Mumbai. City. Obsession. Catharsis.

.... and this dark secret love will thy life destroy.
- Blake

Traveling by train every single day makes you a sensitive and a selectively sanitized person. Once you've elbowed, pinched, stamped your way into the compartment; squeezed your butt on the fourth seat next to the corporately dressed lady (with tarty red lipstick), with immense sense of pride - you have duly become a Mumbikar (or a mumbling Bombayite).

A true Mumbaikar travels in trains, the class doesn't really matter. The daily commute is often claimed to be strenuous, suffocating, friendly etc., it can be all of the above and none. But what it can not not be is uneventful! Every single day, you will either witness a fight, a business deal, a lesbian kiss, a death, a swollen jaw, hickeys on necks/backs/ arms, frowns (multiples of them), people reading an array of books from regional literature to Russian porn, breakfast parties, sorry tales, consistent adjustment of breasts within the bra or the blouse, or women sleeping carefree with their mouth's wide open.

Mumbai, as it is a city of trains, it is a city of sewage or gutters as they are fondly called. Drama King often calls Mumbaikars as 'we are all in the gutters, mademoiselle; only some of us are staring at the sky and dreaming of the stars.' The city without much surprise has more than a dozen hundred gutters, most of them are rivulets from the largest river called Mithi (read: sweet, small). Once upon a time, in a fairy tale Byzantium, this lean water source was the only source of fresh flowing water. Now it is a stink line - the pulmonary vein amongst mineral water arteries. The living symbol of Mumbai's health.

The river is at the mercy of monsoon to wash away the clogged plastic, steel, and diffusers into the ever embracing Arabian sea. The citizenry is ruthless to these gutters and swamps: it has allowed too many people to survive suicides in them, too many have thrown away enemy carcasses or flowers offered to domesticated 4-inch gods. The gutters are malleable warriors fighting survival, squeezing through the clefts and the breeches left by builders who conspiring to sink the city. Gutters are like people who sit on the forth seat, grow iceberg lettuce using the same water, packaging them in polythene to sell in train compartments to seemingly rich women obsessed with health food.

Gutter's and gutter dwellers celebrate survival; of not allowing plastic or carbon mono oxide to choke their existence, or stop the steel fringe sculptures from the blown-up train compartments, from going to work the next day. Prima facie, Mumbai is a city of the young and bold, on the inside it's a body infested with over-working, multiplying carcinogenic cells ... the city is dying, gradually sighing out, wreaking and lying. Like a dying woman, it has become exotic, historical and wanting to gulp a cup of hot chai at a go - it is fighting against time, against death.

Mumbai's losing it's taste, it's mind was always a wanderer; now it's pulling-up the keel, raising the mast and girding to sail in an iceboat.

flood in a papercup

Writing about rains in B'bay is the most hackneyed thing to do-

But every monsoon is different and yet so uncannily similar to the one I enjoyed almost a decade ago. I at 25, after a darned mundane day at work, stepped out in my shorts to enjoy the 1st showers, like i did when I was 7. I love rains in b'bay - (that apart I love B'bay). Everyone cribs about everything - the puddles of water, the delayed and cancelled trains, the endless lines of traffic, the open man-holes, the water-clogging and when there is water every where, there is not a drop dripping from your home tap.

Nonetheless, never mind the muck, the tempers and the disgruntle sighs ... b'bay looks most beautiful in the rains, like the heavens have given it a bath, scrubbed it clean lovingly and like a reluctant child the shoreline fights back the stones... SEA is what most people miss when they move-out of B'bay.. and it is also amongst the things that I often miss - samosas, chai and cigarettes on the worli/ marine/ nariman/ carters sea scapes or when in a special mood and a loaded wallet - guzzling down a bottle of red wine, listening to poetry, watching vendor-kids bargain for bright rainbow stripped umbrellas.

Or simply walking down ... be it Ruparel, Podar, Xaviers, University campus, NCPA back lanes, Ballard Pier, BPT gardens, Lions gate, Mahim Mougal Lane, Vasai village road, Mazgaon Docks, Nariman point promenade or mount Mary road ... or national Park.... every place is beyond beautiful.

I remember every soaked, cold shivering walk, remember sitting hungry in the only cafe open at 6 am - the coffee never tasted better, stale keema pao was bliss and the stares just never mattered... I miss those memories, of wet cats and odd trips, of cozy hugs and warm, soft, lingering fragrances....

B'bay is a state of the heart rather than a city - and in the rains it's just filled with love, lots of passionate volatile love.

Cabbie v/s Client

I received a fwd from my boss today, with a link that I conveniently erased out.

Do u know, Rickshaw & Taxi Drivers do not have a right to say NO,. So remember that each time the rickshaw/taxi driver tells you a NO, take down his vehicle registration number, note the time date and place, please click on the following link and register your complaint.

We have had enough of these guys bullying us around, and refusing to ply specially when its urgent. They have been told that they cannot say a NO to any customer when their meter is FOR HIRE! not even for short or long distances. I'd suggest you stop asking them whether they will take you wherever you wish to go and rather tell them where you want to go. and if they refuse. REGISTER a COMPLAINT. Lets teach these guys who's the customer , and who's the boss!

Yes, of course it's time to cheer! This is because we get the upper hand. Most of us will be happy with the decision but I, for some inane reason do not wish to travel in a cab or an auto rickshaw with a driver not driving at his free will. It just doesn't seem fair- irrespective of their problems or their 'just don't want to' attitude.

There are times when I am irate and amused - like when they demand abominable amounts for small distances, especially when 'crisis' is visible on your face. Or when the driver checks you out before taking a call on whether he wants to drive that far/ near with your face in the rear-view mirror. I have even had certain drivers consciously adjust their mirrors- aligning them etc... it can be infuriating, complimenting and hilarious: depending on your mood for the day.

It's often the latter for me: I have come to acknowledge and grin away. These drivers have proved certain norms wrong- like I only have snob-class appeal; coz 'I have attitude'. No - the way they look, i know i have mass appeal! (lol) There is a certain pride that they display to fellow rickshaw drivers when they pass by - a smile or a 'maintain ur distance' look or sometimes my attitude rubs on the driver and he also suddenly becomes a snob.

There was one particular incident when this rick guy was eating gutkha, i didn't realise when i got in but within seconds it got me nauseating and i decided to get off. He was baffled and i told him it was his gutkha and it was giving me a headache. He asked for a two minute break, got off, spit it out rinsed his mouth with the bottled water, sat back and said sorry. I said thank you. Incidentally I met him again, weeks later, at the station, and he smiled real wide- then i recalled it was the same driver. As he was driving me back home, he told me that he had stopped eating gutkha and i said good, as it's really bad for ur health. He said it was because of me- and i was amused, i asked him 'why me'? He replied ,”Aap classwale log jab mere auto mai bathe, toh mereko bhi ache classwala hona magngta na? Aur classwala log gutkha nahi khata.” (when people of ur class/standard travel in my vehicle then i should also behave classy and people with class don't eat gutkha!) I told him he was 100 percent right and he should keep it that way.
(i am sort of a digression expert, aint i?)

i think it will be different if it's by force. Sometimes it's okay to let the driver choose his client. I know it's unnerving and cruel in emergencies but waiting for ricks (with hurting heels ondazed-out night) and getting late for a morning edit meet has taught me a lot of patience, hope (that the next passing empty rick will stop for me) and courage to smile when it doesn't. Then follow the higher principles of basic kindness or like the one above- that class doesn't come with money.

I owe these qualities to them... so i support their freedom to choose!