Watching a War from Far

( My KT column dated 6-8-2022)

I am writing this piece right after a disrupted dinner. It was a meal that I had to drop midway because of horrific scenes from a war that were unfolding in front of me as if they were snatches from a WW II movie.

It is a war that is happening thousand of miles away, but for the past many weeks it has been gnawing at my heart at the pace of an invasive snail. It is possible for a faraway citizen fraught with private concerns to shut her eyes to the suffering of millions on the other side of the world and get on with life, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to do it. The stark reality of senseless human strife is beginning to get to me.

The bombing of the train station at Kramatorsk was the last straw.

This is a piece I am writing on behalf of all those who want to show their solidarity to a stricken population, and all those who have wanted to articulate their sentiments but had no veritable means to do so.

The last time I was rattled this severely was when Aleppo was reduced to ruins in Syria. That the perpetrator of both eventualities is the same person makes me think how deeply entrenched evil can be in some people to be able to inflict pain and suffering repeatedly on innocents who have nothing to do with their diabolic aims. It also makes me wonder what on earth inspires so much evil that one is fogged out of all goodness. Scratch the surface and we will find the answer.

The root of all evil is a combination of the vices that are inherent in us all in varying proportions. Greed, envy, desire, arrogance, anger. That some humans excel at acquiring these qualities is what makes them more wicked than the rest. Wars are manifestations of our vices; violence is the fall out of a selfish mind and depravity is the mark of a character that covets limitless pleasure. It was with a shudder that I realised how we were all microcosms of the monstrosity that is now on display in Ukraine.

It is a matter of great solace that a majority of us are also endowed with ample amounts of compassion and empathy that get the better of our delinquencies. It makes me want to work harder on maintaining the virtues in my daily life by being watchful of my thought, intent and action. It is a personal lesson I take away from people of devious nature.

As I watch the charred hulks of whole cities and villages and the confused stares in the eyes of the people driven out of their homes; as I think of what lays ahead of them and what might be left behind them in their native land; as I think of the dearth that might follow in their lives, and the stench of death that they may carry on their skin for years, I recognise the humongous nature of suffering that can afflict people, and see my own grievances shrink in size.

When the mind wanders to my tomorrows and frets at its absolute uncertainties, I think of the displaced todays of the people in Ukraine and other conflict zones. When I see an old woman ambling through the streets of Bucha in ruins, with empty water bottles in her hand, I admire her stoicism, courage and the will to carry on. As swathes of a beautiful country turn into rotting remains of war, I wonder what might the perpetrator attain at the end of it all. Of what purpose this apocalypse?

With each frame that flashes in front of me, I am learning lessons. Of how to be and how not to be. Of what is worth aspiring and what deserves to be tossed out. It is teaching me the basic tenets of righteous living.

The fate of Ukraine is unknown. It might become a script of frozen strife or be routed by an indiscriminate enemy. As the tanks continue roll down its cities, my thoughts are with its soldiers fighting fiercely to hold the fort, and its people showing determination in the face of incredible viciousness. My thoughts are with the maimed, the scarred, the displaced and the dead, and their gossamer dreams gone unrealised. My respect for the reporters on the ground who bring us the stories and the humanitarian missions handing out hope braving the dangers has grown manifold.

Last year, about this time, we were battling a scourge of a different kind. Puzzling how evil takes different forms: a microscopic entity at times, and a full-grown human at others.

SCENT OF THE RAIN

I remember walking around the Lal Darwajah market in Ahmedabad on a blistering afternoon several years ago, filing past the riotous splashes of bandhni fabric and other ethnic stuff in the open roadside shops. I was there on a mission. To get ‘sondhi khushboo’. Now, that’s a Gulzarian expression for petrichor, the fragrance of raw earth. Some call it the scent of the rain.

My fixation with petrichor has a long history. I have been smitten by it ever since I have known rain in my childhood and my obsession only grew with age, as I learned to assign rain and its sweet attendants various connotations of romance, melancholy, mirth, passion and myriad other emotions that I can’t clearly define even today. It does to me things that the oldest wine in the world cannot do.

Many years before my trip to Ahmedabad, I had read in a newspaper article that sondhi khusboo was now sold as a scented oil in the Jama Masjid area of Ahmedabad’s Lal Darwajah market. It was a valuable piece of information to someone who had harnessed the scent to her soul, but I had dismissed it as useless knowing that my chances of visiting Ahmedabad was very remote. I had no way to lay hands on the monsoon elixir unless I found someone to fetch it for me. The improbability of it had made me shelve all thoughts of ‘owning’ some petrichor until an unexpected opportunity to visit the city came my way in 2014-15 .

There were other reasons to go there, but what topped my list was finding the object of my obsession; bottle and bridle it to my existence to be inhaled whenever I pleased. Rain or shine. Passion, craze, love, fetish – call it whatever.

The area around Jama Masjid is famous for its row of shops selling ‘attar’ and I had expected my quest to end in the first few minutes of landing here. But it turned out to be an arduous task, for no shop had anything called ‘mitthi ki khushboo wala attar’.

Flitting from shop to shop, suspecting I had got the information wrong, perhaps it was Allahabad, I made one last effort, combing the area, and viola! One guy indeed had what I had come seeking. Only the pilgrim knows what it means to be at the shrine after a long trek through the hills and ravines.

Eager and excited to sniff the essence of earth on my skin, I asked him to dab a bit on the back of my hand. I inhaled the oil with my eyes closed, feeling a mist spread on their fluttering fringes. So intimate was the experience of touching base with the rain elements that I almost wept.

What was the predominant emotion that I felt in that moment? A real, raw sense of myself. It gave me a glimpse of what I was behind all my sophisticated exteriors and a clear recognition of my earthiness. It was as if I had found my provenance in that one instance.

How can something so sensual, so material, so utterly transient provide such a profound experience? I fail to understand. But it brings to memory a few random lines I scribbled recently in another equally inspiring context. “From the lap of a hovering cloud, If not pouring rains may some drizzles fall, With every drop that lands, a scent will rise in the air to consecrate me.”

I revel in drizzles as much as in thunderous torrents whenever I have a chance to experience it in my land of rains. When I am in the arid desert, amid shifting sands, I open this little bottle of petrichor every so often, inhale to relive that old moment and feel anointed all over again.

Being Malayali in New Delhi

Many things have apparently changed in India in the two years I was stubbornly stationed in Dubai skirting my Covid fears. One of them is the way my country has got digitized. When I landed there last month, I felt both impressed and nervous to see the country transacting its daily business on the go with a few nimble taps on the phone. Things were done online before one counted 1, 2, 3. Money played hopscotch between buttons, virtually changing hands in a jiffy. However, for some inexplicable reason, the spouse and I eschewed the new methods, because we are not used to it in Dubai. Here, we only netbank and swipe. No dalliance with payment apps.

I felt very primitive going around with cash, and that too 500 Rupee notes, when even a barber at Connaught Place operating out of a briefcase had a ‘phonepe’ board planted next to him! People shaved on the lane and paid for it online! I was struck by the contrast of it - the itinerant barber still existed, surviving all the odds that came with the passage of time, but he had modernized in other ways. Only those who had phonepe could get his services. What a melting pot of old practices and recent progresses this country has become, I thought.

One thing that I love doing while I am in the capital city is loitering aimlessly at CP. I capture every sight and sound around and put them in memory cans to last a lifetime. That’s what travel is all about, isn’t it? Small moments that occupy big spaces in our life; spaces that eventually become our alter worlds.

On a day of less distractions in the receding phase of winter, I hopped on an Uber (that ubiquitous blessing of a transport), eager to touch base with the old familiarities of the place.

‘Hanuman Mandir, CP,’ I said, and before the driver had a chance to gauge my religious and political affiliations, I added, ‘near the emporiums.’ Before I knew it, I was driven to where I had to go and I opened my purse to pay the fare. I plucked a 500 rupee note and extended it.

‘Chutta nahi hai,’ said the driver. ‘Google pe kar deejiye.’

Damn! I should have known that this pickle was waiting for me.

‘Google pay nahi hai. Ab kya karen?’

I almost heard him say, ‘Yeh kaisa namoona hai?’

I avoided his gaze, waiting for him to change his mind and fish out the change he had kept stashed inside. But none came. He suggested that I could ask the vendors on the roadside, and after I got off, he parked the car a few meters away. I was grateful that he didn’t resort to rude language, which was very likely in those circumstances.

I strutted around flashing a 500 rupee note, desperate for help, almost getting to the end of my tether. What do you think the chances of anyone having or sparing some change would have been? Right. Cipher.

It seemed as if the human beings present there - the people who busily dug into their samosas and chaat, those who darted hurriedly to God knows where, the florist, the paanwala, and everyone else - had all conspired to shrug or shake their head.

Minutes trickled down my back in the form of sweat and the Uber guy honked from his parking. I put my hand up requesting patience, but I saw no easy way out of the quandary. I looked at the lame 500 rupee note and laughed inwardly at the irony. ‘Useless,’ I muttered under my breath.

There was only one way to get around this fix – take the same cab back and get the change from the spouse and dispose the guy off. I seriously considered the option, loath to give up on my wanderlust, and scanned the place one more time, not knowing what I was looking for. Some sort of divine intervention, perhaps?

I started walking towards the cab knowing miracles didn’t happen when we asked for them, but only when we deserved them. And today, it wasn’t ordained in my name.

I took one last glance around, half-disappointed that my fixtures for the day had gone for a toss. That was when I spotted something familiar in front of me. A board with the word ‘Kairali’.

If I could add a new synonym to ‘miracle’ it would be ‘Kairali.’ If ‘hope’ had a new verbal manifestation, it is the word ‘Kairali’. If belongingness had found a new meaning, it was in a showroom that bore the name ‘Kairali’.

I hurried towards the govt. emporium that sold handicrafts from Kerala.

‘Chechi, can I get change for 500?’ I asked eagerly, convinced that help was at hand. Chechi and Chetta. Two words that bring all Malayalis under one umbrella and fill their hearts with fraternal love!

‘I must pay the Uber guy and I have no loose notes with me. I didn’t get it from anyone, that’s when I saw our shop,’ I said sounding dire to the lady behind the counter in chaste Malayalam. I am now smiling at the thought of using the phrase ‘our shop’. Nammude kada. How instantly I had established my association with it!

I don’t want to trivialize the sanctity of that moment by detailing it overly. I could shelve the whole incident as a mere happenstance and forget about it, I need not stretch it to sentimental levels and make gooey stories out of it, but the truth remains. The miracle man had revealed Himself to me in the form of a fellow Malayali. It needn’t have happened. That it did is what makes me believe yet again that when the dice of life rolls, the odds, more often than not, will fall in our favour.