Man From Matunga

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August 28, 2005

Two Degrees of Separation

About five years ago, I had written a similar piece as well, called "Its a Small World" (at the time I did not know the concept of six degrees of separation), after attending a party, where between my wife and I, we landed up knowing almost everyone who had come to the party.

This is today's Mumbai Mirror piece.

A decade ago, we were visiting my wife’s cousin in Chicago. A young man had come in from Idaho to “see” her, after having passed her first two tests of being Jain and vegetarian. After we were introduced, he mentioned his cousin sisters who lived in Jain Society in Sion. As it happened, they had studied in J B Vaccha and my wife happened to know them reasonably well. For the next two hours, the whole topic of conversation revolved around Sion, Matunga and common friends. The cousin felt completely left out, since she had no clue what we were talking about, and kept getting more and more irritated as time went by. The next day, she just blew the poor guy off!

As a kid, whenever I used to go to Matheran or Mahabaleshwar during Diwali or summer, the common refrain from my parents was, “Half of Matunga is here”! And typically during the evening stroll through the market-place, we would meet someone who was a familiar face for my Mom either from the bhaji-market, or the derasar, or Don Bosco or Auxilium (my sister’s school). As if that was not enough, more often than not, the next-door neighbor at Rugby or Fountain would either be from Matunga, or had in-laws living in Matunga, or had once lived in Matunga or was hoping to shift to Matunga… there was always a connection.

I have almost stopped getting surprised by the “it’s such a small world” exclamation that follows the discovery of these common links. As when Aanchal emailed me after one of the earlier pieces, lamenting the lack of interest that townie Mumbaiites showed in her dance class in Sion, and after a couple of email exchanges, we figured out that she lived just four buildings away and that her niece and my kids were friends at the nearby playground. Or when Ravi emailed me and it turned out that he was Sai’s nephew, Sai being the owner of the Air-Conditioned Udipi, which we frequent almost every other Sunday. One of the best stories I heard however, was from my friend’s brother, who was traveling through a remote part of Guadalajara in Mexico and stopped off at a shop where Hindi songs were playing and found the owner to be the brother of the same guy who owned the dhaba in Koliwada, where he used to go to eat fish fry in his younger days.

Sometime back, Hemang emailed me, probably from a cell-phone “evrywhere i see der r kacchis only..people in matunga r like chain ..where evryone knows each other ..which is not visible in oder parts of Bombay”. I guess he was just trying to point out why Matunga is a great village to live in.
“Six Degrees of Separation” is a theory that was first written about in the 1920s. In the 1950s, a couple of scholars proved that a connection can be found between any two people in the world, in just six steps. I guess they didn’t know about Matunga and Matungaeans, where everyone seems to know everyone, and if they don’t, they know someone who does. Making it just two degrees of separation…wherever in the world we Matungaeans may be.

Posted by bhavinj at 08:37 AM | Comments (2)

August 19, 2005

Hooked and booked

This is my Mumbai Mirror piece that appeared today.

“I want ‘The Invincible Man’?” I firmly insisted on picking up this book, the first time, Dad took me to Abbas Circulating Library on the south-west corner of King’s Circle.

I must have been 7 years old and had just come across the word “Invincible” somewhere and it remained stuck in my mind. When I saw this Enid Blyton title, I forced my unconvinced Dad to pick it up. That was my first “Fatty” book and as it turned out, it was actually “The Invisible Man”, the seventh in the series. For the next year or so, someone would come with me to Abbas to change books weekly and within a year I had managed to get through the entire Fatty series. Then came the Famous Five, the Secret Seven followed by Jupiter Jones, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. Along with these were the Batman/Superman, Phantom/Mandrake and the Spiderman/Fantastic Four comics as well as the Richie Rich, Casper and Archies comics and digests.

My reading habits were entirely supported by Abbas in those days and I don’t remember books being bought for me, except for some Amar Chitra Kathas. Abbas in those days, was a non-air-conditioned shop with a characteristic, musty smell of old books and moldy furniture. The rentals were very affordable and once you were a regular, Abbas often let minor late charges slip by.

By the time we were in the 10th , along with Alistair MacLean, we started furtively exploring James Hadley Chase and a couple of years later, Harold Robbins and Jackie Collins. I also ran through all the L’amours and some other Westerns. In parallel, started my love affair with Wodehouse and the sci-fi greats such as Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein.

It was then that I realized that there was a world outside Abbas. I joined the British Council and realized that there were good authors outside the popular realm as well. But there were times when neither Abbas nor the British Council could help, which is when the road-side booksellers at King’s Circle, would come to the rescue. Call it coincidence or my fortune, but each time I wanted an Asimov Foundation title, especially after having immediately finished reading the previous one, or a Tolkien, it was available on the road, at amazingly cheap prices. As were Anita Desais, John Irvings and Vikram Seths.

But as my tastes veered to obscure noire and sci-fi authors (including Philip Dick in those days), it was time to take succour with Smoker’s Corner on PM road. Though both were always helpful, Mr. Bootwala always had something more up his sleeve than Mr. Shanbhag of the nearby Strand Book House.

Abbas also moved on. He added video rentals and in the later years, video, CD and DVD rentals. The original place became a Baskin Robbins and is now a farsan place and he moved upstairs into a smaller, sterile, air-conditioned loft, completely destroying the charm of the old place. And yet, while other libraries have fallen by the wayside, Abbas has survived! Innovating and keeping pace with changing reading patterns and trends, he’s always had all the popular books and comics available. Where else would all the women in Matunga get their Mills and Boons to satiate/feed their romantic desires?

As I finish the Half-Blood Prince, it’s all come a full-circle. From Blyton to Rowling, from Fatty to Potter! And Abbas, making it all easily available!

Posted by bhavinj at 08:35 AM | Comments (1)

August 15, 2005

Patient Empowerment - Definitely not a Good Thing

The Sunday NY Times has a long article on the travails faced by patients in the US, in this modern world.

The article is a must-read for all patients and doctors. It traces the history of the current state of affairs, relating it to the movement for access to information that the baby-boomers demanded in all aspects of their lives, including medicine. As the unquestioning role of the doctor diminished and the patients started feeling empowered in making their own decisions, as the amount of ligitation increased along with the subsequent rise of defensive medicine, it led to a situation where the doctors stopped taking decisions for the patients, started putting choices in front of the patients and asked them to make the call.

That’s like asking a blind man to decide on the path to take at a crossroad, by asking him to read the signboards.

A few years ago, an article in the BMJ (I couldn’t find the link) expounded on this subject as well, saying that eventually the role of a doctor would be that of a travel agent. As patients became more empowered, they would themselves figure out their problems and their choices of treatment and the doctor would only help as a facilitator.

This is all so much bull-shit.

The majority of people do not know where their liver is, most can’t even pronounce the word “diagnosis” correctly and the majority of information comes from websites that are not peer-reviewed. The only real acceptable sources of information are through peer-reviewed journals, accessed through a portal like Pubmed, where in any case, without subscriptions, access to a lot of information is restricted. Moreover, even peer-reviewed information can be patchy, seemingly contradictory and often focusing on one tiny aspect of a part of the problem, which may not be apparent to the “lay” individual.

The situation is unfortunate. Though people love the concept of feeling empowered, when it comes to deciding between different lines of treatment, they just don’t have the training, the objectivity and the understanding to make a choice. Eventually the choices are often made on emotional reasons, or on the basis of past personal experience, or the advice of gurus and other well-meaning friends and family, all of which are flawed parameters to use. In India, the problem is further compounded by the plethora of alternative modalities available as well, virtually none of which, barring properly practiced ayurveda, have been proved scientifically to work.

One of the reasons the article gives for this situation to have developed, is the demise of the family physician and the bonding relationship between the GP and the patient, due to a variety of reasons, including litigation. I agree entirely. Even if the GP is not entirely up-to-date (and it is almost impossible to keep entirely updated all the time), the presence of that one person who can serve as a guide, who in difficult situations can help make a guided-choice, can make all the difference.

Many young couples and nuclear families are eschewing the GP even in Mumbai. They go directly to consultants, often by asking friends and family. Except probably for problems related to the eyes, when you could directly go to the ophthalmologists, even going directly to a pediatrician can be fraught with problems. Irrespective of the so-called GP-consultant-lab nexuses, etc, there are enough checks and balances in place. No GP can afford to go wrong with his patients, because he will then lose the confidence of his patients and their families, who may never come back to him. No GP today can afford to lose his paying patients and therefore will rarely take the chance of referring his patients to consultants and hospitals who will not be able to deliver the necessary results. GPs have access to a large formal and informal knowledge-base and can speed up the process of getting appointments, arranging tests, helping in defining the further course of treatment, checking out and treating minor complications and reactions, getting hospital admissions and making sure that the hospital also delivers appropriate care. More importantly, they can even accompany the patient during difficult procedures or consultant visits.

Exercising choices in medicine is not the same as with tourist destinations and car purchases. Even if the available information is inadequate, the worst that can happen is that the car may not be upto the mark or the holiday may be a bit inferior to the one expected. A bad choice in medicine may maim or kill.

In short, patients need to have more information, but they must develop the confidence and faith to let their treating doctors make the choices for them. Where a choice probably needs to be exercised, is in choosing the right GP.

Posted by bhavinj at 07:19 AM | Comments (3)

August 12, 2005

Can’t We Get Anything Right? About the New Domestic Airport Terminal

I arrive for the 10.40AM flight to Trivandrum and find that the walled-off enclosure that I’ve been used to seeing for the last few months, is now a full-functioning, spanking new terminal. I walk in, trying to absorb the new sights and sounds and find familiarity only in other confused faces like mine, all of us taking our time before striding in, trying not to bump into non-familiar objects.

All the non-IA airlines, except Kingfisher are in this terminal and things seem pretty chaotic. Jet Airways gets the pride of place, with its check-in counters, bang in front of the main entrance. After finding the correct counter to go to, I get my tele-checked boarding pass within a minute… and then get promptly shoved from the back by a harried Bengali woman who has come-in late for her Kolkata flight that is scheduled to leave in less than 20 minutes and can’t find the correct counter to go to in this crowd. So she comes to the first relatively empty counter that she can see, which as it turns out can’t take check-in baggage. Luckily the Jet ground-staff is very polite and helpful and she is taken care of. I manage to extricate myself and with 20 minutes to go before boarding, start to go to the upstairs lounge.

I go towards the only logical area, but the only sign there says “Security Check”. I turn the corner nevertheless and find two long lines of people. I’m lost! Where is the way to the lounge? Where is Arjandas Gangadas Khatri, the book shop? I turn back and go all the way to the other end only to find another entry point. Finally giving up, I ask one of the Jet ground-staff the way to the lounge, only to be told that I have to take the elevators on the left, just before the security gates. There is a passage there? She nods her head at this question.

I stride back towards the security gates and find an alcove to my left which now houses all the familiar shops from the old terminal. Arjandas is in disarray, but they manage to pull out the latest copy of PC World for me. They are cribbing as hell, because business is down…mainly because no one knows how to find them and they are no longer “on the way”. All the shops are now in this alcove, and you have to make a special effort to go there…impulse buys will definitely be affected. The stairs and the elevators to the lounge are in this alcove as well.

The Jet lounge on the first floor is however still the same and the only sane place during this entire experience.

I get back down to security check and find the lines smaller but the chaos unchanged. There is a separate line with an x-ray machine, for women, which is obviously underutilized as compared to the only other one, which is overwhelmed by the men. I ruefully view the non-existent line on the “ladies” side, but the attendants are firm on the segregation. Normally at this time, security check is a breeze, but I land up spending a good 15 minutes, before I am picking up my bags.

I finally get through security check to find that boarding for the Trivandrum flight has just started. In front of the single counter for Trivandrum, a long line snakes upto the steps, which divide the actual security check area from the boarding area and everyone’s stumbling to find a way of joining the line. People who need to go to another counter, have to cut across this line…as usual, some apologize and some just push and shove their way through.

I finally manage to get past the boarding check and onto the bus pick-up area, where things are now more familiar. From then on, everything’s as usual.

Granted that the terminal is only three days old, but it seems difficult to imagine that things will improve, unless eventually we’ll have both the terminals running simultaneously.

Questions:
Why is this terminal so small? Or are they going to eventually use this one and the older one besides it as well?
Why is the signage so inadequate?
Why is the gap between the security check area and the boarding counters so small?
Who the hell designed this place in the first place?

I mean, can’t we get one f****ing domestic terminal right?

Posted by bhavinj at 02:21 PM | Comments (1)

Gujjus (and Kutcchis) rule

This is today's post in the Mumbai Mirror.

In the context of the Gujjufication of Matunga, Swapna sent this mail, “Today GUJJUS rule everywhere. And by everywhere i mean everywhere!!! Forget matunga , u find them everywhere. the suburbs overflow with them, travel in a local train and i bet half the compartment will be yelling across to each other in gujrathi. Its almost like an epidemic! Earlier it was uncool to be a gujju…Now it is totally COOL to be a gujju!”

“Gujjus (& Kutchhis) rule!” Nowhere is this as epitomized as in Matunga.

In Kal Ho Naa Ho, when Saif goes home for his parents’ anniversary celebrations, he makes no effort to hide his embarrassment at his parents’ antics, especially when they sing the “Gujju” song - G for gathiya, U for undhiya, J for jalebi, J for Jamnagar, etc. Actually, I was a little confused at his embarrassment! Was it his character’s innate Americanness being an ABCDEFG (American Born Confused Desi Emigrated from Gujarat), or was it the fact that the script-writer, the director, the producer and Saif himself are all Punjabis / North Indians, who love to poke fun at other communities in their films?

Offering a counterpoint, is Sarabhai v/s Sarabhai, on Star One, one of the few adult, intelligent sitcoms on Indian television today. The senior Sarabhai couple is a rich Gujju pair, their dermatologist son having married a middle-class Punjabi from Patiala, who thinks “vixen” is pleural for “Vicks” and asks her husband not to forget to get extra key-chains from the car-dealer after he buys a 1 crore SUV. The sitcom works brilliantly most of the times, mainly because of its ability to self-deprecatingly make fun of its own innate Gujjuness, at the same time poking fun at other communities, without being offensive.

Mrs. Sarabhai (Ratna Pathak Shah - who incidentally is a Five Gardens product), seems to live in Malabar Hill / Walkeshwar, but could as well have been living in New York or North London or Toronto (if you’ve met Gujjus/Kutchhis from these cities, you’ll know what I’m talking about) and constantly sniffs at the infra-dig attitudes of middle-class Gujjus living in the suburbs. Which includes Matunga, which really is the next Gujju bastion after Malabar Hill / Walkeshwar.

Maybe its the two “derasars” (Jain temples), maybe it’s the fact that there are already so many Gujjus already living in Matunga, maybe it’s the large number of schools and the relative peace and quiet, but middle and upper middle-class Gujjus and Kutchhis have, over the years, quietly infiltrated almost all of Matunga, Wadala and Sion, the majority of households represent slightly downmarket versions of the Sarabhai household. Which partly goes a long way in explaining the Matunga mentality.

Naturally, Matunga, Wadala and Sion are now intensely Gujjufied. All shop-keepers of all shades and stripes speak Gujarati, as do all the doctors in the area, as well as the bais, chauffeurs and vegetable sellers. And even the sambhar is a shade sweeter in all the Udipi joints.

The best part is the spill-over effect. On Saturdays and Sundays, even the coffee shop at the ITC, in neighboring Parel, resembles an upmarket Gujju / Kutchhi wedding…including the mandatory Jain counter on the side.

Posted by bhavinj at 02:15 PM | Comments (3)

August 10, 2005

Of Columns and Columnists (...and Bloggers)

I was sitting for dinner late tonight and saw the latest issue of Fortune on the credenza. I picked it up and immediately started off with the last page, which is Stanley Bing’s column called “While You Were Out”. In fact this particular piece titled “Do You Know Who I Am” should be mandatory reading for all of us who land up occasionally or regularly wallowing in our own self-importance.

It’s the same with the Sunday Mid-Day. Until Khalid Mohamed left and though I detest the way he plays favorites with Shahrukh and Sridevi and Karan Johar, his movie reviews still had to be read with the Sunday morning tea. The next column my wife and I both, have to read, is Anil Thakraney’s “In Bad Taste”. I may not agree with everything that he says, but he writes from the heart and has still remained angsty.

Uma today introduced me to Mahmood Farooqui’s column, which I guess comes out on Monday, but which I will have to read only online, since I just don’t get the time to read Mid-Day on a working day. Every Mumbaiite (I hate Mumbaikar) should read his recent piece on the Mumbai rains.

I start Time magazine from the back page as well, first reading the op-ed or essay that comes there. My favorites are Pico Iyer and Charles Krauthammer, who is a regular columnist with the Washington Post.

For the last few days, it’s been Uma’s and Dilip’s blogs along with Seth Godin.

I am a sucker for the “personal essay” or “opinion piece”. Maybe it’s the voyeur in me, but I guess it is exciting to get that one little extra insight into another individual’s mind, with each new piece, getting to know someone through a mosaic of words, which reveal small bits of information, but with enough held back to make you want to come for more.

Whew!

Posted by bhavinj at 10:11 PM | Comments (3)

The Times…They are a-Changing…About Praja, the BMC and a Migrant Family

It isn’t too often that I am pleasantly surprised, especially when it comes to the authorities, especially the BMC.

About eight months ago, a family of around 15 people, suddenly laid claim to a part of a pavement outside the Servants of India Society building on SVP road in Prarthana Samaj. They were probably migrant laborers, probably from Andhra Pradesh. Some of the older men stayed put with the women, whereas the younger men I guess, were usually out working. Half of the six-foot wide pavement was occupied by them, outside a shop that has been shut for over a year. They would sleep, cook, bathe and perform virtually every house-related function on that pavement. They removed all the pavement tiles surrounding their area of occupancy and the entire area reeked of filth.

This is a busy thoroughfare, and there were times when the sheer number of people in their family would actually prevent people from walking on that pavement. I was affected as well, since I had to go from one office of mine to another, past this family, at least thrice a day.

The adjacent shops tried to get them evicted with police and BMC complaints. They were removed a couple of times, but they always returned. A couple of months back, when I asked the local paan-wallah what the status of the complaints was, he just put his hands up in despair saying that no one was willing to listen and help.

Two days after Terrible Tuesday, there was an email going around about help-lines in the city and one of them mentioned a website called Praja, which liaised with the BMC for registering and solving city-related complaints. On a lark, I went to the site and saw a detailed scheme for registering complaints on any issue that the BMC is involved with. I went ahead and lodged a complaint about the nuisance created by this family. I received a tracking number and a message saying that the complaint would be taken care of by 10 August. This was on 02 August.

“Yeah, right!” I thought, and then promptly forgot about this.

Three days ago, while walking on SVP road, I suddenly realized that the family was gone. The pavement was again its usual width and except for some wooden planks and the pot-holed, tile-free rectangular bald spot, which had been hidden from view until then, there was no sign of the enroachment. Maybe they were all at a wedding? Hoping against hope, all of day before and yesterday, I waited for them to return. Till late last night, they had not.

Last evening, I logged onto Praja and using the tracking number, which I had luckily saved, I checked the status of the complaint. It was labeled “closed” as of 08 August, two days prior to their committed date of fulfillment. Wow!

I expect nothing from the BMC and I am happy if they just keep out of my hair. For them (thanks to Praja, of course) to have actually taken pro-active action on a real civic problem? I am zzzimply amazed!

For those bleeding hearts, who might want to shed a tear for the family…go ahead! I am happy that they are gone. They were a complete nuisance and had no reason to take up residence on this busy pavement. It is a different thing to find a spot to sleep at night, which a lot of people do on that stretch…but to live there, cook there, shit there, in full public view, to prevent people from walking, to block-off the entire pavement except for a half-foot width during the rains…is complete unacceptable.

I only hope they don’t return. If they do…that’ll be fodder for another story tomorrow.

Posted by bhavinj at 04:59 AM | Comments (0)

August 08, 2005

About a Training School for Girls About to Be Women...And the need for Strong Hands

I first read about this on Uma's site and followed the link to Amit's site for a hilarious take-off. The original article appeared in yesterday's TOI, but apparently according to Charu, this had appeared earlier in the Hindu and on Rediff.

These links per se should suffice, but just to encapsulate. Bhopal has a training institute for girls, where they are taught to be ideal housewives. Apart from regular, mundane stuff like how to cook and take care of the in-laws, they are also taught some really interesting stuff that includes, having sex between 12midnight and 3AM and singing bhajans between 3AM and 6AM. The funniest part however is the one where the article describes the five ornaments of a good wife. To quote "an ideal wife must have five "ornaments" — coyness in her eyes, smile on her face, sweetness in her speech, love in her heart and a hand that can work very hard. " I love the last "a hand that can work very hard" part. Amazingly evocative!

Honestly, this is not a joke. And apparently there are training camps being held in other parts of the country as well, based on the success of this one. So maybe in the future we'll start seeing matrimonials that mention that they have obtained a training certificate from Hemnani? ....And another certificate of having done weights to strengthen their hands?

Posted by bhavinj at 08:55 PM | Comments (3)

August 06, 2005

Kids Find The Darndest Thing Funny...About "24" and Time Bomb 9/11

We are great fans of "24" and have already seen Seasons 1-3 on DVD, not wanting to wait till the show aired in India. In fact, my season 4 DVD set has just been posted by Amazon UK to my sister's place in London and I should probably get it by next week. "24" airs as 24 one-hour episodes where the action unfolds in real-time. It is a little difficult to explain the show...many people think it is a reality show, which it isn't...but one viewing of one episode is enough to make the concept understandable. "24" is basically a thriller and chronicles the story of a single day of importance (averting the assassination of the President, preventing a nuclear bomb exploding over LAD, etc) and stars Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer. The scripting and filming are terrific. I think AXN India has been airing "24" episodes, but at weird hours at night.

Zee has just started airing a show called Time Bomb 9/11, which is a complete rip-off of "24". Even the music that plays during the display of the time and the multi-frame shots just before the commerical breaks have been copied. Apparently Fox has sued Zee TV over this, though the show continues to air.

I saw 10 minutes of one episode on Monday and I was describing to my wife and niece, a scene that I had found particularly funny. This is how I described the scene to them. "There are two wan, pale-faced whites, probably Brits, playing a secret agent and the President of the United States, respectively. The agent draws up to the White House, in a stretch limo and goes to meet the President in his office. He enters saying "Mr. President, Mr. President, congratulations. You will be pleased to know that Osama has been killed." The President gets up and shakes the agent's hands saying "Wow! Thank you, thank you."" As I finished saying this, the twins (who I had not noticed, but were listening to me rapturously) burst out laughing. It must have been the way that I described the scene, because it is unlikely that they were laughing at the ludicrousness of the scene itself, but nevertheless they found it so funny, that they have made me narrate this "joke" at least five times in the last two days. Moreover, they have also started narrating the incident in their own way to others in the house.

Go figure!

Posted by bhavinj at 06:23 PM | Comments (0)

August 05, 2005

Site Finally Looking Good, PILs and Silly Talk

I finally figured out how to work with Movable Type. Thanks to Ajit and Jigs, Movable Type 2.6x was upgraded to 3.1x yesterday. I spent many hours this evening trying to figure out how to use MT correctly and properly and finally with the help of Elise's site, things worked out. The site finally looks the way I want it to.

In the meantime, I also managed to download FeedDemon, a news aggregator, which seems to be working fine. Until now, I was using Sage, a skinny feed-reader available as an extension in Firefox.

I have been irritated the whole day by SMSes and emails sent by supposed well-meaning people about the PIL that has been filed by high-profile celebrities like Mahesh Bhatt, Alyque Padamsee and the like, asking all authorities including the BMC, railways, etc. to give detailed answers about what they had done during and after Terrible Tuesday. This according to me is a complete waste of time, makes no sense at all and almost seems like a publicity stunt.

We also have people like Pritish Nandy, in the TOI of all places exhorting us not to pay taxes and Fali Nariman in the Rajya Sabha saying that Mumbai should be hived off Maharashtra. Sure, all of us are angry, but shouldn’t there be some sense in what we say?

Probably one of the better suggestions was from Cyrus Guzder, during a panel discussion on NDTV, where he mentioned that "mohalla" committees need to be empowered at the local level to interact with the ward officers and corporators. I believe that grass-roots mobilization will help, along with one definite plan of action at the top level involving all the concerned authorities (fire brigade, police, hospitals, BMC, etc). But acts of frustration, whether manifested by PILs, proclamations and opinion pieces or by stopping trains and gheraoing officials, do not really help anyone.When the trains are delayed, the ones really troubled are those who have to get from one place to another for their jobs and their employees.

One of the best sites to read about the problems at various levels in Mumbai is Death Ends Fun, by Dilip D'Souza. The piece by Deepika D'Souza on the Mithi river and the Mahim creek estuary is amazingly enlightening.

Posted by bhavinj at 08:16 PM | Comments (5)

August 04, 2005

All About the Rains

After writing about our experiences on Terrible Tuesday, my thoughts turned towards those times when the rains were fun. This was when I was much younger and had the time to appreciate the rains. This piece is out today in the Mumbai Mirror.

For the last few years though, each time it rains, the first thought has always been of the possible extent of disruption that it may cause at work.

In 2000, during a similar deluge day, though of lesser proportions, I had trekked from work at Girgaum to Matunga. That experience was chronicled on the site then and I've brought that piece back into the blog.

Posted by bhavinj at 08:45 AM | Comments (0)

Rain-Soaked Memories

This appears in today's Mumbai Mirror.

It is so ironic that what sustains life can treacherously take it away as well. And yet, amidst all the chaos and misery that has been wrought by the rains over the last week, run memories of fun times as well.

Until I finished my PG, I didn’t move out of the Bosco, Ruia, Sion area. The focal point during each rainy season, was (and still is), the regular water-logging of the Gandhi Market area, which would cut-off King’s Circle and the rest of South and Central Mumbai from Sion and the Eastern suburbs. There were gangs of boys who would line the roads knowing fully well that the “delcos” in the Premier Padminis would eventually get wet, and the cars would stall, and they would be able to make some money pushing the cars through the water to the nearest mechanic. And surprise, surprise…the mechanics would be waiting just beyond the waters!

In school, we were guaranteed at least three holidays each rainy season, becase the school buses would not be able to bring in any of the kids from Sion. Since I stayed just a five minutes walk away, I would anyway walk to school to find out if it was a holiday and then call up my friends staying further away, telling them not to come (provided the phone lines were working, which they weren’t half the times). In today’s day and age, I guess I’d just SMS everyone in my phone-book. Which is actually how we’ve come to know about school closures this week anyway!

The first rains would always make us heady. Whether it was from the tar on the road outside the house or the mud in the school-grounds, the smell of fresh earth permeating the air, was giddily intoxicating. We would either land up playing “gully cricket” or football in the school-grounds, soaking wet, and then land up home for a hot bath and scolding.

And it was de rigeur to get our white socks, shoes and in the later years, our white pants, splattered by the wet mud, before the first morning period and then to swagger into class, like some heroes who had just vanquished Gabbar Singh. The teachers always let the “dirty” look pass during the rains…as long as the home-work was clean.

Memories! Of gingerly finding a route to Sion via Telang road and Bhaudaji road that would prevent my shoes from getting soaked. Of swimming past Shamukhananda Hall to reach my wife who was staying at her mother’s house, near Tamil Sangam, to deliver dry clothes for the next day. Of driving a Honda City through 2 feet of water, just to check whether the company claims of being able to do so were true (they were!).

The dinners of many families in Matunga have a direct connection with a water-logged Gandhi Market. In the morning after heavy rains at night, frantic efforts are made by the womenfolk, to find out from the “doodhwallah bhaiyyas” whether Gandhi Market is flooded or not, and if so, how high the water level is. Which tells them whether the cook and the “bai” from Dharavi and labour camp, etc. will be coming or not. Which decides how the rest of their day will go. Which decides what the family gets served for dinner!

Posted by bhavinj at 04:59 AM | Comments (2)

August 03, 2005

Of Taxis, Mid-Day, etc.

I am trying to assess the spread of the previous avatar of MFM.

I found my Top Ten piece on Mumbai taxis reproduced with permission. Which led me to remember how it had been plagiarized by a journalist working for chalomumbai.com (the online version of Mid-Day) and how an alert reader had caught this within two days of its publication. This had led to a big row and my readers had spammed the junior editor's email box.

Both these pieces, "The Top Ten Rules that Mumbai Taxi-Drivers Follow for Passenger Comfort and Satisfaction" and the subsequent piece on the plagiarism have now been reproduced on the current site as well.

Posted by bhavinj at 12:24 AM | Comments (0)