Q & A

Since May, an odd number of questions have surfaced again, in the international context as well as the Indian one. They're not all related but perhaps they are and somehow we- the hoi polloi, the great unwashed, the plebeians- have failed to hone in on the connection. Perhaps, because we're unaware of the intricacy it takes for a foraging eagle to swoop under the surface of murky waters and snatch the fish. 

There are a few questions that bear thinking about.


1) Why is Europe bankrupt and continues to be so? Do they really have less money so they're forced to eat stale food? Or does it just look like the governments are shuffling around the money from table to table and don't actually understand the simple formula of Earn 10 quid, Spend 8  quid, Save 2 quid in the bank (or under the mattress really, these days)
Answer: Umm, yes, they are rather broke. But not that broke that they can't have fancy meetings in Switzerland and Belgium over cases of Cristal to talk about how broke they are. And no, they can't spend 8 quid because it takes 10 quid to make 10 quid. Rubbish old-fashioned theory really.

2) Why are the Asian economies flourishing? Or are they really? Don't they have beggars and dirt and injustice and homelessness anymore?
Answer: The GNP and GDP are up. The complicated figures on complicated charts are showing upward trends. The markets and media are all terribly excited and talk all at once. The postman has a BlackBerry. But the beggars on the street, the dowry deaths and the squalor that causes fatal malaria, are still there to remind us that we're in Asia.

3) Why is the man, who's been in jail after the deadly 2008 terror attacks in Bombay, still in jail? Why isn't he dead? How much more evidence do you need?
Answer: Umm, yeah, it's sub-judice. The law takes its course. Meanwhile, you can keep paying the government taxes to build an ultimate security prison for this chap, while he laughs his head off at India.

4) Why is Rupert Murdoch suddenly a villain? What's the big deal about phone-hacking and why did News of the World have to shut down?
Answer: Rupert Murdoch is evil, of course. Phone hacking is wrong, of course. The media is overstepping its limits and must pay of course; hence the closure of NOTW and the arrest of Rebekah Brooks. Everything that isn't done with the express or implied permission of a holier-than-thou government is wrong and illegal. Got it?

5) And what happened to the intelligence machinery in Bombay? Why were there three bomb blasts across the city again in July 2011?
Answer: That's not an intelligence failure, really. More like absence. More like complacency. More like internal corruption. More like a cancer that's metastasized. Don't worry, we've got listless, overworked coppers patrolling random streets and even though they look completely inept at fighting crime, you should feel reassured.

6) Is all the crime and misery in the world inter-connected somehow?
Answer: Yup. When you join the dots, let me know what it looks like.

And now, I'm going to that grand bastion of all crimes, misdemeanours and torts. The supermarket.

Ten Similarities between London and Bombay

There are probably more than ten similarities but these are the ones I find excruciatingly funny and probably ironic and no, you can't argue with me about it. 

1) Everyone has a bloody pet name. Mostly an irritating one that's not remotely connected to their real name. And since it seems there are more Asians on the streets of London than white folk, statistically speaking, you know I'm right

2) The weather sucks. For various reasons but suck it does, at such a level that one immediately wants to one's their knickers and run up and down the street exclaiming 'it's the end of the world!'

3) Curry pervades. It doesn't matter what colour or intensity or flavour. Curry is omnipresent, whether at an Indian store or a fancy restaurant or the stain on your shirt you're trying to hide. Curry curry, everywhere. And no, I do not care for it. 

4) Politicians will make long speeches, clever speeches, democratic speeches and then do bugger all about it while the common man lights candles and marches about for whatever latest cause there is.

5) The much-touted heart of either country has very little heart and a very troubled soul and you will be pickpocketed at the most inconvenient time. 

6) There is always some 'breaking news' that often ends up being about someone's skirt blowing in the wind a la Marilyn Monroe or some really rich bastard who inaugurates yet another Louis Vuitton store. 

7) Everybody has a scheme. Get rich, get laid, get elected, get back, get out, get more, get get get. No giving. You, with the self-righteous conscience, shut up. 

8) Everyone's looking over their shoulder. Whether it's a fundamentalist mob, teenage punks, rapists, terrorists or spycams, people carry their fears around like a bad odour. 

9)  Bankers, lawyers and doctors are always rich and always out to get richer at your expense. Even the good ones. 

10) Everyone dreams of their 15 minutes of fame and a lot of them achieve it by being nothing but famous for being famous. And people are still fascinated by the ultimate fame- the monarchy.

I know this should make me smile and feel more at home in either city and it does, in many ways. It just makes me realise rather sharply that no matter what, it's not people who shape a city. It's a city that shapes people. 

Actions speak louder than words

I'm not a big fan of heavy traffic. Something about bleeping horns and cussing drivers- it upsets my delicate artistic sensibilities. Oh all right, it's not so much that, as it is the being bullied into inconvenience, that grates on my nerves. A combination of Diwali in India and the Obamas visiting, had perched me on a near-Prozac like edge.

He's gone, the traffic's almost back to normal and the heightened chatter that preceded his visit has dwindled to a useless whisper. Apparently it was a great honour that he visited India and skipped the old enemy Pakistan. Apparently it warranted all kinds of cleaning sprees in the city and Bombay was made to resemble a little urchin child, whose face was washed clean, hair spit-pressed down to the sides and shorts tightened with a borrowed belt. Then he smartly snapped a salute to the American president. who patted it kindly on the head and moved on.

It was almost amusing to see the city and indeed the country fall over its bureaucratic self trying to please the man of the moment. He must have felt great too, considering the drubbing he had just taken in DC. You're welcome Mr. Obama; anytime you need an ego boost, fly towards India.

I was idly wondering- in between feverish tirades of the media moguls on the telly and the traffic police holding up 'road closed' signs everywhere- what the average man in Bombay thought of this visit. I got my answer from two rather surprising places.

One cabbie - the chatty variety I hate- said: Madam what's he come for? To beg for money? They've emptied their treasury with their stupidity and greed, so now do they have their eye on ours?

One postman- yes, we still have the old-fashioned ones in India- said: My son saw him address students at the college. He admired the way Mr. Obama spoke; with courage and dignity. But when you say many things which mean nothing, it still means you've said nothing.

A cabbie and a postman- not the higher tax echelon of this city- were both left wondering, why, in the scheme of things in India with its multitudinal problems, this visit was such a big deal.

Why didn't anyone come when Bhopal lost its people to a leaking poisonous gas?

Why is everyone here when India's winning the economic jackpot?

How long before India gets a seat at the Security Council?

How long do we have to bite down on our lips while Michelle Obama dances like an uncoordinated, condescending one-woman circus act, instead of actually spending time observing what Indian women teach their children, since she places such a high value on children's education?

How long can vagueness and empty promises be gaily cloaked in diplomacy?

Thanks Mr. and Mrs. Obama for visiting. We hope you enjoyed it. The rest of us will hold our judgement on that until such time, when we see more evidence of that 'special relationship' you all are so fond of referring to.

In Mr. Obama's own words: India is not a rising country. It has already risen.

Someone should remind politicians on both sides of the ocean, of that keen observation.

In the land of contradiction

India was once known as the land of milk and honey. Then it was known as the land of the corrupt and the poor. Then it was known as the land of Slumdog Millionaire. Now it's oft known as the Land of Plenty. I don't argue with any of this. All of it is true and sometimes untrue as well. I've realised that to try and give India any kind of singularity, whether in name or deed or verse is a futile task. So I'd like to add another name. The Land of Contradiction. Perhaps you've heard this one before as well.

It was a Friday evening. I was out with my friend M, shopping, drinking, eating. Doing the things that the idle upper middle class do. An indulgence that neither of us begrudged ourselves because we know ourselves. Until we came upon this sight. If Henri Cartier-Bresson were still alive, he might have turned this into an iconic image in his own inimitable style. As it happened, there were only two women, laden with shopping bags and a throbbing conscience, debating if they should take a photograph of this cruel slice of life. The throbbing conscience won and they decided not to.

But let me describe it for you. There was a mall. With a hideous McDonald's fronting it. There was a wooden bench upon which sat the life-size figure of Ronald the Clown with his arms spreadeagled across the back of the bench. Pressed to the left side of old Ronald, as if sheltered by a father figure, was a little urchin boy. Fast asleep. His very real, child's palm pressed against Ronald's wooden ribcage, his mouth half-open in deep, innocent sleep, unresponsive to the noise and din of a busy Bombay street.

We stood there for a long time, not knowing whether to wake him up and feed him or take a picture of the unbelievable cruelty of urban life or to inform the security guard that he shouldn't wake him up and shoo him away like an errant pigeon soiling their pristine doorstep.

So we continued to stand there, an internal debate marring our faces. Then a lady emerged with a doggy bag from inside and tried to shake him awake and give him a burger. He moved but his eyes didn't open. He changed positions, snuggled further into the hard clown's side and continued to emit sounds of deep sleep. She shook her head helplessly and looked at us. We shook our heads too. Helplessness and lack of true wisdom speak the same universal language.

Finally, life intruded. We went our way and the kind lady went hers. The clown looked on. Unaware in his wooden heart of how truly unfunny the situation was.

And the child slept on. Unperturbed. The peaceful sleep that still weighs on my conscience.

Round and Round the Merry Go Round.

The wonderful thing about Merry Go Rounds is that you keep spinning and never have to get off until it stops or you're thrown off. That's why children love them. The joyful repetitive nature of a Merry Go Round appeals to their simple instincts.

Perhaps that then is the same reason we keep committing the same mistakes, the same follies, the same murders, the same errors in judgement and we never tire of it. Case in point: the bomb blast at the much-loved German Bakery in Poona.

Between the gazillion conspiracy theories, the buck-passing, the admonishments, the speculation, the show of responsibility, the blame game and the false sympathies, one thing remains clear. It's the same Merry Go Round.

Poona will never be the same again. Just as Bombay was never the same after the 1992-1993 horrors and then again 26/11, Poona will change. At first subtly, then obviously and finally, irrevocably.

Eventually as children grow up, they tire of the Merry Go Round and experiment with slides and swings and monkey bars. But as adults, we don't seem to want to experiment with peace, tolerance, respect or honesty. No, we're quite happy to hop on and stay on or hop on and be pushed off to our deaths.

Those of us who have memories attached to German Bakery suffer our loss quietly. Almost stoically. Almost in preparation for the next kid to be flung off the Merry Go Round.

A strange Christmas

I haven't had Christmas in India for a good many years. So I was naturally curious what it would be like in 2008- a year that's been so fraught. I remember a few Christmases from childhood, in Bombay, with the city in the seventies and the early eighties still quite proud of its oddly scattered Jesuit heritage. There are specific parts of Bombay like Bandra and Byculla which have concentrated Christian populations and everywhere you went, you could see the gaily-decorated puny little Christmas trees and stringy lights and the smell of marzipan, sugar and cakes emanating from old-fashioned Agas. In those parts of Bombay, Christmas so very much resembled the little unfashionable English county Christmases. Pure, simple and really about Christmas. Lots of carol singers, belonging to various churches. No horrid mall Santas or kids shrieking about the latest gadgets that they 'demand' Santa bring them or worse, the cynical ones screaming to their unsuspecting friends and siblings that 'there's no goddamn Santa, okay!'

This year we had an old-fashioned home-bound Christmas. Like the ones in the seventies where Mount Mary's Church in Bandra was filled with the Goans and the Bombay Christians and their visiting relatives in outfits that could bring on blindness but with their faces wreathed in smiles that didn't come from money or glamour but from the sheer joy of being in hallowed gothic halls with loved ones and hymn books in hand. I remember those well. (All convent-schooled kids do). And although I don't go to church and I wasn't even in Bombay this year, it was a happy, contented Christmas. With friends and family and tons of food and simple presents without conspicuous designer labels and all kinds of to-ing and fro-ing. We simply ate, chatted, ate some more, drank some more, chatted some more and realised that we mostly disagreed about everything, chased kids about the living room, ate some more and marvelled at our stringy lights. Every year, Christmas is about international flights being booked to gather the scattered members of an insanely hyperactive family in one place that everyone agrees upon. Lots of skiing, lots of exchanging of ridiculously expensive presents and everyone with their requests of their favourite foods. It was such a breather this year to trim the irrelevant nonsense and just focus on the 'school Christmas' version that I remembered so well, growing up. Before the unreal life set in. And it's exactly as wonderful as I remember. Whenever a table is presided over by a mother who cooks up a storm for the people she loves, wherever there are kids with their untainted lives still intact, wherever there is mutual respect and genuine affection, that's good enough for me. I don't need a Harrods hamper or a Rockefeller Centre tree.

And just as Boxing day was coming up (this, we take seriously and usually have our packages ready on Christmas eve) I heard that Harold Pinter had died. It was strange to hear that. He was one of the few playwrights who I'd seen, met, heard and performed in his wonderful play 'Betrayal.' As have many of my theatrical fraternity in many countries. And I wondered what kind of Christmas Pinter's family would have. It's somehow appropriate that he died at Christmas time. It's hardly likely to be forgotten and in his vein, quite a dramatic exit. Happy Christmas Mr. Pinter. After all, it was a life well-lived.