Category: Mumbai Part 2

On The Road

Thanks to Prateek, he got me this book, I have stumbled onto apparently one of the most important non-fiction books of our time. On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I started reading it today and I am stuck on page 7. I cant seem to go beyond it. There is this piece of text on that page that I cant get over with. It reads…

Image Credits: MWW

In plain text it reads,

I shambled after as usual as I’ve been doing all my life after people that interest me, because the only people that interest me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”

This piece of text, sounds fancy but is brilliant. The easiest thing to say would be that I am the maddest person I know of (I want everything, I dont say commonplace things etc) but I am not. I have lately realized that I am not mad or out of ordinary. I think as I am growing older I have sort of reached a compromise with myself. I will not shine like Steve did or all the other mad people I know of are on the verge of. No time for sob story, this is an exciting book and I am glad to have got a copy. Thanks once again pattice.

I then thought, if I am not mad, do I know some mad people? Are there people who inspire me and I “shamble” after? Are these the kinds that make you go “Awww”? Surprisingly the answer was not one but many. In fact most people I tend to make friends with are the kinds to have the mad trait. A small list would have Killa, my boss, Ashu, piyush, meghna, Solo from my workplace (wow! so many mad people there) and otherwise, Suds, RR, Huz, #sgMS, the other SG, Radhika, Nikita, Vijesh, Ankit, Agony Aunt in it. Ofcourse I have tons of non-mad people who are special to me, the guy who tolerates me more than anyone else, the guy I share my place with, the woman I have a recent crush on, they’re all comparatively sober. What I need to do however, is transform all these people into mad ;P

Anyways, coming back, I am really looking forward to reading the book. I can easily relate the state the country is in right now to the things Jack talks about. May be I shall write the Indian version of On The Road someday. I dunno. But for the time being, I am going over the Page 7 over and over again.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Ofcourse you wouldve read/heard about Lisbeth. The “original” girl with the dragon tattoo.

If you havent, you ought to buy Stieg‘s masterpiece and read it.

Anyways, so, today something crazy happened. I was on my way back from some place when I saw this girl passing by. She was in a dark grey business suit (unlikely for women to be dressed in business suits in India) and like everyone she seemed to be in a hurry to reach somewhere. Very petite and long flowing hair, falling till the small of her back. Someone you cant ignore while she’s in front of you. Even though she was part of a sea of people rushing to catch a train from probably the busiest train station in Mumbai, my gaze somehow landed on her. Before anything else, I realized that she was clearly a misfit in the seemingly coherent scenery. And yet, some part of me told me that she fit in there as smugly as if all the maddening crowd of people around her was strategically put in place by some old and cunning warlord. And not to flank her with all those objects, but to accentuate her presence.

Very small compared to men and women of all sizes rushing through the station, impeccably dressed in a sharp suit compared to the crumpled and unkempt attires around her, very calm and serene compared to all the madness around her. It was as if she was from a different time and place and she had been teleported just an instant ago. She was so comfortable as if she was in a board room or on a film set. I have this suspicion that if she was put in the outer space, she would be as comfortable. She walked with such ease, such control and so much self-assurance as if she owned the entire place.

Not that I ogle at women on stations but she was hard to miss. She wasn’t good looking by any metric, she wasnt even the rustic kinds that I think makes Indian women so desirable. But she couldn’t be ignored. She was like this electro-charged magnetic orb that was pulling all the attention to her. For the time while she was in front of me, I could not see anything else. It was blinding and illuminating at the same time. It was something that, at that instant, I wished that would not end.

And while I finally walked past her (it wouldn’t have taken not more than three seconds since I first spotted, her to the time I crossed her) I could see peeking from under her shirt, wrapped around her neck, the unmistakable dragon tattoo. The kinds that you can’t forget easily.

You have to see it to believe it. The tattoo. And the girl with the dragon tattoo.

Fancy my fancy life?

So, when I took this fancy place on rent in Mumbai, along with it, I got a fancy club and a fancy swimming pool. Ofcourse at a fancy price. And since I work out of my home for the time being, I spend a lot of time in my fancy apartment, which it not too fancy once you step inside (that’s another problem I have with these fancy apartment complexes in Mumbai). Club the two together and all my close friends think that I have a facny life where all I do is sit at home, watch tv and go swimming. Little do they know that all these are really really tough things to pull off, when done at the same time.

Lets start with swimming. Of course all those who read this blog (yes, both of you) may remember my earlier attempts at it (documented here). I am sorry to report that its been three years now and I am still a struggling swimmer. At this rate, I would still be learning how to hold my breadth in water when my great great grand kids would be crossing the English channel. The thing is, it looks easy. All you need to do, is to lie flat on your belly, move your legs too and fro and shake your arms and you are on your way. The trouble is when you are trying to move all four limbs at the same time and breathe. I dont think I can ever master that. Its been almost a week since I have been going and there is not an iota of difference in my weight (which should ideally have come down by now) or in my swimming skills. And the cherry on cake, everything that I touch starts smelling of Chlorine (despite using a soap as strong as Medimix to clean after a dip).

Now, coming to more important matters of work, I am in Mumbai to create a company from ground up. That in layman’s language means that I am expected to hire people, manage them and find enough work to pay for their salaries. I would reckon its slightly too much for someone like me who hates getting into operational details. And add my compulsive introvert nature on top of it. Makes for a heady mix of dreams (that have no way of turning into reality) and harsh reality (of the pressure of making ends meet and justifying the move to Mumbai). I, being the frivlous and easy going me, dont really bother with details too much but its really tough to resist the temptation to think. And then sulk. And when you are trapped in a pseudo fancy place for home and a fancy hobby that you cant seem to master, it becomes even tougher.

So much for my fancy life. Fancy taking part in it?

Moved to Mumbai

Though I have been here for more than a month now, today, in true earnest, I moved to Mumbai. Now I have a room that I can call my own (ofcourse could be larger, airier and better), a bathroom that I am happy about (spacious, no pests and clean), an Internet connection (that is working great as we write this) and a nice and quiet locality (yes there are a few hidden gems here and there in Mumbai). Apart from this, there are a few more things that I need – a table to sit and write on, a bigger laptop Mac and a set of awesome headphones.

So now, starting today, I have exactly six months to justify my existence to myself. In these six months, I have to achieve a few tangible goals (catalogued under sg2013 tag) and a few intangibles.

Thats it. I shall be more regular with writing now (one of the goals for 2013). In the meanwhile, if you are reading this and you still dont have my Mumbai number, do let me know and I shall text you.

Wish me luck!

Oh, and one more thing, I am still accepting gifts

Mumbai Part 2. Day 24.

This is going to be a short post. So that you may actually read the entire thing and not just skim.

Its almost a month since I moved to Mumbai. And I still trying to figure out things. Part reason of that is that I have decided to live with a friends from college. And that means I am dependant on two more people to figure out shit. Even if they are understanding and independent, human courtesy says that I need to include them in whatever I decide. So for example, despite a frantic house search, I we haven’t been able to close on a place where I we would live. This, for the record, is against my DNA. I am like that lone mercenary who wants to remain independent and live like his way, without regard to all the burden that comes from “belonging” to a faction.

The other part is that I am older and hence more inflexible. And that means there is another set of problems that I have. Taking the example of house, I want to live in a spacious, airy, clean, new house. Which, in Mumbai, dont exist. The ones that do, demand a rental of a million bucks a day, which I cant pay. In general, the inflexible me in finding it hard to adjust to madness in Mumbai. But then, there is no place like Mumbai, anywhere in the world and I have to go through the grind. And no, I am not enjoying this at all. May be like all oldies, I am averse to change and since “growing up” is a slow and gradual transition, I am consciously in the same space as a 25 year old but subconsciously I am now 30 and that means there is a constant conflict between my two sides.

So, changing tracks, this post is about what I do in my spare time, which in my case, I have in abundance. And I am at my wits end trying to figure out what to with it.

Let me talk about Delhi to give a perspective. In Delhi, for some reason, I always had something or the other to do. If nothing, I could remain holed up at home and flick tv channels and maybe watch some movie. If not that, my family has stayed at the same place for almost 20 years and I know every nook and cranny in that part of Delhi. I know most people and there is a sense of familiarity. I could go for a walk, or a smoke and get back feeling good about the camaraderie that I share with the place. There are tons of friends/acquaintances that I could meet at random and have a good time and come back. I had a social life in Delhi.

Mumbai on the other hand, I have been out of this place for more than 3 years. All my friends are now married, engaged or seeing someone. And that means I am not high on their priority list (25 yr old). And that means that they are busy on weekends with household chores and stuff. And that means that I can only see them for a window of an hour or so, rather than entire weeks that we spent together at one point in time. Dissonance. Then, when I was younger, I was a promising and rising young man and had irrational beliefs about thing. That made me pseudo popular and I could meet strangers and paddle my beliefs and spend time engaging in mental masturbation. Now, I am a senile old man and I have a tough time going out to meet strangers. I refuse to take part in political, activist movements and pseudo intelligent conversations do not excite me anymore. As a result, I am not popular at all.

I can now spend all my time either reading or writing. Which is not bad to be honest but if I could change it, I would love to do so. May be in next few months.

Mumbai Part 2. Day 13.

Its just a matter of few days before the world ends. And that means all I have left, is a handful of days to make that dent that I keep talking about. But then like all humans I have this thing that makes me inept at even scratching the surface, leave alone the dent. I need things in place before I can do shit. Things like a home a corner that I could call my own, a writing place, a perfect pen and things like that.

In Delhi, thanks to my parents, all these things were on the auto pilot mode. Thanks to my parents that over a long period, painstakingly made the most perfect home they could. It has everything that I needed am used to. Of course I got spoilt in the process and it made me depend on them and things so much that I have become rigid and lethargic.

Now that I am by myself in the jungle Mumbai, I need to take care of all those things. I have spoken about em in a previous post but there are few more challenges that a Day 13 brings about compared to Day 2.

For starters, clean clothes. In Delhi as a process, I knew a place where I need to pile my dirty clothes and by some magic they would be cleaned, ironed and placed back. Here, I dont have that magic wand working for me. The friend I am piling with, the maid is like a king/queen. She adheres to certain rules. For example she shall wash clothes  merely two times a week. She shall treat each kind of cloth same. Linen shirts, cotton trousers, denims, teeshirts are all soaked together and washed with as carelessness as possible. This means my entire wardrobe looks like a vomit of color, all clothes, in Mumbai, apparently have weak colors. I can still live with this, I can go buy new things, but after she washes the clothes, she would just leave them like that. Ideally I would hang those clothes on some line and let them dry up etc but no sir, not this one.

Then there is the biggest travail of anyone’s life in Mumbai. A house. I am looking to move into a 2/3 BHK with another (maybe 2) friend(s). For the same, I have been talking to brokers for last 13 days. And have posted my requirement on all the portals that advertise on TV. The places available for renting out are expensive like cocaine and yet are as bad as cheap beer. Of course that we are “bachelors”, it does not help.

Food is another concern area. I am used to having a certain kind of food. Vegetarian, low on oil/fat, simple, lot of vegetables, fresh, soft, made with love etc. My mom, like all other mothers, has to arguably the best cook in the world. Here food is a challenge. The maid cooks the world’s worst daal. More often than not, I am eating out and as a result getting fatter and poorer.

There are more things but I think these are the top three things that are fucking my head right now. So much that I have considered multiple times already to drop everything and go back to the protected world that I am used to. But then a few days back, I read PGs essay on how not to die. Though it was not pertinent to what I am doing here in Mumbai, it gave me some hope. And anyways, I dont call it quits because I am facing challenges (but when I get bored). So I’d stay for the time being and fight it out.

Ofcourse with time, I would fix all these things. And you know, if I can successfully move into a decent house that is airy, clean, free of pests, spacious, has terraces, is away from noise and hustle of the city, is on a high floor, the dent would have been made!

No I mean it.

Mumbai Part 2. Day 2. King of Wishful Thinking

Today was officially day 2 of my second innings in Mumbai. Hopefully this innings is as fruitful as the first one. Under this tag, I plan to chronicle my time and adventures in the city that never sleeps (who coined this term btw?)

So the day was not really special. I woke up with groggy eyes to the sound of someone banging the bedroom door. For a minute I thought it was an earthquake and someone is here to save me. But them I heard the maid yell something about no washing powder in the bathroom. Confused, I looked around and I realized it was not my bed. It wasnt even my room or my home. And this is when it dawned on me that I was in Mumbai, sleeping on the floor of a friend’s room. I yelled something at the maid and looked around for some water to help me wake up. No no, I dont splash my eyes with it. My machinery needs a couple of glasses of warm salt water to get started. And lo and behold, there wasnt any water, leave alone warm, or salted. There is something about water that makes me want as much as I can. I am known to have copious amounts everyday and as a result visit the John one too many times. Wait, let me go grab my glass of water.

So no hot water, unfamiliar bed and a pesky maid beating the door started my day. Note to self, once I have a house of mine, the maid will not come until I wake up (maybe after 9 AM) and if she does come before I wake up, she shall not disturb me, at any cost.

Next up was the battle to find a place to live. I mean I cant be sleeping on this floor for rest of my life. I have to find a place that I could call my own. I have thought about it a million times, the way I would do up my place, make it my den. Too bad I cant afford a place by myself. Side note, by the end of 2013, I have to have a place just to myself. So with real estate prices going up faster than petrol and gold, I had to find a place to live quick. For, every day’s delay could mean even more money to be paid as rentals. So first thing I did after I woke up, was to fill up forms on all the classified websites of the world – olx, quickr, magicbricks etc. And this is where the memories of 2007 came back. For some reason Mumbai does not want to rent out places to bachelors. Especially bald ones. I dont know why. May be its a risk profile thing, the way I had at GE for issues home loans (for example, back in 2005, if you were older than 28 and living with your parents, we couldnt give you a loan).

So I filled all the forms and it started the flurry of endless calls from brokers and “agents” who would talk more and hear less. They assumed I was someone related to Mr. Mallaya and had all the money in the world. But moment I told them that I am a bachelor, they would leave me alone, the way Mr. Mallaya was left alone in the last few days of Kingfisher (disclaimer: I am a shareholder) and have excuses as funny as, “my wife’s calling me. can I call you back sir”.

Finally someone, sent specially by God agreed to show us a place. Went to see it. Like if but was too expensive to afford. Such is life! Sigh!

In the meanwhile, it was time for lunch. Went ahead and feasted on amazing sandwiches and french fries. Next up was recee to a site that a friend is considering for his business (disclaimer: though its his idea and his money, I am helping him with the venture). Post that I had to drop him to the station to catch his train. A little adventure ensued.

Dropped him somehow in time and went ahead to meet another friend. This one just got promoted to a CD post, which is an achievement, considering he’s got just 5 years of experience under his belt. Discussed few ideas and a lot of things with him. May get to work with him on something that we want to paddle to business schools. If I get to, it would be awesome cos he is one of the most intelligent and creative people I know and then I would be talking to college kids, something that excites me.

Dropped him and went to another friend’s place who fed me her world famous Rajma Chawal. She is thinking of a venture as well. I like what she is thinking of. Dont have a lot of money but made my first angel investment (on her business). Left her place and got caught by a cop. The car I was driving, dint have papers. Had 300 bucks in the wallet. Gave 200 bucks to him. Yes, a bribe (Arvind Kejriwal and his cronies, are you reading this?) and drove back home. I wish I had the political contacts to get away without having papers and all.

And I am home, writing this and planing for the day tomorrow before I sleep. And yes before I sleep, I shall brush my teeth. Something’s gotta change, now that I am in Mumbai (more on this soon).

Finally, no I did not miss sgMS. And, yes, like they say,

I’ll get over you..
I know I will
I’ll pretend my ship’s not sinking
And I’ll tell myself I’m over you
’cause I’m the king of wishful thinking

I am the fucking king of wishful thinking.


P.S.: How many times did I promise something in parentheses on my blog and actually did it? Someone’s keeping a tab?