Baat ek raat ki…

Three friends and a night in Bombay
Adi, Avi and me are meeting for the first time, after March 12, 1992, the day of the Bombay blasts and the day our tenth standard exams came to an end.
Adi is a chartered accountant, married, slightly bald and with a paunch in the making and has a wife, who he feels, is much smarter than he is.
Avi is a filmmaker who is about to start his first movie. He has long hair which touches his shoulders, but is still as thin and athletic as he used to be. “Not married but father to three kids already,” he says, when we first meet.
But first things first. Adi and me are standing at the end of Carter road in Bandra, with our bladders about to burst and I am sneezing profusely (not a good sign of things to come). Suddenly I remember seeing a Sulabh shauchalya somewhere. Our sensibilities do not allow us to pee in the open. 15 years back, we would have been more than happy to empty our bladders around the next empty dark corner. After 10 minutes I realise, there is a Sulabh at the beginning as well at the end of Worli seaface and not here. This clearly isn't my part of town.
Our inhibitions discarded, we make our way towards the sea. I am the first one to go in. I turn my face towards the sea, open my zipper and let out a sigh of relief. This is the best time I have had in the entire day. Adi goes in next. Twenty seconds later I see him running towards me with a couple of dogs behind him. Looks like he zeroed in on the wrong area. “My wife will kill me, if she ever finds out,” he says.
Soon we are joined by Adi's cousin who is a costumer designer in movies. Avi joins us around half n hour later. We head towards a cheap drinking joint in Bandra.
Once at the bar, I realise I am the only non smoking teetotaler around. For the next four hours my lungs are smoking like a chimney.
I keep ordering Diet Coke, to their Signature Whisky and Old Monk rum. By two o clock in the morning I am around ten Diet Cokes down and full again.
But that is really not the most interesting part.
Life stories are first shared. Avi had lived in for around six years and broken up. Adi had married the first girl he proposed to, on a rainy night in Bangalore.
Three drinks down, everyone starts to open up. “Ye film industry bhi badi c%$^&*a cheez hai”, says Adi's cousin. Adi looks scandalised.
“You know once I start making my movie no one can stop me. And after that most starlets will be ready to sleep with me for a role. In fact some of the bong bombshells are ready even now,” says Avi. The worst though is yet to come.
At three o clock, cops from the local police station burst in. I take out my id card and the inspector smiles. “Agar agli baar pakda to seedhe andar dalega”, I hear him shout as we leave the place.
“So Mr Kaul, you think you are a quizzing bond (I used to be a regular quizzer in school and college) and know a lot,” Avi asks me. “ Avi I haven't quizzed in ten years now”, I reply. “ Hmmm, so what. I also know many things about many things. Don't you think you have sold yourself to DNA? You got to know me Vivek. You know what, I know models who would be willing to have you anytime. Break down the facade you have on. Break it down. The world will be a much better place Mr Rushdie.”
The mini- speech sets me thinking . Was he really drunk? Or were his age old insecurities coming out? And had he really fathered the three kids he claimed to ? Or did I have a facade on?
Half n hour later, me and Adi are driving back in a cab towards Worli. The Mahim Causeway is looking beautiful like most Bombay does, when the population is sleeping. I drop Adi at Hotel Hiltop and start walking back towards my room. As I walk back, I see the waves hit the Worli sea face. People are making their way into the darkness around the seaface with water mugs in their hands. The dogs are still barking. Another day is about to begin....and I am still sneezing. Then I make my way towards the sea and ......

Everyday day in my life

I may be one of those lucky few who is not besieged with ten calls a day from call centres, trying to sell a credit card, a personal loan or for that matter Club-Mahindra holidays. Either Reliance India Mobile hasn’t gotten around to selling its database or I am just plain lucky.
Nevertheless, that does not mean I do not get any calls. Due to the nature of my job, I get lots of calls from public relations professionals (or I am wondering if you have two minutes types). And this is how a typical call goes:
Trin Trin
Me: Hello…
Caller: Hi. This is Shafalica calling from Next Generation Image Management ( Image Management, Peter Drucker must be turning in his grave). Is that Vivek?
Me (in a rather bored voice): Ji. Boliye.
Shafalica: I was wondering whether you had two minutes? (For the uninitiated wondering is the most oft used word by Public Relations and Corporate Communication Professionals. They seem to wonder about everything when they interact with journalists. Now what has her wondering got to do with me having two minutes, you’ll have to ask her)
Me: Yes, Mam. Tell me. (now trying not to sound bored)
Shafalica: We have this client called Rose Wealth Management (Management again. Drucker must be back to original position now, since he must have turned again). There CEO Mr Vishal Mansukhani would like to contribute to your newspaper. (Contribute is another favourite with PR guys. What does it mean? When I was new to the profession, I even tried telling some PR guys that if their client wants to contribute to the newspaper he should be talking to my CFO and not me.)
Me: What does he want to contribute?
Shafalica: I was wondering (phir se) if you would be interested in an article from his side. ( Now that gets me interested. An article, written by somebody else. So that means less work for one day. And more than that since he is a corporate guy, he won’t charge. Bole to, free. So suddenly, we are talking ‘win-win’ management here)
Me: Hmmm. An article. So what does he want to write on?
Shafalica: I was wondering (Ok. I won’t count this one) if you had any ideas on what he could contribute on? (This is where the communication breaks down, totally. If I have an idea, wouldn’t I rather write it myself, than give it to another person to work on? Those who write on a regular basis will understand that figuring out what to write is the most difficult part. Writing it out is much easier. This is a simple thing that most PR professional who handle financial institutions (coz those are the ones I largely deal with) don’t seem to understand. More than that if the person they are trying to sell to me, doesn’t even have a clue on what he wants to write, what sort of an expert is he supposed to be? And even if he doesn’t have any idea, I am sure, the PR professional, can do some research on her own, and can come up with a few ideas. Or the idea is simply to get their piece and photograph into the newspaper. In this day and age, jo dikhta hai wo bikta hai, so content doesn’t really matter. And I really mean this. I had rejected an article a few months back because it was plagiarised and a couple of days back, I saw the same article published in another newspaper, which has got editions all across India. Or is it just a case of laziness. Since most human beings are lazy (including me) we would like others to do your work.)
Me: No. I don’t have any ideas (And even if I had, why should I give them to you. I am tempted to scream. But I don’t)
Shafalica (now at a loss of words. Given that she will now have to think): Hmmm. Let me talk to Mr Manshukhani, and ask him what he is comfortable writing on and then get back to you.
Me: Sure.
Shafalica: Bye.
Me: Bye.

Of Chicklit, Manpreet Singh Goni and Meenakshi Reddy Madhvan

There's no such thing as the perfect person, only idiosyncrasies that cancel out other idiosyncrasies and that too for a brief magical time that's bound to end - Meenakshi Reddy Madhvan in her new book You Are Here

Am not much into reading chicklit but picked up Meenakshi Reddy Madhvan’s much hyped first book “You Are Here” from Crosswords yesterday. Reddy is a blogger who blogs compulsively on http://thecompulsiveconfessor.blogspot.com/ and from what one hears, its her writing on the blog that got her the book contract from Penguin.
So why did I pick up the book? Well to be very honest I liked the first fifty pages of the book, that I happened to read at the bookstore. The logic being if I am to be seen around reading this book, it at least be interesting.
From what I read I could see things happening in the same way all around me. (You Are Here is a story of Arshi, a public relations professional who is seeing a journalist, till she of course breaks up with him, and all the bigger questions in life start popping up in her head. And then she meets another guy, who is confused about her or at least pretends to, when he doesn’t feel like kissing her).
Also I am a sucker for good one liners, and the first fifty pages, had some good one liners (like the one at the start.)
More than all this most first books, which come out of personal experience are not a bad read. Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone, is a very good example and so is Gregory David Roberts’ Shantaram. And of course, Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things which largely chronicles her growing up years in Kerala. Bhagat has gone from bad to worse with his second and third books and Roberts and Roy haven’t gotten around to writing another book.
Ok. I think I am deviating. Back to Madhvan and her writing.
Let me give you an analogy that will best explain Madhvan’s writing. One of the best performers in the Indian Premier Leauge was Chennai Superkings player Manpreet Singh Goni. He bowled fantastically, fielded well and even batted well in crucial situations. MSD could easily back on MSG. The Indian selectors were clearly watching. And when the squad for Asia cup was announced Goni was a part of the team. He played two matches in Asia Cup and in both the matches his bowling was insipid and dull to say the least. The point I am trying to make is that it is one thing bowling four quality overs in a twenty twenty match and totally another trying to bowl ten goods overs in a one day international. And forget playing test cricket.
Similarly writing a 500 word blog which the world reads and goes gaga over is one skill and writing a two fifty page book which has 100,000 words is totally another thing all together. Writing blogs is like twenty twenty cricket. Writing a novel, is at least like playing a 50 over one day international, if not like playing a test match.
So the writing for the first fifty pages (the portion I was able to read at the bookstore and that made me buy the book) is interesting. After that the book becomes boring and the writing pretty mediocre. Her lucid style of writing on the blog is clearly not visible in much of the book.
And that brings me to my learning from the whole issue. I have been pondering on writing a book for sometime (you know if what Reddy has to write can make for a story, I surely have more profound experiences in life). Having read this book, I have come to the conclusion that its one thing writing 500 word blogs and 800 word newspaper articles (which I write for a living) and its totally another thing writing a 100,000 word book. I am not ready for it as yet………..

Parde main rahne do...Parda na uthao.....

Adi, Avi and me were meeting after fifteen years. 15 years after the Bombay blasts. March 12, 1992, the day our standard tenth exams came to an end. Things had clearly changed.

Adi is a chartered accountant, married, slightly bald and with a paunch in the making. Clearly representative of the double income no kid generation. Has a wife who is much smarter than he is and is doing equally well, if not better.

Avi is a filmmaker who is about to start his first movie in September. He already has a few original and adapted screenplays to his credit. He has long hair which touches his shoulders, but is still as thin and athletic as he used to be. “Not married but father to three kids already,” he says, touting his atheletic provess. Was he joking? Or did he really mean it? I don't know.

But first things first. Bombay traffic takes me and Adi, one hour and hundred bucks to get from Worli to Carter Road at the end of Bandra ( some may call it the beginning – who I am to argue). As soon as we get down, I am sneezing profusely (not a good sign of things to come). Our bladders are about to burst. We have consumed four litres of water along the way.

Suddenly I remember seeing a Sulabh shauchalya somewhere. So we go looking. Our sensibilities do not allow us to pee in the open air, immediately. Times had changed. 15 years back, we would have been more than happy to empty our bladders around the next empty dark corner we could find. After 10 minutes of going up and down I realise, there is a Sulabh at the beginning as well at the end of Worli seaface or the end and the beginning of the Worli sea face. Depends on the way you look at it. Not here. This clearly isn't my part of town.

Our inhibitions discarded, we make our way towards the sea. A lot of fish is lying on the road. Left there to dry. I am the first one to go in. Adi stays guard. I turn my face towards the sea, open my zipper and let out a sigh of relief. A cold wind is blowing. This is the best time I have had in the entire day. Adi goes in next. Twenty seconds later I see him running towards him with a couple of dogs behind him. Looks like he zeroed in on the wrong area. Even dogs need their privacy in this city.

“My wife will kill me, if she ever finds out what we just did”, he says. Makes me wonder. Don't women like their men to feel comfortable. That I guess is a million dollar question. And million dollar questions are to be asked, not answered.

We make our way across the dug up road to Cafe Coffee Day... Then it strikes Adi, “You know we should have ordered a cup of cappuccino ( the cheapest coffee on the menu) and asked for the washroom”, he says. “Yup, but then you would have never had a story which you could tell your grandkids”, I reply. He smiles wryly at me, probably wondering, “For a bachelor, I really think lo g term!”

Soon we are joined by Adi's cousin ( let's call him D, since he is a costume designer (or do we call them film stylists now) of some repute in the Hindi film industry). D reminds me of Saeed Mirza. The director who made some memorable movies on the city of Mumbai ( Arvind Desai ki Ajeeb Dastan, Mohan Joshi Haazir Ho, Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai and Saleem Langde pe Mat Rowo). Soon I am told D is working on Mirza's next movie titled “Ek Tho Chance”. So the resemblance doesn't stop there.

Avi joins us around half n hour later. He has just finished a music sitting for his new movie. Three more friends of D join us and we head towards “Golden Moments”, a cheap drinking joint in Bandra, which D and his three friends recommend.

Five minutes into the bar, I realise I am the only non smoking teetotaler ( as anyone would confirm, that is a rarity these days) around. For the next four hours that we are in the bar, my lungs are smoking like a chimney.

I keep ordering Diet Coke, to their Signature Whisky and Old Monk rum. By two o clock in the morning I am around ten Diet Cokes down. My bladder is full again. But that is not the really interesting part....What happens in between is more interesting.

Life stories are first shared. Avi had lived in for around six years and broken up. Adi had married the first girl he proposed to, on a rainy night in Bangalore. Three drinks down, everyone starts to open up.

“Ye film industry bhi badi chutiya cheez hai”, says D. “ Bilkul I agree. You know this famous director of commedy movies ( with initials AB) says, he can't visualise his characters unless he fucks a cheap whore daily. I overheard him saying that. And who provides him with the whores? The producers of his movies,” replies Avi.

Adi is scandalised. They don't talk like that from where he comes from. “ Let us talk about something else. This is getting too complicated”, he says. But no one is ready to listen to him. “Sharab, shabaab aur kabab”, is clearly at work. People are three drinks down, munching their chicken and meat kababs and want to listen to some good hindi film industry gossip ( at least that is what it is to the outsiders. The insiders feel otherwise).

“Oh you should listen to this one I heard. This famous hero ( the same one who used to be a drug addict earlier) like is the case on most nights, felt like doing it and needed a new woman. So he called up his favourite pimp ( a famous producer of the late 80s and 90s) and asked for one. The producer was just coming out of a session with a woman. The same woman got sent to the hero's house. And you know what, he fell in love with her and married her. Isn't that amazing? An industry whore has become a respectable housewife”, says Avi.

Five drinks down and the night is really hotting up. The Indian Cricket League is on and the Hyderabad Heroes are playing the Lahore Badshahs. Six balls twelve runs. Abdul Razaq is given the ball for the Hyderabad Heroes. The first ball is a wide. People in the bar start swearing. “Saala pakistani. Haryega apne ko”. One run of the next ball. Five ball ten runs. The excitement is really building up. Razaq bowls an in swinging yorker, the batsman completely misses it and is bowled. Four balls ten runs and two wickets in hand. Razzaq bowls two more wide balls. More swearing follows. Clearly Pakistan brings out the best and the worst in us. Next ball there is a run out. And then Razzaq bowls out the last man. In between a single is taken. Hyderabad heroes win by six runs. Everyone seems really happy and more drinks are ordered.

“You know I start making my movie in September. Fuck no one can stop me now. No one. And after that any heroine will be ready to sleep with me for a role, except Aishwarya, Preeti and Rani. In fact some of the bong bombshells are already ready. But you know why I wont do it? Because I studied at St. Xavier’s and have a value system in place”, says Avi. Everyone around expresses surprise. Avi has a confused face. “Kuch zyada bol diya kya?”, he seems to be wondering. The worst though is yet to come.

Its two thirty pm already. The bar owner has been begging us to vacate. But the guys simply wont listen. At three o clock, cops from the local police station burst in. I am the only sane guy around who can talk. I take out my id card and the inspector smiles. Lets the seven of us go. “ Agar agli baar pakda to seedhe Anda cell main dalega”, I hear him shout as we leave the place.

Avi though has still not had enough. “So Mr Kaul, you think you are quizzing bond and know a lot,” he asks me. “ Avi I haven't quizzed in ten years now”, I reply. “ Hmmm, so what. I also know many things about many things. Don't you think you have sold yourself to DNA? You stay only fifteen kilometers away from me and this is the second time we have met in two and a half years. You got to know me Vivek. You know what, I know models who would be willing to have you anytime. Break down the facade you have on. Break it down. The world will be a much better place Mr Rushdie*”, came a long wielding response from Avi.

The mini- speech sets me thinking ( in fact I am still thinking three days later). Was he really drunk? Were his age old insecurities coming out? Had the tough life in the hindi film industry done this to him? Could he really sleep with the heroines he said he could? And had he really fathered the three kids he claimed to have? Or did I have a facade on?....

Half n hour later, me and Adi are driving back in a cab towards Worli. The Mahim Causeway is looking beautiful in white light, like most Bombay does, when the population is sleeping. I drop Adi at Hotel Hiltop and start walking back towards my room. As I walk back, I can see the waves hit the Worli sea face. I can see people making their way into the darkness around the seaface with water mugs and buckets in their hands. The dogs are still barking. Another day is about to begin....and I am still sneezing.

Then I make my way towards the sea and ......

* Avi feels I resemble Salmaan Rushdie...

(What has been written above, may or may not have happened and may or may not resemble any person living or dead, for that matter)

The Day the Big Bull called

With my legs on the computer CPU and the chair stretched back, I was snoozing again, after lunch. A couple of bowls of good sambhar and rice are enough to set me back by a couple of hours, after lunch. That day was no different.

I heard my telephone ring. “Must be another public relations woman trying to convince me on how the new financial product being launched by her client is God’s gift to mankind ”, I thought and let the phone ring. ( I have a theory on how a lot of dumb women end up with PR jobs. But that I’ll leave for someother day)

But something made me pick up the phone. Seventh sense. “Rajesh Chunchunwala speaking”, said the voice on the other end. Well, if you are Rajesh Chunchunwala, I am Warren Buffett, I almost blurted out. “Is this Vivek Kaul?”, the voice on the other end asked.

“ Yes”, I responded, with a yawn. “Boss, I never spoke to you. How did you publish an exclusive interview with me”, he asked. That woke me up with a thud.

My mind went back to the previous evening, when the big bull had given a speech at a conference. “I am bullish”, he had said, like he always does. The Sensex will touch 50,000 in the next 6-7 years if corporate profits keep growing at the current rate” he had said. This on a day when the Sensex had fallen by almost 1800 points during the day, and then recovered 1400 points.

50,000. Ah. Newspaper Editors, love big round numbers. I was the only newspaper journalist around and I could already see the front page headline, “Sensex to touch 50,000, says the big bull.” What a sexy headline. Talking about 50,000 when the Sensex hadn’t even touched 20,000.

I had dutifully noted down everything. As soon as he finished speaking, I called up a colleague and blurted out everything that the big bull, had said.

“Hello, are you still there. I am talking to you” , the big bull roared, breaking my flashback. “Yes, I am still there”, I replied meekly. “Sorry sir. I did not speak to you. But I was at the conference. I had specifically said that you were speaking at the conference, but that got knocked out when the story was edited. And I apologise for that.”

Guess, I had become the latest victim of the “Exclusive” phenomenon. When all newspapers are trying to look different from newspapers, these kind of things happen.

“And why do you guys sensationalise things. I had said that the Sensex will touch 50,000 only if the current earnings growth is maintained by companies. After that you give headline saying, Sensex to touch 50,000 without putting the earnings growth part in the headline. I will take legal action against you guys”, he continued.

“Sir, but the earnings growth point is in the story”, I replied. “Boss, who has the time to read the story in this city. This is a city of headline readers” “Ok,sir. We will carry a clarification tomorrow saying you were speaking at a conference”. I replied, trying to assuage him.

“Hmmm. I will call you back” and he hung up. It has been eighteen hours since then and I am still waiting for him to call back. Oh, and yes, the clarification has not been carried.

50 saal baad

Sea breeze can be very soothing or so I found out the last time I was on the Worli sea face. The place was full of couples in various stages of trying to know each other. From those who sat a feet apart, to those who held hands, to those who were necking and kissing and finally to those who were doing everything that was possible in a public place. Talking was incidental to the entire exercise ( no pun intended).

As I walked on the promenade, I found myself mumbling a few lines from the old Mukesh song, “Main pal do pal ka shayar hoon”. This 1976 song, made me think about, what statisticians would call, two mutually exclusive events, which happened 50 years apart and had a deep connect.

The first was a scene from the 1957 movie, Pyasa and the second a news item I read in the Times of India, a couple of months of back. For those who haven’t seen Pyasa, it is a story of a poet named Vijay, played by Guru Dutt.

Vijay leaves home since he does not get along with his elder brothers. One day while walking on the street, he runs into his mother, who insists that they go home and she feed her. At home he realises that his brothers have sold the notebooks in which he wrote all his poetry to the raddiwalla, for a few annas more.

He runs out of the house immediately and goes to the raddiwalla. That guy tells him that a woman has taken his notebooks. As the movie progresses he runs into that movie and finally does manage to get the notebooks.

Now that brings me to the second event. Of all the crap people accuse Times of India (TOI) of carrying, once in a while they do carry some good news items. TOI had done this story about the house of Bollywood lyricist Sahir Ludhianvi being sold. Well nothing great here, Sahir died in 1980, due to excessive drinking. The report mentioned that all of Sahir’s books of poetry and notebooks in which he wrote poetry were sold off as raddi. So many years of work, sold for a few rupees more.

Real life is different from reel life. Sahir wasn’t as lucky as Vijay was. And he probably did see it coming. The lines I was mumbling were “ Kal koi mujhko yaad kare, kyon koi mujhko yaad kare, musroof zamaana mere leeye, kyon waqt apna barbaad kare”.

( The other thing common between the two events is the fact that all the poetry that Vijay said in the movie Pyasaa was written by Sahir)

I'm a stranger here myself *

Dark clouds. A spate of black thunder with grease lightening. Power cut. The first drops of rain. The smell of wet earth. The red gulmohar in all its glory. Am I back to where I belong? Back to the city of Ranchi where I was born and brought up and spent the first twenty two years of my life.

Till about a decade back the first rains would have had me getting out of the house to get wet with my friends or to play football while it rained. My heart still wants to do the same but my mind prevails. At five kilograms less than a quintal, playing football while it rains is a pretty risky proposition.

And more than that who do I play football with? Everybody I knew in this city has moved on to a bigger city to earn a living. This is a city of people who are either under 18 or over 30. Everybody who could, has moved out.

The rains continue and the music playing on the satellite radio World Space more than makes up for lack of football. Kishore Kumar is singing “ Rim Jhim Girre Sawan”, the best ode ever composed for the rains. Just to deviate a little, the Farishta channel on World Space seems to be the only place in the world, where one does not run the risk of running into Himmesh Rishemmiya every five minutes. And that I tell you can be a big relief. As in how many times a day can you see a capless Himmesh bhai saying “ When there is faith there is no fear”. Whatever that is supposed to mean.

The rains stop. And my mother wants me to get some vegetables from Reliance Fresh. The local sabzi waala will not do for her any longer.

In the city I realise that telecom and insurance companies are the new Sachdeva PT college. They have taken over all the billboards in the city promising the world to the people. The time when Sachdeva PT College ruled the roost with its shoddy advertisements, promising graduation within one year seem to have long gone.

I deviate from the route and cross one of my two almamaters, in the city, St. Xavier’s College. It is here where I spent most of my time from 1993-1999, after leaving school, having practically disowned my parents during the period. After passing out in 1999, I have gone back to the college just once. I have great memories of the place and would like them to stay the way they are, unspoiled.

The college during my days was affiliated to the Ranchi University, which took four years to complete a three year graduation degree just because the exams were never held on time. The old timers told us that four years was really an improvement. The story goes that 1986-89 of Ranchi University passed out in December 1991, which was almost 2.5 years late.

Now Xavier’s I am told, is an independent entity which is allowed to conduct exams on its own. As a result, students enrolling for a three year course, pass out in three years. Good for them. But if you ask me now, with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight, whether the extra year in college was really worth it? I would say yes. The fun that I had for the time spent there had to come with some cost attached to it. The extra year was that cost.

One of the high points of studying ( or at least pretending to) at Xavier’s was the fact that 9 out of the 11 cinema halls in Ranchi were within a radius of two and a half kilometres (Shree Vishnu, Vasundra, Sandhya, Ratan, Welfare, Sujata, Mini Sujata, Plaza and Meenakshi). Back then 8 of these cinema halls were fully functional. Ratan had closed down in the late eighties and it still hasn’t opened after all these years. And the fact that a lot of good college time was spent there can be gauged from the fact that in the first two years I watched 42 movies during the time I should have been college listening to what the professors had to say. The fact that college was open 90 days a year meant that one averaged a movie every four days. The fact that ticket prices ranged from a minimum of Rs 3 to a maximum of Rs 7.25, did help. The choice is now severely limited for those studying at Xavier’s. Out of the eight theatres that were operational three ( Shree Vishnu, Welfare and Vasundra) have closed down. Single screen theatres are closing down and multiplexes are still to set in.

My thought process in broken as I see the red board of Reliance Fresh. Reliance Fresh has taken over this place. As I write this, I am told that there are eight stores already and a total of twenty stores have been planned. What it has done, other than ensuring that people get fresh fruits and vegetables at a less price, is put the middle men totally out of business. Someone out there was making loads of money because the supply chain wasn’t efficient. Now he is not.

As I go around the store, I realise that most vegetables cost less than Rs 10. My first impression is that the prices mentioned must be for 250 grams. So I look very carefully and see that all prices are for one kg. In Mumbai I pay the same price but for 250 grams. So you can very well imagine that a few middlemen in Mumbai must be making a lot of money. This makes me pray: Reliance Fresh come soon to Mumbai.

What these eight stores of Reliance Fresh have ensured is that all the local bazaars in the city have suddenly gone empty. When you can buy better vegetables at half the price in an air conditioned environment, why would anyone want to go to the local bazaar, trying to avoid muck and cow droppings, hoping not to be bitten by the stray dogs roaming all around the place, looking into the sky to ensure that the crow has not chosen your white shirt today to shit on and negotiating for a lower price, with the vegetable vendor, all at the same time. So Reliance Fresh has become a great leveller. Everybody is buying from Reliance Fresh. Right from the rickshawalla on the street to my parents. The commies should all love this. This just leaves me wondering what will happen, once Walmart comes.

Shopping done, I am back home and see my younger sister making a telephone call to book tickets in advance for a new movie. Now that’s progress. A city which never had any concept of advance booking now has tele-booking in place. The thrill of standing in a line before the movie started, not knowing whether you will get tickets is all over.

Back in the mid 90s the most expensive ticket used to cost a royal sum of seven rupees and twenty five paisa. 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.

Some of us would usually take responsibility to buy tickets and would queue up. 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.

We enter the theatre, and the movie plays, first time during my stay I get an impression that I am in familiar territory. The ticket prices may have gone up nearly five fold, but the seats are still the same. The promised air conditioning isn’t working as there is a power cut. The DTS-Dolby system is only switched on when a song plays. For the rest of the movie they seem to be using the four track stereophonic sound system that was put in place when Sholay was first released in 1975 and last overhauled when Maine Pyar Kiya played way back in 1989. Fifteen minutes into the movie and I still cannot make out what the characters are saying. Now that’s like the good old days. After half an hour of work like concentration, what the characters are saying becomes very clear.

During the course of the movie I realise that bed bugs are having a good time with my back. Now what is a movie without a few bed bugs biting. I get out of the cinema hall scratching my back once the movie is over. Ma does not recognise me. “Is that you?” she asks.

Only when she tells me do I realise that the bed bugs have had a great time with my neck as well. Parts of my face have also been experimented with. I was so busy concentrating on what the hero and the heroine were saying, I did not realise that I was being experimented on.

This also made me realise an answer to a bigger question that I have wondered about all these years. “How could people continue watching the movie when they were being bit by bed bugs?”. The answer as must have become clear to you by now, is that they were busy trying to figure out what the heroine and heroine were saying, that they just don’t realise that bed bugs were feeding on their blood.

We take long route back home, trying to go through all that I consider to be my landmarks in the city. I cross the Plaza theatre where I spent many afternoons, bunking college and watching adult movies.

The theatre has remained true to its spirit, all these years. It is playing Rickshewaali - sab ko lift dene waali and I need not tell you, for adults only. This makes me really nostalgic. Thank God for small mercies. Not everything in this city has changed. Some things have been preserved just the way I like it.

* The title of this blog is the same as Bill Bryson’s book “ I’m a stranger here myself”. Bryson wrote the book in 1998 after coming back to America having lived in the United Kingdom for 20 years. The idea for this piece came to me after reading Bryson’s book sometime back. Given that there was no better title for this blog.

Bill if you happen to read this, I hope you don’t mind.