Grown ups

A couple of months back, my niece turned 5 and demanded a “Barbie that can be dressed up” for a gift. The maasi that I am, the temptation to buy her her first  Enid Blyton was too strong, so I just added the toy on top of that. The cab ride to her place was a long one and I couldn’t resist revisiting Amelia Jane and her naughty tricks while the driver made his way through Mumbai’s ever-present traffic snarl.

 I can talk to you about Enid Blyton and her work at any time and without much provocation, but I was recently reminded of those little books through a very different experience. 

Here’s what happened:

 I happened to attend a class for first aid training—basic stuff like how to help someone who is choking, how to give CPR and tie up wounds till help arrives—with a bunch of other people. It is all work related, so I will steer clear of details. Let it suffice to say unlike most training sessions I’ve attended, this one was very informative and the instructors—ex military men from Australia—were super efficient.

The trainers told us that they usually take four or five days to teach the course we were supposed to cover in two days.  So, we were asked to stick to our schedules to help them teach us as much as possible.  There were about ten people in each batch and my group had men and women from various parts of the country, with work experiences ranging from 5 to 35 years.  

And what would you expect from a room full of grownups learning about useful things like how to potentially save a life?  Discipline and decorum, yes?

Hah.  Think again.

So here we were, learning about important (at least I think so) things like how to save a life if there is an accident. Imagine my surprise when as the trainer was demonstrating how to tend to a fatally bleeding wound,  the volunteer , a fully grown man with a daughter in her late teens, suddenly looked up and told his friend—“take a picture, na!”

Of course, I was not the only person who was surprised but the thing is, we were in the minority. Most people in the room thought that was perfectly normal behavior, to interrupt a session mid way and distract an entire room because you want to take a picture of yourself in a splint.

In Enid Blyton’s world, that would be enough to make you a social pariah, where your friends would force you to apologize for such behavior.

The session progressed and we were given our first break. 5 minutes. Only, by the time everyone returned to their seats, it was 10. This went on till the trainers had to threaten to time us.  More surprise, that two men  had to use headmaster quality tone to teach a room full of adults about sticking to time did not bother anyone at all, much less embarrass them.

Then there were innumerable instances where people had to basically be asked to shut up, because they would not know the difference between asking a question and making strange, irrelevant statements.  And oh, the umbrage at being given a lunch break at 12, because “we are not hungry now!”  Never mind that your trainers, being from Australia, might not know you are used to lunching at 2 and never mind that even if you don’t eat at 12 everyday, surely you can make an exception for once?

The trainers finally came up to me, bewildered, and asked “seriously, all this confusion over what time to break for lunch?”

I would laugh if it was not so sad, really. 

This in a room full of grownups, who otherwise would claim to be decent, well educated men and women. I have always maintained that we as a people are a bunch of noisy, ill mannered idiots who have very very little sense of propriety.

I have seen that at traffic signals where people roll down windows and throw their trash out pat in the middle of the road and at weddings where people push, shove and nudge like barbarians, all because they want the good piece of meat.

I have fought with friends who have taken offence at my saying so and I will be glad to be proven wrong.

Till then, I have that training room to tell me I am not. Wonder what Enid Blyton would say.

Technology and us.

A few days back, my friends and the car driver had a discussion about smartphones. Friend 1 had just bought a new handset and it turned out to be the same company as the driver was using.  Friend 2 was looking to buy a new one.

There was soon an animated discussion where friends 1 and 2 asked him about specs, camera quality etc and he complied with answers, resulting in friend 2 leaning towards this model by the end of it.

Now on the whole, there is nothing remarkable about this entire exchange. But if you've known the India I grew up in and the people in it, you’d see why I was pleasantly surprised. In a society obsessed with class, there was a time, not so far back, when the driver using the same brand as you would have been enough to make  many of us discard the brand altogether.

That India still exists, but is also fast changing, thanks, I think, to technology.

Technology, of course, has been around forever in various forms. Right now however, I am talking about the kind of consumer facing new tech that is sweeping the world and often starts cries of “all is lost” among dissenters.

Take Google and Facebook, for instance. A few weeks back, my cousin wondered aloud how we could get any assignment done without Google’s help.  I laughed, but wondered with her. Pre-Google school assignments meant many visits to the library, much photocopying and a whole lot of exchanging of hand written notes.

But I think I can honestly say today that neither all of the trips to the library nor all those photocopies necessarily resulted in better assignments.  I know of enough people who did exactly the same with  library books and notes that their younger kinds do with online searches—copy blindly and not retain much at all. There have definitely been some assignments where I've blindly lifted from friends, having no interest in those subjects at all.  That no one ever caught us says a lot about our evaluators, but that is another topic for another day.

So is it necessary or even valid that older generations (older is a relative term here. My generation is what they call "millenials", but I am pretty sure we look ancient to my young cousin) beat down Google-ers, just because they are lucky to have been born in a world that allows easy access?

Look at Facebook and Twitter. By now, we all know what the cons of an open ended internet, where people have minimum responsibility, are.  Dangers range from serious issues like the Reddit influenced Boston bombing fallout to the much less serious, but still worrying picture floated anonymously that wrongly blamed Arnab Goswami of speeding on the Bandra-Worli sealink. Mind you, that picture has only been a “less serious” issue because Goswami either did not know, or decided to let it slide. There could have been charges of defamation in the least.

And of course, there are  numerous status updates and  opinions from those who do not have, neither should be allowed opinions.

But then, there are also instances of authorities being able to nab criminals and save people in trouble, thanks to Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter. They are being used by everyone starting from Sushma Swaraj to help Indians in Yemen to my house help to let me know if she’s sick and out.

You can always argue and ask: so did the Ministry of External Affairs or house helps not work before FB and Twitter came around?  Sure did, but this has made the process far more easy and in my didi’s case, a lot cheaper.  To challenge that, to my mind is like saying, so did no one write before computers came around? Sure did, and most great works of literature are from pre-ballpoint pen days, but would that mean we all stick with parchments and quills forever?

How would that help anyone?

In India, cheap internet access has turned the world upside down, flattening out a whole bunch of pointless hierarchies and even elevating our stature in the tech world of today.

For long, India was only known as the backwater of technology, where thousands of engineers would work in IT Service firms to give global companies back end support. Today, India can boast of a company  that  ranks among the top 9 valuable startups all over the world, competing with Silicon Valley peers. A mobile based dining app has gone ahead and bought a US based rival,  others are helping people do a hundred different things—right from hunting for houses to looking for doctors to calling cabs – much more smoothly than people ever imagined. Not to mention the thousands of jobs the industry has created as it grows.

Oh and you think these are all superfluous changes that have no big impact on society?

I’ll disagree, with examples I see around me and first hand experiences.  A cab calling app has been able to break the much feared auto-wallah nexus in Bangalore, something authorities have not been able to for years.

 These days, they do not charge “one and half times” for no reason, because they know if they do that, the customer will simply call an auto through the app. I tried the local fish market when I had just moved to Mumbai—after fighting the stench and haggling with a dangerously irate seller, I came home with only passable quality fish. I have bought it online ever since, with zero complaints except for once, when the company happily took the delivery back and refunded me. 

 People in my quaint hometown have access to the same stuff—clothes, gadgets, books and home equipment that I, in Mumbai, do.  The security man at my office shops at the same online grocer that my boss does.

Because technology is becoming equally accessible, the girl who works at a friend’s house thinks nothing of using her employer’s charger for her phone.  If as employers we are not at home with this, the joke is on us.  

Yes, I know this should not be a problem in any educated household. But look inside middle class homes in India and their prejudices  and you will know why I mention this attitudinal shift.

These are little, and largely cosmetic changes, for sure.  But is that not better than no change at all?  We all talk about developed countries where “everyone, right from the cabbie to the bossman have iPhones”, and say that with respect, as an example of the inherent equality in their society.

Economically, India is still not at a place where everyone can afford iPhones (using iPhone as an example, not as a basic parameter of progress)  but why not start with a more affordable cousin? 

Like a leading Indian phone company says, “technology does not discriminate”. And neither should we.

Spare the rod?

    Some months ago, when we were visiting Kolkata, there was talk of a bachelor/bachelorette. Then there a general shunning of the "going out to party" idea because none of us really like that and in any case, all we wanted to do was talk, eat and drink.
    As is the nature of conversations between tight friends, we covered all things important, ranging from health and family to annoying relatives to books and bad TV before we eventually got to politics and inevitably, the still-fresh major BJP victory and our PM.
     Swachch Bharat came up and managed to turn the otherwise relaxed conversation into a furious one, causing a rift of the kind you think will result in irreparable fall-outs (but of course they never do)-- I thought it was a good move, a starting point at least. The Opposition thought it was too little too late, especially since most people do not care about these things in India until there's the fear of the Dunda- literally, the stick/rod. Punishment for misbehaviour like public littering or jumping traffic lights is extremely lax, which many think encourages miscreants because they can get away with it.
    Some thought it made zero sense to push public cleanliness because all the trash eventually ends up in the same dumping grounds minus any proper recycling. I think it's a laughably weak argument. If we don't litter in our living rooms because "it all ends up in the same place anyway", we shouldn't do it outside either. If you’re going to come back at me to say “but I do litter in my living room too”, I’ll just say that makes you a dirty pig.
    The Dunda argument, to my mind, made more sense, though at that time I fought tooth and nail say given the many restrictions politicians operate within, an attempt to ask people to "clean your thoughts" sounds like a better idea than to say "we'll throw you in jail if you don't".
     The reason I recount this story is because Lee Kuan Yew died today.   What LKY did for Singapore is there for all to see. How he did it is what starts conversations.
The grand old man of Singapore basically got his country where it is today by implementing the Dunda against everything from chewing gum to not flushing public toilets to teaching people to smile more and be less noisy.
All of this as he ruthlessly pushed business, made friends with the British and the American and kept his politics free of any –isms. “We were called a Nanny State," he told the BBC in 2000.  "But the result is that we are today better behaved and we live in a more agreeable place than 30 years ago."
   Let us, for a second, think what an LKY would have faced if he were to implement his laws in our country.
 The punishment for drawing graphiti in Singapore is caning.  I can almost hear the media, Twitter, college goers and FB activists getting ready to jump, claiming “loss of liberty”.  Look at what happened when a state government made a law asking everyone present during elections to vote unless they were sick or otherwise unable to for serious reasons.
A part of the media and people said it was infringing on people’s freedom, when we all know most of us do not exercise our voting rights because we are too lazy to step out on a “holiday”.
Taxi operators in another state went on a strike because they were championing their rights to refuse taking in customers during duty hours.  Even this found some sympathizers among the public.
If you are not up to speed on this, these taxi drivers are notorious for refusing customers just because they can. They want to wait for a longer routes, refuse to take you in unless you agree to pay more or simply say no just because.
Repeat, this is during duty hours. The state government decided to implement fines on rogue cabbies and the union protested.
They found political backing among champions of the poor and the government had to backtrack considerably.
Can you imagine what would happen if the State put a strict check on the use of bad language or spitting in public places? I can immediately think of at least a dozen people who would protest and say “but trash-talk and spitting are my birthright."
 You know what LKY said when people criticized or questioned his policies of fines and caning for public misbehavior?
"Putting chewing gum on our subway train doors so that they don't open, I don't call that creativity, I call that mischief making," he told the BBC in 2000.  "If you can't think because you can't chew, try a banana".
So what is our problem?
Why do we, in the name of liberty and citizen rights, insist on mischief making and bad behavior?
Last month I chided a young friend because he threw his cigarette stub on the road. He came back to me with an “aami maani na”, or “I don’t agree”.
I asked him what he did not agree with. That littering is wrong? Or that he was being dirty and would insist on having a right to be so?
Is that not abusing the rights that we are lucky as citizens to have received?
There are problems with governance, yes. Trash cans are not as easy to be found as they should, but nothing would be lost if we just wait till we come by the next one  (or use one of the bins little stores keep by the road for themselves).
Initially as I read about Singapore’s stringent implementation of policies, I was disturbed.  But I've been thinking about it and  am pretty convinced that there comes a point when desperate times need desperate measures.
Naughty children get taken to the Principal’s office to get punished. It really is quite simple, isn't it? Of course, it is easier to rule a class of about 6 million people as opposed to a class with a billion, but we're talking about the intent. 

India’s problem comes from the complexity of us being stuck in the middle of a strange progress and our half baked understanding of what "rights" mean. The government tells us we are the fastest growing economy in the region, we have Burger Kings and Zaras and nightclubs and a reasonably liberal media/ government that allows us to exercise our rights as citizens. So a big percentage of us think we have arrived, and how dare anyone berate us?
  Caveat: I have no empirical data to back claim of “big percentage”, just my interaction with people.
Which is why, when The Economist calls us a continent sized embarrassment, we accuse them of colonialism, without pausing for a second to consider that the globally respected publication might not necessarily have a personal bone to pick with India.  So we have learnt to champion our rights, but we don’t know how to use them or even what those exactly are.
 We know we should challenge autocracy, but don’t fully understand what that means and what the difference between challenging autocracy and yelling against a government trying to make us vote is.

Finally, Lee Kwan Yew was famously ideology-free, but he was pro-business. Some people say a lot of the push towards asking people to smile more and be less noisy was so that businessmen or politicians from the Western World would feel at home interacting with inherently reticent Singaporeans.  Ok, so that was pandering to Western capitalism, if you will. But what’s the harm if the end result is a better life for everyone?
Singapore is greener than any city in India is (so pro business is not automatically = bad for environment), is obviously cleaner, swindlers-free, economically strong and works more efficiently.  True, there could be a feeling of oppression that creeps up with an extended stay, but seriously, if you had to pick, would you choose Tower of Babel over a mild feeling of oppression that comes from everything running a tad too efficiently?
The only problem is, we can’t have our cake and eat it too. LKY’s iron hand would mean we could get told who to marry and give up a free press, things most people in the free world would not even consider an option. 
Right now however, as I look around me, I’m not sure one would be such a bad alternative over the other.

The force of Habit

Every time I make a change in my life, my poor blog seems to suffer. I wonder if it is the same with others too. Not necessarily blogs, I mean do your hobbies take a hit with every new addition/change to your lives?

Thankfully, I think I’ve finally found my pace again. Meanwhile, of course, the world continued its own march. A bunch of sick men killed school children in Pakistan, more killed cartoonists in Paris. Russia’s invading Ukraine (still trying to figure out how this can be allowed), Obama visited India, Kim Kardashian’s step-dad reportedly wants to become a woman and India test fired the Agni-V, which can hit both Beijing and Karachi if they ever decided to use it that way.

I’m relearning the art of sharing a house and a household, travelling in bits and picking up on the very Mumbaikar trait of overlooking the desperate filth and dread all around the city to keep my sanity. My husband flees to Bangalore from time to time to keep his.

The other day as I was walking down to the train station, I cringed inwardly as the populous platform swam into sight.  But at the same time, I realized it wasn’t bothering me as much as it used to. Ma has a favourite adage she mouths every time my brother and I nag or complain about changes we do not like – manusher naam mahashay, ja showabey taayi shoy.

I don’t think I can translate that and do justice, but it basically means human beings are slaves of habit and get used to just about everything on the face of this earth.

As I looked right past the mounds of garbage by the train tracks, I realized how true most of those granny’s wisdom type adages are.

My taxi chacha—the man who drives me to work most mornings, told me the other day how he got picked under the Mhada housing scheme a couple of years back. He sold off the flat and continues to live in the slum area he set himself up at 20 years ago when he migrated from Pratapgarh to Bombay.  “Tab mujhey 15 lakh miley. Illegal sale tha, isliye 15 mein diya, nahi toh us ghar ka keemat 30 to tha hi. Par 15 bhi koi kum nahi hain madam humare liye.”

He sold the house he got under a government rehabilitation scheme for 1.5 million rupees, about half of what the going rate was, because it was an illegal sale.  And because the 1.5 mill is still a huge amount of money, especially since he is used to his slum living conditions.

“Jab shuru mein gao se aya tha bahut dikkat hota tha hum ko, ghar mein aurat ko. Ab aadat ho gaya hain.”

Slaves of habit.  But I’m thinking, aren’t there some habits we’re better off not being slaves to, even though acceptance can bring some (temporary) peace?

That way, the PM won’t have to waste his time and energy giving us cleanliness lessons.  Thanks to the Swachch Bharat push, even little kiosks in Bandra now try to avoid plastic bags and they cleaned up the patch of land my balcony overlooks.  It was being used a dumping ground by the maids of all the surrounding tony houses.  But it still is amazing that we need the might of a political party/leader to teach us that we should not litter, pee or spit in public. What gives?

While Indian media was hyperventilating over Modi’s name-striped suit and Obama’s visit, I saw a little article in the TOI that said POTUS’ security team carried air purifiers to Delhi. And then, this not so little article said breathing the Delhi air—which  by the way is the most toxic there can be—is equal to inhaling 8 cigarettes a day.  So basically the country is killing us and we can’t do anything about it. If we invite guests, we smother them with garlands and shawls and food, but can’t offer decent air to breathe.

If that is not embarrassing for a country and its people, I don’t know what is.  

Oh I know. How about that Obama had to come and lecture us on women’s safety and secularism before taking off? The man basically told us, “all this gaiety is fine, but if you can’t stop fighting about religion or stop raping women, don’t talk about advancement, bro.”

Does it amaze you, this? That the same country that is test firing Agni-Vs and making friends with the most developed nations in the world cannot even give its citizens breathable air?

Or that we live in the same world where on one hand Johnny Depp buys his own islands, and on the other, men and women die for lack of shelter against harsh climates? Or that while some of us are sending spaceships to probe further and further into the universe, others say living the “fast life” by eating chow mien (I still cannot wrap my head around that, honestly)  is a cause of rape.

And if all of this sounds like far-off, distant problems to you, here’s something that might make it more personal. My friend tells me her friend from the days when they were little girls attending one of the best girls’ school in the country tied the knot a few months back.

 The man had recently returned from Europe and there was a big fat Delhi wedding. Then, within a span of days, the girl filed for divorce. The man was married, the family hid that little fact from her and her family all the while, and when she asked what this was all about, the MIL said with her complexion, she should be happy she could find a man, and should not be a fool to rock the boat. The girl is dark-skinned, of course.

I am now starting to feel more kindly towards Ekta Kapoor.  Poor thing drew inspiration from real-life people and instead of bashing those people up, we went after her.

To make up for my borderline hopelessness with ourselves, I have started cooking and have upped my reading. And reviewing eateries. So if you can’t recognize me the next time around, it’s probably all the good food that’s going in.  People like us make Zomato rich and happy, and enable them to go buy rivals in 20 other countries. It does make me proud.

I can’t stop liking a good bowl of chow mien.  

Why Deepika Padukone and her clothes should not be confused with freedom

This is getting on my nerves, so I’ll get straight to the point. Here’s why I think none of what happened, should have:
Like it or not, Deepika Padukone or any other celebrity cannot choose to forego celebrity status at will. They are celebs even when they go for a walk, and are definitely so at any public event they attend. Which means, every time they step out of their homes, they will  be scrutinized  and talked about. Tabloids being tabloids, will do it in their own fashion. If someone finds it distasteful they should stand up to them on principle to say “no more interviews to you.” As readers, those who are angst ridden should cancel their subscription at once. Especially if the tabloid sticks to their guns and says they won’t change their reporting style. I’m still waiting for the Times of India to drop in circulation and not be No 1 anymore.
Padukone then went on to complain about the difference in attitude while writing about male and female celebrities and muddled it up further. Padukone  has no more a “right” to show skin than ShahRukh Khan does and must do so with full responsibility.  Was the headline in extremely bad taste? Yes. Was the picture in bad taste? Yes. But that is about it. A question of taste.
If we show skin, especially of titillating body parts, will people look? Probably. Can Padukone pick and choose what the media uses? No.  Will a section of the media (just like some people) try to go for awkward angles to get cheap thrills? Yes.
I’m ready to cry myself hoarse on the issue of a woman’s right to wear what they like. I firmly believe that in the 21st century, what I can or cannot wear should be least of my problems. But at the same time, every woman who is true to herself will agree that when they wear a particularly plunging neckline or a suggestive cut, they know people will look. These clothes are often worn so people look and appreciate.
By saying that, I don’t mean this justifies rape or molestation. Nothing justifies that. But if I show, you’ll see. It’s not even a women’s issue. When John Abraham, Hrithik Roashan or anyone else bares himself, women and men look. Women just seem to do it more often than men do.  No one in their right mind would take any of it seriously. To quote Sherlock (of Cumberbatch fame), “you cater to the whims of the pathetic and take your clothes off to make an impression. Stop boring me and think. It's the new sexy.”
Look around. The men are still wearing shirts and trousers and T-shirts, most of them non transparent and non body showing.
Why is that? Did you say it’s because women have better bodies to showcase, so they can wear these things? I agree. In which case, I’d also have to accept the fact that it all boils down to the fact that  we want to be noticed when we go to these lengths to make ourselves pretty. So noticed we get!
Once you’re done baying for my blood, maybe you could help me understand this: I perform on what people call “item numbers” and am completely comfortable making my living by showcasing my perfectly toned body. That is not an outrage on womanhood and feminism, but a silly tabloid is?
At the cost of being repetitive, that is not the same as saying “you asked for it.” No one asks to get raped or molested or violated ,  it only takes basic common sense to understand that. But willful behavior should and must come with responsibilities. And this goes beyond Deepika Padukone and her  problem.
In all the noise that this incident generated, Pooja Bedi, to my mind, was the only person who made sense. Wearing an almost amused expression, Bedi contradicted her fellow “outraged” panelists on TV. And in the very same newspaper, she wrote : “When you are a public figure and you go out to a press event, you are bound to be dissected from your chipped nail polish to your repeated shoes. If admiring and focusing on a woman's assets is a crime, all item numbers should be banned. How fair is it to say, I will dress to tantalise publicly, but you have to look the other way?”
That is the price of fame, especially for entertainers who make a living out of being talked about. That no one can control at all times how they will be talked about is a risk that all men and women have to take.
Oh, I’ve heard all the arguments by now. Acting is an art and that’s what actors do and need to be respected for it. I am not challenging that. But like I told my friend , if  someone is banking on his/her acting/dancing/singing/mathematical/analytical/whateveritis skills majorly, they do not need to pose in skimpy clothes on magazine covers or in public dos. This fact is gender agnostic.   There are too many examples to list even from the entertainment industry itself, so let’s give that a rest. Think Asha Bhosle, if nothing else.
Women’s liberation and rights are serious issues and heavy words—words that MUST NOT be casually tossed about.
If Padukone (or any other emancipated woman or man) truly believes it is a woman’s right to go skimpy, they should try implementing this in one of those rural Gujarati villages they recreated in Padukone’s movie, not from the enveloped and sanitized environs of urban cities or university campuses.
Makes me think of all those girls in J school who would champion women’s rights all year long but meekly dress in salwaar kameezes just before they headed back home for the annual vacations.
Everybody trying to make this into a serious issue of women’s rights issue needs to shut up, immediately. Because if the baring of bodies or the intent to do so  by young celebrities was the same as liberation, Poonam Pandey and Kim Kardashian would replace Curie and Joan of Arc in textbooks as heroes. And then we’d truly have outdone ourselves.

Dogs, babies, boredom

Bombay Dyeing, for long associated with everything upholstery in Indian households is currently running a new advertising campaign that reflects changing times. The company is obviously doing it to tell people my generation and younger, who largely think their curtains and bed covers are way too stodgy, expensive and are only meant to be wedding gifts for distant relatives, that they've evolved.
So a young girl wants her divorced dad to redo his house with BD upholstery so he can woo women and a young couple is engaging in what looks like towel-shopping for their “baby”, which turns out to be a dog.
The ads have an easy feel-good vibe about them, but the dog ad caught my attention.

Disclosure: I don’t have a pet. I've come close to buying a dog once, but haven’t.

I hear having pets can be extremely gratifying and I've seen for myself the kind of bonding owners get to enjoy with them, where dogs and cats, especially, demand and get equal rights in the family as legitimate members. It really is heartwarming.
When my friend’s dog died he and his mother grieved for days. However, I’d always thought having a pet was more of a family affair, where mom, dad, kids and dog complete the picture. In my defence, that’s all I had ever seen or read.  Timmy  got access to Aunt Fanny’s food and care quite early on, my friend lived with his family of course, and Snowy’s always with Tintin, so never alone. Plus he can talk, and drinks whiskey. No competition.
But this was before I realized that somewhere down the line having a pet had somehow morphed into a pop movement, where every other upwardly mobile single man or woman (and newly married couple, sometimes) would have one -- whom they’d invariably lock up in their apartments the whole time they’re at work or away for any reason -- for the joy of having someone to come home to at the end of a long and tiring day.

Buying expensive dogs had become status symbols for families that can afford to have other people take care of their pets, so they can ruffle their heads once every day in the evening.
By the way, you've got to stop buying pugs and then make them run around. Their noses are bad, and your little show of exercise and/or love taxes them. Plus those people you hire as dog walkers? They don’t take them to the park but only run along pavements, where they dirty it. I am not a hater, but I refuse to understand why your little hobby should be my problem. The pavement is for me to walk on, not your dog to poop on. Use your own damn bathroom.

Ok, that last bit is an India problem, but worldwide, cute dogs are obviously also great wing-men, though  I’d wager that loneliness is a stronger reason behind the rise of the pet pop culture. When I was settling in the US  I suffered a massive fit of loneliness in the first month. My familiarization guide had checked in on me after I’d shifted into my apartment and I thought I’d ask her broker friend if it would be easy to find a roommate, just so I have some company.

“Why do you want to share your space? If you’re lonely, get a dog,” the ladies said in unison.

That threw me off completely.

They knew I lived by myself, was just starting to feel my way around the city and had to travel quite a bit. They were even lecturing me on how I need to set my kitchen up ASAP, because I'd been eating out every day. How did they think I could take up the responsibility of another living being at that point?

Then, just out of curiosity, I repeated the same question at work. Not so vehement, but more or less the same response. And I slowly recognized the trend.

My next door neighbor had a small puppy, which would claw at the door and bark itself silly every time it’d hear my footsteps or the sound of me turning the keys, expecting me to be its owner and no doubt wanting to be let out.

When that happens all the time, it’s hard not to wonder if it is not outright selfish to get a pet to comfort yourself, but one you’d obviously have to keep chained/shut up for long parts of the day where it’d no doubt be miserable in varying degrees. In effect, subject that pet to loneliness to make sure you don’t have to go through the same.

I've no doubt the owners are extremely fond of all their pets— it would take a monster to not grow attached to another life that is so caring and also dependent on you. But I still can’t agree to the reasoning behind it.

And since we've already made the child-and-pet-are interchangeable-today point, let me say this too: boredom and loneliness also sound like really strange reasons for people to have children.

Oh, I get the logic. I've heard my women friends say “I’m not doing anything right now, so this is a good time to have  baby,” too many times to not understand what they mean.

But since I’m at it anyway, let me get it out. That reasoning sounds right on paper, but feels all wrong.

Surely, your taking charge of another living being has got to have a little more to it than the fact that you are bored and/or jobless? I mean, if you are bored and lonely, you go for a walk. You watch a movie, go get a drink, take up yoga or another hobby.

Surely a pet or a baby is more than that?

More disclosures: apart from not having a pet, I also do not have kids. And unlike in the case of the dog, I've not come close to getting one and then changed my mind. 

All through the past three years I told myself this is a first world affectation— this buying of pets to get company—and then I moved to India. Where I saw the BD ad. And today, I got to know Amazon in the country has started selling pet supplies and related products.

Well, the trend’s certainly catching on.

The Mumbai challenge, part 2

Yesterday, I had to say back at work till about 11 and because I was exhausted, I decided to walk to the train station and take a train back home, instead of getting into a cab. Walking helps me unwind. My job includes a decent amount of moving around, but the bigwigs I see are usually in their offices or at 5-star lounges. I don’t fault them; many of these people are too pressed for time. I once met a man at the airport because he didn’t have time to travel before his next flight! Plus, it’s not always the physical activity that drains, for me it’s the pressure of finding the right people, of staring at the screen till you find the right angle, the mental exhaustion from all of it. There are days when I just decide not to look at my phone any more when I get out of office. *Hint: if I’ve not returned a couple of calls or texts, this is why.  

So I decided to walk. And I noticed how Mumbai changed around me, post 11. The place I work at is what can be called midtown, with a lot of offices and people in suits and high heels and cars. But on Thursday  after office hours, they were all gone.  Mumbai roads are never really all empty, so there were people, but I was able to more or less saunter across the crossing that I usually dare not cross on my own. Old trick: I just wait for another person and follow him/her when they cross.  

Where there are cars parked and makeshift shops, there were now people making their beds.  Some had pulled out rugs to lie on, others found a relatively clean spot on the pavement. Where there is incessant traffic during the day, municipality trucks were: workers cleaning the roads as much as they can. The waste, I noticed, was mostly vegetable and fruit peels and plastic.

The train station had a few stragglers from work like me, but I think I mostly saw daily wage earners going back home. There’s a policeman in the ladies’ compartments around that time. The good thing about this city is, people are helpful on the whole. And when you know there’s no fight to get a seat (the first class ladies compartment is always comparatively less crowded), they become nicer.  An elderly woman had struck up a conversation with the girl selling hair accessories. I was in no mood to talk to anyone, so I took the empty carriage. They are linked and you can see into one from the other through the grilles.  The policeman looked like he wanted to say something, but then decided to let me be. I’m thinking he wanted to ask me to sit in the one where he and the lady were, for safety, maybe.

Mumbai’s borderline schizophrenic , there are at least three of them living in here. There’s the city by the day, where everyone’s hurrying and rushing and doing their own thing to earn their daily bread. There’s the Mumbai of the clubs and pubs and hotels and fancy hangouts, some that change so radically from evening to nightfall you’ll wonder if it’s the same place. There’s the Mumbai of the streets at night, which is peaceful (everything’s relative in this city) and of the people who take over after the ones like us are done using the roads.

 I thought riding a train at night in Mumbai can be a pretty nice experience. You’re not stuck in the city’s ever present traffic snarl  (nights are usually traffic- less, but you never know when you get caught in one), it’s quieter and you can eat samosas at the station shops.  Another thing, the last one out always turns off the fans and the lights. I don’t know if they do it in the men’s compartments, but the ladies almost always do it without fail. Given where I live, I’m barely ever the last one , but yesterday I did.  There was no queue at the auto stand and the friendly woman who reached the one approaching auto at the same time as I let me take it.  “I’ll just go to linking road (local shopping and hanging out spot), you get in.”

Unthinkable in normal hours. 

As I got home, I looked around from my balcony—it had rained earlier and the dust layers on terraces and trees seemed to have been washed away. There was a moon.  I looked at my phone and for sure, it said we were having a “clear” night—a rarity for the perpetually haze-ridden cities of Delhi and Mumbai. I was smiling to myself, thinking about how the city’s growing on me. The people here were right—everyone gets used to it in various degrees, some sooner than others.