The only time I have liked seeing a traffic jam

Today I took off from Mumbai for Chennai. I usually heave a sigh of relief when I do that, glad to be leaving behind traffic snarls and dusty, hot trips, eating a lot of dust and breathing smoke. Chennai is pleasanter simply because I usually have a car to take me where ever I want to go. And when I don't, I do have the luxury of simply refusing to budge. There's also dear mommy to fuss over me and daddy to crack all the jokes and a bunch of relatives who can be hilarious and exasperating at the same time. However, this post isn't about why I like Chennai and I've been rambling on here.

So anyhow, my flight took off and I was sitting in a window seat as usual (I refuse to sit anywhere else in a plane. I just love window seats!) and was staring intently out the window. Not that one could see much, at least until we took off. And once we did, I saw one of the most gorgeous sites ever. A thousand, maybe more, twinkling in a four lane band across the city. I do have my fair share of pity for anyone who did happen to be a part of that band of light that seemed to light up Mumbai for it must have taken them many hours to get anywhere at all, but from up above, it truly was a wonderful sight. Almost as though the city was lit up for Diwali. I wish I had not put my camera in the offboard luggage this one time! Sigh! So yeah, this time I have no picture to put up with my post (finding an appropriate one on corbis or something ain't gonna work this time). :(

Revisting and retelling history

Amitav Ghosh has a talent for description. He describes in a way that makes me feel like I was right there, looking, watching, hearing. It's the quality I loved about Hungry Tide - I could use that book as a tour guide when I do make it to the Sundarbans. In an Antique Land also has that power. It makes me want to get up, go explore, see a new city beyond what tourists see.

It moves between the 1980s and the 1100s, smoothly; the Egypt of the Jews interwoven with the Egypt of Muslims.It encompasses two countries - India and Egypt - and examines the layers of their relationship with each other - the demands of politics and economics bringing them together, the differences in culture setting them apart. The discourse of three religions that have been in constant conflict in modern times - Islam, Judaism and Hinduism - throws up a synthesis that the modern mind would not imagine.

Through the story of a Jewish merchant and his slave and the Author's quest to decipher their lives, Ghosh shows how history is constructed and how we ourselves never examine the stories that build our interactions and notions of other communities. It is a fascinating journey of discovering little told or remembered stories, the kind that make you think that you too will be a part of history someday. It is a story that makes you realize that most of history is outside the textbooks, hidden in memories and tales

The book is slow, and there are no heroes - much like real life. It is a slow re examination of ingrained notions and its pace is as determined by the reader as by the author.

Inversion

Yesterday...
The city was noisy, the crowds pressed together. I could smell the sweat on the person next to me, making me wish I had a more palatable way of getting around. I pushed my headphones in tighter, the music blocking out the sounds of the morning traffic. I walked fast, keen to reach my destination, not wanting to linger.

Today...
I breathe the morning air & look at the familiar faces around me. Someone brushes past in the crowd, hurting my shoulder, but I can only smile. The bright sun warms my toes and I wiggle them in pleasure and walk at leisure to my destination, the same as yesterday. The song in my ears gets over mid way. I switch my player off and put it in my bag. The horns blare aound me and the vehicles whiz past but they don't make me wince... not today. Today I can only smile at everything that I once frowned at.

A Client Visit - Nothing routine about this one!

It was a client visit. It was also a one in a million kind of experience... something that is not likely to happen to the same person twice. It was also murphy at his glorious best. So, without much further ado, I am going to launch into a chronological description of what turned out to be an extremely eventful site visit.

The place: the Bandra-Worli Sea Link - one of mumbai's largest infrastructure projects and something that many thousands of mumbaikars are looking forward to.

It began like any other client visit - with a drive from office... not to Nariman Point (which is usually the end point of many a client visit) but to the Bandra Reclamation area. Across the bay is being built the Bandra-Worli Sea Link. The builders, HCC, generously consented to having a whole lot of us from the agency over and showing us the sea link (which is nearing completion). Reaching the Bandra end of the construction site, we headed straight to the exhibition center, where after much tom foolery on our part, we were taken through the entire construction process as well as a corporate film (to help "understand" the brand better) . We then headed for the part that most of us had toodled along to the site for in the first place - the ride to the actual sea link and if possible a climb to the top of the tower of the cable stayed portion of the bridge.

Well we got to the bridge alright. And here began the awesome part. The view from the sea link is just amazing - the sea stretches out to the horizon on one side and on the other side, across the bay is the coastline of Mumbai with its fishing villages nestling between posh, high-rise buildings. The view got even better as five of us got into a lift and began the slow, 100 meter journey up to the towers from which 600 meters of the 4.7 km long sea link is suspended.

As we rose up, we saw more and more of Mumbai... all the way up to Malabar Hills on the southern side and the Andheri coastline on the northern side. We then alighted on the walkway between the two towers that hold the bridge up. If the view from the sealink was amazing, this was simply breathtaking. Looking down, the waves made it seem as though the bridge was swinging gently on its 140 taut steel cables. Our excitement reached its peak when we realised that helicopters and aircrafts were flying beneath us and not above us!

And then Murphy struck!!! Having dropped us off at the walkway, the lift was on its way back down to bring up the rest of our colleagues so that we could have an inspiring brainstorming session right up there on the top. However, the lift obviously had other ideas as it chose its descent as the appropriate time to get stuck, robbing those standing below of the amazing view from the top and leaving us on top with a mind blowing view but not much else.

Many frantic calls later, we decided to make our way down a construction stairway with only fishing nets and ricketty railings to aid our 100 meter descent. Suffice to say that we reached the bridge again. Suffice also to say that this was product testing and brand experience at its very best - terms that have come to mean our living for those of us who work in an ad agency.

First Impressions

Mumbai... crowded, buzzing, moving, changing... expensive, cheap, fast, slow... new, ancient, modernity, tradition... skyscrapers, slums, highways, lanes... Glass, dirt, sand, concrete... Sea, rocks, walls, air... multifarious, monochromatic, knowing, anonymous... dream, reality, confluence, separation.

My Tara

In a few short months, I will no longer call that flat home. It is time to say another goodbye. My parents get ready to move out of Delhi for good. Not me yet. I cannot live without breathing that air, seeing those sights. The city is what is home to me, not just the house my parents live in. My heart is still there in more ways than one. Much still pulls me back, too many strings bind me to the only city that will ever truly be home. I find so much peace there, such belonging and a love that warms my blood. To the city that has given me happiness and memories that I will cherish forever I can only say I feel like Scarlett O'Hara and that Delhi is my Tara!

P.S: Thanks to dips for the polaroid collage idea!

Someplace Else

Don't wonder at the title. I am not wishing I was somewhere other than where I am. That quite simply is the name of the pub at the Park Hotel here in Kolkata. I went there yesterday night with one of my room-mates to hear my pg owner's Son-In-Law play with his band. For information, it was the 10th anniversary of their playing at the Park.

At 9, one and a half an hour before the show was due to begin, there was not an empty table in sight. Regulars waiting for the Hip Pockets to begin. In the next 90 minutes, the place filled up to the extent that it was nearly impossible to even move to the music.

What was even more amazing was the eclectic mixture of people. Standing right next to the speakers in the front left corner of the pub was an old gentleman. I would guess his age to be around 60. A glass of vodka and a plate of sandwiches stood at the bar right in front of him. And boy was he grooving to the music! In fact, there seemed to be no shortage of what I would call old people in that room. And for me, on a night of classic rock music, it was rather amazing to see them groove to the music and put the so called youth to shame!

Entire families were gathered as fathers introduced their daughters to the pleasure of live rock in that little, dimly lit room. Smokers aplenty, boozers too many to count. But no one was there for the smoke or the booze. They were all there for the love of music. To see that kind of love in a pub is to be Someplace Else.

Seemingly Busy

So here I am. After disappearing from the virtual world for more than a couple of days, this feels almost like home... just almost.

OK. I have erased this line three times now... hopefully there will not be a fourth... if there is, you will not be reading about it anyway!

Kolkatta

I've been here four days now... seen the usual tourist sights - Victoria Memorial et. al. The two things that have formed what I presume will be enduring images are the bright yellow taxis and the trams. They are both an integral part of the identity of this city, marking it with a distinctiveness that hits you the minute you step onto the roads of this seemingly busy city.

The Trams are a relic of a time gone by, preserved to date probably only because no other city has trams! They lumber along with the traffic leaving me rather amused. What is even more amusing is the fact that you will probaly risk your life getting onto and off a tram as the tracks are on the right hand corner of the road!

Nevertheless, I took this huge risk and hopped onto one of these contraptions on my very first evening in this city. Then again... one could probably just walk. Then again... there is still a quaint charm... in the old cars, the worn of paint and the huge fans inside the tram cars. There is a charm in the way they weave in and out of the traffic, in the way the traffic steps aside to accomodate them.

And then of course are the bright yellow taxis. Ambassadors painted a yellow that is so bright that you possibly cannot miss even if you were blind. Taxis that will make anyone who comes from Delhi heave a uhge sigh of relief for sparing them the necessity to argue and bargain. Taxis that will soon break your back for they seem to drive without paying heed to ditches and speedbreakers in the road.

Seemingly Busy

The sun here rises before it is 5 in the morning. By 7, it is more like 10am in any other city, cars and buses galore on the roads. The shops however open at 11 (and shut at 1 pm for afternoon siesta), no office starts before 10 am. And yet the roads are abuzz with activity. Activity and Inactivity juxtaposed!

More than just home

Time and again many people ask me why I love this city and today I have been prompted to think about it once more. Once more I struggled to find the words to explain the beauty that draws me as I sat at the dinner table with a friend. “Delhi has neither the bustle of a Mumbai nor the quiet of a small city like Pune. It is somewhere in the middle and in being in the middle it is nowhere,” said my friend. To that I say a vehement “No” and am going to try and qualify that the best I can.

My love for Delhi is not just because I spent three years of college here. Three years in which I explored the city, made my memories. Yes, to me a part of the charm is that every road, every coffee shop has a day, a thought from my thirteen years in the city attached to it. Bittersweet memories that give each place character and an emotion, transforming it from a mere building or road to a moment in my life.

The charm however, goes beyond that. The charm comes from the sense of history that pervades the air of the city; the years of luxury and comfort that the city has witnessed as the capital of many a kingdom and as the capital of the world’s largest democracy today. There is a slow grace to Delhi that I find missing in a Mumbai or a Chennai or even a Bangalore; a slow grace that one might find in the palaces of Jaipur or in the old quarter of any city. That air pervades the entire city in the case of Delhi because the aura of power remains. As the national capital, Delhi exudes the same stature that is represented by the opulence of the palaces of old.

The charm comes from walking down the lanes of Chandichowk and seeing antiquity and modernity in one frame. From the little toys with neon bulbs to the signboards saying “Estb in 1860”, you can see the roots of the city much like the roots of the banyan tree – in front of your eyes. The amazing sense of the immortality of life really hits me every time I am in this so called “walled city”. On both sides of the narrow lanes stand houses that were built more than a century ago, homes that house people who have moved with the times while the buildings stand as a link to the past, as monuments to the times that gave birth to today.

The charm comes from the resilience that these same images reflect; the strength to stand through turmoil and war and still move on. It is perhaps the city that has witnessed the maximum strife – from internal to external, Delhi has been a part of every struggle waged, whether by individuals or by groups or by states within the Indian union or by countries against the nation. It has lived through these, its people have learnt to make these a part of their lives, take part in them when needed and move on once they are over.

In which other city do the public buses take a different route through the centre of the city each day from the beginning of January in preparation for Republic Day? I still remember the days when I would watch keenly out of the bus window on my way to my office waiting for the nearest spot to my usual stop to hop off, the days when I have walked kilometres to work when the diversions have led in completely opposite directions.

In which other city are the streets exciting in February because in the centre of the city each day is one group or the other conducting a demonstration to have their demands heard before the annual budget is presented in parliament? To walk through this instils me with a dynamism and life that I wonder whether I can find in any other city.

In which other city will people hold a candle light vigil for justice? In which other city are students as active and aware as they are in Delhi? I might sound boastful when I say this but there is not another university that is as politically aware and active as Delhi University is. Yes, this activism comes with its negatives of corruption and even violence, disruption of the normal academic calendar. But it has also given each of us the strength to stand up for our own cause, not for every cause, but for a cause that each of us believes in. It has exposed us to more debate and discussion and cultural interaction than any other graduate educational system. It is a greater melting pot than any other University in this country simply because it is in the national capital and is open to students from all parts of the country.

Many who come here complain of the brashness and the aggressiveness of the city. To that I say yes, the city is aggressive but before you judge it, take a look at its history, at the turbulence and pressures that it is put through every day of its life and tell me whether you can blame it. Delhi houses the largest number of refugees anywhere in the country. People who have been driven out of their homes are bound to be aggressive out of fear; people on whom demands are made by outsiders as a matter of right are bound to react aggressively. Maharashtra reserves 85% of its educational seats and jobs for Maharashtrians. Ditto is the case with Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. How then can they understand the travails of a city that grapples with demands from every one.

Look at the history of the city. The violence it has witnessed. It has demanded that people stand up and fight for everything that they possess. People walked into this city at the time of independence leaving their property and hard earned belongings across the border. People walked in from Kashmir and the north-east, losing their roots to conflict. They have rebuilt their lives with a vengeance. Can you blame any of them? Can you blame the aggression of the city?

At the same time look at the cultural richness and beauty that each has brought to this city. The vibrancy that they have infused the life of the city with. The debate and involvement that they have brought with them.

Stand at the cross section of Janpath and Rajpath and look at India Gate on one side and Rashtrapati Bhavan on the other and you will perhaps see what I mean. One a monument of sacrifice, the other an edifice of power and security and you may get a sense of the love that I hold for the city.

Look at the serenity of Humayun’s tomb as it has witnessed everything that has happened here, and you may understand the peace that I find there. The vaulted ceilings that have stood firm with the march of the centuries bring a quiet calm to the rat race.

Drive down Lutyen’s Delhi with the embassies on both sides of a tree lined boulevard and you will see the grace of a city built with a purpose. Take a ride on the Metro and you will find the Delhi that is the capital of a nation of the modern world, the capital of a nation that may yet become one of the most prosperous nations of the world. Look at parliament house and you will find the hopes of one billion people encapsulated in one city!

And that perhaps is why I love Delhi beyond the memories of the times spent here, beyond the friends and beyond the comfort of a familiar life.