The flood in Chennai- Kasimedu

Following an earthquake with its epicenter in the sea, a tidal wave hit the coast of India at around 6 45 am today. Among the worst affected were the fishermen of kasimedu fishing district, and their families. Many families live on the coast in makeshift huts, from where the men of the house leave for fishing every morning.

One fisherman lost three sons today, as the giant waved swept them out of their house right in front of their father's eyes. A missionary stopped and prayed for him , after seeing him in tears.

Many fishing boats were swept onto the shore, causing a lot of damage to them. Workers try and pull out a half-submerged boat from the water, using a simple pulley system and manpower!

sid

One for the road!!!

When a little kid asks you for money for a meal at a red signal, you try and numb your conscience, until the light turns green, and you can leave that problem behind as you floor the accelerator , at least for the time being. Lets imagine we are at a red signal……..

To give is better than to receive, everyone knows that. Then why not give? True, but how much do I give, and to whom, who is the most needy, the kid at the signal, the leper on the footpath or the homeless old woman? How could you give one and not the other, that’s worse than not giving anyone! I do not have the answers, …the scary part is, that we could have a say in those people’s lives, we could make a difference, we could play God , and we don’t deserve that kind of responsibility. Because we are too selfish! Man is a selfish creature, that’s why we’ve survived through the changing ages. That’s why some animals are extinct, while we continue to multiply on an enormous scale. Because, in my world , I am ‘numero uno’. I may be a generous guy and all, but theres some part of the subconscious mind that I am not in control of, which saves my skin over n over, which sometimes is a ruthless big brother that removes anything that is a threat to me, with ease…he’s the villain who slanders and who bitches , he’s the one who makes me run for cover when someone says ‘bomb!’….the other self. It is easy to see this when you imagine two parts to “I”, one “I” that you are aware of and one who is aware of you!

If five bucks was all I had, I might have given it away to a beggar, but what if I have 5000? No way! Does that mean people get greedier as they get richer? Yes, I know it does. Then why do I still want to become rich? Methinks its about power. Why not become a very rich guy and then give away all your money? Easier said than done….think about the insurances, taxes, investments etcetcetc………………… …………….maybe next time I meet a beggar, I could beg him to give me some of his peace of mind! In a poor man’s world there is no yesterday and no tomorrow, only today counts, he needs a meal today and he wants a corner to sleep in tonight. Big businessmen , on the other hand, plan tomorrow based on what they learnt in yesterday’s deal, and lose today in the bargain! It is good to have little. On the other hand, it is not good to have nothing to eat. But God saves the day here, he said if he feeds the birds in the air, and clothes the fields with flowers, how could he ever forget us, his masterpieces? Just keep the faith, and let tomorrow be. Maybe keeping a bank balance as ‘reserve’ is going against the faith that God will take care of me…….

But does God want everyone to have equally? I don’t think so…..he chooses to bless the good with good things, right…..so, don’t I deserve what I have, and doesn’t the beggar maybe deserve to be on the streets, I mean, God must have chosen to put him there! Ahaan, but maybe Gods chosen you to get him out of there…….maybe?..........something makes you feel a pang of guilt when you see a homeless person, and something is making me write this article. The hand of God? Or just our brains at work,,,,?Does it make a difference,as long as the decision to feed the little kid or not to, is made? But hey ,to feed him or not requires such deep thought….its subjective to whether God has put him there as punishment for his sins, and whether God has sent me to get him off the roads……maybe if I give him five bucks, he will go smoke a cigarette with the money! So what? Maybe he wanted a cigarette…….who am I to judge that hes too young to smoke….one could say ‘let him smoke, but not with my money’….what is ‘my money’? some things you got in exchange for something that your ancestor withheld from society? I don’t think that makes any money anyones money!

Thinking on the basis that God has put people in poverty as punishment……..for sins…..what sin could a newborn have committed so as to inherit a life of suffering? Hmmm, maybe its not punishment then, maybe it’s a reward for being innocent……maybe hes a better person, that baby, because hes poor….he might have been a terror, a greedy selfish ruthless wretch, like the rest of us, had he not been poor. Is it wrong ,then, to want material things? On the contrary, it is wrong for material things to control you, it is wrong to not give away your money, but its not possible unfortunately. Because its impossible to tame the other self, who finally has the last laugh. Hes at work even when you sleep. But hey, its not right to concead defeat so easily…..i will fight him as long as im conscious. And after that? Theres some confusion here, lots of confusion…..weve got to be boss, we have to win…..theres more important things to do on this planet than to fight AIDS or to make rallys for world peace….tame the dog. Or the dog might tame you.

It’s a bad world.


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June 18, 2012

Is it a good thing to do to cross over to the other side of the road when you see a homeless invalid lying on the footpath? Maybe light a cigarette hoping to let the mind play itself a sweet melody to a sweeter vision that you cook up to project on that blank canvas of the inner mind which is only reserved for memories from your own past?

The last post id made on this blog was I guess sometime in 2004....8 life-filled years ago. Not many people did read this blog...fat lot of sense it made to continue it...but i never again floored the accelerator ever when I saw a beggar at a signal. In fact I sometimes have had cars behind me honking to eternity while I looked for change in my seemingly bottomless pockets, and I don't mean that in a rich way :)

June 2012 - I am in a posh locality in Hyderabad. I am going for a walk when I see this old man lying on the sidewalk - and I cross the road just so I don't feel the pang of guilt as I walk past him.

No, ,I have not become an evil run-of-the-mill son of a bitch.

Rewind two weeks....

I was driving down this very road, past midnight, half drunk...I see this old man sleeping on the pavement, his head rested on a suitcase, his walker lying next to him. I HAD to stop the car and ask him how he was. And of course I did. He turned out to be an ex priest, and I believed him because he quoted the Bible to me better than I know it, and I have known it. And so I ask him how he ended up here? He said he loved drinking, and one cannot be a pastor and enjoy a drink, because people wont let you! I don't know if that could be argued with, but I bought it. And I wasn't in my 20s any more, I could so a little - maybe give him an hour of respite? I said I couldn't solve his problems but I could sure buy him a drink! He loved the idea too. Of course all the bars were closed past midnight, so I decided to take him home to my apartment, where I had a bottle stashed away.

About 1 AM and we are n the elevator, and he has a grin on his face, and I'm telling myself - 'here you go again, man....you HAD to do this'....I'm fixing drinks and dinner, hes probably wondering how HE got into this. We chit chat a little, he prays for my future. Somehow I remind him of his son - and he asks if I would call him and ask if he could return home - well, its near 2 AM but I figure - a good son would love to hear from a father, whatever the time. The pastor digs into his little diary to fish out a piece of paper where he has written his son's number down. I figure - what the hell, lets call - and his son was thankfully glad to hear from us! I let father and son speak for a few minutes, and then ask his son where he lived - it was about 25 km away, out of the city.

I was happy! Now the prodigal father had a place to go to, and we had a couple of hours to kill as well...he asks me to play him some Kishore and Jim Reeves, and I do.

His son lived in a village where he wouldn't get a bus until 5AM. I decide to give the guys a break and drop his dad to the village bus stand. We start at 4AM....and the drive seems like forever. My new friend, with beady eyes, clutching the dashboard, apprehensive about his future; me, with sleepy eyes, wondering how I manage to get myself into these situations.

Well, we reach the village bus stand and his son isn't there. I call him, and he asks me to leave his father there, and he would come to collect him at the first possible opportunity when he finds transport from the interiors of the village. I think that sounds reasonable. I sit down on the bus stand bench with my friend - we smoke cigarettes in silence.  I give him a little money for backup and I tell him I must leave. And he changes his mind! He wants me to leave him where I picked him up from! I ask him why - because he can't get along with his son!

My mind is racing - what do i do NOW? I give him a piece of my mind for driving him half way out of town if he wasn't sure. And I decide to leave him. I'd given him enough money for twenty times his bus fare, or for a couple of bottles of rum if that's what he wanted anyway.

I drive away as he calls my name, wondering if i had done more harm than good.

Fast forwad 2 weeks...I am walking down this locality in Hyderabd - and I see the old man back to his spot. I cross the road. I choose not to react any more. I choose to walk away. As I light my cigarette, I am thinking about the blogger I used to be in 2004...and I sympathize with people who floor the accelerator when the signal turns green.

even innocense has caught the midnight train

HOME SWEET HOME......

COMFORTABLY NUMB!!!

sunrise?

Dying aint much of a living........

Dont you know that all my heroes died?

INVISIBLE MEN

This is not an article about statistics,its an account of lives.

The aim of this article is not to criticise the efforts of any social welfare organization in particular, but to bring to notice certain individuals who cannot help themselves , obviously in need of aid, some whom I've seen in the same places for the last ten years or so! How did we miss out on them, under our very noses, when, we , the society, when begging for foreign funds with our hats in our hands, claim to reach the far rural corners of India, to help the underprivileged? How often do we walk by someone in pain, how often do we ignore them as is they were a disease, treat them like they were invisible?

It is my belief that social organizations claim to help the poor and the suffering, and to reach rural corners, because itt catches the eye of potential donors. It seems unlikely that they have a genuine feeling towards helping the underprivileged, or else downtown Chennai would not be a gallery of 'frameless heads on nameless walls ' , as Don McLean would put it, a place where one can see suffering on almost every street corner, in areas that shamefully host a number of offices of those very social welfare groups that seem to be so keenly looking for people to help.

But the aim of this article is not to slap mud on these organizations, but to give certain individuals a chance to leave their fingerprints in time, a little space in a little magazine, so they too can leave a record somewhere. Maybe on seeing this photo essay, just one person, or one organization may wake up to reality and see the wonderful opportunity they have to set some wrongs right.
Here's a little math for all you business tycoons. Add all the money in the world, and divide it by the population of the planet. You know you have more than your fair share, put like that. Don’t come up with "people that work hard make money", you know your employees work harder than you do. Imagine how money came into being, and why it did, following the barter system. Imagine a prehistoric society in which people co-existed at a common level of status and comfort, dividing chores among themselves. One section to hunt, one section to fetch water, one to make clothes, one to collect fruits, one to cook…….very organized, like today's society, but 'all the people sharing all the world', John Lennon's dream theme. Obviously one individual from one section decided not to share what he had. Obviously he must've asked for more than his fair share in return, maybe what he was holding back was vital for survival, say firewood. There begins the first business deal. There begins the point in time when people start thinking twice before 'sharing all the world'. There begins the necessity for something called money, which divides man from man based on the value of his assets, nothing else.

Life was a race where all the athletes used to hold hands and walk past the finish line together, until one of them decided to break free and make a run for the finish, and then another, and then another. Until some were left so far behind that running would make no sense now, it’s a race that they just cant win. These pictures are about such people.

The Leper-
This leper hangs around with all his belongings i.e. a cloth he sits on, and a water bottle, near the parking lot of a station in Chennai. Notice how leprousy has eaten away the better part of his fingers. Probably, the best that he can do for himself for nourishment is to raise the bottle of water with all that’s left of his hands, to his lips. Notice his bent back and bony arms.

I've written to a lot of N.G.O.s, asking if they could use photographs like these to help people like these. Not one replied.

This photograph wasn’t shot in some drought-hit, famine-hit area where there's just too much to do, too little funds. It was shot in a rich downtown area of 'Indiashining's' metro, Chennai.




The Long haired guy-

At first glance I thought this guy was probably a lunatic on the loose. But on observing him for a few weeks, I'm sure he's perfectly sane. He stands outside a roadside tea shop on Paper Mills Road, Chennai, begging. Now I come to think of it, I've never actually seen him begging, people just give him stuff going by his looks, I guess. On bumming a bidi, he turns to the wall and smokes it shamefully! Now how many of us feel that much shame? If we did, he wouldn't be standing there!

Also, he starts walking purposefully down the road sometimes, so as not to appear to be standing doing nothing. Then, abruptly, he turns and walks back to his spot, the tea shop, probably hoping no one saw him take a fake walk.

I don’t think he's insane, I think he's had it with trying to make it in this society, trying to run the rat race.




The deformed man-
It’s a little hard to take note of this gentleman, tucked away into his shelter on Paper Mills road, Chennai. He's deformed. He's made himself, probably with some help, a shelter measuring about three feet by five feet at best. He spends all his time there. He's not capable of reacting on being asked a question, or maybe he chooses not to…..
He eats here, he sleeps her , .its his home……until somebody decides to renovate or reconstruct the building adjacent to his shelter I guess. I wonder what he'd do then. He isn't capable of carrying all his belongings, I'm not sure he's capable of carrying himself!



The madman-
I used to walk home down this road, on my way back from school, about ten years ago. This lunatic stood there talking to himself. He enters a college premises to sit on the benches sometimes, which, surprisingly, the watchman doesn't seem to mind.
That was ten years ago,……he's still standing there……he's still talking to himself! People on this street have become so used to having him around that no one even crosses the road to the other side when they see him, any more. He's become one of the objects on Taylor's road, blending into the everyday scene…invisible man?

I guess he's got his excuses to tell God why he couldn't do much in life,,,…..have we got ours?




'Gandhi'-
A kid in a Gandhi get-up, begging on a Pune-Chennai train.


Depressd man in cap on railway station



Last word to everyone who's a music buff……Did you ever listen to what John Lennon and Bob Dylan and more recently, Jon Bon Jovi , have to say?

'Imagine all the people, living life in peace'
- John Ono Lennon

'How many deaths will it take till we see that too many people have died?'
- Bob Dylan

'Even innocence has caught the midnight train'
-Jon Bon Jovi