Skip to main content

Small town, big heart

Pearl Jam's haunting ballad Gone is about someone seeking to escape the rigors and limits of small town life and chart a new course. While performing the song on VH1 Storytellers, Eddie Vedder quotes another song inspired by small towns, the late Lou Reed's Small Town in which he sings 'the only good thing about a small town is you know you want to get out.' 

Outside the cocoon of 24x7 wi-fi and artificially cooled air, is a world. It may lack many of the things that cities spoil us for choice with and numb our senses to, but it is definitely more real than the Truman Show lives of sameness that we lead.

There are two ways to explore a small town. One is to hire an AC cab, zip through landscapes and people, finish whatever you went for and return.

The other is to ditch the comforts and travel in their buses, walk on their roads, drink chai in their chai kadas and listen to their stories, hopes and dreams.

We traveled to a place called Gandikotta in Andhra Pradesh that is fondly christened the Grand Canyon of India. En route, while waiting for a bus, I asked a shopkeeper for directions. He then took my palm and predicted my future, which according to him, was as bright as the sun that was mercilessly showering us with its rays. He didn't extend a hand to ask for money, just sent us with his best wishes.

A little later, we alighted from the bus and refreshed ourselves with a couple of cool drinks at a stall. A couple of days later, we found ourselves at the same stall, tired and weary and a day spent  and the shopkeeper recognised us. Seeing us lugging our bags and the fatigue that was etched on our faces like a permanent tattoo, he offered us a seat and rushed out to get us an auto. Someone we probably would never see again in our lives went out of his way to see that we got a ride to our hotel.

In a small town, there is no wi-fi but the conversations are enriching. The flavours are local people aren't sizing you up as much as they are curious to know about you. There is one theatre, one mall, one station. For all of our progress, we have come to the sad realisation that more isn't the panacea. The homes haven't gotten a coat of paint in what seems like centuries but they radiate a warmth that cannot be described through tepid real estate advertising. The fields are lush and the dusk sometimes descends with a scary suddenness. A small town goes to bed early and rises early,and life and vitality are not frittered in the numerous charades that urban living throws at us in the guise of entertainment.

Life in a small town may seem it moves at a snail's pace and makes its inhabitants yearn to be a part of the rat race to nowhere.

Eventually, the big city lights will lead us all back into the arms of a small town.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

When an Iyer met an Iyengar

If you see my parents, they look like the quintessential arranged marriage couple. After nearly 35 years together, they still take care not to touch each other while posing for a photograph and my mother’s smile dangles precariously between a smile and a grimace. But this image discolours the truth a tad. Some 40 years back, they met at work, fell in love and got married. The talking point of the union being mom’s status as an iyengar and dad’s as an iyer. Simply put, the iyers and the iyengars are two castes of the Brahmin community, each, when given the chance, profess superiority to each other on all counts. If you listen closely, an Iyengar talking about an Iyer will say ‘Iyer a?’ in a condescending tone. And vice versa. Mom tells me that when she told her dad about the marriage, he vowed to stand by her at any cost. Dad never told me what happened, but allow me to hazard a guess. His mother (my grandmother), threatened to go on a fast unto death. My dad threatened to go

Rasam rice

Picture courtesy - Natasha Shiggaon Luthra On some days, Bangalore weather becomes nostalgic. And for some time, everyone is permitted to live in the past. On one such June day, the sun wistfully playing hide and seek and the clouds emitting just enough raindrops for an instagram photo, the weather flirting with winter, the craving for rasam becomes telling. Rasam. Rasam rice. Whichever, doesn’t matter. First, use your fingers to make space in the middle of a heap of rice. Don’t protest when the dollop of ghee gleefully sinks into the rice. The rasam should scald, otherwise the ride isn’t worth it. The flesh on your fingers crawl when you dip them into the rasam, but trust me, keep with it. No good thing has been known to ever come easy. The impatient wait for a few seconds and an insignificant morsel is savoured. Gooseflesh ensues. Slowly but steadily, bigger portions are savoured. to enhance the experience and attain nirvana, combine it with cr

#If life were like an instagram feed

I read a quote sometime back that went something like this - "Jealously is how much fun you think they had." At some point in the evolution of social media, quality of life began to be measured by a person's social media feed. And you think that person must be having the time of their life. No dull moment. No faux pas. Every moment so tailor-made to create a thing of beauty. You will be misled into thinking that people were waking up daily to a view so beautiful that it seemed right out of a tourism guide and that every meal was a Michelin rated gourmet style offering. If life were like an instagram feed, the day would begin on a cottage in the hills, a selfie with the morning mist in the background. Breakfast wouldn't be poha, idli, sambhar or anything that bears resemblance to the ordinary or everyday. It will be crepes with chocolate sauce, some orange juice, french toast with a side of bacon and waffles with maple syrup. You could use the filter 'Rise&#