Quo Vadis?

We have seen and have now got immune to collective apathy, you know that ignoring what happens around and going on with life has been happening everywhere for long. If you are from Chennai however December seems to be a month when collective apathy is kept aside and people come together for the good of the other. If you have been in the Chennai floods or cyclone Vardah you will know what the emotions behind this post are. This year Chennai added one more page to it's growing list of encomiums, the jallikattu protest. Much has been written about the protest and this post is not about the protest but the day when the protest ended. If you were in Chennai and in some parts of the city that felt the effects of the police action you would remember the paralysing traffic jams that threw the city out of gear. I was affected too, because my daughter was stuck in the van for over 3 hours without food. Though I was upset at the mismanagement of the events by the powers that be, I ob...

Observing the children play in the Tower Park Annanagar I was wondering how did we grow up to be like this? How did we who were born like monkeys grow up into staid and boring men or women? The children’s play area is full of slides, swings, see saws and jungle gyms. Watching the kids run around and play on these simple mechanical or stationary devices and having the time of their lives made me wonder if we stopped believing that life is not complicated at all and is all about simple little things. The biggest fascination for me was the many jungle gyms that had so many little kids on it. Climbing, swinging and jumping seemed to be the most basic of activities after walking and running. Every kid seeing a jungle gym even for the first time took to it like fish to water. I remember few years ago when my daughter climbed on her first one. The kids are excited and so much at home up there, climbing, swinging and at times falling only to pick themselves up and start all over ag...

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this picture should merit at least a hundred. Hand drawn by 5 enterprising youth as the décor for their new themed café, this was one of the many pictures that brought me many happy memories when I was there. This was a 90’s themed café and this picture brought many memories of school days. Those were the days of simple joys, restricted television time, board games, comic books,  outdoor games that went required no equipment but had enough space to play, softy ice creams that could be licked off a cone, bicycles  that came up with the glamorous name of Street Cat, PTC was the preferred mode of travel with tickets under a Rupee, picnics in school was a trip to Guindy park or Golden Beach. Ah!!! Those were the simple days. From the large line of cartoons, two stand out for me: He Man and the masters of the universe: The goose bumps that I felt in the moment when Prince Adam says “By the power of gray skull…” the transformati...

Pongal from childhood has been an enjoyable festival, coming after the Christmas and New Year Holidays, this break of 3 days was a great time to spend at home with family and friends. Since it has been a purely urban upbringing with no rural origins the rural connect was never there and the festivities was centred at home and probably some visits to relatives. Today Pongal as a festival is all about gratitude far removed from the fun and frolic the TV would lead you to believe. Gratitude to the Almighty for the graces we have been blessed with no matter what faith you may follow, there is never enough time to say thanks. Thanks to the farmers who toil for days with so many challenges both natural and manmade to put food on the table of everyone. Thanks to family and friends who make life worth living every day. Ancient traditions have structured the festival to thank all three and it is fair that everyone take this moment to thank God, the farmer and family for all that has ha...

Recent events have left me puzzled.  We seem to have transcended from a “Generally Indifferent “group of people (who did not bother when things happened around them but did not affect them) to a “Grimace / Grin and bear” type of people and it is a scary thought. Just look at the reactions to a wide range of events that touched people directly or indirectly:            Demonitization            Amma to Chinna Amma            The Swathi murder            Mass molestation of women in Bangalore Enough has been spoken, debated, written by people; whether they were competent to do it was never an issue but what affected me was the reaction of the common majority. There was a minuscule outrage in the online space and by a few fringe elements who organize demonstrations in public places where the media and police usually outnumber the protesters. The g...