Urban Updates I (Enriching Busrides)

There are such a variety of buses in this city. Red ones with the signs of upkeep hard to discern, two-storied ones that moved about with vintage nonchalance and broke down whenever the time was ripe, cream ones that had appeared as salvation but seemed to be retreating in ignominy, the ones for executives where no one except the conductor is allowed to stand, the so-called mini-bus with a flash of red and yellow on their sides and finally the ubiquitous workhorse the tin can `private’ bus that literally brings the competitive spirit to the streets and so is a safety hazard for passenger and pedestrian alike. The variety and possibilities does not end here. In fact with the bus and the trams and the taxi, the metro and the autorickshaws and the rickshaw, the circular railway and the river ferries, Calcutta provided a larger menu of transport options than almost any other city of India. Yet it fell far behind cities like Delhi where environment-friendliness of transport was concerned. Moreover what was also lacking were good roads and a seamless integration of the major modes of transport and this prevented passengers from easily changing from one type of transport to the next.
Pedro climbed on one such workhorse of Calcutta’s transport infrastructure – a private bus. It was so packed with passengers that he had to hold the door handle and hang outside the door, and set off for Mrs Gaitonde’s office in the south of the city. One among a swarm of human commuters on a tin box vehicle, packed with sting-less bees.
All kinds of things happened on such a bus journey. Each was a kind of learning, an experience that kind of leavened one up, fluffed one up like a roti full with the hot air of understanding. However continuous travelling soon mashed and kneaded you up so much that any further developments could not be expected.
After hanging for sometime by the handle at the door of the speeding bus and ducking inside every time another passed dangerously close, Pedro felt his hand getting tired. He advanced a step and changed to his left hand, when the conductor noticing his movements decided to ask for his ticket. One couldn’t blame the conductor for this decision. For everyday there were people who took a ride and went off smartly without buying a ticket. Fights and exchanges would occur and the conductor would be the wiser. `Let me get inside! Then I will buy the ticket,’ Pedro screamed back over the noise of tyres and horns.
‘Well, the poor fellow is carrying a bag and besides he doesn’t look like one of those sneaky types,’ the conductor thought. `OK, step in brother,’ the conductor said as if with those magic words the crammed tin-box of sweat and discomfort was transformed into someone’s grand reception hall. Pedro looked away, the conductor looked the other way, telling the passengers who wanted to alight at the next stop to come along. `Step in uncle,’ he advised Pedro this time.
A kilometre onward from where he had boarded the bus, that meant about ten minutes at that hour, Pedro managed to wriggle inside. He climbed the steps and tried to make himself comfortable just beside the conductor. Inside, the bus was filthily packed, noisy with a quarrel that had flared up between passengers in the front and smelt horrible now and again with someone farting away to glory.
A jovial pair, both sixtyish, chatted merrily about the problems of their lives. Their conversation progressed in the form of a Socratic dialogue about some common ill of the city, the condition of the roads or for the time being, the escalating price of onions.
`Onions are up, Potla,’ remarked one. He was a weather-beaten small man but he wore a freshly ironed dhoti and a clean milk-white shirt. A circle of hair bordered his shining baldness and this remembrance of past glory was given the care it deserved. But his face was wrinkled in a hundred places and his forearms were labouring with the folds and furrows of decades. This incongruity with his fresh dress gave him the aspect of an ancient tome, moth-eaten and dog-eared but bound carefully in leather. His gilded frame eyeglasses were like the gold lettering on its spine.
`No doubt the bus smells so horrible. What? You say they are up, but I thought they should be cheaper,’ Potla looked round him as if looking for consent. He had flowing white hair, oiled and combed back. Thick-rimmed spectacles with heavy post-cataract glasses framed his face and magnified the size of his eyes. So it seemed he saw more than his constitution - frail and modestly shod in a white shirt and old drainpipe trousers - could bear.
`They are, they are. Thirty a kilo, this morning. Don’t get so easily driven by contingencies…he pinched his nose to avoid the horrible smell of unclean bowels… That’s the great mistake we all commit. See what is there beyond and in between,’ the tome said.
`I see heads and heads and bags and legs and hear the tyres, the brakes and the horn. But tell me why is this. Why should the simple onion get out of the common man’s reach?’ Potla pondered.
`You shouldn’t ignore the garlic though. Keep a watch on garlic, it has been getting pricier too. Yet, it’s not as bad as the onion. Now, you tell me why is that? That the humble onion should fetch so high a price?’ the book in the gilded frame eyeglasses asked.
`Because here in the city we begin to turn away from the communists…’ Potla ventured undecided.
`Who did you vote for last time?’ the old volume shot back as if taking umbrage at Potla’s comment.
`Ah?’
`Come on, nobody is listening, tell me which party drew your valuable custom?’ the book pushed on.
`I remain faithful to the Marxists,’ Potla confessed at last.
‘There, you see. Your vote has not changed. Nor has mine. Nor has that of anyone worth mentioning, that I happen to know. And still you say that onion is up because we are turning away from the communists. Do you read the papers?’ the book began to show signs of belligerence.
`Yes two of them, one on weekdays, another on Sunday,’ Potla replied meekly.
`Have you seen what is happening to oil, I mean crude?’ the book asked.
`No. Not oil…Why?’ Potla looked lost, in deep waters.
`And still you say you read two newspapers. Anyway for your information, oil has been rising too,’ the book spelt casually.
`Ah! That’s bad?’ Potla was not sure where it was going this time. He pushed up his eyeglasses as if to refocus and his blown-up eyes played over the standing passengers. Pedro was among these and he was now near the middle of the bus. He was listening to this conversation and trying to prepare his mind for the meeting with Mrs Gaitonde. But it was difficult to concentrate in that crowd. `What sweet news could she have for us?’ Pedro wondered.
`Bad? It’s terrible news. One we should all be worrying about but nobody cares. Why, because we have enough foreign exchange stocked and we hope the great powers will do something soon? That’s our belief eh?’ the book had cooked up derision in his voice.
A wheel of the speeding tin can suddenly fell into some bad pothole and the whole vehicle lurched and shivered before the power of the engine pulled it out and it moved on. Standing passengers were thrown towards the front and were cursing aloud. In that sudden flurry Potla flew from his seat and landed on the lap of an elderly woman who shook him off as she would a fruit-fly, as soon as he had settled there. Profusely apologising he returned to his seat, brushing his trousers, nursing an injured arm and honour. The driver recklessly drove on.
`There, you leave your seat when I am coming to the important part. So little concentration you have,’ the old volume remarked, completely ignoring Potla’s plight.
`So we should be seriously concerned you say, that oil is sky high,’ Potla said at last.
`There you are! And that’s because the world’s only superpower is buying a lot of oil, though it has reserves for a generation. Now tell me why?’ the book asked.
`Why? Er…could be because it thinks prices will rise even further and so it is stocking up,’ Potla replied.
`There, there, you get it all mixed up again. It is stocking up true but not because of what you think. The price is rising because America is buying oil and America is buying oil because it is preparing for the Great War,’ the book had switched into a didactic tone.
`The Great War! What is that now? Is it reported in the papers?’ Genuine concern.
`The papers. Ha! Do you think they can see that far? Anyway…don’t waste my time, I have to get down at the next stop. The Great War is for the control of Asia,’ the book advised.
`America is preparing for the control of Asia!’ Potla looked sincere in his wonder.
`Exactly…and that’s why onion is up and oil is breaking all barriers,’ the book explained.
`Can you translate it all for me?’ Potla asked like an inquisitive student.
`Very few people know about it but it is true. The US has plans to set up new strategic bases in South Asia and in places near the Russian and Chinese borders. In our region the US has problems, if there is a need for quick mobilisation. This is the area where their Central command ends and the Pacific Command begins. Here, at the margins, both the commands have weaknesses and so they need new bases,’ the book advised.
`So Russians are buying onions to stock up for war and winter?’ Potla interjected without warning.
`There you get it wrong again. But you are very close…Only it is us, who are buying onions,’ the book disclosed proudly.
`I haven’t seen a single onion on my plate for the last three months. And you say…’ Potla remarked naively.
`Tch. Onions and chapatti, that’s the cheapest bet against an empty stomach. You know the strength of the Indian Armed Forces?’ the book went on irritated at the lack of enlightenment of Potla.
`About two and half million,’ Potla ventured.
`What happens when our government stocks up onions for two and half million fighting men?’ the book asked.
`Ah!’ Potla looked with awe at the book, `So we are secretly preparing to upset the American plan for the control of Asia! To be ready in case we come under attack from them or their friends in this region.’
`See. If you just exercise your mind you can make it all out,’ the book proffered.
`But the Chinese, they are on which side?’ Potla again looked confused.
At this point the bus began to slow down as it approached the next stop. The book hurriedly rose from his seat and began to scramble towards the door making his way through the crowd with his hands. `That we will discuss tomorrow,’ he said as he vanished among the packed human mass. As the bus-driver braked abruptly Potla again flew from his seat and landed on the elderly lady’s lap.

Published article. © 2008. All rights reserved.

Quoting Kureishi

Surfing ... this quote from Hanif Kureishi, caught my eye.

'One of the things you notice is that when you switch on the television and a student has gone mad with a machine gun on a campus in America, it's always a writing student...'

Have to go out and grab my copy of The Buddha of Suburbia immediately. How could I have ignored it for so long. This is how the Swindon Arts Centre in England described the theatre version of Kureishi's international bestseller: 'An exuberant culture-clash of music, sex, drugs and most - of all - love and lust in their many forms...'

Amber Dusk - An Excerpt from the Novel

Rishi dived low, grabbing Fenella’s waist, almost using her like a shield, as a roasted duck flapped dangerously close overhead, going in the direction of Loos. All the projectiles were being hurled at that target behind the sofa but because it was hidden it was impossible to assess the effects of this fusillade. Rishi noticed that the `FAD’ had disappeared. But his red carnations were all over the room. A small man with a crutch were tearing these gleefully and throwing the petals all around while the art school students had stuck the flowers in their hair. Someone was loudly counting out the number of glasses being broken …cinq…six…sept…Lamb chop!…huit…neuf…Carafe!…dix. ..onze…douze…At one point Rishi thought he saw a man trying to set fire to the curtains.While the missiles flew over them the pony-tailed man and two others, on all fours, carefully closed in on the sofa. One was Pierot, now violent with frustration, and the other was Gascoigne. They crawled close to where Loos was hiding but he was quick on his feet, and, throwing his other boot at some china on the mantelpiece, he dashed for the door and out onto the stairs. The group of three followed, one arming himself on the way with someone’s silk umbrella with Tintin prints, and another wrenching out the telephone shower from the bathroom. Water began to gush out from the damaged pipe. Gascoigne’s hall would soon be flooded.The deep thundering voice of Loos could be heard shouting followed by cries of pain and mad footsteps. ‘Oh Mon Dieu!’ cried a shrill feminine voice from the floor below followed by the heavy sound of something rolling down the stairs. Then there were more shouts and cursing. It seemed at one point that the whole building had come out on the stairs.Gascoigne’s ship was rocked to the core. This old house on rue Cafarelli had been called The Ship for long and Gascoigne’s ship - navire de Gascoigne - a place expansive as a ship’s deck and with a pleasant breeze of poets chatter and photographers clicking talk about cameras and reciprocity failure, about depth of fields and the hum of writer’s discussing women with musicians was all so pleasant, like gentle breeze.But what hard wind had Loos raised today, Rishi thought; that so rolled and pitched this vessel of merry hashish-smoking voyagers? Working for art. Working for food and shelter, and this pleasure of quite civilly - apparently like law-abiding citizens - doing something that was always a protest, a shout in a library, a secret extravagant living that was tax-free, a balloon on the skies above Paris, a cocooned caprice that seldom attracted chastisement.A young black man was trying to restore the failing confidence of the sailors by playing on his harmonica. But no, it would not work. Tonight was too much for them and people began to leave.Fenella asked Rishi and Daniel if they would like to join her for a drink, `to forget the bad part of the evening.’ Daniel said he would like to but he had to feed his cats and it would be too late.'I am sorry but maybe tomorrow we could meet in the evening,' he added apologetically. 'But if Rishi is going with you, you have to put him in a good taxi or drop him home. He is still new to Paris and wouldn't like to get lost. Would you my friend?' He smiled delicately his hands in his pockets, slightly bending his head forward. Then he vanished before them in the darkness.`He is a marvellous person,’ Fenella said and Rishi could not disagree. Yet just now and, once in a while, he would remember that deadly weapon he had accidentally discovered in Daniel’s apartment. Today, perchance, he had found out that Daniel was carrying the blowpipe under his jacket. The weapon was hanging from a shoulder strap and Rishi had seen it when Daniel helped him with the snail-grippers at the bistro. That’s why, today, he never took his jacket off, Rishi pondered. Nodding his head to Fenella’s comment he tried to think of a simple explanation, but none appeared.They were out on the street. The ship was again slipping back to fair wind as they walked out. Most lights in the flats had gone out and the angry noises, clapping and music of the second floor flat had dissolved into the quiet humming of life behind closed windows. From a ground level flat, a faint music could be heard. Someone was playing Debussy's La Mer and the sweet music rolled into the quiet street and spread slowly towards the islands of silence all around.`I had borrowed a friend’s car. Parked it somewhere here,’ Fenella said in a slurry voice, walking drunkenly along the row of automobiles parked along the street. She stopped beside a small white Peugeot. They got in. Till now, when he was comfortably beside her inside the warm car, Rishi could not help thinking of Loos crouching in one of the clumps of dark shadows and ready to throw a dangerous projectile to hurt him and Fenella. But nothing of that sort happened.Only as Fenella has pulled out into the wide road the sky broke into scary laughter flashing its white teeth on its dark face, like the face of Djibo at the party, the man who had made the last effort with the harmonica.The roll of thunder echoed and strengthened itself all over the city and came back to them in waves - satisfying sounds, old like the old earth. The big RATP buses with the huge rear view mirrors - like fairytale characters with long ears - slid by smoothly on the soaked streets with swish sounds. Small rain had begun and through the rolled up windows, Paris suddenly presented a different and enchanting face.Instinctively he looked at Fenella driving the old hatchback and she just then turned and looked at him. Their little car was a small safe submarine in the stormy seas of life happening outside - in the cafés, inside the air-conditioned hearts of the fairy-tale characters, beneath the transparent passenger sheds where the late-nighters waited. It was a cosy caravan, a small shellfish-pleasant retreat from the crashing skies, the maddening drops; they looked more anarchic from within their steel and glass retreat. Like fifty thongs they lashed above their heads and all around.Strange pleasure to be thus protected, while the world outside soaked and changed before your eyes. Received its chastisement. The night rain fell across the car windows, clouding out the view, and the big lights and dancing lasers outside dissolved in slippery blobs of illumination, plum puddings restless to be eaten. Fenella’s sharp face and light eyes hung in the pondering warmth of the car as at the edge of a precipice, something should happen now, and the windshield wiper carelessly kept time. Rain drummed on the roof.The plane trees on the Seine and the big statues in the parks and squares - Anne of Austria in the Luxembourg and Henri IV at the place des Vosges – quietly enjoyed the rain, getting drenched and secretly dancing with mirth. The city was one with the heavens, from the merry greens of the Bois de Boulogne in the east to the huge well laid out parc de la Villette in the west, from the old le Bourget airport and the workers colonies in the north down to the far reaches of the Montparnasse, there was a communion with the elements, a joyous stigmatisation. And in this ceremony the saint was Paris and the stigmata would be the fresh leaves of plane and ash, and the washed look of the streets the next morning, until the dust and rankle of industriousness would again transfer it to a place in the world.He stole a look at her legs guiding the machine, pressing on the accelerator, as their silvery boat nipped through the scenes of chastisement and reward, agony and ecstasy. Aviation kerosene, sin the shade of a baby’s eyes. He remembered how he had held her waist at the Ship and wanted then, to hold her again. Sturdily, with the grip of a dead man. And he felt warm and excited. Secret formulas turned keys in his brains, pressed switches all over his body and he was shivering. He inhaled deeply the scent of her hair. In the unsure darkness, red sometimes looked orange.As if hearing his thoughts she said, `I go dancing, such nights.’

Copyright 2007, Rajat Chaudhuri, All rights reserved.

www.rajatchaudhuri.net

Finally I have got this domain for myself and most of the contents of this blog as well as my other writing would be available at this website. I also plan to reveal my other life at the new site! So do keep coming back.