Heat

I recently saw an ad where a kid buys Glucon D or something like that and then hits the sum for six. I really wish that I was that kid…

I know that I have no right to crib about the heat. After all there are so many worse things that can happen to you, (like being born and brought up in Chennai). But the weather is really destroying my vacation. I have a friend who has begun to carry 2 extra shirts with him when he goes out for a movie or dinner. I recently heard my sister decline a shopping trip because it was too hot. Speaking of shopping has anyone ever walked into these hep stores recently? I saw a section called spring-summer wear. And in the past I have seen fall and winter wear too. I did know that when people hallucinate they all see the same dream. Maybe it is just me but as far as I know Bombay has only two seasons summer and monsoon and in case you didn’t know, the only difference between the both is that one of them is hot and wet and the other one is hot and dry. Come to think of it people selling umbrellas must really be making a killing in this city…

Heat in the morning is understandable, heat in the afternoon is expected, heat in the evening is an unpleasant surprise but it is unfair that the nights too have become swelteringly hot. Playing football at 9 in the morning is almost impossible. I wonder how it must be for people who travel to work by train, imagine having a good bath only to enter your office drenched with sweat ( well that usually happens but now things must only be worse ). I have large windows at home and I still need to keep the fan on even at 10 o clock in the night. No one worries that their dinner is going cold. In May a heat wave that swept the nation killed over 106 people. That puts things into perspective.

But luckily for us there are few things which are still making life bearable. Bachelors (a restaurant) used to be one of them, but now looking at the prices on their menu card will kill you (if the heat doesn’t get you first). The max Orange stick I spoke about earlier is another one. But items covered in plastic wrapping are not always the solution; in fact in this case a trip to your Bhaji walla will actually be more fruitful than a trip to Prabhat Provisions.

Most fruits are a real blessing. Litchis are my favorite. At 30 bucks a dozen you make think that litchis are little too expensive, but believe me there are few things in life which taste better than cold Litchis. Mangoes and Watermelon is great too. My mom spoils me with Narayal Pani everyday as well; But eating a little cut fruits is always great. If you are as cheap as me then go to the nearest CCD with three friends, order a cookie and ask for three cold glasses of water. Then flick their ice in tissue papers (Warning: This may draw disgusted looks from people around you).Any good Punjabi restaurant will offer you the best Lassi.

Life indeed must go on regardless of the temperature. And if you are in Bombay life doesn’t just go on, someone is going to make some money out of the summer. And that is exactly what is happening, whether it is international brands selling “spring-summer “clothing or the guy at the signal selling you a hand fan. And I’m sure someone is accepting a lot of bribes in the MET office because my father just told me that it is an international law that if temperatures go above 50 degrees then a holiday must be declared.

Strike

When bus drivers go on strike you pay a little more money and take a rickshaw, when rickshaw –wallahs strike you pay a little more money and take a taxi but when motormen strike you( and a whole lot of other people ) are right royally screwed.

Over 800 motormen of the western and central railway went on strike for most of Monday and Tuesday and as expected their Bhook -hadtal did indeed cripple the city. Anyone who was affected by the strike seemed to be cursing ‘those bloody motormen’ who had caused all the havoc. Right from Raj Thackeray who characteristically said “The motormen should withdraw the strike till afternoon else my party would oppose the strike in their style” all the way till my posh friend who quipped – “I don’t give a damn about them, get the trains back”. It seemed that people didn’t really care about what the strike was all about in the first place. Ok maybe Raj Thackeray knew all about it but I’m quite sure that most commuters didn’t know exactly what was going on.

I know that the strike did indeed cause a lot of problems (It was front page news). I was myself stuck near Churchgate with no way to return until I caught a bus so crowded that I was literally suspended in mid-air by the people around me. And the weather was not really nice as well; there was enough sweat around me to gel someone’s hair. So evidently I too was quite angry with the striking motormen, but I decided to see what the whole thing was about anyway. And after browsing through many news websites I finally found an article which had a little paragraph which depicted the issue from the motormen’s point of view. Well it turns out that like most government employee strikes this one too was about wages. Like most other government workers motormen too were being paid too little. Even as the real-estate bubble broke and the world was in recession the heads of many investment banks continued to beef up rather than cut their salaries. No one said a word that time. These motormen on the other hand always do their work perfectly well and when they ask for a raise so that they can cope with rising prices many condemn the act. . Also their cause was not completely related to wages. I heard an interview with one of the striking motormen on the radio and in the interview he insisted that the strike was partly due to poor facilities for both workers and commuters. The motormen were worried about the safety of the local trains as well. Luckily enough RR Patil intervened and the strike was stopped but the opposition is always there to blame someone and this time it was Mamta Banerjee (who was in Kolkata making last moment preparations for municipal elections (where she has incidentally gotten into a row with the Congress)). And so the matter ended with the focus drifting away from workers issues to parliamentary politics the moment they called of the strike

As a kid most people love strikes and bandhs, the reason – you get a holiday. But as always growing up sucks and now when we think of strikes we curse our luck rather than celebrate. Not getting a train may create problems for us, but the hindrance lasts for a day or two. But in the case of the motormen, a low wage means problems all the time and so I think that their strike is indeed justified.