The portrait of a beautiful day.!!!

After a prolonged spell of rain, the sky cleared, and it was like finding again something which had been lost. The distant greenery and the sapphire sky reappeared in the morning window, and the sunlight saturated my room.

I rose and walked down, smiling to myself. Nobody was about, and I felt as if I were no longer me. I got out to take a stroll, rolled up my sleeves to feel the breeze, and felt as light as a puff of air. I lifted my head to the sky, and felt the dazzling sunlight share its warmth to my face. My heart had never felt so expansive. For some reason the sunlight made me feel giddy, almost as if I had swallowed some wine. I saw in the distance sprawling paddy fields punctuated by bundles of unhulled rice. It was like a picture from the olden times. I wandered into a vast clearing, with yellow and green grass and strange-shaped rocks. I chose a smooth one, sat down on it, and felt both bare and blanketed by the hot sun. For a long time I sat there, hypnotized, and transported with bliss. It’s not often that we meet up with such a warm and comforting sun.

I thought then of how I have often compared my own restlessness to the summer sun, which people find irritating and try to avoid. I have yearned to be like the winter sun: bright, but not dazzling to the eyes; warm, and yet not scaldingly hot. When will I learn to be more subtle, a little more gentle and profound?

In a distance, I could see a man lying down, with his legs drawn up, and nibbling at a long stem of grass. I got up and started to walk. When I looked at him again, he had bent his arms to form a pillow. I could not help envying his posture, which seemed to say, “Worldly riches are to me as scudding clouds.”

The sun was right above my head now and it was getting a little hotter to feel comfortable. The thin clouds lined up in the sky were like a short poem. Watching, watching, I thought of a Yuan dynasty verse about why a man failed to write a letter: “Its not that I have no sentiments; its just that I can’t find paper as expressive as the sky.”

I rose. The rock was still a little warm, but a chill had stolen into the air. A group of children passed by, each carrying an armful of tinder.

I got back home by afternoon, and felt that I had more than when I left in the morning. In the evening as I was sitting in the terrace in the gathering darkness I seemed to find what I actually made out of the day. It was a painting; “A fine day,” painted in pale ink on my peaceful heart, and the darkness became filled with it.

The MAD DAM.!!!

Mullaperiyar dam, something the people of Kerala are MAD about and the people of Tamil Nadu don't give a DAMn about.! But beyond the humor, if there was any lies a matter of serious concern. When it comes to social issues like these the people are only as informed as the media wants them to be. In Kerala they are made to believe that there is only hope to cling to, and in Tamil Nadu the media claims that its only a well enacted drama scripted by the smartest political brains. I doubt if we will ever get to know which one is the truth.

If there really is an impending danger that is as monstrous as the media makes it appear, then there really is something for every Keralite to worry about. The God's own country has never been at the receiving end of nature's fury nor has it ever had to face a major crisis. It has been blessed by the most generous of Gods. And this has made its people laid back which is going to be the major handicap if a disaster strikes. They wouldn't know what to do or where to go. Really, every coin has two sides to it.

The basic human nature of being flawed takes the right to judge away from us all, especially when it comes to politicians. They are the way they are only because we allowed them to be, and partly because we wanted them to be this way. So many things are easier when the system is flexible. And if this issue really is just a made up one and its a media circus going on, there is something for the people of Kerala to cheer about. The politics doesn't lack the brain that we think it does. So many virtues go unnoticed only because there are bigger vices that over-shadow them. Yes, I always try to find the silver lining.!!

But why would a state pull out a trick like this in a country where the Judiciary claims that nobody can buy their way through it. The Supreme court's verdict will stay. As far as I can see it the only plausible answer is that in a Democracy like India although the claim is that the Judiciary is above its people the truth is just the other way around.

Gentle Sweep; A tribute to Chennai.

Its not often that I see the light of the day as early as I did today. At 5.30 in the morning Chennai is a place as good as any other I have been to. The morning breeze brings with it a chill that tells you that the winter is not far away. Air is fresh, its already bright outside and the roads are not yet busy to bring up the dust that must have settled overnight. There is a lot more to the Chennai morning than this calmness and serenity. A place so often cannot just be special with their tangible attributes, I feel. I think its the culture of this place that holds it close to my heart. I couldn't help noticing the fact that much of the families

were up by the time I got to the road, the only people who would still be enjoying the morning chill in their beds would be us students(every other day I would be in my bed) and the people who have migrated to Chennai. Here, or in any other place in Tamil Nadu for that matter, you would know it because the lady of the house or the maid would be out drawing the 'KOLAM', and that is how I came to know today that for half of Chennai the day really kicks off at 5.30 AM. I don't know another town that wakes up that early.

But what I really took out of the day and my early morning ride on the street of Golden George nagar was not any of this. It was a sound, a sound any Indian would recognize, the swish of the broom. One of the very characteristic early morning sounds of our country. It could be the maid sweeping the cemented drive, the gardener cleaning the leaves off the lawn, the government sanitary workers swishing yesterday's garbage into little heaps for the hand carts or lorries that follow to pick up. Vacuum cleaners and heavy-duty cleaning equipment are still not the norm, even indoors. But there is something quite restful about the swish of the broom, all said and done. I think its one of the most soothing sounds of a city coming awake.

There is an Indian superstition that it is unlucky to be greeted by a person wielding a broom while leaving on a trip, albeit, I would love to see someone cleaning my front yard with a broom when I leave. There is an unspoken promise there, tomorrow the place would be just as neat as today. There really is something about that gentle sweep.