Ya Niznayu

"Ya Niznayu”

The words any student of Russian dreads. In a language class, when confronted with a swirling vortex of chaos unfurling in front of his eyes, a student tries to sort what he comes across. Almost like Dorothy (the girl who met the Wizard of Oz), the student tries to group a cow and a table together. “They both have four legs after all” he reasons. Sometimes, even under such broad parameters, a few (read, a lot many) things don’t fall under any grouping. It is then, that he questions his teacher. The question is a single word. “Why”, a word teachers love hearing because it gives them the opportunity to say,

“Ya Niznayu”

Before you, my dear reader, decides to skip this post because you don’t understand the abovementioned phrase, let me tell you, “Ya Nizhnayu” means “I don’t know”. When your teacher tells you that she doesn’t know why something is the way it is, boss, you’re in big trouble. Upon further prodding by a determined student, which I would like you to believe I was, she would go into a solemn silence. You know, like when Google does when you put in too many keywords and the server doesn’t know which one of the keywords is, to borrow a journalistic phrase, truly “key”. But then, the awkward silence would be followed by something even more dreadful.

“It is tradition.”

When you’re learning something, you don’t want to be told that you should or should not do something because it’s tradition. Even if it’s told to you in a Russian accent. For instance, how would it have been if someone had told young Galileo Galilee that it was not tradition to throw heavy objects from the top of a tower that is already leaning? Or to Einstein that it’s tradition to have the presentation of breakthrough science preceded by a haircut? You get the point.

A language that has six cases, each of which is more confusing than the previous one, and three genders (including for objects like house and door), which are determined not by any scientific principle of gender determination, but by seeing if the word ends in a consonant or a vowel, and three ways of indicating singular and plural, if you add to this, the “Chemical X” of tradition, you get the linguistic equivalent of an extremely tantrumatic Uranium 235 nucleus, that upon gentle prodding by a “Ya Niznayu” sets off a chain reaction, leading to chaos, confusion and the intellectual equivalent of a nuclear catastrophe.

The Russian language has a copious vocabulary that is constantly enriched, in a way not too different from how the memory cards of our phones have multiple copies of the same photo because we forwarded it to multiple recipients. Yes, not only are there several words to say something, each word is also conjugated and declinated based on the case, number and gender, thus giving birth to a vast universe with constantly morphing organisms. In fact, a word in a sentence is like a highly reactive chlorine atom caught in an organic chemistry equation. Its status changes continuously, based on its interaction with other words.

As I write this, I see around me a cluster of personal pronouns that, like a school of amoeba are changing shape faster than I can perceive. The inner optimist in me sees this as an advantage. If the language is spoken fast enough, I assure myself, people will still get what is being told, without being able to point out the flaws in it. Yes, that’s it. Winning strategy, right here. I’m going to use this weekend to find the guy who gave the voice for the memorable “Mutual funds are subject to...” And request him to give me lessons.

See you until then.

To you, Trichy

It is starting to sink in. The last weekend spent at home before I leave for Russia. When you’re on the road at night with your windows open, the cold, harsh breeze slaps on your face. It is stopped briefly if another, larger vehicle overtakes you. I have often seen Trichy as the larger vehicle shielding me briefly while I recovered. A place where I could stop spinning like a wind vane in a storm and get my bearings right. A place where Time stopped briefly, so I could catch my breath and continue running. This break, however, seems like the calm before I start running a marathon. I do not know when the next break is.

It is time I counted my blessings. This is not the post of a soon-to-be NRI looking back at his years of idyllic bliss. This is not an attempt at melodrama. This is not even to tell people how happy an upbringing I have had or how better my city is than yours. No. None of that. This is for me to go back to in moments of need. This is the emotional equivalent of saving for a rainy day. In moments of loneliness, in moments of desolation, when the ground I stand on seems no longer interested in bearing the burden of my existence, I intend to go back to this and tell myself how blessed I have been. It is, in all respects, a personal diary. It is a record of the bad days I don’t want to forget and the good ones that I do want to remember. Having spent all my childhood in one town and most of it in one locality, the memories are linear and fresh. Random, lingering images throw me back to a memory in which the image was the backdrop. The signboard rooted firmly and manured regularly by goat droppings reminds me of the days I waited for the school bus. It still stands right opposite the bus stop. 

The white curtain with an image of Lord Ganesha shielded the east facing Xerox shop from the morning sun. Yellowed, and patched at places, Ganesha continues to protect the students making photocopies inside. It reminds me of the day I first met a teacher outside the school premises and was so excited that I yelled “Good Evening, Sir”, much to the amusement of the Xerox shop guy. Outside the shop, Ganesha watched as my teacher told me sternly that I was not required to wish him outside school premises and definitely not in that loud tone. As I stand across the road, Ganesha asks me if I still get the urge to wish my teachers if I come across them. I smile. I wonder if Ganesha will still be around the next time I come.

The lane I used to walk on to go to my school in 5^th Standard is now a paved road. The newest house and the only one to have a switch on the compound wall for its calling bell is now faded. Its mint coat resembles a palette of Copper Chloride. The calling bell switch has been disabled after a torrent of rain shortcircuited the wiring. I can no longer ring the bell and run away before the occupants come. I wonder what kids walking on the road do to keep themselves entertained. Have they also bought into the newer means of entertainment that keeps your head bowed and down? I don’t know. I partially relive the joy by pressing the now disabled switch, knowing that nothing would happen. The old man who is walking in the balcony of the house next door points me to the “To Let” board hanging from the porch and asks me if I’m interested. I shake my head and walk on.

Further down the lane is another house. We used to call it “Azhugachi Veedu”. A literal translation would be “House of Tears”. In a comic book fuelled alliterative binge, we renamed the house to “Crying Castle”. The family that lived there had an autistic child. Autism is a common household word today, thanks to the many movies on developmental disorders. But back then, we, including the elders, said the kid in the house was mad. “Mentally retarded”, the more posh among us said. Every day, as we walked to school, the kid would be in the verandah, bawling at us as we passed by. Not that he had anything against us. He was just bawling and we happened to pass by. I can no longer see or hear him.

I look back to see if the old man is still around. I see him getting out of his house and locking the gate. He now wears a white shirt over his vest. I walk towards him, and point to the house.

“For Sale, too”, he tells me.

“Do you happen to know the boy who used to live here?”

 He puts a finger to his temple and makes a circular motion, a universal sign for someone who has lost their mind. I nod my head.

 “Didn’t you know? He died. It’s been 9 years. The family moved to the US. The house has been on sale ever since.”

He sees the shock on my face. He reads the expression right and the reason wrong.

 “Yes, I know. Shocking, right? That a house in this locality doesn’t find buyers? Now, that one was put on sale 2 weeks ago. It has 5 parties interested. The seller is holding out for a better price. But this one, people seem to think this one is cursed. Nobody wants to buy this. I am the local broker, you know. If you’re interested in buying a property, fresh or built, you can call me.”

He hands me his card. Another man who has found a way to make money out of freely available information. I take the card and walk towards the main road.

The building of a smaller school in the neighborhood has given way to a pharmacy chain. There goes the backdrop of the day I stood for an hour in the sun waiting for the school bus to take me to my 8^th Standard Zoology Practical examination. The school bus that never came. Typical of a schoolboy, my trouser pocket had a Rs.5 coin, for a crisis. I ran all the way back home, got money from my mother and took an auto to school. It did not occur to me that had I waited at the bus stop, a public bus would have dropped me 300 meters from school for Rs.3. I managed to reach on time. The practical examination had me examine the head of a cockroach and identify its mouth parts, maxilla, mandibles etc. and then make a diagrammatic representation (if cockroaches had courts, I’d be sued for misrepresentation).

How much of a town depends on its constituents? The roads, the buildings, the traffic intersections, the oddly clashing early morning bell sounds of the temple and the cycles of the milkman and newspaper guy, the inhabitants who bring life to the town in festival and flood.

How much does a town lose when each of this changes or disappears? Are towns Ships of Theseus with newer parts constantly replacing the older ones of their bodies? If so, how much does the town have to lose for it to no longer be even remotely related to what it started out as and be identified as a new one? Would my departure be another short-lived blimp in the town’s lifetime or the proverbial last straw that takes away from my town its identity?

Vanity dictates I settle for the latter. After all, it is a small town. How unimportant could I be? That’s the best part about small towns. Everyone is important. Everybody knows everybody else. The families, the fights, the dreams, the disappointments, right down to the kind of rheumatoid arthritis the uncle in the third lane is suffering from. Everything is known, everything is discussed threadbare. Stories are woven, like peacock feathers hidden in textbooks, with the expectation of newer plot elements in each time the book is opened.

The other good part about small towns is that they’re, well, small. If you were to attempt an “Around the Town before lunchtime” voyage, you would very well be home before lunchtime. Phineas Fogg, the London bred adventurer, never understood the concept of small towns and went around the world. But we digress. You may be delayed by the appearance of a vaguely familiar uncle who you last remember running away from because your sixer went straight through his window. But fret not. In a small town,  the uncle would not only take you home for lunch, his wife would also try to add to her collection of gossip by showering you with questions faster than the idlis can stop you from answering them.

Trichy is a special kind of small town. Like most towns along the Kaveri river, it’s also a temple town. The Rockfort temple, Thiruvanaikovil temple and the peerless Srirangam temple ring its periphery. What this means for the small town Phineas Fogg is that there is abundant supply of food. You simply hop from temple to temple. From the delicious Sakkara Pongal that can bless you with diabetes and cholesterol with just one helping, to the creamy Thayir Sadham, this town gives you all. Pardon the gastronomic indulgence. But that comprises most of my childhood in this town.

I grew up in this town. When people refer to the townsfolk, oddly called Trichyites, they refer to me as well. At least, that’s how I want to feel. But I’ve not been a part of this town for a few years now. In and out, in ever widening circles of spiraling distance. A few years in Chennai and then a few in Delhi. Now, the spiral is widening again. I’m leaving the country. The town is gradually loosening its soil around my feet. May be I’m a liability now. Very unwanted. The truth is I’ve known it for a while. I’ve felt it more than known it.

In the time between two visits, your hometown, like a child, grows and changes face. You enter it, like a parent who has missed out on the child's upbringing and tries hard to catch up. The child has changed and so have you. Neither can recognize the other. And yet you try to connect, to embrace. But the city does not. It knows. You will now merely come and go like an occasional bout of flu. And like the flu, you are tolerated, not welcome.

Every time I return, the town has shown me a changed face. Well, maybe not at the first glance, but to those who have grown with it, even the slightest differences are a stark contrast. We tried discussing these changes, Trichy and I, but the discussion went nowhere. I know my place now. I no longer have a rightful claim. I merely plead, for the town to hold my spot, and not have me replaced in its ship. I do not know if it will.

I bend down to kiss the soil one last time before my feathers are spread. Dear Trichy, if I pass your skies, I ask only this much of you. Offer me a smile, a smile of recognition. When I show you off to my friends, do not be aloof. Do not pretend to not know me, nothing would devastate me more.