Eight years ago, we travelled to the city of the smelly marble mausoleum. We were strangers in a strange house, guests of a nanchuk-weilding boor of an acquaintance. We stayed up nights, drank our sickly sweet chais and made right royal asses of ourselves. It was a strange and wonderful holiday – we laughed and gossiped and were laughed at and gossiped against.

We were teenagers in a big, bad city back then; a city we fought and loved and detested together. Our friends were our family, and therefore instinctively knew everything we tried to hide from them. We frustrated our parents and barely knew our teachers, but we were the happiest we have ever been.

That was a long time ago. We spent the next five years away from each other. We were always just a phone call away, but no closer. We made all the smart decisions, but we cursed ourselves for being prize chumps. Our lives were a convoluted mess of last-minute train tickets, sleepy airport lounges and fictitious trips to Sikkim with “the guys”.

Yesterday, we had enough. Yesterday, we decided we wanted more. Yesterday, I asked her to marry me, and she said she would. And today the world makes perfect sense again.

—–

Plain White T’s – Hey There Delilah [mp3]

Good evening, or as Snow White said to the Seven Dwarves – Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello.

You are doing well, I hope? Good good. The colour’s definitely returned to your cheeks – no doubt a result of the magnificent psychedelic toilet paper you are so fond of. And I see you’ve done your hair up much like I do mine. We really are toupees in a pod now, aren’t we?

Anyway, we really should get started. The Arrow of time is moving ever-forward, and the Van Heusens of Shoppers Stop are finding it really hard to keep up. Today, I will show you around the famous city of Mumbai, a place I called Home for ten years because I couldn’t keep up with all the name changes. It’s a lovely city with a rich, cultural history and a remarkable array of varied vegetation. It really does grow on you – though the Municipal Corporation assures us that their new sprays are working perfectly.

Mumbai is, like New York, a largely north-south city. This has immensely inconvenienced parties as diverse as the local taxi-wallahs, the utilities companies and the sun. It was originally a group of seven large islands, but a series of reclamations have joined them together. One of the smaller islands, Elephanta, is well-known for its beautiful caves and is said to be the abode of both Lord Shiva and Dumbo. The sad, dilapidated condition of this historical site has moved many visitors to tears, with most unable to say much more than a wistful “Tusk! Tusk!”

The city is also known the center of commerce, or more specifically, ‘Me’. The financial capital of the country, it houses the oldest stock exchange in Asia. A large number of businesses, small and large, work together in perfect harmony to provide employment to millions. One of the earliest flourishing trades was that of paraffin wax, with the stuff being exported to places as far as Persia and Egypt. With the discovery of kerosene as a cost-efficient source of light and fuel, however, the demand saw a dramatic decline and manufacturers soon had wax coming out of their ears. These days, candles are used only during the frequent electricity black-outs. This gets quite messy, so the man of the house generally volunteers to clean the stains and wax off in the dark.

Home to ‘Bollywood’, the massive Hindi film industry, Bombay is also the cultural hub of the nation. Thousands of musicians, actors and media bigwigs move to the city every year with hopes of striking the right note, pose and unsuspecting passer-by respectively. While the film industry deservedly gets the lions-share of the attention, few know that the music business is extremely profitable and vibrant as well. In fact, over the last few months an Indian music director, A. R. Rahman, has managed two Oscar awards, four national awards and a surprise number one in Sweden¹. Another very popular musical artiste is the singer Alisha ‘Baby Doll’ Chinai, whose compositions have a distinct Middle Eastern influence (mostly Shiite). The outspoken Ms. Chinai is a creature of controversy, unaffected by media criticism. In fact, she was once had to suffer through a whole week of debasement, from which she emerged quite unscathed, stating that she finds “de room under de ground floor to be a most comfortable place”.

Mumbai is, like most metropolises, a city of flamboyance and warmth, and has done much to improve the living conditions of its citizens. It is, in fact, often compared to the safe, modern and connected city of London, differing from the British capital in only three respects.

You might require a map of the city to help you get around. There are many different versions floating around, but this is the only one you’ll really need.

I do hope you have found this useful. I, too, have enjoyed your company. Tata.

——————————————-

¹ Cold weather often does that to him

Curd lay in bed wondering if he had just dreamt about her. His rubbed his left arm gently – it was still asleep – and tried to recall why the rest of him had awoken with a start. He looked at his watch, and let out a sharp yelp. It was six and the joggers would soon be in. Ah well, he’d dream about her again and he was almost certain it’d be the same dream. If only he remembered his dreams, he’d know for sure.

He folded his bed sheet, flattened it out and put it back on the display shelf. A little toothpaste on his fore-finger and phoos-phoos of the tester deodorant and he was all set. The system was booted and that annoying Springsteen song kicked in just as the first customer jogged into his shop.

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Curd was born, fittingly enough, in the neighbourhood gym. Mommy was in the sauna when her water broke. She didn’t even notice it. They both got free lifetime memberships to the gym, which pissed Mom off because she knew she’d never go now that she wasn’t paying for it.

When Curd was sixteen, he got the job at the supermarket. For two weeks he hated it: the long hours, the shitty pay, the saxophone record that the agency said would boost customer loyalty, up employee morale and appeal to the middle-aged horny housewife demographic. He was paid in Fruit n’ Nuts and had to smile quite a lot and all the aunties called him ‘Deekra’.

And then she joined.

Ulka was hired to woman the Cosmetics aisle. Towards the end of her first day on the job she pocketed nine bottles of sun-block, slipped some money into the cash register and went home. The next morning, she was given a joining bonus and a new uniform.

</>

Curd knew things were going wonky when he started saying things like “DinDins? Oh groovy that’d be so like fabuloso hehehe.” when asked if he’d like to order pizza. He’d insist on paying, of course, and would end up tipping the delivery guy in chewing gum. Pizzas were expensive and Ulka was… um, a large girl.

It wasn’t like he was being taken advantage of. Curd was, like all men, his own man. He was being chivalrous, that’s all. It was an investment towards a happier future for them both – a future that involved a house with a lawn, a red Japanese car and a low-carb diet. Curd would come back home from work to a hot meal and a foot massage. He’d sink into bed, and give her the look. She’d toss back her hair, lean in real close and whisper gently in his ear –

“You fucking idiot! This isn’t pepperoni. I know I didn’t write it down this time, but surely you can’t be that stupid.”

</>

It was tough, this unrequited love thing. One day Curd just decided not to go home. The shop was comfortable enough. He slept in Aisle 2 because it smelt like her. He’d write her little notes on the floor with hand lotion, but would always wipe it off before she came in. (He now had really soft hands, if only she’d bother to check.) Some days he offered to run her shift while she went to the movies or the beach. He rehearsed his lines long after he had said them, and would inevitably come up with the perfect joke or witty retort by the third attempt.

So Ulka had a short fuse. That’s not a deal-breaker, is it? Curd had his flaws too – his second toe, for instance, was longer than his first. Why do you think he wore socks with his floaters?

She swore a lot for one so pretty. She said she had once eaten peacock, and he didn’t know if it was a joke. He laughed anyway, but that just got her mad.

</>

On Saturday, two weeks after she was recruited, Ulka was asked to leave. She seemed genuinely pleased to be fired. She threw a pressure cooker at Curd on her way out and blew him a mocking kiss. It was the first time he had seen her smile and it made him smile too.

Bruce Springsteen – The Queen of the Supermarket [mp3]

You wake up groggy; the world’s a blur,

You stumble, you trip, you curse the liqueur.

You were supposed to awaken crisp like toast

Yet here you are, as blind as a post

(You’re mixing your metaphors¹ now, never a good sign.

The next time you drink, you stick to your rum.)

Damn.

You look in the mirror, you recoil with fear,

You trip on the pot and moisten your rear.

(Of the slapstick, dear poet, there is no real need,

Let’s stick to the symptoms, I humbly plead.)

Fine, hmph, so your eyes are all gummy,

And bloodshot and itchy and watery,

Accompanied by an infection of the upper respiratory tract, a common cold and/or a sore throat.

(Now see what you’ve done, you imbecilic son of Zorg,

You’ve made him quote from Wikipedia.org.

You’ve insulted his art; you’ve taken his mickey,

You’ve made him resort to quoting from… Oh, wait, I already said that.)

Anyway, where was I?

It’s highly infectious, people look quickly away,

You begin to feel ostracized, like Robert Mugabe.

Of Zimbabwe.

Hehe.

(Now cut it out, Mister. This is an ‘ode’, you realise?

It should be stately and profound and lyrical and wise.

No more horsing around now, this is going all awry,

Let’s get back to talking ’bout your old Chenn-eye).

Your local physician, he tells you to rest,

And to sit around the house in that dirty, holey vest.

Use eye drops and cough drops and keep your hands clean,

And most important of all, don’t stare at that computer screen.

Oh.

_______

¹
Similes, actually. How much did you drink, anyway?

I was four when I spoke my first word. My parents insist I could understand everything and that I was just plain lazy, but I’m pretty sure they were worried. Needless to say, when the first excruciating word was finally extracted out of me, there was much celebration. I was expected, thence, to quickly race through the alphabet, dodge effortlessly past those pesky numbers and conquer the mighty Noddy books in a bid to make up for lost time. I’d be reading Shakespeare by July and fixing the hole in the ozone layer by next winter. Baajuhut, the young ‘un (,) was on a roll.

And then, suddenly, he wasn’t; waylaid by that dastardly fiend, that wrecker of self-esteem, the ultra-vile Nursery Rhyme!

I could never get the hang of those blasted poems. Granted, they were magnificently violent tales that dealt cheerfully with subjects as diverse as death, deception, adultery and communicable diseases – no complaints there – but why were/are they considered essential to a kid’s early education? You could just as easily strap a kid into his high chair, plonk him in front of the telly and play Scarface over and over again. He might even get a cool accent that way.

And what’s with the magnificently archaic language? What were these mysterious ‘poses’, for instance, that manifested themselves in my pockets, causing me to make asthmatic noises and get dragged painfully to the ground? And that treacle-eating weasel that went Pop! from time to time. Pop?

My brother, incidentally, knew every single one (he still does). Very likely, you too still remember a dozen or so of these jolly ditties. No doubt they take you back to a happier time and fill you with memories of Horlicks and Rice Paysam (or warm apple pie, as the case may be). Those were the days, eh? Yeah, me too! Hmph.

See Also: Zonuts

I

Poetry

Is not some

thing I am good at.

I try (maybe not hard enough),

But

somehow

It ends up looking like this.

Damnit.

II

I remember this Ogden Nash book lying around at home. My brother had picked it up, and though I never saw him read it, he knew all the clever ones. Clever chap, my brother.

I remember wondering why stuff in ‘A Pageant of Poems’ couldn’t be like this. I hated that poetry textbook. ‘The Bazaars of Hyderabad’ was rubbish. ‘Jack’ was pointless. The only thing I liked about ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ was its title (and that, it turns out, was pilfered).

I remember being asked to ‘commit them to memory’ (as opposed to ‘by heart-ing them’). I did. But I didn’t like it. I’m not comfortable with confrontation.

I also remember, strangely enough, tripping a classmate on the basketball court as she skipped around muttering “Butterfly, Butterfly” in a nauseatingly saccharine voice. I think I did it on purpose. She needed three stitches on her chin. She later studied Sociology in Delhi, shaved off all the hair on her head, grew it back, and is now a (very beautiful) nurse in France. Some countries have all the luck.

III

TMH and I used to write some pretty funny stuff (we thought) in Prof. Horace Jacob’s Quantum Mechanics class. We’d write a stanza at a time, as the Lego-esque poem slowly took shape. We were both, inevitably, very proud of the end result.

Aforementioned HoJo, meanwhile, talked about falling into a Black Hole in the middle of a crowded market, and backed that up with a complex formula that seemed bogus (but was probably correct). There was creativity in the air.

IV

A friend of mine now is now part of a band that plays Indian folk-fusion. They are the only tri-lingual band I know (unless Usha Uthup has a band), singing in English, Hindi and Kannada. I bet you’ve never heard a Kannada song before. I hadn’t, and I’ve been going to Bangalore every summer since I was two.

It’s a good band. They do stuff they enjoy, and it shows. Not pretentious, not profound. Just pleasant.

Crack knuckles, deep breath.
Baaju Hut shall live again.
An empty threat. Sigh!

I really can’t say what it is about waiters, but they really get my goat. Except of course, when they are actually supposed to be getting me my goat, in which case they ‘accidentally’ bring me cow. And that just gets my goat again, for which the lousy bastards expect me to tip them extra.

I wasn’t always like this, of course. I used to be polite and courteous to restaurant-workers, smiling benevolently at them as they gently trickled boiling potage down the back of my shirt. Graciously would I ignore the bungling oafs’ tendency to bring me my aperitif after my apple pie. I would tip them a generous 12.5%, fill in whole paras of panegyric in the feedback form (always mentioning names) and thank them profusely for suggesting the delightfully elastic cut of uncooked hippo meat that was my T-Bone steak.

And then, one day, I found that I didn’t need to take it anymore.

Now, I am not usually the discriminatory type. I do not judge people on race, colour, length of hair or dancing prowess. I am fairly tolerant of the unfortunate souls who drool when they fall asleep in cars or have moist under-arm patches on their shirts/blouses. I have even been known to smile through gritted teeth as a classmate rummaged through my cupboard looking for mock CAT papers! But I absolutely refuse to humour someone who believes you owe him for the fact that hasn’t injected your main course with his bodily fluids. The supercilious little eyebrow-raise, the smug “Regular water? Are you sure?”, it drives me up a wall.

So I now have a zero-tolerance approach. Cocky waitresses are called “aunty” and are asked to please remove the strands of white hair from my salad. Hoity-toity maitre d’s get impromptu grammar lessons. Incompetent waiters are asked to replace the finger-bowls until the water is precisely 77 deg C. And, I hit them where it hurts them most – I am a lousy tipper.

Occasionally, just occasionally, does a genuinely helpful waiter pop out of the woodwork – one who goes out of her way to improve your dining experience, is attentive and efficient and doesn’t fill cold water all the way to the brim of your glass. But wait, keep watching as she picks up your bill and scans the (adequate, or so you thought) 10% tip you’ve shelled out by way of encouragement. Watch her scowl, hiss, spit and curse the fudge out of many branches of your family tree. The next time you order a salad at this joint you can be sure it will be delicately seasoned with the fresh flavours of Morarji Juice.

Those Japshave it spot on as usual. Get little conveyor belts with automatic billing machines attached and send all the waiters to the massage parlour at the back. Also charge a couple of million yen for raw fish and rice. Wasabiautiful idea!

I had decided to post something this week, and so there I was, sitting patiently in front of the laptop, waiting for Lady Inspiration to arrive. She was a little late this time around, even by her standards.

And then, I saw this.

Smashing, said I! The best band in the world is now, clearly, also the smartest! Whoop-de-doo and yipee-ya-yay.

As a business model, though,  I wonder why more people haven’t tried this out. If positioned right, and done not-too-frequently, I do believe it’d do spectacularly well. I’ve seen it work. Annalakshmi, the Coimbatore-based restaurant has been doing this for ages. (I admit, it works better in their case – they’ve got religion and charity on their side! Also, maybe it works better when you have someone look you in the eye when you leave.)

Tyler Cowen, an economist and author of immense sense, had this to say about the gimmick/experiment. There is much to find fault with in his rationalization. For starters, Radiohead is not an Indie cult band. His basic premise, however, I agree with – this will not alter the Music Industry.

The more I think about it, it seems to me that only a band like Radiohead could pull this off. They are a band with a deep - and not just wide - fan base. And they do appear to be genuinely curious. This is a bold experiment, a fantastic statement from a band that has just risen that little bit higher in my estimation.