Go against the flow!

Sometimes I think all this thing about Change being a good thing is all crap.

Look at what it did to my city. I can’t stand it anymore… It bothers me intensely. It really does. The fact that Bangalore, from its quaint, slow paced, treelined, simple city populated with soft spoken laid-back dosa-eating coffee-drinking public is fast turning into a mess. It’s become an unrecognizable grimy, anonymous, insipid, borderless city…

I miss it. The good old times that turned ugly so quick that I can’t comprehend it. I miss those times…

Times when the streets of Malleshwaram smelt of a curious mix of rasam powder, flowers and wood smoke…when the best hangout places used to be India Coffe house, Koshy’s, galaxy theatre, airlines hotel and Pecos… when Koramangala was still a swamp…

I miss my old Bengaluru… the city it used to be and more than anything I miss who it allowed me to be.

And so here I was, musing on retro mode when I stumbled across this piece – written by someone from across the planet, who felt that same way… that maybe change ain’t such a great thing after all, maybe somethings should remain the way they are… simply cos what is, is so immesurably valuable.

Anyway…there was something so touching about how it was written, I simply had to put this up.
So here goes…

I grew up in the 50s with practical parents. A mother, God love her, who washed aluminum foil after she cooked in it, then reused it. She was the original recycle queen, before they had a Name for it... A father who was happier getting old shoes fixed than buying new ones. Their marriage was good, their dreams focused. Their best friends lived barely a wave away. I can see them now, Dad in trousers, tee shirt and a hat and Mom in a house dress, lawn mower in one hand, and dish-towel in the other.

It was the time for fixing things. A curtain rod, the kitchen radio, screen door, the oven door, the hem in a dress Things we keep. It was a way of life, and sometimes it made me crazy. All that re-fixing, eating, renewing, I wanted just once to be wasteful. Waste meant affluence. Throwing things away meant you knew there'd always be more.

But then my mother died, and on that clear summer's night, in the warmth of the hospital room, I was struck with the pain of learning that sometimes there isn't any more.Sometimes, what we care about most gets all used up and goes away...never to return. So... while we have it... it's best we love it.... and care for it... and fix it when it's broken...... and heal it when it's sick.

This is true. for marriage..... and old cars.... and children with bad report cards..... and dogs with bad hips... and aging parents..... and grandparents. We keep them because they are worth it, because we are worth it.

There are just some things that make life important, like people we know ... or maybe just a way of life that was so worthwhile… and sometimes, it makes sense to take the time and learn how to resist the urge to start over new. Cos the old is valuable. More than we’ll ever know.