the demise of the 50 paisa

Waking up to find that people reject you to your face. That’s got to be the worst ever morning. It’s relatively easy to hear people say you’re useless, especially if you know you’ve been sort of out of the scene for a while now. But to find that because of a few rejections, you become rejectable? Now that’s a tough life. Why even get off the assembly line then?
Even the otherwise penny-and-pound-wise rickshaw-walla rejected it. “But I’m giving you four of them… that makes TWO whole rupees,” I explained.
“But madam yeh nahi chalti”
Well, I took it from someone. It chalo-ed to me…
“Arre madam…chalta paisa dena. Koi nahi letha isko.”
But the RBI still makes it, right? Stuff is still priced with the half.
(An annoying realization hits me about how I never bother to collect the change in such situations. But as long as this unreasonable man doesn’t know it, I can have any incriminating realizations secretly in my head)

The rejecter called on the parking attendant. Ask him if he’ll take it, he goaded me. “He’s your friend ok, he’ll be as unreasonable. I’ll call a neutral someone. Aap lenge na isko?”
The vegetable vendor looked blankly at my palm. “Yeh nahi chalti madam”
What is with these people?!!

I used to buy a fistful of orange-toffee once. And a few years down, a band-aid plaster. Then it clinked around at the bottom of my bag for a while. Afterwards I didn’t bend to pick it up when it rolled into floor crevices. Then it was useful in even numbers, to be given away when you wanted to thin your wallet. And now, chalti nahi. When I said it was this or nothing else, the rickshaw-wallah actually went with ‘nothing else’. It’s a horrible way to die, I tell you, being less than your value.

first impressions

So now, Delhi. Incredibly beautiful, sprawling and breezy. But the shade of brown-green in trees here irritates me. Makes me nostalgic for the wet, healthy green of south India. The roads are wide, but honk-ful nonetheless. The house comes with two balconies from which we can feel grateful about the brown-greeness of a well-maintained Welfare Association garden. There are security guards we have to soon ask to not salute us. There are two maids who arrive everyday at 8 a.m. sharp, speaking in an outrageous blend of loud Tamil, Telugu and Hindi. There is a Khanna for water cans, a Jasmeet for garbage bags, and an eager Pandey for anything else we would have to lift a finger for. We want none of them, but they keep offering themselves. Because Dilli mein there’s a ‘ladka’ for everything.

The vegetable buying, fridge filling, dish washing has “settled” written all over it. It was all done before as independents, but now it’s done for two. Which means it invites “All domesticated, eh?” jibes from friends who’re not sure how much anything has changed, if at all. Anyway, the electric wire coils and ready-to-make mixes peeping out of corners and constantly moving furniture, betray unsettlement.

But when the smug IAS officer Mr. Arora from upstairs said, “In north India, no one will understand if you both have different surnames. I’m Mr. Arora, so she (points to beautifully graying, disapproving wife) is automatically Mrs. Arora. It works like that. You have no choice.” Mrs. Arora sipped her chai, “He doesn’t know anything. You both are wonderful children. You don’t want to change anything from before? You absolutely need not.”

We’ve taken Mrs. Arora’s advice very seriously.

Banana leaf musing

So much rice and sambar and rasam and vegetables and curd and buttermilk and sweet and pappad and pickle. All for just under 30 rupees. What a good, happy, food-loving world.
As my mom used to say, there's nothing more reassuring than watching someone enjoy their meal.

keep the change

It’s a fine line between a gift and a bribe. And a lot of people think no one sees that line anymore. When this man slipped a Rs.100 note to the driver “for tea”, and shone a servile grin at me, I wondered if it didn’t matter to him that the entire street was watching. All eyes hoping that his possibly representative offering will bring a Corporation official to dry their waterlogged homes. Maybe the press could pressurize the real authorities to act. Let’s flatter their ego, whoever they are, if they show a little worry about our stinky streets and open manholes.

The man actually managed a hurt look when we slapped his hand away. Immediately, he appealed to my cameraman. As if saying “You’re a man, you know the ways of the world. Let’s let little honest girls be righteous… come on, let us men be realistic.” And the street was still watching. Some soft confident grunts even insisted we stop making a fuss. Once threatened that he was risking us covering his locality at all, he put the dirty money away reluctantly. Not only was he still not convinced we were for real, he clearly thought we were idiots and wouldn’t survive in this bad bad world.

But I do think I won’t survive in this bad bad world too long. If you’re not screeching down the road, the traffic won’t part for you. If you’re not a foul-mouthed feudal lord, many who work under you do not respect you. If you’re not a hard-ass bribe-taking (and giving) reporter, you don’t get the scoop. Forget the scoop, you don’t even get what every reporter in the world and his never-leave-the-office editor has got. The realization makes me feel old. And pitifully young. At the same time.

Another day, a man in the court slipped a 500 to a tamil newspaper journalist. In a few minutes, he was powdering his precious nose for many camera interviews. “Should I look at camera or to my left? Is this white shirt a problem? Yes, yes, I’ll wear my robe” He’d done it all before, and parroted what some would consider quotable quotes. Nothing clever, nothing funny. Just TV-lingo that TAM and other organizations making money out of scientific ice-vecchufying (flattering) would pin-point as the words “Indian households tuned into”. Sure, how their hair must’ve stood on end when the powdered nose quivered in passion to “Justice must be done!” But his 500 mars his credibility.

Maybe they've learnt a hard lesson from the sharks of the journalism trade. Maybe they want to make sure they’ve done all they can. Leave no stones unturned, is what they say, I think. But the lady can demand to know when her story will come on air when I’ve just walked into her home and stuck a camera in her face. The uncompensated can expect reaction, even if temporary, from the authorities if they see the story. The ones fighting for their homes have every right to demand an answer from an often TRP-enslaved me when the twist of a cricketer’s knee elbows out their unfair eviction. But they cannot demand a space in the viewers' minds by handing me a note. Many journalists will continue to make the aggrieved believe in their supreme, far-reaching individual power. But if they’ve done so for a few sodden rupees, their power is not that supreme, is it?

Why is there widespread trust in underhandedness? Money makes the world go around, someone I didn’t much pay attention to, used to say. But if it’s your money, can it please just pass me by? I’d like to keep my conscience. They say it’s getting rare.

postal dilemma

Who should I write to if I want to apologize for the world?