Just Another Rainy Day……

Shreya finally left from office now and it had started to heavily rain. She cursed herself for not leaving an hour earlier, because then she would have been home by now. And more so, she had worn her new clothes to office, which she didn’t want to mess up. She had to find a ride and every cab that said Ola, was asking for a Uber high price. It was pouring so heavily that the roads were filled with almost a foot high water and all she could do was hold her umbrella tight and call out for every passing autowaala hoping that at-least one of them would agree to give her a ride back home at a reasonable price.

Shrishti finally decided to get down her ride and walk. The service roads were filled with  a foot deep of rain water, muddy and flowing. She felt happy when the rain subtly sprinkled on her face. She dipped her feet into the muddy water as if it were a paint brush , and she was now ready to paint the town brown.

Honkkkk, she heard.

Honkkkk, she heard, and when she turned with an angry look she saw a speeding idiot on a bike grinning and going away after almost hitting her. 

"Madam, auto beka", said a voice behind her. At the same instant, (as melodramatic as she was).... Background Happy Waala Music Plays!!!

LaLaLa   LaLa

LaLaLa   LaLa

La La La

Finally, an autowaala, in BANGALORE, agreeing for a ride, on a rainy day, with just double the fare. It was ecstatic (PUN INTENDED).

She boarded the auto and finally came out of the gate of the techno park. The roads were filled with vehicles and angry people. The cacophony on the streets made her head ache even more. She increased the volume so that the surrounding noise could drown away and listened to the radio, which was playing one of the latest songs "Re Sultan!!!"

"Re Sultan!!!" was the song being played, somewhere at a distance. Shrishti decided to follow the sound and hoped to find something interesting. It was already fascinating that she was walking freely in the middle of outer ring road, since the vehicles on the road were hardly moving an inch. She maneuvered through the grumbling and shut down engines, briefly appreciating some of the high end cars that were stuck too, to reach the source of the song. She saw that there was a hand cart or typically a thela, which had some old transistor sort of a thing to play the music. There was a small stove under the umbrella, which had garma garam chai and beside it was a plate full of mirchi bajji. She saw a group of people almost half drenched with streaks of mud over their clothes, all of them either coming from or going to office. These people each of whom, like Shrishti were tired of waiting for the vehicles to move, and so they came out, sat on the elevated road side and start enjoying what we call as tapre ki chai, ekdum malai maarke. Who was Shrishti to judge them ? She was rather one of them. She asked one of the girls how the tea was, to which she replied, "Much better than the traffic". Shrishti smiled, took the tea in one hand and mirchi bajji in the other, sat on the roadside and got lost in her thoughts.

"Na jaane kis baat ki khushi hai yeh,

Shor se befikr hone ki,

Ya fir befikr hoke sukoon paane ki. "

And suddenly she hears a splash!!!.

Splash!!! A cab driver just managed to takeout the Tyre of the cab out of a pothole, and then a jet of muddy water splashing the nearby vehicles and finally Shreya's new clothes splashed with mud.

Typical Hindi TV Serial Alert!!!

Nahi! Nahi! Nahi!

Shreya was already pissed off that she had to listen to the music with high volume while having an head ache, so that she could tune out the chaos outside, but now even her clothes......

Aarrrggghhhh!!! 

What had she done to deserve this day.

Splash!!!

And Shrishti saw some kids jumping into puddles of water playing football with a worn-out ball. Even better, she saw some of her own bhai bandhu with a gale mein patta, playing with them. Her spirits were elated. It was pure nostalgia. "What had I done to deserve this day"; she wondered. She kicked the ball to one of the kids, jumped on the puddles of muddy water and started playing with the kids. She was almost near home, and even if she had started walking almost an hour before she was filled with enough energy.

Enough :)

Enough... Shreya couldnt take it anymore. It was almost 1.5 hours in the auto, and she was just half way home. Her auto had barely moved 200 meters in the past half an hour. She finally decided to get down her ride and walk.

3 hours later, I finally reached home from office, with a part of Shreya and a part of Shrishti within me.

And Alas!!! What had I done to deserve this day,

Or am I always the two-headed snake,

A part of me always resenting the storm,

And a part of me always dancing in the rain.

Blue for Boys and Pink for Girls

Asmi was very happy, today was the day her niece was born. As soon as she came out of the hospital, she rushed to the baby store to get something for those pretty little hands to play with. She went in and there she found the saleswoman running her through the options:

Pink bed for Girl baby, Blue pram for a boy baby.

Pink bottle for the girl, Blue cradle for the boy.

Pink bib for the girl, Blue dishes for the boy.

Not just that, when the baby grows older, we have pretty Barbie dolls for the Gini’s and strong GIJOs for the Jony’s.

And that’s when Asmi thought that have we as a group of so-called race “Intelligent and Smart people”, have we stereotyped everything. Have we become so judgmental that once we know, say qualityA about a person, we simply assume that the person possesses qualityB as well? Obviously, we would do that, because we are a group believing in the transitive property, that Mathematics has nicely etched in our brains.

Where, if A=B, and B=C, then that implies that A=C.

But, we very comfortably forget that,

If Something (A) = Something (B)…….. and Something(B) = Something(C), then that doesn’t mean:

                                A=C, or even so:

                                                Something (A) = Something(C).

Not just that, suppose we meet a person and that person doesn’t fall in the pre-defined categories that we’ve classified into, then we as a society get scared. It’s again because, we have constricted our minds so much that if anything out of the box comes our way, we simply run away. Maybe that’s the reason our society hasn’t accepted the 3rd sex yet, let alone understand them. But that is a story of another day.

Now coming back to the matter @ hand, do we stereotype so as to classify people and we think that would give us a better understanding. Then in that case, we would club the common traits and put all those people into 1 category and define them. Come on, hasn’t Biology taught this. Classify all vertebrae’s into Pisces, Amphibian, Reptilian, Ave and Mammal. And that comes with a note in bold: “If you classify thus, you’ll get a better understanding”.

And if in some parallel universe, a whale and a bat meet, their conversation would be like:

Whale: Dude, you know according to human’s and biology we are supposed to have the same characteristics?

Bat: But how? You swim and I fly. How is that related ?

Anyways come up with some LOGICAL EXPLANATION that fits our system of classification or the STEREOTYPE, because simply sticking to stereotype helps us being the zone of the known. Wouldn’t that constrict us? Wouldn’t classifying people take away the joy of getting to know the individual? Aren’t we by doing this always promoting collectivism than individualism?

Suddenly, Asmi got out of day-dreaming and realized that she has been standing at one place and staring at the Barbie doll for too long. She shopped for rest of the gifts and went to the counter to bill:

• Pink Hammock
• Pink Bib
• Pink bottle

She paid the bill and happily went away to gift those to her newly born niece.