Pulkit Vasudha

Pulkit Vasudha

Cruising on a dark, desert highway across the width of California, I entered the outskirts of Phoenix on a balmy summer night. Long before the city lights approached, the weak beams of my 1995 Nissan began picking out stupefied giants scattered across a bare Arizonian landscape.

As I pulled up outside my host’s, I saw, properly, for the first time, a saguaro (pronounced sa-waa-ro)—the tallest cactus in the world.

Towering over the red sandstone town home, this saguaro had just started sprouting arms.

“It’s about 60 years old, still young in saguaro years,” said Karen Wonders, my friend and host for the night. “It’s only 17ft, no more than a dwarf!”

The saguaro, whose blossom Arizona has appointed as its state flower, is stamped vividly in our imaginations—less as a cactus, more as the subject for scenic sunsets.

The giant cacti live up to 150 years, growing as tall as 50ft, their arms shooting out when they turn 50. People like having saguaros in their front or back yards, and sometimes steal or kill for them. Read the rest of this entry »

Pulkit Vasudha

I had planned to arrive in Ho Chi Minh City in fading daylight, so I could guiltlessly gawk at the horrific reminders of the Vietnam War. I had expected a city struggling with the lingering pain of war, its people maimed and crippled by Agent Orange, and the economy buckling under imposed communist rule.

Instead, I found souvenir bullets and old propaganda posters on sale for voyeuristic tourists like me, and streets lit by neon billboards advertising Italian clothing brands, posh spas and chic restaurants.

As I got sucked deeper and deeper into the chaos of Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as the locals still call it, its sights, sounds, and smells invaded my senses. Defying all principles of town planning, Saigon’s labyrinthine alleys are an endless maze of higgledy-piggledy houses, crammed in tight spaces, floors built on slanting roofs, much like Ron Weasley’s house in Harry Potter.

In Pham Ngu Lao, the backpacker district, locals and tourists crowd in narrow spaces, sipping 10,000 dong (Rs 25) beer, de-shelling snails, oysters and clams, barbecued on every table. Wide, conical hats peer from behind piles of giant coconuts, dragon fruit, jackfruit and pomelo. At pushcarts, vendors slit French baguettes to make banh mi sandwiches, my favourite meal in Vietnam so far.

Women in pajama suits, the unofficial national dress of Vietnam, dole out pho, the national dish of Vietnam. The incredibly healthy noodle soup full of herbs, and meat, can be spotted on sidewalk restaurants at breakfast, lunch, dinner and anytime in between. Read the rest of this entry »

Pulkit Vasudha

A rustic fishermen’s hamlet speckled with cashew shrubs, palm trees fringing the horizon, brown sands  dotted with seagulls, and a blue sea yet undiscovered by weekend beach seekers.

“Near Chennai? Impossible,” I said, when told about it. The adventure tour company assured me it  wasn’t a marketing gimmick.

It wasn’t. Katupalli Islands, 40 kilometres north of Chennai, turned out to be just that — serene, smogless, and surrounded by blue seas. The islands are connected to the mainland by Buckingham Canal and a road that runs parallel to it.

I decided to take the train to Pudunagar, the nearest railway station, and then a shared auto to the secluded islands. The auto deposited me at a roadless spot on the islands. “Kattupalli that way, one kilometre,” the driver gestured vaguely. “No road.” Fortunately, we found an agreeable tractor driver who was willing to give us a ride.

Katupalli approached us with a strange, sublime fragrance. Perhaps it was the sea breeze. The tractor driver corrected me, “It is the cashewnut flower blooming in spring.” Read the rest of this entry »

Pulkit Vasudha

Ahmedabad, December 13 With barely two days left for the second and final phase of the Assembly elections, the fanfare of campaigning is at its peak in Maninagar. Both the Congress and BJP workers rallying strong and loud for their candidates—Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dinsha Patel and Chief Minister Narendra Mod—-it would appear that everyone would have heard enough promises. Strangely though, the pamphlets, slogans, door-to-door campaigns, and public meetings have completely bypassed many areas of this political battleground.

Stashed in uncomfortable corners behind the posh Ram Bagh, Krishna Bagh, Gordhanvadi Tekda and Jawahar Chowk are thousands of forsaken slum dwellings in Bhaipura Talawadi, Ambedkar Nagar, Bhagyesh Nagar, Saka Rabari ki chawli, Salat Nagar and Millat Nagar. “It has been over a decade since we saw any candidate or party worker in our area during elections,” says Banuben Vaghela, a resident of Ambedkar Nagar. “No one even comes to make promises here.”

Pulkit Vasudha

EVERYDAY we come across stories of molestation, sexual abuse and rape in media reports. But there are cases that never get reported because the degree of violence of the act is not serious enough to grant it space even in local newspapers, forget leading dailies.

`What happened today’

For me and several other single women living alone in metropolitan cities, the most common subject for discussion with other women has ceased to be the latest eating joints and upcoming sales; we now talk about `what happened today’ and with whom. Sometimes, it is our friends we talk about, sometimes ourselves.

`What happened today’ was that a man standing behind me in the bus suddenly touched me in the nether regions and though I tried to grasp his shirt collar, he pushed violently past me and disembarked from the bus. `What happened today’ was that right outside the park inside my (supposedly very safe) residential colony, a middle-aged man was spotted masturbating early in the morning and leering at the little schoolchildren walking by. `What happened today’ was that a young schoolboy blew a kiss to my friend as he crossed her in a busy street. Read the rest of this entry »

Pulkit Vasudha

Ahmedabad, December 21 Sairaben Ahmed (name changed) glances furtively at the hosepipe snaking across the floor of the kitchen as she chops vegetables.

In her ‘one room, kitchen, toilet’ tenement in Maqdum Nagar in Vatva, she is waiting for the evening supply of water. However, she is not the only person in Maqdum Nagar who relies on the privately installed borewell in the colony for adequate water supply.

“There is practically no municipal water supply in this area. For a monthly payment of Rs 150, we get water for half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening,” says Sairaben.

The water woes in Vatva have driven residents to their wits’ end. With thousands of people paying anywhere between Rs 80 and Rs 300 monthly to individual bore well owners in their area, these water lords are becoming richer every day. Read the rest of this entry »

Pulkit Vasudha

Ahmedabad, December 9 One fine morning in November 2005, Pathan Shamshad was getting ready to go to work, when he suddenly heard bulldozers thundering through the narrow lanes outside his house.

Without any notice, the workforce of the Ahmedabad Urban Development Board (AUDA) had descended in the Bakra Mandi area of Ranip to demolish houses.

The mega-city in the making, “Aapnu Amdavad”, needed development and it was imperative to break down inhabited homes to widen the roads.

As the panic-stricken people ran helter skelter, Shamshad realised that the demolitions were completely illegal as there was neither notice nor an alternative rehabilitation plan for the 3000 residents of the area. Being a lawyer himself, he knew the only way to stop the destruction was to get a stay order from the High Court. By noon, when he finally got the stay order, 175 of the 700 plus houses had been razed. For over two years now, the homeless gave been staying in temporary accommodation. Read the rest of this entry »

Pulkit Vasudha

Pulkit Vasudha

Ahmedabad, November 30 The next time you enroll your child to a new school, please make sure the teacher knows his alphabets.

According to data released by the state’s education department in reply to a Right to Information (RTI) application filed by academician Deepak Patel, over 60 per cent of Ahmedabad’s primary school teachers have either studied till Class X, or have dropped out after the senior secondary level. Not only don’t they have any professional training to be teachers, most of them are not even graduates.

Deepak Patel, the Secretary of Gujarat Private Teachers’ Association, filed the RTI application last year to find out the number of unqualified teachers in private, primary schools of Gujarat.

Read the rest of this entry »