Mumbai Diaries-I

The joining location was mentioned as Mumbai in my internship letter and incidentally it was the first time ever, I would grace this city inhabited by our fellow earthlings with my exalted presence. However, somehow the very thought of spending sixty days in the least economic city of the country started giving me goose bumps. Apprehensive of a should-be-more stipend, plummeting bank balance ever since I began my so called pursuit of higher education and an ongoing (still wonder whether it’s ever historical) inflation (whatever it is, the end result makes us consumers poorer and the sellers richer and that’s exactly where they get their BMWs and iphones from), second thoughts of balking it altogether and doing some phoney summers at my hometown seemed a lot more appealing. Thoughts of having home cooked food seemed to manifest as countless delectable dishes right at my study table. Futility of a weak-will against biryani converted into a call to the concerned human resources executive. 

                                   Globalization seems to have bestowed certain inadvertent benefits on both employment and employability. Projecting clerical and routine tasks as momentous ones created executive out of mere clerks and supervising those without even the faintest idea of what it entails, created managers (of course this is what we are supposed to do). This surely means more jobs (however redundant) for the same quantum of work and perhaps even menial quality.  But it does not necessitate dividing the same piece of pie; it’s more like making additional figmental pie out of thin air (note that the marginal cost of producing it is zero) while promising intangible and non-existent benefits such as quality and consistency. It can take a while to understand what the term consistency really means. It can be put in a few words as, “Truly replicating the same level of hopelessness over a much broader time horizon”.

                    

Fancy thoughts always seem much more comforting than genuine words. The executive surely could not cite her incompetence or lack of authority in assigning a new location. Instead she included a few management buzzwords like career opportunity; financial capital and broad scope in his conversation rather deftly about which I am sure that neither of us had even the foggiest idea. I even tried to note a few of them for future utility. It was still a hard bargain for me even though I knew that none of those words stood by their dictionary meanings. But still, there had to be something in my resume to brag about for a stretch of an hour or so during placement interviews.

These turn of events finally led my joining at a Mumbai location. One of my friends had booked a lodge for our stay and it turned out to be pretty good decision afterwards. It was cozy enough with the number of bed-bugs and cockroaches just below the lower limit of endurance and shoddy enough not to charge a supernormal rent at an already posh locality. And of course, the thoughts of some random rendezvous with Katrina or Genelia (for the uninitiated, they are bollywood stars who still have both age and beauty at their side) during some unknown shoots at marine drive had been crossing my mind like umpteen times.

                                                           

We quickly found out the cheapest and quickest shortcuts to convey to our offices. It was again another posh locality where these rich wasted and crazy psychotics had access to only the latest models of Audis, BMWs and Mercs. They comprised a major chunk of vehicular traffic like Altos and Santros elsewhere. Nevertheless these psychos inculcated a regular practice of a certain type of we can call it as neck yoga. It is like identifying a BMW from the logo on the bonnet and quickly turning your head to grasp the model from the trunk as it speeds away. Pretty fast, uh! Looking around for others, it seems some pre-destined wannabes have inborn neck-turnaround flexibilities, sometimes turning their necks till a knot is established. I will report if they develop two or more knots, for we could be on the verge of discovering some alien wannabes from a lesser planet. I still want to find out the proportion of wannabes who still manage to make the jump to at least a Honda City.

                                    

                                          The good part is that this city seems to have an innate style of welcoming visitors in umpteen ways. Even with a broken Hindi accent, you can manage to get almost anything in this city, discounting purple dinosaurs and their pretty precedents. One of our South-Indian friends who normally manages to scare off small time snack vendors, is actually managing a pretty decent life here. I had suspected myself to be agoraphobic but these suspicions seem to have dissolved away. An overcrowded and ever-rushing city, still manages to embezzle anxiety out of your mind. One of the greatest memories which will perhaps remain with me for a lifetime is watching India lift the World Cup’2011 trophy, a journey which has been an absolute phenomenon. Mortal absence at the Wankhede, could not inhibit its electric atmosphere from being mirrored all over this city and especially at the Irish. Though the Mumbaikars seem busy in their own little universes they still manage time to help you create yours, but with an obvious discount to your fancies and fantasies.

 

It still seems a long way to go from here, till the advent of a less cruel summer with a bit of drizzle from the heavens. Speaking of some nostalgia, I still miss the serene life at the hillock. Even in all the glitz of the city after dusk.

Rolling Wheels

The train for Calcutta was scheduled to arrive at the station at 2230 hrs. Umpteen announcements about the coach positions preceded the arrival of the Howrah Express though the relevant announcements concerning the time of arrival and platform number were dropped out from the list. I was slowly getting wearier with each passing moment. My skybag seemed to bear a thick slice of my ennui as it had become crumpled from the edges with my leaning weight. I did realize this but apathy seemed to dominate my attitude towards its plight at that moment.

As I was leaning leisurely to extract certain vicarious pleasure from my immediate environment, something led my focus towards the other side of the platform. A cluster of people with  clamorous  sounds in what seemed to be a kind of hurried hindi dialect, were moving an abundance of luggage in between the mark-posts. An octogenarian lady with her docile sons and daughter-in-laws appeared to be guiding the whole bunch. There was her young twenty something grand-daughter who was actually trying to lift one of the boxes which surpassed her amply in both height and attitude.  I was still unable to get a precise view. Some hawkers moving their trolleys with shrilling announcements were obstructing my view. They themselves seemed to be unconvinced by their marketing strategy primed with their piercing broadcasts. I silently rendered loads of indignant curses to them.

                        It was around 2300 hrs when the Howrah Express arrived at the opposite platform. My ever vacillating mind told me that I was waiting at the wrong platform. I pushed out the extensible handle of my skybag and ran towards the connector rolling the strolley across the platform. Within moments I arrived at the assigned coach and found my berth inside the train. Shortly, had I began pushing my luggage under the seat when the overburdened-with-luggage family arrived at the opposite berth. And yes, it was my fair lady's seat too.

I started exactly where I had left. Putting on my ipod earphones to avoid losing my attention to the hubbub of incoming passengers and moving baggage, I began noticed her sparky lips with its hazing movements. Perhaps there was some fast talking going on with her bhabi beside her and those sounds were lost in the mellifluous song of Raajneeti pulsating within my eardrums. Wearing tracks and sweatshirt for the overnight journey did not make her lose any of her allures. A bewitchingly chiseled face with tantalizing eyes were the most dominant things governing her overall charm. Hand gestures were gracefully creating imperceptible ripples in the fragrant air surrounding me. There were a few more enthralled eyes nearby. I guess I got an inconspicuous angle of sight as I was reclining on the pillow. I maintained that. It was already past midnight and the main lights were out leaving the low powered night bulbs do their job. I guess the oculus adjusts impartially to both brightness and splendor. I was camouflaged enhancing my surveillance capabilities.  It happened one moment that my eyes reflected a pair of lustrous stars staring back. Perceiving certain lip movement and I promptly clicked my hands-free to a pause. I waved my hand in a little clockwise move to convey a denial of reception of any message. With a muffled yet honeyed voice there were two words. 'Hi' and 'Good-night'. I courteously returned the greetings. A loud cough of her grandmother in the upper berth put us both on high alert and gradually I fell asleep waiting for the coughing to subside.

The next thing I could realize was that the train had entered the destined station and a rush of red-clad porters came pouring in inside the coach. Sadly, I was unable to locate her and with an agonizing prick in my heart, I started collecting my luggage to walk across the platform. I went to the taxi-stand to purchase prepaid tickets to hire a drop to my apartment. Then suddenly a gradually accelerating Innova and an apparently waving hand came into view. The hand was very fair and the car was on the other side, for I could catch neither. I noticed the opposite berth girl gazing through the window, all excited and vivacious and then with a certain tinge of lament,  hiding her waving hand from the insiders yet with a sheer apathy towards the outsiders. I could only manage to return a smile which was promptly conveyed back.

Something else

Love, Stuck with a few Platonic Verses

An immaculately sculpted countenance with a definite verve for the ongoing turn of events suddenly refracted my languid eyesight on a focus. Being there for the last two and a half hours with a regressive mental absence of my sense of being, I recalled that it was supposed to be an 'enjoyable' reunion of our alma mater. Sadly, it was akin to waiting for a ravaging matador to rage towards a complaisant bull. I was waiting for a few known ones from our alumni group until that very moment. Till then, I tried to keep guessing the nature of magic potions being taken, by measuring the dynamics of different people when they were invited to the dais for the one 'big' talk- precisely from the manner of walking or rather snaking through the crowd when there was ample space beside, the way of greeting us with a legendary "hello" or the time lag between the syllables 'H', 'E', 'L' and 'O' and the basis of combining India's economic growth with the amount of booze available in this very party, as some of the necessary indicators of measurement among others. Still I would bet that only a handful had actually seen been to a dais before.

Returning to the focal plane, for the first few seconds, I kept wondering about the origin of this Aphrodite-like splendour. Chances were like (1) Girlfriend=80%- these  studs from our college make the most of it whenever they get even the slightest of  an opportunity after passing out, for they usually convert it having faced the negative side of the LAA(line of acceptable attraction) range for four excruciating years, (2) Daughter-5%, taking into account the family  type father figures who were not 'on a  so high' and the rest (3) 10% - an alien from Venus or a humanoid terminator who first attracts you and then terminates you because its whole mission is to terminate humans and things prevalent to these schools of thought.

                                                                             I 'star'-gazed my already moonstruck eyes towards this resplendent personification of beauty itself. Her hands were carved with a poetic finesse, which seemed to wave with a measured magnitude of impatience upon the ongoing conversation. Her eyes reflected a soothing sense of peace and humility, ears were accessorized with simple jewellery reflecting a strange sense of austerity yet serving its purpose, lip movements suggested an aversion to loquacity and the sculpted milky-white face revealed that she was not a direct alumna. She was wearing a glowing green salwar-kameez, with white dazzling sandals caressing her smooth pearly feet.

                                             
The other people in the coterie were an elderly man with a definite ardour for wisdom and another man with jet black hair, which was perhaps achieved by using loads of hair-gel, a dark complexioned face, frame-less spectacles and he probably had umpteen stories to tell, for his mouth seemed to be action-synchronous like sun-synchronous satellites with the valve for drinking water being frequented by guests. I realized that it had been twenty minutes of appreciating the beauty next door. Not to forget the swaying shiny black hair with a longitudinal free fall to her waist. A gusty wind was present to keep things in motion and for the hair at least. Maybe the breeze was inherently enjoying the sway. I was met with three mean stares from people at slightly different angles when I swerved my line of vision compelling me to look in another direction and probably at my watch. Within moments, the elderly man was standing in front of me. Perhaps it would be another hit and run case, but this time sans the BMW and Salman. The hair-gel black jack was also excitedly hurrying towards me like he was going to have a gala time watching my plight.  I mentally tried to frame up a defense in case I was first charged with ogling and was then hit.  Actually, I had spent an inordinate amount of time appreciating a ‘strange foreign beauty’ which was quite improper by Indian traditions.

Then came the words, "Hi, Sonik", with a curiously familiar accent. I could almost recall the semiconductor lectures during my sophomore year at NIT. He was Prof. Goutam Patnaik. On one side, I was elated that I was not being hit and on the other I anxiously anticipated that he would have just spotted me but not earlier than the moment of realization. The other man was one of my batchmates and branch-topper whom we lovingly called the 'The Dark Knight' for obvious reasons. I stood up and exchanged hand-shakes and pleasantries with the two. And yes, the prof took me to the lady in green to introduce her as his daughter to my utter elation and the three mean starers' envy. She belonged to that prefigured five percent to my absolute delight.  I happened to be Prof. Patnaik's favourite student as I could figure out from my introduction, with a feeble complaint that I was never quite industrious.  Had he given complementing marks, I would have lovingly missed a few bad grades. Back to her, the name was Sonal and she was doing some course in bio-technology which I failed to grasp as I was too busy getting a close up confirmation of my previous readings. With a surprisingly compact voice, I introduced everyone to my present job explaining about my technology and clearing the occasional doubts of the festering dark knight. Soon to my sheer relief Prof. Patnaik went to meet the other professors and I knew that I had to somehow engage this dark knight in someplace else. Probably, had to inform the ‘Joker’.  Then one of the three jokers known friends barged in with a stupefied bearing on his face which was similar to greeting an E.T crawling out of a crashed U.F.O. Even, I initially presumed that he had really seen some exotic alien creature. I pleadingly signaled him to engage the 'dark knight'. He was steering the conversation towards grade points which I had lovingly forgotten and had forgiven myself for. Somehow the joker succeeded in showing me the finger and taking the 'dark knight' away at the same time, on the pretext of finding certain soft-drinks.

My dream run had just begun. It was akin to Tendulkar batting in his purple-patch. Discussions started from technology and headed towards personal hobbies and common interests and even criticizing the boring conceited purview of the ‘dark knight’ to my joy. Even a shred of my vanity was chastened by her steadfast humility. We went to the ice-cream stand and both of us skipped dinner perhaps driven by the sole motivation of spending a few moments together. The discussion was pretty, making her look even prettier was her equally infectious smile. Then an exchange of contact details happened. All too soon, she was to get back home and was close to leave a parting kiss on my cheeks when suddenly the background was disturbed by a loud banging noise. With an abrupt dissolve of the immediate surroundings as in Harry Potter novels, I found myself lying on a bed  with someone shouting at the door. Probably, the last kiss was the ‘portkey’ to the real world. Whatsoever, in this other world, it was 0400 hrs and my roommate had just returned from his hometown. A brief span of forty five seconds of winking eyelids had created a wonder which I would be glad to barter with this reality.