Platform surfing- circa 1986

 Platform surfing- circa 1986

If you are a Mumbaikar- chances are you have traveled by local train- western or central- don’t matter.
You have heard about train surfing where people are traveling on top of the train and precariously balancing so not to get electrocuted.
I am going to talk about platform surfing.....wonder what that could be? I shall explain..
Most hotel/restaurant workers toil 6 days a week, sometimes 7 if there is a need. Typical routine for a suburban resident working in Churchgate area establishments (or elsewhere) is to wake up hung over (not everyone, maybe some of the young and restless :-)). Now there is a mad rush to make it to work at 11.30am. This applies to people who work break shift. Lunch serving hours - 11.30a to 3.30p, Dinner - 6.30p to 12.30a. if you are lucky you got the full 3 hours of break…….anyways…
So, making it to work at 11.30am…... You take a balti bath or shower, find the cleanest clothes available and try to catch the bus or auto rickshaw to train station. Say if you are living in Bandra W and as soon as you enter it is Platform 1, and the churchgate fast ( bandra-dadar-bombay central- churchgate) arrives on platform 4. you have 2 choices, take the stairs with the sea of people or "Platform Surf". This takes pin point precision in many ways – 1. you dont want to be hit by a train, 2. you dont want to get caught doing it, 3. you dont want to get your hand or clothes dirty.
Lemme explain..As soon as you arrive at platform 1 look at the display for the arrival of churchgate fast on platform 4. now scan for trains arriving on platforms 1.2 and 3. If the coast is clear, take the last drag of your cigarette and toss it J, Jump off to the tracks on platform 1 and like a Derby horse take perfect strides to leap on to platform 2. You are halfway. Now look both sides on 3 and 4 and jump down from 3 and leap on to 4. Perfect 10, you nailed it. Now if you are blessed with long legs, chances are you can do this every single time and have no stains/rips on either your clothes or your hand. But for someone who is of a shorter stature ( wink-wink) unless you are really athletic, chances are you either end up putting you hands on the filthy platform floor or extending your arm for a stranger to pull you up ( props to mumbaikars, no one ever refuses.......now you know why I love mumbai.....the camaraderie and kinship..) I have been on the embarrassing end of this many a times, but once or twice a week....I found success.....small victories 🙂.
After work there is this mad rush to catch the 1 am Borivli local home. on a few occasions I have over-slept and missed my stop and ended up in Borivli yard. then to jump off the train and catch the all night bus from Borivli back to where I can catch a few hours of good sleep. only to repeat the same routine over……...

 

An Unsung Hero : Padmakar Shivalkar

One of the best left arm spinners who never played for India was Padmakar (Paddy) Shivalkar. Being a contemporary of Bishan Bedi, he never made the team. One could make an argument that having him in the team instead of E Prasanna would have made a difference.  Don’t want to get into the politics of a bygone era, but….  As a child, I was a sports enthusiast and needless to say a big fan of Shivalkar. Year after year, I would hope that he made the team, but it wasn’t meant to be.  A humble soul and a great cricketer!

 

 

 Mumbai- Lonely amongst a sea of people...

 

A city of opportunities. A city of dreamers, A city where dreams become reality. A city for families, for youngsters, for old, for the people who love life and  nightlife, for the hardworking and the smartworking, and also for the ones who preferred solitude. One could fall in to some of these categories, one or all of these categories. I was a hard worker, may be not very smart and for most part I liked my own company. I didn’t have many friends, still don’t. I don’t have a dislike for people but I preferred to be alone.

Taking you back to the mid 80's again. the Mumbai I love and cherish and time stands still. Working long hours in the service industry did not allow much breathing room. Once a week on my day off, it would be washing clothes, giving what cannot be washed at home to the Dhobi and either going to the nearest Udupi restaurant for a leisurely breakfast with the day’s newspaper, mostly scanning for what is a movie to watch that afternoon. There was a small nook in AkbarAlly's in Fort where they would sell espresso and snacks. it was a small bar counter with a couple of bar stools. I would sit there for hours having an omelet and sipping coffee reading newspapers and doing the daily crossword puzzle. In the afternoon, catch a matinee, mostly to sit in air-conditioning, many a times, I would go to sleep and wake up at the end of the movie. Sometimes the best sleep I have got. Of course, the bugs would feast on my arms and I have to go get boroline or caladryl to stop the itchiness. but that was never a deterrent. it was a part of life. Evenings I would head to Mahesh Lunch home ( it wasn’t that famous then) or another restaurant for a beer or two or a quarter of Old monk with thums up. and of course some dinner. Once in a while I would go to "Cannon" pao bhaji near VT where you stood around a stall and ate. It was so good there was a line behind you, after you finish your meal, you fall out so the next person can take your place. Walking past all the illegal stalls selling smuggled good near VT, the sad faces of ladies of the night waiting for customers, street pharmacist selling their stuff, making it back to the dinghy room with no window or fan to settle for the night... tomorrow is another day.

Loved walking up and down marine drive, sits on the tetrapods, and gaze at the ocean. watching Arab tourists tossing coins at beggars and waking away indifferently. Sometimes I would go over to fashion street( across from Eros and the moved to across from Bombay Gymkhana) and buy export reject clothes at throw away price. of course you have to bargain.

Leopoldo cafe and another place that I have been many a few times . it was fascinating to see so many Caucasians in one place. Listen to them and trying to understand what the heck they were saying. It was hard to tell Eastern Europeans from Americans or any other part of the world, they all looked and sounded the same.

Thinking back one thing that I didn’t notice then but realize now is the people, there were people everywhere, no matter what time of the day it was or where you went. So much energy and adrenaline that you could feel it and then you become it.

I have seen many like me in the course of the time, sitting alone and drinking, watching the one movie that the restaurant plays all night, walking aimlessly, forlorn look on their face, migrant workers probably missing their families, hoping for a better tomorrow or waiting for the next big break......

Wear a mask, save yourself and save others. Peace

 

Stumbling through life..

As a child growing up, I dreamed of becoming a physician, going to a fancy college in London ( don't know why, maybe because that was the only city that I knew of- after all British had ruled us for over 200 years and I was born in the 60's  a few years after they left) and becoming a fellow at FRCS ( fellow of Royal college of physicians). That dream did not realize due to family constraints. I happened to stumble into newspaper ads for Hospitality management courses in colleges which were out of town. Did not want to take the normal route that most of my schoolmates took, so I applied and got into hospitality management school.

After finishing 3 years of college in HM, my course in life was set to pursue a career in catering industry when I again stumbled into an ad for a major airline seeking flight attendants. thought I will give it a shot even though I did not have a personality for a FA. Surprise, surprise after a 2 year long interview process... I became a FA.

This is it I am going to be a FA for life....or that's what I thought.... 4 years later I stumble into another opportunity to go live in the land of milk and honey.....yep... I did....happily tossed the comfy FA job aside and landed in NY back in hospitality....only to be disillusioned and disappointed. Stumbled into someone who was a Computer Systems Engineer at Columbia Pictures. That laid a thought in my head and head and slept on it for a while. Took some introductory Computer classes and before I know it I was a IT professional. During this time I also stumbled into someone who helped me move to Toronto,  3 years later.......I was a Canadian.

the best of it is yet to come.... I answered a phone call from a young lady who lived in Chicago, as luck would have it, met her a few months later and 11 days later we were married. That was it. Rest of my life was some what planned ahead and there were no major stumbling... or is there? only time will tell.

23

What does 23 mean to you? Michael Jordan wore #23, Don Mattingly wore #23 in his 14 years as a Yankee. 23 is a significant number for me for a different reason. For me, 23 is a state of mind, perhaps my favorite age, so much that deep inside my heart I still feel like a 23 year old. why? it was coming of age for me...in a way...for all my insecurities, shortcomings, I experienced my first few successes at the age of 23... the sweet smell of success, power, love, I got a small taste of it at 23. that is when I realized that even my life is meaningful. My existence has a purpose. I too can make a difference in this world even if it in a small way.

The light at the end of the tunnel was non existent till I actually thought of the tunnel and started visualizing the tunnel and a slight flicker of a light. God works in strange ways, first it was the Wednesday novenas at the Mahim Church, which led to membership at Gym, a mystery lady who came into my life, managerial position at Kumariyas Hotel, the power and perks :-) that came with it, feeling of being wanted, loved, falling in love. If I were a junkie, it could be stated as my first high from my first hit. it was exhilarating and euphoric. it was happening too fast and just like new money ( people who have financial windfalls and do not know how to handle it), it all went down the tube within a matter of time. So.......23 was good.....24 was bad. But it was a building block on which I learned my lesson and build for years to come.... come to think of it I am still building...the light is shining ever so bright. 

The Angst of a teen...

I was walking home one day from the grocery store when I was surrounded by a bunch of bullies in the 'hood. They started calling me names typically reserved for South Indians like anna, Madrasi, idli sambar, annadurai etc. then things got rough. one of them pee'd on my slippers (flip- flops) and feet. Being timid, tiny, weak and scrawny I had no courage to fight back. Luckily, the groceries in my possession was spared, else it would be spanking at home too. I walked home crying after the ordeal was over, really angry and wanting to go home grab my belt come back and beat up the bullies. I never did... did not have the balls to go out there and fight for my pride. This was 40 some years ago.

Today, my teenaged son is going through the same pain... of being bullied. However, he has the courage to come home and talk to me and his mom and we try to find some resolution together. Back when I was in that stage, I felt talking to my parents was pointless as nothing really came out of it. My boy is not like me, he is has a good head on his shoulders, can reason out most things, but face it , he is 13, it is going to get to him sometime or the other, a kid can take only so much. The bullies haven't changed; they attack his ethnicity and try to get under his skin. He remains calm and composed as verbal or physical altercations in school can lead to detention and other penalties. My advice to him is simple, stay strong, ignore and they will go away and eventually stop bullying. They lack confidence, feel inferior and are compensating by directing their frustrations on someone who is successful.

It is up to us the parents to reassure kids and make them look at the good and ignore the bad. It is really important for parents to be really involved in their kids’ lives, no matter how much they dislike it. Engage them in conversations, get to know what is going on in school, in their lives is really important. Ask questions and answer questions, no matter what the topic is. Especially sex. Trust me, if you have a teen with raging hormones, it is normal at that age. They have questions that need to be answered. It is better you be proactive and educate them or they will learn it from the streets which is wrong. Don't be embarrassed to discuss openly about sex, drugs, alcohol or anything that you can think of what you had on your mind, when you were a teen.

While in middle school and high school, I had this humongous crush on my classmate who was also lived in my neighborhood. Needless to say, I ate, dreamed, and slept with thoughts of her on my mind. But I was scared and apprehensive to approach her or any other girl for that matter. To make matters worse, growing up in a lower middle class family was no fun. My clothes were either too big or too small. Tending to our 2 cows was one of my primary jobs after school. Also making cow dung cakes for fuel. Many a times, she would be in the vicinity while I was performing these chores. That was so uncool. But I had no choice, had to do it. Looking back, I chuckle and shake my head. I love animals and outdoors. I thank my parents for that.

Guess what, my older boy has developed a liking towards this schoolmate and he has openly expressed it to us. I tried to explain that, it is normal and natural to feel that way at this age or any age. I also said that the other person may not feel the same way so be prepared for any kind of setback, he thought about it for a while and was cool with it. We are so proud that our kids can openly talk to us about their feelings and ask for our opinion. But being a 13 year old is not easy; school, peers, media, society in general has expectations of how one carries oneself.  If you are different, they pick on you. It is a cruel world of bullies, nerds, geeks, jocks… where does one fit in? Thankfully, we have level headed kids who can differentiate between good and bad although they constantly try to test us on how much rope they can get…what they can watch on TV, what video games they can play and who they can hang out with. Most of the time they comply with our gentle suggestions, but I can sense the resistance as to "If my friends can do it, why can't I?" to which my answer has always been we have a different set of rules in this house which we all follow and is applicable to all, starting with me.

Dear reader, if you have a teen at home you have to be a parent and a friend to him/her. Sometimes, you have to walk the fine line but do it and they will thank you for it in later years.

Gangs of Wasseypore- A review

“The idealisms of the Society are not mandated by the Society, but by the so called custodians of the Society”. Thus stated Anurag Kashyap in an interview. Well... not in those words but that is my loose translation of what he stated in Hindi. In my life I haven't seen a film maker tackle and take head on the custodians of Society like Mr. Kashyap. It is even harder in SE Asian cinema because of the shackles by which the society is tied down. Anurag is like the giant monster that has broken down those shackles and lives large with the audacity to tell a story how it is supposed to be told.


It is easy for the Coppolas, Spielbergs and the Polanskis of the west to tell a bold story. But in India it is unheard of. For us SE Asians cinemas is a means of escapism from reality than send a message or learn about what reality is. The Society in general goes to cinema to escape from the grueling reality that is life and live in a fantasy world for 3 hours. To tell a story like what Anurag did in Gangs of Wasseypore is no small achievement. Yes, this is all about Gangs of Wasseypore and the brilliant story teller that Anurag is. Look at him; he looks like one of my tapori friends who don’t want to be associated with. Smoker, typical bhaiya like mannerisms, etc. Yet today the world loves him and so do I. More like awe than love. But you have to love him to be awed by him.

I remember growing up and getting beaten up exactly with what my mom had in her hand, be a rock or a piece of stick. That was tough love, and I love her to death.

I watched Paan Singh Tomar and said to myself, now this is cinema and this is how a story is told. Then I came across GOW and said hmm.....worth a peek, no harm done, guess what? It has been 2 months since then. I have seen both parts frame by frame about 20 times. Listened to each song about 25 times.

Sneha K, can't say enough of her, she is an evil genius just like Anurag. If you listen to the song 'Abroo ki kasam", "keh ke lenge", oh what the heck all the songs even the “chattano sey kreeda karthi”.......it will suck you in and won't let you leave till you have nothing left. Trust me; you don't need weed or liquor to enjoy these songs. Well... if you do have it I am sure it will enhance the pleasure... not that I had to indulge in any of these to enjoy the music.

I am not going to detail the cinema here. You have to see it to believe it, to understand it, to appreciate it and love it. Every character is unique, even the young junior artist who you see a glimpse of, eating rice with a big smile on his face surrounded by filth, sometime towards the middle of the first part while Piyush Mishra is narrating the changes happening in Dhanbad. Asghar, Guddu, JP Singh, Durga, Shama Parveen, Mohsina, Danish, Babua, Tangent - I am naming the characters instead of the actors because it is as if these actors were born to play these roles and they do it with so much conviction. No melodrama and no exaggeration. I am going to save Sardar Khan, Faisal Khan, Ramadhir Singh, Sultan, Nasir and Definite for special mention as Manoj, Nawaz, Tigaminshu, Pankaj, Piyush and Zeishan will live on forever in the hearts of true Hindi cinema aficionados. Anurag and Sneha blended this story like poetry in the form of motion picture. The Lust, passion, violence, gore and brutality that is shown is true and unfortunate reality. GOW (I am not going to break it down into the 2 parts) is truly an epic that should be canned into a time capsule for people to see a thousand years from now and still appreciate it.

If I compare Manoj Bajpai to Marlon Brando, it is an honor to Brando, and at the same token comparing Nawaz to Al Pacino, is an honor to Pacino. Tony Montana (Scarface) Sonny (Dog day afternoon), Faisal Khan, you can mention these characters in the same breath and not think twice about it. Like Anurag stated, camera loves Nawaz and boy does the camera love Manoj! It is a chilling scene when he asks Ramadhir- “Maja aa raha hain”? Ramadhir Singh had send Sultan to kill Sardar Khan and had failed, the expression on Ramadhir's face not knowing what to expect...is priceless.

Faijal climbing up the window sills to get into his lover's room is a scene that is simply priceless.His awkwardness, hesitation and the eventual explosion where he is pounding away all night, boy isn't it real? The expressionless Faijal pumping hundreds of bullets into Ramadhir's lifeless body is vengeance at its best. So much hatred.... it makes you shudder.

"Bhoos ke Dher", "Ek Bagal mein Chaand", they are playing like a record in my head all day every day for the past few weeks. Hats off to Varun Grover and Piyush Mishra for the thoughtful and melodious lyrics.

GOW will probably go down as one of the best Hindi movies, I have ever seen, along with Aashirwaad, Deewar and Paan Singh Tomar. It will be hard for Nawaz to top what he did in GOW. If he does, more power to him. Same goes for Manoj.