The Gypsy. Or, how not to buy a car.

I was born in Delhi.
I grew up in Vellore, Tamil Nadu and then left as soon as I legally could.
First stop, three years for college in Madras.
Next, I moved to Delhi, where I lived for eight years at five different addresses.
I’ve just discovered that my PAN card was probably delivered to an ex-boyfriend’s residence, where I lived for two years, a few months after I broke up with him and moved out. He hasn’t lived at that address since 2000 so it is now untraceable but I continue to file my IT returns. The IT department also refuses to issue me a new one. I have grown tired of sending them requests. I also don’t give a shit anymore, I think.
I lived in Defence Colony for my last three years in Delhi, my last home/barsati there being the address on my passport.
In late 2003 I moved to Bombay via Bradford, UK and Alibag, Maharashtra
I lived in Bandra for three years.
Then I spent a year in Brighton.
I have now spent nine months in Thane, just outside Bombay.
And I am trying to buy a car.
Mobile phone bills, credit card bills and bank statements are not accepted as proof of one’s existence, credibility or solvency. I don’t have an MTNL landline because that would just be another useless bill to pay.
I cannot issue a neat brief reply when people ask me ‘where are you from?’
‘All over the place’ I usually say brightly. If we get a drink, kick back to chat and chill out then I will tell you the whole story.
Like my peers I should be thinking about buying a house and settling down but that is not possible right now. I also have an allergy to banks in general, whose help I would surely need if I did decide to buy some ugly, cramped, poky apartment in a building with a name like Belissima Heights or Jai Shri Ram Gardens. Also, who the hell really wants to grow old in this city anyhow? Unless you can live in Bandra or South Bombay.
I work independently as a freelancer, and ‘with many small and large NGOs’ at that, so there is no one reliable, credible institution backing me in the face of sundry service providers and their hideous paperwork. My ‘office’ is essentially wherever I recharge my laptop. And NGOs? The woman in Bangalore processing my credit card application was unable to understand this concept. (On that note, I hope that I get that full-time job, if for no other reason that it will be way easier to process the paperwork).
Why must we be forced to continually reassure each other with these spurious indices of security, of commitment? Isn’t it enough that I am here, now, holding you, laughing into your shoulder, cooking us a special meal that we enjoy with overpriced wine that gets us a little giggly? Why is your system designed to be so suspicious of who and where I am now, and what I do? 'Independence' is just too frightening for some people. It is not that I dont accept your conditions, I have no choice, I just want to ask if another way is possible? Can you consider some other arrangement that will allow us to enjoy each other more meaningfully? Rather than be so chained, obliged, so beholden.

I dread 2012 because thats when I have to renew my passport and my driver's license. But before that I want that bloody car.

Us and Them

Us and Them, originally uploaded by psychodelicat.

So there I was standing on Linking Road, Bandra
Which was positively heaving on a Sunday evening.
Smoking a cig, stalling, and rationalizing having to deal with the hideousness that is shopping against the reality of 'needing' fancy shoes.
Wanting to take some pictures of middle class city people and not rural women and children. Or street kids.
So I started talking to these two girls, who I thought were kinda hot.
And told them what I wanted. They obliged. I even got pictures of their shoes because I;m interested in how young women make their own style. Or so I said
The boy with the umbrella stood watching, unspeaking. But then, we were speaking in English. I realise I never got to check if the umbrella was Made in China.
The one on the right, Chitwan, told me she's moved from Delhi and Bombay is really expensive. So she wants to 'make it' in The Media.
She's studying photography too as apart of her media course.
Oh what do you like to shoot I asked.
Oh I like to go into slums and take pictures there she says, completely oblivious to the irony of the situation.
Why them I ask. Why slums?
Its different.
It seemed like she hadn't actually considered the huge why-ness of it.
Maybe, I say, its a bit like me wanting to take pictures of you.
Not really she says
Ok cool. But pose for me anyway.
Then Chitwan says, see if you can send this somewhere, put it up on websites...
Maybe I'll get somewhere. Maybe someone will notice me.
Maybe doll, maybe.
Welcome to Bombay.