Pardes: The Beauty

It’s beautiful. And harsh.
It reminds me of a battlefield, the warring clans of the piercing sunrays and the biting gusts of cold wind scarring the lesser beings, forcing their presence on the hapless audience that has no option but to watch on, occasionally being caught in the crossfire.
Both sides fight ferociously. The cold, biting and piercing, has the ability to creep in through layers of clothing, sending a constant chill up your spine. It has the uncanny ability of homing in on the slightest bit of exposed skin, making you feel as if it is concentrating its entire might on that small patch. The sunrays, piercing and determined, make their presence felt in a most pretentious manner, forcing you to seek shelter in abject surrender. Defiance means sunburn, no matter how many of the cold wind troops are present. Where the cold tries to win by sheer omnipresence, the sunrays dominate every inch that they can reach.
Thankfully, you don’t always have to be in the field of fire. Cars with heaters and sun visors do give the required amount of cover while you are scurrying from one building to another.
It’s beautiful. And inspired.
As you drive towards Jozy, as the city is called by those who have chosen to make it their home, you can’t help but wonder on the brilliance of the British. Driving on the R21, the skyline of the city, dominated by skyscrapers, peers at you from between two hills which seem to have been placed there to make the city comfortable, and not the other way round. While in the suburbs, you look around you at the clusters of quaint little cottages, some nestled in the side of hills, some surrounded by dense greenery, some dwarfed by the huge commercial buildings, and some, like a defiant bunch of Red Coats, standing all alone in the middle of nothingness.
It’s beautiful. And wasteful.
On the roads, you realize that most cars around you have one or two people in it. In the few, but increasingly common traffic snarls, you see a line of cars ahead of you, in single file per lane, you can’t help comparing it with India. We’d have fit five times the number of people in there. It’s 3 on a Friday, and almost half the cars are headed out, with a trailer latched on, carrying either quad bikes, trail bikes, camping equipment or entire caravans, headed for a relaxed weekend at one of the many camping spots or activity centers around the cities. Yes, they work only four and a half days here. In the residential, as also in the commercial areas, you see millions of lengths of barbed and electrified fences sitting atop high concrete fences. You are aware of the various private ‘Armed Reaction’ cars that are sitting in the corners, waiting for some sorry guy to cross one of the fences into the motion detected homes and trigger off an alarm. You can’t help but wonder about the desperate state of the ones who attempt to outluck the security system. And then, you stop at ‘Robot’, which is what traffic signals are called, and you realize the desperation.
It’s beautiful. And practical.
You know that from the way the city is designed, with major areas spread out on all sides of the city, connected by well thought out roads and intersections. You know it from the wheelchair friendly sidewalks, from the easy to use and maintain devices fitted in the houses, from the small but powerful cars that they use in the weekdays, and the big trailers that they bring out in the weekends. You know it from the traffic rules, the clearly laid out directions, and from the people.
It’s beautiful. And cruel.
You see the woman, inadequately dressed for the weather, with the hopefully conscious child on her back standing in the open battlefield, being caught in the crossfire. Yes, there are beggars here too. You see the guy in the T shirt who runs to a random car with a small bucket of dirty, sudsy water and proceeds to clean the windshield with before the lights turn green and with time to spare for tips. You park the car at any shopping mall’s parking lot (and that’s where you have to park, as all shops, banks and even post offices are located inside one mall or the other. This is where you realize the meaning of Mall Culture), there comes along a guy in a yellow traffic jacket, making sure that his presence is felt, ensuring tips when the car leaves. And you also see the big expensive cars pulling in and out of the lot, and you realize that even here, it’s just some pockets that are lined with fleece, while many others are, well, empty.
But, it’s beautiful.
You know it from the people. From the many cars that have the ‘Proudly South Africa’ stickers on them. You know it from the traffic manners, you know it from the fact that in the restaurants, hypermarkets and cinemas, you can comfortably talk and joke with the waiters, ushers and attendants, without them taking offence to it.