Paradoxical Privacy
A bright sunny morning in coimbatore has been a regular affair offlate courtesy, the recent climate changes. It was normally pleasant atleast half a decade ago. Starting a lively chat with your fellow traveller and observing your surroundings is something I imbibed on account of 2 reasons. One being the numerous solitide sojourns to and in nativeplace from childhood for which I should appreciate my parents and secondly a quality I liked in my favourite author P.L.Deshpande. If my memory does not fail he has mentioned this in his train journey narrative "PESTONJI". During my casual chat with a taxi driver in Chennai and Coimbatore, on numerous occasions in the last month or so we happened to touch upon the topic of the change in climate and how the heat has become unbearable. Badshah is an ordinary driver in a taxi rental company but with a zest in life. The journey from Rajaji Salai to Cathedral Road HSBC office with him was short but large in my perspective of living life. The date was 17th April 2017, suppposed to be the hottest day in last 140 years in South of India. Badshah was talking in his mix of Hyderabadi Hindi and Chennai Tamil..SAAR..AAJIKO ASMAAN se ( please not not Aaasmaaan it's ASMAAN with the first 2 letters spelt in lightning speed) baaraa se teen (12 to 3 ) bajeku kuch girenga jisse aadmiko cancer varuvanga...I also tried to reply in his language..kya boltay Bhai...apadinglaaa ( my mix of whatever language I Know). The chat continued...Haan Saab...Bahut Garmin Saab.. Mayyi Issike Vaste Car lenke vellile niklaich nahi. Kay ko tension..Then he started giving the reasons for the same. Saar...aapko maaloom kyun Garmi badi..I asked "Kayku bolona bhai " in his same tone. I try to do this many times i.e to imitate the same tone of a person's dialect. Pscologically it helps you to make the person more comfortable and talk to you more freely. He mentioned it was due to people splitting houses and living separately. Then he mentioned to me about his siblings and how he loves his mother and how he longed to be with them. I asked why don't you live together. "Kya bolu saab, Rundaberum Sanda Potta, Dimaga kharaab kartay"..meaning both of them fight and eat my brains. I asked who?..He said his wife and mother...Both want privacy..Ab bolo Saab.. .mera bacha sambhalke rakhne ko biwi zameen Asmaaaan ek karti but maa me haath potaa ekdum mast meaning where my wife struggles with my child my mother handles him with ease. This made me to think how the erosion of joint family system lead to explosion of babycare units, nurseries , Kindergartens and pre KG' s.. The Joint Family System in ancient India was a self sustained ecosystem nurturing a new life with all the things which so called above business houses did and more so till he achieved an emotional balance. The uncle's,aunts, elder cousins acted as foremost friends (read the Malayala Manorama Baron K M Mathews Biography which anecdotes and explains it so beautifully). What one needs to learn in life is how to get up and live when failure strikes rather than spending time on the red strikes on grammar books. One should derive the logics of life and existence than the algebraic formulae and algorithm's. All in the name of privacy what have we lost...Isn"t privacy a paradox in this context. Thanks To Badshah, for enlightning me with this thought.. As he drove back he said..'Saar, Apun toh naam ka Badshah hai, aap dil ka Badshah hai Saab..Khush rahi.. Maja aya.".. Not sure why he said that but such Badshah's leave a trace in your life etched for a lifetime....SRN
A bright sunny morning in coimbatore has been a regular affair offlate courtesy, the recent climate changes. It was normally pleasant atleast half a decade ago. Starting a lively chat with your fellow traveller and observing your surroundings is something I imbibed on account of 2 reasons. One being the numerous solitide sojourns to and in nativeplace from childhood for which I should appreciate my parents and secondly a quality I liked in my favourite author P.L.Deshpande. If my memory does not fail he has mentioned this in his train journey narrative "PESTONJI". During my casual chat with a taxi driver in Chennai and Coimbatore, on numerous occasions in the last month or so we happened to touch upon the topic of the change in climate and how the heat has become unbearable. Badshah is an ordinary driver in a taxi rental company but with a zest in life. The journey from Rajaji Salai to Cathedral Road HSBC office with him was short but large in my perspective of living life. The date was 17th April 2017, suppposed to be the hottest day in last 140 years in South of India. Badshah was talking in his mix of Hyderabadi Hindi and Chennai Tamil..SAAR..AAJIKO ASMAAN se ( please not not Aaasmaaan it's ASMAAN with the first 2 letters spelt in lightning speed) baaraa se teen (12 to 3 ) bajeku kuch girenga jisse aadmiko cancer varuvanga...I also tried to reply in his language..kya boltay Bhai...apadinglaaa ( my mix of whatever language I Know). The chat continued...Haan Saab...Bahut Garmin Saab.. Mayyi Issike Vaste Car lenke vellile niklaich nahi. Kay ko tension..Then he started giving the reasons for the same. Saar...aapko maaloom kyun Garmi badi..I asked "Kayku bolona bhai " in his same tone. I try to do this many times i.e to imitate the same tone of a person's dialect. Pscologically it helps you to make the person more comfortable and talk to you more freely. He mentioned it was due to people splitting houses and living separately. Then he mentioned to me about his siblings and how he loves his mother and how he longed to be with them. I asked why don't you live together. "Kya bolu saab, Rundaberum Sanda Potta, Dimaga kharaab kartay"..meaning both of them fight and eat my brains. I asked who?..He said his wife and mother...Both want privacy..Ab bolo Saab.. .mera bacha sambhalke rakhne ko biwi zameen Asmaaaan ek karti but maa me haath potaa ekdum mast meaning where my wife struggles with my child my mother handles him with ease. This made me to think how the erosion of joint family system lead to explosion of babycare units, nurseries , Kindergartens and pre KG' s.. The Joint Family System in ancient India was a self sustained ecosystem nurturing a new life with all the things which so called above business houses did and more so till he achieved an emotional balance. The uncle's,aunts, elder cousins acted as foremost friends (read the Malayala Manorama Baron K M Mathews Biography which anecdotes and explains it so beautifully). What one needs to learn in life is how to get up and live when failure strikes rather than spending time on the red strikes on grammar books. One should derive the logics of life and existence than the algebraic formulae and algorithm's. All in the name of privacy what have we lost...Isn"t privacy a paradox in this context. Thanks To Badshah, for enlightning me with this thought.. As he drove back he said..'Saar, Apun toh naam ka Badshah hai, aap dil ka Badshah hai Saab..Khush rahi.. Maja aya.".. Not sure why he said that but such Badshah's leave a trace in your life etched for a lifetime....SRN
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