Wish I didn't go for that auto-rickshaw ride...

When I was discussing writing as a career option with a journalist friend, she off handedly remarked that Mumbai is full of stories. Looking back at my last year and half in Mumbai, I cannot but agree with her. Every place, every moment has a story, true, but Mumbai with its teeming millions who live, work, travel, earn and interact in unique ways, can make you weave stories every moment of your stay here.

Here is one which I was a part…a non-descript moment which got engraved in my memory because I decided to hire a particular auto-rickshaw. June 2009. I was interning with an organization whose office was in Prabhadevi. On my way back from office I took a harbor line local from Vadala. It was around 8:30 that I reached Govandi station and got out looking for auto-rickshaws. The hostel mess would serve dinner till 9 and I wanted to freshen up before it. Walking out of the station, I dint see any on the road and was irked.

I had walked almost 100-150 meters from the station gate and came across the first auto-rickshaw. Thanks to my lucky stars, the auto-wallah agreed to give me a ride back to the hostel. While I boarded the rickshaw, he turned around the vehicle and paused for a second near the jalebi (a sweet dish popular in north India) wallah across the road. Sticking out his neck, he shouted out at a young girl standing there, “I will just be back in 5 minutes”. I do not exactly remember what the girl looked like. Out of my curiosity, I asked the driver, “Who is she?” His face glowed with that quintessential fatherly affection and he said, “That’s my daughter. I had promised her a trip around Govandi. She is waiting for me.”

In a moment I took a trip back to my childhood. Every evening I used to wait for my father to get back home so that he would take me for a walk and get me some candies. Suddenly I was full of guilt for spoiling an evening trip of this child, of stealing away a moment precious to her childhood. I offered to step out of the auto and hire another one, but the poor father said this would only help him earn some extra money. I stayed. He rode me to my hostel. The meter read 10 bucks. I gave him a Rs. 20 note and didn’t take the change he was returning. Penance. I asked him to buy some jalebi for his daughter. He laughed a little and drove out of my sight.

Since then, every time I have thought about a father child relationship, I have offered my silent apologies to the kid. Did he go back straight to his daughter? Did he find another passenger who wanted to go to Chembur? Or to Andheri? Did he take another passenger just to earn some money for his kid? Was the little girl waiting where I saw her last? How long did she wait? Did he buy her the jalebi I offered as my apology? What was the mood at home like when they met at night? Was she happy after a ride or sulking because Papa broke another promise?

I have no answers to these questions…but then I still keep looking around for that faceless child every time I pass Govandi. I will not recognize the auto walla even if I find him again…but I still look for him…for in this city full of stories, who knows the three of us might just meet again…if we do…well serendipity would have my faith for the rest of my days…maybe…somewhere…someday…and somehow.

The opium of life…

While sitting at the window seat on a train from Kolkata, I was eagerly awaiting for it to reach my hometown Gaya…I had slept for the entire journey and hence had lost track of the train timings…I saw traces of settlements…few crackers here and there…for it was Diwali night…yet it was dark outside the window…the darkness that was darker than the darkness within the human soul…darker than the darkness within me…I dint recognize the place, dark and eerily silent…till I saw the station signboard that read Gaya…and my heart skipped a beat…was Arvind Adiga right…?

I have always maintained that a trip back to my home pulls me 20 years back in time…and I (re) live experiences that cannot be captured in words…probably can only be felt…through inexplicable moments like listening to “Aap ki Framayish” on Vividh Bharati…and it being the only radio station your fancy cell phone can capture after a flurry of radio stations in a bigger city…the silence that plays music to you at ten in the night with the whole town asleep…or the songs of birds that enrapture you at five in the morning…the street vendors selling everything from coriander leaves to eggs to curd…a business they carry on their heads and a livelihood they earn walking on dusty roads…there is innocence…there is honesty…a warmth and a personalized care…a beauty in the simplicity of life…

I am not trying to paint a romantic picture of the utter poverty in which they live their life…it is just that there is something that holds things together…has held them together since I have known or maybe since ages…some strength of character…some enthusiasm to see the seasons under the sun…storm through misery and suffering to live another day in hope of a better tomorrow…and energy to toil and a joy in reaping the harvests…something that drives people…in the same direction and yet they tread on different paths…I feel it…that something is nothing but faith…unfathomable…invincible…hopelessly powerful…

Six days after Diwali the people in this part of the country celebrate a festival called Chhath…a festival where people worship both the setting and the rising sun…fast for nearly 48 hours…men and women alike…caste…class…boundaries…everything blurs...there is an offering at dusk another at the subsequent dawn…a mass exodus towards the river…people on feet…people on bicycles…on scooters…people in SUVs…in buses and in trucks…riot of colors…red…electric blues…fluorescent oranges…shocking pinks…bottle greens…golden…grey…mustard...beige…bejeweled and simple…I don’t know if the English word fete can capture the ambience…but “mela” is what it is in Hindi…20 people accompanying one who is fasting…one driving six who are fasting to the river…everything from Mumbai bhel puri to papri chaat and from groundnuts to noodles…dust…chill...mad fervor…folk songs…seeking fertility…of soil…of mind…in life…of life…an attempt to unite earth, fire, water, wind and space…to propitiate the elements of life…an effort to see through life…to what lies beyond…

This madness when felt leaves a lasting impression…especially when it is reinforced while driving back through the narrow lanes and by-lanes of the city…the small and yet smaller shops…rusty old buildings…temples that have now given away to time…small doesn’t really look small here…probably there is nothing big to set it against…or rather the big is so big…one ends up getting lost and sees only small…juxtaposing never feels so worthless…the motifs that time replays and the refrain of the folk songs vanish into the darkness and silence of the place…of the moment…and you can only feel the wind…that has been there for a long time…ever since history has been around…and there is faith…in everything…in something…

The Key

When I held the key to room 28 of a Working Women’s Hostel, it had a story to tell. The key carried a legacy. For the past 25 years, or maybe more, so many women owned this key. It might have been with a woman who was single, working and living alone in Bombay to support her family in Nasik. The key might have opened the room for a young lady who walked out of a dysfunctional marriage against the wishes of her family and decided to live all by herself. It could have been with an ambitious medical student, a humble and hardworking beautician, a war widow, a struggling actress, a Page3 reporter of some vernacular magazine...

The key brought them to rest after a day of hard work. Some worked because they aspired for economic independence, some to support their families and some just for survival…

I may not be sure of what I want from life or where will I go next…but when the next occupant comes, I would be a part of the key’s legacy…

{PS: The writeup was originally submtted as a graded assignment. This is a modified version:-)}

The middle aged man...

Monday: 08-12-2008, 5:30 pm
It may sound weird but it is true. I have been living on my own for the past four years, but I have not travelled in a bus alone ever. It is not to say that I have not travelled alone. In fact I have travelled alone to quite a few cities of India. It is just that I abhor buses and give every possible argument to avoid a bus ride. In Delhi I frequented places where the metro went and used an auto rickshaw for the places metro did not cover.
Mumbai is somewhat different. You either use the crowded local trains or take up buses. My bus ride from Chennai to Puducherry has emboldened me to use a bus for going to Worli. Why do I go to Worli is a different story altogether but the first day I had to go there I took a bus with a classmate of mine. Dadar I believe would be to Mumbai what old Delhi is to Delhi..it would give you the feeling of yesteryears and yet is the business hub of the city. The traffic is terrible if I may use a mild word to describe it. In the evening my friend had to go somewhere else so I was to come back alone. I walked a couple of bus stops from passport office to Prabha Devi just to get a hang of the area. I had to take a 521 to come back to my home. At Prabha Devi I kept waiting for the bus. I had problems reading the devnagiri script in which the bus numbers are written. In fact I missed a 521 because of my delayed response to the script.
I just noticed a man standing on the stop reading a newspaper. Yes, he is the protagonist of my account. He must have been around 40 or more. I casually asked him the frequency of 521. It usually came every 20 minutes or so..but alas it didn’t come for the next 40 minutes. I had nit waited on a bus stop alone ever. It gave me a queer feeling. A bus came and the man told me to board it as it would take me to Chembur from where I could catch another bus and reach my home. I trusted him and boarded the bus. Even he boarded the same bus. I got a place to sit at Dadar station. A couple of stops later the seat next to me got vacated and he came and sat next to me. A conversation ensued and I got to know that he had to go to Navi Mumbai. Like perfect strangers we discussed politics, education, Marathi..blah..blah..
By that time I had already grown suspicious of his movements. My mom had asked me to beware of men who are 18 and who are 40. Sticking to her advice I began to find him quite weird. I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. After getting stuck in traffic for about an hour and half, the finally reached the stop from where I had to change. I was happy because now I got hire an auto rickshaw and go my own way.
But the miseries of the day had not ended. The man got down from the bus with me and decided to help me hire an auto rickshaw. None of the auto walas agreed..and I was stuck with the man..we walked a couple of bus stops ahead from where we got on to another bus.
By now I grew conscious of every movement he made. Every time the bus would brake of turn I would pull myself away from him. Was it the bus movement which made him lean on me at times or was he doing it deliberately..I have no clue. My final destination came and I got off..and the man got off..he stood and the bus stop and in a matter of fact said, “bye”. All I could do was to smile back and say goodbye.
In retrospect I must agree I would not have been able to take my maiden bus trip had it not been for him…but that day..I could stop stop wondering what was going on in his mind. Maybe he was genuinely trying to help me…or maybe he was a pervert…I have no inkling of what was he thinking…
I think the society has conditioned we women not to trust anyone..he might just be looking for an “opportunity”. May be I was right in doubting him..maybe I was wrong..but then god saves the person who is genuinely trying to help…Amidst all this I must say..hats off to Mumbai..this city is really capable of teasing your logic of existence and then subtly smiling at you to tell you that humanity still exists….Zara hat ke..zara bachch ke…ye hai Mumbai meri jaan‼‼‼‼‼