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March 31, 2006
Hair comes the salon revolution
This was published in today's Mumbai Mirror.
This is one thing I find difficult to understand. We all need hair-cuts, which we get done at regular intervals …anywhere from once in 2-3 weeks to once in 2-3 months, depending on our sex, amount of hair and need. Which means that the number of people getting their hair cut in a day is reasonably fixed and would increase only with an increase in the population.
Uptil three years ago, King’s Circle had two saloons, Capitol and Star, both for men, with a couple of more saloons near the Market and on Bhaudaji road and a couple more for women. Most women mGSBs (Matunga Gujaratis aspiring to be South Bombayites), however used to go outside Matunga for their “parlor” needs.
As a kid, I, I used to frequent a parlor in Brahmanwada. I stopped going when one day the “barber” found it more interesting to watch an ongoing Amitabh movie on cable than the state of my hair and gave me a nick on my ear-lobe. I then moved to Star, which has always been a popular, no-frills saloon and does a better-than-average job at cutting hair, but stopped going there, when I found it more convenient to get my hair-jobs done near my place of work.
And then suddenly about two years ago, started the saloon revolution. Enrich first opened on the Circle, followed by Aakruti, which along with Naturals (the ice-cream parlor) has erased all signs of the late Dr. U B Rao’s clinic. And then just last week, I saw another new fancy saloon next to Foto Circle.
So I come back to the original question. What is the reason for this sudden spurt in the number of saloons in Matunga? Is it that 20 somethings and teens are getting their hair done more often than when we were their age? Or is it because mGSBs have stopped going out of Matunga for their hair-related issues and are now patronizing these new places? Or is it because more and more boys and men have started getting facials, manicures and pedicures done…sheesh!
Yet, with all these “glam” saloons taking over Matunga hair-dos, the road-side barber with his “istra”, still flourishes outside Aurora with a reasonable clientele of taxi-drivers and household help, offerring his services at an unbeatable price.
In the midst of this “saloon” awakening, what has quietly gone unnoticed is another revolution. In drearily conservative and boring Matunga, where all shops now sell egg-less pastries and cakes with eggs are amazingly difficult to find, where women would always go to “women” parlors, at special times, out-of-sight of men or behind curtains, we now suddenly have unisex saloons, and no one seems to be raising even a third of an eyebrow.
A few months ago, a nephew of mine from abroad, wanted a special type of hair-cut. When we asked around, we were told of a “designer” hair-dresser between Matunga and Dadar. When we called him, his receptionist said that the earliest appointment would be after 4 days. Four days? For a hair-cut? Honestly? He quietly went to Star and they managed to do what he wanted them to do, within the hour, at probably one-fourth the price. Some things in life (and hair-cuts fall in this category) are definitely not worth waiting for!
Posted by bhavinj at 06:22 PM | Comments (0)
March 11, 2006
Opingo Batingo
This appeared in today's Mumbai Mirror.
A couple of weeks ago, we went to the 10th wedding anniversary of a close school friend. While mingling with some other friends who were there, I suddenly had the wind blown out of me by a big thump on my back. I turned around and found another old school friend, with his index finger raised, mouthing the word “Opingo”.
We must be the only two over-40 relics still playing this game. It started in Don Bosco and we’ve carried it through college and graduate school, till the present.. For those who came in late (a la the Ghost Who Walks), it is a very simple game, played for the sole purpose of inflicting pain by hitting the other person as hard as possible. In brief, if you stand, you have to raise your index finger and say “Opingo” and if you sit, you have to put up your index and middle fingers and say “Batingo”. If you don’t, the person with whom you are playing the game has the right to hit you.
It is somewhat like “statue”, but honestly, “statue” is an amazingly silly game, which works only on the premise that the other person will follow your command. If he/she refuses to, there is not a damn thing you can do. Here if the other person does not say “Opingo” or “Batingo”, you can hit him/her. Hard! Wow!
Probably the closest game to this was “Apadhubi”. In this game, you took a rubber ball and just hit whoever was nearest you with as much force as possible. As simple as that. It was a great game to vent out your anger, angst and energy. Square-ball and dodge-ball came a close second, the aim again being to hit someone as hard as possible with the ball and to get that person out. I still remember playing square-ball in my building compound and hitting a young girl on her chest when we were both I guess around 10-12 years old. She started crying and I kept laughing. No wonder, we are from Mars and girls…forget Venus, they used to be from another universe in those days.
Obviously the next thing to say would be “where have these good old days gone”, “children today don’t play…they only watch television or are on the PC…”. These are such clichés as well. Though my kids love to watch their movies and television (restricted to weekends), they are now part of a gang of kids, that is constantly out in the compounds of the buildings in our block, playing the usual games that kids do (icespice, catching cook, kicking the ball, cycling). Plus they play in Don Bosco in the evenings, attend basketball coaching and have become karate brown belts.
Not only them, there is always someone or the other in the gully playing cricket, while others play football or basketball in the school grounds, and some land up in the nearby gyms.
My kids may never land up playing “Apadhubi” or lagori, or gilli-danda, but they still are outdoors for a good amount of time. My take? Television and PCs are so ubiquitous that they are just becoming another set of tools for entertainment, taken as matter of fact by the current generation of kids. It is in fact our generation that seems to be addicted, most likely because we didn’t have these gadgets when we were growing up.
Or maybe this is all just a Matunga thing!
Posted by bhavinj at 01:52 AM | Comments (2)
March 05, 2006
Damned if you, damned if you don't
This appeared in today's Mumbai Mirror
The resident doctors all over Maharashtra have again gone on strike this week and its that déjà vu feeling all over again.
Every three-four years, since the early-80s, there has been a strike by resident doctors. The issues are always the same: more money, better working conditions and better accommodation. This time the flash-point though, is the issue of security, due to the increasing incidence of doctor-bashing violence by patients within the hospitals.
Should the resident doctors strike?
Think about living, four to a 150sq feet room, with bed-bugs, poor ventilation, terrible food, unclean water, a 24-hours a day, seven-day a week schedule and the constant threat of work-related diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV and hepatitis B, and now, the threat of violence. For around Rs. 8000/month (<150$). Now think how you would feel if the resident doctor were you, or your son or your daughter.
So why is there such a big issue created when they go on strike?
Because, when the residents strike, more than 50% of the city's population is suddenly deprived of basic and essential medical services. That’s right. 50%. 7 million people. So do read on.
Let’s now understand who these resident doctors are!
Resident doctors are the ones who are training for their specialty MD and MS degrees, after having finished their basic MBBS and internship, in colleges, usually attached to large public hospitals, usually run by the government, e.g. JJ Hospital or by the Municipality, e.g. KEM, Nair and Sion. These hospitals provide health-care virtually free of cost to anyone and everyone, even to those who are not domiciled in Mumbai.
The residents, in theory, are supposed to be “trainees”, “training” in these hospitals to obtain the theoretical and practical knowledge that they need to eventually become qualified, specialized doctors such as surgeons, cardiologists, radiologists, etc. - in reality, the authorities get cheap labor to run these public hospitals. In KEM Hospital alone, there are 700 resident doctors and 400 staff doctors, which means that if the resident doctors aren’t around, at least 60% of the work should still go on. In reality, only 5-10% of the actual work happens, because despite their “student/training” status, they are completely critical to the functioning of these hospitals. Even the “peripheral” hospitals such as Kasturba (opposite the Arthur Road jail), Rajawadi (in Ghatkopar), Bhagwati (in Borivli), etc, stop functioning, because they too completely depend on residents posted in rotation from the central hospitals.
Are the residents then morally justified in striking?
Do you really think that we have never agonized about this? This is a demon that has always haunted us, all through each strike that we’ve ever participated in. I don’t have an answer despite extensive soul-searching, but most of us eventually rationalize this action by transferring accountability onto the authorities, holding them responsible for the strike having happened in the first place.
These strikes are preventable, simply because the demands can easily be met. If the authorities were proactive and tried to solve the residents' problems in time, things would not come to this. Expecting this to happen however, is obviously a pipe dream. Maybe, the residents could go to court, and file a public interest litigation. But from where will the resident doctors get the time, energy and money, required to fight a court case on a daily basis? And so, the only solution that remains, is to go on strike, for which there is at least some concerted and determined effort, manpower and time, if not money, available, for a short period of time.
You would think then that the authorities would want to negotiate with the doctors to resolve the strike. Think again!
Who are the people affected by the strike? It is those people who cannot afford private doctors and hospitals, those who earn less than sustenance level and those who live in slums or on the roads or wherever.
The authorities do not care, since these poor people affected by the strike don't really matter. It is not like the Municipal Mazdoor Union going on strike and winning their demands in 24-48 hours, because no one can stand their garbage not being collected.
Moreover, the resident doctors are eventually doctors, who after a few years are going to be in the top 10% income bracket in the country – subconsciously, this affects the extent of public and press support – the authorities play with this fact and so they wait and threaten, wearing down the patience and enthusiasm of the resident doctors, who after all are educated, intelligent, white-collar individuals, completely unused to this sort of a method of protest.
At the end of a month or 40 days (the usual length of a residents' strike), the strike ends, the weary residents accepting whatever few sops the authorities are willing to give. And the authorities magnanimously tell the striking doctors that they will not penalize them for not having worked for one month and will allow them to keep terms - one of the worst fears resident doctors have, is of losing a six-month term or losing registration. Threaten them with this loss and half of them start thinking of capitulating.
Why don't the residents learn from the past? Because, every three years, a new crop of residents is in place. And the lessons of the past are forgotten.
The anatomy of the strike, thus remains the same.
First week - enthusiasm, rallies, hunger strikes, street plays
Second week - some of the less enthusiastic residents go home, some default, some start studying for their exams on the sly
Third week - government threatens loss of term and enthusiasm dips.
Fourth week - most residents want to get back to work.
Fifth week - strike is over
But things don’t end here. Like a tragi-comedy, even after an agreement is finally struck, the authorities do not always fulfill the terms of the agreement. Follow-up by MARD (Maharashtra Association of Medical Doctors), after a strike, is extremely poor due to the fact that the doctors get extremely busy, working, learning and reading for their exams and they are extremely mobile, changing hospitals and rotations all the time. The authorities know this as well and can play around with the terms and conditions any way they want…until the ground is laid for the next strike about three years later. And everything comes full cycle.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Posted by bhavinj at 01:50 AM | Comments (0)
