Coming home to Bharat

Though it is true that Allahabad provides a large canvas full of caricatures. My home-coming8217; to this BOI started becoming more and more pronounced as Iinteracted with the town. The system has totally collapsed and it is reflected everywhere. Residential col-onies where the top doctors live can be approached through puddles and slush and filth. So you can imagine the hygiene in other areas where lesser mortals live. You have to negotiate pigs, cows, stray dogs. And the carcasses are not removed, the stink filling the air for days, but they are given a samadhi8217; on the road with bricks laid around it.

But I somehow found the animals better than the humans on the roads. Traffic cops are an extinct species, even on the main road that runs through the town which we have to cut across many times a day. And for a person used to excessive traffic policing like me, every ride becomes a nightmare. And to make matters worse, Allahabadis, mainly on two-wheelers, have a penchant for overtaking from the left. If you growl at them, as you would in Chandigarh, do not expect an apology but a look of arrogant disregard.

The entire town stinks of betel juice and urine.For this is where Bharat lives: people care two hoots about civic sense. You have to walk with your eyes wide open near the showrooms and kiosks for your feet may slip into a puddle of this red spitty slush. In Chandigarh, we complain about the smell of urine only in government buildings and basement parking lots. But here I am getting used to the sight of rows of human beings on the roadside busy with their natural calls at all times of the day. It was to the magnificence of the beautiful Shivalik ranges in Chandigarh that I woke up but here I have an old man, who would emerge from the clusters behind our house with a lotta in hand, as my kani8217; the first darshan of the day.

And in the midst of all this, people live, politicians thrive and officials soar high on the social ladder. The real coming home8217; was completed for me the other day when our car broke down. It was 9 pm. My husband went to fetch a mechanic, leaving my son and me in the car. A man in a totally inebriated state came close and asked,8220;What is the matter?8221; And before he could crane his neck, with his hand already on the window, I rolled up the glass and locked us up inside. He lingered around, initially tapping the glass but left when my husband and the mechanic arrived. Interestingly, nobody seemed to be bothered about this stranger8217;s presence though the pavement was full of vendors. For their womenfolk were busy fighting over a petty issue of one of them taking water from the other8217;s pitcher. Quite symbolic of the Bharat wherein people fight over the elements, as if they own them. I thought of my Chandigarh where women roam around freely even at midnight.Yes, I am getting a feel of Bharat in Allahabad. When I locked up the car to keep at bay that drunkard, my son who had a few GI Joe figures and we-apons with him, asked me, quot;Amma, shall I scare him with these machine guns?quot; I laughed, quot;You cannot win a battle with toy guns, baby.quot; Here it is a full-fledged war between India and Bharat.

8212;Rathi A Menon