my city... worst to live in??

 

recently... mumbai was 

voted as the worst city to live in. how did this dream city, which had its own dream girl, dream job and dream house become the worst address possible?!? i have known this fact since a few years now... but kept on ignoring that thought in the hope that it will go away. but like the unwanted zit which decides to erupt right before an important family function, this blatant truth was thrown in our face by a local newspaper for everyone to see. 

wasn't there a time when this city was considered 'the' destination? wasn't it the unofficial 'capital' of the country. i mean... dint we look at Delhi with our noses in the air and tut-tutted the babus that were running that metropolis? then what happened? why did the dream evaporate? why did the image shatter? was it just an illusion? i don't think so.

u see.. i believe that the term 'bombay' was lucky for us. the day we renamed it.... the city simply lost its sheen. there is nothing wrong with going back to the grassroots, to be in touch with your identity.... but to take away that particular zest, is like making caramel custard without the caramel. the flavour of this city was enhanced by the vibrant nature of the people who lived in it. but now those same people feel cheated; cheated of space, cheated of air, cheated of hope. 

but like everything else... this city will survive. whether there is hope or not.. the dream will always always lure the quintessential dreamer from smaller towns. you may call it the worst city to live in... it is still my city. it is probably the people who live in it that have become worse... or the complete helplessness of the civic body to tackle the population influx... whatever the reasons may be... this city is still home. you just have to ask the NRI junta... and they will sock you in the eye and tell you to take a closer look. then we might see, the quaint irani cafes next to the swish chocolateries. then we might see the bargain discounts next to the exorbitantly priced designer wear. then we might see  the network of BEST buses waiting at the same signal as the Ford Endeavor. love it or hate it... this is what we have. we can only hope that the coming generation will nurture it back to its initial glory and not abandon it in haste... but is it fair to expect them to do it? why cant we be the change we want in this city we call home.

the great indian party

india lit up during diwali.. as captured by nasa

so its that time of the year... when all of us are trying to loose weight... cheating on diets... following them religiously... shopping like the world will end tomorrow and basically preparing to fit into skimpy saree blouses or outfits (whatever is your preference). somewhere in august, traffic in bombay was scarce. people were headed out of town due to combined holidays-weekends. today if you step out.. it seems as if the city is going to cave in on itself. there are so many cars.. ferrying all the page 3 ladies from beauty parlours to lunches to high teas to cocktails to dinners to god knows where else... anywhere but home. most of the time, these cars are double parked on roads because memsaheeb wants to get out/in right at the doorstep since she cant walk too much in her dizzying heels; or god forbid.... if a playful breeze ruffle her just blow dried hair... (never mind the hours she spent facing the warm air from the machine). thank god i ride a scooter!! or else i would be stuck in this maddening traffic for hours!  and where would i park!!!!

what about the drivers of this class of people? isnt it their diwali/christmas too? dont they want to be with their families? dont they have to take their wives shopping? so what if he shops at dadar market and not a uber-cool sobo boutique. frankly, i feel the bargains we get from the markets at dadar or crawford market and other places like these are just perfect. perfect for the wallet. perfect for this annual craze. perfect for some mental sanity.u don't suffer mini heart attacks every time you reach for an object that interests you.

this is the time of the year.. when your social standing is defined by the number of invitations you have received for various functions. but it is also the time of the year, when you just say good bye to your monthly budget... the gifts that one has to give can throw a spanner in a well oiled household financial blue-print. most of my friends are discussing.... what are you going to wear at XYZ's function and i say; "i am wearing my red sari." so the come back to this line is normally.. "oh come on! we have already seen that!" hmmm... so now what???  sari shopping? i dont think so... its not MY bloody wedding!!!!!! but i am only human and do give in to this madness once in a while. this drives my hubby dearest to pull out his hair. (one of the reasons i think he is bald).

but seriously..... this is the time of the year when i feel a certain current, a charge running through the city. yes it pleads temporary insanity, but i can also feel the buzz generated. it just smells different. its like Chanel no.5 mixed with exilir called life with the spicy flavour of fresh samosas. its just heady. this is the season i dont grumble on the road when i am riding through traffic. this is the season when i have something to look forward to - the company of friends - the ones we hardly meet; good drinks; good food; temporary memory loss of all that bothers us. even the driver who works till the wee hours of the morning.. dropping a very drunk memsaheeb home... looks forward to going home and making plans with his family for the coming festivities.

yes, this is the season... where madness and mayhem are happy words.

so who's giving the exam?

 

its absolute peak season out here in India. people are falling sick all around us. this is a family bonus fever, which attacks all family members around twice a year. once, in this month and the other will begin again in march or sometimes april. the symptoms are nausea, headaches, stomach ache, yelling screaming etc etc...  its starts with the youngest member and moves on to the eldest. now dont get me wrong.. it is not a life threatening illness. its just seasonal. it happens during exam time and locals call it 'exam fever'. The mother will hover like a helicopter on reserve fuel... over her child.. ready to crash on him any minute. the elders of the family, will pity the child and demonize the tuition teacher or the parent who is responsible for the stress caused to their precious 'family jewels'. And the child who hated to take a bath, will take that extra 30 minutes of sanctuary... with helicopter-mom banging away on the door.

its that time of the year when teachers forget that our lives DON'T depend on naming all the figures of speech correctly or proving the theorems in geometry. i believe, that if my child can name 10 family members correctly then that means he is in touch with his core. i believe that he needs to prove his sincerity more than the theorem. 

today, children barely manage to converse in their mother tongue.... then how can we enforce more languages on them.. which might be called national or state but seem alien to them? doesnt the child, who speaks in hindi and marathi at home 24/7, have an added advantage over other children who just speak it for that half hour period in school. how can you expect such a child to write an essay on their favourite leader!?! 

 

yes, there are certain subjects which are absolutely required to build up a common base of education in a child's life... but then to judge them... based on something they wrote under stressful conditions is not fair. NOW ALL OF THE ABOVE WAS WRITTEN FROM A PARENT'S POINT OF VIEW specially someone who is going through one such harrowing time.  

but look at the other side... AS A TEACHER i feel that exams are a must... but all teacher's need to keep the syllabus reasonable!! it doesn't have to be half text book now and half text book later. it should be ok to ask something meaningful rather than something that's quantitative. as a teacher i feel, that the child will get complacent if he knows he is not answerable. the teacher, herself, begins to develop a care-a-damn attitude. an examination is as much a test for the teacher as it is for a child. the teacher is tested on whether she was successful in explaining a concept. did she make a difference in the child's life or not? will he remember that small historical anecdote she told in class during one of the lectures? it is as much her experience as the child's. so whose reputation is on line here!?!

so finally, i dont know what my children are going to write for tomorrow's marathi paper.... but i wonder who is giving the exam? my kids?? me??? or their teacher????

 

unconditional companions

Books.... my silent friends... my 3am pals... my lonely-in-mumbai companions. i always loved reading and hoped that one day my kids would also find solace in the pages of a juicy thriller. its another story that my boys never took up that hobby. but seriously.. all of us have sooooo many books that have influenced us and which we have enjoyed/cried with/left in between. we've come across books that have completely absorbed us... so much that we even forget our duties... at least i have at times forgotten the food on the stove or let tea go cold bcoz i dint want to waste that precious second lifting a tea cup. 

  

here are some books that impressed me & changed me. As a kid i use to read small lady bird books and my favourite was Thumbelina. Gosh! how i loved her. how i wished i could soar with her, sitting on that bird.. up.. up.. away! the way she tried to leave the mole who lived underground... probably inspired me to be independent early on. 

 

then came Sidney Sheldon, the master story teller. so many nights are dedicated to him... books that i just could not put down even after lights out. Judith Krantz and her novel Scruples completely changed me and made me realise that there was a world beyond my lane which was completely different from the cocoon i lived in. the Winthrop family and their millions made me aspire higher goals. i couldnt get over the way the protagonist rebelled and turned her life around despite all odds against her. i was completely swept in by the shopping, the clothes, the jewels.... i guess today when i walk into a shop and flash my card (albeit debit card) i can feel a bit like all those glamorous women from the novels.

 

 then came motherhood and Dr. Spock's - Baby and Child care was a saviour like none other... that reminds me.. i will have to re-read it again coz now i am a mother of adolescent children and God... do i need all the advice i can get!!!!!

as maturity set in, i moved on to philosophical books and the only one that did touch me was The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. this book radiated so much positivity into my day-to day life that sometimes i think.. is it really as simple as that?!?! 

 

and finally... how can i end this without writing about 50 Shades of Grey? i almost passed it up... but happened to read a review about it in a local newspaper. just the first 50 pages and i was hooked booked and cooked by mr. grey... or should i say... tied, gagged and spanked?!?! i dont know who E L James is... but whoever you are and where ever you are.. god bless you. the fist night i read it till 3am... then i carried it every where with me.. not wanting to waste even i minute of free time. some of my friends criticised it... but i just loved it!!!! to hell with it.. call it soft porn, call it sleazy, call it whatever you like... but the way the characters are detailed.. their psyche their fears, their lust... i felt it all and yearned for more.

i cant wait for the next novel to touch my heart again.  no matter what advances take place in the world today... the smell of books cannot be replaced by the clinical swipe of your finger while turning pages of an e-book. life seems incomplete without a book for a companion... a friend who will share my deepest desires and hopes and dreams. a friend who will not question why... a friend who will not feel bad that i did not call (read it) for days... my unconditional life companions. yes, they will never replace my living friends.. but neither will my living friends ever be able to take their place. 

birthday wishes for YOU!!

 

a super star celebrated his 70th birthday recently. now tell me... what makes him so special? isnt he in our face all the time? hasn't his magnanimity been diluted by the countless appearances on the idiot box?  this man, this hero, has the nation eating out of his palms every weekend... wouldnt it have been better if those same palms had been feeding some destitute somewhere? we prayed for his speedy recovery when his life was threatened years ago... but does he pray for the speedy recovery of our loved ones? then why this fascination? why this furor? 

you know.. dont get me wrong.. i love him too... in fact i know his movie dialogues by heart and still cry during certain movie scenes.... but shouldnt the buck stop right there? he is entertainment. its his job to entertain. he is getting paid an obscene amount of money to entertain. so why should i bother about his birthday when he definitely doesnt bother about mine? there must be so many people who are born on the same day... arent they important enough to know about? why should their celebration be eclipsed by this gigantic personality?

even in history, we have two great personalities born on Oct 2nd... (gandhi & lal bahadur shastri). but while the country and the world goes ga ga over one... the other goes unnoticed. though the latter has been a prime minister of our country. how many newspapers thought it worthy to even dedicate one column space to him instead of the one man who has lost his appeal over the years.

how many of you were born on Oct 11th and wish that for once you could celebrate in style... shout out to the world that you do exists! it was really heart warming to see all the people who came out of hibernation to wish him... but tell me.. do these same people even care? was it just another opportunity to be seen and heard? does the super star call them up and say, "hey buddy, what you doing tonight? wanna hang out?" in that respect... arent we all luckier?

he has been blessed with an amazing talent... and thank god for that... or else where would we be without our veeru-jai friendship, or our lovable sharabi? who would have wiped our tears when he sang to his sweetheart over the phone? who would have taught us that romance does not see any age and you can woo your lady even in front of your grand-kids? being legendary is one thing... but creating hype around the legend is another. 

so here's wishing a big happy birthday to all those who are born on Oct 11th.... may your life be as glorious as his party was.

the mystery, that is the indian driver

i am a proud owner of a 15yr old scooter. though i learned riding it just 2 years back. yes, one fine day i decided that i dint want to be at the mercy of a cabbie (most of whom consider themselves the next best thing after coca cola). these breed of people actually assume that we will forget where we are going and go to a destination of their choice. unfortunately i live in a country where traffic rules are kept to a bare minimum and the cop who is vigilante enough but the population of errant citizens overwhelms him. 

so here i am, me and my ride, trying to reach our destination in one piece amidst all this mayhem.... when... BAM! some idiot will overtake you from the left or zoom past you at break neck speed. just when you have recovered from that (a minor heart attack nonetheless) we have the big bully of the road - the BEST bus.... or for those who have never had the 'pleasure' of experiencing this joyride.. its the exact replica of the red buses we see in England. now this dude firmly believes that given the sheer size of his vehicle, he is the king of the road.... and beyond reproach. so whenever i find myself in front of one of these, i just accelerate like crazy to put as much distance between me and him.if you unfortunately decide to overtake him then... we gotta face the consequences... coz there is none like a bus driver scorned.

and then, the reason behind the title i chose... the mystery.... the 4 wheeler driver who insists on honking even at a red light just to make sure that i havent fallen asleep on my 2 wheeler or who will keep on honking one mile before a signal so that i move faster only to be caught at the signal later on.. coz he failed to judge that he would never have made it on time anyway. at such moments, i calmly come riding along and stop next to his vehicle and tell him, "oh! you are still here?!? i thought you must be long gone seeing that your ass was on fire back there." most of them fail to catch my sarcasm.. others ignore it. for others who honk even though they can see traffic stuck in front of me for miles... i just spread my hands and do the action of flying and tell him to go ahead and try it. that normally shuts them up.

i am made to believe that this problem does not exist in other parts of the civilized world. well... good for them... as for me... i spend my days suffering mini heart attacks and enriching my vocabulary with words not fit to be on this domain. i will never unravel the mystery that is the great Indian driver. i just want to catch the bugger who gave these lunatics their licenses... and get his head examined.

faceless in a sea of masks

so this is it.. i finally join the band wagon... for yrs i tried to figure out why would someone, a complete stranger nevertheless, read about what i have to say? why would someone who has worries and troubles of their own, even bother to look my way? its not like i have suddenly achieved nirvana and have a lot to tell everyone. 

 but then i thought, just like i go in search of some hidden agenda that destiny might have planned for me, the same way some wandering soul might just think glance in on my blog. so then does this mean i have to write only sane things?? things that are socially acceptable?? things that are funny?? or can i just vent out my feelings at the cost of sounding like a lunatic sometime? i guess i will only know the answer to that as time passes by. 

i have thought a lot... what should my first blog be about? something to capture your attention... let your imagination run riot... was the inner voice. hmm.. that is easier thought of than written.. or in this case typed. 

i dedicate this new blog to all the faceless people out there, who want to be heard but not seen; understood but not confronted; accepted but not conformed. i could be sitting anywhere in the world and not realize that the person who has commented on my blog is sitting two tables away from me! the anonymity that a blog gives is such a relief that at one point you feel like opening the gates of your soul to let people have a peek in; secure in the knowledge that the peeping tom doesnt know whose life he is peeping in. 

so lets begin this journey.. hope there are no hiccups.. hope i make some good friends on the way and even if i dont, it doesnt matter bcoz this is not a 'phone-a-friend' life line anyway. but like they say, there are 7 people in this world who are your soul mates, your identical, your id... my quest is to find at least 5 of them and listen to what they have to say about 'our' lives.