Among the Ruins

Anecdotes from The Past - VII

Having gone from the idyllic pastoral rhythm of the surroundings to a bustling, overcrowded, cramped, over-populated, stench-filled, and brazen modern concrete townlet, Alwal is beyond imagining ruined.

We—the nostalgic old romantics—have much to say about our beloved town, but we merely confess good things and shrug at others while offering platitudes and dismissing criticism. Two of us from our friends' group of four have experienced a childhood filled with everlasting love and unutterable longing in Trishul Park during the 1990s. While the other two members moved here from other states and settled down in the gentle curves, breezy spaces, spectral expanses, and enchanting undulations of the land around the suburban country in the romantic north, at least a good seven kilometres away in the once-leafy cool cantonment from the laid-back twin-cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, which, regrettably, has lost its reputation as a laidback city of pearls, glittering bazaars, and quiet neighbourhoods, but instead has turned into an incredibly bland metropolis, a starkly indifferent urban sprawl of IT—Information Technology—soaring to the skies in ominous-looking spires of steel, concrete, and glass.

(I've my poetic cap on today. Software developers of the so-called forward-thinking, contemporary IT industry have—believe it or not—sunk into endless standup meetings, wherein talented Agile engineers and undeniable Scrum masters discuss bugs, codes, hotfixes, deployment, etc., chasing years of agonizing struggle and sneaking around with their sleek LinkedIn profiles in tow while also downing Java coffee, have produced decade after decade full stack nothingburgers that you can neither see nor feel crap.

A del key is all it takes to erase your digital-binary output, so chill. That's how working in IT is done, which—according to my memetic chicken thoughts—is not nearly as glamorous as it once was. I wish my competency (or lack thereof) lay elsewhere. If only I were an Explorer or Author or at least wiser at whatever I am not. (Access denied!) So, do you wonder, then, why people leave? Hey, chuck this if you can because we need a meme break, don't we? "I want this task done by EOD." I'm like...ROFL (rolling on the floor laughing!))

**

We still manage to live among the ruins of the nostalgic yesteryears: our lovely past, but all we have left to perceive about this ruined, cheek-by-jowl town are great memories that live on in our hearts. In the past, this small town had an abundance of sky and vegetation, like serene greenery beneath bright sunlight and beautiful twilight pools of sparkling starlight and night blackness under the silvery moonlight: Sky, clouds, trees, open spaces, Trishul Park, Alwal, that kind of thing. But, I'm sad to say, it's hell out here today. Life is no good in Alwal.

**

I remember those days when Raju and I used to jog around Trishul Park or the Sub Area. We loved jogging or running, but once Raju left, I never felt the same desire to go for a run. We used to sprint through rain-soaked meadows and desolate open landscapes in the Sub Area during our sporadic jogging days in the 1980s. Then, afterwards, too tired to continue running, Raju and I would sit on the grass, luxuriating in the subtle curves of the lonely roads on which we jogged early mornings. There was scarcely anybody on the road back then and no vehicles. The environment everywhere was fresh, breezy, and serene. We had no idea or felt any need to know what air or sound pollution was like because those things didn't exist and didn't matter to anyone as there was nothing the matter to be concerned about because there was no pollution back then, zero pollution. Life was so good back then. "Life was sounder when technology was more spartan." So true.

Angular old trees are still in evidence but are passing a slow death. Some of these magnificent trees, which have stood for decades, have been chopped down to create room for additional asphalt and concrete roads in Alwal, where traffic is increasing by the day, population growth is exponential, and air, water, and plastic pollution is a disaster which even destroys human life. Everyone wants to construct their houses and apartments and will have no shame or remorse to chop down anything that comes in the way of their unrepentant aspirations. The age-old peepul, neem, and banyan trees that were once so comforting, soothing, tender, and affecting and dreamt a gentle pastoral dream decided they no longer wanted to live. They did not want to be in these once lovely wooded landscapes of tall grasses, bushes, meadows, and country lanes where birds cooed and flowers blossomed in abundance; instead, they wanted to wither away and die. They just wanted to be permeated with the Alwal countryside forever and ever.

Those tall, swaying trees are gone; the relentless march of people toward pointless affluence and meaningless wealth was too great for them to survive. My great friend Raju would have been devastated to see this, as I'm heartbroken by this slaughter. History doesn't repeat itself; those who say it does must be demeaning themselves. Where are the night jars, the skylarks, the shalik birds that talked noisily, and an occasional sighting of a kingfisher or a parrot or two?

This quiet little town had a charm of its own that, sadly, had waned over the years of its relentless development that brought all kinds of numbing traffic, cement dust, population explosion, and mindless pigeon-infested apartment buildings, hot tar roads expanded to the limits, filling every inch of all available spaces with hardened cement roads. All kinds of refreshment kiosks (encroachment kiosks?), stands, booths, stalls, vendors, and open-hawking counters have illegally encroached on the sidewalks as if they have been developed exclusively for their wares. Haphazardly parked two-, three-, and four-wheelers—often, the rudest and the rowdiest, devil-may-care drivers or riders hanging out, with flagrant chutzpah and bouts of insecurity high on their “yo-yo-bro” cult agendas, who only know how to be guilty of misconduct, roughhouse badly, like the veritable king of the road—are the ultimate transgressors violating the purpose of sidewalks. Give it to these hominid skunks: They own the damn roads! Road rage is all the rage these days. In a world of amorality and shamelessness, they reign supreme.

Unfortunately, this lonesome town is no longer lonesome. Alwal town has declined into ludicrous affluence. The old way of life has unhappily met a lamentably heart-breaking end, and its old-timers, like me, no longer dream their pleasant pastoral dreams of self-sufficiency and belonging. Gone is the easy familiarity, that old-time sense of place, time, space. Suburban Alwal, like its twin-city counterpart, was formerly well-known for flaunting its easy, laidback way of life, blissfully free of all the accoutrements of city living. Today, the town has given way to a hectic, noisy, and worrying life no old timers like. But one must learn to get accustomed to and continue to act as though nothing drastic is happening around you or that one can do anything about. So, we unmindfully dismiss all the conspicuous failings and the obvious flaws that the twenty-first century is bringing out, including the failures of our human society, while completely disregarding all the aggression that accompanies attitude annoyances in some people. Nothing else can exist between the two extremes we see today in our so-called modern world: you either live or become extinct (or, as the saying goes, become irrelevant or "pension eaters"). The choice is yours. There's no love. Nobody is true. Nobody cares.

For those who cherish nostalgia, the past—with all its familiar history—is never meant to be forgotten. The good old days have found a sanctuary in our hearts and minds forever. I've now realized that history never ends and that the past, despite the future, will always ache in our hearts. No matter what you say about anything in life, you will always cherish your nostalgic memories, which you will never forget or omit from the present or even stop thinking about in the future. Memories are everywhere in our lives.

Alwal, once a tranquil and peaceful place, has now transformed into a well-known neighbourhood, but it is difficult for me to recognize or connect with it any more than I do with its distant past. Despite the changes, I hold onto my memories of growing up in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s in Alwal, and I know that it can never return to what it once was. Nevertheless, by some good fortune, I have all my memories safely in my heart, where they will remain forever—for eternity.

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

The Ruins of Time

Anecdotes from The Past - VI

1990s, Alwal
On most Sunday evenings, when we were in our late teens and early twenties, Armstrong, Sunil, Sateesh, and I used to cross the main thoroughfare of Alwal to this new bakery store on the corner of S. Talkies to sample the puffs, cream rolls, fluffy bread buns, onion samosas, and sweet-smelling bakery biscuits and pastries.

Consequently, I developed a strong fancy for cream rolls, Sateesh for puffs, Armstrong for bakery biscuits and onion samosas, and Sunil for pastries. I sometimes overindulged in cream buns, often taking money from my mom to buy them from the new bakery. (If Raju had been with me in the 1990s, I'd have introduced him to my new friends Armstrong, Sunil, and Sateesh, and we'd have been lifelong friends.)

Then things changed, albeit a little slowly, in the mid-90s. Thanks to the economic liberalization of our country and unrestricted capital flowing, the corner bakery shop we frequented not very often had to close down — it, however, reopened in the inside lane and seemed to have flourished as one of the famous bakery shops in the locality and soon other clones were selling similar bakery stuff, but not as good as the first-ever bakery store of Alwal. But in the last three decades, with unrestricted capital flowing, a lot has changed in Alwal unrecognizably. There used to be garden-like spaces around the town—all that has disappeared completely. Cycling around is a strict no-no, and walking on the roads is like propagating a death wish, driving a vehicle is a hellish experience, and so on and so on. The old world charm that we loved, valued, and related to has disappeared, and in its place has come this new-age techno-digital life—about which the less said, the better it is—that has given rise to this phantasmagorical fear and anxiety that everything will ultimately collapse, nothing will be the same. Nothing remained the same except a handful of long-standing friendships, and everything else had become beyond reach or understanding.

Every year, an increasing number of Alwal's open spaces, vacant lots, and open lands are disappearing to feed the voracious appetite for housing development and ever-expanding new sections of roads, which has led to habitat loss and habitat destruction in the local ecosystem of the area. The few remaining plants and birds in our town and countryside are either dying or have vanished entirely, or whatever little is left exists in withered condition or dying. It breaks my heart to say that Alwal's breezy open spaces and landscapes have all vanished. Sparrows and crows are gone.

God, there is not a single sparrow in sight these days. Common crows have disappeared. Pigeons, who at once are coy-looking but quite aggressive, have taken over Alwal's landscape, leaving their excrement all over the buildings, parapets, patios, balconies, and railings! They have become a menace everywhere; you can hear them constantly cooing in a guttural manner on balcony parapets and in the nooks and crannies of buildings, eyeing everything that moves. The pigeon population has increased so much that it feels like we live in a jungle overrun by feral pigeons. Pigeons have taken over; they are in charge. Likewise, not to speak of the high-rise private, residential, and commercial buildings that have sprung up everywhere in every possible direction. The ever-growing human population and its materialistic consumerism have taken over everything, leaving no space for people to breathe in, move around freely, or play ball. Friends are parting, and friendships are dying because people have become excessively busy abusing Tabs, iPhones, and other high-tech digital devices to spend quality time together; personal relationships are also gradually deteriorating at a rate that is nothing but shocking to comprehend. People used to talk a lot more in the past generations, but not anymore in this hypersensitive era of techno kerfuffle—foolishly reckoning with the “mental inside” motto, moving over “intel inside.” As the 2000s went on, we became, I think, less argumentative as a society, becoming less aware of the benefits of having some time to spend in good conversations or engaging in meaningful debates. The question, however, did not change; it remained the same ever since the advent of free market capitalism in the early 1990s: Is this the kind of life we aspired to?

Ostentatious concrete houses, multi-storey apartments, and other towering constructions have unfairly occupied the lung spaces, permanently blocking the sunlight from coming. No one can salvage what little (or nothing) is left now. Human life, which is already miserable, is vanishing into infinite nothingness. Every vacant, unoccupied, available area, not to mention the open countryside, has been taken to turn them into elaborate plots for reckless housing developments. Tall stacks of towers that defy common sense and gravity, including all manner of ‘affordable housing' are built stratospherically upon them—a monotonous concrete ecosystem that constitutes Alwal town’s commercial and residential properties with the promise of high amenities! Not just a one- or two-floor plan for a private residence, but a minimum built-up area of three to four floors with a scandalous penthouse on top has become a compulsory need these days! What can anyone do to stem this rampant ‘development’ rot from spreading so widely in towns and the countryside? Nothing! The world will 'move on' with all its resident peccadilloes intact in people's minds. No one can stop anything from happening. Indeed, some stay sane, others become insane. Go nuts.

Children cannot play outside, and elderly senior citizens cannot go out for fear of being struck by a car or a speeding ass-hauling motorbike. (Sorry to use an expletive). Adults look around askance with contempt, unable to stop this humiliating ride of our human civilization, shameful inhumanity that hits them where it hurts every day, but helpless to change or do anything about it, they keep compromising their way of living or the way their life is going. The stress or tension of life is palpable everywhere, as it is throughout this rampantly being developed city; in Alwal, there is even a hint of viral phobia in the air when local goon-lords, who have been gymming up to flaunt their body heft, show up to hang out with their fellow brethren in the town square and create a mafia-like nuisance on Alwal's many roads leading to the inside colonies. 

Like everywhere else in this increasingly urbanized concrete jungle of a town that has gone from sleepy to frantically agitated, it's tough as hell out here. Only the ungrateful, bloody-minded, and ungraceful are allowed to live here; others must suffer the nightmare, one way or the other. The price you have to pay for being foolishly candid.

(To be continued…)

By Arindam Moulick

Everything Has Changed

Anecdotes from The Past - V

Today, life has changed not only because of the COVID-19 pandemic but also other inhuman challenges that go on unabated and unresolved, no matter how fair our intentions are. Consequently, this is a no-holds-barred description of the town it ultimately had become and in which I live and still love.

Living in Alwal, which was once a true paradise for me and my unforgettable childhood friend Rajveer (Raju), these days feels like being in a high-stress war zone. Raju moved out a long time ago, and fortunately, he didn't have to witness the drastic change in our childhood cantonment town where we grew up in the 1980s. Alwal had transformed beyond recognition.

Alwal is hardly the same as the once-spacious suburban town where we grew up; it has changed so much in the last few years. These days, it typically feels like we are subjecting ourselves to the daily wrangling of one Shakespearean tragedy after another. These are the same catastrophes that, in Raju's dorm, we used to read about in comic books years ago.

Traffic signals every few meters, bureaucratic obstacles, and detours abound on the main road that this town has only but one. Police checkpoints are frequent, which makes your drives even more challenging. To add to the infernal chaos, the variety of vehicles on the road, including new cars, SUVs, cabs, bike taxis, itinerant scooters, and motorbikes that move unpredictably, erratically, zigzagging, scampering, and manoeuvrings like helter-skelter making it terrifyingly gruelling for other drivers to navigate - all contribute to the PANDEMONIUM. Auto-rickshaws (like their infamous state government bus drivers), who are the de-facto abusers of the already cranky transport system and a continual source of aggravation for those who put up with their nonsensical hero-giri, add to the humungous transportation woes of the once quiet and peaceful town.

Furthermore, it is a common occurrence that overloaded trucks and tipper lorries are almost always driven recklessly by unkempt lunatics, traveling bullies, and vagrant harassers. The scruffy crackpots show off their inflated egos by dressing silly in oversized and goofy-looking sunglasses and flaunting their false sense of importance and heft to make people uncomfortable or to cause distress and agony (even when not provoked) to others, causing distress and endanger other drivers. Despite what you and I would like to believe, things are not improving in our world.

**

Mean-spirited and ever-ready to erupt into violent road rages at any moment have become the norm on any given day, not just in this once-beautiful, hallowed, far-off town but everywhere. In our constantly chaotic days and nights of this century, the ever-present problem is ubiquitously and universally tedious and has come, unfortunately, to represent all our troubled lives.

Our days are thrown into permanent disarray.

Alwal town looks starkly different than it did 20 to 30 years ago.

Our small commuter town was long ago known for lush greenery and some of the scenic expansive spaces one might ordinarily expect in a spacious suburb like the one behind the now demolished cinema theatre called S. Talkies, which does not exist anymore, as well as the Sub Area, which has preferred a more spruced-up look of late. The Army-controlled Sub Area had raised several gates around its extended domain to prevent civilian movement, trespassing, or undue interference with the Army's legitimate right to protected property and operational security. Our old Trishul Park campus is also an out-of-bounds Army-protected area, rightly designated as off-limits to unapproved public access.

S. Talkies was a decent single-screen "family" theatre. In addition to Hollywood blockbusters like First Blood and Rambo, we saw films such as Naseeb, Namak Halaal, Tarzan, Souten, Laawaris, Nagina, Mard, Andhaa Kaanoon, Ilzaam, Teri Meherbaniyan. However, it, too, fell prey to the voyeuristic patronization of all things 'Adult' and the sleaze-biz of lousy exotic foreign flicks, which we never saw, not even one.

In the late 1980s, the S. Talkies had degenerated into a venue that showed B-grade English and Hindi films. It ran for two more decades, screening all kinds of movies. Probably, in the early 2000s, the proprietor, who owned the old-fashioned theatre in partnership with others, preferred post haste to sell the entire land to a private real estate contractor who promptly demolished the old theatre and built in its place a jumbo-sized ugly-looking residential cum commercial complex that defied common sense but perhaps excellent business sense! Washing his hands off the property, the proprietor, a very decent man though, opened up a bakery shop soon after and got his young and only son to keep the new enterprise up and running. With its organized biscuits platter, onion samosas, dairy milk chocolates, spongy brown cakes, cream rolls, and pastries displays, it was the only bakery shop in the whole of Alwal town; back in the early 1990s, there was no other bakery shop barring this. The current owner and proprietor of the bakery is the original proprietor of the S. Theatre's son, who took over from the late owner: his father, who, sadly, passed away a few years ago.

**

Raju had already gone into the distant past in the summer of '88 after writing his ninth-grade final exams. As I write this today, I am grateful to God that he was not present to witness these weird and dreadful changes in our old home of Alwal or Trishul Park; he would not have approved of any of it. On the other hand, however, as staying here would have undoubtedly resulted in my having to stoically endure the continual pain of observing these drastic (unlikable) changes first-hand, I regretfully bore the brunt of all that came later, had to. I genuinely wanted to escape it all forever but was unable to. And as time passed, I continued passionately to long for the good times I had with him. Having a nostalgic bent, I forget nothing.

Alwal has changed forever.

(To be continued...)

By Arindam Moulick