A Girl - An Inspiration

Dear Ravi,

I hope things are going great with you. It has been a while since we spoke. I did not have much to say earlier, as it was a routine life for me. I go to work, get back home, swap through a few channels, sleep and go back to work the next day. Weekends, I try and meet up with some of my old friends. I write to you today, to tell you about a wonderful person, a person who has inspired me and a person so has made me believe in the indomitable human spirit.

I had a classmate who studied with me during my post graduation. She now lives in Mumbai alone and works for a financial services company. She builds complicated financial models for portfolio analysis and the rest. She travels to work daily alone, her office being a 20 minute drive from her place. She is very smart and she is doing exceptionally well in her job. She was among the top 20% of the students on campus. She is always smiling, cheerful and she loves to hang out with friends and have fun. In all, a totally cool gal!

You must be wondering what is so special about her. Well, she is visually impaired. She can’t focus her sight. She cannot read this passage or any other passage. Now, go back and read every line I have written in the above paragraph with this new perspective.

So, do you see how difficult each of those things is for her? She can see the watch she wears on her hand but cannot read the time. She cannot read documents or mails or numbers on an excel file. Yet, she has graduated from one of the topmost institutions of this country. And she has graduated as top of her class. She has a special software that reads out all documents/e mails to her. For exams, she had a person who would read out the questions and she would answer them verbally and he would pen down those answers. Imagine reading a strategy case which ran into 20 pages and which had over 10 pages filled with tables and graphs. Now imagine this complexity for every subject that we have studied.

A group of us in Bombay had a small get together over the weekend. She was also there and I offered to drop her back. We took a train back. This was her first train journey in Mumbai and she was jumping like a kid. We had a good hour in the train where she told me about her life in college. She had a mental map of the entire campus, a map based on number of footsteps. She knew that it took her 14 steps to reach the staircase from her room and another 25 to reach the mess. In between, at the 12th step she knew she had to climb 3 steps. And this way she had the entire campus mapped out. A campus that was 100 acres big - Wow!

Ravi, more often than not, we never realize what we have, until we have lost it. We take so many things for granted, so many things we do not even think about- like walking in a straight line, like being able to see. Yet, these things sometimes are the biggest challenges people face everyday, day after day and over come them. I look back at my daily activities and try to imagine myself in her situation. The more I thought on this, more my respect for her grew.
She epitomizes the never-say-die attitude. I can go on and on about her, showering her with encomiums and they will still be not enough. One thing is certain. Whatever I achieve in my life, however big (if at all), they will all pale when compared to her achievements on one single day.

Regards,
Karthik

Ps: On a different note, I went for a movie today. They play the national anthem before every show. They played the A R Rehman version of Jana-Gana-Mana which had all great singers of India from D K Pattamal to Lata Mangeshkar the Bhupen Hazarika singing in it. I have never heard a more soul stirring and inspiring rendition of our anthem. There was a silence after the anthem was over. The silence allowed us to immerse ourselves in that moment.

Mumbaikar spirit, the blasts and Us!

I was in office when I got the news that there had been a blast. I got the news within 10 minutes of the first blast. It did not strike me as anything big then. But in half an hour, as I was watching the news in office, my feelings turned from just-another-blast to shock to then to anger.

As I made my way from office to home in an auto( a journey which takes 45 min , took me 4 hours), I saw almost entire Mumbai on roads walking home, or helping people get home. This was the celebrated Mumbai spirit at work. The spirit that has been repeatedly splashed across all news channels. It was an amazing sight to see people, regardless of the strata of society/caste helping each other out. I am proud that I belong to this community here.

But I am sad. Sad because I feel that somewhere over the years, we have forgotten the value of human life. 194 seems to be just a number, not 194 people. Everybody in this world knows 9/11, the day WTC came down. How many people know the 'terror dates' in India? I do not. There are far too many. Do we remember the innumerable J&K attacks? The day of Akshardham attack or the the Varanasi blast? Or do we remember the date or the PARLIAMENT ATTACK? Isn't it tragic that we now consider these things (read terrorist attacks) as something that happens all the time. The day there were blasts in Mumbai, there were blasts in Srinagar. A grenade attack where 9 people were killed. The next day again there was a grenade attack in Srinagar where a constable was killed. The story is the same day after day for years now. How much importance, as a society, do we give to any of these?

We seem to be getting used to terror attacks and that is a very dangerous sign. Continuous and regular attacks has numbed us and instead of crying out foul, we are keeping quiet. I do not mean that we need to protest( and hell, why not?), but the mentality is more that I am talking about. Almost everyone has become passive and that is not where we should be headed.

The celebrated Mumbai spirit should not just represent helping others in times of need, or getting back to normal within couple of days. Mumbai spirit should lead the change that makes people question these dastardly acts and force our governments to work that extra bit to make our cities safe. More importantly Mumbai spirit should bring about a change in mentality. I hope Mumbai can make all of us proud!

'Be the change you want to see'.

Few days in...

Three weeks into the Bombay and I am slowly settling here. The rains in Bombay disrupted normal life and brought it to a standstill.The predominant thought on everyone's mind was how to reach home. I was in a car wading through Juhu. Even the road that had bunglows of Bollywood's most famous like Amitabh, Anupam Kher, Rakesh Roshan was not spared. All these bunglows were knee deep in water and I saw a Merc with water upto its windows. Poor Guy!

The people more hit were the lower middle class and people living in slums. Water reached 7 feet in a particular area near my office. Everyone was scared and last year's memory was still afresh as it figured in almost all conversations. Everyone recounted the hassles they faced to reach home last year and feared worse this year.The media defintely made gross miscalculations. On the first day of rains this year, when it was normal monsoon rains, the media overplayed the disaster card and scared people. They tried to do the balancing act on the next day but they chose the wrong day.

The cops have been doing a tremendous job directing traffic and managing stranded vehicles and passengers. Cars were offering lift to strangers; residents living in the area were taking turns to help people walking, by guiding them through safe paths. Its a nice feeling to witness this. Guess this is the Mumbai spirit people talk about. I am sure people across the country would do the same, but in Bombay its become a habit.

A habit that I have noticed among the people in Bombay is the importance they give to food and places to eat. Everyone knows of a place that makes the 'Best Sandwitch' or the 'Best Paneer' or the 'Best Vada Pav'. And this list of 'Best place for so and so in the World' varies from area to area. So you have worlds best pav bhaji guy in south bombay, in dadar, in Andheri and so on depending on whom you are currently having a converstation with. It is something like being 'World famous in Dadar or Andheri', if you get what i mean. But there is no denying that street food is absolutely amazing.

I stay walking distance from the Juhu beach. I walk to the beach almost daily. There is something about the sea that draws me to it. Is it the breeze from the sea or the sound of the waves? I don't know why,but the sea has a calming effect on me.I am usually reflective whenever I take a walk on the sands. Sometimes nostalgic, sometimes pensive. The last two saturday evening/nights were spent at Marine Drive, during a slight drizzle and the waves lashing on. Its such a beautiful sight and a memorable experience. One just does not want to leave that place. Another distinct difference that I noticed among people from Bombay is that they are not drawn to the sea the way people from Chennai are. Sea is not a major attraction for Mumbaikars. I do not know why it is so, but it is just is. A pity, I say!