Riding the midmorning train

The Second Class scrunch

Traveling in Mumbai local trains is an experience every mumbaikar has to go through. Right from the time you start attending college in a totally different part of Bombay than the one u live in to the time you have to travel to work every day each sojourn brings a different experience. There is something very weird about not being able to attend college in the same suburb or the same municipal ward (think thats the first time this word has been used by anyone outside the third standard geography text book) for that matter than where you stay.  This unwritten rule of growing up in Mumbai makes us go through this rite of passage where a little school kid growing up in some small suburb all of a sudden enlarges his area of coverage ten fold once he or she gets to college and has the revered three months student discount pass. Well, enough dawdling with the introduction. Dirty habit imbibed by writing too many essays based on the SSC format.

Getting back to the topic of hand, what is the second class scrunch, simply put this is really a set of transactions that take place when you are trying to seat half your ass on a seat where there are already three people sitting on the wooden bench in a second class compartment on a fine Monday  and look at the stencil painted sign that says "To seat 55" and give a slight smirk.

There are three categories of people who can collectively be called the second class scrunchers. Each category has to analyzed carefully if you have to get a seat especially if you are trying to make the arduous journey from any station to any other station during not so peak hrs. Getting a seat during peak hrs is probably the 

most difficult thing to do in good old mumbai. I would even go so far as to put it in the same league as getting a domicile certificate from some government entity called a Tehisildar.

Coming back to the topic at hand, the three people we are really interested in are

The pseudo accommodator ,The infamous snail man and The stubborn oaf.

The person " pseudo accommodator ", also goes by a few other names, "the fake jiggler" and "inertial base station" to name a few. So what exactly is the pseudo accommodator. This is probably the only set of people who can actually count in nano centimeters. A usual conversation between you and him will go something like this.

You: "Boss thoda  hilna" (please move a little)

He: "Haan" (Yes with a very enthusiastic nod)

And this is where he will wiggle or jiggle and move exactly a couple of angstroms and if you lucky as much as six nano centimeters and put on this "I am Karna.. you ask I give" face. This is a situation which will really test your experience as far as traveling  in second class is concerned. If you follow the great sanskrit saying "Nirlajaam Sada sukhi" then you will grab that precious bit of ass estate and not only put part of you own ass but be able to apply all the squatters laws of physics and occupy atleast a couple of inches in the next ten minutes or so.

The snail man is essentially not an entire class but more of a sub class of the "pseudo accommodator" the primary difference being the time he will take to actually even make the attempt to give you some space. Also the most important difference between the two is whereas the pseudo accommodator as the name suggests is very accommodating in demeanor, this guy will be what we can call in simple bambaiya "Saalaa Khaduus". He will distort his face to such a degree at the same time positioning his body in such a way that if you not experienced enough he will almost make you feel guilty for asking him space with his body language.

The simplest way to deal with such people is to ignore them. Stand firm and give him the same "Saala Khaduus" look back. That way you are not only assured a place to sit but also some warped sardonic sense of satisfaction as well.

The last category is for lack of better words called the stubborn oaf. This is the category which can be most difficult to deal with, is the kind which for some reason will not only acknowledge your repeated requests to shift but will be totally nonchalant towards your existence. They will be a class A "Saalaa Khaduus" guys and can also be referred to with some other choicest of words that I cant elaborate on here. These guys will act as if you don't exist on the same space time continuum as them. The simple way to deal with them is the shoulder tap. In my years of experience and definitive research on this subject this has shown to have the most wonderful effects on them. All of a sudden they will break out of their cerebral rumination and shift as much as the " pseudo accommodator ". Sometimes though they turn in the snail men or sometimes they will just mumble something in incomprehensibilis. This situation needs a little more tact as u will have to use every know trick know to the train travelling Mumbaikar from pure haggling in a very harsh commanding tone to the very morose "I have to travel 16 stations". Sometimes this does not work as well. In such situations rather than getting into a fight, just stand very near him and keep on butting him with your knee all the while keeping a monologue in incomprehensibilis with an extremely frustrated face. Believe me this will break his will and you will be able to get a seat or a black eye.

Guess armed with this wonderful knowledge, you will be able to make your journey a lot more comfortable and if you do get a black eye there is not much to see in a train anyway.

The real Ramayan

The Real Ramayan - Originally written in May 2004

Chapter I 

16th Dec., 2056. 

End of "The saata Purusha" simulation...

Logging out user Valmiki.

"Ahh, its been a tiring day. Running a humanistic real world simulation on this junk shit G800 sure was time consuming. To think we have long surpassed  Moore's law

with quantum computing and this thing still takes 14 days. Anyway my assignment is finally done."

On the third moon of planet Srishti lies the rive Sarayu. On the banks of this meandering river lies sun city Ayodhya. It was almost 2000 years ago that the people of planet  Srishti first came to this moon in their giant fire chariots and created the first human colony in space here. The face of the moon on which Ayodhya nay the whole province of Kosala is build always faces the central star of this planetary system. The central star is fondly called by the denizens of Srishti as Surya and hence the first governor of Kosala was called "Surya Vanshi". 

The current governor Dasaratha widely respected in these lands, was one of the first to be born in Ayodhya and rule it. Most of his predecessors had been appointees from Sristhi a fact not lost on the people of Kosala. 

"Almost 60 grey hair", Dasaratha thought to himself. It was his 40th birthday yesterday and he was feeling every bit his age. The years in interplanetary politics had left him feeling older than he would liked to look. The grey hair was the last of his worries, the lasergram from Srishthi did not bode well. The war on Sristhi raged on for the 80th year. Far too long he thought to himself. There was already some spill over to Kosala. Some of the rebels from Srishit had landed on the forests close to the Sarayu river. He had been getting reports from the outposts of random raids by bands of rebels calling themselves Rakshasas. Most of these rebels armed with new kavacha armor were almost impossible to kill and their numbers too small for any of the large battle cruisers to hunt them down without causing any collateral damage.

He was also childless a fact that had been gnawing him for a couple of years now. Three times he had married in the hopes of getting a child, stubbornly refusing to accept the fact that problem lay with him and not the woman he shared his bed with. He really needed to see his friend Vashistha. 

Dr. Vashistha Rishi, one of the finest minds in the kingdom and one of leading figures in the study of the meta physical was a real recluse at heart. Spending most of his time at the University of Kosala and his beautiful villa on the other side of the Sarayu, knew what ailed his friend Dasaratha. 

Dasaratha in-spite of being the governor of a  state was way too old fashioned and stubborn to try out sperm donors or even adopt a child. "Stubbornness sometimes is a good thing , we would have lost our sovereignty to Sristhi a long time ago", he often told Dr. Rishi. Still for the benefit of all man kind something had to be done. If the rebels won the war on Srishti, they would land on Kosala next. Dasaratha was the one of the last capable generals who in the event of a real space war could keep the rebels at bay. Vashishta had been cerebrating on this for a while now. He had consulted with his mentor on planet Swarga with a certain Dr. Vishnu Sahstranaam about his predicament and they had hit upon a brilliant idea. One that would keep Dasaratha happy and  the fate of Kosala bright. Dr. Vishnu had recently invented a technique of freezing sperm in a pill and impregnating a woman with it. Vishnu who had won the Aantariksha science award for his birth control pill had now created the exact opposite. The only problem now remained was whose sperm to use and how best to get Dasarathas wives to swallow the pill. Vashistha wanted Vishnu to decide that and send him a couple of pills. 

Every year Dasaratha would get his wives and come stay with Vashistha at his villa near the Sarayu, that would be a good time to give the wives the pill thought Vashistha. Dasaratha himself gave his wives the pills under the impression that the pills prescribed by Dr. Rishi would help his wives get pregnant easily. He accidently threw away the rest of the pills out of the window where a group of apes were nibbling on some leftovers. One of the female monkeys accidently ate one of the pills but more on that later.

Ahh the wonders of modern science thought Dr. Rishi when each of Dasaraths wives was pregnant. He did some preliminary tests on each of them and surprisingly enough the oldest wife Kaushalaya had eaten the pill that contained Dr. Vishnus sperm. The rest of the samples   were from anonymous donors and would need to watched over more carefully. 

Dr. Vashistha soon retired from the university and started spending more and more time at his remote villa. It had been sixteen years to the day since he had given Dasaratha the pills. He woke up that morning like any other and was staring at the beauty of the rising Surya on the horizon when suddenly out of nowhere a Tataka class small attack craft swept from the clouds and started firing on his house. He barely managed to run away as the twin super plaser guns set his entire house on fire. Something had to be done. The rebels had been laying low for the last couple of years but ever since General Kubera had been over thrown in a blood coup by his Field Marshal Ravana, rebel activity had been on the rise. 

Vashsistha decided to ask Dasaratha for help. 

  

Me the Desi

Originally written in May 2002

Me the desi...

The greatest problem of the greatest generation of our country (with apologies to Pt. Nehru and his Tryst with Destiny) is that we don't want to be Indian. And by that I don't mean we want to be American but there is this certain something we seek when we leave our shores and come to this "Greatest show on earth" of a land. The perfect picture of America embedded on our minds by Archie comics and Hollywood blockbusters becomes part of this so called American dream that most Indians want to pursue. Question is how real is this dream or are we playing a game of smoke and glass with our selves

Tomes have been written on how the great Indian diaspora has thrived and survived and taken and given to this country yet a whole lot of people are really not happy. Happiness is not really related to simple basic needs that this country easily satisfies but a search for constant peace. Most Indians are always in limbo. A couple of days back, a few American friends of mine (note the stress on American and not friends) were discussing the war in Afghanistan and suddenly one of them asked me when do you think we will go in with troops. The 'we' in the conversation meant 'Us Americans'. For a moment there I was confused as to when the hell did India decide to get into this war. This second thought nature has persisted in me how much ever I try to assimilate into the local psyche. Its like we Indians are an archipelago in this great American ocean and how much ever we try we just cant sink in. Further more we will ridicule certain others for how much they have lost their Indianess and talk with an 'American' accent.    

So what are we missing here. Are we destined to a life in limbo forever panging for our 'home' and never really having the guts to go back. Is the famous 'x+1 email forward' what really is our destiny.  Is there no way to attain our own nirvana or get to our heaven and meet some cute Apsaras. 

Without being part of the "Intelligencia anonymous ", I really think this problem has to be handled on a Phaedrusian level. The problem has to be analyzed and cut up with a different knife. What is it that makes us unhappy or restricts us in a Bill Pattersonian way from total transmogrification. Where is our cardboard box and a simple marker drawn button ? Its been said a hundred times about people who sit on the fence for too long will eventually fall on one side. Truth is we seemed to be as comfortable as Rodins Thinking man embedded on the fence with "fevicol ka majbuut jood" , always pondering what to do. Truth be told every time I walk alone in a big American city the only person I can associate with is Neo (from the movie matrix) when he gets out and comes back in to the world for the first time. everything seems normal but he feels like a total stranger. I must confess that the first time I landed up in a big city in America, I was as googgled as any man alive.

Having grown up in Bombay, hustle and bustle have been my two girl friends still that's a threesome I enjoy. Here I feel I am not man enough to do anything. 

Guess the problem is that there is no problem. Its just a growing pain not so much as for myself but for the whole that I represent. Its like the problem of Indian kids growing up in America. They are usually labeled as confused but when it comes down to basics they suffer the same fate as us. Its like we are the first settlers in a flux of civilizations. Maybe it might take a couple of generations of my progeny to be completely anglicized but here and now this problem has no answer. 

So the only way to deal with it is like every other problem with no answer. Be a mute spectator to the wonders around you. Live and enjoy and like the old Nancy  Sinatra  song goes, "you only live twice or so they say once for yourself and once for your dream". Some dream...

Alphabet soup

Originally written in April 2001

Whats in an alphabet? The question is really not as easy as what’s in a name or just as difficult. Yet there is something about the alphabet X  that kind of makes it special. The whole purpose of this article is to find out whether its something that’s gone into the human psyche due to constant emphasis on its association to things futuristic or eerie or is there something really about the alphabet that makes it so very prominent amongst all the other twenty five of its brothers.

The Romans associated the number ten with the alphabet X. The reason being it represented two palms stretched out in opposite directions to show all the fingers. Perhaps there is something about the way the alphabet is represented or drawn kind of attracts us to it. More on that later. Other Roman alphabets do come into our vocabulary quite often like the number one and the number two as in WWI and WWII. However nothing keeps coming back like the alphabet X. Take the case of the X Men. These mutants who fight all that is evil on the planet are associated with a sense of secrecy and immense strength. They have names like Cyclops and Wolverine but collectively they are called the X Men. Would they have been just as popular had they been called say C Men or B Men. Though we did have an A Team.

Talking about entertainment  lets not forget the X Files. A tv series that captured the heart mind and souls of millions of viewers all around the globe. Here the X was used to signify secrecy mystery and intrigue.

Take another case which is making big news these days. Microsoft is touting its X Box as the next big thing for gamers. Its again called the X Box not the D box or the E box. Though like always Microsoft has there own take on Roman numerals. Just open Excel and use the Roman function as specified in the help and you will know  what I am talking about. Apples new operating system is called OS X. Its logical that OS 9 will be followed by OS 10 but why call it OS X and not OS 10 is largely due to the alphabet X.  X windows is another such example.

Another thing that captivates a lot of youngsters is the X Games, Again the alphabet X. Why would u associate games which need a whole lot of skills and acrobatic abilities be associated with the alphabet X. There is nothing that X says that make it an ideal candidate for being associated with any sort of game. Yet its there.

And taking about the alphabet X, let us not forget the bastard child of all knowledge on this planet, Porn. Why is the gradation in porn depicted by the number of XXX’s. The more the X’s the more intense the “action”. Guess a little research on the web regarding this topic will help if you know what I mean.