Letters from the Seven Sisters... 1 - ML 01

It's barely been 48 hours since I left home and already I've crossed so many state boundaries I feel like a fugitive on the run!! To be very very honest I don't think in my sleep deprived state I would have ever been able to tell one winding road from another had it not been for one of those Eureka moments where your brain groggily wakes from its slumber (So fine!! I'm not Archimedes, you know!!) and says, "wait, I thought Guwahati was in Assam... and... and Shillong... well ...
wasn't..."

So OK, I'm not very... umm... updated... ahem... in my North-Eastern politics... however, I do believe late is better than never... so there. So here I sit, having combated the absolute mayhem of Guwahati's streets (which, by the way, is Assam's capital... though trust me you'd never guess!!) and it occurs to me that a city's roads really speak volumes about it! And not just in the "my-god-the-municipal-corporation-here-really-must-make-a-lot-of-money!" way.

Now I'd always been a believer that roads and traffic pretty much anywhere in India remains more or less the same. It's a part of the national feeling that is India,you see. But it seems I was quite mistaken. There is more to the story...

For instance here's what an average street anywhere in Guwahati looks like... to begin with, as all Indian roads, it's imperative that all forms of possible things on which human beings can travel must be on the same road at the same time. And, of course, like all self-respecting citizens of this socialist, secular, democratic republic we the people vociferously demand our due... especially when unneccesary! A road WILL be not a square inch over 4 feet wide but there will be all of the biggest vehicles sold in this country that demand their legitimate space on it ("Tere baap ki sadak hai kya???"). And, of course, nobody will give an inch and Everybody but everybody will honk and protest angrily! By the time you get through all of that you feel like much the poor road must. ...

Now in Shillong I notice a very different... and I must say not unhappy phenomenon unfold. It's a saturday morning, the clouds have slowly drifted on to the road and settled down much like moody cud-chewing cows would, anywhere else in India. As for the human population... well, it seems Shillong moves in the back of taxis... only. There seems to be hundreds of these little black and red Maruti 800s that dot the winding streets of the hill city, each one, without exception, filled to bursting - and each one seeming to tell its own story. While in most you'll find sassily dressed teeneagers packed like a can of... well... very stylish sardines; there'll be a slightly lesser number of those that hold just as "closely-knitted" families. And there's ALWAYS a traffic jam; a miles-long line of patiently waiting little motored lady-birds... and nobody EVER honks and if they complain they must do it very very softly... It's almost incredible and endlessly fascinating to me as I sat in one of these interminable ques waiting for whatever divine force was causing the jam to just give. ...

Something's got to give!!!

Just when you think things couldn’t get any worse ... the dirty water slowly seeps into the cracks in the earth, dripping through and finding itself a home in the world of the underground - the dirty water in this case being your life, of course. Or mine, to be more specific.

I remember the blissful time a few days back when in a casual rant to a friend I’d whined that something in my life had just got to give! And it did. Without any warning, one fine day the floor just gave way with a resounding crash, leaving behind a gaping splintered hole, a bottomless pit beneath and me sitting by the side of it wondering, what the hell do I do now??

Because, let me assure you, gaping holes in the floor are very hard to explain to the insurance guys. Not that you can blame them. I mean, if you plead Act of God any mortal would wonder what the hell you did to piss God off like that! Sigh... so there we are - me and the hole that used to be my floor. And we just stare at each other waiting for the guys who can actually handle this stuff to turn up and do their job.
Though, I must say the neighbours are being very nice. Really, in times like these you just recognise which people are your friends and which ones are just in for the ride, don’t you? And of course, who are the ones you’d never thought about before. ...

Anyway, I’m sure there’s a lesson in here somewhere. I don’t mean the piles of them cluttering up the desk space of my life as if they were free flyers. I mean that under all this crap the real reason all this is happening is hiding somewhere.
Aha! I got it! On this little slip of tattered paper which says ... let me see ... ‘learn to be thankful’. Hmm ... wow ... yes, that could be it, I guess. I just wasn’t thankful enough for all the good things in my life; for everything that was going right or well or even not so bad, you know! I spent all my time trying to set it all right, make it all go my way. But who’s to say that was the right way?

Who says I have all the answers, or any answers at all? May be I don’t really know anything, and everything that happens is for the best. And may be ... sometimes ... other people do know better than me. ... And why, why can’t I just sometimes ‘stand and stare’ rather that run after the other pasture? Why?? It’s as though I like worrying or something!!

What’s that you asked? What am I thankful for now? Well, I don’t know now, do I? I’ve got to get through this mess first, haven’t I? Really,people!!

GO BLOG ... sound advice unless ...

So, I was reading this post on Michy's blog (for the uninitiated ... follow the link!) about ... well ... blogging. And what she was doing was basically recommending that writers ought to blog for several very sound reasons, you know. One of them being that it builds contacts and puts you out into the public eye. A logical conclusion in itself ... IF there is anybody apart from yourself reading your blog that is!! But for the rest of us mere mortals ... well, it's ridiculous, isn't it? As if I don't spend enough time reading my own writing otherwise! So what purpose does this space even serve (aside from cluttering up cyberspace, that is)? (AND) Aside from remaining a(n)(unfortunately) rather personal diary ... sigh ... but then I make myself feel better by telling myself that someday when I am a writer whose works have been read by more than a grand total of one person I will look back to this blog with nostalgia. ... now if only wishes were horses!!

My thought for the day....

The world is your oyster ...
if you're not concerned with survival. ...