Wednesday, January 16, 2008

The 7 habits of highly effective Mumbaiyyas

(Part 2 in a series of posts) on Mumbai.
I have noticed over the past few months in my adopted home that there are roughly seven distinct stages by which one morphs into a Mumbaiyya/ Mumbaikar. (Note that by Mumbaiyyas, I mean anyone who has lived long enough in Mumbai to consider himself/herself a "local", and not only the authentic Marathi Mumbaiyyas. Anyways, the rate at which people migrate into Mumbai, it's very hard to say what a "true" Mumbaiyya is).

So, over to the seven habits of highly effective Mumbaiyyas

1. Calling people Bhai: Which of course means elder brother. Which is sometimes disconcerting if you are a 24 year old male and at the receiving end of such an acclamation. (I mean, who gave me the mandate of being all of Mumbai's elder brother I say). Of course, coming from Bangalore, I am used to calling random strangers Guru, which of course means teacher, and is quite a ludicrous greeting in itself. The jury may be out on which one is more asinine, but I sure took some time referring to every stranger as my elder brother.

2. Actually understanding how local trains work: Here I don't mean being able to get in to a local train and getting out. But actually understanding 'insider info' like
a) knowing which side of the train the platform will be,
b) being able to decode cryptic messages like "B S 9 02", which is the only signposting you will see in a local train station, and actually knowing what it means*.
c) knowing useful hints like "don't take a Virar fast if you don't actually have to travel" that far, and so on.
d) understanding statements like 'I took the 8:11 fast instead of the 8:04 slow' and actually believing the above statement makes for meaningful confabulation.

In addition, you must also be able to gleefully wear that knowing, smug, expression when you see an obviously non-local person trying to unsuccessfully negotiate his/her way through the local trains' countless unwritten laws and undertake a journey.

It appears that worryingly, I am already at this stage.

3. Develop an overpowering obsession of roads and traffic. See this for more info on this. Fotbw has gone on to provide her insider, sociological-psychological-anthropological-philosophical-cultural take on Mumbai's all encompassing neurosis with roads and traffic. Apparently, showing off an intricate knowledge of roads, traffic tips, shortcuts etc is the native way of showing "I am more of a localite than you are". Which is why traffic is an oft repeated theme in conversations. After 9 odd months here, this theory is starting to make a lot of sense.

4. A sincere belief that it takes 25 minutes to get from anywhere to anywhere else in Bombay. This one had me flummoxed for a while. "From Bandra to Nariman point takes 25 minutes, and once the Worli Bandra sea link is ready, it should take only 15 minutes". Replace Bandra & Nariman Point by any 2 random localities and the numbers 25 and 15 never change. You could as well say 42 and the total randomness of the choice of those numbers would remain.

For a brief while, I remarked to myself how it was such a happy coincidence that all places in Mumbai seemed to be 25 minutes away (and I attributed the fact that it was actually taking more like 2+ hours to bad directions & un-knowledgeable taxi drivers). Of course, it didn't take long to realize that on a good day here, you could jog backwards blindfolded and tied-up and still beat the traffic comfortably.

A corollary to this inexorable belief in the efficiency of the traffic is also a (mistaken) belief that every other city has "far worse traffic" than Mumbai. This includes places like Pune, Jhumritilaiya etc
My good friend the cuplord, has been in Mumbai for exactly the same duration as me and he already is past this stage. He has also in true Mumbai spirit, has hit upon the magic number of 25.

5. That unique Mumbai whistle. I am actually very fascinated by this one. I am sure that if properly studied, this can disprove all laws of acoustics. It involves an elaborate twisting of the lower lip with the thumb and index finger and emitting a high pitched whistle. But what I really never have understood how it works, but somehow the person who the whistler is attempting to reach out always responds and nobody else. It is truly a marvel of nature that in the vast crowds you are usually subjected to in Mumbai, one expert whistle, and you can draw out the exact person you are calling. I'd really like to skip levels 3 and 4 and get to 5 directly.

6. Developing a very warped sense of the phrase 'good weather'. Also extrapolate to include the word 'cold'. For the uninitiated, let me explain how Mumbai weather is. The maximum temperature is 33 degrees 365 days a year. It starts raining at 9 AM on June 1st and stops in early September. The minimum temperature is 24 degrees except in 'peak winter' when it drops drastically to 22 degrees, or in especially cruel 'cold waves', maybe 21. It is this kind of weather that permits Lonavla to be considered as a hill station.

Now granted that all cities can't be well endowed weather wise, but after what I am used to, it's very hard not to be tickled to death when the sweaters and monkey caps come out here in January. Especially when the sweaters come accompanied by sentences like "Oh, its such a pleasant day. What fine weather". Sigh. These are the times I miss home most.

7. This is the terminal stage of acute "Mumbaiitis". By this time, you start believing Mumbai is the universe. Juxtapose this with the geocentric theory, where they conceded that there were other places in the universe, but the earth was the center of it all. Mumbaiitis on the other hand, seems to ignore the existence of all places outside Mumbai.

Some common associated symptoms are a sincere belief that Mumbai is the perfect city and the paragon of urban settlements. This includes, but is not restricted to, a belief that "Mumbai has great infrastructure", "Mumbai is the safest city", "Mumbai has clean beaches", "Mumbai is not as polluted as other metros in India", "the indomitable spirit of Mumbaikars", "Mumbai has the best lifestyle" (whatever that means) and so on. Asinine as the above statements may sound, these are commonly held beliefs in 'born and brought up in Mumbai' circles.

While it is common to be fond of the city you spent most of your life in, the parochial obsession the city holds with itself is hard to understand for outsiders. By the time you reach this stage, you usually have either a road or locality in Mumbai named after you. To this set, Navi Mumbai is the "east coast of India", and the universe ends abruptly a little beyond Panvel.

Post script: I don't hate Mumbai to the extent that my 1st two posts suggest. In fact, I don't hate Mumbai at all. But I think of Mumbai more like a dust allergy. It is really despicable the first time, and once you get used to it, you hardly notice it, and it only bothers you once in a way. Also, if you look up Mumbai in a thesaurus, you'd probably find 'Bangalore' listed as it's antonym. Which is why getting adjusted to this place (if you're used to Bangalore) is so hard.

* For the absolutely uninitiated, that means 'Slow train to Bandra with 9 coaches in 2 minutes'.

Monday, January 7, 2008

Dial M for monkee- the history of a nickname

To those who haven't spent the last few days under behind a rock, "monkey" is the word of the day, week, month or even your year. And it seems that it is a racial slur. Point being, if monkey was a racial slur, i can sue nearly all the people I know in this world. And if I expand monkey to include monkee, monks, monka and other variants, I can sue ALL the people I know in the world.

Flashback to a scene in 2002 in an engineering college in Mysore Road. In the midst of an engrossing discussion on Robbie Keane's late equalizer against Cameroon the previous day in the world cup, Kodhi stepped up and made a profound statement, whose profundity would have made even Abhay proud. "Doesn't Atul look like Monkey in Dexter's laboratory?" was the exact statement. It took a while to even register that he wasn't continuing the aforementioned discussion.

Now the world is used to look-alikes coming from Abhay, (Doesn't maldini look like a shoe, doesn't this twig look like Kanti being among his celebrated ones), but the mimetic statement from Kodhi didn't exactly spur our pea sized brains into working overtime. However, Kodhi pertinaciously held on to the perceived look-alike, choosing another opportune time to reprise his statement. This time he made the "Doesn't Atul look like Monkey in Dexter's laboratory" statement just as I was getting thrown out of an Analog Communications class for ostensibly sleeping in class (in fact, I was doing precisely that). This time, for some reason, Kanti and Abhay, the other 2 celebrated members of the back bench, readily acquiesced.

Written history keeps little record of the next few days that transpired soon after, but by the time of the quarter finals (a couple of weeks later, for those of you who spent 2002 hiding under a rock), all my close friends were introduced to the concept of calling me 'monkey'. Maybe it was because the alternate nickname which was floating around that the time (being Tul), in spite of its mellifluous 'cute'ness is actually a Kannada expletive, not used often even in its home state.

Even family was getting used to the idea of 'Hello, can I please speak to monkey' phone calls, back in the days when landlines were still used. But I decided one fine day, more for the heck of it than anything else, that from henceforth ,my nickname shall be 'monkee' as opposed to 'monkey'. It was a small, yet significant metamorphosis of the appellation. When questioned, it was easy to get away with a vague ass reason like "I'm a big rock n' roll fan, and Kodhi gets some really lousy ideas, that's why I was nicknamed monkee". Eminently believable on both counts.

The egotistical me that usually came out when I was a quizmaster meant that the 1st question of any quiz would have to be a self dedication. In the process, over the next few years, I single handedly gave The Monkees far more references in Bangalore quizzing than they could have ever got otherwise. So much so that all possible fundaes about the band have been exhausted by now.

Cut to scene in IIMB circa July 2005. While logging into BRacket for the 1st time, for want of a display name, I randomly typed in my old college nickname. I had little idea what popularity levels this moniker would reach. Barely 1 term on, I was universally 'Monkee' to the batch, and even a professor would go on to call me Monkee in my class. I would then famously go on and get embarassed during placements when Indum screamed out "Mooooonnkkeeeeeeeeeee" from one end of MDC to another, prompting several stunned i-bankers to wonder whether they had come to the right place to recruit after all. Of course the fact that said person repeated said feat several dozen times over the day somewhat reduced the shock value, if any.

The 'monkee moment' hall of fame would include the time I was made to climb a tree in Coorg during a class trip in the 2nd term of IIMB. Well, it seemed like an obvious thing to ask someone nicknamed monkee to do. Of course, the whole act was partially (make that largely) self initiated. The most famous 'monkee moment' in IIMB of course undoubtedly occurred when a certain "akka" sincerely asked me who Atulya Bharadwaj was, on seeing my name on some list. On volunteering that the aforementioned name was in fact me, came what reinforced 'brand monkee'- "but I thought monkee was your name. At least your family name or something" *

From there, it was a matter of time before batch mates, juniors, friends, friends' parents etc were to know me as Monkee. Several French classmates during exchange would also get to know me as Monkee since "Atulya Raghuram Bharadwaj" was quite a mouthful for le Francaise, who could never get past the 't' in my first name while tryong to pronounce it.

A certain fotbw also ensured that even at the workplace, this name would start to make its presence felt. Cuplord raised a valid point once. If MS 'Vindi' Banga can still be known by his dorm name, me in senior management would prove embarrassing for the company (and at the very least, me). I for one, would not want to be a shareholder in a company where a "Monkee Bharadwaj" has to address the annual shareholders' general meeting.

Of course, Andrew Symonds has taken the moniker to entirely new levels. So now that suddenly it is an ethnic slur to refer to someone as a 'monkey', I can sue a few people for the heck of it. I think I should start with Rags, who amongst his several million accomplishments, came up with the derived Monkesh patrike name, from where this blog takes its name.

* That statement was actually made in all earnestness

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Cricket vs Football

This started off as a random discussion recently between me, Kodhi and Kanti which I extrapolated. The fortunes of cricket teams and international football teams seem to have some parallels.

Australia = Brazil. Strongest by far, and consistently been that way for a while now. Way too much talent in all departments of the game, and even a B side would be amongst the top 8 in the world. A lot of players from here would find it easier to make it to a "World 23" than a "Brazil/Australia 11". And both arguably produced the greatest ever player in the game.

India = Argentina. Lot of passion, huge crowd support, very entertaining teams, but underachieve when compared to their potential. Have had the occasional big wins, but still falter against the top team(s). And both arguably produced the player who can be considered as equal to Bradman/Pele.

West Indies = Uruguay. Had some past glory in the ages gone by. Nothing much to show for in recent times, though both seemed to promise a revival in the 90's/2000's but that was a damp squib.

England = England. Need I say more! Invented the game, but cant play it for squat. Highly overrated, only they think they're good, too much media coverage. But lots of money and excellent domestic setup nonetheless.

Pakistan = Holland. Lots of stars but no results, big underachievers, and too many injury prone players. Holland produces strikers the way Pakistan does with fast bowlers.

Sri Lanka = France. Some very entertaining stuff again, sometimes unconventional style, emerged as serious contenders out of the blue in recent years.

South Africa = Italy. Big time chokers, some bad luck. And could have won far more than they have done so. Falter against some really weak times at times, and also quite inconsistent.

New Zealand = Sweden or Mexico. Have barely ever come close to winning a world cup, and probably will never win a world cup, but will possess way too much talent to be counted among the lower rungs of their respective sport. Yet, they never seriously challenge the top guns either.

The last few are somewhat force fit.

Kenya = Ghana or Senegal. Lot of spirit, from a continent with not much sporting infrastructure, but well capable of a big upset once in a way.

Bangladesh = South Korea. One moment of glory, and for some reason, they seem to think they deserve to be amongst the elite purely for that. They can consistently be walloped by any of the top teams.

Zimbabwe = Cameroon or Nigeria. Had their best lot of players in the 1990's, played almost as equals with the big guns of the game, caused their share of upsets, and then faded out. Lot of mismanagement in the national game too.

Canada = Ukraine. Both qualified for a single world cup, largely on the basis of an individual talent, had some fun, and gracefully exited. Not much expected of them once said individual talent retires, and will probably never do anything of note again.

PS: Abhay strongly disagrees with the India = Argentina analogy, and suggests that India = Holland or India = France is a better analogy. Any comments?
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