The Recycling Man Brings Back Memories From Long Ago

We saw him pushing his rickety bicycle jammed with bags of all sizes, bursting to seams with the recyclable waste he had collected from the residential areas. Everything from empty beer cans, and bottles, to cardboard boxes and magazines had found a rightful place in their respective bags.  The only thing which did not fit into the ensemble was a basket filled with onions and tomatoes. Or so we thought.

This 60-year-old entrepreneur of sorts, named Kannan has been buying people's waste in exchange for tomatoes and onions for the last eighteen years. These two commodities are bought  at low cost from the local farmers, and doled out to his customers according to the weight of the waste they are ready to part with! 

We bring out our stack of old magazines, some wine bottles, a few Kingfisher cans, Amazon boxes. And in return we get a pound of onions and two pounds of tomatoes! Feels like s deal, almost as though we have just won a lottery! Veggies for our waste! What an idea. 

It is the first time Kannan has ventured into our neighborhood. We ask him if he can include us in his regular rounds so we can avail of his precious services. He doesn't fully commit. And when we want him to pose for a photograph, he definitely looks cross. He needs to move on; he still has much territory to cover. 

Unfortunately, people like Kannan have become a novelty in modern India. Yet, there was a time when these small-time traders flocked the erstwhile quiet streets of urban neighbourhoods. I remember the rural women going from house to house, carrying an array of shiny plastic wares, right from mugs and jugs, to buckets and containers. These were not for sale, but were meant to be exchanged for old clothes, bedsheets, bedcovers and sarees. We will bring out our heap of unwanted, unused clothings and linens, which these women would assess and offer us some of their goodies in return. A fair share of haggling would be  followed by a satisfactory settlement for both the parties. A wreath of smiles and promises to return would be thrown in for free as a farewell gift. 

The raddiwala, translated roughly as a scrap dealer, came once a month. He would weigh our stack of old newspapers and magazines, and give us some amount of money in return, according to the total weight of our throwaways. 

When the winds changed, the gypsy women, clad in colorful dresses, and  silver jewelry knocked at our doors, offering to glean out the unwanted tidbits off the big sack of wheat before it was taken to the local mill to be ground into flour. This much-in-demand service came in exchange for some elemental food supplies. 

The blacksmith who sharpened the knife, the qalaiwalla who shined old brass and copper utensils, the Kashmiri carpet vendors, they all passed through our neighborhood at least a couple of times a year. And everytime they came, it felt like a celebration. 

However,  all this changed in the nineties. With the beginning of insurgency in Kashmir and an increasing number of bomb blasts in buses and markets in metropolises across India, the urban-scapes in the country were soon reeling under the spell of fear and  insecurity. Almost overnight, the government appartment complex we lived in, had turned into a gated community with a fleet of watchmen to guard the place 24/7. The small-time traders suddenly became a potential terror threat and were no longer allowed in. A whole way of life was  brought to a halt. Surprisingly, this phase happened to coincide with the period India opened up to the global competition and invited multinationals to give a new impetus to the Indian economy. Go figure.

The Day After...

An endless night

Trapped inside

Columns of winds

And pillars of rains,

At last broke free,

Slipping behind 

The gray horizon

Supporting the spuming back

Of the billowing ocean,

it pushed  forth 

With its remaining might

a capsized dawn.

And lo, the joy 

That burst forth

Across the gloom

As the flutter of wings

Set the world astir

With the possibility

Of renewed life;

They dived and swooped

And soared up in the air

To swerve and swirl,

Cruise and tumble

Riding on invisible currents

Happy to be alive,

Happy to just be...

Being a witness to this expressive display of relief from the  avian world, the morning after Cyclone Niwar hit the coastal  Bay of Bengal,  the natural course of thought landed me in utter fascination of the survival skills of these winged creatures. While we spent the whole of Tuesday trying to foolproof our home against the threat of the impending cyclone, what pro-active measures did the birds in our backyard take?

"Mom, how do birds protect themselves during a storm?" As a little child, I remember asking my mother.

"They hide in their nests", she answered. Of course, the certainty with which she had spoken  made me believe her.

However, my recent google search provided more satisfying answers to the simple question I had posed years ago.

Our neighborhood is home to variety of sunbirds, which are tiny with long beaks to draw nectar from the flowers, much like the hummingbirds of the Americas. Winds may steal hats and claim umbrellas, but may still not be able to reach these teenie meenie birds hiding in the leeside of trees or deep inside dense hedges.  Here, overlapping branches laden with leaves come together to form a roof shingle, thus creating a perfect protection from high winds and driving rainstorm. As long as these small birds decide to stay put, they can stay dry and unperturbed by the weather conditions.

However, this also means they cannot forage for food either. If you are a bird enthusiast, you might have noticed several birds indulging in a bout of gluttony just before a storm. This is because more fat translates into better energy reserves, and resultantly greater chances of survival during severe weather conditions. 

Apparantly some bigger birds are capable of sensing the onset of bad weather, and attempt to move on earlier to safer havens. Attempt doesn't mean they always succeed, since they too can easily fall prey to a phenomenon called “fallout". 

Fallout in this case means birds finding themselves in places far  out of their habitat— seabirds on shore, shorebirds far inland, tropical birds way out of their range. So, how do fallouts happen?  Hurricanes, with their high winds and ocean tracks, can act like roller coasters for birds. Those caught in them get whipped around, with many dying of exhaustion. But some make it, through sheer stroke of luck, by finding their way into the  eye of the cyclone. Needless to say, this implies that they would be landing somewhere far from their home habitats. 

Interestingly all birds have an in-built mechanism to waterproof their wings. The process known as preening the feathers is nothing more than applying a coat of wax/oil extracted from the uropygial gland, commonly known as the oil gland, located at the base of their tail. This water-resistant plumage is instrumental in keeping them dry even during torrential rains. 

So the next time, after a storm has rolled in and out of your area, and the birds are out and about, scaling the heights, diving the depths, happy to have survived the sound and fury of a potentially dangerous weather system, rejoice with them! 

A Space For Cynicism

 The slim victory afforded to Joe Biden over Donald Trump, to Democrats over Republicans, can scarcely be a cause for celebration. In fact, it should make us wary of the way the nation stands divided. For despite all the theatrics, lies, malignancy hurled at whomever, the fact that the sitting incumbent only lost marginally, goes on to tell something about the Democratic candidate himself and his charisma, or lack of it.

Yet the sigh of relief, accompanied by the rhetoric that anyone is better than Trump provides little solace against the crisis faced by the American people, reeling under the pandemic, economic slowdown, and unprecedented racial and civil unrest. Moreover, it is to be hoped that the euphoria unleashed amongst the Democrats on  the ousting of Trump does not let the public consciousness slip into oblivion vis-a-vis the deeply disturbing, dangerous reforms  pushed by Biden in the eighties and nineties that have made the criminal justice system not only more lethal but also bigger.

It might be okay to refer to Joe Biden as the lesser evil, or even as a sort of affable uncle, but consider for a moment the downsides of Biden’s career: In 1989, at the height of punitive anti-drug and mass incarceration politics, from Biden came  the most vociferous  criticism of President George H.W. Bush's war on drugs ."Quite frankly," Biden said, "the president’s plan is not tough enough, bold enough, or imaginative enough to meet the crisis at hand."

He called for harsher punishments for drug dealers, as well as to “hold every drug user accountable.”  According to Biden, the then head of Senate Judiciary Committee, Bush's plan didn't  include enough police officers to catch the violent thugs, nor enough prosecutors to convict them, nor enough judges to sentence them, and not enough prison cells to put them away behind bars. All in all, it was a call for more incarceration, which resulted in him putting in place several laws designed to bring about a punitive criminal justice system, with measures that enacted  tougher prison sentences for drug offences, particularly crack cocaine.

Similarly, a close examination of Kamala Harris's records  reveals glaring contradictions. On one hand, she pushed for programs that helped people find jobs instead of shutting them in prisons; on the other she fought to keep people in prison even after they were proven innocent. While she refused to pursue the death penalty against a man charged with killing a police officer, she openly defended California’s death penalty system in court. She implemented training programs to address police officers’ racial biases, yet in other instances, she resisted calls to get her office to investigate controversial police shootings.

With Harris gaining national prominence,  it was not her legacy of progressive prosecutor that was thrown into limelight, but her career as an anti-reform attorney general. 

The objective of this article is not to downplay the Democrats' victory, however small, but to ensure that the media does not present the duo as the Saviours that America desperately needed to rid itself of Demon Trump. With a fair share of their own baggage to carry, the Biden-Harris team can take the country only so far. The real responsibility lies with the people, who through judicious political vigilantism, could take it further.

As the author James Bovard points out, "Winning politicians often enjoy a honeymoon after Election Day, but neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden deserve any honeymoon from cynicism. 'Think well of your masters' will be the death of democracy".

Constructive cynicism can often serve as an effective tool towards political damage control. Timely doubts freely expressed can stop leaders 'blindingly driving a nation over a cliff or into a foreign quagmire'.