Rain Diary - more of the (squelchy) same

Saru in her orange raincoat bringing us our dinner from grandmother's place (where the kitchen continues to function)

July 4th

Today is the third day of the downpour. The sky continues to frown on us and the latest news is that the roads are all clogged and traffic is moving at a pace slower than a snail's. Glad I'm in here, not out there. Poor Tuks has got caught though. Tukaram is our odd job boy - our Man Friday - the most important guy in this family's joint lives. He fixes our electrical problems, our plumbing (when he can), my computer occasionally and today he fixed our DVD player whose connection with the TV seemed to have been screwed up. Then he went off to help someone else with cleaning out the water with which their flat had got flooded and just five minutes back his wife called to ask what time he had left here. Well I didnt like to tell her it was a while back. Hope he doesn't have to wade through mucky water to get home.

The horror stories of last year are still making the rounds - how during the floods last July over a hundred people died, through being trapped in their modern cars or just drowned because the water in many areas was more than neck deep.There is not a soul in the compound at the moment other than Govind the sweeper, togged up in a bright yellow raincoat and rubber slippers, gathering up all the rubbish which people chuck down from their windows and dumping it into the garbage bin. Govind is asthmatic and always looks quite ill - now more so since he has begun to sport a seven day growth. But he gets around,is immensely cheerful and says "Please" and "Thenk Yew" at the drop of a hat. Have to remember to give him money for his months supply of medicines.

Off to have a little post lunch snooze now. and now that the DVD's fixed maybe I'll watch a film later this evening.

5th July

Watched a pretty dumb movie on TV last night: Legally Blond. Just the kind of thing for rainy weather though. In between I kept hopping channels to catch the local news and saw shots of waterlogged areas in Bombay and cars being stuck in several feet of muddy water, urchins screeching and jumping around in the rain, commuters trapped in traffic jams. One of the municipal corporators being interviewed by a belligerent anchorwoman bumbled and fumbled and err-ed and ah-ed through the questions she shot at him about the state of the city's roads and drainage system.

The sky has still not cleared up. Grey clouds continue to obscure the view. The buildings across the bay which normally loom up like Frankenstein’s monsters are invisible today. And when it rains it comes down in sheets. The papers this morning have life size pictures of people wading through streets which have turned into rivers. But .... yes Tuks our Man Friday reached home safe around four o'clock in the afternoon yesterday and not only that, has actually turned up for work again today. I told him to bring a change of clothes and that if the rain continued he should probably stay overnight rather than risk falling down a manhole! Half of Bombay is sick. Either coping with bad stomachs or with the flu. My mother is slowly recovering from a three day bout of cold and fever. Today is the first day I see her up and pottering around again and dispensing advice on various things.

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Indian Monsoon

It is raining. Whenever I decide to get off my ass and do something outdoors it starts to POUR. Sushama says the government should hire me out to drought prone places. All I have to do, is go there, pick on a time to go shopping and voila! Rain clouds appear, lightening streaks across the sky and the gods empty down buckets of water. And going out in the rains here, isn't at all entertaining, because it comes down in sheets, floods the roads and you find yourself picking your way through streams of water whose source is most dubious. Part of it is pure rainwater of course but it is partly also gutter water. The gutters are always overflowing during the rains. And I know of more than one person who fell down an open manhole.

For some reason manhole covers always get displaced regardless of whether it is raining or not. One of the people who fell down such a hole is my uncle B.D. Though we split our sides laughing to hear him relate the episode, some weeks later, I dont think he could have enjoyed it very much. One girl recently fell down a manhole and would have been carried off by the stream of gutter water but she managed to claw her way to the surface and to scramble out, presumably covered with shit from head to toe.Well, that is Bombay. It has stopped drizzling now and I am going to venture out. Will write about what happens in my next blog!

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Putting Things in Order

Am super busy at the moment. A new feeling for me because most of the time I tend to be so laidback with enough time to sit and look out of the window and contemplate the world and all that. In the last few days, Sushama (my friend from Delhi who is staying with me at the moment) and I have been shopping for chairs and rugs and table lamps and all kinds of odds and ends to get the flat in shape by the 2nd of July which is when we have our first workshop there.

Meanwhile another friend, Rotna has donated me a mattress which folds up neatly into a sofa, which I've placed against the wall near the standard lamp. The major change will happen when the TV set is moved to the front room which I am going to use as my office room, making space for people to lie down for the meditations.

Am learning to be orderly and to do first things first. The new stereo has been set up and it sounds quite good - its is actually a set of five way speakers with a subwoofer (quite cheap) as a stand by. I just connect my MP3 player to it. The Real Thing will be installed when I return from Europe in October, by which time the monsoon will be over.

Sushama is really enthusiastic about doing up the place and has millions of suggestions on where to place what, where to buy stuff, whom to ask about getting furniture made. If I remember to I'll take my camera along today and take some photos of how the living room looks just now though it is still far from being complete.

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Shopping in Bombay

Big Bazar was one of the first malls to be set up in Bombay a few years ago, in the area which used to formerly belong to a whole row of cotton mills which closed down. (Phoenix Mills compound as it is still called). At the time it was something to marvel at because it was one of the first supermarkets with trolleys like they have in shops in Europe. Till then shops tended to be rather poorly stocked and one had to depend on one’s visits abroad or to catch hold of friends going to Europe or America to bring back stuff you needed. But in recent years all that has changed and most of what is available outside India is also available here. You could saunter around for example, gazing at a variety of products ranging from kitchen ware to cosmetics and food. Our cook Asha was very impressed by it.

Today Bombay is crawling with malls and Big Bazar seems like a poor cousin compared to the fancier ones like "Atria" which Asha and I visited the other day, for kicks. Simbly. If nothing else we got an afternoon's worth of exercise strolling around the arcade. Much of it is still unfinished and whatever stuff is on sale is horrendously expensive. A lot of it was clothes. Jeans and tops and salwaar kameezes. The number of clothes shops never fails to astound me, for example around where I live there are hardly any good restaurants, hardly any good stationary shops or places to get down to earth stuff but - there are millions of shoe shops and clothes shops. You sometimes get the idea that in India the upper classes don’t eat food, they eat yards of silk and georgette and spangled jhig-mig saris.

Well, walking around Atria, Asha and I came across a store selling chairs. Reclining massage chairs. We decided to walk in and find out how much they cost and discovered that the cheapest one was like Rs. 90,000 and the price went up to Rs. 300,000. When the salesman tried to persuade us to just "try them out" Asha and I burst out laughing and slowly but surely backed out, saying we would definitely visit again. Like hell.

On the way down we joked about it. A small apartment in the suburbs would cost that much, we figured. I said to Asha, maybe we could turn the chair into a small portable apartment, you know, two people could squeeze themselves in the space under it and two could sit on it. It might just about hold a family of four. Asha loved that idea and cackled loud and long.

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Spring Cleaning

June 8th

Finally finally finally! Have got started on the project to refurnish and re-organise my grandmother's flat where I am supposed to be moving in. The painting and wiring has been already done. Dont know if it is the weather or the Indian temperament but everything takes so long here. Even to make a simple decision like getting started. A lot of spring cleaning is still in progress. Tons of books have been disposed off. When I get started on the old junk like family photos and letters (and some awful poems I wrote when I was seventeen) etc. I often dont have the heart to chuck things out so I am making a file now of archaic documents and pictures which I can keep looking over when I am ninety five. (If I l live that long which I really doubt).

I even came across a black and white photo of my great grandmother posing against the background of some hills in Europe which she visited in 1939. Maybe it was Vienna. I know she visited it. It was a historic visit, because that was the year Hitler was getting ready to pounce on Europe and everyone knew that the brownshirts were after the Jews. My great grandfather, reasonably fair skinned (for an Indian) and with his big long nose was warned by a lot of people in Austria to lie low! My great grandmother sent a postcard to my grandmom which my grandmom never forgot and which in retrospect seemed to ring so eerily true. She wrote that it all seemed like a " picnic of horrors".The heat has eased up somewhat and there is a light breeze flowing in through the open window. And now I am going to get back to "work" which is planning some courses for the next six months.

June 10th

Still at it! More spring cleaning. Recovering more dusty files, boxes, cookery books (all out of my grandmother's chest of drawers and most of the pages slowly falling to bits), empty perfume bottles, a dubious looking folding parasol, paper knives, post cards sent by me to my grandmother from Europe, more photos of the family.... whoooo. I also recovered four ancient looking metal bedpans from one of the cupboards in grandma's room!!!! When I asked my mom about it she said they must have belonged to my great grandfather!

My grandmother's younger maid Saru helps me with all of this. I spread my grandmom's old red and black spotted sari on my lap before I start anything because the first day when I failed to do that I was covered in dust. Anyway - Saru who also likes to cook, was keen that I keep the cookery books because she likes to try out new stuff.

Sometimes I come across something or other - a blouse, a particular sari - which my grandmother used to wear and I start to feel kind of sad and miss her. She was a real cute lady, about four feet eight inches at her tallest (she kept shrinking as she got old) and 96 years old when she died. An intelligent, obstinate, defiant, little chatterbox. Very advanced for her times. She couldn't stand being without company. Always wanted someone around. I was often there in the evenings, we would sit on her balcony watching the sea. I would drink my usual ginger tea and she would sip at her soup and talk of the old days and of people she knew and British rule in India.

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The crazy Media

Rahul Mahajan

The media is a watch dog they say. I don’t know about the real watching part, but yes, most certainly the media does behave like a dog for better or worse. The way it goes after people at times, has a downright surrealistic feel to it. I would even say it is depressing. I am no supporter of dear Rahul M who is now cooling his heels in Tihar jail after his champagne and cocaine binge last week and still claims to be “innocent”. (As my friend Sushama says “innocent of what?!”) But truly, seeing the way the press and TV channels behave, one gets the feeling of a huge snarling drooling canine going after a smaller snivelling cousin with the word “KILL” stamped fiercely on its brain.

Sure, I am like anyone else and the first day or two I gobbled up all the news there was to be had, and waited eagerly for more. And yes, the waiting had the same feel to it as waiting for the next episode of the “Bold and Beautiful” or this moronic serial I watch once in a blue moon these days called “Bhabhi” which is replete with wailing females and people getting shot or falling over the edge of a cliff and so on. The Mahajan serial was a bit more exciting if anything because “real life” thrillers usually double the high. But at some point I noticed it got too much, even for a “kind of soap opera friend” like me.

You begin to almost wonder whether the whole thing, every “real life” drama, all of life these days in fact is a media fabrication, for them (exactly who?) to be able to give you “news” and make sure that millions of morons will stay tuned to their channels and continue to act like morons.

To date I have not come across a single news channel, newspaper or magazine concerned with looking at the truth under the surface. The role of the media is to go after sensation which they term “the truth.” The truth is that exposure and punishment for various crimes and all the rest of it may be one aspect of getting people to reform. (Not necessarily the best I would say but well, that’s the way I think …) The other aspect has more to do with a long term effort. With education, self awareness, self respect, inner confidence which real education brings and so on, which is the only thing finally that will bring the crime rate down. Regardless of whether we are talking of drug related crimes, economic exploitation, of violence or anything else. It is the only thing too, that will make life with each other more liveable.

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Old Times

I am not one for taking long nostalgic walks down memory lane. Or not frequently at any rate. I never think of my school days with tearful eyes. During our final graduation ceremony at the BIS in fact Nazneen and I were the only two dry eyed individuals and as soon as it was over, and before other people’s tears had dried, she and I almost collapsed in each other’s arms with joy at never having to come to school again and be subjected to horrible subjects like maths and Hindi. (Hated Hindi back then though now I am looking for a teacher who can help me bone up on the language so that I can communicate fluently with my non English speaking clients!)

Now and then however, it feels good to catch up with old classmates so it was fun to see Yesha again after a gap of at least six years. (We seem to meet every five or six years or so). She is flying again after having served on the ground for a few years and it being her day off yesterday she phoned and asked if I were at home because she was coming into town.

Yesha was one of those kids who used to wander around school in pickle stained uniforms and had the reputation of being somewhat eccentric because whenever she got bored during class she would wander out, run around the courtyard a couple of times and come back and quietly sit at her desk. The teachers normally didn’t say anything to her because on the one occasion when they came down heavily on her she ran back home (she lived close to school) and returned quite defiantly with her father who yelled at the principal for allowing his daughter to be tortured by ignorant teachers.

Anyway after school Yesha transformed herself into this very svelte and fashionable young woman whom you would never dream of associating with pickle stained skirts and landed a job with an airline – where she still works.

So now she sashays into the flat some time around noon. I am just done with a client and wander into the living room and no sooner have I parked my butt on the sofa than she tells me in astounded tones how very stout I have become and how she just cant get over it. (Not that Yesha herself has gotten any thinner I smirk inwardly). Well I tell myself, things haven’t changed much since kindergarten when we would inflict the cruel truth on each other several times a day ("You're stupid! No you are a FOOL!!! Your dress looks so silly" etc. etc.) and then turn our backs on each other (Katti) for a few minutes or hours.

We went to the club for lunch, where the grilled fish and lemon butter sauce was approved of, though the vegetarian speciality “Thalipeet and pitla” got the thumbs down from her. During lunch we traded reminiscences and Yesha spoke of some tips I had given her when we met in Europe in ’74 or ’75. I had apparently told her that blue jeans didn’t need to be washed more than once in six months because the dirt never showed on the outside and inside anyway your pants came into contact only with your skin and if you were reasonably regular about baths (once in five or six days?) then you were safe from being smelly.

The other bit of advice I apparently gave her (and yes come to think of it I do remember this one) was that you should never pay for your coffee when you go to one of those street side cafes. If you sit for a while someone is bound to offer you a cup. It worked for me, I know. There were any number of lonely Algerians and other expats at a loose end waiting to be entertained for the price of a cup of coffee. So one accepted the invitation gladly, one exchanged pleasantries for a while over an ice cream or an espresso and at the point when the bloke asked you out or asked you home you told him you were so sorry you couldn’t because your aged mother was waiting for you to return and fix her supper.

That was a good tip, said Yesha, except it doesn’t work so well any more. I guess you gotta be young for anyone to want to pay for your coffee. She sighed. I sighed. Then we both got up with reasonably full bellies and I dropped her off at Mahalaxmi station before returning home for a snooze.

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Chocolate Therapy!

This one is about chocolate. By now we all know that chocolate and wine are the best way to keep healthy, to keep young, to avoid heart attacks, ward off contagious diseases, keep away insurance salesmen with bad breath and god knows what else. Maybe if you investigate the matter thoroughly enough you will find that chocolate and wine are the doorway to immortality. Till now I thought it was drinking wine and eating chocolate that was good for the health but now I have found out that what does you more good than eating chocolate is to rub it all over your body. Yes, there is this article in one of the Sunday papers that gives you a blow by blow description of how to do it and all the benefits you can look forward to. Here goes.

It’s called Chocolate Therapy and involves a Chocolate Fondue, which is put together from grated cooking chocolate, full cream, icing sugar, and orange peel. Sheeesh! And instead of eating all this (Oooooh Yum!) you rub it all over your face and neck! A spa at Kemps Corner actually offers you this treatment because, as the spa manager says, “Cocoa extracts have a unique biochemical composition which stimulate the fat burning process, lipolysis, and restore the skin’s fresh appearance.” (Buzz magazine).

Sounds good? Well the only reason I am not going in for an external cocoa treatment is that I am not a cat and can’t lick off the face mask after I am done. What a waste to have to wash all that creamy chocolate away. Maybe I will just up my daily intake of dark chocolate instead because the same article informs me that eating chocolate not only keeps heart disease and high blood pressure at bay but also doesn’t get in the way of weight loss. Whatever that means. Maybe that you can eat a few bars every day and be sure of not ending up resembling an ocean liner. Seventy per cent Lindt, here I come!

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Youth and Age

The police are getting to be very civilised these days. I had to visit them in order for them to okay my new passport and was asked to present myself at the nearest chowky last week. The only minor lapse occurred when I called to ask if they were open and if so, till what time. The receptionist or whoever answered the phone barked, “It’s all written on the form!” When I said sure, but couldn’t he tell me anyway, he barked a second time, “It’s all down on that form!” OK OK, I said, I will take a look at it and come along at the right time.

After a short wait in a small and rather cramped parlour with a bench at one end and some chairs along the wall facing the bench, we were asked to sit down in the investigating officer’s room. Polite doesn’t quite describe the guy who "interviewed" me. He was required to fill in some forms with mundane details such as where I was born and how long I had lived in Bombay, and seemed positively concerned and friendly while doing that. The second officer by whom I had to get the form signed at a later stage, was even more chummy if that is possible.

He looks at my mother and then at me and asks who is who. I tell him, well, I am Uma and I have come to get police clearance for my passport. I point to my mother and say "That's my mother." He shakes his head and says, “Mother is looking younger than daughter.” Such a nice guy, I tell you. Needless to say Mother could not have been more pleased. This statement just about vindicated the one made a couple of years ago when my mother had taken her mother for an outing to the race course and the elderly gossipy women who used to gather there had (according to my grandmother’s maid Saru) remarked on how my grandmother looked younger than my mother.

It figures, folks. My grandmother looked younger than my mother and my mother looks younger than me. That can only mean one thing. That I look older than my grandmother. Ok, what’s all this psychotherapy about if it doesn’t teach you to accept the facts of life? Right then, to answer your question, yes I think I can live with the truth.

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Christmas Pud

Mother just read the previous blog. She said, "I don't really care for that telegram. I would prefer the Queen to send us Christmas Pudding."

A letter from the Queen

Dad was reading out stuff from the papers yesterday. "In three more years," he tells Mother, "We can qualify for a congratulatory telegram from Queen Elisabeth II who recently celebrated her eightieth birthday. She sends it to all couples in the commonwealth who have celebrated their sixtieth year of marriage."

So we agreed that Mum (who is 76) and Dad (like Queen E. also 80 years old), no matter how furiously they quarrel and get on each other's nerves should definitely first of all, try to stay alive for the sake of the telegram and secondly try to stay together for at least the next three years. Then the telegram comes. After that they can part ways. Dad can go on his jaunts all over the world (which Mother who is a homebird, hates to do). Instead Mother can stay back and continue to supervise the plumber and the carpenter at their work and get the washing machine and the AC fixed when they give way and tend to umpteen other chores. But there is the matter of the royal telegram. Who gets to keep it? Well we decided that rather than fight over it they can neatly tear it in half and each of them gets to keep a piece.

And meanwhile for all who are interested in Queen E's tireless efforts to keep up goodwill in the world - she is a patron saint (oops not saint but patron queen) of 600 charities in the world has sent over 100,000 telegrams to individuals who hit a century, 280,000 telegrams to couples celebrating their 60th anniversay (so in three years time my parents will probably be the 460999th to get that royal certificate) and has given over 78,000 christmas puddings to her staff. (They dont say in how many years). In November 2007, she will be celebrating the sixtieth year of her own wedding to the man who called her a monkey on one occasion.

Follow up (Mum's point of view)

When Life Gets Surreal

Was feeling kind of sad yesterday evening. And even as I became aware of it, I saw how little most people like to acknowledge feelings like sadness. How we mostly cover it up with jokes, with hectic activity or in numerous other ways. I couldn’t quite figure out what made me feel like that yesterday – kind of down. Maybe it was the cloudy sky which greeted me during my daily sunset meditation. Or generally thinking of the world. Maybe it was Arun K’s phone call early in the evening. He had called after ages. Back presumably from shooting some film other.
“I’m feeling so old,” he starts in a morose tone of voice and just as I begin to chuckle, he hastens to explain that it has not so much to do with the body, but more to do with the mind. Not being able to quite cope with the outside world any more and the cult of violence, "and Indians being so bloody uncaring – they don’t give a damn about anything." He sounds more and more depressed by the second.

A couple of hours later, as I sit watching the dark clouds piling up in the sky, Parvati hands me a mug of tea. "Looks like rain", she says, and I nod. “Quite true.” She says aggressively as if she had not spoken a word and I am talking to myself “WHAT IS TRUE?!!” This is definitely not a day for smiles. She looks moodily around and stomps off and I ask myself what kind of day must have had, to sound like that.

Then I think about the photos of the Mahajan family splashed in the press these last few days and the crying wife and his daughter and the aged mother weeping at the funeral. I also think of the smug looking brother who looks quite pleased at having “goli chalaoed” his sibling and it occurs to me, how surrealistic life is becoming. It's not just about one brother gunning down another. (Actually what is it that makes a crime by a blood brother seem so much worse than a crime committed against any human being by any other – considering in some remote way we are all related!)

The surrealistic feel is augmented by the thought of the brother who was shot. And I ask myself is any of this real ? Are politicians real? Is there really a live person behind the cardboard cut outs you see on the roads, towering over us at election time? Do those pasty smiles come from a human being? When the people in magazines and movies start to seem more real in fact than your own friends and neighbours you do wonder what is happening to the world.


Then for some reason, I think back to two women I had casually happened to see out of a moving car a few hours earlier. One, walking down the road in a bright yellow sari with a plastic shopping bag in her hand. She looked like she’d been out buying groceries. The other emerged from a building, and walked towards a taxi across the road. The woman in the yellow sari had a very ordinary face and wore spectacles. She had a string of mogra in her hair. The other woman had red-gold dyed hair and wore a fashionable salwaar kameez – a designer brand no doubt. And I must say it was the woman with the mogra in her hair whom I found a more comforting sight. Somehow the groceries in her hand and the flowers in her hair made me feel a bit more alive and real myself.

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Adventure on a pleasant and normal Bombay evening

It’s such a normal pleasant evening by the sea. Mom, Dad and I slouch back on our deck chairs on the balcony as we sip our sundowners. Dad has poured himself a whisky, I’m having a feni and soda and my mother is enjoying a local red wine. Red wine, she claims, is good for her asthma and her heart.

So we’re talking about this and that when I see a shadowy form flit across the tiled floor. It scurries in a zig zag fashion towards me and before I know it my legs are in the air to avoid the wretched creature. Long before I know what the hell it is my brain has informed me it’s a roach and has done its usual hysterical act. Luckily the roach which seems just as hysterical has zig zagged faster than Michael Schuhmacher towards my mother who is so surprised at the thing brushing past her feet that she goes “Eeeeek!” And she prizes herself on being so calm and nonchalant in the presence of cockroaches and laughs about me being the scaredy puss!

So anyway Roachboy, intent on saving his own life takes off for some dark corner where he presumably gets lost and we forget about him and get back to chatting about what’s been happening generally, about the traffic problem and about Mahajan’s state of health and other stuff, when my mother picks up her glass, inspects it, smells it, gets up casually and goes into the drawing room and looks into her glass carefully again, by the bright light indoors.

“What?” I ask her and my worst fears are confirmed.

“Cockroach,” she says – and I must say she is very calm and tranquil as she breaks this news to me. “That darned insect must have fallen into my glass.”

I am flabbergasted. When?! How! We were all there and none of saw anything! Anyway it’s happened and there’s nothing to be done about it except to pour out the remaining wine, rinse out the glass and pour in some fresh wine. “I smelled something funny,” Mother says. “It didn’t smell like wine any more and I had a strong suspicion the cockroach must have tumbled in. It’s happened once before. Cockroaches like red wine too, apparently.”

I ask her, “Did you drink any of the wine after the creature fell in?” And mom shrugs. In her usual pragmatic manner she says, “I don’t know. But I’m glad it was one of the cheaper Indian wines. Imagine how much worse it would have felt to have to toss out a glass of expensive, imported Shiraz or something else!”

The Throw Away Culture

Two days back a man in Bombay, shot his brother. Not to say that this is a common event but it is not the first time in the world that such a thing has happened either. If the man had been some ordinary fellow the news item would have been sandwiched between umpteen other bits of news somewhere between the middle and back pages of the papers. But the bloke who fired the pistol in this case, happened to be Pravin Mahajan, an unsuccessful businessman constantly in need of money, and the brother he shot happened to be Pramod Mahajan, the BJP general secretary, whom many have been touting as “India’s future prime minister.”

Brothers have been known to get into a foul enough mood to occasionally kill each other. The Biblical story about Cain and Abel is not just some fairy tale. In this case younger bro was pissed off with older bro because older bro had refused to support him through his business flops any longer. He refused to even meet him without an appointment. So, humiliated and furious, the younger brother just walks into the older brother’s flat one morning and fires four bullets into his non-cooperating sibling’s body – an act which now has the older brother fighting for his life in a city hospital. What actually threw me was the statement that Pravin Mahajan subsequently made to the police, to explain his act. “He was not useful to me any more so I shot him,” he is reported to have said.

In a way this attitude about sums up our throw away culture. We are constantly throwing away everything from used batteries to plastic bags to plastic syringes. I suppose it is a logical development to extend this “throw away” attitude to human beings as well, who have ceased to serve a purpose in our lives. What Pramod M’s younger brother did to him of course as many people know, is what Pramod M (the victim in this story) is himself alleged to have done a few years ago, to a New Delhi journalist supposed to be carrying his child. But with a true flair for recovery he seemed to bounce back to his political career unscathed by having been named as prime suspect in the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case.

I am not trying to get moralistic here or to say in the least, that Mr. Mahajan had it coming or anything remotely like that. Nor that he deserves to have been shot at by his brother. One crime hardly justifies another. All I am saying is that there is something very screwed up about the times we live in. Because in a throw away culture, you never know who will want to throw you out next, because you have ceased to contribute anything to their lives. The psychiatrist who has examined the culprit - and the police too, maintain on the basis of psychological tests which were carried out, that the guilty man is mentally sound although Pravin M’s wife and lawyer insist that he has been depressed and mentally unstable for a while.

I would tend to go along with the wife's opinion because anybody who can shoot another human being – brother or stranger – without remorse, has to have something wrong with him. In this case I tend to think that there is something very wrong with the tests which have been carried out on the trigger happy man which say he is actually, mentally sound. It seems to me that here, it is the psychiatrists who believe in such tests, who are mentally unsound. Because it shows how superficial their examination is, and the fact that nobody wants to look even a bit under the surface for the true cause of violence. And when members of society whom ordinary people look to for understanding, themselves turn out to have such a superficial understanding of who is sick or not, then well, it is somewhat scary, I guess!

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Two causes for Optimism

Two things I read in yesterday’s papers made me feel quite optimistic, generally. One was on the personal front, the other on the public. What made me personally happy was a photo of Laura Bush in Japan, in the middle of a Japanese tea party. I have always felt intrigued about this custom and at the same time a bit disappointed because it involves being togged up in a kimono and squatting on the floor, and I can’t picture myself doing either. But Laura Bush was wearing an off white three piece suit and was sitting at a table with her mother next to her. She was pouring tea into a cup watched by a smiling, bowing Geisha girl. (Do they call them just Geisha’s or “Geisha Girls”? At least sometimes I like to sound politically correct). Laura’s mother was also smiling affably in the photo.

So first of all I thought, the Japanese tea party is now within my reach as well. If Laura Bush can drink Japanese tea in her off white suit, I can pour out the tea and drink it wearing my blue jeans. I can even take my mother along to Japan and she can wear her blue jeans or a pair of bright blue peddle pushers, which she is rather attached to and which she wears every second day when she goes for a walk. We can both sit and pour out tea in a genteel fashion with some nice looking Geishas smiling over us and I can at last satisfy my desire to participate in this age old meditative ceremony. Then I will get back to my group in Bombay and introduce them to the tea drinking ritual, though most of them will probably only want to drink chai, which might not be all that meditative as far as drinks go.

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The second piece of news which made me happy and has more consequence for society is the fact that 74 per cent of the readers in DNA’s poll on the Narmada dam, said they support the NBA (the anti dam group) and are against the monstrous dam being constructed on the Narmada river. This comes as a real surprise just when one thought nobody cared.

Not that anything is likely to come out of anybody’s feelings, because the government is going ahead with plans to raise the height of the construction and thousands of tribal people living on the banks of the river will be done out of their homes. Now, following Medha Patkar’s twenty day fast the government says they will at least help to resettle them in an alternate place (the last time they made an effort, the affected villagers were all hustled off to a vast tract of barren land where nothing could grow).

The bad news is that the government is just not able to see the fact, that the vast expense, the destruction of tribal land and harassment of thousands of villagers is to provide only a few select areas with electricity – with no regard for the consequences of the environmental damage that most huge dams cause. But at least people are waking up, they are demonstrating their concern for the displaced, they are showing that they do have a sense of what is right and wrong. And that feels good.

Group wesbite: www.basicindia.net

The Dangers of a Kiss

What has apparently shaken up Delhi recently, is not the fact that there is so much violence and factionalism in the country, nor that a large number of people still go to bed hungry every night, or that women get such a raw deal in life. No Sir. What is shaking up the city is the fact that Farhad Suri, the guy who was elected Mayor of Delhi two or three days back was PUBLICLY KISSED by his wife when she got the news. Ahem.

The papers quote a long list of notables who have condemned this barbaric act of passion. She should not have done it. He should not have allowed it. Public figures should behave themselves. Kissing is a private act, not meant for public consumption. Etc. etc. And boy do they all sound like self righteous prigs. But that is India. The holier than thou attitude is one of our major distinctions. I am my brother’s keeper and I am going to decide what he does, what he says and what he should think.

Let me quote the views of BJP councillor Subhash Arya on the subject. “ Suri has created history,” says Arya. “Never before has such a scene been seen before. Sitting on the Mayor’s chair or dais this is unacceptable. He should have stepped away from the dais and then what the couple did is their personal life. It (kissing) is not a part of our tradition and cannot be tolerated.”

This is very evident. A kiss has to do with love and when I see what we Indians do to each other in the name of God and religion it seems to me that it is true, love is not really a part of our tradition. Duty is, or at least the idea of it. But love? Love is not to be tolerated. (Of course India is not the only place in the world where people are intolerant and smug, so let's burst some crackers at this point, in celebration).

If you want to really show someone you love them you should first make sure that nobody is around to see you because to exhibit love openly is a sign of disrespect for the person watching you. Love is something to be ashamed of. No wonder the majority of us are so screwed up! The lucky ones are the people who at least know they are screwed up and are trying to get the knots in their minds and lives unravelled, in whichever way they find best. The not so lucky ones are those who believe they are always right. I would not want to be one of them if you paid me a million bucks and promised me a free flight to the moon. Come to think of it, maybe that is where the Mr. and Mrs Know It Alls of the world belong.

Group website: www.basicindia.net

Train Rides in India

It was ages since I’d stepped into a train in India. The last time had been over five years ago, when Christoph had come down from Switzerland and the gang had decided to organize a workshop in Goa. That time we had opted for the overnight train from Mumbai to Madgaon which was supposed to reach Goa (Madgaon) by 11 AM. Come 11 AM however, we were nowhere vaguely near Goa. Midday we were still hoping to make it at not too late an hour. We were chugging away at a rather leisurely pace when at around half past one in the afternoon just as we were beginning to get tired and hungry and ready to stuff just about anything into our stomachs, (there was NO food in sight on this particular train) we came to a grinding halt. A gang of protestors waving red flags were prancing around the tracks refusing to let us pass “until the government promised to build them a station at the point where they were holding us up.”

We were running out of food, we were running out of water and also out of patience by then. Not that it made any difference. We were held up for over two hours, the only person enjoying it all being Christoph who darted here and there, taking photographs of the protesting bunch from as many angles as he could. When we pulled into Madgaon it was raining, it was becoming dark, we had an hour to go before reaching our final destination by road and I swore I would never again take any train to anywhere in India.

Now, with memories of the discomfort well behind me and Sudha informing me about this “fast train” to Goa (fast means covering 600 kilometres in something like 9 hours), as well as tickets for a throwaway price I decided to go for it.

So on the appointed day we stumble out of bed at the crack of dawn (Sudha has decided to spend the night at our place) and by 5 am, having haggled with the coolie who helped us carry our luggage, we are comfortably ensconced in our seats, Sudha and I across the aisle from each other. Within a few minutes the two seats next to mine are taken by a very amiable couple with a grinning baby who specializes in firmly clutching people’s hair (she tried to clutch mine and also to grab my spectacles). Mom and Dad cheerfully and amiably occupy three quarters of the space on the row of seats leaving me a narrow bit of seat to squeeze my ass into, as we chug out of the station. If there was any hint of sleep left, the din of hawkers selling chai, coffee, snacks, cold drinks and “garam garam tomato soup - pio pio” has me wide eyed in no time.

At the very first stop about twenty minutes or half an hour later, an ill tempered man followed by his fat wife stomps his way into the compartment, stops in front of me, checks the tickets in his hand and proceeds to bark at the couple with the baby. Apparently the seats they are occupying belong to him and his wife. So off goes the poor couple with the baby, after gathering their belongings, their hajaar potlis and baskets and water bottles and baby. Barking Dog, having settled down in his rightful seat attempts to smile at me (I don’t think he is actually capable of smiling – it is more like his lips are struggling to move upwards in an effort to appear friendly) while his wife Fatty, fishes out a bagful of red and white pearly beads from her pouch and a reel of nylon thread on which to string them, though shortly after beginning to work on her fancy thingummy she falls soundly asleep.

Sudha sitting across the aisle has a woman sitting next to her who is part of a pilgrimage tour. Various members of this group take turns sitting at the window, stumbling over Sudha’s feet in the process and then promptly falling fast asleep. Watching all the sleeping souls around us Sudha and I start to drift off too, heads lolling against the backrest waking up every now and again to shouts of “Garam Samosa! Hot Soup!” etc.


When we pull into Madgaon and I try getting off the train I am almost swept aside by an army of passengers who want to board it. But even as I goggle at them and start flapping my hands in a futile attempt to ward them off, an elderly gentleman yells at the hooligans to step aside, grabs me by the hand and leads me to safety. When I thank him he smiles. “You’re welcome.” Thank god for small mercies!!! It hasn’t been half as bad as I expected and when it is time to return to Bombay a week later not only am I ready to weather another nine hours on the tracks but am on the way to becoming a fan of the Indian railways.

Group website: www.basicindia.net

Walking on Indian Roads

Last night I got the feeling I would like to respond to what Sudha said in the last post on this blog, about the time we spent together in Goa and all that she felt while walking down the village roads there, with me. It is true, walking around in India is a big headache for me and generally for people with any kind of disability. But I have to say that the conditions in India make one feel more handicapped than one really is. I was telling Sudha for instance, that in the west I am far more mobile and independent than I am able to be here. The roads are smoother, the pavements are almost level with the road and not five feet above the ground requiring major acrobatics to climb up. The buses are manned by drivers who keep a watch on passengers boarding or gettinf off the bus. Buses do not take off while one of your feet is still dangling in mid air and while you’re liable to fall off. Trains are very accessible (except maybe for the Paris rush hour which can be BAD!).

The two years I spent abroad as a young adult, going where I pleased, entirely on my own, were therefore among the most fulfilling in my life … and yet I chose to return to this chaotic country with its incomprehensible ways. Maybe because all said and done, this is where I “belong”. This is where I feel most at home. Because something in the atmosphere strikes a chord in me. Quite simply, broken pavements notwithstanding, I have started acknowledging the fact that I like living here!

Still, it would be so nice if India could make a bit more of an effort to cater to people who are physically disadvantaged, not to mention mentally disadvantaged or lacking in other respects. This darker side to our attitudes and to our mentality is also a reality. I have so often seen deaf people get laughed at because those with normal hearing find the way they talk, hilarious. The physically handicapped are ignored when streets and housing or public spaces are planned. The mentally retarded … well the less said about society’s reaction to this group of people the better. The blind…they are pitied as much as they are cheated when shop keepers/taxi drivers and others feel they can get away with it. This is what I learnt from my blind friend Venky, who in spite of everything has managed to travel all over the world on his own - from Xanadu to Zurich or London.

Oh well. I continue to grumble but not as viciously as I used to. Things take time. It will take time for us to catch up with the west in matters where we need to catch up. I’m learning to be patient!

Sudha's take on Goa

1. Sudha sent me her thoughts on our recent trip to Goa. Here goes:

The Goa trip with Uma turned out to be much more of an introspective experience than I expected.

1. Uma... Have spent a large chunk of my childhood with her…loving her , hating her, (she used to LAUGH at me!), but mostly liking her a great deal; agonizing over her handicap and keeping mum about it, because she hated anybody mentioning it. And somewhere along the way, taking it for granted, even rationalizing it all to myself. She has so many other comforts to make up the loss.. and other nonsense.
   
   This time in Goa, we take a walk down to the nearest store and it hits me. She can’t undertake a casual stroll without company; a small undulation can cause a bad fall ; and even idle chatter as we walk distracts, and is not without risk. And I thought I was a sensitive soul! In one of our Mumbai sessions, Uma had asked whether we got different perspectives of ourselves from feedback. That day I came face to face with myself, and didn’t like it much.
   
   Walking with Uma starts another trend of thought…it is so much easier when I match my stride to hers. Have I been doing that all the time? Matching my stride to other people's so that everything is easier? Uma has no choice, but what about the others in my life? Have I even given them a chance to match their strides to mine? What is my stride? Do I know… do I even want to know? And if I did find it and nobody wanted to match my stride, would I be ready to walk the path alone?
   
   We sit out on the beach every night after dinner. There is no moon, and the sky is dusty with stars. I feel distant from Uma, and realize that this feeling has persisted for some time now. Is this the authority problem which Venky and Sharat have been mentioning? No - I accept her superior understanding of the work we are in, and accept it gratefully.... then where is this distance coming from? If I accept the distance, it is not an uncomfortable feeling. Just that I know I love her more than this, and am unable to express it.
   
   The following day, over lunch, I start telling her about my passion for writing about films, and she interrupts with “What is in it for you” ; I resent that, but curb the feeling and buy time, by saying “I will think about it.” I think she catches on. Next day, Uma does a ‘dry run’ of some new exercises for the group. Surprisingly, it touches the very issue that’s troubling me. And I can tell her that I find she is too much ‘therapist’ and not enough ‘friend’. I mention my earlier resentment and she says maybe all it needed was for me to tell her not to interrupt her. Simple. Point taken.
   
   Somehow it is easier to talk to her now, and as we sit on the beach at night, I reach out and hold her hand. It is like being kids together again. It has been a good trip.
   
   Group website: www.basicindia.net
   

The Bad and the Ugly

I just heard of this Mexican film maker about whom there was an article in yesterday’s papers. Arturo Ripstein is the name. The movies he has made include “No one writes to the Colonel any more” and “Time to die”. In the old days I used to watch a whole lot more movies than I do today, and used to be better informed about directors and their work. No longer. In any case I am not sure if I would really have wanted to know about Senor Ripstein, even if the information had been available to me back then, because here is his philosophy of life:

“I believe in hate, revenge, sin and guilt … happiness is a ray of light you see from a taxi. Happiness is very boring…” etc etc.

Maybe I should first see a film by Ripstein before commenting on his values but I am impatient to share my thoughts about his views on life right now, and what I think is, that he seems to live on the planet of overgrown schoolboys.

In a way his philosophy helps me to understand the world and the way people react. It brings with it an insight into the violence, the greed, the fear of happiness in fact, which we mostly experience on earth. People are afraid to be happy because they imagine that it is boring to be happy. Which only proves how silly they are, and how little they understand of happiness. Or how little they see that it is hate and revenge that are boring in the long run because there is such a sameness to feelings like that. The energy they bring in their wake is enervating and monotonous. It is the sort of energy which kills – sometimes slowly, sometimes directly.

Is it that people are too stupid to see beyond their fascination with hate and guilt and associated feelings – too mesmerised by it to want to go beyond it? Are we mostly going to be stuck at this level of intelligence and to be condemned to live and re-live stories based entirely on the most primitive aspects of our psyches?

Of course the encouraging part is that Ripstein's work is not hugely popular. He is apparently funded by the government and claims not to be concerned by the fact that nobody sees his films. But then there are so many other film makers whose concentration on the gory side of life brings massive returns and a great fan following.

Maybe it will really happen some day. The earth will go up in a cloud of fire and poisonous gases. And a few of us who did not want it to end that way – if we are lucky – might be able to migrate at a speed faster than light to some far away planet and start a new species of life, (name yet to be decided) - devoted to that wonder called “awareness.”

Group website:
www.basicindia.net