Heat, jasmine and billingsgate

I had almost forgotten what it felt like to take a ride on a Chennai local bus during peak hours(typically late evening). In fact, it is possible that by sheer chance, my last few such excursions had danced around the critical combination for the complete experience: muggy skies, spots of rain(intermittent, mind you), a festival on the morrow, end of especially hot day, a route liberally sprinkled with potholes and streets with slim waistlines, a suitably reckless character in the driver's seat and a rickety bus held precariously together by adroit manoeuvres, periodic load cycles and several lifetimes on Chennai roads, in short, magic.

You will find everyone in Chennai on a bus. The humble road-layer, the dreamy student, the sassy tots, the stiff-upper-lipped, heavily perfumed glamdolls, the heavily starched-sari-clad mamis, the no-nonsense, betel-chewing fishmongers, with humungous baskets laden with leftover wares, cellphones of all shapes and tones, vermillion, vibudhi, lipgloss, shoeshine.....

You gaze anxiously at the skies, which have opened up again, the road, which bears with it a fresh crowd of festive shoppers from the nearby vegetable market, all headed, what do you know, for the bus-stand and the bus you await in a state of stasis interrupted by moments of observation. They make a beeline for the tiny shelter as the rain comes down, hard. You jostle vigorously for legroom, aiming a few kicks at exposed shins, infusing just so much venom as to prompt a hurried parting of bodies, but not to irk unduly. You overhear gossip disseminated across several strange heads, and from all directions, talk animated and undeterred by the elements or the atmosphere.

The bus arrives finally, after many a false alarm, when squinted eyes, aided by impatience would herald its coming, only to behold a temptingly empty bus going, well, why on earth would one want a route from Kelambakkam to Kalaignar Nagar, or some such thing? Immediately, the rabble awakes to spirited action, shoving like there is no tomorrow, spicing up the situation with some choice expletives and exhortations. "Edam udu, paa. Konjam ulla pogalaam, edam irukkambodhu." etc. Apparently, a leg-space of anything close to a quarter foot squared indicates that another half a dozen commuters may be comfortably accomodated.

You are cursed, poked and bandied around till the conductor blows the whistle, after what seems like an eternity. Some desperate attempts at clinging on to the nearest window and the merest hint of naked footboard are made, mostly successful. The bus tilts dangerously low towards the left , but miraculously, takes off. Meanwhile, loose change is passed, dropped, lost amid a sea of legs, the conductor barks at an outstretched hand with a 100 rupee-note, and somehow everyone has a ticket.

Tightly wedged between a loop of once-fragrant but now decaying jasmine, perched atop a massive nest of luxuriant tresses, which is all I can see of its owner, not that I care much, since I eye it, fascinated, and a sleepy old dodger with a wild eye, lurching in tandem with the bus and the driver's whim, I discover I cannot even shift my hand without disturbing the temporary equilibrium and courting wrathful glances. Furthermore, an itch starts to build up somewhere, cannot even determine where, but it must be attended to. This urgent summon to immediate action cannot be ignored, so I manage to dislodge a hand to attend to the needful.

Another bump and lurch, an inadvertent jostle with the petite lady alongside, and she chastises you bitterly. "Boor! Lack of manners, handling a lady thus. What were you thinking?" I try to appease her, mumbling broken apologies, when what I want to say is "If it is space you crave, and an absence of offensive presences such as mine, you might take an auto. When you get into a crowded bus, you are buying into all this, so shut your face..." in an irate tone. Of course, that never happens, for the average female tongue in Chennai bears a close resemblance to a whiplash, or something more dramatic. Wandering hands in search of a rail deliver a blow to the top of my head, nearly knocking me senseless. I finger the spot to make sure I haven't lost a handful of hair, and feign a smile when the apology arrives.

The weird crush has an almost phantasmagoric quality to it. The aromas and stenches mingle in varying proportions to produce a stomach-turner one instant, a dizzying spell another, a putrid miasma the next. Dried fish can drown out roses only so long, and Dior must prevail sometime, only to give way to liquor-flavoured breaths. All the while, the noise has gone to assume the aura of a symphony, well, nearly. The blaring horn, the buzzing phones, the whistle, the nasal essays of the insouciant flower-seller, the more subdued tones of 2 management consultants, the false-accented squeals of those accessory-laden mannequins, struggling gamely with English, beside other things, the heavy breathing of the man behind me... all come together to massage the senses into an agreeable stupor...

When my stop arrives, I am conveyed by a stream of hands, legs and other legs down onto the street. The immediate sensation is of relief, the purse is intact, and I am still in one piece. To my chagrin, the bus empties to the point of disbelief. Its future passengers won't know of the other-worldly experience I just had. And yes, the roads have cleared and the stars are showing through!

Not quite....

But if the conditions are ripe, you might want to try out the humble Chennai Managarapperunthu system. Who knows, it could make your day, if you live to tell the tale.

Who cares???

or, as an extension, what will come of it? Why should I, when no one else is bound to notice, or reciprocate? Big deal! It is too far gone out, anyway....

We are a fickle, caviling, inert lot of reprobates with egos that pander to the bloated self alone. We'd like to believe we are model citizens, with a sound social conscience, meaning that we think, talk and feel like model citizens. Action is beside the point, of course.

We bemoan the sight of an overflowing dump, and curse the offenders to the vilest depths and beyond, and suppose that a periodic increase in volume exonerates oneself of any culpability whatsoever. "What a world," we pontificate, and grimace. Corrective measures are doomed to fail, we muse, sigh and grumble. What's the use? When the neighbour shovels mud into the hole I am digging? When I perennially turn out the salesman with the slammed door to behold? What am I selling? A vision of Utopia, of course....

Colas have dangerous levels of spurious additives contained in them? You know when the problem has worsened in the years since it was first brought to light (despite mass outrage and obligatory declamations at the time), that there is precious little being done in the way of remedy. "Drinking water is bound to present a grimmer picture. Will someone analyse mother's milk and prove that it is just as polluted these dark days, so as not to compromise my lucrative contract?"(or some such thing..), reasons the Big Ham who made the macho weepie a well-represented genre, Shahrukh Khan. Fair enough. He must have some inkling of the fact, ringing box-office registers notwithstanding, of his inability to act his way out of a convention of door-posts, let alone a film; poor guy, what better balm for the soul than the green stuff?

In other words, we are headed for oblivion anyway, so why not expedite the inevitable? That implies no time for traffic rules, basic civic sense, acknowledgement of etiquette, rational conversation as a means of headway, and of course, none at all for attempting to reverse the ominous flow. Perhaps what we need most are unflinching punitive measures such as the ever-dependable fine(the heavier the better) - believe me, implementing this in the smallest of ways can yield results - or something more drastic, if it can survive the political stumbling blocks. After all, a rosy prospect is a poor deterrent. We all crave the perfect system, but that hasn't exactly cut us into shape.

What is worrying is that public memory grows shorter by the day. In fact, it is quite possible that most of us think we've always been this way: dirty, unruly, dispassionate, corrupt etc etc. We have learnt to live with lax rules and insanitary conditions, service delays and mercenary industrial practices, exploitation and lies.... and rarely remark it any more. We go abroad, admire the well-oiled wheels of the system as though it were something far removed from our experience, like something incompatible with our Indian consciousness. (Of course, the frustration that comes with it fuels caustic remarks galore about how impersonal and artificial it all is, home is where the heart is and so on...). The efficacy of collective efforts cannot be emphasised enough, beaten to death though it may be. But then our shallow and pointless cynicism abhors 'simplistic' predictions and solutions, even if they are, for better or worse, the only ones.

One step at a time.

Amadeus... the conundrum of mediocrity

Peter Shaffer's Amadeus is a very smart play. Not particularly distinguished in its style, rhetoric or organisation, it might have been a spectacular debacle when it was released. After all, presenting the legendary composer as a wilful, vulgar buffoon with scant regard for royalty or decorum and an equal lack of perspective in the matter of his talents, was a choice that flirted dangerously with instant rejection. To be sure, the device is not entirely successful, at least within the framework of the play, which demands that Mozart go from crass to genius without missing a beat, be thoroughly earthy and yet emotionally suspect, naive and yet possess fleeting moments of unbridled hubris (deserved?), and forge routine connections with the divine in his compositions.

The veracity of the facts in the play has been declared inconsequential in the larger scheme of things, which is as it should be. Authenticity would drain the production of all drama. Would a Mozart who is industrious, mannered(in public, as he actually was) and modest, and not, famously, the 'voice of God', be as dynamic a leading man? Shaffer recognises the vast divide between an average man and his conception of genius, and astutely fords the gap by, quite simply, infusing the mundane, the repugnant, even, into the character of the Master. He goes from an icon or a proud bust to a living, breathing person with exaggerated, every-day failings that allow us to condone his creative brilliance (can you imagine that?!).

When Salieri moans that God unjustly patronises the cad, while shunning the saint, we pity both. Mozart may be disproportionately endowed, but then, he is an uncouth, arrogant, weak, childish wastrel, with a free-ranging concupiscence for women and spirits. Surely it cannot get any worse! But then, Salieri is seen to be glaringly dispossessed of his rightful dues. He is chaste, pious, charitable, has no fun whatsoever, and to rub salt into the wound, deplorably untalented, while his profligate contemporary evinces that touch of inspiration he covets so.

Shaffer gives the brooding Salieri several impassioned and acerbic monologues, ranting against God, declaring war, vowing vengeance, and so on, while softening considerably in the musical segments. His mediocrity as a composer doesn't undermine his appreciation of his deficiencies, something everyone perceives with a warm glow of satisfaction and empathy. When he wheezes, ridden with desperation and self-pity, "He planted the desire, like a lust in my body, and then made me mute..", one feels a frisson of recognition traverse one's spine, far from involuntarily, mind you. To that end, his denunciation of God's motivations appears to justify his character arc, only illustrating how deep-seated the theme underlying the identification of the audience with Salieri is meant to be.

The play crafts a handful of characters orbiting Salieri, and each one, without exception, is a broad and unapologetic caricature. Shaffer makes almost everyone but the feuding duo 'musical idiots', thus keeping the spotlight firmly on them. Added to isolate the action, the framing sequences are clumsy and unnecessary, and constitute mid-grade soap, really, punctuated by Salieri's assorted grimaces and declamations. It possesses, besides, a pronounced ribald tone whenever Salieri is(briefly) not speechifying, which swings to unremittingly gloomy when he is. To spice up things a bit, German-Italian politics is unsubtly woven into the exchanges: the principal language is obviously German, with the 'foreign' Italian dialogues popping up now and then.

This is the kind of play that would make for a fine film. And has. The 1984 award-winner makes several changes in the script(Shaffer tinkered with it himself), and adds some much needed humour, mostly self-decrying, but F.Murray Abraham, as Salieri, is simply magnificient. His opening scenes show him revelling in even his obscurity, and his avowed love for music rings genuine. The production is lavish, garish, sumptuous and entertaining. And the scenes of Salieri virtually 'driving the man to the grave' are more persuasive and less abrupt than in the play.

Does 'Amadeus' work? Is it heartfelt or merely manipulative? The answer to that stems from primarily, one's appreciation for Mozart's work, and the fact that we all feel, rather selfishly, that we have in some sense been shortchanged in life, that perhaps the balance tips over, more often than not, on the greener end. That, in a nutshell, is the play's rather tenuous raison d'etre. And the fear of being forgotten, 'extinct', and being championed by a Salieri.......

The horror...the horror...

These words, spoken by a somnolent Marlon Brando in the landmark war movie Apocalypse Now, (based on Joseph Conrad's short novel Heart of Darkness) could very well serve as the anthem of our times. Acts of random(but, purportedly, premeditated and meticulously constructed) and vicious violence in the name of some personal cause come splattered in all their sickening, gory glory(!) on the front pages of dailies, and so inured have we become to the existence of the monster amongst us that we shudder, mostly involuntarily, bemoan the chaos at the heart of this modern disease, and turn the page.

I confess I can hardly begin to skim the surface in this matter, and that prospect alone is the stuff of several nightmares, but what struck me is how impersonal a tone the modern-day cry for attention is acquiring. It is more than simply scary or puzzling to observe that today, in order to have your way, you simply blow up your neighbours or, for the heck of the arbitrariness, blow up Timbuktu's Central Square, for after all, we, as a world people, still abhor homicide as the most grievous of crimes. Someone is bound to sit up and protest!

Meanwhile, Israel and Hezbollah continue to challenge each other to bring on their latest toys and do whatever it takes to save face. How ironical it is that Israel issues an obligatory warning to inhabitants of its latest target town to evacuate or else!!.... and promptly blast it off the surface of the earth. The lackadaisical response of the superpowers to the gruesome face-off in Lebanon has been berated, ridiculed and scrutinised just about everywhere, but combine a 'once-bitten' lesson with the prospect of measly returns from intervention in these minor skirmishes, and is it any wonder why? Even so, one must acquire the distinctly American trait of exuding an air of self-possession and self-worth even when you are making a prize ass of yourself , if only to gauge the 'depths' of the mind of Uncle Sam's head-cop.

And in a time when dialogue or negotiations are synonymous with a blind-alley or a political plateau, the only exchanges are those that maim, impale and kill. Pity, therefore that all efforts at human communication have taught us that they are dispensable. Brevity sets in, conversations of the rat-a-tat-tat proceed with ruthless efficiency. If anything, the scale of destruction we witness by the day can only galvanize as yet undecided forces into action, convincing them of the infallibility of the weakest principles and demands. Indeed, the power one can command today simply by virtue of an evil(selfish) impulse is all-encompassing.

The intolerance exhibited by man today is quite astonishing. His choler, a weird and unfathomable beast. Was it ever so facile to exterminate life as it is today? And the atmosphere as conducive? We breed fanatics who single-mindedly seek their own brand of justice while ignoring all others. It is a wonder that the intense focus and solidarity with their cause these anarchists must necessarily possess to make any impact whatsoever, are born of weak, dastardly and deranged minds. What this cesspool of ill-directed energy could beget if properly channelised!

It is often said that it is the idea that endures, not the man. Justification enough for genocide as a means to a noble end? Clearly, the deeply impersonal connotations of this statement have suppressed the point. It is as if, in order to prove the adage right, an idea must consume the man. Does that make sense? Does the modern insurrectionary regard himself as merely a concept, an idea born of fever and passion, and nothing more? Has the fire shrivelled the heart? Can one behold one's standard fluttering proudly in the wind that bears the report of a gun, the thud of bullet against bone, the dying gasps of a fellow human, the stench of rotting flesh, and the vestiges of humanity, and yet hold one's head aloft? Can a victory more fittingly Pyrhhic be imaginable? Call me naive, but I'd like to believe, with all the fervour I can muster, that we haven't sunk that low yet. Maybe some misguided souls just overreached a little...

People learn exactly what they choose to, from history. And heaven knows we have spilled enough blood down the ages. Our heritage of wars-as-a-solution-to-incompatibility speaks volumes about our innate penchant for violence as a means of expression. But then, the last century did feature 2 of the greatest war generals of our time, and they were contemporaries: one who went from patriot to demented bigot and war-criminal in the space of 2 decades, and another who went from strength to strength in advocating the efficacy of sane, rational, well-informed dialogue and non-violence as the nemesis of violence. Hitler had more up his sleeve than just the prosperity of his motherland(or should I say fatherland?), and he made it abundantly clear. Another brilliant mind that festered even as it shone, a minefield of creativity-gone-haywire, prejudice and hate. History dealt him his just fate, but may not be able to keep up with the spate of clones who emerge every day.

Surely, the cruellest irony was that, in the context of the Mahatma, the Beast killed Beauty(to use a metaphor)... and all we do now is recall him fondly and extol his beliefs.

But I digress. Are we to blame for believing that it is only the drastic that merits attention? That only wilful chaos can bear a constructive outcome? Personally, that seems too irresponsible an excuse to me, but it is obviously the general impression, if what is happening in the world is to be believed. The value of human life has depreciated sufficiently to make terror a viable and vastly versatile weapon. The shock value of such a tactic must be irresistible to its proponents. And fatal to its targets.

Horace's immortal lines : "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" (It is sweet and appropriate to die for one's country, or in general, for one's beliefs, really) were hardly meant to be imbibed as such, thus glorifying the spirit of war and dissent.

Things look bleak...unremittingly bleak. There is no solution, it appears, to weeding out anti-social elements from within us. Will people learn to be wise, humane, well-meaning, moral, intelligent citizens of the world? Phew! What a staggering proposition it sounds like! The future generations sure have a hell of a lot of cleaning up to do....