Back in Hyderabad. What do I say about Arraku. Breathtaking. Beautiful. Bumpy.
Riding on bikes. Cold, bloody cold wind forcing its way through the jacket and biting. On roads, that can hardly support goats. Taking a peek inside small classrooms. Chai in the small dhabas. ‘New Annapoorna’ was my favourite. Eating bread omelettes. Considering I had given up on egg some years back, the stomach launched its own revolt.
I bow to the God who created Denim, and Bandanas. Without the first, a frostbite was certain, and without the second, baldness was assured.
But all this at the risk of romanticizing poverty? Never.
The poverty, and the neglect is there to see. Tribal communities, for some reason to be kept in little enclosures, like it is a zoo. And me an outsider, to evaluate. The relationship comes with so much power. It is so difficult to take a stand at times. At one level, you want to protect their culture, but not at the risk of making them relics. So perhaps the answers lies somewhere in the notion of ‘choosing’. Development is hardly the answer to centuries of imposed isolation and obvious neglect. Choice? Maybe.
Meeta and I had a wonderful time in Arakku. By the end of the day, too damn tired to raise a finger. But long conversations are always around the corner, aren’t they? One day, we got off the bikes, with frosty water on our eyelashes and eyebrows, and my skin breaking into hives, and laughed at ourselves. Maggi one night, and a strange parantha the other.
Had to come to office anyway today. Dead tired. Would love to crash. But such is the slave mentality. Will slog for you Master!
