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.

Money Matters

Inflation is troubling me.

Not only is my life suddenly plagued by its multiple manifestations but, I have also somehow been coaxed into doing a math project on the topic. The BJP, the CPIM and various political parties in India are trying to gain a little attention by cribbing about it (Surprisingly this still does not give inflation any credentials) and it is receiving a hell lot of attention from the media as well (at least it was until Lalit Modi’s childhood caught our imagination), hence another article on the topic is not really welcome. But the topic I focus on today is not really inflation and its effects on the WPI but rather inflation and its effects on the goods we have purchasing since we got our 1^st weekly pocket money .

Inflation first came into my life when I was 9 years old. I used to study in Jasudben Manilal Lalubai Experimental High School and of the many facilities this wonderful institution offered (cement road for throw-ball, same cement road for volleyball, school bus etc...) one was the canteen. The canteen of JML (as it is popularly known (for obvious reasons)) is easily the most important building in the school and it was most famous for its Pav- Vada. When I was in the 4^th grade pav-vada cost Rs3.50p, in the 5^th prices rose till Rs 4 and by the 6^th prices was sky high at Rs4.50p. Now I left school in the 6^th but I’ve heard that the prices just kept going up. If this isn’t inflation then I don’t know what is. In this case the school clearly took advantage of the fact that they held a monopoly over a captive market filled with customers with pea sized brains and 10 bucks to spend. The same sly trick has been played on me by my Sev Puri Valla, my slightly upper class Pani Puri Valla and even the guy who sells Mangola ( MRP doesn’t stop him, he has increased the so called “Cooling” charges). As we grew older our purchasing power improved and for the 1^st time we knew what it was like to buy our own movie tickets. It was great in the beginning, Gaiety had 35 buck tickets and the intermission Samosa was 10 bucks. But now our beloved Gaiety is selling some of its tickets at hundred rupees. UTBT was always expensive but now they have marked up prices by 15% citing inflation in food prices as their alibi. Inflation indeed..

You could argue that if prices were not raised businesses wouldn’t be able to make profits , you could say that inflation in raw materials might force companies to raise their prices anyway – these would be perfectly reasonable arguments, IF not for the presence of the Max orange stick. Unlike almost any other product I have bought, the price of the Max orange stick ( now known as Paddle Pop ) has NEVER changed. I remember buying this ice-cream as a 7 year old kid for Rs 5. Almost 10 years down it still costs exactly the same. And it’s not as if the orange stick has not been affected by competition - Amul, cream-bell and some other companies have all tried to sell rip-offs but these duplicates met with no success. Not once has the price of the orange stick changed. And mind you it’s easily the best ice-cream in the world. It does not have milk or chocolate like most other ice-creams and contains nothing but water and some orange flavoring, but it tastes absolutely brilliant. But sadly this amazing ice-cream is becoming rare, the reason – inflation in pocket money. Children tend to believe that the more expensive the ice-cream, the better it tastes, hence ice-creams like feast and choco-bar are becoming really popular. This sadly means that the 5 Rupee Max ice-cream will eventually disappear from grocery stores…

Watching cricket

People might tell you that watching the match live, in the stadium is not the great experience it use to be. People will tell you that the DY Patil stadium is in the middle of nowhere and that tickets are too expensive. To a certain extent I agree with all these complaints, but I must tell you that even the horrible host is not bad enough from keeping me away from Navi Mumbai because once you are in the stadium (for the duration of 4 hours) you are completely safe from the onslaught of advertisements which are generously peppered with cricketers, film stars and cricketers girlfriends ( If they are not film stars). But not only do u delete the non-cricket parts of the match but also you escape the utterly commercialized and dehumanized part of the game as well and for once you can feel safe when you celebrate that amazing six without worrying whether someone is going to sue you for not calling it a DLF maximum.

Now I have been brought up listening to cricket on the radio (I studied in a boarding school) and am not new to the world of sponsoring but there something distinctly different about – “Yeh BSNL Chauka connecting India “and a Carbonn kamala catch, or a City moment of success or a DLF maximum or any of these other horrendously ostentatious name which have taken away the joy from a game which really is so amazing that it is quite hard to make boring. And to worsen things when the match does indeed get a little monotonous (for example when KKR is playing) we do have the MAXX mobile time-out to liven things up. I often wonder how a commentator like Ravi Shastri (who is indeed a little corny sometimes, I can never forget his Uthappa comment) who is normally so interesting can bring himself down to the level of reminding the audience every few minutes about that god-damn blimp and also the “Spirit of cricket” which as you will all know by now is a piece by one of the foremost contemporary artists in India ( sorry if I can’t remember his name, but I’m sure you do ). But of course im ranting now am I not – advertising must have it’s good side, take for example the United Nations Environmental Program Tip of the day – Dropping Catches Drops matches but Dropping Catches causes …… Pollution, really catchy don’t you think? (I salute you Mr. Shastri for saying this in front of TV with a stern face.)

Now of course I really do not need to say anything bad about the money, or the corruption or the fixing ( I have a source but you got to pay me 5000 a game) the media is you would expect having a field game but I would like to try offer my take on one misconception – the other day I heard a teenager argue that the IPL brings India fame, really that must be a good thing. Not to be outdone someone else added that it also creates world peace, after all when would you see Andrew Symonds actually being cheered on by an Indian crowd.