ARC

There was a lec-dem yesterday at the Centre for Drug Research Institute. CDRI is a premier government funded research institute for biomedical research located in Lucknow. CDRI is located in Chattar Manzil Palace, where the regal nawabs of Lucknow once lived the good life. It is a huge magnificent building. If Nehru called dams the “temples of modern India” then surely research institutes like CDRI would be the reigning deities of the nation; strech the analogy further and you could imagine scientists as the “priests of modern India.”

The striking irony: A product of scientific rationalism like CDRI located in a palace that was built for a pre-modern way of life.

The lec-dem was by a distnguished scientist from the National Physical Laboratory (another government lab) who had just returned from Antarctica. This gentleman is the coordinator of India’s Antarctica project and has visited the icy continent twice! The lec-dem was organised with a view to share his experiences about his journey. But the subtext was to also introduce the audience to the potential to exploit Antarctica’s resources. More on that later.

The smiles, they
Broke open
In my heart
Like blooming flowers

I wrapped them in
My love
And gave them
To the wind

To whisper in
Your ears
And dissolve the
Sadness of distance

Reading a recent news report about the governments of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu ordering officials to stop the screening of ‘The Da Vinci Code’ in theaters makes me wonder if religious appeasement is not scaling new heights in India. Apparently, some Christian and other minority group’s religious sentiments are hurt by the film. This is strange considering that predominantly Catholic countries such as Italy, Brazil etc. have not banned the film. And even the Vatican did not call for a ban but has only asked Catholics to avoid the film. So I wonder if Christians in India have stronger feelings or do not agree with the Vatican over this issue? Or is it a perfect excuse to gain some political mileage by both the Catholic organizations and political parties rushing to please the former’s demands. After all, the book has been in print, has sold like hot cakes, and has been discussed to death for more than a year now. Why didn’t these people protest so strongly then?

I think these government orders set a dangerous precedent. Now the door is open for any group to demand a ban on anything based on the highly ambiguous argument that it hurts/offends their sentiments.

This also raises the issue of free expression. If we stifle dissenting views then how can new ideas arise? Whatever happened to freedom of speech enshrined in our constitution?

As I write this there have been fresh protests in Hyderabad by a Christian organization outside a movie theater, which was showing the film after a High Court judge quashed the government order banning the film, terming the order “as extravagant, arbitrary and wholly irrational.” Need I say more?

Cyclerickshaws are one of the modes of transport in Lucknow.

You can’t be very finicky about transport here because the public transportation system is so bad. Public buses were introduced a year ago and are still infrequent. There are no bus stops, so to board a bus you just wave your hand when you see one approaching and the driver stops just enough for you to hop in. Similarly to get off you yell at the driver to stop and jump off when he slows down.

Then there are the ‘vikrams’, basically motorised three wheelers that pack humans in like sardines. The Sumo SUV jeeps are even worse in this regard. You can barely breathe in one, let alone move. The stench of human sweat is nauseating.

There are ‘share’ autorickshaws, but these ply only on the major routes. So, despite personal misgivings and morals, you cannot afford to be too choosy about your transport. It is mix and match that gets you from point A to point B.

The sun is scalding the dusty streets outside as I walk towards the administration building. I curse my luck on getting some of the lousiest beats in Lucknow as a rookie reporter. Can’t be helped, since I am the juniormost.

I am covering Lucknow University and it’s not a pretty beat. Posters of 35 year old student leaders stare hostilely at you from every wall. These neta’s do samaj seva and use bombs, guns and knives to persuade the recalcitrant. I met Vinod tripathy and had an almost meeting with Ranjeet Singh Baghel, two worthies of LU. The gentlemen are members of the Student’s Union and hate each other’s guts. Their supporters regularly shoot and hurl bombs at each other in every imaginable place; outside the VC’s office, inside the hostels, under the bike sheds, in the ladies toilets and occasionally in jail as well.

I walk into the Pro-VCs room without knocking. I need some quotes from him. He sits in a run down room with red paan stains on the wall. I sit opposite him. He is talking into the phone and to two people at the same time. Once he finishes he stares at me from behind his half-moon glasses. Next, the pan stained mouth opens and he asks me what I want? I reply I am from the ‘meediyah’. He is instantly ingratiating. I begin asking him routine questions for my story and he parries wonderfully. He talks without revealing anything.

The room has a stale smell about it and the overhead fan whirrs disconsolately. His chaprasi is hovering behind him like a cork bobbing in the sea. He has a worried look on his mousy little face and a spitton ready for when his boss will put two fingers to his mouth and spit out a red stream of pulverized pan and beetel nuts. The air conditioner in the room is on the verge of break down.

I like riding through cities after midnight. There is a certain beauty to urban places when the roads are all but empty and the world rests in the shadows. The quiet wash of endless neon lights fighting the all encroaching darkness. The sensual swoosh of an occasional car passing by. The melancholic moodiness of roads stretching to the horizon. The wind surfing through my hair. The sudden rush of adrenalin racing through my veins in tune with the acceleration of the metal beast underneath.

Billboards, shining like beacons, scream overhead their neat middle-class dreams. The soft underbelly of the city is alive and kicking. The radium jackets of the night sweepers flashing here and there. A police car on the horizon on a routine patrol. And the utter stillness. It is this stillness of the night that makes me roam the roads. The stillness of a night at peace with itself. The stillness of sudden inactivity, a lull awaiting new chaos on the morn. The time between 12 am and 5 am trickles away like a light shower on a summer evening.

I slip in and out of unfamiliar streets, hit the big roads and then disappear into forgotten side-streets. I overtake the occasional vehicle on the road with supreme ease. As I pass a vehicle the guy in/on it nods at me. A polite acknowledgement of another person seeking the same moonshine. I look up. Ah, there he is! The guardian of the night in all his pockmarked handsomeness. His delicate light hiding more than it reveals.

But I saved the best for the last. The addas, the places only special locals know. The joints where lonely poets go to roost and welcome dawn with a hot cup of sweet chai.