Planning Weekends

Why would we want to plan weekends?

Since when have we got into the habit of living our lives by a calendar?

Why can't we live weekends as they should be lived?

Why can't we feel on a Friday night that we need to see the sunset from Raigarh fort on a Saturday? And not decide a week in advance?

Why can't we let weekends be what they are? A time to listen to your inner calling?

Why can't we just decide on a Friday night that we want to sleep away the weekend so that the dreadful Monday can come faster

Why do we need to be social when we were meant to be surviving alone in the wilderness ages from now?

Why should we believe we are social animals and not just animals? Raw, unfettered, random, driven only by primal instincts?

Why do we need to plan if we dare to call ourselves free spirits?

(Was originally written as a response to a standard weekend mail of someone asking a group of hopefully like minded individuals to plan for the next weekend. Then realization struck that this response would not even be registered leave alone understood.)

We are The Super Stars’ Neighbours

So our Raddiwala is a great talker. And a great businessman. He ensures that he does not pay us a single penny over Six Rupees per Kg for our well kept and mostly unread newspapers. But he gives us information.


As you guys might know, I missed living in Bandra by less than 500 meters and had to settle for Khar. Now, given that King Khan lives in Bandra and that’s what is thought hep and happening by all you Non Mumbaikars I always felt a bit down. But no longer shall I despair. Here is what I know about my neighbours, all within 3 minutes walking distance from my house.


My closest celebrity neighbour is supposed to be Shatrughan Sinha. Given that both of us are proud of our Bihari pasts, we would hit it off well together. It’s just that he has too many guards around. Also our Bihari Babu gives his Raddi for free, very unlike the other stars near our home. The domestic helps at their places ensure that they make a quick buck by selling old newspapers.


Exactly a hundred and thirty seconds from my house stays Bebo. Yes, everyone calls her Bebo these days. The bunglow of Sadhna, the yesteryear superstar is also close by. Bips stays exactly 90 seconds from my house by cycle. And you have to agree that you would also cycle a bit fast, if you were going to meet Bips. And of course on the same building is John’s flat. However, I do know that his Pali Hill flat is more famous. So technically apna John has two residences. At least 2 that I know of.


Kiran Kumar, (anyone remembers him?) also is my pseudo neighbour. However, I have to cross the main road to meet him. Mahima Choudhury, is just opposite, well almost. And then we have Gabbana and Juice where everyone who is someone but not yet THE One come to get a haircut and buy a dress.


He is source of other information too. When he heard about our dire financial straits, he also gave us tips on making easy money. Well, it’s really easy. But since I do not want to ruin my odds by revealing the secrets, I shall stop the conversation now.


And Oh! I almost forgot to tell you. The Buzz around the Khar Security Guard grapevine was that Rakhi was really upset when her watchman was late in opening the door. And no, they have not yet seen Elesh.


So the only thing to do now is to meet my neighbours, Wish me luck.

The Massager and the Masseuse

Most Indian men’s fascination with the erotic begins with the dream of the Sandwich Massage in Bangkok. Taking the form of an urban legend, the exact details of what happens in such massages depends on who is telling you the story. Having only access to untrusted massage parlours and the Kerala clinics, men in India had to be content with knowing Phoebe Buffay as the most famous Masseuse in India but then she killed the fantasy out of the story. Anyway, what Indian youth, especially men, consider a massage to be has been brilliantly portrayed in The Inscrutable Americans so let me not dwell on that.

The best massage I have got has always been from my old barber. After pounding on the skulls of my grandfather and father, he loved to get my young tender head. I am sure that the reason behind my lack of intelligence can be attributed to those massages that must have shifted the Nobel Prize winning sections of my head. I still remember my last massage from him. When I came back from my second year in college looking like a well fed Lennon with an Elvis sideburn, my mom refused to allow me into the house. Dumping my bags, I moved out to search for my good old barber. Tears of joy rolled down his cheeks when he grabbed hold of my ‘mane’ and reduced me to a new recruit at the Army and played a Zakir Hussain number on my skull.

The often mentioned thing about CEOs is that they have a full understanding of the value chain. No one knows it better than me when it comes to football. I started by shouting my lungs out for Mohun Bagan and Germany when I was a kid. Then by virtue of my position as the class monitor I used to kick off the ball and be the striker in the matches at lunch break. That was Class 2 I guess. Good sense prevailed soon and I handled the mid field. By around Class 7 I was defending. Lothar Matthheus inspired a short Libero stint before I was a full back. Ultimately, just before the basketball bug bit me, I was happily guarding the goal. At this point, while working for the school team, I also handled the first aid box and because most school kids miss the ball and hit on the legs, I slowly learnt to give an awesome massage to hurt shins, thighs and calf muscles. Value chain can’t get better than this.

Anyway, so while I was at the Radisson, I had an option of choosing between a Balinese massage and the Sports Massage. My school days came back and I actually wanted to know how the real one goes. So, yes as illogical as it might sound I opted for the Sports Massage. As I entered the room and looked for the lady whose name I saw on my card, in came a man smiling profusely. It was not going to be a masseuse but a massager. I believe he gets similar looks like the one on my face. So he gives me a cherubic smile and leads me to the sacrificial table. If you have seen the Seinfeld episode where George finds his massage therapist is a man, you will get what I am talking about.

But, he was good. Real good. Sports Massage rocks and hurts a bit too.

Moving Out and Moving In

I have been in Mumbai on and off for about a year now. And most of the time has been spent with friends in this one particular apartment building. So it was finally time for me to explore the opportunities as the group slowly started moving out. Gladly, I did not have to go through the usual painful process of searching for a house in Mumbai, so this I guess is not a post about that ordeal which I know I have to face very soon.

Tomorrow is another day, as Scarlett had rightly said.

Anyway, the apartment I left was lovingly called the Wadala Sheraton. It had a lovely graveyard on one side, a hill on the other, and a rail track somewhere along the road. But I guess what made Wadala Sheraton so engrossing were the people you stayed with. People with whom you could chat up till late in the night, people who would call you up to get the numbers of the restaurants nearby, people who would wake you up from your pre sleep slumber at 10 in the night on Friday to take you to the disco.

Move on, as everyone always tells me.

My new house is nice. I have a great roommate. We don’t see each other often though as we are travelling most of the time. But we both seem to have similar cuteness quotient ratings for women we know in common. Also, like me, he’s a great follower of the Bro Code. So I have no issues in introducing the future hypothetical woman in my life to him, if need be. Most men I know are scared these days and the Bro Code is breaking down.

The greatest thing about the apartment is the amazing sofa cum bed (if you have watched Bachna Aye Haseno, remember the bed of Ranvir just before Bips moves in with him? Unfortunately no such luck here. The building is teeming with spoilt and irritating kids but no one who can hold a candle to Bips. But man lives in Hope.) and the amazing view that the window provides – a vast expanse of empty land. Incidentally that is something you get only if you are rich enough or lucky enough to afford a sea facing apartment in this city. So the smell in the morning not withstanding, it’s a great place. And it helps that a movie theatre is nearby. Not helpful on my wallet though as it’s turning out. Also the travel time to anywhere has increased exponentially. Such is life in Mumbai. You can never get everything.

A move is again on the cards soon. Let’s see where Siddhi Vinayak takes me.

Lifestyles

It’s been almost a week since I have been in Mumbai and like a movie in a fast forward motion, my life has changed dramatically. Mumbai has been this city which at one point of time meant just Marine Drive to me. It was always a pleasure to walk down the road, alone or with someone, with the sea murmuring beside you. Mumbai was the city with the most cooperative cab drivers. It was also the city of the greatest paradoxes where the rich and the poor play hide and seek on the same turf. But more than anything else Mumbai was Amitabh Bachhan in Deewar. The angry young man standing beside a window and remembering a lady walking down the streets with her two sons – Mumbai was always the city of dreams for me where the gutsiest of Indians "aaj bhi pheka hua paisa nahin uthate hain.”

The last weekend saw me watching two movies and a play spending almost 25 times the amount I spent for a movie in Muzaffarpur (on each of them). From non descript hotel rooms I am in my own studio apartment trying to cook Noodle Italiano; (a recipe created by Amit’s and my miserable attempts at cooking), from mindlessly swapping channels in the evening to catching a really good play at Juhu with great company, from having Samosas for breakfast, lunch and dinner to having a proper breakfast with my eggs made ‘sunny side up’; life has turned different. However, the greatest kick till now has been visiting Sid’s place at Bandstand. He lives beside Mannat, a bungalow that incidentally has a certain Shahrukh Khan as its inhabitant. So my evening was spent in a beautiful room, where the winds swept you off your feet, seeing the dusk descend upon the sea while kids with their eyes full of dreams stood in front of Mannat with the desire of seeing their man of dreams in flesh and blood.

My love story with Mumbai will not be a short lived one. But I do wish it was still Bombay.