Mumbai Meri Jaan! We Meet Again

Honestly, the only affair I have had in my life has been with Mumbai. We were made for each other. We loved, we hated, we fought, we cried and we survived and grew together. And how much ever the Delhites complain about this city, I am in complete love with her.

Now that I am back again to the city, I realized my love was the unfettered, ill advised and completely irrational love of the youth. And as such, we had completely overlooked the fact that our love story was doomed from Day 1.

It has been a couple of months since we have been here. No, it has not been Bandra, fortunately as far as the Missus is concerned. She hated the traffic at Pali Naka and the crazy snail on Linking Road. It was one of those ‘meeting the ex’ that never works out I guess.

So we ended up near a lake. With water being a concern every summer, at least I can take a bucket to the lake every now and then if need so arises. And with the city already gasping at the very beginning of summer, we sense a long, dry Indian summer ahead of us.

And with the glamourous goggles of Bandra finally off my eyes, I realized Mumbai’s beauty is often exaggerated by enamoured young individuals like me. Why else, a city, which is the heart of one of the future economic super powers, be reeling under infrastructure woes?  Why else the green covers of the city are non existence? Why else would a child be inhaling toxic fumes, every day in her commute to school?

There was a point of time when I swore by the restaurants in Mumbai. Today I find them unable to stay true to cuisines, culinary skills and finesse. The magic wanes as you grow older I guess, but Mumbai to me was more than magic. It was a story of hope and of resilience. Today I sense only an acceptance of fate. And slowly that creeps up on everyone. Sab kuch chalta hain.

I still love Mumbai, but I am no longer blind to her mood swings. I have realized over the years that not attempting to correct what’s wrong only leads you down to an abyss, further and further away from any utopia.

And so this time, Mumbai my love, every day an auto refuses to pick me up or a road looks like it has been bombed by WW II fighter planes, do not expect me to accept you as you are.

The days of love, blind and forgetful are over my dear!

The Boy Who Came to Singapore

In 2011, a boy came to Singapore. A bachelor and decidedly alone. Interestingly he was very happily a bachelor living out his last few days of freedom. And Singapore with its plethora of activities and a buzzing life seemed just the place to be.

In 2013, a married couple went back to Mumbai from a city they both have come to love as their own. And this is a post to celebrate the love they have for this city.

But let’s start with the boy – egoistic and childish when it comes to whose voice should this blog be in. So the boy when he landed in Singapore was first of all struck with the greenery all around. The city seemed to rise out of a forest. Huge trees lined the roads, the sea broke on the beaches and the rocks but what amazed him most were the people and the city itself. Disciplined, courteous, helpful but non intrusive, he began to appreciate what being Singaporean meant to a nation which was amongst the most successful. And the city of 5 million people moved like clockwork. Efficient, clean and ever striving to be the best in the world, Singapore clearly became the favourite city of the boy.

And the food – Oh the food! Paris may boast of her cuisine, Rome may boast of her cafes, London may boast of the world creating a potpourri of flavours, but to the boy nothing can beat the variety of Singapore. From Asia to America, from Russia to Australia, from the Middle East to South Africa, cuisines were made available to him. And while keeping a look out on his ever expanding waistline, he indulged.

It took him a good six months to cover the basics and then some more. But boy, did he love the food and the choices!

And then he got married!

Now don’t get him wrong. Being married did lots of good things to him. They conquered the highest peak in a country thrice; they went trekking all over the country and then cycled for 17 kms at a stretch.  And they continued experimenting with food and cooking. Thai and Italian became their favourite and Mustafa became their hunting ground for exotic spices. And they made friends beyond the ordinary. Friends who put up a barbeque for them to bid them bon voyage; friends who called them over to the office the evening before they flew to give them the last hurrah; friends who even cried a bit but tried to be bold enough to not show it.

In the last 2 months that the blog has been silent, they have been busy trying to rebuild their lives and while they have their memories and their fantastic Osim massagers (which incidentally are their only 2 material acquisitions during their stay in Singapore) they realize they have left a part of their selves behind in the city that made them from individuals to a couple.

So without a hint of regret, they would like to thank the city and her people who welcomed them with open arms.

Majulah Singapura! May you continue to be the example that every city must follow.

The Green Man

He started his professional life as a Green Man, learning to despise the colour yellow and at times grudgingly admire it, sometimes even envy it. For around 5 years he toiled, harder than most, to understand what it meant to be a Green Man in the lives of millions of women around the world. He travelled all over the word, bar perhaps the Americas learning about food and about culture. He went into kitchens, learning how to cook exotic dishes along with mothers, trained himself to understand flavours and at the end of it create magic on the table.

He believed that nothing was more sacred than Food, the foremost amongst the basic necessities of life. And perhaps nothing else in the world could easily straddle every step in Maslow’s Hierarchy. Imagine working in a category where every single individual you spoke to across the world was concerned about what she was eating that day. It makes you realize that your success can spread smiles across continents.

Surprisingly, he became a decent cook, a lot less fussy about food, a lot more experimental in what he ate and slowly he began to understand what drove billions of moms around the world every day to make a tasty meal for the family.

And he learnt when it comes to food, moms seldom disagree.

He loved being a Green Man. But then when he looked at his hands from time to time, they were turning green and he figured probably it was a good time to wash them. So he decided to leave KSS and return to his old organization SNDU, planning to wash away all the germs in less than 10 seconds.

But leaving your love after such a long time can be a bittersweet symphony. As he walked around his desk, cleaning up for the next Green Woman, he realized that there is so much that he will miss. He will miss the Bros, he will miss the dictator in the kitchen, he will miss the cheerleaders of weight loss and he will miss the mother hen, the lunches, the bets, the coffee and the free starbucks for every second thing.

This was a life free from internal strife, free from one-upmanship, free from endless debates. This was a life of learning and fighting against a common enemy, fighting for a common friend.

Interestingly, just as he shall no longer be a Green Man, he can also no longer fall in Love with Green in the foreseeable future. And that’s how he realized that the Wheel of Time turns!

The Light in Darkness - 2012

2012 has been the strangest year of my life till date. And the way it ended promised that 2013 might just be as surprising as well.

I turned 30 and for the first time felt like an adult in 2012. You know not the kind of adulthood I had expected to find. Yes, I could make decisions about the family, but the responsibility was always better handled by dad and mom. Yes, I could stay up late into the night without waiting for permission, but no longer did that seem to be a good idea given that there was a 9:00 am meeting the next day. Work was still fun but the stakes keep getting higher every time.

Hospital visits were common during the year and I saw the ugly side of the once noble profession. I was away from my country, which erupted in protest again and again on various issues. The outlook was grim around the world, jobs were not available and relationships between friends were going sour. Tragedy struck at will and we realized that the complete irreverence of our youth was misplaced. We were not above failure.

2012 was the year when hope was needed most of all. It was a year when we needed to believe more and more that in the end, all will be well. It was a year when we refused to learn humility and were humbled again and again.

Heroes came in – unknown voices across the world demanding change and then they went away as the greater part of us did not wish to be the change ourselves. Slowly the world accepted that life would go on as usual. But beyond everyone’s notice, we might be nearing a cure for AIDS, we might be closer to understanding the God Particle but we probably have gone further away from God than ever.

And during all this, surprisingly only one thing kept me going - A steady presence by my side, a firm support and an unswerving faith in us. Thank you S, for making 2012 a lot better than it actually was. Where had you been all these years?

Now that the world has not ended, here’s to 2013 and beyond!

The Empire

While watching Jab Tak Hain Jaan today I suddenly realized I have never spoken of my trip to London. And when SRK mentioned how people age but the city of London becomes younger every year, I could not help but agree.

My first visit to London allowed me to see the city at its best behaviour with the entire country slowly getting into the Olympic craze. Staying in Singapore makes me appreciate a cosmopolitan city in all its splendour but London of today is perhaps the best example of a globalized metropolis.  And we loved it.

It was a city which had fascinated me from my early childhood. I grew up in a city that loved to live in her memories, reminding herself fondly that she was once called the London of the East. Even today, the powers that be tries to make my old city an image of London while the much more fancied Delhi and Mumbai looks east and want to be Shanghai.

Anglophiles Us!

It was a city which to a boy growing up symbolized the years of the Raj when the British Royalty still wore with pride the title of “Empress of India”. It was the city which an entire generation of my ancestors had fought; most believing that victory would be theirs through the hallowed portals of non violence. It was a city where the good, the bad and the ugly, all met, not to create a Western but to melt away in a midsummer night’s dream. And now that the child is grown, you walk into the Tower of London and gaze at the koh-i-noor and it whispers back to you, asking you how her home is. And you suddenly realize how little the average Briton knows about what happened in the Empire.

It was a city whose resilience was legendary, a city which can truly call Chicken Tikka Masala its own, a city where 5 minutes from the Globe Theatre stood the Tate; the grandest meeting of the old and the new, a city where you experience Chili Paneer as the name suggests, a chilli and a Paneer (where the chilli is bigger than the paneer), a city where the Borough Market smells heavenly as it shuts down, a museum which showed the nights that London seldom slept in fear of the bombs, a city which remembers its lost princess even today after they have got a new one, a city where even McDonald’s salads taste heavenly after walking through her streets all day long.

To stand and watch a play at the Globe like the ones before us waited for Bill’s plays, to marvel at the paintings at the Tate, to wish longingly for a ticket at a West End Theatre for a musical, to catch a movie at Soho, to pick up sandwiches at Pret, to rush to Buckingham Palace to see the change of guards, to shriek in horror at the London Dugeons, to pose with celebrities and experience the fantastic 4D at Madame Tussads, to watch the crowd walking out as England beat Australia at Lord’s, to stand with complete strangers on lush green lawns on a rain soaked day and watch Federar play on grass, to get out of Baker Street to find the house of the world’s most famous detective and only to be gifted my most precious Rock and Roll Memorabilia by her, to re enact SRK and Kajol’s meeting at King’s Cross, to pose at 9 and ¾, to step in for the first time at 100 VE, London is a city that never ceases to stir your senses to a frenzy that will no longer be satisfied with any other city in the world.

Resurrection

In Indian Mythology, the world was a better place when “Ram Rajya” or the Kingdom of Lord Rama flourished across the sub continent. And till today, politicians across Rural India promise it in their election speeches. But far from the dusty by lanes of what was once Ayodhya, lie a kingdom ruled by a dynasty who call themselves Rama and whose destroyed capital was once called Ayuthhya.

It is a tragedy that people associate Thailand with its pristine beaches and shopping in Bangkok. But Thailand’s history is worth noting. The kingdom has been defeated time and again but never destroyed, not always by valour but often through diplomacy. And nowhere is its history more alive than in Ayuthhya.

Destroyed by the Burmese Army, the once proud capital now stands in ruins. Rows after rows of headless Bodhisatwas sit in their lotus seats carrying the teachings of The Buddha within their heart. Tourists roam around the destroyed temples while elephants wait to give you a ride. This was the kingdom where once the king gifted white elephants to competing kings in order to drain their exchequer.

The summer palaces and other palaces of the kingdom are strangely bereft of grandeur. But one look at the temples across Thailand and we realize how the royalty in Thailand emphasized the importance of their places of worship. If you visit Thailand, stopover at Wat Pho and Wat Arun and you’ll realize how religion is integrated into the fabric of Thailand. The paintings on the walls of the Grand Palace talk of Ramakian, the Thai version of Ramayana. While the earlier versions during the Ayuthhya reign are lost, what remains is an epic with a happy ending, composed around 1700s with Royal patronage.

The Buddha is everywhere, but so is the King and deities remnant of the country’s long association with Indian spirituality. The Erawan Shrine in the heart of Bangkok everyday sings hymns to the praises of Brahma, the airport has one of the best depiction of the ‘churning of the ocean’ that I have seen.

But if nothing else, Bangkok is true as a destination for street shoppers. Every walkway is full of bargains and more bargains and the true Indian street shopper would feel perfectly at home. The shopkeepers love this Indian clientele and like the most industrious traders welcome you with a sprinkling of Hindi.

One of my favourite places to visit in the world, Bangkok is also my most visited and I never get tired of it. How could I? The country invented the Green Curry and the Phad Thai.

Ghost Town

Have you ever been in a city and felt scared? Have you ever walked the roads of a metropolis and constantly looked back to see where signs of life were stirring? Have you ever been terrified by a city?

When I checked into my hotel, I never thought that the stories I heard about Johannesburg were true. The city during the day seemed no different from all the other cities in the developing world, in a mad rush to get bigger and achieve more. It attracted people from across Africa who came here for a better future and stayed on.

Everyone is scared of Johannesburg. And sometimes it’s easy to understand why. It’s a huge city surrounded by the mountains and the mines and having some of the worst thunderstorms in this part of the world. No one knows for sure when a storm would lash against the city. Stores get empty, people drop the shutters and people wait for the storm to pass.

But as night falls, the city changes. Suddenly you see fewer and fewer people on the streets. And if you have played Max Payne when you were in college you will feel all alone as you walk the streets of Jo’berg with the leaves rustling all around you.

The almost nonexistent public transport disappears all together, the stations shut down completely and there is not a single soul on the roads of Jo’berg. Taxis are rare and if you find one, you can never be sure if it’s the one that is safe to take.

There are rarely any city beyond the Indian hinterlands which has such a stark difference between its days and its nights. But Jo’berg carries on, scaring its visitors and shackling the country from soaring higher.

And we wait for change to come in.