RUDE CITIES

RUDE CITIES

 When we shifted to Mumbai in 2006, there was a huge media uproar about the recent Reader’s Digest survey which had branded Mumbai as one of the rudest cities in the world. Many media columnists vehemently registered their protests against the totally undeserved sobriquet of a rude city for Aamchi Mumbai. I tended to agree with them till I became a Mumbaikar myself. Then slowly my opinion started changing. When I settled on a tiny 3BHK flat in the swanky SOBO, I was told I will be interviewed by the building society committee members. I thought it will be a mere formality. It turned out like an inquisition. When they started asking how many brothers and sisters I have, I asked them the reason for such personal enquiries. Their answer was quite revealing. They said, we want to make sure that they do not join you once you acquire a shelter here.  Anyway, what swung the wise men in my favour must be the reassurance that I had only one car and no intention of buying another one. (Every flat had at least three cars).

            When my luggage arrived, I was stopped at the gate and told by the security that the truck cannot be taken inside without the permission of the Chairman himself. I met the great man after crashing into his penthouse flat. After telling me pointedly that he is making an exception by allowing me an audience so early, he gave his permission as willingly as giving permission to Shakti Kapoor to take his teenage daughter out. The permission to carry the luggage by the lift was however denied as it was against society rules. That was the time I understood why Mumbai was considered a rude city and I told him so.

            Having read so many jokes on Punekars and their Puneri ways, I was prepared for rudeness when I landed here last week after retiring from SBI at  Chennai. I was not disappointed. When we landed, it was raining heavily. While we were unloading our luggage in the parking lot of the building which housed the SBI guest house where I had wangled a room after several fervent calls, two people came at an interval of 4 minutes and fought with the driver for bringing the car into restricted area. Pleas of heavy rain fell on deaf and insensitive ears. When my luggage arrived from Chennai, I had forewarned the society people to avoid a repeat of the Mumbai experience.  But a crackpot employee going by the unlikely name of Nazuk(delicate) started acting coy and refused to open the rear gate unless he was requested by the society manager himself. When I located the manager, Nazuk had managed to make himself scarce. Finally the manager had to break open the lock to avoid further embarrassment.

            Our neighbours never thought it necessary to even offer us a glass of water while the luggage was getting downloaded and unpacked. But they did manage to pick up a few scraps with the unloaders for blocking the passage, keeping things in their doorway for a few seconds etc. We have recently returned from a trip to the USA.  So it is really amazing that the people of Pune have obliterated all polite expressions like please, thank you, sorry, welcome etc from everyday conversation. not offering a chair, a glass of water or god forbid!  a cup of tea, during business dealings is par for the course. The trauma continues unabated. At this rate, by the time we settle down fully, Pune would have overtaken Mumbai in being the rudest city in the world.

            

NOW IT CAN BE TOLD

NOW IT CAN BE TOLD

This piece is neither about revealing important state secrets after the expiry of the statutory lock-in period, nor is it about a long lost love/crush. The matter is a little more scatological. The story has been poking me during those spells of lucidity after or in-the-process-of-trying-to-avoid, the odd middle-of-the-night visit to the loo. (Could be the early onset of a prostrate condition according to our family doctor, who normally dismisses every complaint I take to her as ‘psycho-somatic’). So finally, here I am, at 0400 hours, writing about my windy issues.

Our only daughter Mugdha tied the knot in the spring of 2008. Both I and my better half Shubha were in a tizzy during the yearlong period between the engagement and the wedding. Shubha and Mugdha spent hours and hours rummaging through all the saree shops of Mumbai looking for just the right saree for every ceremony during the marriage function. In the process, the best show rooms of wedding trousseaus in the various upmarket parts of the ‘financial capital’ of the country were declared ‘Bekar’ (of no use) by Mugdha. But that is for another day.

As all the shops in Hyderabad were considered to be equally ‘ Bekar’, it was decided that our future son-in-law Ashvin would visit us over a weekend to select his marriage-wear. Mugdha had calculated that two days would be enough to select a formal two-piece suit for the wedding reception and a few Kurta-Pajamas for other sundry occasions. I didn’t dare mention that 30 years ago, I had picked my entire wedding wardrobe in one 30 minute visit to the Raymond showroom. That would have invited snidely devastating comments on my sartorial ignorance. Also, that was before all those movies like ‘Hum Aapke Hain Kaun’ and DDLJ. Anyway, the future bridegroom was to arrive one Friday evening and leave by Monday morning.

We are a conservative family of orthodox Brahmins. So the sleeping arrangement was to be like this: My old parents in their own bedroom, my wife and daughter in the guest room and yours truly and Ashvin in the master bedroom. As the day was approaching, I suddenly realised a serious flaw in these arrangements. This was my pre Rujuta Diwekar phase. So, like all normal Indian families, we were in the habit of having a hearty dinner before going to bed. This had its ‘consequences’. We were not unused to occasional fireworks of the noisy kind during the nightly rests.  The nocturnal emissions of the gastric kind   were not of the noiseless and odourless variety. But in the privacy of our bedroom, after 30 years of marital bliss (?), who cared? But, suddenly, I did! Any such transgressions during the two fateful nights which I was to spend in the proximity of our future son in law were unthinkable. The consequences could be serious. I began to play out various versions of ‘Ye Shadi Nahi Hogi’ in my nightmares. They all started with Ashvin rushing out in the middle of the night with his nostrils shut tightly in a pinch. I was a deeply worried ‘father of the bride’.

Thank god there was Google. I searched all the food groups which caused bloating and farting and prepared a mental list of things to avoid. During the two days of Ashvin’s visit, both my wife and daughter were surprised at my sudden health consciousness and admirable restraint. I avoided milk products, deep fried stuff, lentils, Bengal grams, beans, radish, sweets and tea/coffee after sunset. This being the first visit of Jamai-raja, Shubha had rolled out an impressive array of goodies and assorted sweets. I scrupulously avoided all these temptations, to raised eyebrows, and finally came out victorious in my battles of the boom. As soon as Ashvin caught the cab for the airport, at 5 am, Monday morning, I heaved a sigh of relief and assaulted the fridge with a vengeance.

Looking back, I wonder how the person, who was the recipient of all those gourmet dishes which cause bloating and acidity, managed. He happily partook them in large quantities, thanks to the relentless pressure by the future mother in law, and gentle persuasions of my parents (how can you say no to them without appearing to be rude). Not that I noticed anything. I was a sound sleeper then and the fan was strategically kept full blast.

Anyways, thank god Mugdha married at the right time. Now? Such sphincter control? Impossible.

Bhaiya kaka

BHAIYA KAKA

The current brouhaha about molestation and attempted rape, triggered by the Tarun Tejpal and justice Mukherjee controversies has invoked a raging discussion on the many ways in which women are sexually abused at home and outside. This brought back some of my memories which were long forgotten and buried. Every family has that one uncle who is a lech and a pervert. Women instinctively know to steer clear of them and warn the girls about them also. But sometimes, things are not so black and white. Some people always give you the feeling of sliminess and creepiness when they are in female company but you cannot put your finger on their exact transgressions.

            Bhaiya kaka, my father’s first cousin, was one such character. When I was growing up, he was well past his prime and was a balding pot-bellied man with faux dentures. Often you would find him chewing a wad of tobacco, his mouth too full of spit to speak coherently. He mostly communicated in grunts and sign language. At all family gatherings, it was customary to touch the feet of elders. That was his chance. As soon as a lady or a girl bent down to touch his feet, he would hold her arms and give her a hug. In our family, physical contact of this kind was a no no and it always irritated me and my cousin Parag, who were in our teens. My cousin sisters, who were in various stages of tweens and teens, were equally peeved by his behaviour. The other older ladies in the family, however, did not seem to mind his hugs much and would laugh them off till I, Parag and the younger ladies started talking about them after the family broke up post such gatherings. Every time the girls would try to either forget (?) to touch his feet or try to get off with a quick perfunctory namaskar,  Bhaiya kaka was quick to remind them of their manners and equally quick to hold their arms and snatch a hug if they tried to sneak away with a half bend. Every time, he made a successful hug, I and Parag used to fume and curl our fingers in suppressed rage. When home, we would loudly protest against Bhaiya kaka’s excesses and vow to insult him, or even hit him if he did it again. We were, however, always chastised for being so brash and disrespectful, by the older ladies in the house. My grandmother always forbade us from doing anything rash. Bhaiya kaka never went beyond a hug and nobody reported a grope or anything more objectionable.

            Thereafter, it was always a dodging game which we, i.e. I, Parag and my cousin sisters played with Bhaiya kaka, at all the family congregations. To our frustration, however, we always lost against the guile of Bhaiya kaka and the indifference of the older ladies in the family. Luckily, age soon caught up with Bhaiya kaka and he was too old to run around hugging women. We could almost sense his frustration at family meetings and gloated about it.

            Bhaiya kaka was either a lech or a compulsive hugger of women, we would not know for sure. Today, I do not remember anything about him except his obnoxious behaviour, which  went unpunished. I don’t think he was a closet rapist, but you never really know the boundaries of a pervert human mind. Interestingly, it    were always the older women in the family who restrained the boys from doing anything drastic about his excesses and the men simply did not condescend the subject a serious discussion.

WEB CHECK-IN

WEB CHECK-IN

I have a running gripe with my secretary’s web check-in habits. My requirements are simple. No middle seat. I want aisle on long flights and window on short ones. Front row (better leg room) except when travelling by ATR, when back row is preferred (rear entry). She seldom gets me a middle seat, but rarely gets anything else right.  Yesterday, on my flight to Coimbtore, when I got 1A, I was cautiously elated suspecting that it might be an ATR. The check-in girl confirmed my apprehension but gamely shifted me to 15D. All was well.

            When I got the boarding pass for the return journey, the seat no was 4D and the counter confirmed that it was not an ATR. But my satisfaction was short-lived. When I boarded the flight, I saw that my colleagues Shah and Prasad were occupying seat nos 1B and 1C. What the heck. If their secretaries could get them the front row, why not mine? My deflated ego got a sudden boost when boarding was completed and the seat next to mine was not filled up. I luxuriously crossed my legs and opened my ipad. Before I could immerse myself in Stephen King’s bizarre world, I heard a loud racket going on at the seat across the aisle. A young lady was frantically trying to control her two sons aged roughly 1 and 2 yrs. Both started bawling as soon as we took off. I wanted to help but was handicapped by the language barrier; the tykes spoke only the local lingo. Just then, a Good Samaritan lady (if that is the right metaphor), came to the rescue of the harried mother and started expertly cooing to the screeching monsters. I silently thanked her, shoved in my earplugs and opened my ipad again. However, I soon realised that her only contribution was adding her own mite to the prevailing cacophony. Luckily the flight was before time and the landing and disembarking was pretty efficient. To my utter delight and against all odds, perhaps thanks to the law of averages, my suitcase was the first to roll off the belt and I triumphantly marched off waiving to the waiting duo of Shah and Prasad. Alas! I had to cool my heels outside for about 10 minutes as the driver had not taken into account the early arrival of the plane. Moral of the story, everything evens out in life. 

CIVIC SENSE

CIVIC SENSE

I read somewhere that in some Scandinavian country, those who reach office early park their cars in remote corners of the parking lot so that the late comers can park theirs more easily. Can't imagine anyone here including yours truly doing this. But we can surely try to be a little more civilised in our public behaviour. I really hate it when seasoned air travellers    Stow away their bulky what-can-hardly-be-called-handbaggage in the luggage rack over the first or second row even when they are sitting in the 17th row. Saves them the trouble of hauling it till the 17th row. Smart! But pity those poor souls sitting in the first or second row who have to find storage space over the 13th row. Have you ever tried going from first row to the 13th while disembarking? Getting down from the Virar local at Dadar is much easier.

Women's Lib

WOMEN’S LIBARATION

I fly frequently on business. I normally try to reach the airport well in time to avoid the last minute rush. After coping with the unpredictable Chennai traffic, there are queues to be negotiated at every stage which are manned by the people who are not known for either their efficiency or their courtesy. So I often reach the airport with some time to spare.

            I was standing in the first queue near the entrance at the airport, clutching my id and the ticket in one hand and the weather-beaten suitcase in another. A well-dressed attractive young lady, 35ish, rushed in waving a phablet in one hand. “May I go in please? I am late”.  She pleaded. With their hearts full of human kindness for the plight of the working woman, the other passengers readily agreed. The security guard at the gate shrugged. She breezed through.  Likewise, she sashayed through the second tier of security and the check-in counter.

By the time I had managed to check in, she had already sailed past the long queue for security check. When I went past the humiliation of security check, I found her sitting in one corner, sipping coffee, chatting idly with a colleague/friend.  I was surprised. I thought she was late? It turned out she wasn’t. She was going on the same flight as mine and had ample time on her hands. All this subterfuge was to avoid standing in tedious queues.

A little peeved, I couldn’t stop myself from asking “madam! You said you were late but you weren’t”.  She gave me a withering look which clearly said “mind your own effing business” and declined to favour me with a verbal response.

She again managed to glide past the queue for boarding the bus and the final queue for boarding the flight. When I went in after a while, huffing and puffing after the exertions of standing in 5 different queues, the lady in question was snugly ensconced in her seat, chatting idly on her cell phone. She looked at me with a smirk and turned disdainfully away from my accusatory glare.

My heart bleeds for the battered, bruised and abused Indian woman.

THE CIDER HOUSE RULES

THE CIDER HOUSE RULES

There are many books, which, once started, you don’t want to put down. But there are some which are so good that, as you start nearing the end, you want to go on but at the same time, don’t want it to end. THE CIDER HOUSE RULES is one such book. As I was nearing the denouement, my heart was filled with the sorrow that the exquisite pleasure which I was deriving from it was soon going to end.

                A very unromantic setting in a decrepit orphanage, an apple orchard and a Cider House; a very unlikely hero- an ill adjusted erratically educated orphan, and a subject as controversial and relevant as abortion form the background. With such an odd assortment, John Irving has weaved a magical tale of intense human emotions, an epic love story with his trademark twists and turns which leave you amazed at his total mastery over his craft. In his inimitable style, independent unconnected events inexorably converge into a crescendo of breath-taking catastrophe which you can see coming but can do nothing about.

It also has a poignant war story with predictable ingredients. But it is not the wounded soldier who meets with a tragic fate.

The issue of and the moral angle in ‘abortion’ is handled with sensitivity and without any ideological bias. Exploitation of blacks by the landed gentry is also touched upon in a non-judgemental way, more like a chronicle of those times rather than as a social commentary on the ills of slave labour. Even rape and incest are depicted without dramatization and without condemning the offending persons as black villains.          

In short,  it is an unlikely masterpiece from a great author.

Reading such books also shatters all my fond hopes of ever becoming a writer. I despair I can never write half as well, howsoever hard I may try.