The times..they ain't always a changin'....

They say..
Times change....
Names change...
As in.. Madras is now Chennai...
And grand ole Victoria Crescent is Dr Cherian Crescent...
Even patterns of behavior change.........they say...
And so I thought too...

Until a letter from a student of a prominent Chennai college for women...
Of which I am an alum...
To the youth supplement of a local English newspaper..
Threw me off....
Proved me so wrong....

An obnoxious young man was flashing his wares..
From behind a pile of newspapers..
While riding a motorcycle at the same time...the letter writer said...
Yech!!!

When Chennai grew...it swallowed up those lonely, dark spots where exhibitionists love to lurk...or so I thought...
The breed must have died out...or migrated to B and C grade towns in the hinterland...or so I thought...again...
Apparently not!!!!

The letter took me back to the time when we lived in the hostels attached to this very same college...

In the evenings from 4 to 6......
When a bell rang!!!.......
To signal time out!!!!
Hostelites were allowed to exercise....
By walking around the Crescent...

In giggling gangs...
We circled the walls of Our World then..
To peer at the world outside Fortress Hostel...

Round and round we went..
Like those fabled armies that went around the walled city of Jericho...in Biblical times.......

When someone spotted the intruder.....

A clean-shaven, quiet looking young man with a briefcase....
He appeared quite suddenly...
And then...he did it...
From behind the briefcase...

The gangs of perambulating girls stopped in their tracks...
Some were shocked...
Some were angered...
Some were disgusted..
Some were giggling...
Some were shocked, angered, disgusted AND giggling...

And in this Strange State of Being...... raced back to the hostel..
And thundered up the stairs....
To the the very top of Top Floor....
Of Auschwitz Block..
With its own live-in Warden...
To be scolded..
By the Resident Lesbian Couple..
For startling them!!!!!

Fiddler on the Road...we called him!!!!
He kept us indoors over the next few days.....
Then the vacations came...
When we returned he was gone!!...and we put him out of our minds...
His memories dredged up only now by this desperate plea in the papers.... for action.....

Sexual misbehavior of this kind elicits derision...especially from cops..
The offender becomes an object of ridicule..and that's almost about it..
The attitude clearly is..we have far more serious matters to deal with...this is light stuff in comparison...

For hardened cops ......yes!!!!
But how about those like the writer of the letter????...
Young and so unexposed to exposure!!!!!
And without the knowledge that...
Show-offs of any kind are only about show and tell...
Not action!!

But then..coming to think of it..
Exposure is no serious offense on Chennai's streets....

With the monsoon clouds all over the place...
And a cool nor'easterly blowin' in from the Bay..
The drive down Spur Tank Road...is a sight to avert one's eyes from...
As one zipper inspires the unzipping of another....

They stand in a never ending line...
Along the margins of the Cooum's banks.....
And they are no Daffodils!!!!
Wordsworthian or otherwise!!

No sign of shame or fear.......at all!!!!
What would happen if that Writer for the Lonely Planet Guide to the city were to drive by???.....
You tell me!!...I shudder to think!!!...
Wouldn't she be tempted to put this at the head of her list of Must-see sights in the city??? Huh???

That there is a deep interest abroad in India's underbelly is very clear from Aravind Adiga's White Tiger Booker victory...
This would only take the interest down a notch lower!!!!

To come back to the fiddler...
If caught..he will be left off with a fine...
And what good does that do???

Fines...
May reduce smoking in public....for a while....
May make the Marlboro man bite the dust...
And make jingles like "the Made for Each Other Blend" so much ancient history...
May help cops make a fast buck...
May make NGO hot-shots feel important..
Make other eager-beavers feel good...
But not much else...

In such cases...of fiddlers....
Psychiatric treatment is sorely needed....

And for those other Spur Tank Road-type offenders????
It takes much more to change the way they are...

Maybe we should learn from Olde Siam where...
Subjects once loved to spit on the sidewalks...
A Wise Monarch then decreed that the Siamese must stop with the spitting on the streets forthwith... Or else...
And it worked...

It has worked for us too....in the past....
We moved from "We two, Ours too many"
To "We two, Ours two"...
Mostly inspired by Sanjay Gandhi's Or else tactics.....
Adopt family planning
Or else face nasbandhi aka forced sterilization...for the men!!!!

Only two choices...
Most men decided to be sensible and wisely ticked off Option One....
Rather than have their manhood tampered with in makeshift-tents-turned-operating-theatres!!!!...
It worked then...though the entire country hated it...... and that man for it.......

Or else then is the best agent of Change in such cases...
Absolute power to say "Or else.....Off with your..."
Will do the trick...
Will allow you to step into puddles in the rain without wondering what else is in it???... other than rainwater??!!!...
Will stop that guy from aiming at your freshly white-washed back wall....

Just think of that...

And now.......
That said...
Its pouring outside and...
I have to GO.....
Outside...

To a party!!...

Gosh!!!!!! What WERE you thinking???!!!!