Goodbye Lenin!

Imagine you wake up one day to find that the world as you knew it has turned upside down…. That which was profane is suddenly sacred, that which was fiendish is suddenly saintly, that which was adored has now been cast aside… What would you do? This is what happened to Christiane Kerner, when she awoke from her 8 month long coma in an East Berlin Hospital in the autumn of 1989… She was a proud, socialist citizen of the German Democratic Republic, but within these 8 months, her Socialist homeland, the paradise of workers and farmers had ceased to exist.. except in her head… 'Goodbye Lenin!'  is an amazing description of the travails of the Kerner family and the emotional roller coaster that the family embarks on to preserve the now-dead Socialist fatherland for the sake of Christiane.

It is easy for us, 20 years later, to say that the wretched communist system was bound to fail before the burgeoning power of the Capitalist West. But for those who lived it, It was the only life they knew. State subsidized education, State sponsored welfare, long queues for foodstuffs, cars, whose deliveries took decades… so on and so forth… May be they hated it, may be they loved it… What is important is, they lived it… They got used to a style of living, where life proceeded at its leisurely pace… There was none of this madness about time and advertising and marketing…Even our parents' generation, used to a semi-socialist Nehruvian lifestyle are today at times amazed at how "easily" we get things and how there are maddening choices and cut throat competition for everything!

This life suddenly met its full stop in the revolutions that engulfed East Europe in 1989-90. A whole lifestyle came to an abrupt end. And with this end, an entire generation that had breathed and lived this lifestyle, found itself struggling to comprehend the enormity of change that had overcome them… Most of them stayed afloat, armed with the skills that their previous lifestyle had provided them… A few went down under… Christiane Kerner was one of them… She lived for her Socialist homeland, and even though she personally detested it, she remained loyal and committed to it till the end came… Both for her and her Socialist fatherland.

Goodbye Lenin! along with Das Leben der anderen and Der Baader-Meinhoff Komplex are some of the best movies to watch on a country whose very existence was an aberration but which lived its life, sometimes reaching for the stars and at other times convulsed in epileptic seizures… And while we are still on the subject of the German Democratic Republic, I strongly recommend a reading of Stasiland by Anna Funder to understand better the strange but enrapturing world of the German Socialist Fatherland!

Here is to the GDR!

"Alles mit dem Volk

Alles durch das Volk

Alles für das Volk! "

Ganpati Bappa Morya!

Ganesh idols in different hues

Hawa Mahal shaped Pandal

Dagdu Sheth Ganpati inside the Pandal

Old Pune was the place to be in today. Streets decked up, shops decorated, crowds milling, giant pandals and what not. The whole place seemed to be reverberating with some mysterious energy. Everyone knew today was Ganesh Chaturthi, but the pandals were still empty, their emptiness magnified by their immense size. But the crowds, they kept on growing- Ladies in traditional attire, holding plates of offering, Men with their foreheads decked with tilaks and the kids mingling with the crowds, yelling "Ganpati Bappa Morya".

And then suddenly, the crowds went berserk... A huge shout erupted from one end of the street... Before you could even make sense of what was going on, the sound of drums broke through the place. Dholaks and Mridangs and young men representing their Mandal beating their instruments ferociously as Lord Ganesh came into view- aesthetically coloured, decked with ornaments, stationed on a beautifully furnished cart, making its way to its ornately decorated Pandal- as though announcing his presence!

Cries of 'Ganpati Bappa Morya' resonated through the air as Ganesh made its way to the pandal. Crowds, spontaneously broke into a dance. There was no caste, no class, no religion- just India- The way it is and the way it should be. The foreigners, bemused looked on, as some of their compatriots joined the dancing crowds.

It reminded me of Durga Puja in Kolkata 3 years ago. There too, I had seen the same level of fervour, excitement and oneness that just grows on you. For a farji Marathi like me, this was my first Ganesh Chaturthi and I loved every moment of it!

Damn the Autowallah!

Thats it! The vilest, most evil and the most god forsaken bunch of people on the face of this earth are the autowallahs! Yep, they are a distinct group- bloodsucking, rash driving, rude talking, bunch of thieves- Thats what they are. And I am not going to apologize for generalizing so brazenly! Be it Delhi, Bangalore, Bhopal or Pune, these autowallahs are there not to serve people but to fleece them! They don't give a damn to sarkari rates and their meter is just another gizmo or another accoutrement in their glitzy vehicle adorned with pics of ex-heroines who are now grandmothers! 

It just keeps happening! You haggle with an autowallah, agree to pay 100 for what you know for sure costs 80 and then when you get down, you haggle again, 'coz either the distance was longer or there was a traffic jam or its suddenly turned dark or the clouds are on the horizon! And don't be deceived when an autowallah agrees to go by the meter, it only means you're screwed! A meter that runs is more dangerous than the dead one! Oh and when you desperately need an auto, the autowallah will bluntly refuse to indulge you, if you insist, he will quote an outrageous price that will make your blood boil! And the worst part is, that in this country of Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal, there is noone to raise his voice against the tyranny of these autowallahs. I mean they are all politically-connected. Everytime they want to raise fares for whatever flimsy reason, they just go on a strike and you are left with long queues of people waiting to get to office or home or wherever. The government is only glad to buckle under the pressure- they are an important vote bank now aren't they!

And so there seems to be no end in sight to the tyranny of these autowallahs. Well, lets admit it, those who can afford it, will call those cool cabs and those who can't will travel by state buses. It leaves only those who are sandwiched in between. And since these losers (myself included) definitely don't count, I guess La terreur of autowallahs will continue!