Camera

         The next time you are balancing on one foot and manually focusing on a flower in some random building and a kid walks up to you from behind, calls out ‘camera uncle camera uncle’, makes you loose your balance and your focus and then instead of apologizing, laughs at you and then requests you to take a photograph of him and his friend making cool salman khan poses, just take the photo.

          And oh ya, if you do not want to be mocked more make sure you undo all the amateur ISO and shutter speed adjustments before you click. Take the photograph, show it to the kids and make sure it is clear. And please for god’s sake do not try to reason that the photograph has more depth in black and white. Just shoot it in full auto. Then stop waiting for a ‘thanks’ and quietly walk away and enjoy the immense satisfaction you get from hearing the kids bragging to all his friends that ‘camera uncle’ took a photo of them…

the kids in question

         Over the last few weeks I have been roaming around with my dad’s camera and trying to figure out what each button on the Canon EOS 400D does. Now trying to take photos teaches you a lot, but most of the stuff it teaches you isn’t about photography. For a start you begin to see how other people perceive you. A camera to me maybe a device to take photographs, but to someone looking at me, it is merely an ‘accessory’ I are wearing. Let me explain. I was at ‘Gokul’ a bar in Cloaba and a drunk man on a table nearby called me a ‘foreign return’ (that is an abuse incase you had not figured already) cause I was carrying my friends camera. And the other day I was offered cocaine on causeway by some sidey dealer who thought I was a druggie because I was trying to take a shot of a taxi through a cluster of flowers (really, is that so weird?). But things aren’t always so bad. I was allowed to walk into the Taj and use the toilet purely because I looked like a tourist with my camera.

         I learnt a bit about other people as well. Never take a photograph of a rich person regardless of how beautiful his/her house is. They are all adamant and haughty people who think that you are out to make money by taking photographs of them. As a rule, the less well of a person is, the more willing he/she is to pose for or appear in your shot. They are also generally more amiable and friendly. I started this piece by taking about children and how they love to appear in a photograph. It is sometimes irritating to be constantly troubled, but like I said before something as simple as a photograph can make a person really happy. I noticed a few quirky things as well. For example if you walk into a really crowded place and point your lens in some random direction at least 50% of the people around you will look in that direction. And random people smile at you when they see you sitting on the footpath and trying to take a photo of a flower on the road (someone will inevitably step on the flower and disfigure and discolour it though, so don’t get to happy). You begin to notice things around you much more keenly. I have lived at C2 Jolly Highrise Apartments Pali Mala Road for the past nine years of my life but in the past one month I have discovered two abandoned ‘bhoot’ bungalows merely 50 meters from my house, one mini-community which is really well hidden, have finely begun to appreciate the lighting on Pali Hill and for the first time in my life have begun to notice flowers everywhere (to my fathers great surprise).

another photogenic kid

         Today I find myself spending more and more time on National Geographic website and I only now discovering how so many of my friends are extremely talented with a camera. I hope that photography doesn’t turn out to be just another temporary hobby for me. But even if it does the last month has been a really good fun.

Lyrics

Whenever I go to a new city I look to explore a few things. I have an obsession with public transport, (while in holiday in London I used to give travelers directions in metro stations), I always notice the street –name boards, (my favorite are the big yellow ones in south-India), local cricket stadiums etc… Another thing I inevitably check is the quality of local radio stations. I was in Chennai recently and hence decided to go through my city checklist. I was born in Chennai so I know the city decently well. The radio stations were the only things I was too young to remember. So while in my friend’s car I decided to check them out.

I hate Bollywood music but that is unfortunately the ‘genre’ that dominates our countries’ airwaves. Blame in on my ignorance if you like, but I hardly expected Chennai to have anything different (a little Tamil music as well of course).

So it was a pleasant surprise when I tapped onto 104.8 Chennai Live and was greeted with thunderous riff of ‘Another Brick in the wall’. The 30 minutes of FM I listened to that afternoon was far better than anything I had heard on any Indian radio station before. As we drove past Marina beach I had the pleasure of hearing along with Pink Floyd, Audioslave, Pearl jam and the new Foo Fighters album. Also interspaced were less memorable performances by many pop and hip-hop artists whose names sound like a large alphabet soup attached to adjectives. And this stark contrast is what I focus on today.

Call me biased, but I think a large portion of ‘popular’ and ‘hip-hop’ music today is absolute rubbish. Our current ‘artists’ have realized that any song that involves auto-tuning, David Guetta and lyrics about sex, money, and sex for money is going to be a huge hit. A large part of my day is spent either listening to music or trying to play music. Yet I have no qualifications to make any comment on the quality of any song’s music, so I decided to concentrate on lyrics instead, an area that is more easily accessible to all of us.

So, back to my car journey. One of the songs I heard that day was ‘Do the Evolution’ by Pearl Jam. When I first heard this song as a kid I absolutely loved it even though I could not understand a word of what Eddie Vedder sang, but now I understand the lyrics and the song is so much more amazing. Unfortunately I also heard a track called ‘TIK-TOK’ by a certain Sean Paul and Bob Sinclair (rappers make it a point to announce their presence ‘in the house’ at the start of each of their songs, it allows the listener to distinguish between their identical styles, satisfies their egos and also conveniently adds to thirty seconds to their song). What I am going to do today is put forth the lyrics of both these songs and briefly analyze their lyrical quality and the topics they explore.

So first DO THE EVOLUTION

Woo..
I'm ahead, I'm a man
I'm the first mammal to wear pants, yeah
I'm at peace with my lust
I can kill 'cause in God I trust, yeah
It's evolution, baby

I'm at piece, I'm the man
Buying stocks on the day of the crash
On the loose, I'm a truck
All the rolling hills, I'll flatten 'em out, yeah
It's herd behavior, uh huh
It's evolution, baby

Admire me, admire my home
Admire my son, he's my clone
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
This land is mine, this land is free
I'll do what I want but irresponsibly
It's evolution, baby

I'm a thief, I'm a liar
There's my church, I sing in the choir:
(hallelujah, hallelujah)

Admire me, admire my home
Admire my son, admire my clones
'Cause we know, appetite for a nightly feast
Those ignorant Indians got nothin' on me
Nothin', why?
Because... it's evolution, baby!

I am ahead, I am advanced
I am the first mammal to make plans, yeah
I crawled the earth, but now I'm higher
2010, watch it go to fire
It's evolution, baby
Do the evolution

There is not much left to say, but I will try to be as un-biased as possible. Vedder talks about the human psyche and how we place ourselves on a pedestal. He is critical of the relentless expansion of human habitation and also exposes the ruthless and careless attitude with which we exploit our planet and the poor. The satirical nature of the lyrics makes it a pleasure to read. The song is also memorable for the brief choir singing in the middle. The refrain ‘Admire me…’ is quite haunting and goes really well with the riff Vedder sings over.

Next TIK TOK

Bless up and there aint no stressing! You heard it clear! Sean Paul longside Bob Sinclair! Buaaaa Yow Tik Tok Tik Tok Yow Tik Tok Tik Tok Yow Tik Tok Tik Tok Yow Gal if you give me the sexiest wine Gal_ if you move your body pon time Gal if you give me the sexiest wine Tik Tok Tik Tok The sexiest wine X2

Yow,Its a Friday a yuh birthday
Girl,wild out_ cause dis a not your work day
You a hype one,gal,you a right one
gal just keep on swing it all night long
Just free it up gal..???...

Chemistry,from groove to the vybe and Roll_ to the fiction,roll to the gwat,to the pear ready-ready Thats alright,man Hey girl,ill be your hype man Hey girl,you a me like and You a me type and you a me right and Never leave by my side,gal you tight and Gal you neat and you fit And i wanna take you back home for the weekend Fit,till you fit..brown skin Girl gimme that brown thing

Chorus :
Gal if you give me the sexiest wine
Gal if you move your body pon_ time
Gal if you give me the sexiest wine
Tik Tok Tik Tok The sexiest wine
X2

Girl,if_ you ready fi have a good time Gal,if you give me the sexiest wine When me a spit pon di track Gal bounce it like that,cause di bluffing every rhyme So me tell her she's fine And me want me and her to combine Give her the time,combine it.. Livin on Cloud NINE ::To-deh To-deh:: Bear shot... ::To-deh To-deh:: Bear shot... Speezy the girl over-eazy You eva gwan keep it LIVE None one them can flop me show,stop me do...

[Chorus]:
Gal if you move your body pon time
Gal if you give me the sexiest wine
Tik Tok Tik Tok The sexiest wine X2
Yow,Oh Oh Oh Oh OO FYAH Oh Oh Oh_ Oh OO FYAH Oh Oh Oh Oh OO FYAH Oh Oh Oh Oh OO FYAH

Outro:
YowTik Tok Tik Tok Yow Tik Tok Tik Tok Yow Tik Tok Tik Tok
Sean Da Paul Bob Sinclair
Du-Dutty yeah Buaaa

I shall begin with the positives. For a start TIK TOK’s lyrics merit mention due to their sheer complexity. I have just read the lyrics three times and am still quite lost.

As far as I can tell the song is set in a club on a Friday (it is not a work day as the lyricist clearly states) and is about a girl at a club who the singer finds attractive (she is ‘neat and fit’). The singer then goes on to describe how he and the girl make a good match (they have a ‘chemistry’, they are ‘tight’). Not surprisingly the singer then asks the girl to do a few things for him like ‘bounce that stuff’. He reveals his feeling to the girl by telling her that he wants to see her ‘brown skin’ and spend the weekend with her. My sincere apologies to anybody reading this blog but despite my best effort I cannot for the life of me understand the words of the chorus of this song - ‘body pon time’, ‘sexiest wine’ et al. If anybody makes this linguistic breakthrough please let me know, I am very curius. Well the song is pretty much like every other rap song and I suppose the video has a lot of extremely attractive girls who are dancing for Sean and Bob (quite tame names don’t you think? No adjectives like ‘Li’l’ or letters like ‘T’). Another interesting thing about the song is the amount of words it contains that spell-check does not recognize. I am inclined to believe that ‘Yow’, ‘Do-dutty’ and ‘Buaa’ do indeed have a meaning that is not limited to toddler-talk, unfortunately I have not yet discovered their linguistic depth. I also have no idea what TIK TOK has to do with anything, well is suppose it adds energy to the ‘rhyme’. So before displaying any more ignorance is shall end here. On a parting note though I would like to point out the absence of the word ‘shawdy’ in this song. Now that is indeed a surprise.

So I have evaluated the lyrics of both these songs. I do not intend to impose my opinion on anyone, but I doubt that my opinion (at least in this case) requires any imposing. But if any reader does indeed voice his/her disagreement it will be a cause of happiness for me. Sean Paul would have become the first celebrity to read my blog.

Rowdy

‘Sabse Bada Hindustan’

‘Bhosad me Gaya Pakistan’

As I sat in my friends car at approximately 2:30 in the night in the middle of nowhere in Mahim these were the words that I heard enthusiastically chanted out by the testosterone-pumped youth of my city who were parading the streets waving the flags of India (and not so surprisingly) that of the MNS.

So what was the occasion?

Well such completely uncultured sentiment and obscene language cannot be justified by any occurrence but sensing the strong anti-neighbor sentiment you would expect something extremely violent and momentous to have occurred. We won a war? The Pakistani government unjustly killed Indian fishermen? POK problems? Ok its Mumbai, small things flare up and communal undertones are omnipresent. So lets say a riot? Maybe even a fight in a volatile area that got out of control? It is hard to control the crowd’s emotions and communal feelings are always lurking near the surface. The smallest trouble and someone is bound to bring up the Pakistanis. But there was not trouble on April 2^nd 2010.

For on that particular night Mahim was not erupting in anger, rather it was outpouring with joy. The momentous event that had driven us so mad was a sporting victory. And it wasn’t just any sporting victory.

India had won the cricket world cup after 28 years, an event that could revive the stock market and even reduce pressure on our faltering government (not to mention provide my family with cheery and conveniently un-awkward dinner conversation for the next 2 weeks). So the abuse was not justified after all. The match wasn’t even against Pakistan. Now even the fiercest of sports fans amongst us cannot argue that insulting Pakistan when we had defeated (sorry calmly, convincingly taken care of) Sri Lanka is not really called for. ‘So why the angry chanting?’ you wonder. Mob mentality. Partially true, but before we get right into the issue lets explore the whole situation a little.

Any public gathering in India either involves dancing or shouting (usually adorned with a little eating in the middle). So my advise to any budding entrepreneurs out there – start a liquor store, fuel our country’s vocal chords and enable them to enjoy in a manner which seems decent only when one is intoxicated. With Daaru profit is guaranteed (and if you are having problems getting a permit call me, I know this junior minister…). Another national pastime of our country is being unruly. We love to be rowdy. I have often behaved in this way and whenever I look back at my foolish actions in hindsight I feel a very painful shame. And this shame is exactly what most of Mahim should be feeling right now. Indians are often racially targeted abroad because we are perceived to be boisterous and unruly. I hate people who take indulge in such racism, but we cannot deny that we are often over-the-top.

You may argue that we like to have fun, to ‘enjoy’ ourselves. I think this ‘enjoy’ is a very misunderstood word. You can enjoy a cricket match by admiring the maturity with which Gambhir and Dhoni batted and being elated by the fact that the best fast bowler at the world cup is actually Indian (let me remind you, Saurav Ganguly has opened the bowling for us in a test match and VRV Singh was once a regular on our squad so seeing Zaheer get wickets against the top batsmen in the world is a very heart-warming sight). Or you can enjoy cricket by loudly beating Dhols, screaming for sixes when caution is required and dancing a lot. Before you think I am pseudo-firang let me inform you that I have enjoyed cricket in both these ways and have come to see the merits of both. I have danced with my boarding school Dhobi when James Hopes lost his nerve and India won its first ODI series in Australia. I have (unfortunately) screamed when Sreesanth dismissed Gilchrist in the T20 world cup, I was intently following the hindi commentary on the radio when Bhajji got that final wicket and we defeated South Africa in the 2^nd last over of a test match. (I was with a Hindi teacher so the ensuing celebration was inevitable).

I have gotten into enough trouble for being boisterous, being unruly, being loud and generally being a nuisance. So it’s fair to say that I know what am I talking about. I understand the urge to have fun, but what we often construe to be ‘enjoyable’ is often at someone else’s expense. I feel very ashamed and embarrassed when my behavior has caused others discomfort and always think that I have become a ‘rowdy’. That’s a little how I felt on the night that we won the world cup.

So lets get back to Mumbai. How did the transition from ‘Jeeteyga bhai Jeeytega’ to ‘ Bhosadi mein gaya Pakistan’ occur? Well it must have been something like this. We won so understandably 95% of India (including me) was jumping around in pure happiness and disbelief. ‘Go India’ would have quickly given way to Hindustan ki jai. Let me make a quick diversion here to point out that India always becomes Hindustan when we are playing ‘shout-shout’. I don’t think it is a coincidence. Ever been to the Wagah border? The marching is amazing, but seen that DJ/host/sentiment-promoter there. He plays ‘India is better than you’ songs (not best, better than you), praises Hindustan a billion times and even slyly promotes the crowd to boo Pakistan. Do we really need we enjoy like that? I am patriotic, but isn’t that jingoistic? The same logic applies here. ‘Jai Sachin’ would have become ‘Jai maratha’ and soon the streets were covered with cars waving not just the Tricolor, but also orange flags.

I do not write this piece to tell people to stop enjoying or supporting India. I love my country and have spent a large percentage of my schooldays watching or listening to our team play. But I think it’s time we realize that we need to mature a bit. We usually mean no harm, but a few anti-social elements tend to get the better of us and make us look foolish and rowdy. Indian crowds used to appreciate a good shot from the opposition; that is another trait that seems to be disappearing. When Australia (I mean Steve Bucknor) defeated us in the infamous Sydney test the world (including ex-players) shunned them for their unruly behaviour. We don’t want our country’s sports-fans to be given the same label. I would have liked to make a much larger point regarding herd mentality and our drop-of-the-hat communal tendencies but I was not comfortable enough writing about such an intense topic. Yet it is important for use to see how this mentality is manifesting itself.

So lets stick to ‘Jeetega bhai Jeetega’ and chuck all the ‘Sabse aagey hoonge Hindustani’ nonsense. After all we are the number one team and there is no need to feel insecure about it.

Name changed for privacy ( a long senti application essay)

It is not a pleasant experience to have a chain-smoker as your room-mate when you are still in the 10th grade. Not only does the passive smoking affect you physically, the thought that one of your friends is ruining his life tends to stay on your mind for a longer period than trivial matters such as final exams. I always thought that the most dangerous things that could happen in my room would be a fiercely contested inter-room football game or a slightly over-the-top head banging session. Unfortunately all my idyllic misconceptions of life in the 10th grade were overturned when I realized how easy it was for a student in India to purchase and consume contraband without getting caught. Rahul has always been a good friend of mine. He was a little ‘different’ as a kid (he spent hours working on imaginary science experiments and Imagined that he was Spiderman) but everyone always got along with him. I became really close to him by the 9th grade and we began spending a lot of time together, both in school and during the vacations. It was during one such meeting in the10th grade that I noticed a lighter in his pocket. Now when your 15 years old many of the people around you tend to ‘experiment’ with cigarettes, so I was not overly worried about the lighter. Yet I did not want Rahul to do anything stupid, so I asked him how long he had been smoking for. He told me that he rarely smoked and just tried it once for the ‘experience’, so I dropped the issue.

But 2 months later things took a turn for the worse. One lazy Sunday
afternoon at school (we studied in a boarding school), Rahul casually asked me whether I wanted to accompany him for a ‘smoke’. At first I thought he was joking, but when he showed me the Marlboro packet I realized that Rahul had joined a long list of students who smuggled contraband into boarding school (Dead Poets Society illustrates this clearly). I politely declined and also shouted at him angrily for 5 minutes (for added effect). He said that it was nothing serious and tried to convince me that it was a ‘one-off’ thing. But I was didn’t believe him and shared my worry with two other close friends. Nothing happened for another week but one night I woke up to find Rahul missing. I was immediately suspicious, I searched around but he was nowhere in the hostel. I stayed up expecting him to appear from somewhere and sure enough 15 minutes later he climbed in through the window that now curiously had a few missing rods.. He smelled like a chimney and I realized that the Marlboro was certainly not a ‘one-off’ thing...

Rahul was quite shocked to see me but to my surprise he didn’t even bother to explain himself. He told me that smoking cigarettes weren’t as bad as I thought and told me to stop worrying. And so things continued. Soon I began to find empty cigarette packets in old suitcases, in dustbins and once even near my bed. Things were slowly getting out of control. It was soon common knowledge at the hostel that Rahul was smoking and in a short period of time his physical status had changed from ‘experimenting’ to ‘chain smoker’. What worried me further was the fact that he was getting a regular supply of cigarettes, something a little shocking since our boarding school was located on a remote hill in rural Maharashtra. I often tried confronting Rahul and getting him to stop, but he just wouldn’t listen. His smoking seemed to isolate him from the rest of us; by the time our study holidays arrived he was almost always alone in some remote part of our campus. During the vacations things only got worse.



I realized that I needed to take action. I first thought of complaining to a teacher. But that is where my real ethical dilemma kicked in. The school had strict laws against smoking. If I reported Rahul’s actions to the teachers he would probably be thrown out of school. Rahul was going through a rough patch in life, his parents had divorced 2 years ago and he was settling into his new life. In addition, he was hardly a bad person and he always did his best to not promote smoking amongst the other school children. I really didn’t believe that he deserved to be rusticated. Yet on one hand the only way I could stop him from destroying his life was by reporting him to teachers, but by reporting him to teachers I ...would only be hastening up the destruction process. I did not want to break Rahul’s trust; I did not want to hide the truth from my teachers, but most of all I did not want to spoil Rahul’s life.

So I had to find another solution. I decided to take matters into my own
hands. I thought I would try and stop his supply. But try as I might I could not figure out where he got his cigarettes from. I decided to do the next best thing, take his cigarettes away from him. Now the very thought of stealing completely disgusts me. In addition, I would be stealing from a friend and a confidant, a double breach of trust. I was torn apart and began spending a lot of time thinking over the matter. Should I break my moral values for a higher cause? Also, if Rahul realized that I was stealing his cigarettes he would be upset. I was one of the few people he confided in and it would be horrible for me to break his trust. Rahul was going through a lot of troubles, in his family life, in his love-life and from an academic perspective. He thought that smoking helped calm him and try as I might I couldn’t convince show him that smoking only worsened things. I feared that by preventing from smoking I would create an emotional backlash, the last thing he needed with his final exams mere months away. But try as I might I could not see any other problem to the solution. So another friend and I started to steal Rahul’s cigarettes. It is a horrible experience rummaging through a friends locker while he was not around, but I knew what I had to do. We decided to leave him a few ‘smokes’ so that he could ‘calm his nerves’, but made sure that we ‘confiscated’ a large majority of the cigarettes. When Rahul realized that his cigarettes were missing he started to worry a lot, he thought that junior students were taking them to smoke, he began to worry that teachers had come to know what he was doing. But not for a moment did he suspect me, and for some reason this made me feel even more guilty.

But things got worse. I too was having a fair share of my own problems, and the increasing amounts of cigarettes in my locker, really dark thoughts started forming in my head. “One cigarette can’t do any harm…”, “Maybe I can concentrate better…”But before I could do anything stupid I made sure that my fiend disposed off all the contraband. Meanwhile Rahul was beginning to get really flustered about his disappearing stash. This really worried us; we began to feel guilty about his problems. But before we got any second thoughts, something happened which changed the whole scenario.

It is not a smart idea to smoke in your own room, especially when your ‘house-parent’ is in the hostel. Unfortunately Rahul learned this simple lesson the hard way. He was caught smoking by a teacher. Things happened very fast and the fear of a friend’s rustication really hit us hard. But that is when the school did something strange. They did not expel Rahul. In fact they did not take any strict action. All they did was suspend him from the hostel. He spent the last 2 months of school with his grandmother. This effectively stopped all his illegal activities for a while and in hindsight the school really saved Rahul. If they had expelled him he would have probably returned to his broken city life devoid of any hope or ambition. It scares me to think what he would have become. But those two months with his grandmother, brought him back from the edge.

Rahul eventually did well in his exams and studies in a good college and
lives with his father. This is not a happy ending though. Unfortunately

Rahul has returned to smoking, but he has developed self-control.

We are very good friends, and I recently told him about the fact that I stole from him. After a brief minute of abuse he forgave and even thanked me for my actions. I never expected to face such a tough ethical dilemma at such a young age, but that experience has really taught me a lot about life.

Physical Education

I have a shared a very special relationship with Pyhs.Ed teachers throughout my life. In all the schools that I have studied so far the teachers that teach P.E. has always been the most colourful person on campus. Now in India, most schools generally relegated the concept of sports to a second spot behind academics (except for some boarding schools, 2 of which I have had the privilege of studying in where they are given their due). Take for example my 1^st school, Jasudben Manilal Lalubai experimental high school – our revered sports facilities consisted of a cemented area which is used for throw ball, volleyball , marching and of course as the principals car park. Yet our teacher Balram ‘ Ballu’ sir made sure we did enough work by implementing innovative ideas such as making us do sit ups at our desks , walk on stilts on the roof and do Yoga in the corridors. Now I was too spherical to be of any use to any sports team or of any interest to a coach, but Ballu sir made sure I did all my exercises and running properly. I must say that without his classes I would have managed to run down the steps to the canteen as fast as I did.

In my 7^th, I left JML (as it is heply called) for greener pastures in the form of Sahyadri School. Unfortunately the Elysian lawns I pictured materialised in the form of the arid and extremely rocky patch of near Martian land called the Sahyadri football field. But Gopal Sir and Sangeetha Akka in contrast were very qualified teachers. I attended games and PT regularly and though I was never really good at anything physical I enjoyed play more than anything else. I managed to become a fringe footballer and a decent hockey player as well. Enough of me though. Gopal Sir was an extremely nice person, but unfortunately had the amazing ability of taking a short anecdote and converting it into a Tolstoyly long and incredibly boring epic with several moral derivations. But nevertheless he was loved by everyone and was greatly admired for his skill on the basketball court, ability to catch snakes and the fact that he headed the grand ‘Adventure Club’. Sangeetha Akka was partial to our class guys and hence we could have no problems with her.

I joined Rishi Valley in my 11^th grade and was immediately awestruck by the amazing levels of sport there. Now of course each sport is coached by a different teacher, but the undisputed king of all physical activities is the evergreen ChenaBalaKrishna Reddy Sir. Now Reddy Sir has been taking students for PT jogs for the past 20 years and yet at his age he shows no signs of exhaustion. He is always the 1^st person on the field in the morning and i doubt anyone can forget his interpretation of what a wakeup whistle sounds like. His versatility enables him to referee all sports and he has the unique gift of being able to make decisions on offside’s when he is 50m away from the location of play ( I suppose the intensity of the appeal is a good enough parameter for him ). He is never partial to anyone and is probably the only teacher who knows every students name. And like any true sportsman he begins every match with a stern warning – “No swearing, no fighting”. But for all his affability he is a taskmaster and can often be heard chiding students with his set of self-developed insults that include – “Pass the ball Brainy!!”, “Those shorts are only for the girls in the fashion” and “Don’t trap with your 3^rd leg!!”

I’m quite sure that I will eventually become a couch potato but I will never forget the life lessons taught to me by my sports teachers. After all as Archer said “You can’t hide your true self on a sports field”.

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.