ABCD or ....IBCDEFA

Ah, the cricket world cup matches, bring back so many memories. ..The keyed up crowds, the bowler posturing the umpire with a “Howzzaat” , the swell of the noise when the home team hit a 4 or 6 or gets a wicket …and the sound of despair when the home team drops a catch. The best part was the body language between players especially if India played Pakistan.

I remember my brother playing cricket with his friends and if I ever tried to pick up the bat to hit a ball or tried bowling, he would be in splits, saying, ”This is not for girls..” and I would be left being the audience. When I would pout hard, he assumed the role of coach and would show me how to hold the bat (which I think is basic common sense) and how to bowl the ball…..(Now that’s a no brainer …) I tried being a fast bowler, then decided maybe I should stick with underarm bowling. My brother kept telling me that I bowled flat and he would tell his cronies, “Yeh, Chappati ball phekti hai, kya yaar”. So one of his best friends Manish would say,”Jaane de, Jaane de, do aur ball baaki hai na, bas chod de”.  

Speaking of cronies, he had quite a few of them. I would be so mad at them because they assumed the girls to be no-good goofs when it came to cricket. Navin, Manish, Babu and two Suresh’s..I have to pause here ….if you remember one of the popular kid cartoons in those days was Fireball XL5 and it had a character called Zooney.  You could’nt miss Zooney especially, because of his big floppy ears, big round tummy and flat feet. So the Suresh’s were named- Zoon1 and Zoon 2.

I am shifting gears here….you know as well as I do that the years can really change people!

Now after all these years, everyone including the Zoons are all grown up, married and working in multinational companies. I happened to meet one of them by chance (Navin)  in one of my trips to Mumbai 4 years ago.

Navin said,”You are based abroad, right? I am going to the USofA next month.” I asked him which location in the US and duration of stay. When he started speaking to me in a forced western accent, I found it amusing.

People go abroad because of the money and some want to go abroad because they like the idea of being called an NRI.

Navin(the soon to be NRI) and his mom cornered me, and asked me questions about life in the US - chai-paani, dal-roti, sabzi, achar, papad, kapda, makaan, gaadi, hawaai jahaj, aam aadmi …. Then there were questions on the Green Card, Visa, and Citizenship and so the list goes on… His mom discreetly took me aside and asked me about girls for marriage.  Wow! Quite a long-term thinker.

So the pakka mumbaika tapori  was all ready to pack his peti and get on the flight with the great Indian Dream. I shall describe a typical send off – The entire family assembles at the house of the foreign-bound person from all corners of the country, friends, acquaintances, the regulars, even the rickshawallas and taxiwallas show up for the send-off.  The packing itself is a major ceremony ….,  bottles of achar, packets of sweets, khandwa, fafda, thepla, papad, including  a Prestige pressure cooker are all packed into one big VIP suitcase. Thus the send-off and the journey across the seven seas!

Four years later, I met Navin in Mumbai. ..and what a transformation!  Quite the firang, I must say!

I have lived out of the country for the last 16 years, but the “Indian” in me is alive, it’s in my heart. I never miss a chance to live up to my Indian values, culture and heritage.

As I started talking to Navin beta, I realized he left India with English in a Hindi accent, and now he spoke Hindi with a New Yorker accent. I tried to speak to him in Hindi, but he responded in English.

Interestingly, to top it, firangi Navin beta forgot Hindi in four years and said that he has a natural accent.  Navin beta has an identity crisis ..?? Hmm, Confident yet confused , I could not call him “ABCD” because he was not one….so I began to think up of another name for him….Ah, “IBCDEFA” ….Indian Born Confirmed Desi's Explicit Firang Act!

Navin beta did come back with some phobias, itisis and itches -

1)      Spiceophobia     

I remember him and my brother with all their cronies hanging out at Dinesh’s Bhel Puri &  Pani Puri stall, pretty much the regular hangout for the cricket team. Dinesh made his entire livelihood doling out pani puris to these taporis.

Firangi Navin beta said,“I cannot take this spicy Indian food anymore. Don’t give me Chaat..,it is very spicy”,- He waved at his tongue and blew his nose at the sight of chaat masala. Flashback: The same Navin beta, used to have a frequent food pass at Dinesh’s stall….

2)      Bragotitis

He bragged about New York, California, & Chicago …. He compared everthing to things abroad. “In California they drive convertibles. [Completely forgetting that I resided in the US as well, he says …] Convertibles, do you know what a convertible is? Maybe Sachin has it. When I landed in Mumbai airport, I didn’t know if I will fit into the Yellow taxi you know, it is so small…. I drive a BMW, all my friends have Luxury cars ….”

As we were talking, I noticed right next to us was MindSpace, Malad and there were quite a few Mercedes-Benz, BMWs, Chevys, Audis in the parking lot… Also, opposite to Mindspace was a huge MB Showroom ….

All I did was nod and pity the clueless guy …

3)      Dirtophobia

I remember, Navin beta used to spend his summer vacation doing nothing but cricket. He pretty much sun bathed as many hours as the daylight could give him. 

The firangi Navin beta could not stand the Bombay climate- He needed Ray Bans, sunscreen, and other complimentary products to even cross the road and visit the next home.  

“There is so much dust and dirt here ..I cannot breathe ….I will get asthma…” This same Navin beta used to bathe in “Baarish ki Paani, especially during Govindashtami Haandi Phode and sing Govinda Aala Re”

He then asked, “How do people survive here?”

I smiled at him and thought “You seriously need a Flashback firangi.”

Only if I could use a Captain Kirk Style command – “Scotty, beam this creature down to earth (pun intended)”.

4)      SupaBrandacea-  

Navin beta looked at my watch and said,’Is that a TAG HEUER?” I said, “No, it is a Titan Raga.” “What!!! You have lived in the US for so long and you are wearing a TITAN!!!! Whats wrong with you?”. He asked me if I like PRADA or LUIS VITTON. (for those who know the brand Louis Vuitton...)

I said, “I own a GUESS and MICHEAL KORS & plan to go shopping at Fashion Street.” He was aghast. “Why Fashion Street? You will never change.”

I couldn’t help smiling at the remark, Change..he sets quite the example doesn’t he?

5)      ClickIt Itches

Navin was carrying a huge camcorder, (someone could mistake him for a News reporter) and was busy taking pictures .. I said, “Navin, seems like you have found a new hobby.” He replied,”I have to take photos to show my office colleagues; they have asked me about India.” He went to the old Dinesh Food Stall, now Dinesh Lunch Home and started clicking,” The people inside looked at him and said,”Aree, wo apna Navin Bhai hai na?.”

As soon as they came out to greet him, Dirtophobia kicked in and Navin vanished. “Kahan Gaya Bhai? Aree Pakka firang banke aa gaya”.

Men 'R' from Mars, Women 'R' from Venus

I was at the Apna Bazar grocery store to do my weekly grocery shopping. I noticed a man hurriedly storm into the store and stand in front of all the aisles thunderstruck. Of course it was raining torrents outside, seemed like he carried that ambiance inside. Then he went to the fruits aisle, looked to his left and right (not at the fruits) and stood flabbergasted. I assumed he was searching for someone.

Soon after I heard a lady at the entrance,”Aji sunte ho, Kela mila kya, panditji baithe hain gaadi mein, Jaldi Karo” The man grunted something and nodded.

That got me thinking….. Gosh, men and women communicate so differently. Men are Martians of a few words; Women are Venusians loud and boisterous. 
While Martians (men) tend to pull away and silently think about the things (bananas), Venusians (women) feel an instinctive need to talk and ask about the things (bananas).

Well the list is long here. At a minimum, the women will certainly look up the size, color, ripeness, freshness, and price, and compare 3 different varieties.

Some sophisticated Venusians may look for the “where packaged” label, “where grown”, organic, calories, serving size and any diet ratings. 

No wonder it takes my better half 2 minutes to buy bananas where as it takes me 10 times as much.

This man was standing a few inches away from the bananas (only if he bothered to look at them) and he kept asking the store workers for the bananas.

The second warning was heard at the entrance – “Aji, chote wale kele leke aana”. For a minute I thought I saw the man move, but no, another man-shopper brought the one and only type of banana available in the store and gave it to the man. One of the quotes from the infamous book by John Gray is “Men are motivated when they feel needed while women are motivated when they feel cherished.”

I bet the helper–man must’ve read John Gray’s book, - and he was motivated to help out the other fellow-man, while the women-shoppers looked on in disbelief!

Without the awareness that we are supposed to be different, men and women are at odds with each other.
Talk about the unique ways that each gender deals with stress ….

Take me for example- Usually when guests come home for lunch or dinner, I prepare an eclectic meal for them and sometimes the preparation starts a week in advance. I like to visualize the dishes with the perfect taste, color and texture with touches of garnish , served in classic or modern stemware, glassware or serveware. 

(I know some Martians out there must find this funny….and must be thinking- As long as I have a paper napkin to hold and wipe my food, why all this fuss?)

Well, because I find it enjoyable and relaxing!

My better half claims that the so called stemware, flatware and serveware are treasures to be seen through glass doors and they only come out when the guests arrive. In fact, though I have much of this stemware from years ago, he is of the impression that I brought them last week. Hmmph!

Well, as I was going through the grocery aisle, I noticed a young confused dad, shifting tomatoes between hands. I wasn’t sure if he was playing tomato juggling (to calm his bawling 3 year old in the pram) or if he really was someone from the FDA looking for some explosive chemical treated tomatoes. His wife at the same time had completed loading the cart from aisle 1, zipped through aisle 2 and was racing to aisle 3. I think she had given him the job of picking tomatoes. Here is where I quote John Gray again -  Venus is on Fire, but Mars is on Ice. In this case, the Martian (man) felt that balancing tomatoes is intricately connected to balancing the blood sugar which also balances the hormones. I am sure juggling tomatoes had a calming effect on him.

At the other end of the aisle, I noticed a couple poking through a bag of oranges. The lady wanted to selectively pick only certain oranges inside the bag but the man was insisting that they need to take the whole bag or the loose oranges. I could hear the argument in Gujarati …. Now wait a minute …..The oranges were bagged so that people could buy a bag of oranges.  As the man walked away from the argument…. Venus opened the bag and put loose oranges into a plastic bag. … Clearly oranges were the cause of the menopause –and the “man-o-pause” relationship stressors!

As I went past the aisle, I noticed a lady take out a Champa agarbatti and smell it (I am glad she didn’t light it up), she put that back in the packet, gave me a sheepish grin  and went on to open Cycle Brand agarbatti. There were 3 packets in there – she opened all 3 of them and started to smell each one … I asked her why she was doing that …. And she said that she was trying to balance the aromas for the yin and yang.

She said the main purpose of burning incense was to keep a cheerful and tranquil mind during reading because the ancient Chinese believed incense was beneficial to study and it can appease the spirit and inspire the mind. Yin and yang, were the opposing principles in nature, the former meaning feminine, the latter masculine. She went on to explain that the concept of yin yang  is used to describe how polar or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world.

(Ah, Martians and Venusians even in the ancient chinese philosophy)

Well, well, well….

At first I couldn’t understand why men were so disinterested in grocery shopping, but now I get it, it is a polar effect! Take the same Martian (man) from the grocery store and put him at an iPad 2 launch and a Motorola XOOM unveiling in Manhattan, NY. Now wouldn’t that be paradisiacal! I am sure he will forget even his very existence!

Now my better half will argue that I have the same effect when I am at the Macys or Lord  & Taylors Annual Shoe Sale! He claims I go MIA once I see those shoes ….

He makes a case that it can’t be worse than running out of a moving vehicle at the sight of a Sale sign …, (once I was driving the car and ran out of the moving car (without putting it on park), when I saw a sale sign at the Ann Taylor store in downtown Princeton. Sigh!)

I tell ya,.. it all boils down to achieving the yin-yang balance.  It gives us the strength and energy to cope with the challenges of our modern lifestyles; ….how hard can it get - be it buying agarbattis, shoes or even iPads!

All Aboard (in Mumbai)....Part II

It was third year engineering and pretty much the entire class was getting ready for GREs. GRE and TOEFL were the buzz words. Our class topper Sridhar and his sidekick VRS always hung out in the library and everything was very secretive, books they read, classes they took and universities they applied. One day as I was returning a book on Thermodynamics, I saw Sridhar and VRS hastily check out a book and run out.  My curiosity got the better of me and I asked the librarian what the book was- and the response was “Fluid Mechanics, by Frank White.”.

I asked the librarian if there was another copy, but of course, there was none. The other buzz words that floated around the college were BCL (British Council Library) and USEFI. Anyone who carried these acronyms with them were “IN”. Meaning, everyone would want to hang around you to get the “INFO”.

I decided to make the trip to Churchgate to BCL and then go to USEFI to attend an orientation.

In those days I had strict rules at home and I was only allowed to travel up to Andheri by local train. If I needed to travel beyond Andheri I was escorted by a family member. Mind you I was 20 years old, lived with parents and followed every law laid down in the house. (I so wish we had mobile phones at that time, maybe that would’ve relaxed the rules, or maybe if we had a GPS transponder that would’ve helped with the tracking!)

Even so the “Laxman Rekha” was Andheri Railway Station and extended up to the Bhavans College Campus.

(“Laxman Rekha” is a phrase used in Hindi which means- I draw the line here.)

Anyways, Dad arranged for a BCL card, and had the USEFI appointment setup and I was all set for my journey. Dad asked a cousin of mine visiting from Hyderabad to be my chaperone! It was Ramesh’s first time in Bombay and he was all excited.

I had a first class pass. First class was considered the privileged class only because we had working professionals, and college kids (who could afford it because of a student discount). You could travel in “first class”  without the “macchiwalis”, “dabahwallas” or the daredevil who would swing the pole at the entrance to the compartment waving his neck scarf at the oncoming train’s passengers. Quite the thrill, I must say! The air in first class was a notch higher than the regular class, or that’s what the people travelling in it thought so.

In Bombay, let me explain the difference between travelling first and second class - Now, if someone with a second class ticket travelled in first and was found out, he would get the choicest silent treatment from the co-passengers, and he would never be able to live it down.

Unless it was the no-good bum who didn’t mind hopping onto the first class compartment and used foul language to get his way in spite of the silent treatment from his co-passengers. If a professional frowned at the entry of the bum into men’s first class, the bum will look straight at him and say something like, ”Ae Chikne, kaay re, idhar kayko dekhta hai?”

That was the cue to avoid all forms of interactions with the bum.

I asked Ramesh to buy a first class ticket, so he could travel in the men’s first class while I could use my existing first pass to travel to Churchgate. The ticket being too expensive he decided to travel “second” class and at the same time he was not comfortable with me travelling alone in “first” class. To avoid the “Rush Hour” we decided to take the Goregaon Local – this was a train that began boarding at Goregaon and then was an express to Churchgate with stops at Andheri, Bandra, Dadar, & Bombay Central before reaching Churchgate. Ramesh spent a few days in researching the train compartments and their locations on the platform.

Ah, but Ramesh didn’t want me to travel alone and he didn’t want to travel first class, so I decided to travel in second class with him. Based on Ramesh’s research, he advised to choose the 1^st compartment right behind the motorman’s cabin. Now, this was the compartment which was the most “diverse” – it included women, men, “chakkas” (eunuchs), dabbawallas, chickoo vendors, “keli” (bananas) vendors, santra (orange) vendors and anyone who didn’t fit in the other cars!

 Even before the train stopped at the platform, the milieu started…about 300 people raced to find seats in a 100-seater compartment.  Ramesh was ready for this; he jumped into the slowing train and disappeared. I waited until the train stopped to see if he made it in alive. I saw a blue handkerchief waving frantically at me from one of the windows..That was Ramesh! This was my first time in second class, so mustering courage I got on and moved myself in the direction of the handkerchief. I saw Ramesh with 10 people sneering at him, because he had “caught” a seat for me with his umbrella and a plastic bag. I made my way to the “seat” and settled in. The seat plank in front of us, which is a comfortable 3 seater or a wedged 4-seater was crammed with 6 people.

When I travelled first class, the aromas that crossed my nose were smell of perfumes, nail polish, Ponds Lotion or Cuticura powder.

In this case, it was the stench of beedi, paan, PAAN PARAG Paan masala, dried fish and other breakfast odors,

At Bandra, as a stream of passengers boarded the train, I heard a commotion near the door. A young man with dark sun glasses, striped T-shirt, neck-scarf and jeans Mithun shtyle was having an argument with an elderly man who had worn a sparkling white kurta-pajama.

Young Man: “Ae, raaste mein kayko khade lai? Dikh ta nahi hai kya” (Why are you standing in the way cant you see)

Elderly Man: Hum Mudaliar hai, Aabi Aandhra se aayi. (I am Mudaliar, I just came from Andhra)

Young Man: (Probably he felt that the scarf around his neck and sun glasses gave him importance and a boost to his self-image)

Ae,  Idli Sambar, Baju ko hat, mere ko idhar khada hone ko maangta hai. Chal chal bag nikal. (Move aside, I want to stand here, move your bag)

NOTE: Anyone with a distinct south Indian accent while talking in Hindi was considered a Madraasi in Bombay. Though there are 8 states in the Deccan Peninsula of Southern India, pretty much any south indian’s hindi accent is a dead give away! You could be a politician, minister, a sportsman, film star, professional or a regular Joe, all that anyone ever knew about you was Idli Sambar!

Mudaliar: Humara baig bada hain…(My bag is big)

Young Man: Abe Takle, To pair pe rakh na, (O bald one, Keep it on your feet)

[Now remember, real estate on Bombay trains comes at a premium. If you have a seat to sit, consider yourself privileged, if you have a place to stand comfortably with both your feet on the train and hold a bag, consider yourself blessed, if you have enough place to stand even if it is on one foot, and still breathe, consider yourself lucky]

Mudaliar (confused): Pair pe kaise, ..? (On feet, how?)

Young Man: Oe Chamkeele, to sar pe rakhke khada re. (O Shining headed one, then keep the bag on your head.)

(Looks at others ..)Kya aadmi hai yaar.. (What a guy.)

(Looks at confused Mudaliar) Idhar aadmi ko khada hone ko jagah nahin hai aur usko Baig rakhne ka hain. Baig uthake bahar faink ne ko mangta hai. Abe tere ko bag bhi rakh ke khada hone ko hai to Mercediz mein ja na.

(Here people don’t have place to stand and he wants to keep his bag. If you want to stand and hold your bag then go in a Mercedes.)

At Dadar, we had a few dabbawallas board the train.

Now remember, four thousand five hundred semi-literate dabbawalas collect and deliver 175,000 packages within hours and they achieve virtual six-sigma quality with zero documentation. In the dabbawalas' elegant logistics system, using 25 kms of public transport, 10 km of footwork and involving multiple transfer points, mistakes rarely happen. According to a Forbes 1998 article, one mistake for every eight million deliveries is the norm.

The dabbawalas settled themselves near the door and began singing Vittal Bhajans. I guess that was their entertainment for all the work they do!

On top of the Bhajan singing, we heard “Nagpuri santre, theen rupyache dus”. (Oranges from Nagpur, 10 for 3 rupees)

A lady boarded the train with a huge basket of oranges on her head. “Chala, Chala, santre ghya” (Buy my oranges)..

As the train left Dadar station, (I guess Mudaliar was too distracted with all the singing)

Mudaliar: Dadar aaya kya? (Did Dadar station come yet?)

Young Man: Abe ganje, Dadar to kabka nikal gaya, abhi tu Bombay Central mein utarke vaapis train pakad. (O Bald Head, Dadar has gone, now you get off at Bombay Central and take the train back to Dadar)

As soon as Bombay Central station came, Mudaliar was held in position to get pushed out onto the platform. He did get pushed out but sans his shoes!

In a few minutes we reached Churchgate.

Emerging disheveled, Ramesh promised that no matter what the cost he will buy a first class ticket for the ride home.