Monday, March 31, 2008

Is luxury expensive?

The world is getting wealthier and more people are seeking luxury than ever in the history of humankind. In Delhi, there's this luxury summit organized by the Hindustan Times Group currently displaying how to splurge your money. As if the square upon square miles of retail shopping space weren't enough to tell the filthy rich how to get dirty with their desires!

Okay, don't misunderstand me - even I want a piece of the luxury happening all around me (so I'm not squeaky clean myself when it comes to wishes - just that I don't have oodles of money!).

But quite often, I wonder what real luxury is. Does it mean I can buy the watch I feel attracted to or does it mean I can have the time and do what I want to do in that time? Does it mean I can buy the specially designed pillow or does it mean I can afford to sleep as much as I want (the roadside beggar, by the latter count, can afford a luxury I can't)? Does it mean I can buy hardbound volumes of books to decorate my bookshelf or does it mean I can enjoy reading the books I always wanted to irrespective of how they look? And does it mean I can drown myself in parfum (isn't that how expensive labels spell perfume?) or does it mean I can feel fresh in my mind in spite of the stink around me?

(What are "filth" and "stink" doing in a write-up on luxury?! Anyway...)

Is it possible to have both? Can we enjoy an expensive meal with the same taste we find in street food? Can we wear a Rolex without feeling shortchanged on time? Can we wear our cologne without the nausea that often accompanies it in the company of many cologne-clad creatures?

Maybe. I really don't know...

Do you?

Friday, March 7, 2008

News Media Inanity in India

Aren’t we all sick of the inanities that the current sackload of news channels in India keep bombarding us with? At least I am. Why, it’s become so goddamn difficult to turn on a news channel and just watch news rather than horror shows, domestic tiffs, or the same old celebrity crap!

They say the channel guys are doing it to raise their TRPs. But, looks to me, they are doing it more to raise the blood pressure of otherwise normal folks like me! Why can’t they just show some real news, which is what I – and I believe zillion others – would want to watch on a news channel? If we want some monkey business or celeb gossip, we’ll switch over to specialized channels that do it a thousand times better, no?

Another irritating thing about the news channels is the awful delivery of news by their reporters. The guys just drawl on and on and on, without coming to the main point and delaying what they should say right at the outset. To make it worse, they hum and haw, and say “umm…” and “aaa…” and mouth a few phrases they all have learnt to parrot again and again ten times in the space of a single stupid sentence.

Sometimes, I just feel like reaching out beyond the idiot screen and give them a vigorous shake by the shoulders!

Tale of Two Cities: Bombay & Delhi - Part 1

(This is one of several entries I intend to post about my experiences in Bombay and Delhi.)

I had heard a lot about it. Had read in papers how people’s daily lives depended on it. Seen the flashy images in so many movies.

But nothing prepared me for what I came face to face with when my 6:35 Churchgate local began to screech to a halt. It was a fateful evening when I met the fierce reality of travelling in Bombay’s local trains. (I still refuse to call the city ‘Mumbai’ because the word ‘Mumbai’ can’t give you the cosmo, go-getting flavour that only ‘Bombay’ can.)

I casually hung onto the steel pole affixed to the passage of the bogey I was travelling in. I was going downtown to attend my first press conference as a reporter in India’s City of Dreams and I was told that the best and fastest way to travel from Andheri to Oberoi Hotel was to take a local to Churchgate and then take a taxi. What my advisor meant by ‘local’ was local train, but the suffix ‘train’ is considered a wasteful appendage by Bombayites; only an outsider would call a local a ‘local train’. (Just as a Delhiite would drop ‘rickshaw’ from ‘auto rickshaw’ and merely hail, “Auto!”) Since I was moving from North to South - a direction opposite to evening peak-hour traffic – most of the seats were empty and, even though I could sit down, I stood near the door and enjoyed the breeze from the nearby Arabian Sea.

Now, as Churchgate Station approached, I came upon a horrible trait of humans – a trait native only to us Indians perhaps – that haunts me to this day. And as I was standing lost in my thoughts, I first encountered it through the sense of hearing. “Tak-tak-tak-tak!” the sound echoed in my ears like a magnified patter of giant raindrops on tin sheets. Only, the drops were not water but men, women and children hitting the iron floor of the bogey with terrifying speed. In a split-second, I was swept somewhere inside the compartment by the ruthlessly but systematically attacking mass of humanity that descended upon me from both sides. Every ‘occupiable’ inch of berth-space was taken up by this voracious mob, determined to crush anything that came their way. The whole spectacle was over in a matter of seconds. There were a few who, beaten to the punch by their more nimble-footed fellow commuters, could not find any resting place for their eager bottoms and, in exasperation, simply muttered obscenities at their own failure to perfectly time and execute Operation Berth Capture. By now the train had squeezed itself between the two platforms and just taken its last belch before agreeing to a final stop.

Dumbstruck, I slowly popped onto the platform, unable to believe the scale or speed of the entire episode. How could people pour into a train at such speed just like that, with utter disregard to those wanting to alight? Hell, how could well-dressed and (apparently) educated people scamper like raving rats just so they could travel seated? This was not what I had been told what Bombay was all about. If this was the shape that India’s own melting pot had taken, then I for one wasn’t going to be stirred in it. Not in the way the scene at Churchgate unravelled.

As I managed to find a standing space near a ticket-window pillar – without getting jostled around by the milling crowd, that is – my bewilderment continued. I saw tens of hundreds of people coming onto the platform from the subway and from across the road with a determination that belied their harrowing daily routines. Routines they must have been keeping for tiring years. Their gait was bouncy, not from excitement or pride, but from the urge not to miss their almost-always-on-time locals. That they had a few minutes to spare before the departure time did not deter them: they simply had to hurry. As if hurrying about was a prerequisite to being a Bombayite. Even years later, I cannot get a plausible explanation for all the hurrying around going on in Bombay – it must have gotten into their blood!

Leaving the protection of the pillar was not exactly a pleasant thought, but I had a conference to attend and so, plunging myself into the immense sea of people, I made my way to the taxi stand just outside the station. It took me quite a while to brush past that giant swell of human tide. (In fact, it would take me several weeks of practice in the art of dodging and pushing to learn how to negotiate the swarming railway platforms in Bombay while swimming against the tide, literally.)

Thankfully, all my experiences with Bombay and Bombayites were not ghastly – there were several pleasant surprises too. One great thing about Bombay, for instance, is the professionalism of its taxi and rick wallahs (auto-rickshaws, the three-wheeled taxis, are shortened to the spiffy ‘ricks’ in Bombay). The cabbies don’t look at you as if you are from another planet when asked to take you to a place not too far off from where you stand (which is what Delhi cabbies usually do, if they choose not to snicker at you in the first place). You can even hop into a cab before you tell the driver where you want to go. The best part is, you can take a ride in a taxi for less than two tenners – something the Delhi taxi guys would consider blasphemous.

Anyway, I took the taxi to Oberoi and, as the Premier Padmini cruised along Marine Drive, forgot about the hubbub at Churchgate and looked dreamily around me. This was Bombay, real Bombay! For Marine Drive and its line-up of skyscrapers is the scene almost every Bollywood flick shows you when your beloved rustic hero is transplanted from his humble village to the merciless, fast-paced world of a glamorous city. And which city in India can boast of glamour other than Bombay! I looked at the beautiful, placid sea to my right and envied the smartly dressed walkers on the pavement alongside. Especially the business tycoon-types who seemed to be regulars around those hours, many of them restraining their Dobermans or Alsatians at the leash. What would happen if they let go of the raring canines? I felt amused at the thought as the taxi swung into the entrance of the hotel.

Not wanting to tip the heavy-mustachioed janitor, who made for the taxi to open the door for me, I thwarted his move by flicking the taxi door open quickly and getting out in time. I paid the fare and quietly slipped into the hotel lobby. I’m not one of those (often fake) blue-blooded creatures used to other people opening doors for them, you see. I’m also not a person who allocates a good part of their meagre earnings for tipping people (which might be the real issue, actually)!

My first press conference started (almost) on time. Quite unlike those Delhi affairs that were pretty often late by half an hour to three full hours – the equivalent of an insipid Hindi movie. Other professional interactions that I later had with people in Bombay, whether it was a one-on-one meeting or a photo shoot, were mostly punctual. Bombay is more punctual than Delhi, I had always heard that, but now I could feel the difference myself. On that count, the city scored another brownie point in my appraisal book.