An afternoon at a school gate

(This is written by my dear Ashutosh Bhaiyya)

The afternoon sun beat down on my face forcing me to squint at the gate of the school which had swallowed my wife and somehow seemed to have digested her completely. I had prefered the glare of the Sun to the cool shade of trees on opposite side the street in which I had parked my car among the multitude of vehicles ranging from taxis, maruti vans, mini buses, bigger buses and a horde of personal vehicles belonging to the parents and other guardians of the students. 
At exactly 2.30 pm the school gates suddenly spewed out with a vengeance a motly crowd of big and small school kids who now turned the afternoon calm into a furious and noisy madness. The kids reminded me of dust particles seen in a shaft of light in a recently swept room. The random unpredictable movements created a melange of similarly attired.

A little calf trapped in the human crowd, children crying "cow cow". Calf gets hit by a car whose mudguard gets loosened.

The girls' fight turns to serious verbal fight, two kids chasing the calf. It hides behind my car. One small kid, lean, dreamy, snapping his fingers and listening to the sound by snapping them next to his ear. A musical child. Another jackson in making.

cars with parents, cars with drivers, cars with grandparents, choking the narrow street. The kids could have used the school bus. All big cars. Vulgur show of money. Small girls chiding the taxi driver.The girls' fight gets vicious. They take out their water bottles using them as clubs. One club hits my car narrowly missing the rear window. I shout at them but they go on fighting relentlesly. Three kids come to peek at the calf who is by now scared and confused. The kids try to scare him more to see it jump and bump into cars. I scold them and they back away. The yellow coloured battle tanks carry away the army of human offsprings. The future pests on the earth. The street becomes deserted. The calf dares to come out from behind my car and slowly trudges towards the far end of the road.

Motherless, shelterless, its food snatched by the mighty humans, the poor animal searches for some relief in this concrete jungle created in the name of civilisation.

Bicycle memoirs

After a long gap I’m here again today; missed something badly (on which this post is based), and really I was wishing if only I could go back to those good old days, if only I could reverse the time…but now I can only try to hold those memories and write such crazy posts based on them!!

Cutting my long story short, actually I am missing my bicycle, my cute bicycle I rode for years. Now it is not here, it was sold off to kabadi-walla bhaiyya two years back (who gave it as a rakhi gift to his sister) because I did not have time and also, neither the traffic nor my mom allowed me to ride it as freely I used to. And I have also noticed that kids are no longer titillated by a bicycle but yearn for bikes. Boys long for bikes and consider themselves next only to John Abraham and gals prefer stylish scooty. Poor old cycle is out of fashion. Also, there is no cycling space left.

The roads are already congested and rash drivers are a menace. And the cyclists are considered by default to belong to the lower middle or poor class, and are expected to make way for the roaring automobiles. Kids no longer have time and the stamina as well to cycle.

I really miss my old cycle and still remember how I much elated I was the day I got it, how fondly I used to clean it every day and etc etc.

Nano-sense

I still do not fully understand the logic behind launching Tata Nano, the much touted Rs. 1 lakh car. The entire set of strategies is steered towards Tata’s own benefits and profits to the company. Mr. Tata should also show some concern towards the consumption of petroleum that is already burning a hole in the Indian economy, for our roads that are lightyears away from the state of readiness for welcoming millions of Nanos, and also for the severe scarcity of parking spaces. Launch of Nano has triggered a race in the Indian car market for mini cars. Are more cars the only sign of development? Mr. Tata may have designed an excellent online sales strategy but the arrival of Nanos and such similar vehicles will only aggravate the already existing problems. Also, most importantly these flashy cars are being made on the land forcefully snapped from the poor farmers, the 600 acres of agricultural land that once belonged to the farmers of WB, who have now been compensated with money. But is forcefully snatching their land for a private car maker and then providing monetary compensation justified? I think not. I feel it’s unethical and wrong. Rather, why doesn't Mr. Tata try to put all the marketing brain behind something that is much more environment friendly and useful to a common man?