Dyanora TV to Fashion TV

Nothing can be more painful than seeing both sides, rather extremes of life within the same span of time. I went very close to such painful & pleasurable experiance in the last 2 weeks.

I had been to Tanjore last week and had to meet real "bottom of pyramid" (thanks to prahladh .. u no more call them poor) households. Women who were shabbily dressed, the greased paint on the cup in which they offered me native tamil hospitality, clamouring sound of aluminium plates, the multi-plastered circuit board, the hay and cow dung that were spread in what they call as 'thinnai' (elevated platform in the entrance of their houses, where the guest would sit till the head of the house arrives), roofs hittting you on your head(as if suggesting that you need to come down a bit into their world), small children who are running around naked (who rush into check the new laptop that you are carrying around ! they had hardly seen it before), head of the house clad in lungi greeting you with a frustrated smile, and more ..... This is what a low end spectrum looks and feels like.

I am not a very sophisticated person who have just lived in metros or one of those rich brats who dont give a rats' ass to the other side of the world. But, Its very painful even to acknowledge their daily life which is nothing just more than a fight for survival. When i see myself dressed in a fab-india kurta and lee jean, sitting their with my leg folded, I feeel odd. A little emotional in most aspects, i get deeply affected when i see such things. I start sympathising with them and begin questioning about the way they live and start listening to their cribs when my job is just to go there and get some answers.

But life at the other side is not too rosy. I was taken aback with the following conversation around me.

Kid 1 : look at that uncle na. he is from government( the only people they can associate with is the government when they see a man dressed in trousers) .

kid 2 : uncle, (pointing to my laptop) what is that ?

By this time, the lady who was taking me around had withdrawn from this crowd and had sat down at a most distant and decent looking place. I understood that she is not gonna follow me into the huts and started going ahead. I sit in one 'thinnai' and all the children are around me after having seen me with a laptop. I picked up on of those kids from the crowd and made him sit on my lap. The women who accompanied me gave a very puzzled, "what are you doing?" kind of a look.

Kid on my lap : (moving his hand around my pocket) Uncle do you have some nice shirts like this ? I dont have one.

It was bang on my emotional nerve. I knew i cant take it more. I told him i will get him some next time i meet him. I showed them a song from anniyan which was on my laptop. The instant smile that it brought of their face and the old women thanking me for being nice to kids were a few things, which i just can't forget ..... There are something that money cant buy ... Huh ! I had no anwers to the haunted look a child gave me when i got up to leave. She was in tears, so would i have been had i been there for a few more minutes.

The lady who had come with me asked, "I expected you to be a hip MBA student .... Have you been to places like this before?". I ignored the question and walked ahead. "She just does not deserve a reply", i thought. She continued, "Hello ! I asked you something". I smiled at her and said, " MBA student is also a human being ". She was not happy with my reply and i dint care about it.

Somehow, its my emotional part which i am just not able to harden as i grew up. After the last years Tsunami thing ( I was in the spot doing some small helps that i can), this again reminded me of the other side of life. My friend badri along with some helping group have started an orphanage for kids. I am also looking at doing something of similar kind in the future.

In the other side was the cosmopolitan life in b'lore. Last afternoon, after our work, I and abishek went to some pub called "Hints" ... On reaching there, we were told that some gentleman has booked the entire place for some private party. Huh ! He should have paid some lakhs for it. Then, we moved into a equally hip-lookin hotel called copper chimney which was adjacent to this 'Hints' in the 5th floor of Bangalore Central. From this hotel, we can see the entire bangalore. The hotel was brilliant and view was exemplery. What Next ? The same person who sympathised with poor kids a week back spent 500 bucks for a lavish lunch. Over a period of time, i had just grown very casual about spending huge amount of money.

But what i saw after than was something that shocked me. I asked for the way to the restroom and the person there directed me to a huge teak-finish doors. I was just startled. It wasn't just hat. I opened the door and there were huge mirrors on all sides and a brilliant couch on one of teh corners of the restroom. It would be atleast 600 Sq.Ft in size(60 % of our ppl live in houses which are smaller than that). The couch was too good and there were three metal wash basins which had been elevated to a height by plush looking bathroom-ware. Galssed everywhere and you just cant see dirt anywhere in that room. It was so neat and so plush. I went and pulled the zipper in front of the closet(or whatever u call it), and looked up ..... Oh God ! .... What is that ? there was small screen which had FTV running on it. Have you even pee-ed before looking at hot models cat-walking. If you have not, this is the place that you should go to. OMG ! i was just not able to beleive it. It has such a good A/c which wud freeze you to death and a brilliant architecture that was just out of the world by the standards of a restroom.

Man ! That is what life is all about ! The world is full of ironies .... We live with it happily untill the reality slaps you hard on the face. Even though the 5 minutes inside the restroom was enjoyable, the time i had spent thinking about the relavance of comparison of both sides of the world had been painful.

But at the end of the day ! Its just a hard reality and just does not deserve any argument ..... ITz all in the game .....

JK