Yes, the World.

Mumbai: a city for people and not their gender

I’m from Chandigarh. Now, Chandigarh is a lovely city, but the boys riding their fancy Enfields are often far from pleasant. And of course when I say ‘Chandigarh’, I could just as well be referring to any part of India. Men and the society they’ve built is largely unpleasant for women in most parts of our country.

Let me begin by admitting that I’ve lived a largely protected life. I am from the privileged lot who wasn’t killed in the womb, forced into prostitution, married off before puberty or tortured for dowry. I am educated, I hold a job and am married to a lovely man who respects me.

Perhaps being in this rare and privileged lot should be enough for me. But then by nature, man or woman, we’re all greedy and I must ask for more.

I don’t think it occurs to most men that they are men. Bear with me please. I have a point to make, I promise.

I believe that men aren’t constantly aware of being a man. While I agree that gender-specific roles find their way round the heads of both men and women, it is my firm belief that women rarely ever get to forget that they’re women. And that, I believe, is telling of a society that doesn’t give them the freedom they need from this constant reminder.

In India, a woman is always aware of her gender. Always adjusting her dupatta, wary or any man who comes within 2 feet of her, suspicious of friendly hellos and always alert. Always aware.

When the clock strikes 8 at work, women are reminded that they are women and must head home safely before it gets dark.
School girls are reminded to keep their legs together and watch their skirts.

Sit this way.
Don’t smile too much.
Watch yourself.
Be safe.
Don’t go alone.
Don’t work late.
Take a cab home, the company will pay.
Someone should drop you home.
Keep latitude on.
Don’t trust the ricksha wallah.
Stay on the phone till you get home.
Watch your neck line.
Call me when you reach home.

Mumbai, while you are far from perfect, you have allowed me to forget my gender from time to time. I haven’t had to think twice while boarding a late night local or hanging out at marine drive all night. I haven’t had to worry too much about the men. There were a few who were lewd but as a woman I’ve come to expect that.
You’ve allowed me to forget my gender in board room meetings, and late night dinners.

And as I leave you, Mumbai, I’m suddenly acutely aware that now I might need to remember more than just my name. I might need to remember and be conscious of my gender.

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Mumbai teaches you many things. Not so much about the city, but about yourself.
As I prepare to leave Mumbai I feel a sense of loss. I’ll miss the locals, the sea but most of all I’ll miss the person that Mumbai made me.
As a tribute to the city that has given me so much I will be writing about the ways in which Mumbai has enriched me.

Last post Have ego, will crush: love, mumbai

Have ego, will crush. – Love, Mumbai

I didn’t think I had much of an ego when I first came to Mumbai 5 years ago. But apparently I did. It was painfully made clear in my first bus bone-crushing experience followed almost immediately by my trying-to-get-into-a-local-but-can’t that Mumbai has no place for the superfluous, much less the ego.

At first it will hit you smack in the face because unknowingly you’ve been taught in other parts of the country and that everyone has their ‘place’. After the initial shock and hurt has had time to subside you will soon revel in the ego-less-ness of the city. You will smile at the fisherwomen on your train, help a little girl find a seat as she prepares for her test at school, rub shoulders with the woman with 5 diamond rings who throws celeb names like nobody’s business.
There is a classless-ness that the local train and therefore Mumbai displays. It will free you. Unknowingly. It will free your mind from the needless pressure of constantly and subconsciously classifying everyone around you.

I have often wondered what makes people in Mumbai disregard this class divide and just get on with their lives. And the answer to that is simple. In Mumbai struggle cuts across all classes. There is a fight, a struggle for everything and irrespective of your class or place in life, there is an implicit understanding that everyone is just trying to make the best of things and striving towards their dreams. There is struggle for housing. For space. Struggle to get to work. To board that local train and then another to get off it. There is jostling. Mumbai is as much an assault on the senses as it is a delight. And it spares no one. The struggle in Mumbai doesn’t discriminate.

Never before have I witnessed this sense of mutual understanding of purposeful struggle. This mutual understanding while wading towards a dream almost-within-reach is what makes a stranger quickly make way for you as a you board a moving local and makes women smile at each other and silently nod a ‘it’s really bad today no?’ even as their bodies are tossed around in the sweaty local coaches.

Mumbai, may you always have a dream to chase and not a moment to spare for judging fellow dreamers.

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Mumbai teaches you many things. Not so much about the city, but about yourself.
As I prepare to leave Mumbai I feel a sense of loss. I’ll miss the locals, the sea but most of all I’ll miss the person that Mumbai made me.
As a tribute to the city that has given me so much I will be writing about the ways in which Mumbai has enriched me.

Similar post: Mumbai: a city for people and not genders

i will yell.

I yelled at a man today. In a crowded first class compartment, I was the only woman at 11:30pm. And I yelled at him. For staring. For making me uncomfortable. For not having the courtesy to at least disguise his curiosity.

He didn’t care.

He stared. He knew I was uncomfortable, yet he stared. He knew it made me uneasy, he stared all the more. Relishing my discomfort.

I wanted to let it be. Didn’t my mom always tell me to ‘just ignore’. But I just know I can’t. Can’t ignore. So I yelled.

He pretended to not hear me. As I stood there wondering what would possess a middle aged man to stare at a woman that way. He pretended innocence. He didn’t plead it. He pretended.

His casual jerk of the wrist said he was looking outside and not at me. His nonchalance angered me. Really? Was it that easy to pretend it never happened?

Discomfort. Anger. Disgust. Shame. It always works in that order.

Shame. For allowing a man to make me uncomfortable. For giving him the power to make me feel vulnerable.

Power. What a political word. what a political relationship. Between a man and a woman.

I’ve been told that my yelling at these lecherous men will help. I doubt it. Really. But I wish someday I won’t be made uncomfortable. Not because men will start to respect the female body. But because I will not allow them the power.

Until then, I will yell.

the indian middle class & its disappearing status

I’ve been reading mother pious lady by santosh desai and the more he brings the Indian middle class to life, the more I worry for them.

The middle class is in the middle. But of course. It’s in the middle of a sea change in attitude toards money, sex, relationships, television and savings.

It’s being crushed under the weight of ambitions of a constantly changing world. The middle class has always been happy and cocooned, hoping for all the other classes at the extreme ends of the spectrum to take the first hit. Anything that reaches them, they have time to prepare for.

No wonder the new world order scares them a bit. Terrifies them perhaps. Nowhere is it more evident than in a middle class man’s clutching of his social status.

While the rich and the blue blooded might want to lay claim to ‘status’, it’s really ever truly been the mistress of the middle class. In being middle class there is an acknowledgement of class. More than any other social class, it’s the ones in the middle who’re always aware of the classes that sandwich them. The aunty next door still feels it’s her right to talk about her maid as ‘kaamchor’. The professional in a queue for autos still feels it’s his right to employ these lower class people.
With plumbers asking you to book them weeks in advance and autorickshaws passing you by as you sweat your 2 km walk, the middle class is floundering in an increasingly classless society.

Let’s not call it classless, but it’s a class now based on income and lifestyle and not from occupation. Put a middle class Indian in the company of working class and he’ll expect a distance to be maintained between him and the other.

Remember the first low cost flights? The upper middle class Indian clambered on as if it were natural for him to sprout wings and fly while glaring at the lower middle class which seemed to find seats right next to him.

The they-work-for-us attitude has comforted middle class India. It’s been the one constant. The one thing that

comforted them when their pursuit of all things high class was unsuccessful. They work for us. We are the king of something. Something small. But something.

I met Ishwarchand yesterday. He’s a rickshaw driver and unprovoked made the most important comment on our times.

He said ‘ab toh rickshawalla bhi afsar jitna kamata hai. tabhi aap log ko chalna padta hai’ explaining why rickshawallahs have the upper hand and we find it impossible to find one to take us home.

He went on helpfully adding ‘do minute bhi nahin milta. Sawari bahut zyada hi milti hai’.

India is trying to shine across classes. It works for Ishwarchand. For my uncle from mohali, it does not.

Middle class India is accustomed to being needed. The tables are turning. Will they just smile and nod and take it in their stride or sit at dinner parties and crib about their maid’s attitude?

an afternoon with shyam benegal

“tell him I hated Bose, but loved Making of the Mahatma”
“tell him I’m looking for a good role in the movies”
“he might just offer you a film”

Sorry people. I did not tell Shyam benegal any of the stuff you asked me to.
Actually for the most part I kept my mouth shut and my ears open.

He spoke about many things, from the distasteful reality shows on TV today to the reason why ‘ramdev ka sajjanpur’ became ‘welcome to sajjanpur’.

I’ll begin with the latter.

In his own words, people want ‘evening entertainment’ and to them Shyam benegal can probably only provide ‘evening’s gyaan’

To escape the tag of being ‘serious’ and heavy, the marketing team at UTV decided to alter the title to the more frivolous and easy going ‘welcome to sajjanpur’.

For those who know Prof Mathew from MICA, would understand when I say that great minds think alike. The disappointment at the new generation’s lack of ‘world view’ is both depressing and very obvious in the sentiments Mr Benegal expressed.

He is so right when he says we have become information gatherers for reasons known best only to us. That we cannot ever be wise with our concept of education which does not push us to read more and understand more perspectives.

I’m not sure if I found the meeting with Shyam Benegal inspiring or depressing, knowing what my life and career is and how it’s heading in a direction as a meaningless as reality tv.
Maybe if my state of mind was more positive I’d be inspired. But right now I can’t be anything but thoroughly depressed.

why it sucks to work in a basement

To put my misery in perspective for everyone, let me inform you that I work in Mumbai. A city which is about to face a nasty monsoon (they’re expecting 102% rainfall this year, whatever that means).

Last year was my first monsoon in Mumbai. Sitting at my desk in the basement I was quite paranoid about the rains since I’d heard plenty about Mumbai’s penchant for drowning.

On a rainy day during my first month in Mumbai, my colleagues from another unit from my basement started to pack up and leave at 3pm. Looking out I panicked as I saw the raindrops trickling down the little ventilator window.

Grabbing my umbrella and bag I decided that I would leave for home at that very moment (even at the risk of getting fired for taking an unauthorized ‘half-day’).

In my head, I was already revising my argument for leaving early.
I wasn’t going to let myself drown to death because of my job!! Enough is enough.

Okay, so basically it turned out the rest of them were leaving for a team party, and there was no threat of drowning to ‘death’ as I had imagined.

Yes, I returned to my desk and worked till 8.