Aaj ki shaam

-
Western railways staff went on a flash strike this evening. Only if you live in Mumbai and travel within Mumbai can one understand the impact of this. Railways are Mumbai's lifeline. People use the local train transport all the time. The motormen and more went on a strike in the evening just when the office goers want to travel back home. The city came to a stand still. The buses were jam packed andso were the roads. the cabbies had started playing truant. In between all this I had gone to my saree blouse tailor at Tardeo. On the way back, I wanted to pick up Caramel custard for the family from Cafe Noorani. I walked two km to Noorani and ate the fresh caramel custard and packed a few. Did not get a cab and kept walking , blissfully unaware of the strike. Crossed a couple of Parsee colonies, Sardar Pav Bhaji shop, Haji Ali, Mahalaxmi race course, Wellington golf course. I felt as if I was getting reacquainted with Mumbai. Cabs not coming and me walking were in sync till I reached Mahalaxmi station. People were all over the roads and cops were managing them and traffic. A friend called to inform me about the strike at the same time. Have seen a lot of crowd at Lilavati hospital this week,with my father in law admitted there.Shiv Sena head honcho Uddhav Thackeray checking in and first Super Star of Indian film industry Rajesh Khanna checking out.

People were looking for cabs and all were full. Not a single car or private taxi stopped to offer a lift to even one person walking on the road. I dont know what I would have done if I was in a car and there were people walking all around. Saw a pretty girl with her fancy purple luggage, trying to hail a cab to the airport. I told her about the strike and she was caught unawares like our entire city. The cabbies started fleecing but who cared! All those who had money got into any cab that was willing to stop. Lower Parel which is the new business hub of Mumbai was swarming with people. I felt bad for all who lived far and had kids waiting for them at home. I got a front seat in a cab and there were four boys behind. One of them got in and started telling the cab driver about his fleecing customers at such times. He also said he should call the RTO office. I told the cab driver he will not be able to save this extra money he has charget. He said he knew that this money will go. We all chatted amiably. One of the men had been to the main railway office where this meeting was going on to get some signatures. The strike was a result of the breakdown of talks. We talked about Ramadaan. The driver said it was Sehri night. The man behind mentioned the Maruti plant tragedy at Manesar. He felt they should not have burnt the HR manager alive but the CEO. I asked him what would that achieve? He said in typical Bambaiyya Hindi"Charbi toh kam hoyega"I felt a chill run through my veins. This is how the common man feels about salary increments and Human resources issues. Dadar was a sad sight. All those who could not afford cabs and had trains as the only means of travel were waiting on the railway bridges for the strike to get over.

The driver who was obviously cheating did not even want to stop atthe place where I requested him to. It was on the road on which he was driving but the arrogance was taking over his service. I was just glad that after a seven km walk I had got a cab for the next five or six kilometers. I came home happy and kicked with myself. The icing on the cake was that the elevator was under maintenance. Waited for the children to return from school. we all walked up eleven floors together. Seeing kids return happy joyous, their dirty faces with shining smiles can make one energized enough to climb eleven floors after a rather long walk.


Comments

  1. Anand, the LeoJuly 23, 2012 at 7:59 PM

    You know how to capture the scene through your words. Amazing clarity! I am envious, truly!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Parul KanseJuly 26, 2012 at 12:00 PM

    Thank you, Andy. :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nange Paon in Navratri

-
When I was working and staying in the hostel, I kind of stopped believing in most festivals and rituals. I thought all this was some weird things which people did, it had no scientific base and why should I follow anyone. In the college hostel, vacations were time to go home and not connected with any festival except Diwali. Sophia College hostel was a cocoon in the heart of South Mumbai. The campus with an old palace building was a quiet oasis with trees and birds, in the mayhem of Mumbai. No festival touched it unless the college celebrated it. The Polytechnic had rock shows and one Dandiya night every year, which it soon stopped having by 1988. Only celebration was the Vegetable Biryani in lunch on Sundays. The Polytechnic hostel did not even believe in pampering the children with food. Memories of bread being there round the clock for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. For them, while the non vegetarians ate eggs for breakfast, the vegetarian had bread. And then when non vegetaria...
Read more

Shraddh period in Hinduism

-
According to the Hindu calendar, this is the shraddh period going on.  For fifteen days in a year, the ancestors are remembered and prayed to. No auspicious events / ceremonies take place in this time. People use the tithi/date of death to invite a Pandit and feed the departed soul. It means you remember the person passed away, give food to the Pandit and the crows. People keep a cooked meal on the terrace. They try to make the favourite food of the departed person. My memories are of my Grandma mixing and crushing all the savouries with her hands and when it was in form of  a paste, my Uncle would go to the terrace and throw the food for the crows. Crows in Hinduism are considered messengers of the departed souls. A lot of people feed Gathiyas to the crows for the full year. If your ancestors are happy, then your life goes well ,is the general belief amongst Hindus. The shraddh period falls exactly between Ganpati and Navratri. One does not buy a house or have...
Read more

Antakshari

-
Today we were playing antakshari at the Holi get together. We did not know any new songs so naturally only the golden melodies were being sung. The whole generation playing antakshari was singing the similar era songs on the alphabets they got. I realised a couple of things. In English language there is no game like Antakshari. How many sentences end with I or The? How can you sing when most songs start with I, The, Once, When and How?I cannot resist explaining the game, we all grow up with, in India. Antakshari means Ant : end , Akshar: alphabet ie last letter of the word. Akshar also means God. It also means God has the last word. Its a game with two teams and we call the teams as  'party'.  We say "Baithey baithey kya karein, karna hai kuchh kaam, shuru karo antakshari , le ka Hari ka naam." Translated from Hindi, We are sitting idle, lets do some work, lets start antakshari, starting with God's name. In Indian games, there is a lot of religion or belief in Go...
Read more