white noise

Ah the background buzz of many jumbled voices.
So audible, yet, wonderfully wordless.

Basking

I have started to love sunlight.
I cannot believe I ever took it for granted.

Srilanka: An arrack toast to many more!

When amma and appa planned vacations, it was an annual permission to spend the scrupulously saved salary acorns. The date was first carved in stone, factoring in summer vacations and bank holidays. For months before that set date, everyone in the household was to scan newspapers and previously-ignored free mailers for bargain vacations. In those months, few whims of new shoes and Internet connection were entertained. My dad would raise his hands to mimic a moral balancing scale, “(Right hand) You can ‘surf’ after 3 months … (left hand) or we can go again to Ooty, the Darjeeling of the South.” Polite smiles exchanged, obvious decision choked forth. In their itinerary, there was also always a compulsory temple and relative visit, unfortunately never combined.

Despite all this middle-classness, when we actually went on the holiday, no one was to mention money. I always got the horse ride I wanted, my sister could always eat everything she set eyes on, and after we grew taller than 4.5 ft each, we never had to sleep on extra beds. If my parents pooh-poohed posh-type, spa-type and guided-tour-type packages, it was pure superior judgement. Of course, photographs were taken at every waking hour, with a never-compromised 400 ASA Kodak film (blue tint for beaches, green tint for mountains) and various memorable poses from cousins reflecting the dance-step of the season.

To my mother’s inexpressible shame, my holidays since then have failed her. Holiday decisions taken in the middle of an auto-pilot bike ride home, no meticulous saving, no hotel bookings, hardly ever a travel companion. No prior plan whatsoever. And even if there was one, it had a tendency to stray way off the trajectory. Still, every time I actually set off on a trip, I seem to find exactly the essence of experiences that I would’ve, if in tow with amma and appa. Barring the guilt-salve visit to a revered shrine or relative.

When I rattled off on the phone to her about my recent trip to Srilanka, amma listened, laughed, gasped, and in the end, said, “Aiyo Ro, how did you feel like coming back?”

I don’t think I have, entirely. It is still difficult to let even a day go by without smiling to myself about the Lankan accent I caught, and the train and fish I didn’t. Srilanka was so easy to love. I like to believe it’s because somewhere not very deep inside, I’m an islander. In other words, I have slow reflexes.

But I didn’t get to be a bum in Srilanka this time, given I was there on work and all. TV travelogues, I always thought, would be my dream project. I mean, the combination of a job you love and the thing you love outside the job had to be deadly. So as a shameless student of the Ian Wright and Anthony Bourdain school of fabulous nonsense travel, I packed my bag with ideas and gimmicks that my teachers would be proud of. Until they came undone, one by one.

At the Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage, I decided to ride an autorickshaw (Trishaw). For TV, of course. And all was going well, till the sonorous sound of rickshaw metal slamming into expensive Toyota metal ended the joy ride. Guilt, fear and a large group of trishaw drivers gripped me. They threw sharp Sinhala words my way, and our Tourism Board driver decided to do everything short of singing the Lankan national anthem. He began to demand that I pay up the trishaw’s cost. Yes, the entire trishaw’s cost, because “Srilanka is a poor country”.

It’s stupid, but it was only then that I suddenly realized that I was a foreigner. The brownness and coconutness of everything until then had made me forget. By now, the owner of the dented car had arrived—a sweet looking uncle I immediately warmed to and asked in English what I should pay for damages. But the sweet uncle said “I’m calling the police.” Utterly unnecessary, I explained, but his ears were red and receiving only panic signals from the meddling mob. Through a mind clouded with images of my last rites in Colombo, I hazily realized that when a mob gets unruly by the minute, and the word passport is screamed a lot, it’s time to discuss dollar exchange rate. An hour and many wasted calls to the Tourism Board later, I paid up what a friend later told me was a reasonable amount. Later the same evening, in a Buddhist cave, our camera was confiscated by a monk for being a video camera. I’m surprised I still woke up happy the next morning.

I’m glad I did too, because that country is beautiful, dammit. And the previous day, I may have just walked into a meeting of ‘The Community of Only Horribles in Srilanka’, because I didn’t meet a single mean or unhelpful person after that. They readily invited me to private parties, they showed me into their homes for a change of wet clothes, they fed me till I was ready to be their slave.

I travelled through West and South Lanka, the East and North being cut off for tourists now because of LTTE activity. Even in just those two directions, there was so much to do, and so much to film. And it didn’t help that almost everything I wanted to see was plopped dauntingly on a hill or some natural elevation meant to deter the weak spirited. Sigiriya, Dambulla, and Kandalama. All scaled twice over thanks to retakes. The incredible view shut up any whining I was trying to squeeze through the tired wheezing. So quiet, so plundered, and yet giving the impression of being so untouched.

The South Coast was an endless stretch of aquamarine that I have only managed to see in an art class palette. I was to stop at Koggala beach, where I was told fishermen use a method not seen in any other part of the world—they get on stilts poked in the middle of crashing waves. And just sit there, waiting for the fish to bite. As we neared the shore, 5 men came towards me, looked at the camera, cheered up and took our patriotic driver aside (he had by then, started to like us, and given up on the tourist milking). The unprofitable stilt fishing, I understood, worked a lot better as bait. To net the awed tourist looking for a perfect sunset shot. The terms were discussed, but they hadn’t accounted for me insisting on getting on one of the stilts. The waves threw me off a few times, and I landed with my head on the rocks, but later, one of the fishermen told me in perfect flirtatious English that I could be his fisherwoman any time I wanted.

Travelogues always end with last lines that read as if the author has a faraway look, a lazy smile, and a nostalgic sigh as the best moments of his before his eyes in slow motion. Mine though, I see in fast mode, because so many people happened-- a schoolgirl I took around on a cycle as she taught me Sinhala, a crackly-skinned old woman who was shocked I spoke Tamil, a boy who took me around in a moped and then carried the heavy equipment, a frenchbearded fellow who noticed my dorky shoes, a curly haired girl who lined up her family and friends and sent them marching to help me.

Actually, right now, I don’t mentally picture the sights I saw there. I still get the schoolgirl’s smses, and the curly haired girl’s online hugs. The Srilanka experience continues... Now more than vacation leftovers, perhaps even entwined with my daily life, its routines and variety. I’m also joyous in the knowledge that my restless feet will shuffle their way to all these people once again. And believe me, this is not the arrack talking.

Click here for online video of the show

Citizen Journalist

People on the street always have the best lines. None of my deeply thought-out scripts, or pun-laden headlines ever match up. It’s probably the combined effect of their resignation and rage, the unchecked discharge of colloquial lingo, or maybe even the freedom of unaccountability. But they always say it best.

Which is why some channels (like the one I work for) decided to hand the mike to the man/woman on the street. Made them single-cause journalists. And basically just let them to vent their ire on national television.

The idea seems simple enough…. Storytellers are everywhere. In courts, hospitals, police stations, neighborhood parks, aunties’ homes, even sharing your seat on trains. There were too many complaints, and too few reporters. And I’ll admit, not all stories, especially the repetitive ones about potholes and vague ones about corrupt politicians, inspire a half-an-hour special show. But there were definitely many others that did.

Hence, a Citizen Journalist Show. Since the word has been out, so many people have written, called, met us, armed with horrible stories, touching anecdotes, ambitious investigations. But most of all, with little significant stories and complaints.

My role is to be the quasi reporter. Helping anguished first-time reporters to spit fire, take on erring officials, shoot blurred visuals of appalling callousness. It turns out, it’s not as easy as we thought it would be. Many citizen journalists have terrific stories, but cannot articulate it suitably on an English channel. They visibly freeze as soon as the camera comes on. Language and lens has been our, and their, greatest stumbling block.

For instance, a man in Maharashtra told us how government milk dairies have transferred all their work to private players. But he spoke only Marathi. And winced involuntarily every time he looked at the camera, looking repulsed by the very sight of the lens. Finally, we worked around that with less-impactful but inescapable English translations and paradubs.

There have been many others who’ve come with a fantastic story, bowled us over with their oration and passion. But when the essential ground checks are done, we discover a factual error, vested interest, or an exaggeration. It’s shameful and disappointing each time, especially after all the faith we instinctively place in citizenry. Earlier, the discerning ear was reserved for those in power. It is now turned to the citizen as well.

But once doubt is out of the way, we hit the street.

Every time I work with a citizen journalist, there is mutual astonishment. They’re surprised by how much work goes into a seemingly simple 2-minute story. And I marvel at how the soft-spoken woman turns into a raging truthseeker when she encounters deaf ears everywhere; or how the aggressive residential association president bows in all servile glory in front of the Mayor he was supposed to take on.

And then there are quirks. My colleague first explained, then forbade a lady fighting for rape victims from reapplying bright red lipstick every few minutes. I turned virtually into a speech coach for a rapid-talker trying to say why Andhra Pradesh didn’t care for its farmers. Another time, I had to keep barking at a guy who was a detail-fiend: “In 1977, I bought land in No.12, 5^th street, Ganeshapalya Road, Near Sai Baba Ashrama, and visited the lawyer at 3 pm on 12.12.1977….” Another man couldn’t understand volume control, another refused to do any retakes when there was a crowd watching. This got especially complicated, given he was venting about crowded buses.

They call for days after that, asking when their story would make it on air, and at what time. Some introduce us to more zealous citizen journalists in their family. Some ask whether they can send their bio-datas and if they would get a job.

But somehow, even if their eyes are shifty, even if they lapse into their mother tongue, or lose the point in the flurry of details, they still say it best. Some see answers to their long-pending RTIs, some see that urgent water requirement being met, some see the donation-demanding colleges in Court. But the blind citizen journalist is still not allowed to open a bank account, the Bangaloreans still don’t have a cycling lane, the old zoo valiantly guarded by Mumbaiites is still coming down.

We repeatedly visit these causes with the citizens… but many give up. Those who plough ahead, however, see the cause to the end. Even after they stop reporting on camera. Because, as they all always admit during the shoots, they’ve “always wanted to get into journalism”.

travel notes

Two months of rapidly passing clouds, trees, yellow dividers. Thoughts flew, new colours surprised, the blur was welcome. Introspection? In gallons, flowing into every landscape, and entering every relived conversation. Many faces and places merge now; I credit someone’s joke to someone else, too many anecdotes put away for the right audience have now faded.
But some things, not photographed, not talked about, still linger.

The face of the man from Hyderabad who took my window seat without asking

A day slowly begun in Bangalore. Contentment rushing through my blood that cool Sunday morning by Cubbon Park.

The informed knowledge of a night blacked out in Phuket, and the balding guitarist at the bar.

A new country seen with the oldest bestest friends.

The locket worn by the Bangkok taxi driver whose name meant “a good man”. And the story of how he met his wife (she was posh hotel clerk, he was bell boy)

“I’m going to live to 120” in five languages. Said in rapid succession by the 107-year-old woman in Chennai.

The little Sikh boy trying to eat a banana while holding a sword, in a rally before Guru Nanak Jayanthi in Amritsar

The usher at Wagah Border who goaded the Indians to out-scream the Pakistanis

Walking on Valmiki beach, Chennai, hopping to avoid stepping on poo, looking for the turtles that’ll come only in February

Mushraf, photographer at Taj Mahal, who disappeared with my parents’ eternal-love photograph

Realising while talking to a friend I’d mixed up Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. Eyes shut tight in embarrassment. Followed by a desperate attempt at memorizing the India map.

The wonderfully half-read novels, abandoned to accommodate occasional staring from the window

The puncture changed in Warangal while convincing sickle-armed men claiming to be Naxalites that we meant no harm.

The search for local food in dim lit streets, and temple premises

The elation of constant motion still tickles my feet. Tired, dusty feet greedily ask for more. More people to ask directions from, more train food to be complained about, more after-mints to nibble on flights. And through cursing and hating packing and unpacking, I jog my brain for even the semblance of clarity it had when on the road.

Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships, or trains. There is an almost quaint correlation between what is before our eyes and the thoughts we are able to have in our heads: large thoughts at time requiring large views, and new thoughts, new places. Introspective reflections that might otherwise be liable to stall are helped along by the flow of the landscape.

- Alain de Botton, Art of Travel