Hemantha Kalam - 62 "Dumped Dreams, Orphaned Puzzles"

   

  How many are free from – 

Anxiety, Betrayal, Debt, Dreams, Failure, Fear, Indignity, Stress.......?

The compulsory ‘stay at home’ lock-down, forced by the COVID – 19 (Corona Virus) pandemic in the world, is redefining the routines of the global civilizations.

People are again trying to become human beings, having healthier lifestyles and better family bondages. Apart from being informed upon on the developments of COVID situation, the stranded people started helping in the household chores, bonding with old friends, group prayers through various apps like Zoom and Houseparty, catching up on solving puzzles, singing on Smule and so on.

Chennai (erstwhile Madras), the city, where I reside in, used to be a conservative place where people were of very high intelligence and exemplary discipline, who used to end their days rather early and 9.00 pm every day to hit the bed rather quietly.

It is because of this discipline, intelligence and also hard work that Chennai becomes a likable and lovable place to live for many. Even today, Chennai is bustling with activity from 5.30 am onwards. While most of the tea shops start their business from 5.00 am, many of the restaurants begin serving from 6.30 am onwards. Most of the people take a bath, make their peace with their respective gods they have faith in and start their work.

Such discipline has been disrupted in the past few decades, betraying the faith of the people in themselves and the age old systems and methods they were following. Today Tamil Nadu is synonymous with protests of every kind. What happened to the wonderful civilization of this city dwellers, whose intelligence was renowned? Why are they allowing themselves to be lead by almost imbeciles? Protest for this and a petition for that. Nothing goes without a protest. In the process, lot of anxiety, indignity and stress is created.

Things have degenerated so much that the cab drivers (chauffeurs of aggregators whom I engage for my regular commuting) in the city whine and wince that it is the girls, whom they meet as passengers, who appear to be more degenerated than the boys. Many a chauffeur has shared his thoughts that it is dreadful to pick a girl or a lady in the middle of a night as in most cases, they are drunk, badly dressed and also that they use more abusive language than the guys! The drivers say that they cannot refuse a ride and if they take them in, they fear the consequences.

A conservative Madras has changed to a cosmo Chennai in the name of development and tech upgrade.

Yet, all these changed on the 23^rd March, 2020, when the government tested waters with a one day lock-down which was immediately followed by a 21 day lock-down keeping the people in their homes to help them save themselves from the COVID-19 pandemic’s infection.

Overnight, this made changes. The colony, where I stay in now, used to be buzzing with activity till about 12.00 am with a few nocturnal owls like myself keeping the buzz on. Today the colony is back to where it was some 30 years ago. Lights down mostly by 9.30 pm and calm by 10.00 pm. I, who used to go to bed only around 3.30 am now close shop with my last movie on the Netflix by about 11.30 pm and hit the sack to work on Sudoku on my mobile app till I slip into sleep. I wake up around 5.30 am and since I have nothing to do important in life anymore, I hit the bed again to wake up at a leisurely pace. This is the time-slot I started dreaming in, nowadays.

As always, I forget most of the dreams I had, when I wake up. But then there are times when you have disturbing dreams which have to be dumped halfway before a solution or an end is reached. Yesterday, I was being threatened to sign a letter implicating someone who, I know, was innocent. I refused and they advanced upon me in a menacing way, to sort of ‘persuade’ me. I woke up sweating and in the process dumping the dream. But more than the persuading torture intended for me to make me sign the implicating letter, the torture of not knowing what happened thereafter, gnawed at me the whole day.

Today morning, I was being driven by someone in a BMW sedan with a left wheel drive. I don’t know why it had to be a left wheel drive car as in India it is mostly the right wheel drive. The car stopped at Rangarajapuram Main Road near the train’s level crossing. There is no more level crossing there in reality, as it gave way for a narrow subway. Then the car driver alighted without as much giving a hint and walked away from the car while I was still in the car. The car started sliding in the reverse as the road was a gradient and I couldn’t find the hand brake to stop it. I never drove a BMW yet, so the unfamiliarity. At last, after quite a bit of a struggle of removing my seat belt, crawling into the driver’s seat, I could stomp hard on the brake and bring it to a stop. From there, I started driving back, and oh what a smooth drive it was and again went to the Rangarajapuram level crossing to take a left at Paraankusapuram only to hear Gandhi, my colleague from the last organisation I worked in, and whom I now recognised as the driver who left me, telling me to come straight and lo, I see Seshachalam hills, the abode of Tirumala Venkateswara Swamy (Balaji). I was giving way for the traffic and woke up. Don’t know what happened, after!

Thereafter, when I was going through the morning ritual of wading through some 200 good mornings on my WhatsApp, over a cuppa, I saw this message from dear V. S. Parthasarathy whom we all refer to as VSP with love.

Yesterday, he had invited our WhatsApp group members to solve a filmy puzzle he gave and very faithfully, I did my best and asked him for the final answers. Today he responds that even he doesn’t have answers but if I wish I may write a blog on orphaned puzzles such as this. Now you know what triggered this blog. I owe it to dear VSP.

But talking of puzzles and orphans, I don’t really mind what happens to the dreams that I had to dump, but my thoughts are with those innumerous orphans on the roadsides of India who must be puzzled with the developments and what moved their meager food away from them. Here in Chennai, there have been quite a few good samaritans who have been trying their best to feed these unfortunate homeless people even against the odds of being beaten / caned by the police, for not conforming to the lock-down dictum.

But the question is how long and how much? A sad situation, indeed! Those poor people hardly had any dreams and if at all they had, those must be too small. Even those are beaten and broken making them face indignities and live in eternal failure, fear and hunger!

Will God change that too with this calamity?  

Folks, what do you think? Do let me know your thoughts!

Till then, 

Krutagjnatalu (Telugu), Nanri (Tamil), Dhanyavaadagalu (Kannada), Nanni (Malayalam), Dhanyavaad (Hindi), Dhanyosmi (Sanskrit), Thanks (English), Dhonyavaad (Bangla), Dhanyabad (Oriya), Gracias (Spanish), Grazie (Italian), Danke Schon (Deutsche), Merci (French), Obrigado (Portuguese), Shukraan (Arabic), Shukriya (Urdu), Bohoma Sthuthiyi (Sinhalese) Aw-koon (Khmer), Kawp Jai Lhai Lhai (Laotian), Kob Kun Krab (Thai),Asante (Kiswahili), Maraming Salamat sa Lahat (Pinoy-Tagalog-Filipino), Tack (Swedish), Fa'afetai (Samoan), Terima Kasih (Bahasa Indonesian) and Tenkyu (Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea).

Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

Chennai, India