For God is in his Heaven

This Post is slightly more sober than the rest.

A while ago , as a part of our English Project , My friends and I did something life changing. We met a few people.

They were homeless.

The story starts with capitalism and how our country is striving to establish itself to be one that is on par with the technology of the Western world - but somewhere along this road , we forgot that Socialism is a key tenet of our constitution.

Karl Marx , Was a key propound-er of this state. It is he who divided the societies of the world as containing two main social units - The bourgeoisie and the proletariat. According to this classification, The two economic classes are constantly in conflict with each other for the upper hand...a position currently held by the bourgeoisie - for they are the owners of the factors of production (Land , Labour , Capital , Organization)

In today's society we call them the elite , The fortunate few who form the creamy layer of society while most of us and our realities are hidden from view by the froth. Perhaps it sounds cynical and perhaps I sound like an Armchair or Amateur sociologist , spouting theories any student of sociology ought to know...but there is a reason.

Imagine this , 1500 families left homeless in a span of two days -  no prior warning , no alternate accommodation , Left out in the cold everyday , shivering , falling sick, dying of heart attacks , making makeshift tents with blankets with not even a tin piece to protect them from the ravages of the weather.
 .

The story goes like thus.

Once Upon a Time , They were people, like you and me residing in the EWS (Economically Weaker Section) Quarters provided to them and Here they lived happily and peacefully till one day the Capitalist Greed grew to epic proportions and our administrators decided that having around ten malls in Bangalore was not enough and the city must have one more mall because it is difficult for people to travel to the mall  located five minutes away - It was a genius plan - But then came the problem...To build a mall , they needed land , and to actually find land , they needed to be able to see the ground...so half of Bangalore with its overpopulated , sardines - in- a tin form of lifestyle allowed for only one option. "Aha!," decided these administrators, proud with the brilliance of their discovery, "Let's  kick those, who are powerless to defend themselves , out their homes" and that is indeed what they proceeded to do and as is normal , only some people lived Happily Ever After. The End .

People were asked to move out despite The residents having asked the BBMP Officials, to allow them to wait till their children's' exams were finished so that they could move around in peace but all they were given, was one day. "Until Saturday ?" They asked. All they were given was one day.

 And a day later , all houses were bulldozed , irrespective of whether belongings remained etc, Protestors were taken to jail and kept in custody overnight , Bio metric cards were made and the people were told that one year later , the administrators would personally call each of them and offer them alternate accommodation.

"What are you supposed to do till then ? " I asked and Everyone smiled contemptuously and told me with a highly sarcastic laugh that there was no chance on Earth that there was going to be an alternate accommodation ever emerging from the woodwork . What would emerge , they told me , is another bundle of false promises , lies and dissappointments.


While we were walking around , we found two children who belonged to a family that the BBMP had moved from there to another Area as a means of offering alternate living spaces , "But,'" the children said , in the matter - of - fact way that is characteristic to children, that even there , " Everyone is living in tents and at the mercy of the weather akka , Even we feel very cold in the middle of the night"

Women spoke to us, some lamenting their condition and some almost scarily calm - declaring that they were now ready to self - immolate themselves. They pointed out to us ,Something that we failed to say - Earlier, though they were still economically not well off , still living in small houses and not earning much , they still had their dignity , happiness and had created for themselves a home.

However now , everyday , They have been reduced to living in fear for their lives and futures , fighting everyday with police officers to allow them to continue living , for a little while , on the pavements they occupy, outside what was previously their Home.

Some women cried that they were unwell , some cried that they were cold , some worried that their children might fall sick and almost all worried that they may not have much of a future in front of them.

However,

In contrast to the " appeal to humanity "part of the post , It is true that the land originally belonged to the government and the government still had and has claim over the land to do what they will , but to do it with compassion and logic is something that is lamentably , a non existent concept.

All over the internet , People are writing about the issue and there are some who believe it is disgusting , what happened and some who say it's all for the better because slums are an eyesore and aren't really a part of an urban setup . As much as I would like to snort or roll my eyes at the latter and advise them to go live in a Karan Johar movie , I shan't. ( I already did)

It is pitiful that people think slums should be removed because they fail to be aesthetically pleasing. It's like saying "Oh I have a rash but as long as I hide it with my sleeve and its not visible to anyone , I can pretend that all is right with the world," without actually wondering why the rash turned up in the first place and dealing with that. It's very easy to say remove slums...but what about the people there?

As long as they hide their torn clothes behind the tress and their problems behind smiles, I suppose the belief is that we can happily ,  go about doing whatever we want - Our god in his heaven ,  without having to subject our sense organs to the painful torture of witnessing a slum.

There is a beautiful concept in society , which believes that slums are an integral part of society, for a lot of our GDP comes from there (Dharavi , for instance) . A Mayor of Rio once said , "Don't remove the slums , go into them." He explained that the option would be to take into the slum, development and thereby allow progress and advancement , without inhibiting self-growth. This may perhaps be too utopian an expectation for Indian society,granted - but to adopt such an attitude would not do much harm .

Remove the slum if you must but do not forget to compensate for the loss by at least caring enough to start re-building lives that were harmed And not be , Alluding to Tacitus , Mere Nero's Guests or in the context of the administration , Nero himself.

I will end this now , but that day , I realized something , People are essentially strong . They can endure , they can fight but most importantly they can love and respect and sometimes for a society to work , perhaps the last two qualities are enough to begin to live co-existentially and to advance on a level that a lot of today's societies do not do... A Humanitarian one.

Yes. A family lives inside this.

PS : I am Attempting to make a documentary on this , if it turns out to be actually watchable , I may post it here.

The Mystery of Nail Polish

Now, its pretty obvious that I am very lazy. Obvious from the fact that my first and only (until this one came along) blog post was four months ago . Oh , and also , in my profile I introduce myself as being seventeen but have allowed so much a passage of time since then and now, that I am currently eighteen. YES. Eighteen. . PARTAYYYY!!!!

  ( I'm Just Joking Nanna, this is a crucial period of my life where only studies are important as they decide my future and will make me who I am. Only studies. No party varty and all. Phish) 

* Snigger that couldn't be controlled *

 But I apologize (mostly  to myself) for being so couch potato types.

And now to the issue at hand. Nail polish. The reason I wanted to write about nail polish is because I currently have , sparkling away , on the fingers of my left hand for all the world , at least those who care , to see - electric blue nail polish. At some point in time , I must retrospect to find out when exactly in my eighteen years of living on this planet ,  I developed the courage to wear bright blue nail polish but that , is redundant now. ( Redundant is such a funny word , no ? it seems like such a waste to use it when talking about things like appendixes and all )

 Why appendix you ask ?

Ill get to that later. For now , my blue fingers deserve attention.

When I was young , I only allowed my mother to put on me , light pink nail polish And as I grew older it was the only sort of nail polish I was comfortable with. Maybe because I felt like its almost invisible and i was going through that phase where i thought being overtly girly was a good enough cause for embarrassment.

I loved it though, it was something to look at in math class or physics , since obviously looking at the board was just not an option - much to the eternal frustration of my teachers And it would just be there, happily applied away , on my fingers , sparkling just a little bit while I moved around the hand...and while i continued to live this way, in my own little ( But much glorified world) Something happened. More specifically...University.

 Everywhere I looked , people were determined with their efforts to look good and some hitherto unused part of my tiny mind , woke up, like a boss, and said... "Moron , just try a little."

So , nail polish happened.

And long dangly earrings (My mother almost cried , with joy and immense gratitude to higher powers, when she saw me wear long earrings voluntarily) my grandmother on the other hand, She was so happy that she sent off my grandfather to get me more earrings right away. My friends almost threw a party because as they joyously remarked , "You finally realized you are a girl." Though in hindsight i realized long ago...from when I Learned the difference between the genders and eventually started bathing myself.  

What they also don't know , is that the change began in the summer only , because I thought starting college was an exciting enough occasion to go for a change in nail polish or to be a fair to my past, to begin a mature affair with nail polish , so  I went for black first. This obviously , was a reflection on my cynicism as a teenager and my nihilistic existentialist tendencies...............

Bazinga!(Sheldon Cooper , I love you!!) It wasn't. I just thought it was the cool thing to do, Not that I care about what is cool or whatever...*sheepish grin*

So then I entered college with black nail polish and found that while I was off thinking that in society's eyes I was becoming more of a girl , colored nail polish- some of which almost screamed to be banned from public view , were the order of the day. But eventually , my will power to survive in college for the first week, that was already running low because of my giant psychology textbook which was more of an assault weapon than any self respecting source of information , just gave way and I got sucked into the whole thing And now have orange nail polish on my toes to prove the point. Also before everyone starts judging the wimpiness behind it all , it was just my first week of college. After that I started liking nail polish.

But I guess that's as far as I'm getting with nail polish.  It takes me ages to wear it and then in two days it gets chipped off and simply money keeps going down the drain. One day because of it ill be stranded on the road without money and therefore with no means of transport only...SIGH.  But hey , on the brighter side , (Pun intended) I might be wearing a nail polish colour that is bright enough to light up the road home and give me encouragement...you know how they say...Lead kindly light et al.

Oh BTW (This means By The Way , Amma) Lots of people have now taken to actually drawing /  painting stuff on their fingers. Tiny stars , dogs, three colors of nail polish on one ( Miniscule ) finger etc....And that is where I absolutely put my (large ) foot down. The deftness of my fingers isn't really a topic that my family takes pride in. There are teachers in Bangalore who are still weeping over my handwriting, (and some probably need professional help to get over it) - Or rather the lack of actual writing and more the illegible scrawling.

 Once in twelfth grade , my teacher came up to me with tears in her eyes ( or so I'd like to think ) , and begged me to improve my handwriting before the Board Exam because "You write so well but your handwriting is like abstract art."

Then of course we must make a mention of my painting / drawing abilities... I once tried  drawing a rat but apparently it , as I found out later ,  could be mistaken for a bull by certain individuals of this world  whom I have the misfortune of calling my friends ( Just a joke guys , I promise... Its more a tragedy than a misfortune really *cute smiley face to be inserted here* )  and then of course the fact that even my trees which are like the easiest things to draw ever, look like giant twigs holding up cotton... show that using my nail as my canvas is not the best thing for the world to have to deal with right now - plus its already hard enough to look at myself in the mirror in the mornings , imagine being horrified by something you have to see all day long (And in the night when you get up to pee) which reminds me...I should find out if they make glow in the dark nail polish...otherwise I'm constantly tripping on my own feet during the night and so if there was glow in the dark nail polish , at least I can gauge where my limbs are flailing around at.

Therefore I have cracked the mystery of the nail polish. Its something that I just cant keep up with however fast I try and i hereby declare that i leave this nail polish business to those with more creativity and prettier fingers for I give up. Oh well. I guess I can just sit on the pavement with my blue fingers and orange toes and watch as the nail polish world zooms by till baby pink nail polish is once again in vogue and  I can laugh at everyone else. (Only to realize im still on blue and orange of course)

That is all. For now. Now and maybe the next four months . Ha-ha  (That was a joke by the way. You may now laugh...of course stunned silence (As my friend likes to say) is just as acceptable )

Bye. Cheers. May the nail polish on your toes never fade And Humor continue to give us delight , even in the wake of this crazy , crazy world.

PS : This one is to my friends. I'm sorry.  I love you guys. Please read my blog. You are the only ones that do. My mom hasn't let me tell my family about it yet . You can eat my lunch. From my cool blue  (and now infamous) box . Pinky Promise.

PPS: About the appendix / appendixes...the reason I mentioned it is because that's when I first heard the word redundant.
"The appendix is a redundant body part " and I thought it was a cool word.

That and psychedelic. So many things in this world are redundant. And irrelevant (another coolish word , I must admit) because I am technically still a teenager and I have the right to be cynical i shall use these words with no regard for the well-being of society. Peace yo.

PPPS: My fingers look good