Is it still a happy birthday...

...if you're dead?

I live in an area which the newspapers describe as a Dalit stronghold. Which means that anything to do with Buddhism, Dalit politics, or Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, results in shamianas mushrooming all over the place, very loud music (mostly the nasal-plague-reshammiya variety) and firecrackers all through the night.

But yesterday was Ambedkar Jayanti and all day long the loudspeakers outside my house played:

“Hum bhi agar bachche hote!
Hum bhi agar bachche hote,
Naam hamaare hote Babloo, Paplu,
Khaane ko milte LADDOO!
Aur duniya kehti Heppy Buurrday too yoouuu!”

and

”Tum jiyo hazaaron saal,
saal ke din ho pachaas hazaar!”

Which was refreshing change on the music front, but I wonder how *I’d* react to people wishing me a (very, very) long life if I’d been dead for over half a century.


And dammit! Now I want laddoos too!

God is a Surly Cab Driver

Yesterday, after frantically running around in circles for a cab at Churchgate station, I find one, get into it and a little out of breath I ask the cab-driver:

Me: “Bhaiyya, aap Horniman Circle jaante ho?
Cab Driver: (in slow, deep, deadpan voice) “Main sab kuch jaanta hoon.”


There go my chances of ever getting into The Great Big Taxi in the Sky.

Conversations from Last Night

Me: Boss, ye XYZ building kahan hai*?
Fruit Vendor whose cart is FIVE STEPS AWAY from XYZ building: Nahin madam, nahin dekha.
Me: Achcha, aap Toto's** jaante hain?
Fruit Vendor: (smiles shyly) Toto's?
Me: Haan, Toto's.
FV: (giggles coyly) Toto's? Toto's??
Me: (beginning to get a little worried) Haan...Toto's.
FV: (Blushes red, avoids eye contact, and frantically re-arranges the fruits on his cart) Nahin madam, main 'Toto's' nahin jaanta.
Me: (walks away convinced that there is such a thing as too much fruit) Achcha...thank you.

* See, I'm *allowed* to be lost even though I'm five steps away from where I'm supposed to be - it comes with being hopelessly navigation-impaired - what's his excuse??
** is a pub.

***

Inside Toto's:

Me: You know, I've never actually seen anyone in that DJ enclosure.
Young man: That's probably because it's not a DJ enclosure.
Me: But it says "No Requests"! Why would it have a sign saying "No Requests" unless, you know, there were going to be...'requests'? Unless, they were expecting requests of the non-musical variety...
YM: (thinks about that for a minute)
Me: (launches forth, driven by rum and a pet grouse*) Don't you just hate it when DJ's say, "I don't take requests". You know, you'd think that entertaining the crowds is their job? But noooo! They're all like, "Oh no, this crowd is so pleb, it is my divine duty as a DJ, to *educate* them. I'm just too cool (weird arm-flappy, raised-hand gesture) to take requests."
YM: They do take requests if you slip them a hundred bucks?
Me: (faking shock) Duuude, noooo! DJ's who take money to play are like, the lowest rungs on the DJ ladder. They have SOLD their DJ SOULS, other DJ's totally look down on them. They're like the...sell-outs of the DJ world!
YM: (giggling helplessly) Yeah, I'm sure Akbar Sami never takes requests.
Me: WTF is Akbar Sami??
YM: He's that guy who remixed Jalwa?
Me: (still driven, still grousing) Which is another thing I just don't get. I mean, so you add a couple of dhinchak beats to some random song and suddenly you're a musician? Explain this to me, please!
YM: You're just jealous that they make a whole lot of money. Why do you think people pay them so much?
Me: Because there are a whole lot of stupid rich people in the world. I mean, how else can you explain Rohit Bal actually managing to sell his..."designs"? See the thing is, when you're really sozzled, you don't CARE what's playing. You're drunk, you're happy, the world is a beautiful place, you love everybody and look! There's a guy behind that glass-shield thingy, wearing headphones! and a bandana! and funky shades! and apparently trying to fly by flapping his one free arm, because the other one's holding headphones to his ear! I think I'm going to give him a warm hug and tell him that I love him.
YM: You know, I no longer remember what we were talking about, but I'm glad this place doesn't have a DJ.
Me: I think this is one of those times when you actually make sense.


* And I don't mean one of these.

Bombay Blog-a-ween Meet

Yet another blog-meet was had, and once again, one is the richer for it (partially because of the free alcohol...oh and of course, the experience).

The venue: Sakshi Juneja’s house at Juhu.

One arrived for the meet some two (ish) hours late, thanks to the hordes (HORDES dammit!) of people absolutely *infesting* the entire Juhu-Chowpatty stretch of road. Of course it helped that one is completely navigation-impaired and was of no help whatsoever to this young man, who never once lost his temper despite being plagued by plaintive cries of, “Are we there yet?” every ten minutes.

Remarkably patient, these young men of today.

So we were saying, we arrived, a little later than fashionably - the young man with a mask and a bottle of wine, and yours truly with killer attack of queasiness and a headache that threatened to spit our eyeballs out of our head (yes Sakshi, that little white pill you probably found by the bar was aspirin…honest!)**.

Anyway, headache thus banished, one was treated to a variety of food, alcohol and scintillating conversation (in no particular order).

Every. Single. Aspect of Salman Khan’s life was discussed; His clothes (or their marked absence, to be precise), his women (oh the number of *hot* women with atrocious taste…it boggles the mind), his little habits of drinking and a) beating up the current girlfriend b) running over people and c) shooting black buck. And how at the end of the day, he’s a really nice guy.

Although one’s memories of the evening are a teensy bit fuzzy, little snippets of conversation which stood out:

“No you need to put on a pair of red panties over your jeans, then you can be Superman!”

“Where’s the drunken dancing on the tables??”

“RSS Feeds! Slash dotted!! Google reader! Plagiarism! Feed reader*!!” (Foreign languages sound so dashed exotic, no?)

“Have I or have I not already issued the disclaimers against drunken marriage-proposals?”

“You look so different every time I see you!”

“Oh no! I broke my horns!”
“Yeah, now she’s not horny anymore.”

“You just say, “She’s a bit of a See-Aich” for ‘bitch’ or ‘What a parachute!” with a stress on the, well, latter-half of the word.” (And apparently, her grandma taught her this. Ours, obviously went to all the wrong schools.)

Also, blog-people, there is talk that India Uncut, might or might not have a set of lingerie to match his Borrowed Bunny Ears.

The imagination, she is getting worryingly out of hand.

(“Imagination, how many times we been through this? You will not, NOT conjure up images of men in risqué lingerie! Oh fine! Go ahead and do what you want…it’s your life. Oh wait…not it’s not! Stop it I say! Stop it right now! NOOOooooooo!”)

More reports of the meet here, here, here, here, here and here.


**Which brings us to the other point which desperately needs making, namely that, the next time a blog-meet happens, can we please, please, *please* have it somewhere a little closer to where us ‘Southies’ (South Bombay-ites) live? One is down on one’s knees and humbly pleading.

Heartsick

I am sick of it all. I am sick of the ‘resilience of Mumbaikars’, sick of their ‘coming together in moments of crisis’ and of their goddamn ‘indomitable spirit’. I am sick of being stoic and cheerful and smiling in the face of disaster.

I don’t want to be ‘resilient’ anymore. I don’t want this city to ‘bounce back’ and I don’t want to display courage. I want this city to shed it’s ‘never say die’ attitude like yesterday’s muddy, bloodstained clothes.

Because you see what’s happening don’t you?

We are turning into victims of the worst kind of freeloading ever. We are being sodomized by the state and the worst part of it is that, we’re getting so used to it that it seems ‘normal’ now.

From the text of statement issued by the Prime Minister:
"The series of blasts in Jammu and Kashmir and in Mumbai are shocking and cowardly attempts to spread a feeling of fear and terror among our citizens.“

The Prime Minister has also appealed for people to "remain calm, not to believe rumours, and carry on their activity normally".

Also:
Shocked by the brutal terrorist attack in Mumbai, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav along with other officials visited Mumbai late night on Tuesday for an on-the-spot review of the situation.

'Shocking'? ’Shocked’? Took you by surprise did they, those terrorists? Never saw them coming, did you? Because you know, O great leaders of this country, you’re pretty much the only ones who didn't. The normal people, distressed and horrified as they were, moved right into action like they knew the drill. Like they were born removing mangled bodies from scenes of terror and destruction. Like severed limbs, and blood and remains of human bodies, were things that they’d seen so many times, they knew what to do. They queued up outside hospitals to donate blood; they offered food, water, shelter and solace to each other because this has happened before, and it can happen again.

I wonder if you get what this says about your government.

It says, Prime Minister, that you have been – how does one say this diplomatically? – uhhh, slow. That you have failed the citizens of this country so many times, that they’ve gotten used to it now.

They no longer wait for the ‘authorities’ to rescue them, because if they did, they’d have a long wait ahead.

Mumbai has been put in a state of ‘high alert’, which, according to Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, apparently translates as, “All schools, colleges and offices will remain open and run as usual.”

So, you know, just in case you made it home alive yesterday, you can tempt fate again today.

Read this: ”New York police heightened security on subways on Tuesday after train bombings in India killed more than 160 people, while officials unveiled high-tech devices designed to prevent just such attacks.

Police called the measures -- including increased patrols and more random bag searches -- a precaution, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters there was no specific threat.”

And in contrast, this: ”The morning after the devastating blasts on the Western railway line, life is back to normal for the ever-resilient Mumbaikars. Train services are running normally and people are not hesitating to take the local trains to work.”

And this move is being lauded. As courageous, and brave and ‘never say die’ (which is ironic really, because you don’t actually get to say it, do you? You just, die) and that's what puts terrorists off, isn't it? They're probably thinking, "Yeah, y'know, those Mumbaikars...they're a courageous lot, so no point bombing them anymore". Likely? You think?

America, is being cautious despite the fact that there haven’t been any threats, but us? Oh no! We’re the ‘resilient’ ones. We shall shoulder on bravely (in an exemplary display of bloody foolishness) because you know, we’re *Mumbaikars*. And pats on the back from the media and the fucking ineffectual government, are apparently, enough to make it go away.

I saw a couple of policemen standing outside the local train stations, but no signs of bags being checked, frisking, security checks, nothing. So for all you know, the terrorists could’ve walked into the station, left a couple of couple of packages of RDX around and sauntered out again.

I think our country's motto should be changed from 'Satyamev Jayate' (and we all know how true that's been) to:

"Live each day as if it were your last, citizens of this country, because you know, it just might fucking be."

Grey

She was in a good mood that day. Giggling, playful and occasionally, teasing. She watched them, a smile playing on her lips, as they did the silly yet endearing things they were prone to doing on days like these; smiling gleefully at the sky and squinting when their eyelashes caught raindrops, sticking their arms out of windows, doors, canopied balconies, as if hoping to catch a cloud and set it free.

She watched them as they scurried about, looking like colourful mushrooms which had swallowed giant spiders. And then laughed hard as a strong gust hit the mushrooms and flipped them upside down, into a field of swaying multi-coloured, many-patterned poppies on decidedly wobbly stems.

They really were quite amusing.

The others were smarter. None of the pointless running around in flimsy (supposedly) protective skins, none of that they-can’t-get-along-without-me silliness, no exaggerated self of self-importance, which was, in her opinion, the way it should be.

“They should be taking shelter” she thought. “Huddling together in the shade of trees, under rocks, in caves…they should be frightened.”

And slowly, the familiar annoyance of being taken for granted began creeping up on her.

“Enough of being the all-loving, all-caring, all-goddamn-giving one. It’s never enough and they’re never grateful, never even said thank you! Instead, they leach; take what they need right then, never replenish and never, ever clean up after themselves.”

“They need to be taught a lesson”, she thought, “taught that you can’t use others endlessly, with no thought of the consequences”.

“Try this for size, little ones”, she said, seething with cold fury, as she gathered up all the loaded clouds, flung them on the city, and watched them burst…sending them all scurrying, like little rats .



I apologise for the bleakness of this post. I *like* rain (mostly), really I do, but I’ve been marooned at home four days in a row, and it’s getting a little depressing now.

Mumbai Blogger's Meet

One's very first blogger's meet was attended, and while one cannot speak for all the attendees, one had a jolly good time.

The words flew fast and furious, as a multitude of topics were discussed - ranging from programming, photography, marriage, sexuality, previous blog meets and of course reservations - disputed and dismissed, sometimes all three at the same time.

We apologise profusely to those bloggers, whom we might have deafened/frightened/horrified with our...errr...vociferous (?) reactions to the issues being discussed.

Our impressions of some of the bloggers (because we didn't get to speak to all of them as much as we would've liked to):

1) Amit was a lot less vocal than we expected. Although to be fair, he would have had to be a lot more than just vocal, to be heard above the din (yours truly being one of it's main contributors).

2) The Idea smithy was all spunk and fire and feminism and SO the kind of woman we'd *totally* ask out if we were a guy. Or gay. Since we're neither, we'll just say, she's awesome fun.

3) Evenstar, dainty and delicate and Juliet-like; one could almost picture her standing in a latticed balcony, leaning her cheek upon her hand. Until she mentioned, in her soft voice, that she'd just gotten back from attending an anti-reservation protest at Azad Maidan (which turned out - as she discovered later - to be a pro-reservation rally, but hey, she was there. Which is more than we can say for ourselves). The things these Juliet-like women get upto these days, I tell you!

4) Sakshi was just like her blog; straightforward and very chilled out.

5) Oh then, there was the mysterious Mr. Gera (whom we find mysterious primarily because we have no idea what his first name is) who spent a lot of time explaining how, if you took the code from the back of his t-shirt, and inserted it into the script on the front of his t-shirt, you would get four small camels.

We're terribly unclear about how exactly this was supposed to happen, but there you have it.

Mr. Gera helpfully added - in between turning round and round to show everyone the front and the back of his t-shirt - that it was 'absolutely useless, but totally cool'.

And you know, somehow, at that point of time? It made perfect sense.

6) The Bombay Addict, as his name suggests, a true blue Mumbaikar. From Uttar Pradesh. We found we had a bit of a wavelength-matching-thingy going on here. Until he played devil's advocate over the reservations issue, after which we screamed and bit his head off. We're sorry we bit your head off, Anupam.

7) Then there was young Akshay, of Trivial Matters who was, pestered incessantly to hire us as his pappu* (person who brings him chai, polishes his lenses, sets up camera...you get the idea), declared undying love to, and proposed marriage to, all within the space of five minutes, under the benevolent influence of two gimlets.

Akshay, displaying remarkable intelligence for one so young (also, one who consumed in succession, one baby milk shake** and two (or was that one?) mojitos), declined all three proposals. Smart kid!

8) The bachpan-ke-buddies from Rajasthan, Parijat and Piyush, were quite unlike what we expected IIT students to be. I mean, you know how you definitely expect IIT students to be intelligent, but not a whole lot more than that? These two were *bright*. And refreshingly laid-back.

9) Vijay. Who came, who saw and who was probably left speechless with horror/shock/disbelief because he spoke all of ten words in the four hours that he was there. Although he did take up the difficult task of typing out all fifteen names and URLs and then mailing them across to all fifteen of us. Thank you Vijay!

The rest of the attendees (whom we *really* wished we could've spoken to more) were, Zack, Saket, Anthony and Selvin.

All in all, it was an evening well spent. To quote a certain famous blogger, fun came.

The trip back home was a whole other story though. The trains were running terribly late, because of something called a 'Jumbo Block' at Borivli. When it did arrive (the train, that is), it was packed closer than a can of sardines and we ended up getting a full-body-massage with essential oils of everybody else (eeewww, I know. Totally). But you know what? This compartment, that's hot and humid and filled with five times more people than it was ever meant to hold; there's no screaming, no tempers flaring. In fact, the women are smiling, some are actually laughing and everyone is helping everyone get some place to stand. Dupattas are being cheerfully disentangled, children are being pushed towards their mothers, single chappals are being laughingly returned to their owners.

Do you see why I love this city?


*Because *everyone* seems to have a more interesting job than we do!
** Which was a disturbing shade of pink.