Gated Communities
It is all a number game. A Mother wants the child to get good marks. A Company wants to make good sales. Someone wants more customers. Someone wants more mileage. Someone wants more Likes. Someone wants more TRPs. Someone is looking for more Sales. Someone looking at cutting costs. Someone looking to serve more people. Basically, all of us want more money, more visibility and more fame. The order in which we want these things is not sacrosanct. The selfishness is fine if it serves a higher good. Jharia households, there was no gossip unless someone eloped or died. There were no divorces and no extra marital affairs. If there were, then I was not aware. I did hear a few or lot of murmurs after I came to Mumbai. May be I was shielded from things happening around me or may be they did not happen.
The mind has a way of convincing us that those things happened. The intensity instead of dimming has increased over time. Or should I say during Lockdown time. Going out of station was going to Andal, Ranchi, Durgapur or Asansol or Chaas. I would be so happy if I got to travel to any of these places with my Dad or GrandMa. Andal was my Chachi s Maayka and had a special charm for me. The train reached Andal early in the morning at 8.30 am types. We used to take a rickshaw and go to my Aunt's Mother's house. The ground floor had a cow shed where I think two cows lived. I was so happy to see them. The narrow lane had a lot of Sardars and Punjabis living along with this one Gujarati family. All were one or two storied houses with Balconies facing into the lane. People could talk to each other from across the lane. Once in a while a Rickshaw would pass. Outside the lane, was a busy market place. The other Gujarati families lived in "O Paar". In Gujarati, O Paar means on the other side of the river. In this case, it was on the other side of the railway line. There was an Aangan where there were lot of Gujarati households like a gated community. We never used such harsh words like a gated community. I heard of it from friends who lived in Jeddah or Kuwait where their parents worked and they lived in a Gated community. I just knew of "Gates of Heaven" from my Moral Science class in the convent. The others who had a big gate in their house was my Dadi s Maayka in Dhobatand. Other than that I had never heard the word 'gated'. I had seen the prison gate in a lot of Hindi movies. The horror films have a gate or a door which screeches every time it opes or shuts. It is like the hinges have not been oiled.
Now Mumbai has a lot of Gated building complexes. The Builders proudly announce that it is a gated community. Basically it means, they have taken over the Chawls and built a fancy building for the rich. The Chawl people are given a crummy flat under the Slum Rehabilitation Authority scheme. All the Open space for the Chawl people is taken over by the builder. The Builder makes a huge open space above the Parking lot for the rich people s building. The idea is that the new residents should walk a few feet above ground. High walls and huge security is placed around the new building. The slum dwellers or the Chawl residents, do not stand a chance of even peeping into the world of the rich and the famous. This kind of divide is created in the society and people lap it up happily. The people living in these fancy buildings are totally disconnected with the Bombay or the Mumbai vibe. They live in their own cocoon happily. There is no desire to connect. They pay the money when charity needs to be done. They of course do not speak the local language. They are clear that all their staff needs to know basic English with a smattering of Hindi. Mother tongues are a strict No No. Please bear with me as I am generalising a lot here. Gated communities have their own paraphernalia which pleases them and the people who live there. Some of these do celebrate all festivals but no so much in South Mumbai or even Bandra . People living in Gated Communities have been practising living in a Lockdown from long. This Lockdown is just fine as the net practice has been done before. To me, Gated sounds like barricaded. I am barricaded in my own thoughts and judgements. My mind is my very own gated community.
The mind has a way of convincing us that those things happened. The intensity instead of dimming has increased over time. Or should I say during Lockdown time. Going out of station was going to Andal, Ranchi, Durgapur or Asansol or Chaas. I would be so happy if I got to travel to any of these places with my Dad or GrandMa. Andal was my Chachi s Maayka and had a special charm for me. The train reached Andal early in the morning at 8.30 am types. We used to take a rickshaw and go to my Aunt's Mother's house. The ground floor had a cow shed where I think two cows lived. I was so happy to see them. The narrow lane had a lot of Sardars and Punjabis living along with this one Gujarati family. All were one or two storied houses with Balconies facing into the lane. People could talk to each other from across the lane. Once in a while a Rickshaw would pass. Outside the lane, was a busy market place. The other Gujarati families lived in "O Paar". In Gujarati, O Paar means on the other side of the river. In this case, it was on the other side of the railway line. There was an Aangan where there were lot of Gujarati households like a gated community. We never used such harsh words like a gated community. I heard of it from friends who lived in Jeddah or Kuwait where their parents worked and they lived in a Gated community. I just knew of "Gates of Heaven" from my Moral Science class in the convent. The others who had a big gate in their house was my Dadi s Maayka in Dhobatand. Other than that I had never heard the word 'gated'. I had seen the prison gate in a lot of Hindi movies. The horror films have a gate or a door which screeches every time it opes or shuts. It is like the hinges have not been oiled.
Now Mumbai has a lot of Gated building complexes. The Builders proudly announce that it is a gated community. Basically it means, they have taken over the Chawls and built a fancy building for the rich. The Chawl people are given a crummy flat under the Slum Rehabilitation Authority scheme. All the Open space for the Chawl people is taken over by the builder. The Builder makes a huge open space above the Parking lot for the rich people s building. The idea is that the new residents should walk a few feet above ground. High walls and huge security is placed around the new building. The slum dwellers or the Chawl residents, do not stand a chance of even peeping into the world of the rich and the famous. This kind of divide is created in the society and people lap it up happily. The people living in these fancy buildings are totally disconnected with the Bombay or the Mumbai vibe. They live in their own cocoon happily. There is no desire to connect. They pay the money when charity needs to be done. They of course do not speak the local language. They are clear that all their staff needs to know basic English with a smattering of Hindi. Mother tongues are a strict No No. Please bear with me as I am generalising a lot here. Gated communities have their own paraphernalia which pleases them and the people who live there. Some of these do celebrate all festivals but no so much in South Mumbai or even Bandra . People living in Gated Communities have been practising living in a Lockdown from long. This Lockdown is just fine as the net practice has been done before. To me, Gated sounds like barricaded. I am barricaded in my own thoughts and judgements. My mind is my very own gated community.
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