Forced Tourist

Saturdays are for waking up late, swimming, gymming, reading books, cooking, eating lazing around, and sleeping some more and maybe relishing the fact that you have one more day to do the same. No doubt that I consider it to be the favorite day of the week. Unfortunately it was not to be so this time round. My aunt and uncle decided to pay me a visit over the weekend and were looking forward to me showing them around the city and neighboring tourist delights. I being the least inclined towards mass tourism and even lesser towards the reduction of my dwindling monthly financial resources was hoping that their trip gets cancelled due to some reason. My hope retained its illusory status and their iternary was fixed, the only silver lining being that they would reach Mysore not before 11.30 am on Saturday, allowing me to indulge in Saturday morning luxuries as usual.

My budget for the current month was on a shoe string due to my strong attraction to credit beyond my means. This involved cooking all meals at home and watching how many kilometers I drive on my bike. The cost cutting seemed to be going fine and was hoping to end the month within planned limits. The unplanned visit was threatening to do severe damage. Hope as mentioned earlier proved to be illusory.

Picked them up at the bus stop and brought them home. Over a cup of tea realized that they wanted to visit at least 3 4 places on their trip and were talking about hiring a taxi to do the same. I realized that there was no other way and went about trying to book a taxi. Surprisingly all the taxis in Mysore were already booked by god knows who. Secretly hoped that the unavailability of a convenient transport would dampen their spirits a bit.

Took them out for lunch to a nice restaurant and we ate to our hearts fill. The Kadai chicken was good and so was the Palak Paneer. Both of them appreciated the food and I am sure also appreciated the fact that I paid for it. After the fulfilling lunch we were ready to explore the palace.

The entry fee was twenty bucks which according to me is pretty stiff. Another two more payments for the camera’s and footwear deposit we entered the palace.

Never been much of a palace enthusiast so was looking forward to getting out of it more than going into it. The first thing which struck me was the number of people who were our co visitors. Had never imagined people were so keen to see how a dead king lived in splendor. There were thousands of people streaming in and out of the place, looking in wonder at the extravagance of the palace, touching the intricately carved doors and soaking in the kingly grandeur of the once inhabited palace. The management of the palace has created pathways with ropes making sure everyone gets to see whatever is on display and doesn’t wander off into unwanted areas. So there is this stream of people moving like a river and taking in how much ever is possible. Cops don’t allow people to sit in corridors in order to avoid congestion. The river rakes us through various rooms and durbars where lots of personal belongings of the royal family are displayed. It was nicely weird to see spectacles, boots, turbans and even clothes from those days being preserved very well. Clear photographs are hung on the walls showing the family on various occasions. Lack of comments made it imperative to draw your own conclusions about the people in the snaps.

The tour had taken a good hour and I seemed to be the only one who was tired. My uncle and aunt were raring to go. After taking a couple of customary snaps we decided to head for the Brindavan gardens.

It’s a good 25 km’s away and my failure to get a taxi was irritating. Finally had to travel by bus and that too standing. It took a good hour to reach there and my legs were numb by that time. If the crowds at the palace had taken me aback I was stunned to see the sea of humanity present there. If my estimation skills are not way off mark more than ten thousand people visited that place while I was there.

The queue to get the entry tickets were serpentine and getting the tickets was a victory although they fleeced forty bucks to carry a camera inside.

It’s a mediocre garden which is ill maintained and hard to know why people throng it. Built next to a dam it is no different from any park found in any nondescript city. Had to walk quite a lot to cover the length of the garden and it left us panting by the time we made it back. Thousands of people were sitting, walking, taking snaps and many more devouring the various types of snacks on sale. It was interesting to note that almost each group of visitors had at least one camera within them all clicking away to glory.

On our way back realized that instead of the crowds diminishing with the fading light it had increased manifold. We caught a bus back and made it in time for dinner.

If nothing else I was assured of a good nights sleep after all the sight seeing. I had to get up at the crack of dawn to see my relatives off. Kept cribbing to myself and whoever I met about the wasted Saturday and more importantly spending a thousand bucks when I could ill afford it.

Later thinking about it I felt I had learnt something on that day. On hindsight I realized that the humongous crowds I had encountered on those two places all belonged to a particular section of society. They were all from the lower strata of society in terms of their spending capacity. This was not the only thing in common with all of them; they all seemed to be thoroughly enjoying their day out. I may have been the only person cribbing about he places and being forced to be there. Everyone else I saw there was having a good time. There were smiles on everyone’s faces even while standing in the long queues or taking snaps in the scorching sun. My cynicism of the mediocrity of the tourist places seemed to be applicable only to me.

On thinking about it I realized that as people go higher up in terms of professional and financial success they expect more from everything. They are difficult to appease and their desire for something better always casts a shadow on what’s then and there.

If a Brindavan garden can bring smiles to so many people why do we need a vacation in the icy locales of Switzerland to feel gratified?

Don’t know the answer but maybe we don’t want to be satisfied with something which is so easily available. The desire to look forward to something which is slightly out of reach seems a very intrinsic way humans push themselves.

Mr & Msr Iyer

The way the director dealt with the relationship between the two main protagonists of the movie with the communal riots as a background was brilliant. Two individuals who are different in every conceivable aspect are drawn towards each other under circumstances not of their doing. The nomadic and romantic lifestyle of Raja, his parenting nature and his boyish charms draw meenaxi towards him. The way raja describes the serene and pristine beauty of forests and his visualization of an imaginary honeymoon locale cast a spell on meenaxi who seems to have led a pretty normal and predictable lifestyle till then. It shows that irrespective of all social and moral constraints people do get attracted to others and lose touch with the ground reality which in such a situation acts as a rude awakening. The social and moral constraints are not forces of nature but are man made, whereas what we feel for another person is nature in its purest form.

Educated or Qualified ?

Few weeks back we had this essay competition at work place and one of the topics was related to discipline in the workplace. The response was good and many people chose this topic and forum to share their views. Being an avid reader I went through a couple of them. The term discipline has always evinced a lot of interest in me as it’s related to humans at a more fundamental level.The couple of essays I went through brought up the issues very nicely and the authors used real life examples to strengthen their arguments. Getting real life examples in an organization like ours is not very tough. A place where twelve thousand people (at last count) spend the better part of their day is bound to be a good place to observe human character. People refusing to stand in queues, not adhering to dressing code and noncompliance to several other guidelines outlined by the company would be easy enough to spot in a place like this.Now the question is do these examples even start addressing the real issue of indiscipline. Is it really important that employees don’t adhere to company policies related to behavior? Is it really a point of concern that an employee decides to wear a jeans and a t shirt to office? Is it really a point of concern that people take print outs of offensive literature for personal amusements using company resources? At the end of it should we really be bothered about the fact that people are breaking rules of which they are fully aware?I don’t think so!!I feel what we really should be worried about is the fact that in a company where each one of its employee is highly qualified and considered to be among the brightest minds in the country, rules have to be laid down in the first place. In a company which prides over its employees as being morally upright and socially conscious, isn’t this a bit strange?This doesn’t reflect very well on us, that the management doesn’t think we are smart enough to know the difference between acceptable behavior in a work place and unruly conduct. This is an organization where almost all employees are graduates and a lot are equipped with even higher educational qualifications from the most reputed institutes of our country. The fact that the decision makers should feel the need to control and monitor the actions of such employees is a disgrace in itself. It’s this huge contradiction which no one seems to notice.Well it’s not so tough to find out why this contradiction is so easily palatable to all of us and as to why my prior statements would have raised quite a lot of eyebrows.Our society is based so strongly on the principles of obedience and adherence to rules that we don’t bat an eyelid when every action of ours is governed by some sort of rule.If you observe the normal life of a human being in society you will easily notice the stages it passes though like infancy, school, college, job, marriage, family and even death are all riddled with rules. The successful completion of each stage depends on how well you were able to obey and follow others without questioning anything. If you did as you were told, if you accepted everything you heard as the ultimate truth, if you imbibed each sermon imposed upon you by whoever had the authority to do so you passed on to the next stage and were hailed as the role model for others.In infancy a child is dependant on the parents for its very survival. It doesn’t have the mental capacity to decide for its own and has to be looked after by the mother. The mother in turn decides what is right and what is wrong for the child. A 2 year old who has just begin to crawl around the room wouldn’t know the danger associated with poking its finger into an electric socket or trying to act funny with a sharp knife in their hand. Thus it’s the mothers responsibility to make sure that she prevents the child from hurting itself in any which way. “Don’t touch that”, “stay away from that” are common enough examples of the earliest rules a human child faces. All of them are necessary in order to survive.When the child grows to an age where it has to interact with the external society other factors come into the picture. The parents then try to inculcate the accepted societal niceties into the child’s behavior. This is more or less the age at which the child starts school.Here comes the child’s first proper interaction with authority, the teacher. There are very clear and well defined rules regarding behavior in a class or in a school. There are specific dos and even sterner don’ts. When the kid enters school it has a very clear picture as to what is permissible in terms of behavior in specific social environments.The shoes have to be polished just right, the uniform has to be clean, the homework has to be done and oh! Yes! No questions are supposed to be asked. As the kid grows older and turns into an adolescent these rules are ingrained deep into its psyche. Parents teach the virtues of being polite to guests, not to question elders, not to mingle with the opposite sex, study hard and try securing the highest marks possible and finally culminate into the highest paid individual. Teachers have slightly different but similar ways. Do your homework and you will get good marks. Listen to what we say, memorize it and try reproducing it during exams and you will get good marks. Take whatever is written in text books as the gospel of god and mug them up. In both the cases one thing is common. PLEASE DON’T ASK ANYTHING, Which at a more fundamental level means PLEASE DON’T THINK!!The same thing is amplified in college with a very misplaced version of freedom sold to youth. Freedom has got nothing to do with the clothes you wear or the hairstyles you are allowed to keep. Freedom has got nothing to do with the late nights and the number of girlfriends/boyfriends you are allowed to go out with. Freedom is the right to think for ones own self and lead life the way one feels is right. This is something which certainly doesn’t exist. The idea of an ideal life is sold to us by parents, teachers, equally clueless peers and the general society as a whole. Most of the times parents decide what we should study and the kind of career which would be fruitful for our future. Well in fact they also decide whom we should marry in order to have a happy married life.Yes that’s what is ingrained into our minds time and again throughout our lives. Most of the times it’s done in such a subtle manner that we don’t even notice it, but most of the time its given to us plain and simple, straight in our face. How many of us recollect analyzing history in our school. Would I be wrong in assuming that all of us were so busy mugging up the dates and the names that we never could find time to think why we were doing so?How many times have all of us heard the statement “don’t answer back” or “how dare you talk back to me”. How often has it been made amply clear to us that we should let others (read parents) decide for us as we wouldn’t know what’s right for us. The indoctrination of unquestioning belief is so strong in human society that the victims and the perpetrators are equally clueless.Is this what education means? Turning out robots who can’t think for themselves.The fact that humans have the most sophisticated brain which is capable of infinite things is lost on most people. The affinity towards adherence to pre defined standards and abhorrence for individual thinking is appalling.Well in such a situation is it surprising that the people who founded this company or any company for that matter thought it more realistic to lay down rules rather than leave it to us. Can we actually blame them for not believing that we are just not good enough to know on our own what we should do and what we shouldn’t?It seems they know perfectly well that they hired just highly qualified people but not educated ones.