Bandra in my Nose

This whole land was the sea
And we stood on the shore there every day
Sand sprayed
With grains of salt in our hair
And the scent of fish dragging behind our feet.
Bandra smelt like the residue of the Ocean
Pure and aquamarine. Not like your cheap Cinthol soaps.
Freshness meant plunging into the frothy waves of salinity
Licking the seasoning off our lips.
And then the land was reclaimed.
The sea vomited on us
Repulsed by the fact that we had pushed her back.
So we threw out more shops.
Shops with spices to mask the putrid smells.
Vendors sold fruits to allude sellers to freshness
The musk of incense sellers, attar manufacturers and bakers,
The stench of milk and mawa makers
All found their place on the street
To distract us from the scents of our childhood
But deep in the heart of the bazaar
As I twist and turn through its narrowing roads
I find myself gravitating to the center of the fish market
With dried mackerel, pomfret, shrimp and crab
Oozing odours that dance with my olfactory senses.
I just close my eyes and find myself
Flooded with memories of the forgotten sea.


*Photo Credit: Makrand Karkare
** Musings for The Collage Collective Studio, Bazaar Road, Bandra

Selling Fruits with 2 Master's Degrees

HE
I have sat here all day.
Stood up sometimes.
Stood up cause
I could sit no more.
I can't stand it.
Stand it I must.
I must
I must
I am Indrapal.

ME
I am Karishma.
I have been sitting patiently
Waiting for the right thing
To come my way
I have many talents
Many qualifications
Degrees
2 Masters degrees.
One in English.
One in Social Psychology.

HE
I understand people's psyche
And have, Madam, mastered two
A double masters from Kanpur
In Sanskrit and Hindi
Try kiya maine
Everything I tried
But no luck
No job
Jo Marat woh karat
I sell fruits
Fruits that appeal to your senses
Mastering languages didn't work
But I still play with the tongue
I still please the tongue
With fruits
Juices that flow
That flow and melt on your tongue
Your tongue
You still have a voice

ME
I have a voice
I have a choice
I understand the mind
I work with lines
Powerful lines
Lines for brands
I sell my lines
To ad agencies
Lines that come from my being
I don't work for people
I freelance
Freelance as a writer
I am my own boss

HE
I am my own boss
I sell fruits on the street
No one to tell me where to go
Or what to do.
But at 50, I have asked my friends
To help me with a job in Canada
If I find one. I'll go
To Canada

ME
Canada is the neighbouring country
Of the United States of America.
That's where I will go
My husband is waiting for me
As I wait for my visa
Waiting to make the most of my time
But right now I will do my best
I am working on a play
Do you watch plays?

HE
I watch life. It goes by in front of me everyday.

ME
Will you come watch mine?

HE
I promise you I will.

*Theatric Piece for The Collage Collective Studio, Bazaar Road, Bandra

Our Inexplicable Love for Gadget-Squealers!

It’s amazing how you look back at your lot when you’ve looked away for a bit. We Indians are obsessed with little inventions that can scream, screech, shriek, belch, beep or cheep (like listening to your neighbor yell at his wife down the street wasn’t enough!).

Let’s put us in an analogy. We are to small squawking devices like the Japanese are to a camera trigger. What is it that makes our Indian gene so hyperactive when we see a little machine at arm’s distance?

Hitting the honk button for the 7th time in a row will not take you anywhere! If you stopped playing ‘snake’ or 'angry birds' (or whatever else you use to twiddle your thumbs) for a bit and dug your face out of your phone screen ever so often, you’d notice that the light is still Red. The odd chance that it is Green doesn't justify your need to go palm-happy on the steering wheel. You don't need a degree in math to count the five cars between you and the open road!

Ditto for calling the elevator shaft to your assigned floor. It’s a mechanism with a set trajectory that sometimes does have a mind of its own. But it's not a wish-box! (Stop looking for the I-live-at-the-Empire-State-building pity vote!) Contrary to your continued expectation, poking and jabbing at the little arrowed button will not make it appear out of nowhere. Tried and Tested.

And thanks for making me jump out of my skin with the 4 continuous ting-tongs outside my door. Yes yes, getting my daily dose of packetted milk at 6:30 in the morning ranks very high on my emergency list! (I agree, you’re concerned that I might develop osteoporosis in the future, but 4 doorbell alerts? At six-effin-thirty in the a.m.? Like seriously?)

Going by this list, I would’ve easily concluded that we’re a lot that's just always in a hurry. I won't discount that completely, but on careful speculation, I know it’s more than that. As much as we try to hide our li'l secret, we just love gizmo-induced sounds! Period. So much for cheap thrills and vulgar joys.

How else would you explain the need to download annoyingly loud sms tones to your already busy phone! Isn’t the cacophony of conversation doing its bit for you? Why would someone, in their right mind, wish to endure listening to a baby bawl or a cow moo endlessly if they didn’t secretly love being sadistic? It might seem like fun the first time around. But when you get a string of 30 sms with the same baby crooning for help, I’d want to thwack the little thing and put it to rest!

Grah!

Clap Clap!

Have you ever hated someone so much that you just got up and started applauding as soon as she got done with her act?
(No no, I'm not particularly talking to you, oh nominee-for-the-best-actress-award-who-just-sat-there-clapping-for-the-winner.) I know how you feel, but I'm referring to a whole other gamut of emotions here.

I never thought I could have so much hatred. So much animosity. So much anger for the female form.
But when you get up everyday at 3:30am, and start applauding aimlessly in the dark, you know you can't feel very appreciative. And when two mosquitoes decide to play join-the-dots on your body, you know you want to show feminism the finger.

I'm just this close to wishing that there was someone who'd gas those bitches in one big mosquito genocide!

Mosquitoes! Those vicious, ruthless, blood-sucking monsters that leave itchy red mounds of ugliness on skin, are ALL FEMALE!!

Apparently, they look for a smooth surface on bare (freshly waxed?) skin and meditate on landing quietly hoping that you're either asleep, numb, dead or too thick skinned to care. They whisk out their proboscis and stick it into you (erm...this surely doesn't sound very lady-like now). And while you're too busy focusing on sleep, they burp on your blood and hi-five to the other bitches on the number of Bloody Mary(s) they just consumed.

And for what purpose? Erm... for the noble cause of being a Mother.

Waiddaminute! They need MY red blood corpuscles, to nurse and raise a new swarm of pests who can come back and bite me on the bum? Again?

I'm telling you. One way or the other, children are EVIL!

Bollywood Revisited

Remember the good ol' times? The times post the black-and-white era and the reels that graduated from Eastman Colour? The times beyond sepia prints, 70s winged-eyeliners, conical bras and bird-nest hairdo's?

I'm talking about the times that have made an impression on every 80's child in India. It's called surviving a time warp that's now referred to as B.C. (or Before Cable). An age when Bollywood wasn't just fancy coinage for a film industry - But a way of life.

A time when movies made their way to dinnertime discussions on a daily basis. The epic era of bad hindi films (while some might argue that the said era hasn't ended yet), with movies so bizarre, that their connection to reality is purely unintended!

Films that shamelessly followed a set formula. Where lanky heroes with long side-burns were the norm. When being beefed-up and owning a 6-pack meant you had a promising career as a villain or a visible part of his posse. (Someone please throw Uday Chopra into that decade, NOW!) In fact, despite eating right and hitting the gym everyday, you'd have been tossed around like a toothpick in the hands of Mr. Scrawny BigStar himself.

I'm talking about a decade when Mithun's pelvic thrust was the epitome of all things macho, and an Anil Kapoor roamed topless, revealing his welcro-like back without having to bother about sex appeal (what's that?).

When heroes danced in 2-inch heels, wore their hair to the nape, put on horrendously mercurial Aviator shades, and strut around in costumes that would give Lady Gaga some competition. 

When 'stylists' were still called 'tailors', when a 'wardrobe' mean't double doors that open up to a clown's closet, and when 'heroine's outfit' implied a quick-fix from the previous movie's curtains.

Biker gloves, blue pantyhose, red socks and yellow pump shoes.
That's the way, aha aha, I like it, aha aha.

Bibs are not meant to be worn there, Ms. Kapoor!

Note 1: Curtains can be replaced by anything colourful or unusual. Even birthday streamers will do, so long as she looks like she's emerging out of Draupadi's forgotten costume, or a 7-tiered wedding cake.

When all-natural and voluptuous was considered beautiful. When women like Amrita Singh played lead roles (up until the point where she started resembling the hero's younger brother.)

When hotness quotients were defined by Rekha in her avatar as a cool vengeful fauxhawk-wearing  momma with a face-lift... and a tummy-tuck (erm, but the darn crocodile only bit your cheek, lady!). 

When skinny little Sonu Walias could fall off the stage (or the villain's life, or the face of the earth) if Ms. Ample Hips obliged.

When villains were put on a different kind of pedestal.

Firstly, the bad guy = bad GUY. (If you were a woman and a bad one at that, you were either Bindu, Aruna Irani, Shashikala or a slut. No grey shades there.)

Coming back to our typical villains, they came in different sizes of obviousness, cause subtlety is for wimps!
They either had a physical handicap (movies with Prem Chopra, Shakti Kapoor, Gulshan Grover, Danny Denzongpa and their ilk), were subject to some unexplained abnormality on the face (hairy moles, scar across eyelids) or were just downright ugly (Cause if you're ugly, you're going to be pissed with mankind, right?).

On the rare occasion  that life had chosen to be less mean to them, they'd sit on a skull throne all dressed up in alien clothing and a bad haircut (e.g. Mogambo, Shakaal, Dong) expecting the audience to cringe in horror!

Mogambo, khush hua!

Note 2: The villain's plans could involve hijacking a 2nd-hand cycle in a busy market area, but even such a seemingly irrelevant plan would've been strategized sitting in a helicopter that can land anywhere unannounced [air regulations not applicable].

Note 3: Our man, Scrawny BigStar, might have never set eyes on a dumbell in his life. However, when thrown into the fighting arena, he can take down 5 WWE wrestlers at one go. He's not called 'Jay' 'Veer' or 'Winner' for nothing! (Hint. Hint.)

Note 4: The hero might be a chauffeur or a vada-pav stall owner, but he (almost always) has the supreme wisdom to outwit the villain who has been planning to release weapons of mass destruction around the world since he was born!

I'm talking about that time frame in Bollywood when actors of today, like Emran Hashmi and Mallika Sherawat, would've been jobless for years! When everything around was symbolically suggestive.

Lip-locking and making-out was inferred when flowers (out of no where) would rub against each other. If flowers were out of stock, they'd replace the frame with oranges falling off the actress' body.

[Disclaimer: The video below is more than suggestive symbolism. 
Yikesss @ Jeetendra! You just killed 'sweet-limes' for me, forever!]

Flower on flower mean't happy times, but bee on flower mean't rape. Other symbols for 'rape' in that era include over-boiled milk (talk about corny imagery!), a goat staring at a butcher (again in the middle of no where), or an old creaking ceiling fan (erm, I'm still trying to figure that one out!) that continues to whirr till the end of what seems like eternity.

A time when animals seemed to have meatier roles in the film (pun unintended). Movies that brought 'ichaadaari nagins' into our collective consciousness such that you'd anxiously wait for every girl with light eyes to transform into a snake.

In fact snake movies broke lose a new genre of creativity to include plots that were as original as having Aruna Irani breast-feed a snake for reasons so bizarre, I'd rather you go and watch it for yourself!

If that's not all, we have Amitabh Bachchan calling a dolphin his mother; a pet pigeon who helps Anil Kapoor in robbery; and a pomeranian who behaves like the 11th incarnation of lord Krishna by saving Madhuri Dixit from marrying Mohnish Behl in Bollywood's longest marriage movie (Ok, so the last one was in the 1990's but they don't change overnight now, do they?)

With all their antics in place, these bad movies have made their mark in the most unexpected recesses of our minds. While some of us might pretend we hate that stuff, there's no denying how we automatically parrot dialogues and songs from movies long forgotten.

I just hope and pray that this disgusting Jeetendra-Meenakshi song was NOT a part of my earliest childhood memories!

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

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!

Who Pays?

Who drew those boundary lines on maps? Can you still see them from the sky? Who said who belonged where? How did it all begin?

If our country was born, who cut the umbilical cord?
And where is the forsaken mother?
If our country is free, who cut the shackles?
And who has had to pay the price?

Is there real freedom in democracy? Is our land in good hands?
So long as we stay unaffected, does it even matter?
Or are we making amends?

113 wounded and survived out of 134 - what do we make of them?
Have they lost a limb? Lost their jobs? Lost faith in tomorrow?
Were they bread-earners? Mothers? Only sons?
Can their families afford to look after them?
Are they treated with respect like veterans of war?
Or are we just choosing to ignore them?

With over 20 million people sprawling the city, does that small number affect anything?

There's no Fluff!

Swollen damp cotton balls have clustered over the horizon, conspiring over their own death today.

They've clumped their heads together with a shared fate, waiting for a cue from thunder's battle-cry.

Without trepidation they bash and botch at their neighbor's faces, leaving trails of liquid anger from the sky.

There are wars even in heaven. There's one every other day.

But for the flotilla of impatient people... Can anyone think beyond that traffic jam!?

Inside Out

I smiled at the morning light that peeped
through unwashed, mud-stained windows.

Super sunbeam peeled through stubborn grime
and landed on the fourth marble tile from the left.

The crummy dirt-rimmed patches of nastiness on glass
made a mosaic of uneven polka-dotted shadows.

And my white little pariah in the spotlight
was a dalmatian gaining enlightenment.





Photo Credit: My dear friends, Ashwini & Kunal

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!

Gape, you Ape!

He gave a full-toothed yawn to reveal Mumbai's skyline on his lower jaw.

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!

Kite Flying Fest - Jan 15, 2011

Sit here, pretty rhombus!
I'll braid your tail for you.
And when you're ready you can fly with the other girls,
But I'll hold the strings for you.
Fly fly fly!

Happy Sankranti!

Dawned in Mumbai!

Surreal Sunday!

The axis hasn't jolted the Earth. The sky hasn't lost its blue.

But the sun has indeed risen from another side...