The best moment to float away.....

There always is an appropriate time to embark upon important tasks. Time (and tide) wait for none but the task in hand always ought to wait for the right time. You do not barge into your boss's office and start asking for a raise when he is nursing a bad cold and his famous capricious mood is at a new low. In the same vein, one doesn't ask the wife when her parents, who have originally come on a short visit, are leaving, especially if it's not even a month of their arrival. The timing has to be perfect for all tasks - mundane as well as momentous.

What can possibly be the most important milestone event in a person's life? Graduating from college? Marriage? Birth of a child? Retirement? Yes, there are several. If important events have to coincide with appropriate timings, then almost all of these can be engineered to happen at the precise time best suited to us or at the most auspicious time, if one is astrologically inclined. And that includes child-birth. Engineering a child-birth is almost child's play nowadays. (the deluge of 11.11.11 births is just behind us). But we all conveniently hide under the carpet and refrain from discussing the single-most watershed event in our life - which is death!

Of course, death is an event that is part of life, who is saying no? Event-managers may manage without much fuss the important events just prior to death but with death itself, they are non-plussed. Life just does not start from a non-event and end in a non-event. The starting point of life is, we can say with pride, in our hands, as far as the time of birth is concerned. The doctor diagnoses a probable birth time at which moment the planets don't see eye to eye? No problem, a caesarian section a day or two earlier would ensure the baby pops out when the planets have made up. Landed your first job and asked to report for duty at Rahukalam? No sweat, ask for a day's extension. Fallen in love, decided to go the whole hog and tie the knot and your foolish friends have fixed up registration of the wedding at the Registrar's office exactly at the time when Saturn occupies the 8th house and looks askance at any one sitting in any other house? No issue at all, report to the Registrar's office an hour later (though some might argue the real Saturn has just embraced you, what's the big deal about its less dangerous counterpart in the heavens!!). But death? It's a different ball game altogether. How one wishes one can pre-fix the goldent moment, the death moment! The culmination of a life-time, the breasting of the tape after a marathon, the crescendo of a musical symphony, death is all rolled into one and should it also be not left to the humans to decide as to when, if not how?

Imagine for a second the wish is granted. Then at what moment would man like to die? Perhaps for some at 4 at dawn, when the world is still sleeping, the birds have just begun their chirping session and there is a comfortable nip in the air. Or for some, perhaps at 11 in the night, lying on the bed comfortably and gently swaying to soft music on the FM or at 6 in the evening, the 'ponmalaippozhudu' of Vairamuthu.... Can any other time-slot be apt for dying? Can dying at any other time sufficiently bring out the poignancy of the moment? At least for me, no.

Death may be painful. Or may not be. Death may be a mystery. Death evokes fear. Death is an outcast all are loathe to discuss. But death is certain. The only certainty in life. The dying moment can be beautiful too. If only we have the wherewithal to decide on its timing. Cometh the moment, cometh the man, they say. If only we could say with conviction, "cometh the moment, cometh death..."

Sweat-shop bliss

Only the work-stations keep changing but the cheerful smile on her face seldom does. Somehow it manages to stay etched on her sweaty face always. Watching her going about her chore with nonchalant ease, I always used to wonder - how can the mundane rigour of mixing frothing coffee a thousand times a day or frying a few hundred vadas and pooris in scalding hot environs produce so much joy? They say, if you are happy, you love even the dreariest of the jobs and conversely, if you love your job, however miserable it might be, you will be happy! A typical chicken-egg situation - no one knows for sure which is the cause and which, the effect...

... oh yes, I forgot. The work-stations I was referring to are the sundry departments in the kitchen of the fast food joint of the famous 'high quality' vegetarian hotel chain in my neighbourhood. And the smile I am witness to daily is that of a lady'chef' or 'cook', whatever you may call her. To be fair, the cheer and joy are not specific to any single cook or employee there. They all exhibit varying degrees of bliss while routinely going about their tasks, and they number nearly fifty.

In fact, everything about that joint radiates cheer. For one, the location, a tree-lined side-street in a residential locality, away from the traffic. Then the premises itself, a vast hall, thoughtfully arranged chairs & tables for those who prefer to savour their 'fast' food not so fast and the marble topped counters for those who enjoy their snacks standing. The joint opens sharp at 5 a.m. and even before the shutters are drawn up, a waiting crowd of morning walkers would stand outside, ready to gate-crash. The doors (Swarg dwar for many) open, the crowd rushes in, heavenly aroma of pure filter coffee pervades the air and the atmosphere would be just divine! Scores of coffee cups are emptied within minutes and the joggers' day is already made.

The same routine is repeated every day, day after day, month after month and year after year. There are hardly any holidays for the hotel except may be for Diwali and Pongal. From dawn to dusk (by dusk, I mean midnight here), the cheerful cooks, the cheerful server girls, the cheerful Nepali floor cleaners and the cheerful billing boys slug it out with never so much as an impatient frown or sign of exhaustion.

They all come from ( I am just guessing here) where else - Tuticorin or Tirunelveli or Virudunagar or some such small town south of Vaigai in TN. They flock to our Saravana Bhavans, Pothys, Saravana Stores and Chennai Silks, somehow manage to eke out enough to sustain themselves and also remit a portion to their families back home. The family back home would typically consist of a younger brother studying, two younger sisters waiting to get married, an aged mother and for good measure, a drunkard father. These clothes shops and eateries in Chennai are to Tirunelveli what Kuwait and the Emirates are to Kerala. Young boys and girls come laden with dreams and little else, slog it out here, become unwitting parts of our daily lives and maybe lose their own identities in the bargain. The dreams remain with them for some years, only that time to sleep eludes them to live their dreams. After some time, the dreams too wither away as they invariably do. Only the physical bodies remain, repeating the routine day after day and the boys and girls cannot care less, so long as they are fed, clothed and provided a bunker to sleep in and paid just enough to be able to remit home a few hundred rupees.

I've always wondered - how do they even deign to manage a smile amidst all this drudgery? They just don't make such boys and girls here in Chennai. What joy and amusement could these sweat-shops possibly give them? What could possibly motivate them to love their jobs, if slavery can be termed jobs? What is behind the laughter and banter I see among them? Teasing each other about their attire? or dates? or discussing their last customer? or the Veerappan-moustached supervisor? These questions cross my mind now and then, whenever I visit the joint (and that's about twice a day, for pure filter Kapi, despite its astronomical price). The questions just come and go. Never seriously tried to search for answers for that's not my wont. I have a bus to catch, an office to reach, an attendance to sign, a clock to stare at till it strikes 8 and in the evening, a home to rush to, you know... And even if the answers were discovered, they would just mean nothing to me, I know. Cheer and joy are the sole preserves of those lucky ones who love their jobs. Misery and melancholy of those who pretend they have great jobs, great families and better things to do. Yes, I should know....