STRAIGHT LINES.

When I was little kid like somewhere around the fourth grade, I was packed off in the afternoons of the summer vacation to a painting class.

There I remember,sitting on the ground in a circle around our teacher,a group of about ten.

The only sounds in the beginning being those of shuffling and sharpening of pencils and opening of pencil boxes, repeatedly erasing and retrying how to get our pencils to move along a straight line,highlighting it clearly,giving it definition visible to sight,making them stand up from the white oblivion.Magic.

 I also remember a very plump girl’s skirt that decided to do a Marilyn Monroe, just as she bent to pick up her pencil box to pack up for the day,a last minute sway, positioned me directly in line for a torpedo attack,were gaseous warfare to be declared.

Wrong positioning, but this time it was just kill by sight as the gentle breeze generated by the slow moving blades of the wooden fan,lifted the light cloth off its designated camouflaging position.The other sounds that Ithen remember are shocked intakes and two boys giggling away at the back.

Hence from my painting class I took away straight lines and a dimpled thigh,forever.

Straight lines have a way of evading most of us,it’s a difficult concept to lift off from a painting book and enforce it,over and above our itching little,twitching bodies.

Starting from school assembly lines which will be crooked till the class we graduate out from. Even though our monitor is entrusted with the sole job of military discipline, children shuffling in curved assembly lines remains a global phenomenon.

However from school on, most countries pick up and head straight off to the top of the line,and that’s where our little India gets confused. How to pick up and walk straight,is a genuinely puzzling concept to the common Indian,brought up on the 'tedhi ungli' lore and no its not a concept diluted with all the Whiskey in the system,and its not just in the poor confused Y chromosome in the family who gets everything first, it’s a general affliction or epidemic of Popeye adrenalin which works on the principle ‘so what’s wrong with a little shoving and pushing, if you are fighting for birth rights,while paying ‘chutta’{small change}first in a paan shop.”

Straight lines are they a personal stumbling block or a national stumbling mammoth disaster???

Its almost as we we struggle against asphyxiation if we are left grappling behind.

 In the Metro Queue or in the bank ATM line, thankfully I have graduated from running onto buses ,slipping past stinking shirts slippery with sweat, wading through masses of people,trusting people with my two rupees for the ticket,(yes it has been a long time) seeing the two rupees get relayed across the bus,and thankfully clutch the relayed ticket back, you would think that the amount of trust generated would put you at ease,yes it does, unless you start feeling the eyes.I am fighting a war on two fronts,one my peripheral vision is watching out for the cheeky men in the line behind me trying to get the seat right in front of me either willing to brush past, or happily brush against.Not really discriminating against the end results, both are great and sail his boat,or launch it should I say?

But its in car jams that we get seriously challenged to remember what’s straight…Its all those cars that creep past you to stand onto your right in a traffic jam,blocking a four lane two way road by nearly just climbing into the tree that stands planted well off the road,leaves saluting in the opposite direction,waiting to welcome traffic from the other side which would trickle through if it ever makes its way past our smiling neighbours,who mock our sedateness,through the car windows.We suddenly loose them,with head reeling speed,apparently their peripheral vision works fine too that or the goading by all the co passengers at the 5 mm opening in front,activates the accelerator.We loose them from our right wing only to be replaced by another like minded brother, who has managed to squeeze ahead to our right exploiting his 5 mm opening too.and because we are still reeling from the speedy exit of the first one we miss the celebratory glances of our new neighbours.

I Love straight,straight men,straight shots,straight flights,straight lines(except in my cupboard,where shapeshifting is a phenomenon that Stephenie Meyer could have picked up the concept from)

I also sometimes wonder at the missing straight when I am zealously guarding my spot in the metro ticket queue,which is absolutely ripe for a hostile take over if I slip my guard even for a bit,or in a hospital, waiting for the doctor to give me the time of the day,freeing himself of people who self importantly waltz into his office,I keep expecting them to be spat out,but they somehow get swallowed inside for the longest gestation period,they spin out with a very healthy unrepentant walk,right by our frothing brimming angry presence,only to ignore us in their healthy peachy existence,when our angry redness is getting enhanced only by our 103 degree Celsius fever.

 But focusing on the brushing past, somehow when the lazy, ambling generally snail paced regular,pot bellied Indian man,and why only man, Saree clad,soft spoken,chappal yielding Durga’s also reveal themselves when they  find themselves encountered by a straight line.

 They discover in themselves a propelling urgent desire to break free,its as if centuries of mothers food fed lathered with Ghee,and not being dramatic,maa ka doodh and tea served in bed,suddenly manifests itself in a display of speed and alertness and desire to be the winner in the race of money withdrawl in ATM queues,these Alpha males or Chappal wielding, feminist dialogue spouting,mini spitfires validate their presence, through these acts of breaking free from the system.seemingly reveling in this feeling of freedom of shoving which comes as fresh air, for their bound visceral mundane lives. Minor Seismic Vicissitudes of life.

 The Mystery of the straight lines is a question asked to me by many a foreign travelers to our country whose unwritten bible rules are never to get in the way of an overzealous Indian in a queue,if they are here just for two weeks,make way.

The other rule is that,if you are here for the whole six seasons, then the only way around is to perfect the snooty,ice cold stare that does seem to effectively freeze the semi ambitious muddlers, and part time line offenders.

A  question we most ardently discuss sitting on bar stools, flocking down from the celestial heights of our glassy,day chambers, sipping Cosmopolitans and Bloody Mary’s,bearing in mind we are all  of Aryan-Dravidian descent, and still 100% Indian, is “why can Indians not stay in lines?

This question we discuss animatedly,owning the rights to the critical subject,thanks to our genetic descents which are from the geographically same area,as the country we vote in.(hopefully vote in).

Each member provides deep insight into the psyche that needs to change at the grass roots,Or deeper still, the discussion of the 1.27 billion population being like a stumbling elephant.

(The poor elephant is now over burdened by the Indian heritage, he has been stumbling for so long in its epitomizing description of Indian-ness that the poor tusker may never wander onto the straight path,because it is scarred by the mammoth problems of New age India.)

Pressing the gelled hair back the guy on my table (not my regular company) passes a smile at all of us,probably doing a mental hi Five to his un-gelled,uncontrolled,savage ape man,alter ego, at  successfully distracting the waiter off his projected straight path. He tucks in a 500 note in his pocket ensuring a completely warped path for the waiter for the rest of the evening ,directly translating the slick gesture of monetary kindness to our placement STRAIGHT to the Top of the restaurants food chain.

I should really tell him off mmmmmmm next time..100% pakka,shachiiiiii…Ma kasam….;)))))whenever my genetic right to assert itself critically of its geographic genetic neighbours’ wakes up from the deliciousness of my watered and full existence.Next time i will come straight to the point.