April musings...

Its been a wonderful april for Delhi: whenever the temperature started climbing, or anyway on most days when it did, the sky clouded over, cool winds came in, and it drizzled. In other words, magic weather for those of us who endure the terrible heat of Delhi.


So, what with the brilliant sunshine, and the breezy weather, here are a few breezy musings, written in the style of the much lamented satirist Behram Contractor, India's answer to Art Buchwald, who used in write in Bombay's (yes, Bombay) Midday:


Like, this summer, there is going to be no power cut in Delhi, because i'm sure, what with the elections just a few months away, Sheila Dixit would have ordered the Electricity companies to buy power at whatever the cost, and supply it to Delhiites. Nothing loses you votes faster than the electorate sweating it out in the Delhi heat, unable to sleep because of the mosquitoes.


Like, I mused, does Amitabh Bachan really tweet and blog to the extent he does? If it is being ghost-written for him, well, all I can say is that the tweets are so typical of Amitabh that this ghost writer must be the best one in the world...


Like, what with all these convictions for corruption, you would expect government offices and officers to become more law-abiding, but somehow, it never seems to happen...


Like, cellphone companies are getting away with murder, overcharging their customers in a variety of ways. If you dont fall in line, hey presto, your outgoing calls are barred. So, just get a dual sim phone, like I got this April: that way, you will never be at their mercy again.

Like, whatever happened to armchairs? cant find one anywhere in south delhi. One shopkeeper told me nobody buys em anymore because there is no space in anyone's home for them. Interesting. But I wonder: does anyone nowadays truly, truly retire, and put their feet up, and lean back on their armchairs?

Like, I used to wonder why pretty girls in Wodehouse's novels were called April. Now I know: if April can be this beautiful, why not name your girls April? It must have been dazzlingly beautiful in the Riviera in April, where Wodehouse lived....

Delhi, and quakes...

In 2001, when the earthquake hit the Kutch, and killed 1,00,000 people, I was there for ten days, covering it for AIR.
People had been pole-axed by falling walls and columns in the very act of fleeing, and rigor mortis had set in their limbs, freezing the terror on their faces.
In one street in a Patel village, hundreds of corpses lay that way, each frozen in its own attitude, and I remembered the Mahabharata's description of the end of Dwarka, with the earthquake devastating the town, and sea rushing in...
Over 100 aftershocks hit the place in the succeeding two weeks.
In the last 11 years, in Delhi, there have been atleast half a dozen bad shocks, and it brings a sense of deja vu...
Last week, I had called in a couple of officers working with me, and we were having an accounts meeting, when my room on the fifth floor of my building started to heave.
The table shook from side to side, but both the people with me seemed to blissfully unaware of what was happening. Strangely, it seemed stupid to run out, or hide under a table as prescribed by our earthquake drill-master.
The people with me did not look too scared, but I was, having visions of building collapse.
If there is a even a fairly strong quake in Delhi, millions will die, as most of the buildings have been built without the ability to withstand quakes.
But then, life is cheap for us, right?
The town of Anjar lost some 10,000 people in the 2001 quake. When I went to Anjar, I found a memorial there, in memory of the five hundred people who had perished in 1956!! And the memorial had been inaugurated by Nehru. However, Anjar blissfully continued to build without an earthquake-resistant building code, and paid the price half a century later.
Delhi, too, will pay the price one day for this stupidity.
Let's hope it does not happen in our lifetimes...

Terracottah Warriors

It's an incredible story.

23 centuries back, an Emperor decides, at the age of 7, that when he is buried, he will be protected by an army of warriors, who will be buried with him.
Only, the warriors will be of fired clay, "terra-cottah".
And that, the facial characteristics of no two warriors will be the same: each will be a distinct individual.
Over the next forty years, 8,000 bigger-than-life size statues are fired in kilns, and each one is coloured beautifully.
There are horses, carriages, generals, and they are buried in tunnels around the tomb of the Emperor.
When the Emperor finally dies, the tomb is sealed, and so are the tunnels containing the terracota warriors, in 3rd Century BC. Oh yes, a final detail: there are rivers of mercury in the underground tunnels surrounding the tomb.
And also, the weapons the warriors have are real: and since they are chrome-plated (23 centuries before the discovery of chrome-plating by anyone else), the weapons will remain sharp, century after century, without rusting.
The tomb is discovered soon enough, but the soldiers lie buried for 23 centuries, till they are discovered in 1975.
The Emperor? Chinese, obviously, from the Qin Dynasty.

Well, two of those warriors are in Delhi, at the National Museum. For those of us who are not lucky enough to go to China, it is an awesome experience to come  face-to-face with the Terrocotta warriors. The link to the Exhibition timings etc is this (its on till March 20th):
http://www.delhievents.com/2011/02/of-ancient-china-art-exhibition-at.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+delhiupcoming+%28Delhi+Events+-+Weekly%29

Happy hunting!!

The heppest, the most ultra-modern building of Delhi....built in the 14th century

In my twenty years in Delhi, I am yet to see a building in Delhi whose walls slope backwards, as they go up.

Except for one building: the tomb of Ghiasuddin Tughluq in Tughugabad. The walls of the tomb are set in such a fashion that each block recedes in, from the viewer, and the walls slope away from you. And to see the scale of the monument, I have positioned a human being, so that you can compare. Imagine the technical difficulties of putting in a vertical arch in a sloping wall. Each block has to be cut in an individual way, depending on its position in the tomb. Ofcourse, woe to the craftsman who got it wrong : he would have got his hands chopped off, or beheaded.
In the evenings, Ghiasuddin used to stroll down from Tughluqabad to see the progress of his tomb. Imagine the fore-sightedness of a monarch whose hobby was to construct his own tomb. His son, the terrible Muhammed Bin Tughlak lies beside him inside the tomb. I have been there many times in the last decade, but for some reason, always found the place deserted, despite it being a truly awesome and well-maintained building.
Only now, I find, at CGO complex on Lodi road, a building coming up, with sloping-away walls: walls of glass, but sloping away nevertheless...Ghiasuddin would have been happy to see it...or would he? The jealous nature of monarchs is legendary....