To tip or not to tip that is the question

Almost an year back, my sister & I visited Prague. It was a sisters' holiday in the middle of a double date/ family holiday - the child's father & uncle went home to Amsterdam with the child. I had read a question in Quora - "If you could visit just one city in Europe, which will it be" - & Prague had featured multiple answers, of course behind Paris, & alongwith Amsterdam.

Prague was dream-like. It was so compact - after Paris - disorientingly rich - Prague was sunny in August, coulourful in Pride, cobbled beneath our feet. It was ours to discover & get lost in. Google Maps told us we  were somewhere, & we were not. Prague was scattered with small artists. People publishing postcards of their own art, people manufacturing jewellery from their own design; on Charles bridge, there were registered vendors, & each stall had something handmade totally unique. A girl in her early twenties was playing a marionette, & she was SO good, & she was a street artist too, accepting coins in her cap - Prague was warm & jovial & full of life force which doesn't reveal economic 'situation'. The guards at the Palace were so cool, almost comical, they were ALL in shades, & that is how the change of guards took place - with all guards in shades 😎

In Prague we first faced the question of 'tip'. It is in Prague that we took guided tours. How much does one tip? Exactly when does one tip? Tipping etiquette is different in different cities. Foreigners tip all around in Indian tourist destinations - domestic tourists in India never tip, tips are reserved for the festivals, & for 'faithful' servants.

The first guided tour we took was of the underground nuclear bunkers. It was only accessible as part of the ' Communism tour'. Our vivacious tour guide Zuzanne took us around city, on foot, tram & bus, her English clear, her passion real, & at the end told us, we could ask something in general about the city. Suddenly others in our group started to thrust tips in her hands. I & my sister looked at each other. Panic. If this was the norm, if this was even the good manners, we had to do this. But how much? We were unable to guess from looking at our group members, & the moment had passed. or so we felt. It could not be done graciously any more. I still wonder if there is a moment to tip, which passes!

That same night, there was the 'Ghost Stories Walk'. Oh, YES. It lived up to our expectations. Born after urban India was well electrified, we have hardly, if ever, known true darkness. The darkness in which ghosts might feel actually comfortable. But walking with Scot, even in brightly lit nighttim e Prague, his lantern actually smelling of Kerosene ... listening to the stories some of which featured ghosts, some supernatural happenings, & some tragedies, it was like being inside one of Dicken's stories ... the others in the group,the other rambunctious groups, the Beer-bikes (if you don't know these, look up!), all faded out ... the simple experience of listening to a story told by a compelling teller drowned everything. It's a pity the Astronomical clock was closed for repair, & so was a  park where Scot sometimes takes one of the halts. Even with two places minus, it was well worth the fees & the tip, well worth TWO walks around the city the same day, it was worth itself. This time I was ready with the money in my hand, when others in my group were.

In Prague, I didn't have any traditional Czech (or Slovak) food at all. One of the afternoons, we had an amazing Burrito bowl at some sort of a chain eatery. One of the afternoons, we had a wonderful guacamole quesadilla at the farmers' market. The guy who was making it was chatting with us, & told us about his recently ex-boyfriend. If felt like he was still not quite over it. I felt bad for him. Suddenly I realized that he thought us a couple - my sister & I. Nothing wrong with that - expect that I felt that my 'sisters' vacay' got a tiny bit less glam - faded - definitely - in comparison to a lesbian couple holiday -anyone's. Is it that way? Are some holidays less or more glam than others, just by being? I also bought a tiny witch-on-broom corn-husk figurine at the farmers' market, btw.

In the nights, we dined daily at the restaurant of an Indian hotel a few buildings from our hotel. Consistently good Biryani & Alu paratha. We didn't even vary the choice from that. The boisterous owner/manager sat around. One day attending to some guests, one day lecturing one of his staff on how he should be 'always prepared for a party'. For some reason, it was hilarious for the boyscout motto 'be prepared' to be applied to the context of an 'impending party'. Our server was a young guy Pradeep. He was Bengali, whether from India or Bangladesh, we didn't ask. He chatted us up. On the last day, I consulted my sister whether he was chatting us up for a good tip. She was of the opinion that he was 'bonding' over language, & might be offended that we patronised him. So, we didn't.

The confounding experience happened the first afternoon, we were back from the Communism walk, & it was 4 in the afternoon, & I was ravenous. Surprisingly, my sister was not. I was really tempted by an eatery in the shape of train compartments somewhere in front of the Jan Hus memorial. I was going to try The Trdelnik, which I had already read was a sweet misidentified as Czech traditional, but nevertheless, the name chimney cake amused me. I thought it will not be enough, so I looked for a simple Pasta. Here, the owner-manager came & stood on my head. He had huge objection that I was ordering just one main course & just one dessert for two people. Anyway, I was unable to get up & walk away. & then, he asked me, in these exact words "How much are you going to tip?" This was right after I had failed to tip the admirable Zuzanne, see, so I asked him "so how much to people gebnerally tip?" So, he says "10 to 20%". So, I give him not 20%, but 10%. I tip him for standing on my head, annoying me, & for demanding a tip, & I hadn't tipped Zuzanna for my first peek into the personality & background of Prague, & the revelation that we should do this sort of tour in every city we visit!

क्या पाया बिटिया होके

इन दिनों मन कुछ विचलित है।  पढ़नेवाले विचलित समझते हैं न? Disturbed. आज पुराने roomies से बात हुई।  WhatsApp पर . Roomies का हिंदी क्या है? सहवासी? कमरा-सखी?

बहरहाल हम तीनों disturbed हैं।  ज़िन्दगी उलझी हुई है।  किंकर्तव्यविमूढ़। बात चली की क्या SAHM - गृहवधू ज़्यादा खुश हैं? क्या वो सुलझे हुए हैं?

बात यह भी चली क्या  पुरुष होना ज़्यादा खुशहाल होता है? होता होगा। पर मुझे अपनी ज़िन्दगी का एक भी दिन, एक भी पल याद नहीं जब मैंने मादा होने की जगह पुरुष होना चाहा हो।

इसका मातृत्व से कुछ भी लेना देना नहीं है। Parent होने के लिए शरीर में धरना ज़रूरी नहीं, और ये सिर्फ गोद  लेने वाले माता-पिता की बात नहीं , कहीं बुआ माँ होती  है, कहीं नानी , तो कहीं कोई headmaster पिता -  बस होते हैं , कोई उन्हें बनाता नहीं।

 नहीं, बिटिया होना ज़्यादा है। ज़्यादा क्या? ज़्यादा सबकुछ। ज़्यादा विद्रोही। ज़्यादा रंगीन। ज़्यादा गंभीर। ज़्यादा चपल। ज़्यादा गहरा। ज़्यादा भंगुर। (भंगुर means fragile) कौन कम गहरा होना चाहेगा? कम  रंगीन, कम  दिलचस्प ? कम ज़िम्मेदार , उथला? हाँ , कम भंगुर  होना अच्छा रहता।

कल्पना कीजिये वो ज़िन्दगी के जब ऑंखें भर आएं तो कोई टोके - "क्या लड़कियों की तरह रोते  हो"
अगर माँ  की, पत्नी  की, दोस्त की  मदद रसोई में कर दें , तो दयापात्र, जोरू का गुलाम, और लड़की -पटाऊ कहलाएं।

कल्पना कीजिये वो ज़िन्दगी जहां बच्चे  को Science Fairs, School Fetes में, ... Park में football खेलने, कीचड में खेलने,... Music class, Karate Class, pottery class में, Mall में, Water Park में , ... कोई और लेकर जाता है - कोई भी और, पर आप नहीं, क्योंकि , अगर आप office से यों  जब-तब छुट्टी लें, जल्दी निकल लें , तो नौकरी से ही हाथ धो बैठें!

कल्पना कीजिये वो ज़िन्दगी कि  जब भी किसी की समस्या सुनें, तो बस दो ही विकल्प हों - हल प्रदान करना, या झेंप जाना। हल न दे पाने खुद ही असमर्थ महसूस करना। यह कभी न जानना - कि  सुनना - और समझना ही एक मदद है

कल्पना कीजिये ज़िन्दगी भर  पैंट-शर्ट या कुर्ता-जीन्स में बिताना ... कभी, ज़िन्दगी में एक बार भी, साड़ी न पहनना

वो ज़िन्दगी कम है। कम से काम नहीं चलता।

Worst terror strike in the history of Kashmir

Quite the epitome of human inhumanity.

A terror strike is considered highest form of crime  by many, as "the many" consider humans highest organisms, & thus the killing of humans, in multitude is a crime of magnitude. Also, the many consider that humans, while killing, should have considered a kind of solidarity, or brotherhood with other humans ( those these same many snub their noses at many kinds of "inferior" humans in their time) & thus are shocked as to how humans kill humans.

However, terror strikes are truly heinous. This is because terrorists work on the principle of terror, of ruling by terror, of getting for themselves what they want, by killing, destroying, & controlling the minds of the living, by terror. How much worse can a goal be? To live for no other purpose than to be the most comfortable being, by deliberately & systematically making others suffer. To live for a length of time, with the sole agenda to increase that length of time.

Or perhaps, to die in a glory. The glory of killing multitudes. What a futile life. The very opposite of touching lives for betterment, destroying & annihilating, tearing apart, & laying waste, waste which does not feed nature, destruction which does not beget new creation. For some kind of "Greater Good". Legacy of land conquested & rule established left behind for living "relatives". To one's clan, which is in the mind of the suicide killer, the worthiest, the most entitled, the rightful owners of every privilege. & he is facilitating it.

How does one really stop terror? Is it at all possible to stop or prevent any kind of human negativity, or human-made destruction? Is it not simply a part of human character to assert superiority over nature, other organisms, other people, other ideologies? By destruction, of course, how else.

Hello my place!

Where I belong!
Where are you?
Or rather, since you are a place, which are you?
You with my trees -
Neem & Jamun, Amaltaas & Palaash, Kachnaar & Shareefa ...
Squirrels & sparrows, Neelkanths & mongoose ...
A little pool? At the base of the handpump,
& the base of the earth furrows.
Surrounded only by wire mesh fence.
Grashoppers, "Sui"s, frogs.
Perhaps snakes?
Sunshine.
AND MONSOONS.
& my ampersands.
How do I find you?
You, With my ivory tower
My vertical abode with just one room per floor,
& the rest of you covered by those trees ...
How old are the trees now?
What?
Oh! Sorry!
I didn't plant them yet?
How do I buy you, my place?
& who are my neighbours?
Your neighbours, OUR neighbours?
Are they human?
Humans are always hungry.
Hungry for more land.
Hungry for more rooms.
More cars, which need more parking.
Never mind me, my place,
My home, my heart, my soul,
If I find you,
You will no longer be safe.

When did we become humane - or did we yet?

Whatever I know, I read it in fiction. I am a big ignoramus regarding actual news.

Someone said, there are only two classes, the exploiter & the exploited. Really? Do we - You & I, not live to disprove that? That we neither exploit, not get exploited? That we are rational, reasonable?

In "Aztec Autumn", I read about how women were "spoils of war" (& also later in Iliad), how certain kinds of rape were a sin, but not rape of the women of the conquered land by the victorious army. Also, how a woman was "sacrificed" for "good luck" in a hunt. Reading this kind of fiction turns the insides out, as in vomit. Of course, compare nausea, to rape. Conclusion - I am living in the best of times. These things had disillusioned me as to the nature of war, & the ethics of military.

In "American Gods", I read about how a God was created. Amazingly disturbing. It's not for the faint-hearted "self-improvement reader". The book was also awesome in the aspect that nothing is sacrosanct. The unravelling is complete. Neil Gaiman confirms my understanding that "Gods" esp. in the plural, are simply super-powered beings, impulsive in the extreme, cruel beyond human capacity, & super-viced in every human vice.

Now "Confessions of the Fox". It's a really anti-capitalism novel, & surprisingly (for me), calls for abolition of prisons. Yes, the events narrated all are innocent people being thrown into prison on absurd pretexts, hated by the elite simply for being poor, paraded, lampooned, broken, starved, abused in every way, & being treated "not as human", at least by modern sensibilities, all in the name of law! Disturbs us, brings us a tear & a low-grade headache. But should the procedure of law itself be done away with? Go back to the times ... times of what? The trussed-up sacrifice? The murdered-child God?

But we are not living in those times, right? Is that true? In my time, on my watch, is it guaranteed that nobody is being broken like that? 

"Confessions of the Fox" also put to my mind the "must have been" process through which medical ignorance turned into a body of medical knowledge. What perversions must have been through the minds of the "humans" who actually accumulated it. God made man in his image, & man made devil in his image. I would also quote from Kartar Singh Duggal, but ... how anti-national can one be? You know we are the great Indians, right? The tricolour has displayed in Dubai. Our military is descended from the Gods. They only protect & save, never harass nor oppress. & our ancient physicians ... well! they knew everything already. They never needed to experiment on live humans. They had knowledge divine.

So, I revel in being a great Indian of the great India. I shrink in horror in the shared guilt of 17500 generations of being the plague of the planet. I can' decide which era was innocent enough for me. I can't be natural enough  - the dilemma of the environment-friendly in the bathroom - use more water, or use more paper? - to be truly natural is to die of disease & rot into the earth, but I personally crave a sanitary house, a huge library of fiction, & sunrises. Out of this self-conflict of being good to the earth & being comfortable in my skin, I want to not exist, to never have existed.

I lost the horizon.

Only the act of writing aimlessly keeps the pain of not being understood out.

I grew up in a township. The land was acquired by the Company, & they planned the township. The township was upwind from the plant. So, whoever the smoke from the plant affected, it did not affect the employees & their families. The planner of the township planned it in  colonial fashion. The way the colonizers built bungalows in the colonies. The houses had gardens. Even the smallest of the houses. The non-executive quarters. The non-executive quarters had small rooms, less rooms. The non-executive families had more members. The non-executive inhabitants built additional rooms in the gardens. They needed the living space more than the garden.

Still, the small non-executive houses, even after extensions, still had gardens. A neem tree, a mango tree, a drumstick (moringa) tree, or at the very least, a guava tree. And flowers in winter. Regal dahlias, lush chrysanthemums, abundant marigolds graced the scrubby frontyards as benevolently as the manicured lawns. Some of the non-executive families even had a little shed in their little garden for one cow or buffalo & her calf. They wanted fresh milk, & they had carried their ways with them, the "house cow". Regardless of the size or interiors of the house, the garden was a matter of unadulterated pride. It was a gender-neutral hobby. In some families, it was the uncle who was the gardening enthusiast, in others, it was the aunty. It was also the topic of discussion which cut through the gender divide & the executive divide, & made a different classification - the green-thumbs & the green-dumbs.

Till I was in school, in my Bhilai, I had not even known that there can be houses, where the compound wall opens into the living room, without a porch or any width, & the 2-wheelers are stowed in the rooms itself. I did not know that houses may stand directly on main roads & truckways. Only the streets held houses. The first street after the main road was separated from it by an open field, or a plantation of Teak.  We used to play on the streets, but not always, because there were so many open spaces unused, enough for a decent badminton court, & even a children's street cricket ground. The teak plantations were later additions, "reforestation" efforts. Can rectangles of 60 teaks at 50 places inside an industrial township do the planet good? I do not know.

What I know is that it was my way. My way of life, my way of town, my way of roads, streets. I learnt to ride the bicycle on the streets. I learnt to roller skate on the streets. When I roller skated down the main road, 2 neighbour uncles complained to my parents about my unsafe play in the traffic. The traffic which was a scooter every 2 minutes, a 3-wheeler every 5 minutes, & a car in an hour. Sometimes, we won't feel like playing, we would sit down & chat. There were some weird cement structures jutting out of the open spaces. Then there was the old rusted "stage" which had, at some point, used for a speech by Indira Gandhi. I remember stomping all over it, listening to the gong of vibrations with every step. I remember sitting on those low rails discussing "secrets" with Renu. And, once, I was below the stage, with Kiran, with a watch, we were timing  & counting heartbeats. Kiran was one of the brats who climbed the supporting pillars rather than the stairs. It made my skin crawl to just think of scraping myself on the fully surface rusted pillars!!

Chasing dragon flies with Amit in the monsoon. I knew he was going to kill them, impale them, use them as bookmarks, I knew that was unspeakably cruel, but I just went along. Now that I reminisce, I am completely lost as to why I needed so bad to camaredize with him? Was I trying to check whether I was a tomboy? I was in serious identity crisis around age 8. As far as I remember, he hardly managed to catch any insects, his technique was to hand-catch their wings, & even if he did, I made him leave them. But I remember Red, Green AND Blue insects with crystal wings ... they were beautiful ... & he probably only needed to assert that he was quick & silent enough for them.

In the monsoon, the open spaces turned green. So green, it would hurt your eyes if you weren't a crazy green-lover like me. When we were older, & the boys played only cricket, I took Renu to one of the triangular patches, the one between the last two streets & the main road on the hospital side. The one beside an abandoned bus stop. I've seen enough snakes in my time. With Amit, as well as with Renu. Wonder what my parents thought about that! But , we were brought up in "benign neglect", as specified by Sarita Talwai. Besides, in my family, snakes were never killed, only chased away. Not due religious beliefs, but my mother simply believed that "every organism has a right to live. Don't hamper it till it is impossible not to". Yes, we do kill bacteria with antibiotics.

& there was the horizon. It was all around. I saw a few sunsets in my time. I saw a few sunrises. I can't anymore. There is no horizon. The city is all around me. The city of opportunities. Where can I go? Where is the horizon? Where will the horizon not be built up on by "development"? Where should I take a "transfer"?

Randomizer randomized random personal essay

I am so sad today, I decided to seek help in the form of a "random writing prompt". Google is still my search engine of choice. This phrase returned some results, the first of which I clicked.

Good topic. In the sense, a mood lifter, because my feet are a part of my body that I like. My feet are beautiful. For my height, my feet are smaller than people expect. People meaning those people who need to rush out from somewhere grabbing any which footwear available. My feet are also narrow. I'd say dainty, but it reminds me of the foot-binding process that I read in the "Golden Mountain Chronicles" series' first novel. 

My feet are great shaped. Nothing is crooked about them. My toes are long. There is space between all of my toes. My arches are terrific. The opposite of flat foot. In fact, I even have an arch each on the outside of my feet. A thin sliver of space/gap can visible from under my feet. Of course, why would one want to look there? Weirdly weird. Or perhaps foot fetish. Mr Deeds.

I have two left feet. It's as if all my dexterity is in my fingers. Not only can I not dance, I fall down. I slip on wet ground, I skid on the edges of narrow stairs, I stumble on stuff that should have been a foot (pun intended) to the left or right of where I'm walking through. I stub my toes where I'm consciously aware that there is furniture. I've taken 3 nasty falls, which has led to Chondromalacia Patella in left knee. This means I will get (some variety of ) arthritis, sooner than if I had not fallen.

I'm uncomfortable in heels higher than 2 inches. My lower legs bend forward if I wear such. I do not have a hobby of shoes as I have a hobby of handbags or earrings. I do like sensible shoes better. I hate wearing socks year-round. I was so happy when school ended & college started, because, there would be no more Uniform. Yet, I find socks comfortable in winter.

When I was in Class 9, when I was just developing breasts, When dressing for school, I would put on my brassiere & panty, & my school socks (cotton, white), & lie down on my bed ... facing the wrong side, & put my feet up on the pillows, & just enjoy having a nice body for a minute, before I continued wearing the rest of the items of my uniform (which, by the way, was a Salwar-Kameez). 

Feels good, feels reassuring to realize that I had a positive body image ( though a rotten "face image")

as a teenager.