Turning into an NRI

I am plagued by an increasing sense of disorientation. Things in Bombay seems familiar and yet so different. I am no longer confident on the streets anymore. I look around and I don’t see people I know. The landmarks I was familiar with are covered in a haze of dust (literally). The air has an unfamiliar acrid smell, and I feel myself inhaling particles of construction waste.

But most shocking of all to me is how most of the city looks like an extended slum. To my irritation, V has taken to referring to Bombay as slum-city and I am beginning to agree (though I would never admit it to him). Even the erstwhile beautiful parts of the city have fallen into disrepair (I haven’t been into town yet and I will probably be more enraged at the unfairness of it all if it is well-maintained). The veneer of the hip restaurants, bars and cafes is also wearing thin.

My own building is a case in point. It used to be one of those buildings everyone wanted to live in. It probably still is. But the lift lobby has remained unchanged since I was a child, with the steps being repaired, using the cheapest and ugliest stone, after years. The name board is the same one that graced the badly painted and dust-stained walls since I was a child, an ugly brown slab that now only characterise government offices. The building has been painted (shoddily) in the most unattractive colour possible. The lift is falling apart.

Speedbreakers and bits of wall and concrete that have broken down due to wear and tear have been left as is. This is symptomatic of the larger city where piles of rubble characterise the streets, wedded closely with rubbish heaps. Speedbreakers, road dividers, walls – all broken and un-restored – seem to be a metaphor for the city.

But a metaphor of what? Bombay seems to be charging ahead with burgeoning wealth. Luxury goods retail here at 40% higher than they do in other cities and there are people that can afford them. Occasionally like an anomaly, fancy condos rise out of the dilapidated older structures (which cost a fortune to live in) providing an aspiration that is impossible for even the medium-wealthy to achieve. I wonder how a city that has so much money passing through it every day manages to function in such disarrayed surroundings. Ah well, at the risk of sounding unkind, even a slum has its logic.

There is undeniably a vibrancy to Bombay, a teeming life that propells it forward and which is infectious. There is a charm to its masses of poor aspirants through which pass a few well-heeled chic young things like exotic birds. To it’s trendy cafes sitting right next to grubby tea stalls, both equally used. There are patches of green – like the surprisingly well-maintained garden around my building – that are delightful because they are semi-wild. The sea is grey and peopled with those who use it as their personal toilette but it is the sea nevertheless and it is beautiful.

As I walk through the streets smiling benignly at the chaos as if it is a tableau being enacted for my benefit, I realise this is what if feels like to be a foreigner.

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On a Jet plane

V and I realised we are probably the most anti-social Indians in Hong Kong. On the Jet airways flight to Bombay, we were the only ones who didn’t know every second person on the plane. Everyone else would enter and say a round of hellos as if this were a Christmas party or some such.

The difference between the Jet flight and, say, Cathay Pacific was stark. Generally, on flights, people board, maybe smile at the person sitting next to them and proceed to do their own thing. They do not go around meeting and greeting every second person and loudly exchanging views of the possibility of delay, blocking the aisles with garrulous gossip. On other flights, people speak in hushed tones. There is also a marked increase in the number of children. India’s status as second (?) – most populous nation is widely evident in the form of screaming spawn and brats who proceed to press buttons with abandon.

The best difference, though, is that Jet has lived up to its reputation of having the cutest stewards around. I spotted them while we were walking towards the flight and went “hmm”. They then proceeded to “hello ma’am” me with an endearing mix of shyness and machismo while I smiled sweetly back and refrained from blushing and/or swooning. I thoroughly enjoyed requesting that extra Coke. Much to V’s chagrin, the economy section was serviced by an all-male crew. Yum.

I have always been careless and a little scatty. But this year it seems to be getting too much. In the past three months, I have:

a) Left my passport in the pocket of the seat in front of my on a flight. Luckily, I remembered but had to go back to the plane and then get them to specially let us in and out.
b) Left a Lonely Planet in the pocket of the seat in front of my on the flight toTaiwan. Some lucky soul got a free guidebook while I got a earful from my husband.
c) Left free shopping coupons in library book and returned library book. Frantic checking of book on shelves revealed that HKers aren’t as honest as I supposed.
d) Left id card at home and went for interview and had to apologise for not bringing it.
e) Left wallet with credit cards etc in office and had to rush to office at 7.30 am to ensure it was there.

Is this normal?

Two heartwarming books

Suddenly I’m into the guy version of chick-lit, whatever it’s called. Books about the late-20s, early 30-something confused guy, generally going through some sort of pre-mid-life crisis. The author I most identify with this genre is Nick Hornby (think About A Boy).

Man and Boy, however, reaches beyond the genre. It is not just about being a single parent but about adult relationships to their parents (how, for example, the death of a parent is tragic at whatever age because the existence of your parents in itself is reassurance that someone will always take care of you, even when you may be taking care of them) and about modern attitudes to marriage and romance. The ending of this one may be too good to be true but the sentiments otherwise are very real and charmingly expressed.

This is a feel good book though it didn’t uplift me as much as the reviews promised. It reiterates old wisdoms about female power and the strength within us and touches upon race relations. Not a bad read but I think I’ve read better. What carries it through is the voice of the narrator. Somehow I get the sense that this one was written wth a movie in mind. I can just see Dakota Fanning as Lily.

There are no gay people in India

I’m cross-linking to my post on www.gaysifamily.com instead of re-posting here because I want you guys to check out the site itself.

What I don’t understand is…

… why every terrorist attack has to be linked to Al Qaeda.

… why we have to speak in cliches like Mumbai’s 9/11.

… why they continue to say that this one is different because of “the choice of targets”. Is it because the wealthy and the white were targeted or something else?

… why even the possibility of war with Pakistan is being contemplated and what is hoped to be achieved by that?

Indian media rant

Watching Indian news channels is sort of like watching something really gross. You want to look away but you find that you just can’t.

This is the first time that I thought CNN was worth watching. So, just for venting purposes, I am putting down a list of my nominees for Most Irritating News Coverage of the Mumbai attacks:

a) NDTV. Period. Their anchors do not know how to read teleprompters leave alone articulate when the teleprompters are off. I was giving them the benefit of doubt when I switched to another channel called Times Now and realised that thier anchors had no problems reading sensibly. And then I switched to CNN and BBC and Al Jazeera and realised their anchors could even speak intelligently impromptu.

b) Srinivasan Jain on NDTV. Yes, he is hot despite his beard. But hotness alone does not a newscaster make. For some reason, just after the reclusive owner of the Oberoi hotel spoke at a rare press conference NDTV managed to convince him to do an ‘exclusive’ interview. What a coup! Only Srinivasan starts off with: “we have the owner of Oberoi hotel, Prithvi Raj Singh Oberoi who is normally known as Biki but we will refer to him as the CEO of the Oberoi hotel…[rattles off some other nonsense while the interviewee in question struggles to remain impassive]” He then goes on to say: “Sir, I know you already spoke about this in our press conference but for our viewers who did not see that can you repeat how you felt?” Um, why not just retelecast excerpts of the press conference instead of making the man relive the emotions? Is this was the ‘exclusive’ interview was about… making a man repeat in your studio what he just said two minutes ago in a press conference? The rest of the interview consisted of Srinivasan doing his best to put words in Mr Oberoi’s mouth and get him to expand on his moving statement of “I am heart broken”. Actually, Srinivasan spoke more in the interview than Mr Oberoi so it was actually an interview with himself.

c) The DNA reporter who went into the Taj while the gun battle was going on. If it wasn’t bad enough that she was recounting her ordeal multiple times in her own paper, another news channel interviewed her (Al Jazaeera) and she was as daft as her first story led me to believe. Her ultimate statement was “it was a very adventurous thing for a journalist”.

d) All the news channels for claiming “exclusive footage” of CCTV footage of the attack on CST when all of them had it. Did you really think they would give it to just you? Times Now in particular for repeating “CCTV footage” a 100 times and “terrorist” 50 times in a 10 second report.

e) The news channel that “broke” the rumour that was fresh firing outside RBI on Friday.

f) The news channel that saw fit to interview Sanjay Dutt on his feelings after the attacks. Sure, he’s a nice guy if a little lost but shouldn’t the most pertinent question have been “how do you feel having spent time in jail for your involvement in the 1993 bomb blasts?” However, I don’t think that was asked. Thankfully, I have not seen any more meaningless celebrity interviews, a blessing really for one who was forced to call up celebrities and get ‘voices’ almost every day when I worked for a newspaper in India.

g) All the news channels for accepting unquestioningly information fed to them by the police without any qualification or analysis. If a man is tortured for enough time, he will say anything. All “confessions” are not true.

h) NDTV for a montage of images of the attack set to filmi action music. This is real life and tragic enough as it is. We do not need the soundtrack. The reporter (cannot remember which channel) who opened his report with “You see this in action movies…”

And finally:
i) All the news channels who broadcasted information of troop movements and guest locations. Really, could they not have been doing some sensible analysis like some of the foreign channels were doing. Oh wait, sensible analysis is beyond them.

This is only to stop me ranting non stop to my husband who has said he can bear it no longer and is now not letting me watch the news. I guess the Indian press is close to my heart considering I was part of it. And to think I feel mortified if I stumble over a question in an interview.

PS: Just watched some of the news channels and they seem to be reading coherently. Maybe it is only in crisis that they are inarticulate. Srinivasan, however, is always inarticulate.