Rickshaw Ride

When your motor skills are slightly challenged and you have trouble with hand-eye coordination, you should instantly understand that - Driving is not for you.

But people sometimes behave like I love being called an imbecile or something. "Come on, now! How hard can that be? Driving is the easiest thing on the planet."

That's as good as yelling at a dyslexic kid about the difference between bar and bra. (He's probably too young for both in any case!)

Besides, if you have an internal GPS as warped as Moses in the desert, there's absolutely no incentive in overcoming this handicap of being a wuss behind the wheel. With a stroke of luck, if you've figured how to change gears while you foxtrot on the accelerator and clutch, you've probably forgotten where you wanted to get to in the first place.

To add to the mix, if your direction sense sucks, the last person you want clarifications from is someone from Mumbai city. My people are cool and all, but if there's one thing that I just don't understand, it's the fact that when it comes to directions, they can NEVER get themselves to saying "I don't know."

In fact, I think when Christopher Columbus was asking people to guide him to India, it probably was that lone Mumbaikar on his boat who jumped to the occasion and grabbed the role of playing navigator. ("Let's go straight," I believe were his last words.)

But I don't blame that guy alone. Clearly he's been raised in a city where official signposts beam at you with the profound confidence of a broken compass. Imagine my horror when I spot a bottle-green signboard in Khar West that reads Go Straight for Mantralay with no distance indicators. That's as good as telling me, keep going straight and you'll reach Bangalore... well, eventually.

Let's see, so here I am with all the permutations and combinations of reaching WhereTheFuckAmI land.

I promise to meet this friend for rehearsals on a Wednesday afternoon. "It's the second bungalow on Chapel Road, Bandra West. 2:00 pm. Don't be late!" she warns, knowingly.

I hop into a rickshaw and mumble the necessary keywords to get me to my destination, and continue to multitask with a sandwich, the cellphone and a book in tow.

We maze through millions of cars, buses, 2-wheelers, 3-wheelers, and dodge over the little hindrances in our obstacle race including THE divider, a bicyclist (who are they anyway?) and a cow's oblivious tail.

Through this chaos, I sit there beaming, cause it's 1:45pm, and for the first time in a very long time, I'm going to be there, On Time. Phew!

We reach Hill Road and I'm mean't to direct the driver behind the Indian 3-seater from there.
"Bhaiyya Chapel Road likha hai." He looks like he's going to call my bluff, and presumes I'm not from the city. He's lived in Khar-Danda all his life apparently and is convinced that I've got the address all wrong.

He defies me into asking someone on the street.
"Chapel Road?" "Chap-pill Road" I scream from the other side of the street, when a soft-drink stall owner points straight ahead towards a forked path.

A couple rights, lefts, u-turns, lefts, straights and zig-zags around the corner, someone suggests that I'm not even in the right part of the city. "It's probably in Malad," a passerby assures, again pointing straight ahead, towards Mantralay. Grah!

I look at the rickshaw guy through the rear-view mirror and charade my way by saying:
"Arre bhaiya, wahaan par sab bungley hai. Address mein Bungla #2 likha hai"

He parks the rick on the side and asks me to show him the address with the air of a veteran detective. Something dawns on him, and he looks mightily pissed with me. Grumbling through the traffic he takes me via a by-lane and points at a dilapidated signboard with 'Chapel Road' in clear letters.

"Kya Madam. Kaayko shtyle maarta hai? Chappal Gali bolneka na, seedha seedha," he says, waving his slipper in his hand.

I wasn't quite sure if he was still in the mood for playing charades there.

And I didn't wait long enough to find out.





Photo Credit: CNN

The Voiceover

From washing gravity-challenged curls in cold water and stepping out in the blazing sun, to applying curds on the scalp and sitting under the air conditioner. From eating unbranded hand packed sickeningly sweet fluorescent candy, to gorging on 4 germ laden ice shaved golas on Juhu beach. I'd done it all!

This wasn't an I-will-test-my-immunity (or stupidity??) contest that I was trying to win, or a suicide diet to look pretty at death. Nor was I getting paid to conduct research on popular ways of contracting pneumonia.

In my defense this was, in all earnestness, an attempt to retain a 'husky' voice.

As retarded as it sounds, do you have any idea what it means to get complimented on a borrowed voice tone? Especially when 'normal' means that the inherited vocal chords vibrate only within the soprano range, and being 'excited' means emitting ultrasonic sounds that can only be appreciated by cats, dogs, and screeching bats?!

Thanks to common cold, phlegm, and the entire army of waterworks, there was hope. Let alone the fact that I now looked like Rudolf on Prozac, carried three packs of Kleenex in my bag, and couldn’t tell the difference between nutri-wheat-crackers and cardboard - I sounded perfect!

The cell-phone was ringing. The hottie-with-the-long-sideburns had his name flashing across the touchscreen. Dashing for another Kleenex I went through a quick round of the sniff-snort-cough-cough routine. Stomach tucked in, chest pushed out, I looked like someone in dire need of the Heimlich maneuver.
But the hottie couldn't see all of that now, could he?

The phone was answered in under five seconds.

'Huh lo-oh...' I teased. The femme fatale had just walked into the voice box.

I breathed out a wry smile, and continued to look like death. But it didn't matter.

Cause Jessica Rabbit had finally agreed to do a little dubbing for Ms. Swan.

A little dash of Amreeka

You know what it feels like to give that usual smile to your paani-puri waala down the road, right!? Of course you do! Didn't we like totally like accommodate like this-is-what-the-next-gen-should-know kinda jazz from Family Guy and South Park? Aren't we in the world of Simi selecting and simpering over pubescent celebrity men in true cougar town shows? Haven't we often felt like Central Park was just a couple blocks down our street?
So then you know what I'm talk about, right? NO?!?

See, I thought we were doing everything the American way - where it's perfectly normal for a bus driver to greet you with a chirpy 'good morning', and for you to wave back without ever stopping to wonder if he's going to hijack the bus to molest-station.

"That happened in the late nineties, early two thousands...!!" I tchah-tchah'ed to myself all along the way. India's changed a lot since. What with FB, Twitter and the whole gamut of worldwide people on the computer screen, we sure have adapted well now, haven't we?

And so I went to the same old paani-puri waala who I'd visit regularly on my yearly sojourns to Mumbai.

With a mouthful of spicy gol guppas, an almost runny nose, and a sentence punctuated with appropriately slurp-ish sounds, he seemed pleased to have found my appreciation for his culinary skills.

"Hellooo Maydumji. Kaise ho aap? Aajkal aap dikhte hi nahi ho" he managed to mutter through his permanent smile in one uninterrupted breath.

I exchanged the usual pleasantries and made small talk, until I touched upon a seemingly personal question.
"Waise, aapka naam kya hai?" I asked, wondering if his name would reveal a little about his roots.

The habitual smile dimmed behind his glorious moustache. He focused on cracking the epicenter of the next puri with absolute concentration, and coyly revealed "Prem." 

I almost choked on the gol guppa in my mouth, and the spicy paani felt like a shot of wasabi streaming down those nostrils.
"Prem Dayal" "Prem Dayal Shukla," was repeated in quick succession which, if said with a little more panache, would've passed off as a good local impersonation of the classic 007.

Beaming ear-to-ear his annoyingly white, symmetrically toothed smile had returned to his oily face. Putting two extra puris on my plate, he casually asked me the same question.

Oops! Spurted it out in a matter-of-fact manner. How often does one go to their favourite street chaat corner with an alias identity in mind? Okay, I said it! The local paani-puri waala knows my name.

So what? It's not like he can do much with it. It is the American way. It's cool to know people on a first name basis.

So what if I now have a creepy looking picture of a 'Shukla' requesting to befriend me on Facebook!

It's Customary

They winced once, just before snipping a bunch of locks right above Leela's shoulder. Thick silky black strands clumped together in a loosened plait as they lay there, defenseless, on the floor.

Maasi began sharpening the razor blade against the waterstone, looking in Leela's direction for a hint of pain. But she sat there stoically, staring at the chipped wall in front of the verandah. 

One of them came to her side, while the other parted her scalp. The vermilion in the center was still fresh.
"It'll be over before you know it," they assured her as she sat there, without blinking.
Maasi came ahead with beads in one hand and a sharpened blade in the other, like a devi in her avatar. She smeared some ash on Leela's forehead and continued to dust her scalp with more granules of burnt wood and sand. With a few crisp wrist movements in the opposite direction, the curtain of hair dropped to the floor. Maasi splattered a cup of sandalwood paste to soothe the bruises and puffy hair follicles on that unprotected skull.

The noise had tuned out. The women were retreating.

They would never have to focus on her again.

It took a while to get accustomed to her new demeanor. The sharp jawline suddenly opened into a wide barren forehead, like a delta melting into the expansive ocean. Her tired eyes had lost its soul.
All that was left of the hexagonal diamond pin was a little perforation on her nose. 

"It's for your good," Maasi whispered. 

"With so many men in the house, you're better off this way. At least you won't ask for 'it'."

"If that is the case, how does this change?" Leela questioned with no change in intonation.

She continued staring at the chipped wall. The eyes were still dry.

Her voice trailed out, hardly leaving her trembling lips. 

"They did what they had to, despite him being around. Even though I hadn't asked for 'it'." 

ShotGlass gets a little Facelift

So I have strayed away from what you'd have expected otherwise.
*guilty as charged*
*insert an air of defiance*

But I've come to realize that my shot-stories are now beginning to look like doppelgangers of Rakhi Sawant - ill-timed, obnoxious and fake! So those little spurts of random imagination that seem to come together from la-la land have been handcuffed and thrown into the boot of the car.

What does one expect, you ask?

There will be moments of uncontrollable verbal diarrhea where I will vomit on your front porch and all over your shoes... but for the most part, I will try to keep it short.
(As Calvin {of Calvin & Hobbes fame} says:
"As far as I'm concerned, if something is so complicated that you can't explain it in 10 seconds, then it's probably not worth knowing anyway.")

Digression: What's up with squiggly brackets, huh?! Makes me think of BODMAS in math class!
*throws up again*

Coming back to our old charm - as much as you may deny it, I know you secretly love those skimpily-clad-implant-induced-item-number girls. So every once in a while when Rakhi does make an appearance on this blog, be nice and give her an applause!

The Best place on the Planet!

I live in a city of quirky coexistences and visual oddities.

Where else will you find a Maserati and horse-led tuk tuk sharing road space before a street light, a street urchin with a smart phone, and a cab driver with a degree in Mechanical Engineering!

I ♥ Mumbai!

Amazing People

I'm quite amazed at how dedicated some people are to their thankless jobs, like this sari-draper at this local ethnic-wear store.
Despite having to dodge between 4 women, constant tantrums, endless trials, and the possibility of not making a sale; he folded, pleated and did the whole nine yards (literally) with a smile on his face!

The Undecided

I've developed new allergies.

When a certain crabby-grouch-bella goes back and forth on what was decided, weird things start to happen.

My throat constricts itself till it reaches supersonic land, the tongue rolls out like a red carpet, and the eyeballs behave like they're in a pin-ball contest. 

All of this with permanent gooseflesh is NOT my idea of fun!
Make up your mind, WOMAN!!! 

Grrrrrrrr

A metro ride - Washington D.C.

The train gushes into the Pentagon metro, continuing her spiel with the track.

Kindle-lovers, ipod-listeners, pierced-human-cushions, Coach-freaks, fashionistas, runners and the writer barge in with practiced indifference.

She rambles away to L'enfant Plaza. Stops to spew her insides.

Hustlers burst out of the retractable door frame. Scamper away without looking back.

Nonchalantly she zips herself and moves on.