Thursday, August 23, 2007

Chennai Day Special - Total Rant: Tree killers!

What is the ugliest, most obscene sight I have seen in recent times? You perverts out there may put away your mental images. I just meant the sight of beautiful, strong trees in their prime having their roots exposed to the sun.

This is in protest of the government-sanctioned tree killings that have been going on recently on G N Chetty Road. This used to be a beautiful tree-lined avenue and just entering it on a hot day, you could feel the temperatures drop at least a degree.  But recently in the name of PROGRESS (don't make me laugh!) at least 10 trees have been slashed down. For what? To build a frickin' FLYOVER. What it all boils down to is this:

The bloody traffic police don't care about controlling traffic, making sure rules are followed. Oh but wait, they do! But only when their finances are low and they need so ready cash. Then they'll stop people for all reasons, take their money and send them on their way. If you're wondering where this is leading, let me attempt an explanation. So, basically, these idiots can't maintain discipline and so traffic jams up like crazy. And what do they do? No, they don't make sure people don't do idiotic things like jumping signals, respectiong "stop" lines. No, they decide to build a flyover which will only encourage more rule breaking and traffic and create horrible bottlenecks and snares in traffic (Gemini flyover being a prime example). Oh, but that's ok... All that's going to be wasted is the tax money of fool citizens who cough up. And oh, as a sidenote, a bunch of green-and-brown props on the side of the road. Trees.

Murder. That's what this is. Am I being melodramatic? Good! I don't give a damn. People just need to get melodramatic about things like this. Forget the fact that these trees, tall, lush and majestic have taken DECADES to grow (eyewitness accounts, thanks to my family that's lived in T Nagar since forever), fighting against impossible Chennai summers, putting up with graffiti and disfigurement, etc. Forget the fact that trees actually have life and as much rights to live as a human beings. Forget the fact that trees are fricking scarce in chennai! Let's forget all that and be the usual materialistic, self-centred human beings and come down to practicalities. These trees give SHADE. Now that's essential in blisterin' ole Chennai. And hello?! Are we forgetting things like oxygen cycles, ecology and global warming? What happened to all the environmental awareness? This is EXACTLY why the human race is doomed and is also sending the rest of the planet to its doom.

In college, the dear central government has added to our already heavy workload with a core paper called Environmental Studies. As I said before, don't make me laugh. Cos I might just get hysterical (as if i'm not now!). Talk about irony!

Friday, August 10, 2007

Smug.

Studying literature is brilliant. As I keep saying, I am so glad I didn't decide to study something like engineering or medicine or history or even psychology. I'm not saying this out of some sort of reverse snobbery (well... maybe a little), but out of sheer genuine gladness. I doubt anything could be so immensely satisfying as reading a Shakespearean play or a beautiful poem, dissecting it, examining the pieces and then putting it all back together and discovering with awe and wonder that it is even more beautiful than before.

Take modern poetry for example. When I stepped into the first year class, I had some quite decided opinions on it, based on some poems of Nizim Ezekiel (who I still detest, by the way) that we were prescribed in school. This can't be poetry, I'd decided. Where are the beautiful rhyme schemes, the rhythms, the structure that pleases the eye? But somewhere between Arnold's Dover beach and Eliot's patient etherised upon a table... somewhere in Hughes' amazingly clear imagery and through the quiet beauty of Harjo's poetry, I fell in love and have not gone back. Now I find myself drawn like never before to the poetry section of Landmark.

I still don't know why the building I live in is built in a certain way. I have not the foggiest clue about calculus and what little trig I crammed is long forgotten. I have embarassingly little knowledge about many important things in life. But I doubt any other discipline would have helped me discover the wonders of Kant, the obscurity of Hegel... How every opressor must one day be opressed, what goes around comes around... How Jung is perhaps unfairly overshadowed by Freud and how Indian writing in English is not as boring and depressing as I thought it was... How there are more greys than either black or white in this world... How humans are humans whether they lived in Ancient Rome or present-day India... How everything in the world is a great, huge, amazing, dizzying circle. So all I have to say is...

Studying literature is brilliant.

Disclaimer!

The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of my employer, not necessarily mine, and probably not necessary.