Of Detours, Moral Values and Carbon Particles

During these holidays, I've been roaming a lot in Chennai city. As it turned out, about 30-40 km a day by bus and/or auto. Some experiences will last: like the words of the auto driver who took me home one day. I walk up to him and ask in Tamil (arguably) for the fare home. The reply I got was (again, arguably) in English, much to my surprise. Apparently he was a Mallu with a knowledge of Tamil, English, Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi, mostly picked up from customers. I sounded suitably impressed, whereupon, of course, he started and maintained a steady monologue about his life. "See saar, I yam faorty saevan yeears old, but my life foolly cleen. No smoke, no drink, no f***. I never smoked," he clarified,possibly of the opinion that I was a dimwit, " I never drank, and... ". "OK, OK, I get the point!", I replied, rather hastily. He then proceeded to give me a moral science lecture for the rest of the informative, if rather tedious, journey home.

Another autoride which I will remember, for a totally different reason, happened just a day or two ago. Now this time my pilot was less gregarious, but, somehow mistaking me for a visitor to his glorious city, decided to show me around the city a bit. So off we went, down some rather gloomy looking streets (loosely speaking. More accurately, they were small mud patches which happened to lie between two dilapidated buildings.) Not much of an advertisement for Chennai, I must say, and I told him so. "You never said which route to take, sir", he said. I plead guilty, but in my defense, I always thought it was understood that one would take the most direct route. Apparently now they take the scenic one.

Traveling by buses, in the meantime has taught me 2 things. One, Hang On For Dear Life or Someone'll Push You Out. This particular lesson is best learned when you need to stand for an hour and a half in a jam packed bus in a jam of another kind. (If I didn't make it clear enough, I meant traffic actually). I've traveled in city buses before, but not for such long periods of time. Now, I actually enjoyed it, but try telling that to my feet.

The second thing: the claims of environmentalists that older diesel engines produce lots of particulate carbon are very, very justified. This carbon divides itself into roughly 4 parts: the first part sits in the hair, the second part launches an attack on the eyes, the 3rd squadron launches small cruise missiles into the nasal cavity and the last part decides it is a health food and attempts to settle itself in the depths of the digestive system, getting there via the mouth. Needless to say it requires a little salt and pepper to be palatable.

I think I better become a global warming activist...