Gushing death flows past the forty-plus us in a torrent of election results, prisoner exchanges and stampedes. Taxes get cut, interest rates give a wink and hopes of early retirement go up. Abstract dreams of a life in organic farming or a second innings in service of that abandoned, unrewarding vocation cry out as antidotes to this crazed world of Musk and Trump, or the anaesthetic helplessness inside the womb of this Modi-Yogi trap we reside in. But they fail to beat the inflationary math of a five star vacation every retired year. So we buy stocks on the dip, polish our resumes to add another star to our skills constellation and check our queue position for tickets to the next big concert in town - in our search for signs of life.
The city's heart is beating, and it gives a fuck.
It beats under the front wheels of the Yulu dex that carries a box of kakori kabab to accompany my single malt. The Yulu bounces on a road that got made when thousands of bicycles, bikes, rickshaw-vans fitted with salvaged motorbike engines and garbage trucks ferrying working people rolled over spilled garbage, for months and years. Walking the same road came Shamima, holding her son's hand. Shamima had seen an ad on the mygate app for a second-hand bicycle that my son outgrew. She comes to the same society we live in, to work every day, but hasn't come back with the hundred rupees she promised me in leiu. I know she will, even if only to pay it forward, someway.
It beats with the eloquent strumming of the Stratocasters of the Fukesh Trio, who, along with their boisterous friends in the front seats of that Fat Chef evening a month back, made the blues feel like IV drip for dehydrated souls. Beats of life appeared right in front of us, as they huddled for a post-show communal smoke - just an apparition for those who have lost the magic password.
Life beat in the words of a group that chose unfairness as the topic of their keystone project. They are only grade five kids, in an international school, insulated in every possible way from the ravages of greed that we wilfully deny our participation in. And yet it struck to them as meaningful enough to investigate why they do not shake hands with a wretched who knocks their rolled up Volvo window at a traffic signal.
Vaishnavi has recently moved to Bangalore. In that open mike Saturday afternoon at the Jagriti Theatre, this twenty-something's opening was shy, as she wrapped her Instagram-handle-name-change-on-a-night's-whim into a semi-humorous anecdote. But minutes later, she dug deep into her wounds and read a couple of poems. The audience paused, and soaked it all in. Also in the audience was an actor, playing the role of Urmila (Lakshman's wife) from the play, Jo Peechhe Reh Jaatein Hain, running that day at Jagriti. She was taking a break before her second run that evening. Vaishnavi did not have plans, but as Urmila asked her, won't you be at my show, she said, why not?
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