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.
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.
posted by Vivek at 11:30 PM
2 Comments:
You awakened the bombay in me too... More over coffee in townside soon..
Alas, all my experience of bombay comes through only accounts from family and friends. Why don't you people launch a movement to save whetever little is left of the city that was...
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