Thane / Half Bihari and Proud

As I sat in the airport last Thursday waiting for my flight to Delhi I was only tangentially aware of the TV screen relaying news of taxi drivers in the city threatening to strike because of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena's recent attacks on North Indians. Bombay is the quintessential migrant's city and it is only the Kolis (fisherpeople) who are the 'original' inhabitants of these seven islands. Everyone else is from somewhere else. Even the Big B.

The MNS, the twisted right wing party headed by Raj Thackeray, nephew of Shiv Sena Honcho Bal Thackeray (now reported to be senile yet still vicious; Thackeray has been calling for a cleansing of Bombay since the 70s) has revived the 'Me Mumbaikar' campaign, harassing small traders, shopkeepers, taxi drivers (and the working class in general) who are not Maharashtrian. They feel that 'outsiders' have stolen jobs and opportunities intended for locals. Their crusade therefore is not just against any outsider, but particularly against people from UP and Bihar, mostly poorer and working class. Marwaris and Gujaratis, the wealthiest in the city, are considered to have 'given back' to Bombay and are therefore spared. Hnfff. It angered Raj Thackeray that even the Big B himself was choosing to spend his wealth on schools and infrastructure in the dirt-poor district of Allahabad (in Uttar Pradesh) where he comes from - a sign of his rejection of the city that his given him so much, evidence of the corrupt self-serving, pillaging instincts of the North Indian. Apparently, some MNS workers hurled bottles at the B mansion in Juhu last week.

It appears that things have gotten worse. It was a strange journey home from the airport in the wee hours of Tuesday night. Arriving late ('congestion over Mumbai' as usual) cabs were in short supply and I didnt make the connection with what was going on in the city. Finally, a shady looking guy asked me if I wanted a cab, I agreed. He made me walk out of the main taxi bay area, just ahead and to the side. Shady wasnt the driver, there was another young man behind the wheel. I ensured that they both werent going to drive me home? "You dont have to worry madam, we are honest men, we just want your money" was what he said when I asked him (!!) Of course he wanted about two thirds up front. I relented.

There was a brief snatch of a conversation between Shady and the young driver that I caught as I was on the phone with S. It was definitely in a distinctive Northern Bihar dialect of Hindi, a little singsong and a little bit like how my mother speaks Hindi. The word 'bhaiyya' was mentioned a few times. ('Bhaiyya' literally means older brother but is also how Biharis are referred to here in Bombay). Shady snarled at the young man, telling him to shut up and get moving. There was something about money and petrol as well. By the time I got off the phone we were on our way.

I tried to engage the driver in conversation about the recent events in the city. 'Madam, I just dont like this lafda (tension, in this context), I dont understand it'. And with that he fell silent, taking in the lights of Powai ringing its serene inky lake. Its when we approached the toll booths marking our entry into Thane and out of Bombay that he began to get agitated.
' Madam can I drop you here,will you get another taxi or a rickshaw?'
'No way, I've already paid to be dropped all the way home'
'Actually, no, you haven't paid for the whole journey, so I could drop you here.... like I said, I dont want to go into Thane' (Thane being a strong heartland of Marathi Pride)
'I have luggage, its 1am, you can't drop me off here!! Dont worry, everything will be fine, I'll take care of you'
He finally agreed to take me all the way home, of course ensuring that I wasnt going to lead him down galli-gulli (alleyways and backways)
'Only main roads'
'Ok, only main roads'
I didnt volunteer to share that I was technically a bit Bihari myself and that class and privilege would insulate me in ways that he could never be. (However, I dont want to be facing a bunch of fundos of any stripe. Ever.) Somehow I never think that shit like this will happen to me, and if it does, then I'll deal with it and be fine.

As we approached the small service lane that makes a neat shortcut to our building we saw groups of young men loitering around, laughing, smoking. This got him really upset.
'Madam, its them, these are the ones... its people like them.'
Trying to be soothing, and praying really hard that these louts weren't going to stop us, I urged him to carry on, it was just about 500m to our gate. I realized as well that he needed to fill up on petrol and ride back home.
'Take the main road, come out of this gate on your way out and take the left out of it instead of the road we've just come on. You'll hit the main road and there wont be any dark galli-gulli.'
'Thank you Madam, thank you'
I felt really bad for him, could feel his fear, and so I tipped him something extra because I knew he wouldnt get a cut of what I gave Shady.
I hope Bhaiyya made it home alright.
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main37.asp?filename=Ne160208brink_politics.asp
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main37.asp?filename=Ne160208old_grouses.asp

Delhi / Things happen in February

January / Season of passions and warnings / Came and went too fast, too fast / So, things happen in February / Coincidences meeting at street corners / Dreams you have again / And again / Secrets and lies told by old cities / Chance encounters / Like finding an ancient coin on an ancient beach / Reunions, rememberances / Born like mist, maturing into fog / And then vanishing / The word 'concertina', the word 'zoophilia'/ Cadences of stories from our lives /Rising, falling / Like adventures of love / Like Manali Highs / Like "You know, it was very hard to let her go, but I had to" / Everything in February is random / But at once beautiful / Caught in the web of a curious / Damning / Blessed / Logic:"Everything is connected"

Mall Moment # 1245

S and I have a secret (well not anymore I guess) penchant for mall-watching and people-in-the-mall-watching. This is mostly because we have about 3 malls within a 5km of where we live (if you have lemons make lemonade, right?). So while our peers sip wine and dissect the latest show at Bodhi Art, or edify themselves on slam poetry and queer writing seminars in gracious old Gothic /Raj buildings in South Bombay we err... yeah, we go to the mall and watch movies. And get drunk on blender cocktails in chain bars and behave like delinquent adolescents in the supermarket. Its called appreciating popular culture.

So Mall Moment # 1245 is:
watching 35 ten year old boys, 20 eight year old boys and about 15 (male and female) toddlers packed in a tight circle on a plinth in the middle of a mall shaking booty (and booties) vigorously to the latest dirty Himesh Reshammiya song, jiggling, giggling, nibbling, wiggling, wriggling, jiving, hiving, break-dancing, achy-breaky-shaky dancing, shaking imaginary boobies at each other dancing, crotch grabbing dancing, dirty dancing, all with the most amazing enthusiasm and unselfconsciousness. Each child being watched (adoringly) by its two parents, two and a half grandparents and four assorted aunts/uncles/older cousins/embarassed older siblings. In the next three years these 10 year olds will somehow lose all sense of rhythm and heedless unselfconsciousness, never to regain it.
Ah the "ugliness of the Indian male".

Yasmeen, Superstar

This is probably going to sound like a plug for NGOs andHIV/ AIDS prevention programs, a "human interest story". Anyway. (Yasmeen, at right)


Yasmeen is the superstar of her community. Everyone wants to be like her, walk and talk like her, kids follow her around, people come out to say hello. There is no one like Yasmeen here.

I really liked this girl. Sixteen years old, from Limbayat, a poor Muslim community in the city of Surat. She has an incredible smile and cannot stop talking. Full of energy and enthusiasm. Doesnt wear a burqa anymore. A little cocky. Smart-alecy. Supremely self assured. Showmanship.
Till two years ago Yasmeen was not allowed to venture further than the little shop around the corner from her house. She wore a burqa all the time. There was a lot she wanted to do but couldnt. And then she heard about this Peer Educators Program supported by the Surat Municipal Corporation's Health Department. Some of her friends had signed up to be trained as Peer Educators. She had no idea what any of this was about. I can imagine how Yasmeen could charm and disarm people, she must have become everyone's favourite very soon. I can imagine how she would talk to her peers and their parents alike about STIs and voluntary testing. As if she was talking about Shah Rukh Khan or something. Beaming. Cool.

And then, being as smart as she is it is no surprise that she was chosen as part of a youth delegation from India at the G8 Summit in Rostock, Germany in 2007. "My whole life changed" she said, "because I saw something so much bigger than India - the whole world." But aside from the excitement of getting a passport made, the trip to Ahmedabad and Delhi, the air travel, Europe.... what else was exciting Yasmeen?

Other people
Difference
Young people like me (but I couldnt talk to a lot of them)
New things for your eyes to get used to
Standing up and speaking and having people listen to me with interest.
A big airplane
Different food (most of it not very nice though)

How did her parents react?
"Well at first it was very bad, I had to fight so hard for this; they would ban me from going out anywhere; after I begged and cried and pleaded they finally began to listen to me. They had to meet the doctors from the program so often in order to be reassured. They thought of the worst things - even that this was a scam and I would be sold off to some old sheikh in Dubai!" She did finally get her way and her parents had to accept everyone's opinion that Yasmeen is indeed a very successful, hard-working and effective part of the program in Limbayat and deserves to have this experience.

"I feel I can do anything now, its changed me totally, made me aware of things in myself I didnt know I could do or that I had in me... and not just going to Germany... in the end I am here in Surat, it has changed my life here." And I think she has become something of a role model for young women in the neighbourhood. Theres never enough of those. Limbayat is a tough ghetto, very poor and marginalized and even more so for girls and women. It has changed her and she feels invicible. I like it when people feel like that, even momentarily.