The Glass Cage They Built for Us

Mumbai is a city I have spent the best part of my journalism career in.. I have written about Mumbai a million times in my blog...ok, a million is an exaggeration, but I have written about my love affair with the city innumerable times. When I shifted homes, from Mumbai to Delhi, I stopped blogging. It was like Delhi had parched my imagination and the need to write. Well, I guess I am taking literary freedom again.

Blaming a city and stereotyping it appears to be a favourite Indian passtime. So while Mumbai is lovely, Delhi is notorious. Mumbai fosters imagination, Delhi kills it. In Mumbai, my blog flourished because love flowed through words, while in Delhi, the posts have dried up.

I dust out the cobwebs away from this rarely used blog now to write in anguish... when something heinous as a gang-rape is reported and that too against a fellow journalist, it feels more personal. The first thought that went through my head is, It could have been me.. I have been in several situations myself. It was my fortune that I do not have to write this as a rape survivor. 

The truth is whether you are an urban woman or someone who has lived largely in rural areas, our freedom remains more or less circumscribed by our families. If your family believes you must be given the same opportunities as the boys, then you get it. Else, you merely appear to be the director of your life, in fact you are nothing but a mere proxy in it. Your wishes are meant to be countermanded, that is, if you have been taught or have learnt to wish for things. Choice remains a luxury for most that some among us (lucky ones) now take for granted. 

I have thought long and hard about why rape is perceived as the ultimate humiliation and the biggest dishonour that can befall a woman. 

1. Is  it because a woman is in fact another property of the family (not just a man). So vandalising her is akin to mauling at a family's wealth? 

2. How does forced intercourse 'de-file' her purity - what is the yardstick for female purity? 

3. In a society obsessed covertly with all forms of sex and sexual innuendo, why is it difficult to believe that aggressive male behaviour will never be restricted to slapping and beating up and not sexual violence? 

4. Why does a rape survivor have to bear the stigma of being defiled for her life while her rapists are at most treated like criminals and let off with a jail sentence? 

I do not believe that till the time our country is mature enough to realise that a woman is more than a beautiful face to yearn for or bounteous breasts to lust after or pinch or a shapely butt to surreptiously fondle or leer at, there will be little respite. 

As a journalist, I have been jeered, mauled, commented at and even stalked. I have however thought of these as merely nuisance and hazards of the job. It might be a negative end to this post, but I seriously believe that our generation might never enjoy the fruits of man-woman equality or learn to take individual freedom and choice for granted. But we can teach our future generations - inculcate in them the need to be better human beings, respect the other sex and not think of them as inferior or to be subservient and at their beck and call. It might take a few generations for India, but our country needs us to reform our generations. The day women decide to empower their girls not to take male aggression lying down and speak out and set deterrants, rapes, domestic violence and harassment will continue unabated. 

I usually don't find it easy to express myself through poems, but I wrote this one after the Mumbai rape case was reported. 

The Glass Cage

Build me a glass cage,
Scour the world to make it beautiful,
Carpets of fur, pillows of feather, clothes of satin,
Make me pretty and vain,
Oh and secure too,
Here's the gold lock with rubies studded. 

Build me a glass cage,
So you see me but can't touch,
 They say the roof can't be open to the skies,
Lest the birds swoop to wound with their claws,
The air could be poisoned,
So secure me in vacuum.

Build me a glass cage,
Confiscate the stones,
Build a bigger cage and another one.
Let my voice be drowned,
Let my wishes be damned,
I'm too pretty to be free,
Too precious to be left open,

May I make a plea?
If the cage is big enough, can She come in too?
We breed in agony,
We can wail together too..
Build Us a glass cage,
We know not how to want any more.

Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan!!

Its 8.30 in the morning and my heart is racing. I have less than 48 hours left in the city. In 2009, as I was surrounded by crates and carton, I remember feeling this sense of panic - a mild ache in the heart along with the sense of disquiet about what could be in store!

This parting is a bitter-sweet one. This is the third time I'm bidding adieu to this city without knowing if I will be back. As a young adult of 22, Mumbai had appeared forebodingly huge to comprehend. But a career as a journalist that took me across the length and breadth of the city set me off on the love-hate relationship. In the span of a year, I  had moved from a bare apartment to a small one-room tenement within that span. In hindsight, cunning house-brokers, heartless landlords and how a trainee's salary stretched so much and no more were the biggest takeaways of this time. Food was mostly rasta takeaway- dosas, sandwiches and hot hot oily Indian Chinese and fruit plates - the dishes might not appeal to my palate anymore, but then the pleasure of  paying for it with the few rupees that was my honest sweat provide that extra zingggg and taste to the memories. A year and a half later, I left happy - sure in my cocky head that Mumbai is not for me, such big cities were not for small lives.

You never know how much a city has ingratiated itself into you till you leave it. And then, every little chink, every irritation appears minor - trivial even. The chaos of the traffic is forgotten when the memories turn mellow with longing, the ravages of rain and the pocket handkerchief apartments are forgiven. All that remains in the memory is vignettes of the city that allows everyone to claim a piece of it as their own!

I returned in 2005 - no longer cocky, a bit broken- needing a haven to heal. That's when I realised how fortuitous big city living is when all you need is a bit of obscurity, some space from prying souls and time to contemplate and regroup. Big cities let lost souls slip into their cracks and keep them safe and anonymous.

The next time I packed my bags and bid adieu to Mumbai was in 2009. UK was calling and I was once again back on the student mode. I left a happier soul, not worried about where life was taking me. There was a world to conquer out there..sights to be seen, beaches to leave footprints behind on.. I came back to Mumbai this time realising that I was truly in love with the city.

I'd lived for over a year in an amazing beach town of England, but the hustle and bustle of an overcrowded, dirty metropolis lured me back. There were practical considerations but the emotional connect was unmistakeable. I still hate the pocket handkerchief existence..But this city still smells freedom, independence and dignity to me.

I'm forsaking my beloved city again - will the third time perhaps be the final time?? Somewhere the heart sinks...I have cribbed about it, wished to move away where I can stretch my arms and legs and not have to bump into walls or furniture, swore till I was blue when I was stuck in a traffic jam waiting for Ganpatis to walk their way into the sea...I want to believe I will find my way back, time and again to reminisce about the lovely days spent here - just the way you never forget your deep love.

To date, I'm yet to find the city where my heart has set down anchor. I wonder if the vagabond that I am will ever find a place to call home for the rest of my life. But Mumbai - you are under my skin. I shall return..that's a promise!

The Smell of Freedom

Hello bloggies,

Its been ages, wonder if at least a few of you who added me on your subscription list remember. I have been a bad bad girl! I make these wild announcements of Life 360 and what not and then disappear without a trace. My friends, Lazy Pineapple and R's Mother have been sweetly coaxing me back but trust me, it wasn't lack of inspiration or lovely encouragement that kept me away. 

It was work! ( Now where have you heard that excuse before?!!) 

But since June 21st, the day I published my last blog, I have been places, done things and unlearnt a few truths, gone on the backfoot, stretched myself a little too much for comfort, had one too many bumps and bruises and what not...

So much to tell you, so little time.. The coming months are likely to be hectic too according to my zodiac forecast, now why is it that when I'm looking for doomsy forecast, I turn to the Hor(ror)scopes??

Its one hour to midnight my time and I'm determined to ensure that my next post is logged in for 13th September. Why the 13th if its not Friday?? Well, 13 is still a 13...wickedly mysterious, vaguely discomfitting and when combined with Friday, positively ominous..

However, there is something the horrorscopes missed...The smell of Freedom..

After months of letting my work, think my thoughts and key my words, this evening I broke free... when I sealed the envelope on the courier that contained my blood and sweat of two months, there wasn't a sense of bubble burst that I felt, it was more like a sigh of the freed!

Am I rambling today? Kind of like all over the place?? Well that's a peek into the real me..the me behind the facade of Journomuse..I'm a rambler, and especially when I'm free of fetters, of worries of having to sound sensible and precise. For the last two months, that is what I have tried to be...precise, error-free and dot-on-time. Now I have the time, there are no deadlines to chase and time is my buddy. And from somewhere nearby, the smell of freedom wafts by..

And do I have a twitchy nose?? Like a little puppy, I'm going to chase the smell down.. It smells of treats of little bite sized bitter chocolate, of time for books and big mugs of coffee, for secret browses through guilty pleasures...lots of fun and laughter..and snuggling under the blanket not having to wake up if I so please... It's the life! :)

Now that also means you shall hear from me more often...there have been a few travels...some new experiences... I shall tell you about it all...for now, sit back and smell that smell...that smell of Freedom...

You know how Freedom smells to me...how does it smell to you??

Write in, let me know...I'm waiting..Blogging is fun when you tell me too..and then we shall discuss and maybe the next time I smell Freedom, I shall smell a bit of your favourite smells too..

PS: That photograph was taken on one of the journeys to South Mumbai...watching the Sunset by Marine Drive, that's some experience..that smells like freedom too...:)


Much love,

I Age, I Change

So I have missed another day in my Life 365 Marathon...And as usual I have reasons too. But who cares? Now, but there is another thing I am not sure about. I'm not sure if I will catalogue this post under Life in the City - My Series on Mumbai. :) Perhaps I should, perhaps you can tell me once you get to the last full stop of this post? 

Yesterday, I had to go to Fort for a meeting. For all those non-Mumbaikars, Fort is that part of the South Mumbai that could make a time-travelling English tourist feel vague strains of familiarity. The buildings are largely the way the British made and left it. If you are a tad imaginative, you can piece together how the area around Flora Fountain, now locally known as the Hutatma Chowk (for a martyrs' monument that has come up next to it), would have looked during its days of glory. Like everything else, most buildings have gone to seed, but businesses, big and small continue to operate out of it. The lanes are narrow, much like the cobblestoned paths of London. The cobblestones are long gone to be replaced by the tarred Indian roads, however, the leafy tree lined avenues would have been witnesses of the centuries past.

I rarely take a taxi once I get down at the Churchgate station - that is by the way, the last stop on the Western Line of the Mumbai local train network. Just as the train is pulling into the Churchgate station, my heart always skips a beat. This is a part of Mumbai that has changed the least in the twelve years that I have known it. Hmmm, on second thoughts, there is little that can afford to be changed.

The flats in these regions are humongous by Mumbai standards and pretty well-maintained from the inside. Incidentally, I have never understood how Mumbaikars can be house-proud but not necessarily building proud. So you could see several dilapidated looking buildings desperately needing a coat of paint, with residents that read like a Who's Who list. Step inside their parlour and you wonder if you fell through a hole like Alice of the Wonderland fame.

There's an old world charm about everything here, the Jehangir Art Gallery, the Kala Ghoda area, the Sassoon library and the crumbling Old Watson's Hotel - said to be the oldest surviving cast-iron building. It has collapsed a couple of times in the recent past, but then Indian ingenuity keeps the building in the survivor's list. Walk farther down and there are the majestic buildings of the Bombay High Court and the University of Mumbai. The hawkers that have encroached the walkways of most of the Victorian era heritage buildings are like a rude-jolt back into modern day reality - reality that the core of South Mumbai might look better preserved than its more recent suburbian offshoots, but a severe toll has been wrought by migration and population explosion on the leafy boulevards of the city.

Now I wonder if it is only the city and its infrastructure that appears crumbling and peeling with age. The train I took to go to the city would easily be over three decades old. There are newer swankier ones that ply on the same line, but these older ones, with the rusty springs poking uncomfortably out of the worn out seat cushions still continue to be in service. The stations that serve seas of humanity every day show evidence of massive wear and tear. In Andheri and Jogeshwari - two stations I use most, I know a few steps that I need to be careful on. If I keep place a foot wrong on those worn out steps, I could very well be slipping down the whole set of stairs uncomfortably. Age and lack of maintenance - the question is when do you shut down the station to undertake maintenance? If the Andheri station is shut off for renovation, there would be bigger riots - people would rather continue using crumbling infrastructure than suffer the inconvenience of taking a longer route to the next station!

As I walk towards the building where my meeting is scheduled, one final thought makes me chuckle so hard that I'm sure several people did turn around to check for the source of that strange noise. I have walked these very streets as a rookie in Mumbai. Then the heat did not bother me as much and travelling light was the mantra - the insouciance and irreverance you may say of the young and free-spirited. This time however, the thought of taking myself to Fort alone, required a lot of enforced mental conditioning. I had to convince myself of the importance of the meeting and the need to be there personally than get it done on skype! Once convinced, my preparations to leave began at about 12 and by the time I'd left home, in my bag, was a bottle of water, a small box of munches (just in case I got hungry on the train), an umbrella for the trek from Churchgate station to Fort and a book to ensure I get in some constructive reading done during the one-hour journey!

I was never this well-planned, I was impulsive, fun and all-over-the-place. I feel like a peeling Mumbai now...I age and I guess I change too!!

The Reality Check

Yesterday I stepped out of my home-office zone to head to Bandra to meet a couple of friends for a much-postponed cup of coffee and then head for a house-party. The distance on a good-traffic day in suburban Mumbai is about 45 minutes, we shall not talk about the woes of a bad-traffic day...It was sunny and summery and before I could crib about having to hunt for rickshaws, I got one as soon as I stepped out of my apartment building.

 I love engaging the rickshawallahs in conversation, if I sense that they are from Uttar Pradesh. For those, who aren't familiar with Mumbai, a large chunk of this city's rickshaw and taxi drivers are migrants from Uttar Pradesh. In fact, on eight out of ten trips that I undertake, I normally end up being driven by a UP-wala. The conversations normally need a trigger. I don't get into the rickshaw waiting to make conversation. There are many, who initiate a conversation themselves and then its just about joining in.

Today was a bit different. The salt and pepper haired Saam Parsad (as he introduced himself) was just taking a right turn when a car overtook another one from the left and came on a kind of collision course with our vehicle. He managed to sweve to safety, but received a great barrage of invectives from the overtaking driver.

Clearly discomfitted by the verbal abuse, he turned around and gave me a wry smile and told me in a distinct UP accent, " This is the fate of rickshaw driver, it doesn't matter that you are in the right, if you are on a smaller vehicle, you will be shouted upon. A pedestrian is shouted at by someone riding a rickety cycle, a Kinetic Honda driver thinks he has more right to the road than a cyclist and those with the big cars, well they think the road is only for them. Even the drivers of these cars think they are a status above us rickshawallahs".

 And the conversation went. " But you did no wrong, he on the other hand was overtaking from the left" " Madamji, if everyone went by the sense of right and not by their sense of what is right, this city would have been a better place to live"..

 "That's a valid point, incidentally, where are you from? Uttar Pradesh?" 

"Yes, yes I am a Ganga-Kinarewala. Kanpur is my home-town"

 "Have you been here long?"

 " I came to Mumbai in 1988, for a job interview. My friends had told me that if I get a toe-hold in Mumbai, my life will be made. Now I might not look it but I am a BSc First Class from Benaras Hindu University" " In what, aah, Agricultural Science. 78% I had" The last bit was said in English, to drive home the authenticity of his claim.

 "Waah impressive. How did this rickshaw happen?"

 " For four years after my BA, I waited for a government job. In UP, there were jobs, but then a chamaar's son who had 43 per cent got in on the scheduled quota and I was told to gather a deposit of 75,000 rupees for a job at a private company. Now Mayawatiji has made it difficult to even refer to a community by their profession like it has been done for generations. But in UP, chamaar is not an abuse, it is a community, just like carpenter or cobbler.  Now my father was a poor farmer, we have a small plot of land and four brothers and three sisters. Where do I get that money? So I came here to stay with my mama, who runs his own paan-shop in Goregaon- Close to the station. You see, by then I was married. I had the responsibility of another life too, unlike these days, where you young people say, I won't get married, we had no voice. I had not seen my Missus till the day of the marriage. All these are fixed very early in our parts. It's not like you have a choice to raise your voice against your father and question why you have to marry who you have been told to marry. "

"So you came with her to Mumbai to get a job?"

"No no, I am the second son, I left her at home, 'maa-baap ki seva' is also important. She lived there for the first ten years, it is not like I was doing anything great here. The struggle was the same. Just that it was not my village, it was a big big city where if you stand at the Chowpatty and shout and scream and cry aloud, no one would even turn and look. Do you know, I have done that once. For two years, my mama took care of my living and food and then mami started complaining about too many free mouths to feed. So I decided to become a head-load worker at the docks. I did it for three months, but its back-breaking work and Marathi unions make it difficult for migrants to get full employment. Also, that is when I realised being educated is a bane not a boon."

"So how did you get this rickshaw?"

"This rickshaw happened by coincidence. My uncle's neighbour, a Mussalmaan, ran a taxi service. In the first two years, I learnt to drive the taxi and did odd runs for him. You need a badge to drive the taxi during the day. But at night, it is alright. He would give me some of the money I made for him. When I was near-suicidal from staying away from home and not getting any job despite my degree here, his brother told me he will get me a badge, but of a rickshaw. I sold even my wife's nose-ring for the deposit needed. Its been twenty-five years. Now when I'm at home on odd days I don't take this rickshaw out, my spine feels uncomfortable. I need this rattling in this dibba to feel alive."

"You have kids, you are educating them?"

" I have three kids, though I was married early, I had them after my wife joined me here. I sent all of them to school. But my sons didn't show any inclination for studies. Now, by caste, we are Brahmins. Dwivedi. But if my sons don't want the vedas, who am I to say they must. My caste did me no good, so I decided I won't insist. You know, one day, when my older one was in eight standard and he failed his maths, his mother who isn't even fifth pass, told me to advise him. I didn't. I thought when my BSc degree is not even worth the paper it was written on, why advise my son to study? He is not even tenth pass. I put him at a mechanic garage. Told him to learn. Now he repairs my rickshaw and keeps it well-maintained. I save money on that. He wants to go to a poly-technic now and take a degree to go to the Gulf. I said you make your own money to go. I will give you a home and food till I am alive. "

" Daughters?"

" I have one. I married her off when she was eighteen. She was very good at studies. But then my mama, who took care of me when I first came to Mumbai found a nice boy. LIC agent. No demand of dowry either. I told her I am sorry, but if I had succeeded in bucking the trend, I would have fought for your rights. I failed and I can't teach you to take risks. Also, when in our bad times we turn to our families, we must acknowledge their opinions too."

"So you think your being born a Brahmin worked against you?"

" Think of it, it did."

" But then again, the inequality in the society created by your forefathers is also in a way responsible for the lower castes now demanding reservations and wanting to re-dress the disparities that have existed for generations".

" I agree, it is true. Like they say, we pay for the sins of our generations past. I just hope we don't have to wait for another ten generations for my successors to be treated on par. We are now as much the kshudra. If there are no social changes that are made, there will be a new kind of gadar (revolution). I have told my kids. You marry whoever, live however. As your father, all I can promise is to help you how I can. I had little voice in how my life evolved. If you want more control, take it. "

"But your daughter did not get that opportunity?"

" Haha, I know what you are trying to say. Change is good, but the clever man is one who tries to bring about changes while staying within the system. My daughter knows my limitations and why I got her married early. She has a son and daughter now. She told me one day that even if I can't educate my son much, my daughter will get to study till she wants to. Now isn't that a change I also contributed to?"

Two traffic bottlenecks later, we were in Bandra. And as I paid him the fare, I told him to keep the change.

Saam Parsaadji smiled and said " the remaining for the conversation then. Hahaha...Shukriya".

Summer On My Blog

I think I am in a fairly poetic mood today. No, that does not mean I'm going to bore you with poetry, it just means I might 'wax eloquent'.

As I write this, I'm being slow cooked in the skin as foodie-talk goes, the mercury in Mumbai is tottering on high heels between 36 degrees and 39 degrees. The evenings are marginally pleasant-er at early thirties. What makes the heat obsessive is perhaps the humidity. But after living most of my life in coastal cities, I must admit, I'd rather be steamed to death than spit-roasted in a dry tandoor like the heat in Delhi or Pune does. Having lived in both the cities, I must say there were days when I craved some sweat to cool my burning skin down. I'm sure a few noses have already wrinkled in disgust at my ode to sweat-inducing humidity, so let's get to more pleasant things.

I have blogged a while ago about a word-association game that my English teacher taught us to play while at school. It was a way of teasing the imagination, creating Word Sketches, quite literally. So an emotion or a colour could be expressed in more tangible terms. Say for instance, Pleasure could be answered with The First Lick of Cotton Candy while Black could be the Gathering Thunder Clouds before a Storm. There were no right or wrong answers, just the race among kids desperate to impress the teacher by coming up with the best word-association.

Over the last month, I tried to play the game with myself. Not words, but pictures. Here is what I came up with...

The fiery red gulmohur tree bursting into flames as the sun mercilessly beats down on the earth. They remind of travelling by the Naval Base in Kochi, the line of trees along the edge of the backwaters marking the advent of blazing summers. For Malayalis, the flowering of the golden shower tree, or the Kani Konna is a symbol of summer and the advent of Vishu. The vishukani is incomplete without an abundant spray of the kanikonna, so much so that in those areas where Malayalis abound and kanikonna is a rare sight, the flowers are shipped by the kilo ahead of Vishu.


Summers are also the time for the juiciest of watermelons and muskmelons. I constantly thank the wonderful invention called the refrigerator that ensures a steady supply of cold water and iced teas. But more importantly, it keeps watermelon chilled cool. Dad often buys huge watermelons and lugs it home and Amma promptly cuts them, fills them into tall steel containers and shoves it to the coolest depths of the ice-box. By evening, we make massive inroads into these containers. Watermelons are tension-free fruits, unlike the sweet nectar like mangoes. Till last year, Dad's overt fondness for this summer fruit meant that he would buy them by the kilo at the price charged. This year, our mango tree has been yielding him Alfonsos, making all the love, care and little nothings that he has whispered to the mango tree to coax it to yield the sweetest mangoes.

Mangoes apart, the English summer is the time for Wimbledon...its also the time for strawberries and cream. Now while in England, you can neither crib about the pounds spent on buying strawberries to dunk in fattening double cream or the pounds that you gain eating them to commemmorate the warmth of the sun that peaks out longer after grey grey winters. Summers for me is also a tall jar of Pimms, mixed with lemons and oranges and bottles of tonic water. No one orders a Pimms by the glass, you order it by the jug. And no delicate sipping is allowed. You  have to compulsorily guzzle it down to sake the thirst.

Summers also spell barbeque by the beach, although barbecuing pork and beef sausages mean I'm usually stuck plucking off grilled peppers and mushrooms from the racks for myself. But even the sun-browned Indian skin craves the warm kisses of sunshine after acclimatising itself to the heat given off by the radiators to get rid off the chill that settles deep inside the bone.

Ooooh, talking of summers, ice creams should be the dessert to end this post on...Of all the ice creams that I have sampled from across the world, there is something to be said about the Turkish variety. They beat the cream in iced vats till the cream surrenders and pliantly lets itself be scooped. Each lick is creamy without any icicle to spoil the taste or texture. Someone whispered that the secret of a creamy Turkish icecream is the high quality goat's milk that is churned to make the ice cream. The chocolate flavours are not overtly sweet but cocoay, the vanilla oozes its flavour while a tangy lemon makes you squint  while a big gulp can give you a brain freeze...Sigh! Nothing like an ice cream to cool your inners down as your skin burns away in the summer sun. 

Now as you finish this post, I'm off to raid the fridge in the hope that there's still a bit of Naturals ice cream left behind! Have we spoken about Mumbai's very own Naturals? I guess we haven't! More on that soon!!!

Life in the City - Vada Pao for the Soul

Chapter 5 - An Ode to the Humble Vada Pao

What's life without soul food? And if you think I'm talking daal-chawal-kadhi, yawwwwn think again. Soul food for the true Mumbaikar is the food that can be easily snagged off the tapris on the road and had with a cutting of adraki chai or ginger tea for the more anglicised. 

There are days when I wake up craving a hot vada pao, that's straight out of the vendor's kadai, still dripping black viscous oil through the sieve scooping it out of the bubbling cauldron. Never venture to look into the oil vat, you might not want to touch a vada again, nor look at the huge vessel in which the potato balls are given its besan-bath.But look at those crisp, crackling vadas that are carelessly tossed into the container near the vendor and the first moment of bliss overtakes you. 


(Disclaimer: Before I go further with my foodie musings, let me at the outset say - I am no connoisseur, I have a few regular places like most Mumbaikars for my secret vices - while the true Mumbaivaasi will scream 'blasphemy' at my dubbing vada-pao hogging as a vice - I must say my health-consciousness makes me admit, it's not an eating habit to be made a staple part of the diet. Precisely why I call it soul food!)


Now, comes the pao, but before that..I must confess I am very particular about how I like my vada pao - that's the reason why I'm no Jumbo person - anyone who's been to Mumbai knows about the big yellow stalls that can be seen across most railway stations and busy areas which sell a burgerised version of the vada-pao. I normally never look that way, not even for the sake of superior hygiene. I still go to my usual man at the Andheri station, when the whim strikes. If it strikes in Lower Parel, there is a shop really close to the traffic signal as one comes down the bridge from the station. Or my third option is the man, who stands by the High Court in Fort. 


The pao is rarely stale and what remained from the stock of the days gone by that went unsold. The churn-out rate in these places is so high, that very often people are forced to wait till a fresh batch of vadas are fried. 

Now when I say fresh pao, how do I describe it to someone who has never held that sponginess between their two hands? The toasty outside has a tiny crackle and when you split it into two to dab on the chutney, the bread isn't doughy, but instead so soft that the chutney sinks into it leaving just a green trail in its wake.


The reason why I like the humble vada pao so much is the skilled carelessness with which my favourite vada paowallahs make mine, in just the finicky way I like it. I like my steaming vada to be lightly crushed on to the bed of the pao which has been soaked with green chutney. Once it has been crushed into a compact form, a generous sprinkling of the dry fiery red garlic chutney is mandatory ( I don't like that sprinkled on to the green chutney, but on to the vada). Now comes the turn of a tiny tiny dab of sweet date and imli chutney on to the upper flap of the pao. And that brings the yin and yang of taste together - a sweetness to the fire generated doused by mildly spiced potatoes of the vada. But if the fire isn't enough to get your taste buds dancing, there are the humble green chillies (deep fried in the same oil as the vadas) to create heat of varied proportions too..

The first bite is like a series of tiny fire-crackers going off inside your mouth. The tongue is on fire, the taste-buds are on an over-drive and your senses are in bliss. The first vada pao is usually finished off, often greedily, in three measured bites. And chomping with your cheeks bulging out, in the manner that Amma says is not how food is eaten politely, gives it an added 'guilty pleasure' quotient. The second comes with the guilt of extra calories. If you can shrug that off, then it is highly recommended. Wash it down with lightly sweetened( I hate sugary concoctions) adraki chai and walk away with an added spring in your step. 


The pocket is only lighter by under twenty rupees and the soul filled to the brim! The journey towards Nirmal Anand (pure joy) is half complete. 


(Images courtesy: Open, Outlook and CNNGo)


And if your heart is still not full, go ahead and read this poem by Ugich Konitari. Entertainment is tax free! :) 

Life in the City - Cheap Comforts

Chapter 4: Mumbai survival 24x7


I am a gypsy at heart- to date no city -across the world- has screamed HOME enough to make me dig my heels in, thrown my anchor down and declare that I have a city to call my own. The truth is now I have several and like a global citizen holding multiple passports, I make multiple claims depending on company and context as to which city I'm loyal to. 


The reason is, in the thirteen years since I first left the home I grew up in (the distinction is made deliberately) I have moved cities eight times. In all fairness, I must admit that Mumbai and Kochi have seen me return a couple of times, my love-affair with the other cities have been rather brief and fleeting at best - a year and a half being the longest period of dalliance.

Looking back at what took me back time and again to Kochi and Mumbai, meant facing some uncomfortable truths. The logic with my love for Kochi is simple. Home is where parents are, however old you grow. When I go to Kochi, I go for pampering. Amma would certify to the embarrassing fact that I have never lifted a spoon or done my laundry while 'at home'. Also, psssstt...I have bundled several of my whites (I have an obsessive compulsion to buy them even if I can't maintain them)back to Kochi while visiting so that between Amma and her maid, it can turn sparkling white again. ( If Malayali daughters are obsessed with buying whites, Malayali moms have this obsession to launder and bleach them brutally till they surrender their yellowing selves and turn pristine again!) So there, in a nutshell, Kochi is about regressing back to a time when parents did the 'taking care' and you exploited it for all it's worth. 


Now Mumbai...Mumbai is another story altogether. Why is life in Mumbai so much simpler? It's something I mooned and moaned about the first time I picked up my bags and traipsed off to live in Brighton, England.( In case, you are interested in that post, click here). 


All the reasons why many people consider this city to be unliveable, I must admit, are all valid and VERY TRUE. It is a nightmare for anyone not used to the Mumbaiyya kind of life - all about living by the clock. If your clock goes awry and the alarm didn't wake you on time, your day can be screwed in ways you can't even imagine. Everything, just about everything happens by the clock. 

The kachrawallah rings the doorbell at dot 6.30, the cook walks in at 8AM and the maid at 10.15AM. If the cook does not walk in at dot 8, she gets late for the next household that anxiously waits her arrival like I do and my sister gets late to leave for office and consequently if she loses more than half an hour extra on the road in traffic, she loses a half-day leave. 


The traffic chaos in this city might mean losing several hours, but that's not an excuse for arriving late for a meeting. Instead, you also factor in an hour extra if you are travelling at peak-time. Indian Stretchable Time, as I have come to fondly refer to it while in the UK, is least applicable in Mumbai.( I must add the 'least', because Mumbai is after all in India and all the characteristics of Indians across the country do tend to get reflected here too, however rare) 


However, what has me enthralled is that the city works 24x7. The maids in Mumbai don't believe in union-baazi ( working by union-stipulated hours). Work schedules are flexible provided adequate notice is provided so that they can juggle their work-charts around. Everyone is contactable via a mobile phone and they are very happy to share the number with you ( none of the Brit-snootiness when it comes to divulging a personal number). So on my phone, I have convenient categories - three Brokers ( or call them Estate Agents), two electricians(one also doubles up as a plumber), stand-by maids if mine decides to take unexpected time-off and has not brought in her aunt or cousin or sister or daughter to work till she gets back and two istiriwallahs - one who does my regular ironing and another when I need some urgent pressing done and assorted numbers for beauticians who swing by to help you look less wild. I have a category for just about everything and they are all filled. Efficient, no fuss, disciplined enough to pander to my weird form of OCD. 

And it is not just the people, the services provided in this city are also equally appreciable and in a way that respects their time and mine. The kirana store delivers just about everything home and also brings in the required change, if you want to pay for a packet of crisps and diet coke with a 1000-rupee note. You can decide on the menu of what take-out food you want to serve your guests after you have set the plates on the table. In the time, they have had their first glass of wine and warming up to eating, the delivery boy would be at the door with food wonderfully packed to keep it hot. Even the ice-cream outlets offer individual ice-cream scoops, packed cleverly and not just family-pack of ice cream slabs as home delivery. Sunday is just another day, unlike in my red-state Kerala where everything including the neighbourhood stray dogs take it as their rightful day off.


The work-ethic of Mumbai is admirable - prompt, very polite and rarely shoddy. Yes, money power does hold sway like in any other metropolis, but isn't that a universal truth? 


For a single girl in a big bad city, this one is a blessing. The nights aren't unsafe, the comforts aren't back-breaking expensive. It affords you your little corner, even if it is no bigger than a handkerchief. 


Mumbai is home today, I'm not sure if it will remain that tomorrow. As I grow older, the need for space and for a more relaxed way of life is growing too. But this city has kept me young, alive and on many occasions soothed, healed and put me back on my feet. Wherever I go, irrespective of my criticisms of its dirt, dust and dinginess - I shall remain a loyal Mumbaikar. This city has character- flawed or otherwise. 

Life in the City - Poetry in an Urban Jungle

Chapter 2 - Migrant Musings

The sun sets over the Juhu Beach leaving the sky a riot of colours - from the strongest pinks to the most radiant saffrons...and amidst all that a globe of fire dispassionately sinks into the sea. The Sun does not care that it's another date ticked off the calendar of my life..He has a date with the other side of the earth..There are people waiting there to wake up, find a new purpose to their life on a new day...


This thought is a bookmarked one...one that often comes to haunt every other night before sleep overtakes me. I remember the last time it visited clearly..

I was standing carefully by the very edge of the beach, pleased with myself for calculating just how much the tide will invade the land..this way the waters just kiss my feet and don't drench me uncomfortably. The sand that faithfully sticks to the folds of the toes is uncomfortable but there was a time when I craved it...when the cold, pebbled beachfront in Brighton bit into the tender flesh underfoot. The chill in the air and the twinges of pain running up my feet then had made me crave the warm sneaky sands of Juhu..

I look around and there are few on the beach that appear to be there like me, philosophising on life. Most are families out for an evening of fun on the beach - children happily turning into mud bunnies while their mothers watch on, resigned to the tricky day of laundry ahead. Others for whom the beach is a catching-up point, much the same way I think of a Costa coffee or the Cafe Coffee Day across from the beach. It is much cheaper and come to think of it, affords complete privacy...where else can you be just a dot on a sandy landscape?


I have new companions for the hour as I walk trailing footprints across the spongy sand - prostitutes and peddlers, delicately whispering their rates to foreigners as they brush by, football-crazy teens and couples in love, who can't find a more private spot in the crowded metropolis. But then in Mumbai, every day you find new companions,some turn familiar faces travelling the same weary path that you are while others just bob up and about at strange times in strange places. Sometimes they leave a whiff of their presence, mostly, this city just swallows them whole...

I close my eyes..and a new thought is gaining a life of its own - Is Mumbai a figment of my imagination? Have I created an ugly but genial, crowded but entirely private city in my head? If I blink a couple of times will the beach in front of me fold into a nice undulating rug that I can then stow in my bag and carry away?? Are the people that cross me imagined creatures, with life kissed into them only at the time of the hour of the day that they are scheduled to play a minor role in my personal drama?? Is there a big brass box stowed in someone's attic where they all retire to once their part is over?

Perhaps it is the smell of weed that I detect hanging in the air as I move further inland on the beach away from the waters...I'm lightheaded...but my hunt for poetry in an urban jungle continues...

( Photographs Courtesy: Gregor Thomeczek, 2011)

Life in the City - Maximum City, Maximum Independence

Chapter 1 - The Migration.


Mumbai has been the 'go-to' city of my life ever since I can remember. As a kid,a Malayali kid to be exact, Mumbai was at first the stopover airport on our annual trips to visit dad ( in the Gulf of course!). Kochi, my hometown did not have an international airport in the first two decades of my life. So any trip by flight had to be routed through Mumbai. That's how the Mumbai airport became the first dot on my map of Mumbai. Perhaps its a legacy of the number of touchdowns on the tarmac of the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport that even today landing in Mumbai feels like homecoming (more than even the Kochi touchdown).

The second dot was perhaps the Juhu beach with its Pav Bhajiwallahs and the garish multicoloured gola stalls. However, the increasing number of dots denoting my increasing familiarity with the city was not the reason I ended up being a Mumbaikar.


Small town living naturally inspires dreamy minds to seek out the big bad city. A place where no one knows you and few care to find out. I guess it is an intrinsic need to see if you can live outside the protective cocoon of home - in a sense a declaration of independence or rather, adulthood. So when I first packed my bags for Pune to study, Mumbai became the natural progression for work. Somehow Delhi was the big, bad city in my mind - Mumbai was like the warm welcoming aunt who took you in and then let you be.


Personally, I think the Cs also were pretty favourable - Climate, Cuisine and Culture - vastly different but comfortingly similar. And Amma had, in that subtle and very practical tone of hers ingrained into me time and again that Delhi was too far - air tickets very expensive and train journeys home could take up the best part of any leave from work.

So there..Sometimes rebellions too become PG-rated. Moving out becomes your personal rebellion but the choice of city based on parents' approval becomes your deference to their wisdom. 


In the first heady years, the thrill of living in Mumbai was increased thousand-fold by the new-found independence to stay out late or return home any time, without seeking prior permission. The money in the purse that smelt of hardwork and not dole and most importantly, being treated like an adult without a chaperone around.


That is how Mumbai became the canvas of my life - the heroine of a long-love story - jilted a couple of times, but ever-faithful, ever welcoming. I sought other cities time and again...but returned, sometimes to lick wounds, other times out of choice not desperation.

Life in the City - Serialised

For a while now, I have been thinking about a change...change in style, format, layout..well those are merely cosmetic now, are they not? So now I think I have hit on an answer to get over the writer's stumble - calling it a block just seems more permanent..so I say stumble..

Very often what we don't realise that writer's stumble emerges from the lack of anything new to say. Think about something interesting and it doesn't take over five minutes to have your thoughts translate logically from your head onto the screen - putting pen on paper has never been more obsolete.

Talking of which, I wonder if I'd even recognise my handwriting anymore? Except in those scrawls they call signatures, often shaky and completely out of character as they appear on credit card slips. And it's not just the loss of money they signify that makes it appear shaky. It is also that there is no clever art of penmanship there. A pen is just a handy tool to say IOU. I digress, as I always do...

So now the idea is to serialise life - not that everyday is adventurous..and unlike many twits that tweet about brushing their teeth or walking their dog, I'm not going to bore you with the mundane...But there is so much to living in a city...our interactions, our frustrations, private anxieties, petty peeves that I have begun to realise are pretty universal. Where I have a related photo, that too shall be added to the text. If not, I'll strive to leave it blank!

You might be wondering why I had to write a blog about writing a blog..well, call it practice of years - the curtain raiser is a must before any significant event...so there...this is an announcement. Every day or every other day, I shall make this my private record and you shall be the fly on the wall in the life of a single, always ready-to-mingle girl out in the city!

If you find the ride exciting, join me and we shall discuss things threadbare! Nothing like a good debate to keep things exciting...Every post in the series, I'm thinking should be titled Life in the City. Otherwise how will it be a series? :)

Stay tuned,

In the Name of Chaats, Masalas and Holy Cravings....

Many warned me about the abject lack of imaginativeness in British cuisine...I thought they were exaggerating...I still do, because the cakes and other bakes in Britain are to die for... And I have had some reasonably good stuff at pubs here...But well, when it comes to the meat...they rather leave things a little less flavoured or seasoned...the salt has been drastically reduced from the national cuisine, I think, rather consciously...I remember one of the first outdoor campaigns that I saw, while on route to London from Brighton on many buses was the exhortation to make the already bland food blander still....Cut down on the Salt and Save your Life or something to similar effect was the slogan on the buses and just about everywhere else... Everytime I raise a fine point on cuisine, the problem is I try to drive it in with all the subtlety of a battering ram. But then I'm never allowed an easy point for, I have friends who love rubbing it in my face, that as an Indian I have no voice to complain. For isn't Indian food all about 'over-cooking, masking the flavour of meat or vegetables totally with about a million masalas and then deep frying the rest of the stuff'....And even as I protest vehemently, I think to myself....pooris and pakodas we fry...the meat is always 'cooked till tender' in our careful lexicon...which means there is no concept of lightly tossing the meat on a skillet with the bare minimum flavours or seasoning...and we can put just about anything in about 5litres of oil and chilli powder and pickle it for posterity...if that's not all, we can kill just about anyone with diabetes with the amount of sugar and condensed milk we empty into our desserts... Hmmm...that as it is...the reason why I'm willing to eat 'humble pie' is as follows...the friend, who I feel would gloat till he chokes, used to begin any conversation he ever had with me by asking me what I ate/ was having for breakfast/lunch/dinner. When I was in India, surrounded by everything that I gastronomically consider heavenly, I was of the opinion that food is merely for subsistence - ie, to give me enough energy to pull through a hard demanding day as a TV professional. Barring the occasional craving for something exotic, I would be hard pressed to remember wanting something specific for any meal... So asking me about what I ate, was like the most irrelevant, out of my interest area beginning to any conversation...and something I remember telling him quite pointedly too... These days, he often smirks at my status updates on facebook or my tagline on google messenger...It's either about craving chai or wanting pakodas or missing something else specific in the wintry loneliness of Brighton...And while I would have protested till I turned blue before admitting it, for once I feel the 'devil needs to be given its due'... For the past two days, I have been in a state of urgent want....for chaat...In fact, I was so sure I'd miss chaat so much that for nearly a week during my last month in Mumbai, all I had for dinner was assorted chaat.... If you haven't heard of panipuris and aloo chaats and ragda pattice and bhel puris...then there is a big chunk missing from the education your tastebuds deserve... For those unfamiliar with Indian street food, chaat is as unhealthy as it comes...well, atleast most of it is....but the speed with which it can be slurped and the immense satisfaction it leaves the eater with, is unparalleled...most of the ingredients are deep fried, dunked in sweet and sour sauces and garnished with starchy yummy potatoes and sprinkled liberally with salt and spices...and if potatoes are not the garnish, then they are the shallow-fried base for masala-infused lentils called chhole...Just writing about chaat makes me drool.... And then there is the pani puri...it's the simplest of them all....but in my book, the king of all chaats.....my chaat routine begins almost always with it...they are deep fried dough balls, the crust is lightly broken and filled with potatoes and other fillings, then dunked first in sweet date sauce and then dunked in tangy tamarind water before it is plopped into a bowl you hold...and as soon as the first one plops into your bowl, you gulp it down in one go and then drain the water that has escaped out of the dough ball into your bowl..... There you go....I am having foodgasms....I empathise with my friend I considered loony...In fact, I think I have gone three degrees loonier than him....I dream food, I crave food and when I manage to overcome the fierce pulls of laziness and inertia, I actually try to make some of it that I miss sorely in England... But the water is different....the ingredients lack the smell of India...and then there is the sterile prettiness to England, that leaves me feeling a little cheated when I try to recreate the food orgy that India alone provides.... And now after writing this post, I have just managed to increase my craving for chaat by about ten notches....Talk about therapy boomeranging!!! Hmppppphhhhh......

The Terror Remembered..One year Later..

My reporting days for television are perhaps over for good... But I can't help revisiting a coverage that left a huge scar behind...the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai last year.. After putting in nearly 60 hours of non-stop vigil outside a burning Hotel- that had many innocent civilians still trapped in there..many of whom were charred or suffocated to death...or brutally gunned down - for no fault of theirs.. I had broken down completely after returning home... Had come completely undone...wept loudly- deep wracking sobs for over an hour, when the truth of what I had witnessed and reported on, sank in....hours after the NSG claimed that the Operation was over...the last terrorist holed up inside the Taj was gunned down... I wonder, how I stuck on, battling waves of fatigue and lack of sleep...as the non-stop coverage of the Taj Seige continued for three days..

At about 4AM on the final day, I remember being asked to sound 'less dead' - slightly more animated over air, about the shellings and the blasts I could hear from the hotel, that was just about a few hundred yards in front of me.. But the truth was that I was so dead on my feet that even the dangers of being this close to actual gunfire and possibility of it being fatal never occured to me...Any one of the reporters could have been sitting ducks for sniper fire, we were well-within range..No reporter shirked. We all sat there, waiting for the war to be won and for the satisfaction of witnessing it ( Photo courtesy: Dinesh Parab, Outlook)

My heart was in my throat literally, emotion choking me as I reported the rescue operations late into the night.....seeing guests in shock escorted out by security forces and bundled into waiting buses, even as covering gunfire raged on in the background... the discomfort at the sight of white bundles being brought out- that they were dead bodies were clear in the way the bundles jutted groundwards....the siren of the ambulances...the smell of gunpowder that wafted with the sea breeze.. What are the images that will stay on with me? Moments after I saw a charred dead body falling out of a window of the Taj Hotel, I can still see the NSG commandos walking out of that ruined shell of a hotel...if their body language was not indication enough as one of them fished their phone out, yards ahead of me to talk to his daughter, I got a confirmation from a very tired soldier, who smiled through his fatigue and braved imminent death - ' hamare liye kuch bhi mushkil nahin hai' - that was what I remember of the Taj ordeal, a year later...The Indian forces won...but at what cost? Taj's General Manager Karambir Kang lost his family in one night even as he battled to save the lives of many others....Children whose parents went out partying that night, found themselves orphaned..Many innocent commuters at the VT station who were just hurrying home to have their dinners with their families never made it off that platform that night...The policemen...and then the little angel Baby Moshe Holtzberg who was saved by his nanny from the Chabad House at Nariman House...Wonder how he is doing, a year later...transplanted to Israel, growing up never knowing his parents...who were tortured to death - in the name of religion?

This sight of the smouldering Taj burning with the fires that raged on for hours,still rankles me....I have it on my desktop, this picture, clicked on my mobile phone.... Will the end of the Kasav trial be closure enough? Has the Indian government guaranteed that we wont be gullible targets for another such audacious attack in the future? Or should we, as Indians often do, believe that till what's pre-destined for us in the lines that run through our hands and heads or drawn into our horoscopes gets extinguished... we shall survive..

Grim prognosis...but in a struggling country like ours, do we have the right to demand that more premium be placed on our safety?? I dont know if I support a Global War on Terror...I don't know if I'm willing to blame Pakistan for every evil thing perpetrated on the Indian soil...I don't know if aggressive posturing through mass media or denouncements of every peace initiative that never succeeded are solutions.. But I do know that the answers I want, that I seek are currently with no one...no one really knows how dangerous the terror game we find ourselves entrapped in, is..... Till then remember we are pawns....blindfolded, clueless... This photolink of by the TIME magazine is worth a click...

ON A RAINY MUMBAI MORNING

Some Old posts...Never found its way on to the blog....Reposting them...

On a lazy Sunday cloudy morning, dragging my lethargy to work is done with the same sense of self sacrifice as service rendered to the nation..So ditch the daily routine of boarding a local train...(though on a Sunday, there's nothing as blissful as travelling in a train where you usually have the whole first class compartment to yourself ) And there I am, in a taxi gliding along Mumbai roads, still in Sunday slumber.... In no time, came the rains...perhaps to make me happy about my 'wise decision' to cab it... Rain it did and how...Pouring down in sheets so fine that in no time the windows misted....

Ramavataar Dubeyji, my driver for the day explained in exhaustive detail in that lilting Avadhi accent, why he was so careful on the road...the oil on the road made it tricky business in the first rains, cars could skid, but apparently it never happened to him, not when he was driving his black and yellow Fiat...nor now when he has bought his white and blue A/C Indica...He has been ferrying disinterested, impatient passengers like me for over twenty five years now..My occasional 'hmmms' were the only encouragement he needed...The rains created enough din to drown out most of his monologue....and then there was my book..

But no amount of thinking back, can help me figure out what made me ignore Dubeyji and my book, as we pulled up at the Linking road traffic signal...I made a neat little circle on my misted window and peeked outside...And I saw 'bliss' ....There she stood....a raggedy shaggy mass of arms and legs...hair plastered to her face..eyes hidden under the mess... I wouldn't have been able to smile with that glee at my most unguarded moment...

An Ode to the Rains was in progress....her own choreography, set to her own beats...but the rhythm so flawless...The windows misted again, to my irritation...and instinctively, I rolled down the window....The rain happily poured in...but my attention was fixed...Thats when she saw me...Her little eyebrows wiggled in tune with her beat....She knew she had me hooked..The flailings now even more exaggerated....

In no time, two impossibly little bodies joined my rag doll...the tiniest one had no clothes on at all..Just a huge pendant around her neck that settled well above a cutely rounded belly...all that she knew was to jump from left to right to left...with the little belly doing its own little jig...

Out of nowhere, came a little brown hand dripping water.... My little wonder bubble burst...

They were demanding their fee....I was fishing in my pockets for the baksheesh when my rag doll came running forward...and slapped the hand away from my vision...A

nother jiggle with a smile for me, hands going round and round asking me to roll up my window again....and waving my car on like she was the traffic policeman at that junction...Her dance was not on sale...and she wasn't going to let anyone make a quick baksheesh...

Three minutes...thats how long the signal took to turn green....Dubeyji's monologue was on, he didn't notice my distraction at all...I couldn't see my rag doll at all, the rear windows had misted up completely....

All that remained to remind me of that meeting was the water stain rapidly spreading across my kameez where the rain drops had settled to watch my rag doll's performance with me...

A NOTE TO SAY 'THANK YOU MUMBAI'

Fear of taking a leap of faith and the desperation to make it work were packed into my luggage...as I returned to a city I had forsaken four years earlier...

The upbeat cocky girl who had happily said 'good riddance' to this city with dreams in her eyes came back a tad broken in spirit...with the added burden of cobbling together a new life amongst strangers at a totally new workplace...

But Mumbai welcomed me back without reproaches...This time I sensed the warmth than the steely coldness of an uncaring metro where life runs as per the timetable of local trains...

Four years and roughly over three months to that (somehow seems longer than that) this time when I leave the city I have no bones to pick, just a lot of memories to sew up into a neat packet.. While sorting through what's now junk, once much loved -much coveted..

A story here, a gossip there, love given and received, muffled laughter to ensure neighbours dont knock at unearthly hours.. And now Im gearing up to leave all this behind. I wonder if im being thankless...

I had arrived with two suitcases of clothes and little else...And then I'd dug my heels..Wilfully putting down roots all the while telling anyone who bothered to listen that living in this city was a professional compulsion and life here a professional hazard.I don't think that any more. This time even nostalgia is humble.

Every trinket, every scrap gathering dust and every sheet smelling of stuffy suitcases and mothballs that left their smell behind - everything has a 'remember that time when you' tale to tell. My books are packed in plastic and assembled in cartons..All my little knick knacks bubble wrapped...

Two rolls of packing tape crisscross across four years...years that I took to stand up, steady myself and turn my head skywards...Till I finally mustered the courage to cut the strings that bound me to this restless city... Now my strings are in my hand, but I dont feel weightless...I leave a bit of me back with the 'junk' I'm discarding here... I will come back for it...

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

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?