we buy are unique pieces and not pre-decided the way clothes are in the average European market. I looked at the H & M online clothing store recently. This is one of my favourite stores because the clothes are really affordable and last about one or two seasons. Not to be compared with the wide choice I have in any (individual) store in Pondy Bazaar.After having spent time here I realize how nice it is to have stores to buy material and get it stitched with a local tailor at a reasonable price. I am going to miss this when I go to Germany.

Anyway now in most cities apartment blocks are on the rise, and with them, dear average consumer, your builder will choose your balcony and window grills for you! One choice less for you to make...

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Perception


Just the other day We were walking around When suddenly out of nowhere A large number of people found That the moment of time We had spent on the highway Was longer than it was Actually allowed to be
So they started chasing us Down the busy road We decided to hide It was a weird episode
They would not let us be They found us in a trice And before we knew it They were giving us advice
Youth is not the time To stretch the moment long You should be busy working You must burst into song

What only had we done We failed to understand Were just trading stories Trying to sound grand
I think we overlooked The fact that on a ray Of purest light from heaven The rainbow turns to grey
The stars appear close The wind begins to scream And then, lo behold! You have a time machine
You live in little gasps An hour can touch a year Your days they may be numbered You will lose your fear
The surface of the earth It has these little holes I wish you luck in finding one I think it's pretty cool

Monday, March 14, 2011

To The Great Morpheus

Here's why I breathe,
Here's why I live
Some lovely creature gave birth to me
And some others keep me nourished
Part of the consciousness
Part of the whole
I love my life
Life is so worth living
When there is somebody around me
Who watches out
Who keeps me going
Who is full of life
Who is not a mere dummy
Who is not a mannequin in a shop window
Who doesn't worry about differing
Who is his own
Who is not dependent
Who knows what he has in his hands
Who can tell  a human from a robot
Who knows how to improvise
Who is with the moment
Who has life in him
Who tells me to come back
Who has been there
And come back
He is not a magician
And yet I could swear I saw the sparks fly from his eyes
Who has charm
The charm of knowing
The charm of knowing that
The charn of knowing that there is so much to know
The charm of knowing that there is so much to know but hey,
We don't need to look very far to see it
Things are generally close by
 And who can be so totally stupid at times
The charm of knowing lies
The charm of knowing is not a lie
The charm of knowing pretends that there is nothing to know
It lies in forgetting what you know and just knowing
Like you walk
Like you jump
Like you open your mouth to speak
What has become part of your repertoire
What has become your consciousness
You can do without being conscious of it
You have a weird little nose
And a potato for a head
And you behave like a toad
And you move like a bulldozer crossed with a buffalo
So all in all it is pretty easy to recognize you from afar
So it is not surprising
That coexisting is fun
More fun than losing your mind
Coexist and get bored
Go out and have nothing to say
Eat something and then pay the bill
Keep looking for a good place
And catch a car, hitchhike across the place
Have a good day.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Pen and Paper


Once upon a time there were ink pens and ink wells and a little dent in the desk to place them. They were followed by fountain pens. Then came the ball point pen, a major innovation that totally transformed stationery stores. Refills in bubble packets.
Today is the age of the gel pen. Buy not just one pen, a personal possession, but a whole packet of quick-to- use- easy-to-throw six inch sticks that run out of ink ever so quickly to make you buy more! Keep writing and scratching out. It's quite easy. I must admit gel pens are convenient because if you asked the ink, oh sorry, the gel, inside them, I am sure it would say it didn't care about the kind of paper it wrote on. It has no real preference in that sense. The frustratingly thin paper in my scratch pad or "rough notebook" is just as good as the 90 grams per square metre luxury paper from France. The paper certainly seems to care though. As for me I like the uniformly thin lines I can write with plastic one way gel pens as compared to the ball pens of the same price.

Nothing compares to the fountain pen though. With real liquid flowing out of the nib. The drawback being that fountain pen ink is a rather more selective being. It needs paper in which it does not bleed. And ink-ready paper may be the standard in Europe but here in India getting notebooks that are able to hold the ink out is a matter of buying notebooks of some expensive brand (and often getting disappointed). No wonder broad nibs on fountain pens are not as popular here.

As it has been with writing so it will be with typing too... There is a wide variety of keyboards available that react to pressure, typing speed and all those. I wonder what they feel like and whether somebody has done extensive research on those. But then the world is full of people who work for companies that need to find out minute details of the force exerted by your digits on your keyboard when you type your next blogpost... So I suspect that yes, somebody has.

(Image from http://www.marcuslink.com/pens/)