Carnival of Rust

Who would've thought that a ship on it's way to the scrapyard, would find it's 4 days of fame?

MV Wisdom, an unheard of merchant ship which broke away from the towing vessel and nearly collided with the Worli Sea Link, found it's fame during it's last days when it landed at Mumbai's favourite beach at Juhu.
And what followed at Juhu was the great Indian tamasha. People swarmed, journalists swooped in and hawkers never had a better business opportunity.

A Day in the life of India?

:)

Mall-evolence

Look at those shiny glitzy billboards that beam with the 4 letter word that makes a girl's heart skip a beat. The magical letters namely A,E,L,S beautifully transition into the word SALE! And the bigger the 2 digit number that follows it, the more one's eyes gleam. But then another 4 letter word just ruins all the fun. "UPTO". It's written in such tiny font that after a point of time you start to wonder what is easier- reading the UPTO or attempting to see the craters on the surface of the moon.

But anyway, sales DO increase the footfall. You get to see families comprising of over-enthusiastic aunties, disinterested uncles and hyperactive kids who are ready to cry at the drop of a hat if Mummyji doesn't buy anything for them rather than lovey-dovey couples who will probably end up sharing a McAloo Tikki burger and spending so many hours at the mall, it seems they've been converted into mannequins.

So, it all starts with the "stringent" security checks right from the moment your vehicle enters the parking lot of the mall. The guard will dutifully use a mirror to check whether you've hidden an explosive underneath the car and ask you to open the boot in order to check for the same. It's perfectly alright if you decide to hide one inside the car. Our duty only includes definite checks and keeping in mind with our culture of doing only as much as is told, we need to do just that.

Then your explosive-free car manages to enter the parking lot with one guy and his assistant shoving parking tickets and ancient dilapidated currency notes to you that makes you want to give the poor note a good facial at the glam-sham saloon in the mall. This process takes barely about 30 seconds but that is enough to trigger the Uncleji who's come with his entire family's impatience which he makes very apparent with his incessant honking.

Now there is an endless queue for the elevator that will take you to the ground floor. It takes so long for the elevator to come that you start wondering whether your hair will turn white(and not grey) by the time you get to step inside the elevator. Eventually after a lot of jostling, you DO manage to get away from the stench of the basement and you phone comes back to life(read:network). And since you've braved the elevator, your bag gets rewarded. Yes, it doesn't get manhandled by the security guard at the entrance. Tip to bombers: you could carry bombs in your handbag but remember to take the elevator route. It never fails.

And before you can step on the skating rink like Italian marble floor, there comes this over enthusiastic 20 something girl who asks for 5 precious minutes of your time to complete a survey which can lead you to win an all expense paid trip to a random resort in a random remote part of the country. (conditions apply). There's also a man distributing pamphlets regarding a sale of the most useless things at the most useless store in the mall who will not budge from your path until you take that piece of paper from his hand. There is another person who's put treadmills and Osim massage chairs on the ground floor which turns out to be a hub of well fed menopausal Aunties with shopping carts and kids in tow.

Once you've managed to dodge these elements, you are free to take the escalator to the floor of your choice. If you're lucky you may come across people who believe that the escalator is a T-Rex's gut and will swallow them as soon as they step on it. For Chrissake, even the ghouls in Aahat are scarier.

At last you do reach the shop and you end up liking nothing besides that black tee without the over the top sequins. Your eyes gleam with joy. You reach out to the tee as if it's the very last relic of Michael Jackson. But alas, your joy is shortlived. You wanted size M but all the have is XS, S, L, XL,2L,XXL. So you ask one of the shop assistants to get you size M. Now they are beaming with joy at the prospect of some work because otherwise they don't really get to do anything besides flirting with each other which would tend to get monotonous after a while, isn't it? It doesn't end there , there's a long winding queue at the trial rooms. So after ageing by another 40 years, you do get your well deserved turn for an entry into the trial room. After checking whether it is a two way mirror or not and looking around for hidden cameras, you do realise that the tee is worth buying. Now there is another queue at the cash counter. And when your turn does come, the credit card invariably gets declined. Your heart skips a beat, 2 beats and so on with every passing second. And you regain your pulse, when the cashier tells you that it was just a temporary system failure and the payment has been confirmed. The tee is now yours so is the brand new plastic bag. No the malls aren't eco-friendly yet unless you consider the colour of the bag. :\

Ah so anyway, now you're too tired to stand in a queue for a drink at Mc Donald's and you decide to head back to the dingy basement. The appearance of the basement is inversely proportional to the way the mall looks by the way.

You head out. Only to realise that there is another queue waiting for you on the way back home. The queue is commonly known as a traffic jam.

Her royal highness

Till today no force on earth has been so compelling that it wakes me up from my sleep in one attempt. My mom has tried all tricks in the book over the years to budge me from my sleep ranging from loud music (that makes me feel even more sleepy by the way) to sprinkling water on my face but in vain. But now there is a force who has been successful in jolting me up from my deepest sleep in one go. It is none other than my MAID and this article is dedicated to her.

She is the HRH I am talking about. The moment her fingertips touch the doorbell I am awake. umm is partly because of the consequences which I may have to face later such as ruining the afternoon siesta among other things.

My maid is a robust middle aged woman who goes by the name Lakshmi. I do not understand why every maid that I've had in Bombay has to be called Lakshmi and why all of them belong to some obscure village in Andhra Pradesh. But all Lakshmis have contrasting personalities. Lakshmi 1 was a chirpy 20 something female who would eventually get married giving way to Lakshmi 2 who had a morose expression and a peculiar trait of understanding Hindi only when it came to discussing her allowance. A new house comes with a new maid and so the new Lakshmi is a shrill high-pitched female who is bursting with an extra dose of enthusiasm when it comes to striking a conversation with me and an equally low degree of enthusiasm when it comes to dusting the house.

The moment she enters the house she rattles off her favourite ice-breaker "Babyji, nas(h)ta kiya". I have lost count of the number of times I've heard this sentence. Sometimes I wonder if I develop amnesia I may forget everything else but most definitely remember these words. She has failed to understand that no matter how many times she asks me this question, she will end up getting the same response. A negative one. She has failed to understand that her tactics that have an effect on my mother will never have an effect on me. Read: Giving her something to eat or giving her tea.

So on weekends when I do not have to wake up to open the door for her, she takes her revenge in a different way. She will open up all the blinds to let all the sunshine of the world enter my room and switch off the fan and deliberately not switch it on again. The response when I wake up "Babyji main toh bhool gayee" followed by that wicked grin of hers which makes me punch her right on her nose.

The other day she suddenly came up with the theory that I pretend not understanding Telugu but actually I do because I happened to put a Telugu channel on TV while channel surfing. And then there are days when she "accidently" hits my leg with the broom.

So all in all it is a hate-hate relationship. And I guess that's enough maid bashing for the day. :|

Local trains

Disclaimer: Frustration is the driving factor of this note.

They say local trains are the lifeline of Bombay( I like to call it Bombay and not Mumbai).I beg to differ. Local trains are like the deposits of cholestrol in the arteries of Bombay or probably like second-hand pacemakers. They seem so ancient that it appears the paan stained and ridiculously filthy coaches will fall apart any moment or rather the roof would fall on your head and yes there have been instances where it was impossible to sit inside the train because water was seeping down the roof and some lame person had decided to have a hearty lunch on the berth and very conviently decided not to clean it.
The local trains of Bombay are like dog vans in the peak hours.I still like to believe that the latter is much more comfortable. At certain major stations like Dadar etc, one gets pushed in with the crowd and gets pushed out of the train with the crowd.Wearing sandals is a big NO because by the end of the journey one's toes are sure to get mutilated. And do not expect a sorry because even the slightest groan could send cause tempers to flare up and subject you to the choicest of abuses, half of which you wouldnt even understand. The best option is to wear your earphones and try thinking of the pleasant things in life. Sadly, just as you are about to do that you see millions of people defecating in the open.You most definitely cannot ignore the stench emanating from the stretch between Bandra and Mahim.
You can try looking around but all that you see is the extremely obscence graffiti on the walls and the seats of the coaches. There are plenty of advertisements too saying "Pan card dhamaka offer" and some other random advertisements for Piles clinics, black magic and fashion designing institutes.
Local trains are probably India's biggest market on the move. You can buy anything ranging from handkerchiefs, cosmetics,linen, jewellery, stationery and books in a local train. And your bargaining skills are put to great test.
The local trains of Bombay are the biggest levellers. You cannot help but sit next to a fisherwoman who is still reeking of fish or sit four on a seat meant for three.Or have kids almost pouncing on you because they have come to Bombay for the first time and they still like to believe that it is the city of dreams.
Sadly reality hits one real hard.