Tuesday, September 02, 2008

STUCK IN MUMBAI.....LITERALLY!!!

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Say Mumbai...and a bustling metropolis, colourful..bursting at its seams..ceaseless...relentless to comes to mind...doesnt it?

Or is it just for naturalised Mumbaikars like me that Mumbai means all this?

 Theres a distinct smell too...sometimes I feel, when I move from one part of Mumbai to another, I can recognise it by the smells that envelop the region... 

But Mumbai metamorphoses with each festival season...

So far this year, the festival is buzzing by me....the dahi handis were raised on thick ropes tied between electrical poles...no one seemed to be bothered whether the rains played spoilsport or if the 9 tier pyramids crumbled and collapsed on themselves...

and now its already time for the Ganpati to be brought home....and as each day I return from office, half alive...totally brain dead...the crash of the cymbals greet me...literally...

 How else can you describe the multiple amplified drums that drive you into a trance like frenzy even as a sedate Ganpati who to my jaundiced eye looks as surprised as the rest of us mere mortals, stuck on the roads in unending jams...at the madness that seem to have normal-looking people turned into raunchy dancing machines...

Though the Ganpati's hands are raised to bless, wonder if the aesthete in the Lord makes him cringe at the abomination on display? All this while there are sweaty, glass-eyed men forming human chains to prevent distracted bus and auto drivers from ramming their vehicles straight into one of these processions...driven into a frenzy of their own like the suicide bombers in Palestine..

 In Andheri, where I live - (a suburb of Mumbai which teaches you that there is a method to every madness, be it roads just four men thick that somehow stretches to accomodate two cars and atleast one rickshaw, or bylanes that seem to have a secret road to any other lane that you desire) the festival madness is scary...yes i mean it...on the road from the station to my house...I was stuck in a rickshaw...from one end, the smells of kebabs, samosas and malpuas were wafting...

Its Ramzaan..just as I was trying to purse my mouth to stop the drool from trickling...my ears started throbbing...to the music of processions...I crane my neck out and i see a sea of saffron flags bobbing up and down while a benevolent Ganesha stared down...by then my rickshaw inched about one third of a millimetre in ten minutes...not bad progress, I say.... But then came a thought...abruptly. What would happen if some mischief monger chose this moment, when a hungry set of people were feasting after a day of fasting...to set off a match that would incense the already incensed revellers taking the Ganpati home... The roads in Andheri are too narrow...

On one side are the men in their fez...staring intently at the saffron procession as they drop succulent morsels of food and fruit into their mouth....and on the other end...men distributing sweets to anyone who cared to accept one....happy that their Ganpati is once again being taken home... Festivals are a time of bonding...not a time for fear...or even for caution...I dont think the revelers know fear...I dont think they really care whether their behaviour proves the provocation... I am worried...I am non-partisan...or am I?