Kiraaye ke ghar the badalate rahe

Musaafir ke raste badalte rahe,
muqaddar mein chalna thaa chalte rahe

Koi phool saa haath kaandhe pe thaa,
mere paanv sholon pe chalte rahe

Mere raaste mein ujaalaa rahaa,
diye us ki aankhon ke jalte rahe

Vo kyaa thaa jisse hamne thukraa diya magar,
umar bhar haath malte rahe

Mohabbat adaavat vafaa berukhi,
kiraaye ke ghar the badalate rahe

Sunaa hai unhe bhi hava lag gai,
havaaon ke jo rukh badalate rahe

Lipat ke charaagon se vo so gaye,

jo phoolon pe karavat badalate rahe – Bashir Badr


Eleven months were about to pass and the lease would be over, it was time to move, to find a new house, or should I say a place to live in. Moving out of one place to another is always a disconcerting experience. The comfort zone that we have form is broken. Small questions spring up. From, how the new neighbours will be to kaandha batata kahan milega?

People who have stayed in this city more than I have, had all been warning me for sometime, that finding a place to live in, is difficult, especially with my condition of wanting a place close to office. But like always, all that people say, never really happens to me. I was able to find a place to live in, close to my office, within two hours of starting my search.

This place is sea facing or so says my broker. Though it’s an entirely different issue that the sea is visible only if one jumps and turns one’s head in a particular direction, all at one go.

There was a slight problem, though ideally located, the place was in a bad shape and needed a lot of overhauling. And that would cost money. I soon figured out that the landlord did not have the money and was waiting for me to hand over the security deposit to get the work done.

Having handed him the money, we decided on the date I would finally move in. As I write this it’s been almost a week since the day I was supposed to originally move in. I still have not. In the meanwhile I have been shuttling from one colleague’s house to another. From, Khar to Thane to Vashi.

Living with friends was ruled out coz most of them are married by now. And the fact they are married, makes for most, marriage their only reality and they expect all those who are unmarried to be married. We all reach this stage in life when the world in general seems to think its time to “settle down” in life. And the married lot forms a large fraction of this lot. But at the end of a day’s work, the last question you want to answer is, “Aur shaadi ka kya socha?”, “What plans for marriage?”, “By when do you plan to get married” etc.

Sometimes I wonder, whether these questions come from a real concern for me or the inability to make a decent conversation. My guess is it’s more of the latter. When you have finished asking about the weather, put in a line about marriage.

As time goes on, we have very less in common with individuals we once called friends. There reality now is different and so is mine. Or maybe they are still stuck with theirs and I have moved on. What does one do in such a situation? Do we still call them friends? What do you do, when they can only talk about their jobs ( or how they suck) or how much other people are earning ( grass, as they say, is always greener on the other side) or the stock market ( life cant get more boring than this). And if you run out of all these, there is always syrupy nostalgia to fall back upon. But that’s just a foolish way to try to bring back yesterday[1]. The magic that was there has gone missing.

And the same logic works the other way around as well, friends I would like to spend time with, have also moved on. Life as they say works in circles. What does one do when one outgrows a relationship?Are relationships meant to be broken? Every relationship that I outgrow brings less permance in my life. The entire thing makes me wonder, whether there will ever be any permanence in my life or life will continue be a series of stop gap arrangements, like the houses I have to find every eleven months. Or am I just standing at the end of line, waiting out my time?[2]

[1] Adapted from the Lobo song , “There Ain't No Way”
[2] Adapted from the Lobo Song ,“ I am just waitin’ out my time, standing at the end of the line”

The Mumbai in Me

I am extremely agitated today. Well, nothing new, that’s the way it usually is. I write for a living and the article is just not happening today. Am waiting for words to come out. Words that make a phrase, phrases that make a sentence, sentences that make a paragraph and paragraphs that make an article. I write personal finance articles, in a story format. And today my characters are not under my control. I guess it’s probably because I did not sleep well last night. And when I don’t sleep well, I do not give my subconscious enough time to develop the ideas, I convert into articles. I am because of the words I write. And when the words do not come out, I am extremely agitated and snappy.

Suddenly there is a pat on my back. I turn around and see my boss standing. “ Vivek, you are not looking good today. Please leave the office immediately”, he says. My boss, understands me, can make out when its not happening. He understands I am less of a journalist and more of a writer.

I am out of office at half past three. The question is what to do now? I head straight to Phoenix Mills to indulge in some retail therapy. And I end up buying a strange piece of footwear, what the salesman calls “half shoes and half floaters”. This is supposed to be a part of the new me. And the friend in charge of the overhaul wants me to wear shoes, and this is the compromise. I hate wearing shoes. Like my feet touching the ground. So we settle on this strange concoction.

Retail therapy done I decide to go home, till I realise that I run the risk of running into my Gujarati cook whose sole aim in life is to make me to move things around so that she can get the flat cleaned up. Well, that’s her reality. Her reason of existence. And so going home is ruled out.

When in Mumbai, take the train, they say. It’s the best way to kill time, especially if you have a Churchgate-Andheri pass. One has the choice of getting down at any one of the fourteen stations between Churchgate and Andheri, hanging around for sometime, having Vada Pav, and taking the next train which comes along. With a train almost every three minutes, one can always afford to let a couple of trains go by.

I reach the Lower Parel station. Lower Parel once upon a time was an example of everything that was right about the Indian industry. And now with most of the textile mills that it houses, closed, it’s an example of all that has gone wrong with Indian industry in general and Mumbai in particular. At the station, a decision has to be made, which direction do I go, Andheri or Churchgate. I leave it to whichever train comes first. The Churchgate train does. I get into the first class compartment which at this time of the day is totally empty. Emptiness is not something that you associate with Mumbai and this gives me a surreal feeling.

I take what they call a slow train in Mumbai lingo and which stops at every station and in a little over 15 minutes I am at Churchgate. Now what do I do? Answer time again.

Rang De Basanti is playing at Eros. Should I watch it again ? First I think yes, and like other times in life, I change my decision. Today I am in the thinking mode. So I go and sit on Marine Drive. It’s that time of the day when the sun is about to set and the day is about to give way to night. And it’s that time of the day when the offices in the locality close and couples start trooping in to make merry while the sun sets.

There is a couple sitting next to me or should I say I am sitting next to them, waiting for the sun to set, so that they can start kissing. I am curious. “ Will they close their eyes when they kiss?”. “ Is it the lack of space that brings them here or do they just enjoy kissing in the open air?”. Too many questions, too few answers.

The sun sets and the couple sitting next to me start getting comfortable with each other. Its time for me to leave. Back to Churchgate to take an Andheri slow. Trains in the evening are as bad and as crowded as they are in the mornings. The only difference being in the mornings one can smell various brands of deodorants and in the evening its scented sweat.

As the train takes of I stand near the door waiting for the train to pick up speed. Till I actually lived in Mumbai, I used to wonder why people travel standing so near to the door, at times almost hanging out. The simple answer is, its hot inside. But it’s a little more than that. In this city of nearly 20 million inhabitants there is very little personal space. There are people running into you all the time. By travelling the way they do people are just trying to spend sometime with themselves, whistling their favourite tune, singing their favourite tune or simply staring into the dark. There is always a danger of leaning a little too much outside, running into a pole and probably making it to the inside pages of a vernacular newspaper. Death due to falling from train, is no longer, exciting enough for English newspapers or should I say you want your readers to feel happy in the morning.

I am firmly entrenched near the door. I intend to spend the entire evening on the train. Churchgate to Andheri. Andheri to Churchgate. Infinite loop. Well not really, at least till the last train runs. As the train crosses the bridge that connects the Mahim Creek to Bandra and rest of the suburbs, I realise that the bridge, the water that flows below it and the surroundings, symbolises Mumbai. The water flowing below the bridge is nothing but the sea, which is there almost everywhere in Mumbai. Its dirty, like most of Mumbai is. Its in between islands, lined up with slums on both the sides. And I am crossing it on a train, which is such an essential part of the Mumbaikar’s daily life.And we are close to Dharavi the biggest slum in the world.

After one round of up and down, I go inside and sit and as I am catching up on sleep, a mobile phone with a particularly bad remix tune starts ringing. “ Kya madam aapne bataya nahi aapke pati nahi the kal, hum log chalte na kahin Valentine’s day manane. Chaliye koi baat nahi, agli baar khayal rakhiyega”, the guy says. Not a normal conversation by any standards but laced with two most important elements of surviving in Mumbai: chance and hope.

His loud voice attracts attention, and uncharacteristically, people around, are all looking at the guy, who seems to be least bothered by all the attention he is getting, only interrupted by the call drops, which happen, when another train in the opposite direction crosses. The conversation carries on. In the meanwhile, the person next to me keeps dozing off and his head keeps falling on my shoulders. Every time this happens he keeps apologising profusely, only to repeat the same thing in the next few minutes. “Enough is enough”, I decide. The next time his head is about to fall on my shoulder, I get up and his head falls onto the lap of the girl sitting next to me, who probably regrets not travelling ladies first class, waits for him to get up and gives him a piece of her mind, doing everything short of slapping him. He tries to put the blame on me but by that time, a station has come, I have hopped out of the running train and disappeared into the sea of humanity trying to leave the station.

The seven rupee twenty five paisa dress circle ticket

Come gather 'round people,
Wherever you roam
And admit that the watersAround you have grown
And accept it that soonYou'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to youIs worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Bob Dylan

It had been almost three months since I saw am movie. And this was unprecedented and simply too long. So I decided to break this jinx by watching an Indian movie in English by a Bengali director, who used to make English movies even at the time when I was still to come out of my nappies.

Sometime in the late evening, I managed to reach a multiplex in the western suburbs of Andheri. I joined the queue for buying tickets. Now this was a little weird. I have never really liked proper queues outside cinema halls. It’s not much fun. You get tickets so easily.

Cut to Sujata Cinema, Main Road, Ranchi, sometime in the mid 90s.

Govinda’s latest movie “Raja Babu” has just released. And me and my friends are at the Sujata Cinema to catch the first day first show. The rule of the game back then was, you either saw the first day first show or you did not see the movie at all. And tickets always had to be bought from the ticket window and never in black because it wasn’t much fun.

Three of us had taken responsibility to buy tickets for a group of six. One person did not get more than two tickets. We were somewhere in the middle of a long queue. Now queues, like promises, were meant to be broken because if one decided to follow the queue one would never get the ticket. People would keep breaking in and by the time you reached the ticket window, that is if at all you did, tickets would be over. And then the blackers would come in.

Given this one had to make way for oneself by whatever it took. There were times when I used to have a belt in my hand, just in case a fight broke out. And through all the agony and the pain once one reached the ticket window and got the tickets, it was an amazing feeling. Nothing can beat it. Unless until I decide and am able to climb the Everest.

Those days will never come back again. I am told queues in Ranchi are now very orderly and advance booking is the norm these days. Life will never be the same.

Back to Bombay

The queue moves smoothly and I reach the ticket window. I tell the attendant the name of the movie and the show timing. “ Sir, which tickets do you want”, he asks. “ We have Rs 135, Rs 160, Rs 200 and Rs 250 tickets”, he adds. “ I would like two 200 rupee tickets”, I reply. “ Cash or card?”, he asks. I take out my debit card and hand it over to him. He swipes the card and hands the receipt and two tickets back to me.


Cut to Sujata Cinema, Main Road, Ranchi, sometime in the mid 90s.

Sujata Cinema is the most expensive cinema hall in Ranchi. A dress circle ticket (which was better than a balcony, unlike in the other cities) costs seven rupees and twenty five paisa. For a group of six it cost Rs 43.50. If we gave the attendant, Rs 50, he would ask for the exact amount, saying he did not have any and waiting for us to say no, so that he could pocket the difference. To avoid this, we always gave him the exact amount, else we would have missed feasting out on the one the one rupee popcorns packets during the interval.

Back to Bombay

We enter the multiplex. My friend wants to have some popcorn. She buys a large caramel coated popcorn which costs Rs 55. I buy a cup of coffee for Rs 30 and a bottle of water for Rs 25. Life surely has come a long way from the time when me and my friends did not have enough money to watch movies.

Cut to Sujata Cinema, Main Road, Ranchi, sometime in the mid 90s.

I never really got any pocket money when I was in college. I used to get Rs 10 daily and shared auto rickshaws used to cost, Rs 5 one way to college. So in order to watch a movie I had to come back home from college on foot two days in a row. And there were times during summers when walking back home in the heat was next to impossible. Then in order to watch a movie, money had to be arranged from alternative sources.

The solution that we found was very simple. We used to take turns to stand on the college gate and ask for two rupees from every known passer by. Not an amount anybody could refuse. And so small that one did not need to return it. Soon people found out what we were up to but usually they did not refuse.

In an hour’s time the necessary capital of Rs 50 would be raised. If we felt like having a decent samosa chai party in our canteen, we stood at the gate for one hour more and collect Rs 50 more.

Back to Bombay

Inside the theatre the ACs are working full blast. The seats are orderly and comfortable. The movie starts on time. People are well behaved and generally silent throughout the movie.

Cut to Sujata Cinema, Main Road, Ranchi, sometime in the mid 90s.

ACs were never switched on. At the prevailing ticket prices the owner could not afford to. In the summers the theatre used to get so hot that we used to get out of shirts and t shirts as soon as the lights were switched off and the movie started. Only to be bitten by ‘khatmals’ during the course of the movie. And we would all come out scratching each others back and arms and whatever else was scratchable in public.

And crowds were silent….nah….they hadn’t paid money to keep their mouths shut. They had come to enjoy. Whistling, howling, catcalls and wisecracks started as soon as the credits of the movie stared rolling.

In Raja Babu, a particularly bad Govinda movie, the shouting and whistling was extremely subdued. The crowd was disappointed. The movie had not lived up to the hype that had been built. And then the last song of the movie “ Sarkaaye leeyo khatiya jaada lage”, started. Sujata Cinema had never been so loud. Every time, Karishma Kapoor lifted her red lungi to show off her fair legs and thighs ( well during those days she was just starting, and she had to expose if her character required her to), the crowd simply went berserk. This is what they had to come to see. They had got it and they were loving it. And when Karishma decided to jump into the water tank with Govinda, and get wet. Cries of once more, once more, started. So for the first and probably the only time in the history of Sujata Cinema, the movie was stopped, the reel relooped and the song shown again. The crowds had had their monies doubly worth.

Back to Bombay

There was a thrill involved in going to the movies. The thought that my parents did not know about it. They thought I was in college. Though this was not risk free. In one particular adult movie that me and my friend, lets call him Ashish, had gone to, we saw Ashish’s father sitting in the row front of us. Before he could turn around, we made a quite exit.

Years later I came to know, that my parents knew all along. After all, Ranchi was a small town, were everybody knew everybody. They pretended not to know. Ma thought even this was a part of growing up.

And now I was watching this ‘arty’ movie in a multiplex. I did not have to think twice before paying the amount I did to buy the tickets or the eatables for that matter. People tell me this is progress. Is it? I don’t know. I don’t want to know. All I know is that for Rs 400, 55 people could have seen a movie in Sujata Cinema and gone back home happy.

Bob Dylan got it right almost forty years back. I still have not.