The Great Wall of Mumbai

Yesterday was incredible!
Yesterday I drove by the Tulsi Pipe Road from Mahim to Lower Parel and was blown away by the graffiti art on what has now been dubbed the Great Wall of Mumbai. It has totally transformed the dirty, drab wall along the Western Railway line until it is one of the most interesting, vibrantly colourful pieces of public property I've seen in a very long time.

Can you believe this is in Mumbai?
Okay, with a stretch of your imagination maybe you can. And you can see the all-too familiar lines and geegaws that go with the railway tracks just on the other side of the wall.
But can you believe that this wildly, impossibly colourful stretch was actually sanctioned by the BMC, the tradition-bound, red-tape-shackled corporation that runs Mumbai city?
I love it!

The Wall Project is the initiative of a group of very talented and super-creative artists who go around transforming dull, boring walls into superb works of art . When the BMC offered this kilometres-long stretch of wall as a canvas, there was a flurry of activity, both online and on-site. Messages were posted, the grapevine buzzed and on the appointed days (first in August and again in October this year) all interested artists and assistants let their creative juices flow.
And what was once the receptacle of paan-juices and a surface for crudely printed handbills, is now the showcase of the creativity of the city's artistically inclined .

What fun! I wish I could've been there. Maybe if there is another call going out for artists ... And I'm sure there will be, there're plenty of unpainted sections left in that wall still.

There are still portions of the wall , especially near Mahim, where it provides shelter to pavement-dwellers. I saw this family busy preparing their dinner and couldn't help thinking that they're living in the shadow of some artist's concern and love for this city.

This little boy was sitting near the women and as soon as he saw that we had stopped to click photos, he ran up with the widest smile on his face. He was thrilled to see that I had clicked his photo and immediately asked me to click one of his family too.
Do you see his dinner cooking in the background?

Further down the road, Michael Jackson was one of the recurring themes on the wall. I think a lot of fans poured out their grief in paint here.

As if Mumbai could ever do without its film stars! They were all here, larger than life . And there were so many more that I enjoyed.
Some I couldn't get a good shot of because it was too dark, and long stretches were blocked by the vehicles parked in front of them. Even more were a blur because I had a lot of cars impatiently honking from behind and telling me to "move, or else...!".
But, take a look at some of the others that I did get...




But the one that said it all had to be this one!

A petty issue

Have you noticed how you're getting short-changed at the shops nowadays?
Every time I go to a provision store or a supermarket, I'm handed a bill which totals up to an amount that has been rounded off... almost always to the next highest 50 paisa denomination.
I get bills for xy Rupees twenty-eight paise or sixty-nine paise. I mean , come on! Is a proper change for such amounts even existent in our currency? Have you even seen a 1 paise or 2 paise coin in use nowadays ?
Apparently the 5, 10 and 25-pase coins are still legal tender. Officially, at least, but I've yet to see anyone who carries those coins. Or even someone who'll accept them.
Incidentally, I've even had stores offering me toffees in lieu of small change! Hmmm ... I wonder whether they would accept them in lieu of payment?

One cashier was almost apologetic and vaguely embarassed about it. "It's all because of the VAT amounts," she said. "It usually adds up to odd figures and we don't have the small change for them. No one has! "
So the amounts are conveniently rolled over into the next biggest 50-paise denomination and no one's the wiser. Or bothers to speak up even if they notice it. It's such a measly little amount, after all. Hardly worth talking about.

Well, that may be petty change for one shopper, but hey, do the maths.... that's a nice bit of extra profit for a store which sees hundreds, if not thousands, of shoppers every day!
No, wait ... actually, it does add up to quite a significant amount even for the individual shopper who is spending more than necessary every single day, albeit at the rate of a few paise each time. It may not exactly pinch or throw the budget off-kilter, but what it does is make me feel slightly cheated and a little indignant about it.

Hmmm ... so who does get the balance, I wonder. If it's the store, that's money collected unfairly, isn't it? If it's the Revenue department, then they're collecting more tax than they're entitled to.
For my part, I'd say "you're welcome to it " if they could just prove they've put that money to some good use rather than to line their pockets.
Employment opportunities for the underprivileged, or maybe better education in the rural areas, and what about better medical facilities in tribal areas , and ... oh, the potential "good uses " are too many to count, aren't they?
Imagine! if our small change could create a big change...

The finer details

I have to tell you at the very outset that I share my home with 2 cricket-obsessed males. But I suppose you would've guessed anyway by the dirty heap of cricket whites that can be found heaped in various spots of the house at any given time. And the long line of cricket bats, balls, helmets, gloves , etc., etc. that mark the way from the verandah to the bedrooms. Beautiful urns lovingly placed in various corners of the house become "ideal to store cricket stumps and bats". You get the picture, right?

The first, my husband, is one of those whose every second sentence is about cricket (the sport, not the animal!). His greatest satisfaction is not what he achieved in his academics or career, but that he learnt cricket on his own ("using the stump of a coconut-leaf as a bat"), set up a cricket team in his school and managed to play well enough to get his name and face and team in the papers more than once .

He later went on to climb the ladder of cricket-obsession by leaps and bounds. One of his more crazy cricket-ruled moves was to take admission in a college in a sleepy little town just because there was a better chance of being selected for the state team from there. He lasted just one month before the sleepiness became too much for him and he ran back to Bombay, but that's another story.
He went on to play for his college and then for his company where he immediately chose to work the dreaded night-shift so that it would give him time to play cricket in the daytime!

Post-marriage, my greatest challenge was coming to terms with his obsession with cricket. Heck! It was worse than having another woman in the equation. I could've fought that but how could I fight a sport on a TV set or the brotherhood of a group of grimy, sweaty men ?
There were days when at the end of one match, another would be starting somewhere else in the world, and then another. And my man religiously watched all of them. From the pitch report to the awards ceremony .
His work took second place to it too. If there was a match due to start, all appointments were cancelled.
"Sorry, I'm not feeling well today."
Yeah, he had cricket-fever!

Then, came our son. My husband was so excited about the next potential cricketer in the house that he prepared a professional cricket-pitch in our grounds as soon as he knew that I was pregnant. Everyone, including me, thought he was nuts. He was taking up the most fertile piece of land in our property but did he care? Naaah! He wanted to grow a cricketer.
He went to some of the cricket stadiums to check on what grass they use. Then he bought a huge roller (which needs 3 men to even move it) to roll and level the pitch. And he waited.

As per tradition, I went to my mother's home for the delivery and my husband followed me there. Not to spend time with me but to join a cricket club there. The day after our son was born, the proud new father was very busy... playing cricket in matches all aound the district!

The day our son turned 4, the coaching started. My husband would bowl and our tiny little cricketer would bravely try to hit the ball. Every connected ball was crowed over like it was the World Cup's decisive knock. And every so often the 'coach' would feel our son's biceps to see if it was developing yet. He needs strong arms to hit the ball well, you see.

More than once we had rip-roaring fights in the house because my husband was using a leather ball to bowl to him (if you're new to the sport, the leather cricket ball is what is used by professionals to play. It's the size of a fist and as hard as a rock).
"You'll give him brain-damage", I cried.
"I'm toughening him up," he roared back.
"At least use a rubber ball," I pleaded.
"That'll ruin his game !"

To give him credit, our son was equally mad about cricket. Any attempt to stop the coaching till he was older was met with fierce rebellion from the pint-sized cricketer-in-the-making. He hungered to master the sport.
Every match was avidly watched on TV by father and son. Every ball, every stroke, was dissected and analysed by them. They groaned over every wrong move made by the players and celebrated every major win as if they had played in the match themselves.
The stance, the angle of the throw, the placement of the foot, the crook of the elbow ... surely there was more going on here than a mere sport.
Googlies and maiden-overs were tossed around the dining table with relish.
They played all day long outside. Then when it got too dark, they moved indoors and played inside the house.
"Just a few strokes, nothing more".
It took him several broken pots and urns to decide that he was not made for indoor cricket ... it was way too sissy!

Then when our son was in the first standard, my husband saw the most electrifying notice! A famous cricket club in the city was having its selections. Our son had to, just had to, go for that.
"He's only 6" I said.
"But have you seen his game? He's way better than I ever was at his age. He's better than anyone I've seen. Just one look at his shots and he'll be snapped up like that!"
I guess I don't need to tell you what happened to that episode, right? The coach who was trying out the candidates struggled to keep a straight face but to give him full credit, he did allow our son to face one of the bowlers.
That incident is the source of a lot of hilarity in our family still. That my husband wanted our 6-year old to compete against 16 and 17-year olds and was so sure that he was better than any of them. Few children can claim that their father has so much confidence in them!

Well, he is 16 now and even I can tell (very grudgingly) that he does seem to play well. Okay,okay , so he plays really well. I wish I could be happier about his talent like all those exemplary doting story-book mothers seem to be. Where he goes with his ability is up to Fate but I do admit that I wish his fate was not in the hands of a sport .
If nothing else, he learnt to travel all over Mumbai on his own, toting a cumbersome cricket kit and holding his own in jam-packed Mumbai trains!

So why am I telling you all this? So that you'll know the depth of cricket passion that reigns in our home (among the males, at least) . They play cricket as if their soul depends on it. They watch cricket as if getting up from their chair while the batsman is still batting will put a jinx on it. They talk cricket as if that is all that matters to them.

Yet, a few years ago , my husband took me out to this swanky restaurant in a popular 5-star hotel. We found that the Italian restaurant had a fixed menu for the day and it was vegetarian. Since we were not in the mood for vegetarian Italian cuisine, we walked out, planning to go elsewhere instead. Just as we were walking down the passage, Sachin Tendulkar, one of India's greatest cicketers ever ( or maybe that's one of the world's greatest cricketers ever) was walking in with his wife.
My husband, the cricket-mad, 24-hours-a-day, 365-days-of-the-year cricket freak didn't twitch a muscle.
He didn't recognise him!
"It must be because he wasn't wearing cricket whites," he argued when I teased him about it.

Then, last year, we took our children to the same restaurant to celebrate (I forget what) and guess who was sitting at the very next table?
Mohammad Azharuddin, another cricket icon, who captained the Indian team for so many years (but who unfortunately went down in a blaze of controversy).
Neither my cricket-obsessed husband nor my equally cricket-mad son even recognised this cricket Great sitting just 3 feet away from them!
But I did.

Moral of the story : men may see the overall picture but it takes a woman to see the finer details!

Happy birthday, Google!

I did a double-take when I dropped by the Google site today. Something was not quite right. And then I saw it!
Somebody had not done the proofreading right, I thought. And giggled a little to think of such a massive mistake... one tiny mis-spelling, one huge red face for someone.

Then I moved the mouse over it and found out that I should be laughing at myself instead. Someone at Google is very clever. That's their way of announcing that Google is 11!

Happy birthday, Google. Thanks for being around and saving the day on too many occasions to count.
Especially when my children have a project to submit on some topic I have no clue about and don't want to admit it !

Ji, Aunty-ji !

Aunt : the sister of one's father or mother. Or the wife of one's uncle.
(Origin - Old French ante )

Unless, of course, one lives in India. When every girl goes through a weird metamorphosis the minute she ties the knot and even before she steps out of the marriage hall. She is now Aunty to every one under 20.
Hey, so what if the addressor is all of 19 ? Our glowing bride is now a very respectable Aunty... even if she was thought to be the hottest babe in town just yesterday!

The silk saris dripping zari and that new tag of Mrs. before her name brings with it heavy burdens. Not the least of them being this Aunty-fication!
Not 'Aunt X' or 'Aunt Y', but a very universal Aunty to the young.
To the others, she is a stop-gap bhabhi (sister-in-law). No matter that she may have never seen them before nor likely to ever again, and irrespective of a decided lack of any family connections either by blood or marriage. She is still their bhabhi; her mangalsutra/ sindoor/ wedding-band has seen to that!

Then the first heir to the family genes appears. Now our Aunty-to-the-young takes on wider responsibilities in more ways than one. She is now Aunty to the world in general, age no bar. Even 40-somethings take the liberty of "aunty"-ing her. The young newly marrieds call her Aunty. So does the balding man in the provision store . As do all the children in her building, road and city. How very respectful!
And demoralising.
Not to mention, restricting!

Of late my son has taken to this new form of repressal :"Mama, don't be such an Aunty!"
Aunties, apparently, aren't fun people. Gulp!

Co-writer to the world

Ever fancied yourself as an author? Join the whole world in writing a book! The WorldWritesABook.com project has come up with this brilliant idea of giving every person in this world a chance to co-write a book ... a snippet at a time!

The idea is to give each and every one of us ... from you, me and Chottu down the street, to Igor , Andre, Heather, Makame and Ling at the other corners of the globe ... a chance to write a snippet of the story, continuing from the first one published online by TWWAB team . Every day a new snippet is selected from all those submitted and the story rolls forward.

There is no pre-set plot ... that's up to you (and the 6 billion odd people populating this world) to decide. You can add new twists and turns, introduce new characters or kill them off, turn a hero into a villain or vice versa ... the mind boggles!

There are no guidelines except that you can submit only a snippet of 140 characters at a time and that you have to write it in english.

And here's where it gets really interesting ... the person with the most number of accepted snippets stands to win a Grand Prize of $25,000 !
Incentive enough? I would think that the chance to have a say in which way a story sways is more than good enough. But this really does sweeten the deal, doesn't it?

This book already looks set to become a best-seller to beat 'em all. After all, who wouldn't buy a book which they've written a part of ... even if that part is only 140 characters long! That's a definite market of about 6 billion books .

So what's the story so far? Read it here.
And hopefully your name is going to show up in that column in the accepted entry list.

Too much of a good thing

The thing I looked forward to the most when I was a kid (okay, when I grew up too) was ... vacations!
Sleep late, roll out of bed late, breakfast at noon, lie on the lawn and watch the clouds drift by, stroll, hang out with friends, watch movies, read and read and read ... oh, the sheer deliciousness of it!
There is a magical something in the very aimlessness and let-your-hair-down quality that these long holidays conjures up. Something that makes you long for it and count the days till you can revel in it again.

This is exactly what my son (and his parents too) was looking forward to when he finished his Std. X Board exams in March this year. In the long, grimy, tough days while he was preparing for his exams, my favourite motivational talk was all about "study now and you'll have such a long vaction ... at least 3-4 months .... after your exams to enjoy yourself" .
And so with tempting pictures of what he would, or rather, would not do in these days of grace, I persuaded him to stick his nose to his books.

The exams wound up and sure enough, his books were flung aside. Then followed a feast of 'doing-nothing', alternated sometimes with 'nothing doing'! Football on the beach, meeting friends, making friends, movies, eating out, staying up late, watching videos till midnight, cell-phoneitis till 2 a.m., doze off at 4, wake up at noon (except when there's football on the beach!)... mmmm, nothing changes except what we choose to do , or rather, don't do during the languid days of Vacation. The deliciousness, though, remains the same .

Or does it? I wonder...
This year seems to have a record-breaking long Vacation. First there was all that drama about the online admissions and the court case about a quota for SSC Board students. And the date of reopening was extended till the first week of August when the normal date is somewhere in mid-July.

Oh that's great, he said and promptly organised some more football in the rain and more outings with his friends. And then went down to his new college to check out the place and other friends and seniors from his school who're already studying there.

He came back filled with anticipation. He had tried out for the football team and had been selected. Classes haven't started but football has!
Oh yes, and there are some college festivals he's been hearing all about and waiting to take part in...

Then, Mumbai was swamped under the swine flu epidemic and all schools and colleges have been shut till the 20th of August . Which means my son's Junior College has still not re-opened.
This time his reaction was "Oh no!" .
Actually it was more like "Oh s..t!" but I freely translated that in the interests of maintaining motherly dignity (don't know why I bother! )
Anyway, back to the son's reaction ... "When are they going to open my college anyway? Its almost the end of August! "

Hmmm .... looks like trouble in paradise. A severe case of discontent if nothing else. He's actually waiting for college to reopen now!
Maybe too much of ennui has got the better of him ?
Are too much of holidays just too much of a good thing?