whose festival?

It's difficult to explain to why, suddenly, blue is so offensive, pink so loud-mouthed, yellow so coarse, and green... cool green, suddenly so shrill, so vulgar. When they come charging like that, without a second thought about whether I want a stranger to slap me with colour or not, how can colour be just that?

It's simple. I have never played Holi. They all shopped for white, I went along. They sat for hours discussing whose house we could play holi in, whose parents will "allow boys". I hugged a cushion and sat in. They fixed the time. I said I was free. But then on holi, I'd have fever. Or my "strict parents didn't give permission". After a while they caught on, and it became another thing that was me. Friends understand. They don’t drag me out of the vegetable shop and say "Aaj holi hai, rang tho daalna hi hoga". And then crazy me with all that disgusting colour.

Whose hand is this? Why is it on my clothes? In my clothes? Why must I like your festival? You're not my friend. This is not my celebration.

Every channel kept saying, "If you’re an Indian, you will love the pichkaari, you will like the shower of colour." All day. Even after one guy in every office shouted himself hoarse about it only being celebrated in "most of North India". He was labelled intolerant and parochial. He’s only just protecting his personal space. Why must the stationary shopkeeper in Bangalore be the one to first tell himself to learn Hindi? It's telling that the first thing new-comers to Karnataka learn is "Kannada gotthilla", and in Chennai, it's "Tamil theriyadhu". Well delivered with the appropriately dismissive wave. That way, there is no danger of them accidentally learning a few functional lines in the language. Oh the horror.

I'd join in the festivities if I'd like. But I don't fancy eggshells sliding down my hair and unknown nails scratching my arm. But I don't like being told I must celebrate because Punjab and Delhi is. Chennai and Bangalore don't celebrate Holi. Some north Indians in these cities do. Why must their celebration be shown big on TV if no one cared about people celebrating Pongal or Sankranti in Haryana? I've had the pulls and pushes of a Delhi-centric 'national' English news channel lectured to me by many a long-timer. But it still refuses to permeate my brain. I still am offended that news from the South must fall in a separate show, too strange to naturally flow into other national news. Except, of course, when "South Indian film actor Mohanlal" acts in a Bollywood movie or when "Kannads ask for ban on non-Kannad films in theatres".

But let that be. Anyone who can't take anymore can run away from it all one day, can switch off the television. But what about the group of guys who accost the already-cowering girl on the street. 'If you don't want to play, stay indoors'. Even the police will tell you you should've stayed at home for your own safety. Just like you must stop going by train if too many people grab your ass. It's my freedom. It's your fault you’re such a spoilsport. Your fault you don't like being part of the games and feeling up. Aaj tho holi hai. Rang tho daalna hi hoga.

Some people take their job too seriously.

counting sheep

So many thought-images just float by as my floppy pillow grows on either side of my head. It's like I'm burying my head in a cottony thought cloud. Sleep is far far away, because the horrible temple festival drum is beating nearer and nearer. (Do they really have to do it everyday? And isn't 2 a.m supposed to be the hour of demons?)

My flatmate, also awake, messages me from her room. "What do we have at home for homicide?"

*

Homicide. How easily, no? Amma felt sad about Rang De Basanti… nice jokes, she said. But "why did they show youth like that? I can't ever imagine that you'll have a bomb in your hand..." Was it depressing, ma? No, they're telling you there's no point. You're going to have to die for anything to change.

*

This lawyer and combed-over journo are talking. What am I doing standing here? I finished asking my questions, no? I pretend someone's calling me in the distance. I look away. For two seconds. I turn back around to see the lawyer's shifty eyes and his hand slipping into his pocket. The journo is nodding a thanks with a sick smirk. How much did he give him? Should I? Oh my wallet's in the car. Ways of the world, my dad used to say. You're young, you won't understand.

*

“You're too young to say 'I'm too busy to eat well'." The good doctor's office. Dettol smelling old nurse nods a "wait", walks away. The older nurse sits on the stairs leading nowhere. Grunts. Adjusts her thick spectacles. Dettol nurse wheezes and sits at the reception (Triple-god photo with... linear light, is it called?). "Where is that Jyoti? It's 8! Never does shift properly."

Old nurse: Why don't you leave?

Dettol: Young thing no... just married... night time, where she'll come?

Old: Didn't she have full morning? Leave it. Youngsters have no discipline.

Dettol: I had when I was in daawani (half-sari). No one to slap her into good behaviour, that's what.

Old: But that other girl Deepa comes correctly, pa! Didn't marry. Like us only.

Dettol: She will become a very good nurse.

*

"Aiyo I don't want one drunk fellow to hit me every night. My salary is for me only." But today she said, "I'm paying my brother's tuition fees that's why I work for you, ok?" Door slams. Usha akka. She laughs at us inside, I know. And shouts at me when I run for my crap leaving the milk on the stove. She doesn't like that I'm older than her by two years.

*

What a college thing to say. "Nothing goes with burger and fries like Coke". These children. But they get so tall these days. Maybe I should give up rice and take up buns and fried potatoes.

*

Potatoes are stinking in the kitchen. Only till the end of the month. I have to leave.

*

Oh, Saturday is my off. Will meet...

Ah. Sleep.

an urge to spit fire

Having a hate and love is not just difficult, it's supposed to be wrong. Look at the greys, they tell you, use your mind. Yes, the mind does tell me that I can't do anything about 99 people refusing to simply say the truth about what they saw. But it makes me nervous about justice, about what'll happen if my sister is shot in the head for refusing someone a drink. Ok, not "nervous". I'll say it. I'm shifty-eyed, breathless, cold, restless, scratching-thin-white-paper-with-a-sharp-pen petrified. My mind has been seeing flashes of thousands of faceless people standing thirsty, crying, bawling, their eyes bloodred screaming where do I go now, who will make me feel better, why did I ever hope, I should've killed him when I could.
And when a father says he wants his son killed because he can't afford to do blood transfusions for him anymore, I want to slow the world down and make it see. He's calling out for help, don't you see? He'd gone everywhere for help. Where were all you NGOs, MNCs, kind-eyed tearfaced doctors till now, till the media came and threw his misery in your face with slow, sad music and interviews of the boy himself saying "yes, I'm sad to die" (did they ask him how he felt about dying?!). Dr. Rajkumar, who "adopted" the boy, hid him and the father in his Lifeline hospital, bringing him out only to tonsure his head sympathetically on Jaya TV. And channels shout at their reporters for saying clearly in their story that the doctor only wanted to hit headlines, and that he didn't even know what the boy had. Oooh, how can you defile the benefactor?
Of course, I'm relieved the boy gets help, even if it's from a media hungry doc who thinks nothing of performing some 50 hernia surgeries on poor people in 13 or so hours. Someone in my head is telling me to just shut up and let the boy get something. But if goodness is all that matters, why're are the other benefactors so enraged that the doc got there first?

I'm tired. I don't even know who I'm angry with anymore.

By the horn

It's surprising how easily my eyes get used to flying dust. How soon I forget the unsteadiness of the wobbly wooden gallery (goda) that is supposed to keep me 'safe' 30 odd feet up in the air. How stupidly I actually think I can leave half way through this.
The first thing I'm told at Alanganallur is that once I'm there for the jallikattu, there's no leaving. I look in horror at a chap sharpening his bull's horn with obvious relish. Seeing my face, Hari (local reporter who can find his way out of vast fields and bridges suddenly breaking halfway on rivers) reassures me that all the exit restrictions are so a clueless stroller doesn't get in the way of a bull running wild in the village. "There are no rules in this game, you see. The bull can be anywhere, and it can think anyone is the bull-tamer."
So that's what it is about: A thousand mad bulls; more than 10000 people packed in the backyard of a small village temple; and no rules. One by one, the bulls are let loose into an arena full of unarmed bullfighters who go right for the horn.
The lady-with-the-stick who let us on the third floor of her goda says it used to be a one-man-to-one-bull game. Even now, the loudspeaker announcer keeps yelling that only one man can tame each animal, and the others are to please peel off the bull and let it go. The crackly voice keeps saying, in earsplitting volume, that the prize (could be anything: pressure cooker, non-stick pan, pot, pan, ladle, goat, hen, cot, almirah, dish antenna (really), TV, steel plates) is only for the guy who hangs on to the hump for 50 metres in the crowd as the bull bucks and twists to throw him off.

But no one's listening.

In all that boozed blind bravery, the bulls don't have it easy. Their tails are bitten, eyes poked, their stomachs prodded with sticks. But after watching for a while, I realize that the bulls are the ones that are managing tons better than the hundreds that lie in the hospital for weeks after this day.

I've heard of dark tourism, but can't put my finger on what it is about jallikattu that locks people into a spell... I caught myself watching wide-eyed, my hand in my mouth, my feet ice-cold. I found myself pointing frantically to whoever was nearby. Look, just look at that bleeding man. We talk of numbers immediately... how many injured last year, this year, today. How many already dying of blood loss. Then another bull comes charging into the crowd, and my hand goes to my mouth again. Our behaviour is only short of cheering.
A toothless old man with a thigh full of proud scars tells me it all started when small pox affected Alanganallur (Madurai district) ages ago. People prayed for a cure, and decided on this "blood sacrifice". So if even a year goes by without a drop of blood smearing the village earth, he says the local goddess will make sure an epidemic hits the village. "Of course, these days, there's no small pox," he adds, "So maybe cholera will come."
They can believe anything they want, and have any sort of game. But what happens on the back of the arena can't be called belief. Pouring arrack down the bull's throat, stuffing gaanja in their fodder, tying heavy stones to their balls... These bulls are trained all their lives for jallikattu, kept in isolation in a dark shed, seeing just the tender. Then once a year, it is let out into a ground full of mad men clawing at it. The animal loses it in a second. A wild game is one thing, but do they really have to mete out planned torture?

Hari tells me it's all in the business of bull trading. If a bull is tamed, it's sold cheap. If it escapes untamed, it goes for a super price. But the highest bidding is for bulls that steal the show (I'm told usually Trichy bulls)... ones that give the audience something to watch... some poking, butting, stamping, bleeding.
When I feel sick about a man getting gored, I am angry at the freakin bull because it isn't as defenseless as the men. The next moment, I see 20 guys poking the bull, pulling at its legs, and sticking needles up its hooves. I'm immediately on the animal's side. Till it waves its horns at a man in its way, and his white shirt is suddenly soaked red. On, and on, my mind played games.
For the audience, that's probably what jallikattu is. A 24-hour test of conscience.