The Raghavan Instincts

My first employer had an entire day assigned just for this session on "Speaking up", back when I had just joined the organization. But I've come to understand its importance only recently. To & fro, I travel everyday for nearly 3.5 hrs, and in the past few months, I've been using more of public transport than I've ever done, and I come across various classes of people all commuting in harmony, and sometimes even amidst mini stampedes. Dailies of many languages are sold at the railway stations, and Chennai, surprisingly to me, seems to have a lot of diversity, at least in its literate crowd. There are college students chatting loud all the way; drunkards sitting at the entrances conversing with their imaginary; old vendors rushing into the general compartments with all their commodities that would pay them for the day; mid-aged couple fighting some family issue out, while continuously trying in vain to control their soaring voices; a mother boarding a compar...

Every morning, I walk to work crossing on my way an empty dustbin with much garbage strewn around it than inside it that makes it the habitat for plenty of flies & mosquitoes and emanates a foul smell that triggers most of the sensitive passers-by to promptly close their noses. And the problem is thus solved with nothing more than a pair of fingers. India is a single huge country; rather, a lot of smaller countries put together; cultures, I'd say. Each culture has its own way of life and thought processes, so it's hard to unite them all so easily. But one thing that seamlessly unites them is cleanliness, or the lack of it. It would be arrogant & foolish to claim that all the cultures fail to maintain some standard at being clean, but not to say that the people do. After all, it's the people who define the other. I haven't traveled much of India, but with whatever I have, I'd say that one can't rate the sanitary level across the country to be uniform. ...

The jeep to Aurangabad was for Rs. 30 and on my way, I glanced at the Daulatabad fort and cursed myself once again for not getting down and in there. The jeep-driver was clearly a thick vermilion on his forehead, a man wearing a cross was seated right next to me with his kid, and a lady with a purdah got in at what seemed like a Muslim locality, and I was engrossed in The Krishna Key . I got down at Aurangabad bus stand, had lunch at a Maarwaadi restaurant for around an hour charging my cam & phone, then got an auto to Bibi-ka-Maqbara which I was told, was a place to notable importance. I had no idea. The auto dropped me there in less than 15 minutes. Bibi-ka-Maqbara Built by the Mughal emperor Aurangazeb in memory of his first wife, this seems to mimic the Taj Mahal in its structure. But there, I was told by someone that this was in memory of his mother. I still am not clear on which is right. Since the wikipedia page on this has in it sentences supporting the ...

For the first time in a long time, I was responsible enough to wake up by 04:30 even right at the second alarm. It wasn't a room with an attached bathroom, and hence the price 250. The mosquitoes had been having a good dinner all night, while I would've easily lost a litre of blood when I was off. I was told the previous night that there would be hot water available anytime after 4, and that I could come downstairs and ask the attendant. So did I. I was told that it would take another half an hour, and I sneaked out hoping to get a coffee, and bwoy , I did! A couple was running a mobile tea-stall, and the lady gave me the coffee with a good smile. Something more than just business, and I love such. While I was savoring the extra strong Nescafe , a police patrol jeep stopped right next to me, screeching. Nothing to fear, but was still kinda scared. And the logo on the jeep's door read: || सद्रक्षणाय खलनिग्रहणाय || Sadrakshnāya Khālanīghrahanāya Sanskrit for "T...