Yesterday, Karnataka had a day long bandh to protest a legally appointed tribunal's final verdict on the issue of sharing Cauvery river's water between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu (with minor players like Kerala and Pondicherry (puducherry)). Anyway thats not the gist of this post, thats just for setting the context.
How does the butterfly effect come into this? wait, patience ...
Actually, butterfly effect is not really a great allegory...I was just stunned by how a whole different industry grows when something out of the ordinary happens. See,in a typical bandh in Karnataka(believe me here, i've seen 4 in the last 10 months) streets are empty, violence is known to erupt on innane issues - fortunately not in the area where I put up, public transport (including auto-rickshaws etc.) comes to a grinding halt. But by far the most irritating and frustrating thing about bandhs here is that the TV channels are also shut down. Only Kannada channels are aired during the duration of the bandh. And there is absolutely nothing to do all day.
But, lo and behold, this deep deep trough of boredom leads to a tsunami like spurt in another industry on the day preceding the strike. The illicit dvd/vcd industry. Hordes of people, wishing to avoid vegetating the whole day rueing the fact that they never took a class in Kannada. {If only my parents in Delhi had enrolled me in a Kannada medium school there, I would've been able to make out what that heavily moustachioed, portly man (er..he's playing a first year college student fresh out of school in this superhit movie quip my Kannada speaking friends) is whispering (shrieking??) into that poor bloated painted auntie wearing a startling Kanjivaram saree's ear (er..she's his classmate in college..equally nubile...aarrgghh... forget it, you'll never understand you prejudiced creep. who says all college students need to be young?)} go towards local markets where the latest movies can be had for 50-60 rupees.
You can actually see how these sellers become the most sought after people on such days. It becomes a sellers market with people vying to have atleast 3-4 movies to get through the boredom of the entire day.
I guess bandhs are not all bad, huh? anything that helps feed a poor family cannot be all bad? right..eh?
No comments:
Post a Comment