Homelands and Old Friends

On Sunday I am going to India. For 8 days. Meetings and appointments will eat away most of the time, and the remaining will go for shopping and chatting in the family. It is the prospect of the journey and my own ambivalent feelings about it, that I am thinking about.

Perhaps, I am tired of being a stranger to my own land?

 

The excitement of going back in the initial years, I still remember it. Waiting for months, counting the days, thinking of all the things that I was going to do. Call Munna, call Rahul's home, call Naresh, call Devender, see Rajkumar,... calling up on all the friends was high up on the list. So what is Ravi doing? Did you hear from Anil? Have you any news of Narayan? There was so much catching up to do about all the old childhood friends.

Last year I saw Munna after 8-10 years. Rahul I had met him after ages. When we meet, all the words come out tumbling and rushed, in the beginning. And then they start to dry up. Perhaps, it is because there is no continuing dialogue, no exchange of things happening in our lives. My old childhood friends have become strangers to me.

To visit old houses, old streets, is the same as meeting old friends. They have changed. Some times there is a completely new building. In Rajendra Nagar, all the old houses have gone, in their place there are 3-4 storied buildings and streets choking with cars, blocked with iron railings and no one seems to know me any more. The old shops are gone, along with the shopkeepers.

The circle of things that included familiar persons and places gets narrower each time. In the end, it is just an anonymous city with anonymous people and I am a stranger in my own town.

 

In the end, it is just close family persons with whom a link remains, and a feeling of familiarity in Connaught Place and old monuments like Lal Kila and Qutab Minar, because I still recognise most of them - I can pretend that nothing has changed.

And there is hardly any excitement, no counting of days. Perhaps, it is because I am not spending enough time there, all my visits are short trips, running around for work and not having time to spend with people? May be it is just this day, the rain and the autumn leaves falling down that makes me feel sad, and tomorrow, it will be all right once again.

This gaping hole in my being, I will close my eyes and it might go away. A bad dream.

***

Rains, Feeling Low and Depression

When we had just come to live in Italy, I found that clouds had a different effect on me, compared to the way others living here reacted to them. They would say, "What a pity, it is cloudy" and I would say, "Lovely, it is cloudy today!" So people asked me if I didn't like the sun and I would answer, "No thanks, I am from India and I have had enough of sun to last me a life."

Now, after about two decades in Europe, I share the gloom around me when summer ends and autumn comes with its lovely colours, cold winds and rains. The joy of listening to thunderstorms, waiting for the hard pitter-patter of the rain drops, I haven't forgotten those joys from my days in India - they are like words read in a book, they are there and yet not very real. There impact on me is different now - they are not joyful!

I haven't been depressed ever. I mean, there are days that I feel low but I have never experienced that bottomless pit of gloom that is depression, where nothing seems to touch you. Yet it is one of those things that make me most afraid.

 

Pietro, our neighbour has that kind of depression. His whole body changes. Becomes kind of stiff. He doesn't look up or move, remaining in the same position for hours, gazing into nothingness. He feels guilty to be alive, guilty that he did not die when the Germans killed his sister because he had run away in the forest. His sister wanted to come with him. "No you go back to home, you are safe there. Here you will slow us down", he had told her. Germans won't kill young girls he had thought. Maria, 17 years, was shot dead in the village square with 34 other persons, as a reprisal for the Italian Resistance's attack on German soldiers.

Today is the anniversary of that massacre. It was 4th October 1943. Pietro will go there to Monte Sole near Marzabotto, some kilometres outside Bologna, for the ceremony. Hopefully, after a few days, he can come out of this depression.

So many persons around us have to take anti-depression medication, I can't believe how many of them are there. It is as if there a silent epidemic all around us. It waits behind comfortable houses, perfect marriages, smiling picture-postcard families.

Perhaps we human beings have not evolved enough? We are still the hunter-gatherer-fighter needing challenges and if things go too well, if we don't need to run and rush, we get depressed?

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In-tubed in London

I have already written something about my last visit to London. As the president of ILEP, the international anti-leprosy association, I am back there very frequently. This second post about this visit is dedicated to the London Tube networks and the tube stations.

 

 

Travelling up and down the city in the tube, I saw an ad  on the tube wall about "Paternity testing", advising women that if they had any concerns about the paternity of their child, DNA testing is now possible to identify the father. For a company to put an ad of this kind and to invest money on it, it means that there is indeed a market for it and sufficient number of women (and men) are interested in finding out if the child is indeed of that particular man. Seems like a commentary on these times!

I can bet, that such an Ad would never be accepted in India. Anyone stupid enough to put such an ad in a public place, is likely to be prosecuted for corrupting the impressionable public, if not already lynched by angry mobs. In India, we don't have adultery, do we? Or worse, women having multiple partners. It is against our culture!

*
In London, they have this nice initiative of putting up poems in the tube. Read a lovely poem by Chamon Hardi there.

I can hear them talking, my children.
Fluent English and broken Kurdish.

And whenever I disagree with them
they will comfort each other by saying
Don't worry about mum, she's kurdish

Will I be the foreigner in my own home.

*
In the tube, I saw a man, white and very English, wearing a jacket with a lotus designed on it's pocket, underneath it was written PUNJAB. On both the sleeves of the jacket, there were stripes of the Indian flag. Probably he did not know what the colours of those stripes meant? Indian made jackets are nicer and cheaper. Boys in Punjab, stop asking friends to bring you the jacket from UK, get it from Ludhiana!

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In Europe, only in London, you can get away by carrying an Indian take-away dinner in the bus or in the tube. It's smell is so strong. Yet, no one looks at you in London. The curry restaurants are so common and seem to be always full. Found a new Sagar Restaurant, famous in India for south Indian food like Idli and Dosa, with only vegetarian food on King's street in Hammersmith. Yet even this was full - I had to wait to get a table.

Here in Italy, neighbours complain about the strong smells coming from Asian kitchens. May be they need to eat more curries and get used to them!

*

Here are a few pictures from this visit.

***

Vintage Motorbikes' in Como

I am fascinated by motorbikes. I am also afraid of them. I love to watch them. I like the idea of speeding on them with the wind flattening my hair. Whoooooooooom. But since I am afraid, so I'va never actually driven one. I am convinced that if I get on one, I am going to have an accident and end up with broken legs or worse.

Yesterday, we were visiting Como in northern Italy close to the Swiss border. My cousin's husband, Manish had come from Delhi for an overnight stay and was going to catch a flight for Spain from Milan. So we accompanied him to Milan and then went on to Como for a walk along the lake. It was wonderful, cold in the shadows, barely warm under the sun, with crowds thronging the path going along the lake.

Laura, who lives in Como, told us that George Clooney has asked the permission to clean-up the beach in front of his house (or rather houses, since he has bought three villas).

They say Bard Pitt is going to get married to Angelina Jolie in one of those houses of Clooney in the next spring (if they manage to stick around till then!). Any way, Clooney is a favourite with the locals - he brings all the tourists from USA, they say. And tourists, may be noisy and dirty, but they bring money. Plus people can brag about meeting Julia Roberts or Madonna, buying apples and oranges at the local verduraio (subziwalla).

While we were walking, along the river, in one of the villas, there was an exhibition of old motorbikes. The villa had a lovely sculpture called Medusa, dedicated to Giorgio Armani.

 

In between the old renaissance style statues they had placed old bikes. Bikes from fifties, sixties and seventies. Old Harley Davidsons and Ducatis. With men walking around as if in a dream, looking at the bikes with such wonder and rapture, sure to make their girl friends jealous. Perhaps imagining themselves as James Dean or Marlon Brando.

Bikes have that power. Even prince Williams had got himself photographed with a motorbike a la Marlon Brando for his 21st birthday. Last week in London all newspapers had that picture.

Here are some images of the lakeside in Como, including some from the vintage motorbike exhibition.

***

London Memories - Impact of Terrorism & Bombs

Came back yesterday evening from London. I was curious to see if the bombs have changed the city. Yes, almost everyone I asked, agreed that the city has changed, but I couldn't see the changes.

They said, there is no night life, nobody goes out in central London. Perhaps, Hammersmith is too far away from the centre but at 10 PM the restaurants seemed full, people were there in the bar in spite of the typical mild English rain. Even the tube was full as usual. But the train and tube services seemed to have worsened.

 

For example, the Stansted express, which connects Stansted airport to London, was a scandal. The publicity is hyperbolic as usual but the train seemed like a local train in Mumbai. It stopped every five minutes. The whole tube system seems to be coming apart at the seams. Bomb scares, lack of maintenance, staff shortage, all the possible problems seem to plague it.

Yet outside on the streets, people were rushing around as usual. Tourists speaking different languages with their cameras clicking furiously seemed unchanged. I walked in the Banks area, and it seemed much nicer than when I was there around 10 years ago. There were flowers every where and sparkling new buildings with strange shapes, futuristic pubs in glass-walled structures - London looked wonderful.

I always stay in the same place near Hammersmith tube station. I must have stayed in that hotel for fifty times at least, over the past decades. The old staff knows me very well. It seems to have worsened too. They must be cutting costs. The breakfast is a pale shadow of its past and its timings are restricted. In the room, the hair dryer and pants-pressing machine were both out of order. The telephone did not work. May be someone else has bought that hotel but does not know how to run it? Every few years, it changes names and owners, the prices increase and services improve, then slowly, every thing comes down. Perhaps, its location is not good so that it does not get enough clients, even if Hammersmith is a good central location?

I remember the time some years ago, when they had found an IRA terrorist staying in that hotel. I had woken up during the night after some noise and switching on the light, I had looked out of the window. The hotel was surrounded by police with guns in their hands. They must have looked at me with amazement, nude with just wearing my undies, standing near the window, lighted from behind! My heart thumping with fear, I had switched off the light and crawled back into the bed, waiting for the guns to start shooting.

Or the time when a car alarm had gone off around 11 PM and gone on and on for about 4 hours, probably till its battery had exhausted. Couldn't believe that in London, there was no police or someone to trace the owner of a car to make it shut up and it had continued to make terrible noise in a thickly populated residential area for four head-aching hours. I swear that it was worse than all the night-long jagratas combined in Delhi.

This time also I had two of those memorable moments. First, there was a fight. It must have been from one of the houses at the back of the hotel. I had gone to sleep with my window partially open and woken up in the morning listening to a women shouting, "Leave the house, leave, ....leave". It seemed like an old record stuck on the word "leave". At first I couldn't hear the man. Then slowly the fight heated. 'Fuck offs' and 'sons of bitches' flew around till the woman started shouting, "Get off me, let me go. I don't want you. Leave me. Let me go now." Then suddenly there was silence. Probably he had strangled her. Or may be, he had picked his things and left. Who knows. Or, may be she had hit his head with a broom. I hope they don't call me as a witness.

 

My second memorable moment this time was at the Buckingham Palace. I was at the palace gate clicking pictures, when I saw a policeman pointing straight at me. Then one of those palace guards wearing the bear-caps came towards me. I wanted to run away, but I forced myself to stay. Perhaps I have taken some picture which I was not supposed to take, I thought. However, the guard was interested in a guy standing next to me and gave him a folded paper, perhaps some kind of message. "Whew" I broke out in relief after he walked away.

My last image of London is that of a banner at the airport. It was the publicity of a bank. "24 hours service. Real people from UK answer you." Means, no Indian call centre here!

***

Sterlising Our Homes & Bodies

Growing up in India, you automatically learn that you are a small part of a large world, where all beings have a place.

Jain munis with clothe on their mouths, women giving food to the ants, Nandi bull sitting in front of the temple and the cows sitting in the middle of the road, all give you that same message that this world belongs to all of us - humans, animals, plants ... everyone.

 

Perhaps that is why, I get disturbed when I see publicity that seems to imply that if you really want your home to be clean or if you really care about your child, buy this detergent powder or this floor cleaning liquid, because these will kill the bacteria.

I can't understand, why do we need to kill bacteria? Don't bacteria live inside our own bodies and are necessary for life since they produce important vitamins through our microbiomes? Don't bacteria surround us every where and can they be actually killed just by washing your clothes or cleaning the kitchen floor with antiseptic lotions? Perhaps, I should not worry since these are only publicity gimmicks?

I think that this kind of publicity gives a wrong message. Improper use of antibiotics, has given rise to resistant bacteria, and there are some that can't be killed by any thing. But worse than that, this kind of publicity gives the message that it is all right to manipulate the nature because somehow we would be better off in an artificial world, controlled temperatures, controlled environment, artificial every thing.

I would say that we need to boycott these - not to buy products that say they kill bacteria. Sales and profits is the only language companies and marketing experts understand.

***

Four years ago

Yesterday, I didn't even remember that it was 11 September, anniversary of the New York terrorist attacks.

 

I had a board meeting yesterday morning and I was thinking about that. It was also a friend's birthday, so I was reminding myself to send her greetings. And I was thinking about the annual peace march that covers 28 kms from the city of Perugia to Assisi in Italy, that takes place on this day.

It was only after the meeting, after lunch and after the afternnon nap, that Nadia told me that they were showing a Chinese film on the TV. I love Chinese films. She said that it was about children living near a brick kiln.

I had immediately hoped that it was the film where Gong Li plays the mother of a deaf child. I had seen it on TV in China but since it was in Chinese, I hadn't followed it properly.

 

But the film on the TV was about a teacher wearing a chador, trying to explain to nursery kids about bombings in New York and when children could not understand the meaning of "tower", she took them out to look at the chimney of the brick kiln. (The picture taken from the top of the twin-towers is from 1996)

It was that film where different directors have made short films on the theme of 11 September. The Israeli film was about a suicide bomber and a journalist who wants her story.

Mira Nair's film was about Salim, an American born in Pakistan, and the film was called "Terrorist".

"The exiled man" from Chile, was bitter about the American double standards.

The director from Lebanon has made his film about a dead American marine, his lebanese girl friend and a Palestinian suicide bomber.

The dream of boys in the film from Burkina Faso is to catch Osama Bin Laden and get 24 million dollars' award.

But my favorite film-episode in this anthology film was the one about the deaf French girl, who has a fight with her boyfriend in New York, and is hoping for a miracle.

My own memories of that 11 September 4 years ago, seem an episode from this same film. 

 

I was flying to Beirut on that day. I remember, the waiting at Milan airport, shopkeepers suddenly closing their shops and running away, the unbelievable images on the TV in the bar, my cancelled flight and the journey back to Bologna and all the while, thinking about my mother who was travelling to Washington DC that morning.

 

Her flight was diverted to somewhere in Canada and for few days, no body could tell where she was. It was a nightmare. Just thinking about it makes me feel terrified.

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