Ear full

As Indians do we have a different standard for defining 'noise', just as we are known to have different standards for tolerance to spice, hygiene, personal space, nosiness, know-all ness and every otherness? 

I am on a break, in India soaking in all the different levels. I am recalibrating my tolerance levels to old known levels. I need to do this periodically so that I do not become too complacent and comfortable in my congenial adopted home and forget the fact that I need to get back one day. The orchestra that my neighbour conducts at 5AM beats the pleasant morning alarm chimes from my phone. This neighbour is a firm believer in washing all steel utensils before sunrise. She or he, difficult to guess the gender from the cacophony, uses decibels and not detergents for the washing. I doze off again when the steel-utensils-orchestra becomes the new normal, only to be woken up again by a rather strange noise. The noise is a cross between a cat getting strangled and the goods train passing through a tunnel. I realise it is again from the neighbourhood. I almost do a 'eureka' when I discover that the sound is generated by another musical soul who is clearing his throat, this time I am sure about the gender.

Although there is a construction site close by, the decibel level from the site is challenged by every animate and inanimate object around me. I wonder how the saints of the past and, if any, in the present, meditated in this eardrum-splitting environment. No wonder the celestial damsels were required to break their meditation, elsewhere a loud cracker burst would have done the job. And fireworks were what welcomed me into the new year. My last new year eve in India was about to celebrate its silver jubilee and I did not allow that by having the new year bash back home this year. The crackers started going off much before midnight, perhaps the clocks were a little fast for those early revellers. Once someone started, the others could not wait and within no time all joined in the I-have-better-fireworks contest. In my opinion, all the noise about placing controls on fireworks and pollution have only given more sound, fury and smoke to the fancy sounding crackers.

The reason behind my making noise about Noise was an experience I had one morning when I went to one of the corner shops to get some documents scanned. As I had almost fifty odd pages to be scanned and the scanner available did not have sheet-feeder functionality, I had to hang around for an hour while the documents were getting scanned page by page. There was a gentleman in the next shop who seem to be having a shouting match. I could only hear his loud tirade all the while and could not hear any responding voice. Out of curiosity, I went out to investigate, rather peek. To my surprise, I saw that he was having a phone conversation. I also realised that with the kind of free talk-time availability, this conversation, if it was one, would go on for hours. Out of consideration for the health of his vocal cords, I thought there was a need to react. Despite knowing well that any comment or objection from me could fetch an even worse verbal or physical reaction from him, I decided that something needs to be done. Through gestures, I communicated to him that he needs to tone down his voice. I am not sure why but there was an immediate positive effect. His voice came down to normal levels and he continued the phone conversation. Rest of my waiting time was spent in peace and I managed to hear the drums of the scanner. That set me off thinking if the tolerance or silence is the reason for such thunderous surrounding around us.

Have you also wondered why people must be so loud? Does louder mean more authority? Yes, if you are commanding a parade you need to be loud to be heard but when you are on the phone is it necessary. People tend to forget that Graham Bell had them in mind while inventing this wonderful device, which saves the trouble of shouting across distances. The decibel level seems to be directly proportional to the distance between the caller and receiver.   

It was very interesting to note the UK has the following prohibited times on noise making: Monday to Friday: before 7 am and after 8 pm. Weekends and public holidays: before 9 am and after 8 pm. Note: The prohibited times apply when the noise can be heard from inside a habitable room of other residential premises. Any residential noise can still be considered unreasonable outside the prohibited times

Maybe we need to clamour to have such a rule in India without adding to the noise.

Revisit 2

The foundation of a state
From laterite stone
Stone so red
those reds came
through ballots
and not barrels.
The valley, womb of the stones
abode of the homeless
the have-nots,
demi-gods the dons
running the roost
lives so cheap.
Fortieth they say is a ruby
a ruby ago
I walked these streets
cycled these streets
Now in this abode
nine floors high
I look at the remains
of yesteryears
development has cleaned up
the greens of yesterday
the slums of yore
new towers elbowing out
the pigmy shanties.
looking at the expanse
I soak in the new
probing for the familiar
I get only the different
out in the streets
the lingo has changed
fusion and migration
is the identity lost?

Re-visit

Two decades
A gross
Twenty years
Prodigal son returns
Albeit for twenty hours
Savor in twenty hours
The missing years
Unseen sights
Missed friends
Untasted flavours
Unheard melodies
And the locals
Can't do the walks
Cannot the rides
Can't wait the tides
Cannot sip the beers
Lone rangers
Lonely rides
Metering the changes
Need longer tapes
The changed faces
Good long stares
Memory returns
Turned pages
Mental photoshops
Work overtimes
Yes it's
the same faces
Flashbacks
It has snowed on the crowns
The dense black thatches
Now white and sparse
The flat midriffs
Now filled out convex
The metamorphosis
None appreciates
Benjamin Button we are not.

monster whale

When whale of a game
Takes a new fame
Moving up fifty steps
and a drop so blue.

what are you chasing
pleasure and pain bearing
as you move up the steps
only to realize the wingless never flew.

withdrawn into the shell
you get so close to the kill
the illusion of climbing steps
actually sucking you down into the stew.

What of the dear ones
those that stay back with wet eyes
when you soar up delusionary steps
mourning your loss in the pews.

Tag and seven stones
break no bones
snakes and ladders many steps
Remember the whale is no fish.

Bolt no more

When you saw the heels

Two pairs of heels

You didn't look sideways 

You could see their back. 

The chasers changed roles

Though you didn't choose

Through their grimace 

Visible success on their face. 

You have not lost

Never in the past

Young age and fresh legs

Brought your rest closer. 

Au revoir athlete

Par excellence 

Your sprint etched in memory 

We wait for another bolt. 

solitary crane

the pride of place
sticking out from the crown
straight as an arrow
I surveyed the countryside.
shot up in feet
reaching out to higher glory
as the building grew
I remained above all.
the builders did not return
the machinery all silent
the growth now stunted
I stand tall gathering dust.
forgotten and unsung now
immobile and unmanned
resting ground for avians
I have now become a fixture.
once again life sprouts around
spanners on the nuts and bolts
limbs come off
I am being dismantled.

whatsup whatsapp

Bugs bunny relaxing and chewing on a carrot while blurting out a nonchalant 'what's up doc' fills up my memory screen when my phone chimes an incoming WhatsApp message. When Elmer Fudd the hunter pokes Bugs Bunny with a loaded double-barrel this nonchalant response was a game changer. There was no scurrying of rabbit-feet nor screams which would have been the expected response those days in a comic. Instead, the long-limbed rabbit lying in a very relaxed pose spits out a 'whats up doc?' from the corner of his mouth. Acton and Koum, when their journey from Yahoo to Facebook did not happen, decided to develop a social app and called it 'WhatsApp' a derivative of 'what's up'. And as they say, rest is history.

WhatsApp too has been a game changer. While Yahoo groups, Orkut and facebook have been instrumental in reviving old ties and friendships, Whatsapp brought about a paradigm shift in social communication. Of course, it has also brought along a new set of maladies.

Realisation hit me a couple of weeks ago that I am rushing in the morning to complete my chores, whereas I used to relax and enjoy my cuppa while flipping through the newspaper. And the culprit I could see was WhatsApp. Over the past year, I have been discovered by long lost friends and herded into groups - school groups, class groups, like-minded groups. For someone with the multiple lives spent in 9 schools, two colleges and six jobs, there is no dearth of groups for me.Wading through the messages in the morning was eating into my otherwise relaxed schedule. I am trying to collate here the experiences gathered at these various groups.
The work of the roosters has now been taken over by the roosters within your whatsapp groups. One can do away with wake-up alarms now as these new generation roosters are very punctual. Without missing a day they send out the morning greeting at the same time day after day. These greetings will also have some pearls of wisdom. These pearls of wisdom invariably are forwards which the sender might  not have even read nor understood.
Members in a new group are like kids with a new toy. The first few days in a new group are worse than what probably happened at the tower of Babel. Everyone tries to have one-to-one conversations and there are few meaningful group conversations. Many egos bite the dust and the hurt ones take the exit route. School groups, especially if the re-connection is happening after a couple of decades or more, will start off with introductions and exchange of photographs and old stories. Once most of this is done, an awkward silence begins. The conversation graph goes south and the stale meaningless forwards become the only activity in the group. These groups do hit a peak now and then when a new member joins or when one of the member has an anniversary.
When one is a member of a multitude of groups,one is prone to certain occupational hazards. Some of the forwards get re-forwarded to the same group. My standard excuse in such instances is that the forward was so good that it deserved a re-forward.Generally such 'mistakes' go unnoticed as many members dont read all conversations. However there is also a breed of nit-pickers who take great pleasure in pointing out such oversights. 
In a multi-linguistic country it is inevitable that some members send out forwards in minority languages. The linguistic champions then descend on such unfortunate victims like a tonne of bricks, admonishing them for the sacrilege committed. 
Epic writers are another bane for the whatsapp community. Blog writers who send out their long-winded lectures in the forum do not realise that most of their stuff never gets read. The famous US Navy doctrine of KISS applies here too - Keep It Simple(short) Stupid. 
The knights in shining armour are the modern day Don Quixotes. They strike at every windmill and take pride in slaying hoaxes. Unsubstantiated forwards and misleading 'authentic' information need to be nipped in the bud. The Hoax Slayers are a community I personally appreciate. 
I wonder what happens with all this digital communication that is flying back and forth. The ease of use and the non-expensive nature has helped in the proliferation. There are huge servers dotting the universe which store and relay these messages. The energy used up by these machines to transmit trivia to and fro is adding to the carbon footprint. I have read somewhere, I am not in a position to verify this, that a  typical year of incoming mail for a business user – including sending, filtering and reading – creates a carbon footprint of around 135kg. That's over 1% of of a relatively green 10-tonne lifestyle and equivalent to driving 200 miles in an average car. These calculations could be best guesses, but they are worth giving a thought to.
A simple 'hello' or even a 'whatsup doc' has now evolved into an addictive communication malady that influences our daily lives in more ways than we can think of.