A tale of guts and guile!

     Everyday in Gokul PG, a curious scene plays out at 1 in the afternoon and 8 in the night. Small groups of the PG residents gather at every floor, all looking tense and poised for action. Half of them don't know each other, yet they exchange knowing smiles. Some of them dart downstairs to conduct reconnaissance, but they receive information from those in the lower floors through nods and glances. The tension builds up slowly as the number of people increase. Now, the groups are openly conversing with each other, cursing the PG owner, the caretakers and the guard. All the people are armed with their plates and cups. Those who just reached the PG rush up the stairs to their respective rooms to arm themselves for the battle ahead.

   Movement begins when the guard arrives carrying a bag with 3 containers and a 4th larger container, separately. He keeps them on the 1st floor and disappears somewhere. Everybody is agitated now. "Abbe sekority (security), muhurat ka wait kar raha hai bh*****?" A censored, calmer version is repeated by the Telugu speaking elements of this crowd. The guard's reinforcements arrive in the form of a young boy and a teenager, who are barely able to lift the aforementioned containers between themselves. Some of the waiting crowd help them carry it to the roof, where a plastic table is waiting (and it still has scars of that afternoon or the previous day's battles). The scene is all set. The waiting people open the big container, full of rice or tomato rice or lemon rice (depending on the day of the week). What is everyone waiting for? The serving spoons! They are lying on another part of the roof, most probably unwashed. One of the 'staff' gets it. The Mexican standoff ends and mayhem rules supreme.

   Now the young boys  mentioned earlier desperately try to swing into action and bring about order in chaos. The younger one is sent off to one corner of the roof with the packet of rotis. The North Indians set upon him, intent on grabbing their quota of 3 rotis before they get finished. They will remain out of the main action for now, so let us focus on the table. The teenage caretaker tries to do 2 things at once- serve the rice and serve the dry curry. He fails miserably at both, usually. If one towers over the crowd gathered around the table, all one can see is a sea of plates thrust into the boy's face. You can also hear everyone shouting in Telugu, Hindi or Kannada to serve them first, so that they can leave. Some of them ask him to serve double the quantity of rice, for their friends waiting downstairs. The ones whose plates are full turn their attention to the sambhar. The serving spoon is nowhere to be seen. "Ooye, gante ekkada ra?" (where is the serving spoon?). The 'gante' appears from somewhere, everyone reaches out to it, a determined hand snatches is from everyone and takes his share. While doing so, he has maneuver it expertly through other hands waiting to grab it. When he is done, he hands it over to a friend or the nearest hand and gingerly extracts himself from the crush of hungry men. If you want to get your chance, you will have be to assertive, bordering on aggressive. Meanwhile,  the North Indians join the crowd at the table for their curry and sambhar. By now, the curry is almost finished and only the ones willing to snatch the whole container can get anything. The sambhar is still left, so all the serving spoons are used to finish it off. Some of them (like me) dip their cups into it. Plates full and a look of victory in their eyes, the winners of this brouhaha calmly retire to enjoy their food in peace. For those who go back to their rooms to eat, yet another minor dogfight is left. And dogfight it is, as they go down the stairs and avoid oncoming traffic. The oncoming traffic consists of latecomers who are rushing up the stairs like bulls to grab anything that is still left. You need to swerve and dodge them like Spanish bullfighters.

   The exceptional days are Wednesdays, Sundays and the days the owner serves the food himself. On Wednesdays and Sundays, the table IS the center of action since there are no rotis. The day the owner serves is completely different. Towering over everyone in the PG, with a stern demeanor and a broad physique, the owner commands respect. Nobody shouts, nobody grabs the spoons and nobody asks for more. Thou shalt take what He gives and thou shalt retire, for He is fair and just!

   Many years from now, when I am enjoying food in a 5 star hotel, I shall think of these days. I will look back at days when I missed my food, when I couldn't get enough and more importantly, at days when I successfully duped everyone and got an extra egg or extra curry!Ah, such joy! Who will believe me then, that a day's lunch and dinner required such guts and guile? I will surely miss the food rituals of Gokul PG when I finally get out of this place!

Ramblings of an offender!

Having nothing to do in the train, I decided to work on a few ideas and thoughts of mine and streamline them into a blog. I have this habit of thinking aloud when I am riding my bike. It includes a steady stream of commentary on fellow motorists, cyclists and pedestrians. It also includes commenting on roads, road signs, interesting spellings on other vehicles and a whole range of different thoughts. It helps me concentrate and I enjoy this time a lot. I never had the habit of listening to music on the bike, but this is, for me, is far better than any music. So, one day, I was going somewhere in Koramangala (in Bangalore) and I had to take a U-turn. There was a road sign clearly forbidding a U-turn at that spot. I, however, realized that there was no good reason for forbidding it there. The traffic was moderate and taking a U-turn there was not causing anyone any unnecessary inconvenience. I went ahead, took the U-turn and continued. A little further ahead, a policeman tried to stop me but I twisted, turned and escaped. However, that is a different matter. My thoughts turned to the matter at hand. Legally speaking, I am an offender now as I had just broken a law. Anybody can clearly see that I was using a defence mechanism by questioning its purpose while breaking it. This is not an isolated incident. 98% of the times, I never break any road laws. I stop at red lights, don’t take illegal turns, prefer going a little distance ahead and taking a U-turn than riding on the wrong side and use horn/dipper while overtaking. It is the remaining 2% that is of interest here. I like to convince myself that if I jump a red light, it is only after duly checking for speeding vehicles on all sides. Quite often, I ride on the pavement or off the road to escape a traffic jam. Even then, I tell myself that I am a biker and bikers are expected by traffic to stand as vanguards and lead from the front. If bikes don’t try to escape from jams, the jams can get 10 times worse than they are already are. So, I am an offender. Guilty as charged!
But, let us think about the assurances and convincing arguments I give myself. Are laws meant to be questioned? If the Government makes and implements a law, are we supposed to follow it without any doubts whatsoever? What if a law seems archaic or not in sync with the reality? Should we question and break such laws? I still think that ‘No U-turn’ sign near that junction is a nuisance for motorists. Maybe, at some point of time, it was required. Maybe, the Municipal Corporation installed that road sign and forgot to take it off. So tell me, do we have the right to question or do we blindly follow it just to be on the right side of law? Should we just think that a particular law might have been made for a purpose which is beyond our understanding that point of time? If we do so, aren’t we placing undue trust on the lawmaking authorities and assigning a quality of Godliness to them, by saying that their actions HAVE a purpose and we mere mortals are in no position to realize that ulterior motive?
But this naturally leads to more serious infringements of laws. Granted, you can question laws and break them if you think they are useless, stupid or not required. Suppose, I think that the law protecting people from killing each other is useless. I justify killing someone with reams of paper full of rhetoric. The world would end in anarchy then! Let us now add a little clause to the right to question and break moronic laws. This clause would attempt to prevent the chaos and anarchy I just talked about. This clause says, you can question and break laws if another human being is not inconvenienced or harmed by it! Where does that land us? Back at square one. Now, kindly define inconvenience and harm! Kindly also tell me, how qualified are humans to understand the far reaching consequences of relatively harmless actions that they indulge in everyday? You break a law that you deem to be stupid and you make sure that nobody is inconvenienced or harmed by it immediately. But what if circumstances change in the fraction of a second? I am jumping that red light after carefully making sure that there is nobody coming directly in front of my path. At that point of time, my tire slips on a little stone that has no business being there in the middle of the road. It is there because a kid was kicking it on the way home from school and it landed here. I slip on it and fall. A car, which I could have easily avoided if I hadn’t slipped, rushes towards me at breakneck speed and.......
Oh dammit! I think too much. It is a result of ennui, my dear friends. Boredom. I am going to have a nap. So long, folks! Parting advice: look carefully before you jump a red light or take an illegal U-turn. These cops deliberately hide behind trees and jump out like a tiger pouncing on its prey!