Trash.

Urban living and conspicuous consumption, has larger than life effects. With those round figures in the bank and thin plastic in the pocket, power abounds like never before. It didn’t require a Newton to say ‘Every action has an equal and opposite reaction’, but guess what, he said it, and God bless his soul.

Yes, our kind of living with those crazy malls the size of airports and airports the size of cities and citie encroaching mountains, oceans and whatever else, reactions are a natural consequence.

Of the several, the ones that are closest to you, those that you cant miss seeing are these : The pot belly is as standard as standard can get, supermarket require trolleys to cart the goods that are bought and while there is some discussion that can be entertained about possibility of life on Mars, there can be no discussion about the lack of possibility of life without a mobile phone !

Such is modern day urban life. No ?

If you think this is a blogpost on the ever changing social milieu of modern day society, well there cant be a farther distance between fact and fiction. Regular readers know that this blogs draws its boundry along the lines of the inane. For instance, this post is about the Trashcan!

Was that a facepalm !?! Oops. Sorry eh !

Are you still reading ? Ok…well, you were warned.

An oversized yet overflowing Trashcan is a constant remnant in any neighbourhoods in Mumbai. And rightly so. With kind of bubble wraps, packs, cardboards, plastic and God knows what else that every day life is filled with ! Days ago, a kind soul thought it fit to gift a microwave oven all the way from the US. It came with an instruction ‘please remove package and instruction sheet before cooking’.

Upon immediate and hurried cross checking, it was made known that it was a general instruction and not specifically written out based on an assessment of a customer’s perceived intelligence. Which greatly soothed distraughtly ruffled feathers. That instruction sheet, along with the package was promptly disposed to the Trashcan.

To cut a long story short ( as is usually said by a loud mouth after sharing a rather long winded story), the world generates enough and more of waste.

The city itself seems to be just short of announcing a grand festival of litter in the neighbourhood, everyday. Citizens decorating streets with empty packets of chips, short eats, trinkets and such else , adding to the colour and variety is a standard way of proud being.

And therefore, enticing people to submit their trash in cans, surely has become an activity of great creative intelligence. Amongst the many ways to this, here are a few that are commonly sighted and carefully presented.

At the first go, there are Trashcans that resemble cartoon characters. Mickey Mouse. Donald Duck. Goofy. And the variety. They perhaps are targeted at children or someone with a funny bone that protrudes. Or fairly pronounced, at the least.

For instance, what could be the chances of the sophisticated svelte socialite running to drop her used tissue in this trashcan just because it is in the shape of a colourful Mickey Mouse imploring her to do so, with a ‘use me’ scrawled all over… Or perhaps, maybe. With people and their modern day preferences, well, who knows.

The other variety are the ‘animal replica’ trashcans. Big gorillas, monkeys, penguins and such else, with various parts of their body sporting a gaping hole, designed to excite the passerby to desist from aiming the just-now-empty Coke bottle at the middle of the road, by providing a very credible and inviting alternative.

Often times, they get stuffed with a vengeance of sorts and the way things are going, it doesn’t look like its going to be long before the SPCA is going to take notice.

Leading the ‘Heaviest Trash Creator’ chart are items of prayer, once the prayers are on the way to the favourite God, puja paraphernalia stays on earthly realms. To expect such a sacred item to be tossed into Mickey Mouse or a Gorilla sporting a gaping hole in his mouth, imploring ‘use me’..well conjures an ineffable picture in the mind. Lets leave it at that.

So, ladies and gentlemen, right here in Powai, we have an ingenious solution that some noble soul has thought of.

Trashcans that take the shape of a kalash. A Kalash ? (For overseas readers, the Kalash is an object of sacred devotion, often used in prayer, and usually adorns the tall gopurams in temples). So there, if you are the puja & pilgrim type, ofcourse, theres a trashcan for you !

(Well, let not the surprise catch you midway through whatever you are doing, the next time you spot a ‘Parliament building’ shaped urinal to excitedly herd all those who prefer to free up their bladders in open spaces. They could think of that, you know).

On another note, here is a postulate. “The surroundings of a trashcan invite as much trash. If not more. They invite more trash if the trashcan seems to be of the protected variety.” That’ Axleys postulate from the dummies guide to rule making on trashcans. Ofcourse, that was made up. But here is evidence.

Trashcans with protection, is something indeed. Ofcourse, as far as trash disposal is concerned, the citizenry of this place knows to encroach. ‘In the trashcans or thereabouts’, is good enough for trash disposal !

There is another genre, people. Trashcans with a name. No kidding. There is one that was present until very recently nearby, with ‘OCTAVIUS’ written on its chest. I mean, come on ! Octavius! The chap was an emperor for godsake. A man that Shakespeare wrote about. A chap that straddled between BC and AD ! Adorning a trashcan!?!

Perhaps to excite the Shakespeare / history types ! Perhaps. Ah ! Times !

Trash.

Togetherness of a culture !

We’ve been going here. For the last couple of years.

It took us a while this time. Passing through metal detectors and a desultory security guard who would look at you and make you wonder if you bore a resemblance to Bin Laden or somebody. He then, would proceed to ask, whats in the camera bag. You could tell him anything from 'Rolls Royce' or even ‘dirty underwear’. For he insists on opening each bag. ‘Whats in the bag’ is more of a greeting. Like a 'good morning' thats randomly spewed in one of those airlines.

Opening each bag with an interest which reasonable men can only do, if they were told that in one of those bags, beneath the camera, there were two rasagullas and a samosa. Such thoroughness. What follows is a frisking of the body by a volunteer, wearing a rectangular card with a thick red tag around the neck that seems to confer powers on him, that ma durga could envy.

If you would want to experience sensuous pleasures at their tallest crest, well, visit a Durga Pujo pandal. ( For some reason pronounced as you would pronounce ‘sandal’, with a P). Mind bogglingly endless feast of community, a superlative exhibition of whats loosely called ‘culture', a sense of devotion. Not to mention wholehearted gluttony.

The gluttons that we are, we make it a point to turn up here every year.

For some reason, the Powai Bengali Association seems keen on bringing size and scale to Powai. Last year, it was the Sun Temple at Konark which was recreated. This year it was the Jor temple. Recreated, we are told, by artists from Kolkatta and thereabouts.

For one, there is Durga ma. In all her splendour. Like every year. A spear, an asura and his splatter of blood right through his pectoralis major. A roaring lion. Two other Gods and two other goddesses for company. All created in such resplendent finery that there is a gasp that escapes everyone that sees the arrangement for the first time.

Durga Ma has deep eyes and has always eyed me and my camera with some interest. Or so I would like to think. But these days, with more mega pixels in every mobile phone, there are more outstretched hands clicking snaps than those in prayer. There seems to be a new meaning in her look.

Housed as she is in an elaborate reconstruction of the Jor temple. A magic brought alive by thermacol, paint, wood and lighting. You almost feel your stomach muscles go taut, to think all of this will be in a garbage dump after Durga Ma finds her space in the Powai lake. But during the ten days of Pujo, these produce a certain energy. A source. A centrepoint of sorts. For everything else.

After jostling for space infront of the Goddess and wondering why a bald head always finds my elbow just as I am clicking a picture, we leave the place. Take two steps, and walk straight into a stall selling fish fry, chicken, mutton and such else. Ofcourse, best complimented by Chinese food, spelt with one 'e' less.

And you are right. Only a moronic mind can nitpick on the English spelling of 'Chinese' in a Bengali festival being conducted in Mumbai, with so much food in front to pick and choose from. But, goodness gracious me, what food !!

The divide between gluttony and devotion is the closest here. All hell broke loose. No. That was wrong. It was heaven.

While that statement is about food, well, I could as well, continue with a comma !

Picture a whole lot of beautiful women. In an array of costumes that could well pass for a giant mosaic of a fashion parade in sartorial diversity. Crisp cotton sarees rubbing shoulders with garish silks which somehow sit so pretty, seamlessly co-existing with the modern types : miniskirts and an occasional sprinkling of jeans

Some of them sporting Gold, enough to set some insecurity in the minds of the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Oh yeah.. and some foreheads adorned with bindis that could well double for a Frisbee disk and unleashed on anyone that acts funny. That big.

The men. Ah the men. Colourful free flowing Kurta-Pajama. That’s something of an ‘identity’ thing. You could hazard that guess without much danger. Bright yellows to garish purples. Violent blacks to spotless whites. All glittering under those big lights and sweat. (Some with so much embroidery that could get my curtains look so cheap). Many of them with the volunteer tag and a whistle.

There are streams of them. Walking by. Ofcourse, there is commerce. There are small stalls selling stuff from marble flooring to sarees to vada pav, all on one side. A divide apart, there is ‘enclosure’ space for cultural performances. The divide, perhaps to accentuate the thinly veiled struggle to keep a thick line between commerce and culture. Or so it appears.

Immense happiness permeates. People walk around in such joy. The young and old connecting up and coming together. For conversation, connections and chatter. Perhaps to catch up on the year that’s gone by and to draw energy for the years ahead.

There is energy here. An energy woven by a community coming together. An evident joy that presents itself in the twinkle of the eye and the sparkle in the laughter.

A passion that stays alive and ever present, to bring a certain part of West Bengal here. To keep alive a tradition that made their growing up years. To resurrect nostalgia by indulging in the present and perhaps laying the foundations for the year ahead!

Music. Conversation. Tradition. Devotion. Food. Laughter. Connections. Culture. Giving. Art. And much more. Well, go on, try making a more fetching combination than that.

That night, I slept fitfully. In my dreams came a few kurta clad gentlemen, all of them with whistles and volunteer tags waxing eloquence on a tall subject. It was apparent that cows were a long way from home.

Only to be awakened by a giant red Frisbee spinning away under the watchful eyes of Durga Maa.

Links to earlier year's posts are here, here, here and here !

Togetherness of a culture !

Awesome dude !

The other day, we stopped for tea.

I was traveling with a bright young man, whose verbal dexterity seemed confined to ‘awesome’ , ‘sucks’ and ‘dude’. That’s when he exclaimed, ‘isn't she beautiful’?

My heart started beating at a faster pace than a sprint champion awaiting his dope testing results. I could have passed for a father who heard his toddler say ‘dad’ for the first time !

I looked around. Who was this beautiful woman, which caused such a sudden leap of language proficiency? There were three people, who I could see. The burly security guard. His wife, who seemed wanting to prove that she was burlier than him. And there was this chap who was serving tea.

Surely, the young man wasn't referring to any of them. Furrowing my brow and summoning powers from all over, the focus was on finding this lady! Lucky for me, I didn't say anything more. For in a brief moment, my young friend said more.

‘These Germans. Awesome man. They know how to make these babes….Dude’.

The pea brained Sherlock Holmes in my head, sat up. (Readers are requested to picture a laborious act played out in slow motion, of getting out of deep slumber). As far as I knew, making 'babes' and the rest of us, wasnt the purview of the Germans. Alone.

Which was when the eyes spotted a swanky BMW.

“But of course” I said. ‘of course’.

From whereon status quo resumed. The words that I heard for the rest of the journey, were random monosyllables with a strong emphatic ‘awesome’ ‘sucks’ or ‘dude’ thrown in every 17^th second. Yes. I was keeping time.

When I got bored of it, and realising that there was some distance to go, the mind declared independence from this mundane activity. Wandering into another time, that a car became a lady. Of sorts.

This banner had appeared somewhere close to where I live. I thought of this Nitin guy as having got lessons from a Warren Buffet or someone.

A quick look and a quicker conclusion later, I was so happy, that you could have spotted my yellow teeth from three miles. Here was a guy, who I thought, was providing customers with a car to get to the beauty parlour and back. This was the mind. My own mind.

Don’t fault me. My own tryst with a beauty parlour is to ferry the missus to one, and sit in a bookstore until she gets her job done! Quite obviously I thought there was a market that this Nitin guy had thought of.

Nitins business acumen wouldn’t have been ephemeral in my mind, but for his English. It started with wondering what was ‘Teflon Coting’ ! What would they do in a beauty parlour that would warrant the cot to get made of Teflon ? You know where that train of thought would lead a pea brained Sherlock Holmes sitting in a corner of the mind.

Not to forget ‘Intirior Cling’. That sounded like love potion !

The world of marketing ! ‘Garage’ marketed as a ‘Beauty parlour’. I know of a ‘Beauty parlours’ that was marketed as ‘Stairway to heaven’. Even as I contemplated taking that stairway, the billboard there said, ‘Stairway to heaven shifted to second floor’. It seemed to be a cruel trick. My eagerness went under the basement.

“ ‘Ossome’ isn’t it ?” The young man said with a jerk, that I half suspect he gave it a special energy to wake me from my trance. I realised that i had been in Nitins world for sometime now.

With a new found insight under the belt, that its possible to have a complete conversation with a bright young man of today, with just three words, I said,

‘Yes. Ofcourse. Ossome’. As an afterthought, added ‘Dude’.

I felt powerful.

Awesome dude !

Mumbai Hottie !

A reader, who goes by the initial of P, requests for posts on ‘the hot things that make Mumbai the star capital of the nation. Give us date of birth, what makes them, who they are with and such details which will not only increase general awareness but also increase the hits on your blog’.

When such well intentioned requests are made, it would a gross dereliction of duty if such requests are ignored. So here is a post. On a hot thing that defines Mumbai in a particular way.

The Vada Pav.

The national food of Mumbai goes by the name of Vada Pav. Just before it sinks into the alimentary canal, this is how it looks.

The picture may not be pixel perfect, but that’s natural. If one hand is to hold a Vada Pav and another is to hold the camera and click and you expect a nice picture at that, well, you are the latest version of a cruel satan!

Its like putting a bone before a dog and asking it to stand on three legs to deserve the bone ! Only behavioural scientists do that. ( And promptly apply the results to man and being correct at that too. Quivering with joy before something as soulfully sinfully filling brings alive taste buds, that they almost jump out of the tongue, is a natural consequence of how an average Mumbai mind works.

A Vada Pav is a concentrated mega dose of mega carbohydrate. The next best alternative to carbohydrates being sold in a vial or something. Atleast that’s the image that comes to the mind. Its filling. Its fattening. Given those two attributes, it naturally follows that it is inviting and tasty as hell.

Its not as though its is a culinary delicacy, which is made by a chef sporting a huge white cap, aprons, gloves and such other paraphernalia. Vada Pav defines quintessential Mumbai : Fast, Quick, On the Go food ! Made by anybody, sold by somebody. Eaten by everybody. Almost everybody !

It’s a forerunner of the burger. Except that the bun is connected. Or perhaps, one bun split into two. Perhaps holding two buns, pav and getting into a train was a balancing act of some repute back in 1971 when the Vada Pav is purported to have been introduced. Or perhaps it was one more stock keeping unit to manage ! So there, one bun, cut into two, with a filling thrown in !

The filling itself is a deep fried mix of mash potatoes and gram flour! Make that DEEP FRIED. A zillion bubbles that surface in that hot oil as a practiced hand juggles all those potato and such else !

A Vada Pav is had, usually on the road. Usually, while waiting for the bus to arrive, with the tongue swirling with the vada while spitting out abuses at the bus driver who is late today ! Or as the train leaves. Or when the regular lunch has been eaten up by an empty conference call and all that remains is dreams of a ‘what could have been’ at lunch today ! In such times, the roadside Vada Pav is the saviour. Or many this is staple diet !

That is a typical roadside stall. The bun separated from the Vada, with old newspaper cuttings, which soon will be used as a wrap cum plate, before it disappears into the inner layers of a sedate body. After which the newspaper doubles up as a tissue. Now run !

In Ahmedabad, there is another version to this. Where they throw in cheese. Giant slabs of cheese are tossed on to hot plate, reminding you of thick slabs of ice in Antartica, that break off and fall into the sea and shown with immense clarity on National Geographic ! The global warming effect comes to the vada pav !

The Vada Pav is not necessarily a culinary challenge that an accomplished chef will warm upto. It is far more than that. It is a mix of culture, commerce, carbohydrates.

Yes. All of that, deep fried.

Dear P, that’s a hot thing that defines Mumbai. Ok ?

Mumbai Hottie !

The waves as witness

Harihareshwar is also known as the Kashi of the South ! ‘ Of the South !?!’ I sputtered, spilling coffee on a brown shirt. Wondering aloud if patriotic nationlists (sic) from this side of the country, object to this beautiful region being ‘ceded’ to the South !

That’s precisely when the missus chips in.

‘South of what ?’ She asks. And then replies with great glee ‘South of the Kashi of the North’ Ok ? That argument should have sent geography folks and such others whirring in their graves. But logical no ?

Relatives of people who are dead and gone come here. An annual pilgrimage of sorts, we are told. And others, come to immerse ashes.

Today there are fat cars. Fat filled fat bodies. Tonsured heads best complimented by a thin cloth on the upper body. Carrying flowers and some of them carrying decorated mud pots. ‘Urns’ whispers the missus. To be immersed in the grand Arabian Sea.

Their arrival gets the crows excited like school children who find that their class teacher has run away with the head master! Glee from the fact that two birds are down with one stone. A love stone of sorts.

Today, most of what is offered as part of the rituals will go to the crows. They sure do look well fed.

There is a small assortment of people.But in them, there is variety. There is one in whom there is so much teeth on display, that he could have been a model for a sundry toothpaste. Another gent in a corner stands glum faced. Yet another, loud. Another, could have been mistaken for a statue in Madame Tussads, if not for the occasional move to keep his dhoti on his waist.

I wonder aloud, loud enough for the missus to hear, if they have already read the will of the person who is dead !! What else would cause such a diversity in emotion. Promptly receiving a look of deep admonishment and an unsaid ‘Shut up’ from the missus. You sure must have seen a chastised puppy, with a curled tail, looking deep into the floor and avoiding all eye contact. Yeah. Thats the look that took me over.

In the meanwhile, the women in the group, are working away, arranging the pots in a particular order. The steps to the sea, where they do this is so picturesque and stately through the camera lens, that it seems to swallow the grief that people come here with.

One set of waves come crashing in.

We drive on.

There are other things to see. As we drive back, somewhere along the shoreline, the missus excitedly waves me to stop, pointing to two boys playing. Rolling. Running. Catching insects.

We alight from the car. Walk about. The boys are busy, throwing stones into the sea. For a minute I thought I had achieved my childhood dream of becoming ‘invisible’. The very boys that exclaim at the sight of ants and dragonflies, don’t even look in the direction of two well fed people and a Japanese engine to boot.

Not even a customary look to register presence. Nothing. A tinge of disappointment of a dragon fly holding precedence of attention over decades of conscious and unconscious building of firmly entrenched fat cells is quickly overcome by the sheer joy of seeing the boys in play !

The lungs soak in fresh air, eyes soak in the space and the ears soak in the shrieks of joy that the boys let go. Today’s urban kids raised in tall apartments cant shriek or throw stones into an ‘empty afar’ without the building’s secretary and his mandali landing up at the doorstep !

These kids throw with abandon, claiming victory with each throw. The waves swallow each stone with an ebb much like bribe money in a politicians pocket. Disappearing without trace!

Later that evening, we see a set of children. Playing. With such gay abandon, that it’s a joy to watch unfettered, innocent happiness. The waves come crashing in, almost teasing each kid. No supervision. No people around. Just the kids No Baywatch type lifeguard. No lifeguard.

The waves come crashing by. Again and again !

It’s a sight. Ordinary yet profound. I sit still. Except falling for the occasional urge to click a picture or two.

In a few hours from then, I am deep in slumber. In my dreams come the glum faced man from Harihareswar. The jumping kids chasing dragon flies the size of dinosaurs, and the evening sun urging the waves to splash some more water on kids !

One of those kids walks upto me, smiles, offers me an ice cream the size of a football and asks me ‘Why so serious?”

A wave comes crashing in. I wake up with a start.

Ah ! The waves. They are the witness to the dream. The new dream. To be a kid again.

The waves as witness