My good friend Krish Krishnan, in response to my quoting the Sami sisters song of the '60s, Come to Bombay, added these lines from the song:
"If you want to marry me darling, do not come at one!
For Pappa will be waiting with his dabal barrell gun!
Bum, bum, bum, bum... Hey! Bumbye meri hai!
Come, come, come, come... Hey! Bumbye meri hai!"
And so, I spent day one in Mumbai yesterday. Waiting for the traffic lights to change at one busy intersection, sitting in a non air-conditioned taxi (again) I watched the medley of humans, old Premier Padminis, the occasional Ambassador, the trucks and the more modern Japanese Hondas and Toyotas trying to make it across the intersection before the lights changed to red. They were all in a mad rush like a bunch of MBAs at placement time. In the midst of all this crazy crunch was a bullock cart pulling a cart of kerosene and ambling along with no care for the mad rush all around it. That is the beauty of apna Bharat Mahan, you can either be in the crazy race or amble along in a bullock cart without a care for all the rush.
Mumbai's infra structure crashed about two decades ago, and, the traffic snarls of Mumbai are no different from those of the other bigger cities of the world caught up in all the growth, human and otherwise...Sitting in the black and yellow cab sweating away waiting for the lights to change maybe preferable in some ways to stomping in the minus 20 Centigrade cold waiting for yet another delayed GO Train at Oakville, Ontario...
There is much economic booming and one hears it in the theatres as people read text messages and take calls during a film...yet, the nagging thought, how long will it all take to seep down to the people still on below subsistence wages, if that at all...everything is so frightfully costly, and, even with the Canadian dollar supreme I am a bit wary of paying those prices...and, much to the contrary from the reports, I am not sure that much of India has the money to pay those prices, either...
Made me almost feel guilty as I came out of Mani's Lunch Home in Matunga which, my elder brother says, is the only place where you can get food cooked the way our mother did...in Palghat Iyer style, for Rs30 a plate and Rs13 for the mandatory Bisleri water...lovely avial, koottu, kari and pappadam...
Topped off the evening watching the new blockbuster movie, Akbar-Jodhaa, the story of the supposed romance between the Moghul Emperor Akbar and Jodha-bai, his Queen, or, more precisely, the mother of his son, Prince Salim, who went on to be known as Jehangir. The movie is a good mix of history, half-fact, legend and more than anything else, Aishwarya Rai...There are some good scenes in the movie, and, more than anything else the movie reminds you that love is beyond thought and beliefs...I had the benefit of my historian brother who helped me sort my way through the tangle of history and myth...our verdict, Akbar had a woman in his life, one of the many Rajput princesses he married...she gave him his heir, Prince Salim...and the rest is the fantasy of Akbar-Jodhaa....Watch it, but, don't kill yourself if you don't get to...
The movie was interesting sedgue into today's trip out to Jodhpur where there will be more of the Rajputana that I saw in Akbar-Jodhaa...
To sign off, a little footnote that I credit to my Hindi teacher from University days...no way of verifying its veracity...the word 'sala' in Hindi is a derivative of the Sanskrit 'syala' which means the groom of one's sister, a brother-in-law, in modern day English...as everyone who has rudimentary acquaintance with Hindi knows, the word 'sala' is one of the most commonly used abuses in Hindi, almost as common as the f*** word in English...the roots of this abusive usage come from the days when Rajput kings gave their daughters in marriage to Akbar for whatever reasons, political or otherwise...and those who did not used to refer to those who had, as 'sala' that useless, degenerate who gave his sister in marriage to Akbar and became a 'sala', brother-in-law of the Mughal emperor...
Onward and upwards, on to Jodhpur
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
The Return of the Prodigal
Coming in to land in Mumbai (forget it, I will still call it Bombay) for me these days produces feelings somewhere in between the teenage excitement of getting a girl of your dreams to come to a movie with just you and a pilgrimage.. .For the last three months I have been dreaming of this journey, trying to contain my excitement telling myself that a good Vipassana meditator should not be attached to such things...However, I am beginning to realize that I am not a good Vipassana meditator and took the easy way out by choosing to just observe the excitement.
Left snow bound Toronto on Thursday afternoon having braved myself to make the trip to the airport without my heavy duty parka and snow shoes. Told myself that it was only a brief run from the drop off point to the warmth of the heated Terminal I. Realized that it was not that short a run...Flight left on time and we were on the dot at every point, and, then spent an hour circling Mumbai as there was a stack up of planes coming in to land...
As I tried to focus on the lights below as the plane circled I could not make out much...At one stage I caught sight of a train snaking its way up the Western Railway line, and, I think I could identify one or two towers of South Bombay...and then, the thud of the landing gear lowering and we were into final approach...skimmed over the shanty town at the edge of the airport runway and landed firmly on the ground...everytime I have landed I have wondered at the skill of the pilots who are able to miss the shanty town that rings the airport runway...
Chatrapati Shivaji Airport (Sahar airport if the name is unfamiliar to you) is a much different place from the last time I was here...it looks cleaner and sleeker...there is much evidence of remodelling gone on...and I was out within 20 minutes, baggage, customs and all cleared...I remembered once during my early return trips to India from the Gulf waiting almost two hours...
Paid Rs230 for the pre-paid, non air-conditioned taxi from the airport to home in Sion and as I did so remembered the time when the minimum fare on the Bombay taxi was .55Paise (yes, sir, fifty five Paise). I used to spend this luxurious amount on the trip from my house to Sion station on the days I was late going to work. I guess in those days the cab fare must have been Rs15 or 20 to the airport from Sion.
Bombay, like New York or London never goes to sleep. And, so at midnight as my taxi whizzed past in a typical Bombay style, there was evidence of life all around. People coming out of 'Maya' Restaurant and Bar near the Andheri flyover, the late night activity at Dharavi and the traffic lights blinking red with no one caring to stop in any case...India is finally growing at an un Hindu rate of growth and no one can wait to stop for traffic lights...
And, so I am here, all excited and revved up unable to sleep because for my body it is 6.30pm in the evening when it is just nearing 5am here...the mind is racing as I get ready to once again experience that great city full of life and spice about which the Sami sisters sang
Come to Bombay, Come to Bombay
Bombay Meri Hai
The ladies are nice
The girls are full of spice
Come to Bombay, Come to Bombay
Bombay Meri Hai...
Left snow bound Toronto on Thursday afternoon having braved myself to make the trip to the airport without my heavy duty parka and snow shoes. Told myself that it was only a brief run from the drop off point to the warmth of the heated Terminal I. Realized that it was not that short a run...Flight left on time and we were on the dot at every point, and, then spent an hour circling Mumbai as there was a stack up of planes coming in to land...
As I tried to focus on the lights below as the plane circled I could not make out much...At one stage I caught sight of a train snaking its way up the Western Railway line, and, I think I could identify one or two towers of South Bombay...and then, the thud of the landing gear lowering and we were into final approach...skimmed over the shanty town at the edge of the airport runway and landed firmly on the ground...everytime I have landed I have wondered at the skill of the pilots who are able to miss the shanty town that rings the airport runway...
Chatrapati Shivaji Airport (Sahar airport if the name is unfamiliar to you) is a much different place from the last time I was here...it looks cleaner and sleeker...there is much evidence of remodelling gone on...and I was out within 20 minutes, baggage, customs and all cleared...I remembered once during my early return trips to India from the Gulf waiting almost two hours...
Paid Rs230 for the pre-paid, non air-conditioned taxi from the airport to home in Sion and as I did so remembered the time when the minimum fare on the Bombay taxi was .55Paise (yes, sir, fifty five Paise). I used to spend this luxurious amount on the trip from my house to Sion station on the days I was late going to work. I guess in those days the cab fare must have been Rs15 or 20 to the airport from Sion.
Bombay, like New York or London never goes to sleep. And, so at midnight as my taxi whizzed past in a typical Bombay style, there was evidence of life all around. People coming out of 'Maya' Restaurant and Bar near the Andheri flyover, the late night activity at Dharavi and the traffic lights blinking red with no one caring to stop in any case...India is finally growing at an un Hindu rate of growth and no one can wait to stop for traffic lights...
And, so I am here, all excited and revved up unable to sleep because for my body it is 6.30pm in the evening when it is just nearing 5am here...the mind is racing as I get ready to once again experience that great city full of life and spice about which the Sami sisters sang
Come to Bombay, Come to Bombay
Bombay Meri Hai
The ladies are nice
The girls are full of spice
Come to Bombay, Come to Bombay
Bombay Meri Hai...
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