Autokar Arumugam

Those were the days ......... days when human nature in general was less vile and wicked. Days when parents entrusted their children into the hands of maids, creche care-takers, tonga-riders and auto-drivers, all of them strangers and all without the indispensable MOBILE PHONE. I was entrusted into the hands of one such stranger when I was four. The auto-driver Arumugam. I called him auto-man or autokar(in my mother tongue) back then. The little ones like me, never got to SIT in the auto. We just hung out of the laps of older girls or metal grills in the auto. An auto meant for four would easily carry fourteen children and their school bags, most of which stuck to the auto defying all rules of physics. How I loved that auto, my deepest desire was to sit on the wooden bench that could be pulled up, opposite to the actual seat of the auto. Somehow I always ended up sitting on the metal bar instead. Every stop at the different houses to pick children up was interesting, some parents were kind enough to give all of us snacks to munch during out drive to school.

Above all these things the auto-driver was the single most important reason for making our trips to and from school a wonderful time. He would always talk, joke or occasionally yell to keep our minds off the congestion and lack of space in the auto. He would welcome every child as she stepped into the already crowded auto and greet the parents. As he started to move, he would ask "are you seated properly?. He had the knack of making every possible painful occassion light. When we had to wait in the evenings for bigger girls to come , he would play with us and chit chat with his stunning sense of humour and make us feel very good. When there were disruptions in the city that forced the schools to close, he would be one of the first auto-drivers to arrive,and take us all home safely- joking endlessly and getting us to forget that the city was actually tense. For all the small kids, he carried our bags saying, "are you a school girl or a donkey?, your bag weighs as heavy as a washerman's lot". Those silly things made me roll in laughter.

When I was eight I got very adventurous and went home by bus one day without telling auto-kar. The poor man had searched the school several times and came home to tell my grandparents that he could not find me. When I opened the door, he raised his hand to hit me,but then stopped himself. He scolded me severely, I was so ashamed that I had put such a loving man through an ordeal. In about an year's time we moved to a far away place and auto-kar was replaced by the town bus. My sister and I continued to recount the fun we had with auto-kar. I liked to look at the picture of one politician G.K.Moopanar, not because of his political ideals but because he looked so much like our beloved auto-kar.

Fourteen years later, when I was in college. At 8.30 am oneday, I heard an auto turn and honk."Rita......" I yelled to my sister "Autokar has come get your bag". I stopped and began laughing, we last went to school by auto when I was nine. As I kept thinking why I went back to childhood with one honk of an auto, I got the answer. Acts of kindness and love affect us in a special way and stay on in our subconcious forever. Even today when I hear the name Arumugam anywhere, I first think of him.

If he is still alive, autokar Arumugam must be 75. Is he dead or alive?, fit or frail?, active or ailing?. I dont know. But I am forever thankful that I had the opportunity of knowing such a benevolent man at such a tender age.

The question I will never ask my son

So often I over-hear mothers asking their little ones a questions and I tell myself "No I will never ask my son that question".
What will you be when you grow up? That is the most common and often repeated question. Mothers I asked claim that the question will set their children thinking about their future, would make them ambitious and will encourage them to study harder. I love the answers they receive, I will be a bus driver, a barber, I will be an engine driver, a policeman. I hear the mothers mutter things like" you are too young to answer that","Hey those jobs wont make you as successful as dad". I cannot stand the pep talks mothers give soon after the answers. "May be you should be a doctor, or a computer engineer, may be a bank manager". Thanks to the ignorance of childhood, the child sees heroes in the 'workmen', the barber, the cobbler, the tailor and the bus-driver.
How today's mothers and indeed parents have forgotten that all little children grow up to be characters- Chacracters they the parents influence heavily and will be formed before the child turns six. How they seemed to have forgotten that children are not born with the sole purpose of pursuing a career and making money. How they have ceased to remember that children are made in the likeness of God and they distort this God-likeness to petty ambitions and drives for success. How they fail to acknowledge that long before the lives of their children are over their careers will be over. Then these children will roam the face of the earth with bitterness and resentment, loneliness and sheer lack of identity.
I will never ask my son what he wants to be when he grows up. My desire is to bring up as a 'man after God's own heart'. So someday soon I will tell him what Martin Luther King said "If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well"

Airplanes

The mountains, the sea and the sky- they never cease to excite me.
On a dull and mundane afternoon, I just need to take a stroll and stare at the sky. The expanse, the colour, the clouds, the birds, especially eagles and the occasional airplanes just let my heart rise and fly. The emotion I experience, is one that no crazy roller coaster ride could give. I marvel, I sigh, I admire, I jump deep within, I blush, I think and I feel so small and insignificant. Then my dull afternoon becomes all so lively and I am happy and refreshed.
But my favourite is the airplane. My first memories of the airplane starts as early as my fifth year on earth. I still hear my uncles screaming "Hannah come, come!! look that is a jet plane". I saw a speck moving in the sky leaving two white lines that got wider and blurred out. "What is that I asked "ahem..... thats like the smoke that comes out of the silencer in your dad's scooter said one of my uncles". Till date those two lines turn me on like nothing else does
Then came the helicopters that would drop printed notices from the air, I would rush to pick them where they fell and then scream at the top of my voice as I ran under the helicopter imagining I was chasing it. I never bothered to find out what the contents of those handbills where. There was a famous pass time with the children of my neighbourhood to rush out at the sound of an airplane and scream "bye!, bye!". I truly appreciate the grown-ups around with us then;they never killed our fun saying "no one up there can actually see you". Over the years I started to guess where an airplane was heading from my city based on the direction it took. I was not right always but it was a good excercise to learn my north,south,east and west so well that I could understand when my grandfather gave directions to any place. He always said 'walk a furlong towards the east then turn north......... " he never said "walk straight turn left and then right".
When I was eight I flew in an airplane for the first time. Believe me!! looking down from up there for the first time was amazing. It dawned to me that all my waving at an airplane was seen by no one in the airplane. Somehow after nearly 25 years I still wave and say bye to an airplane in the sky. People dont think I am crazy because my three year old is standing beside me. What they don't know is that I could wave and yell even if I were alone.
The only man that has had a fright because of this habit of mine is my husband. When we were newly married we lived close to the airport. So depending on the direction of the wind, all flights that were landing or taking off went right above my house.Imagine my glee, I would rush out at the sound of every plane and wave and say "bye". My husband wondered if he had married a lady with a strange idiosyncrasy. Then I would scream" Honey that's a British Airways, and this one is Lufthansa, gee I can actually see the Airline names is'nt that cool?". He would only say a hesitant "hm......". Fortunately he soon realised that airplanes in the sky just made me a child momentarily and I was normal otherwise.
Airplanes in the night sky are magical. The blinking lights, the lights through the windows that remind me of the borders in rolls of old photograph negatives.Wow what a sight!
I reached the epitome of the joy of seeing airplanes in the sky a couple of years ago. Guess what? I saw an airplane from inside another airplane in which I was flying. It looked like a toy ,really tiny and seemed to float in space. It stays on in mind like a digital photograph.
I may travel far and wide on airplanes in the years to come, but when a grandmum I am, I will still wave at an airplane and scream "bye", maybe my grandchildren will save my skin ;).