The Bird at the Crossing

The other day I was waiting for the traffic lights to change at Khushboo Chowk when I got the distinct feeling that I was being watched. I looked out of the window at the cars on both sides to see whether there was a familiar face inside one of them. But I couldn’t spot anyone I recognized. 

That’s when I saw it and froze. A gigantic bird on the pavement that had fixed me with a lifeless stare. 

 

Now I’m no bird lover. If you have been reading my blog (and my book), you'd already know that. And this particular one gave me quite a turn. I just wasn’t expecting to see it standing there staring at me with its creepy. metallic eyes. 

 

I found out later that the installation, made out of some 3,000 kilogrammes of industrial scrap (gear wheels and scooter panels) is a bid to draw attention to the plight of birds on the verge of extinction due to radiation from mobile towers. There is a honeycomb with a massive bee installed at another location to remind folks that bees are under threat as well. Thank heavens I haven’t spotted that yet. My aversion to bees is well documented. 

GMDA and M3M Foundation have been installing the birds and bees at strategic locations across the Millennium City. Why strategic you might ask? Well, Khushboo Chowk used to be Kachra Chowk, a foul-smelling dump site in the past till a group of well-meaning residents took action. They cleaned up the area, planted flowering shrubs and trees and renamed it Khushboo Chowk.

 

Garbage has always been a bit of a messy subject here in Gurgaon. As I write this, the Municipal Corporation is at loggerheads with its waste collection agency over unpaid dues leading to garbage pileups at several parts of the city. The residents are complaining, sanitation workers are on strike and the shit has literally hit the fan. The garbage mountain at Bandhwari landfill keeps growing taller and after an order from the National Green Tribunal to clear the mountain pronto, the Municipal Corporation is looking for alternative venues to divert the waste.

 

In the middle of a waste collection crisis, we have pretty birds and bees turning up at various spots where you'd least expect them. It’s a bit like my house cleaning. I shove junk randomly into closets and bring out the crystals and perfumed candles for show. 

But we need to get our house in order before we focus on beautification. And that's a reminder to myself as well. So instead of scrap art, we need to sort out the issue of garbage collection first. And if we must add value to our spaces, let’s consider utilitarian initiatives such as provision of drinking water for people on the go, seating for migrant workers and the elderly. Even a shelter for the urchins who sell balloons and toys on the Chowk.

 

Or Gurgaon’s beauty (if you can call it that) will continue to be skin-deep.

Dust to dust

Matilda "Tilly" Gooptu

The other day I found Baba’s album. It was inside a packet of old books my mother had brought with her when she moved to Gurgaon from Kolkata. 

Some of the pages inside the faded black cover crumbled to dust as I touched them – they were that old. There were pictures of his travels all over the world, neatly labelled with a few lines describing each photograph. Some pages were stuck together, many slots were empty, several pictures were lost in passage. But among the ones that had survived, were pictures of our dog, Tilly (short for Matilda) - an Australian wire terrier, with notes for my eldest sister behind each photograph. Pictures of Tilly having a bath, Tilly playing on the deck of the ship, MV Vishwa Pratap. 

 

Baba always been a stickler for perfection and his notes were just as I’d remembered him.

 

That is when the tears began to fall, without warning, surprising me. It was the first time in 42 years that I was shedding tears for my father. My Class 3 teacher might have felt vindicated had she been alive. She had tried to elicit the same response from me by placing me on a wooden stool in front of the classroom all those years ago and prodding me to talk about my feelings. My school friends tell me I sat stony-faced the whole time.

 

How is a little girl supposed to feel when a parent dies?

 

I discovered grief when I was eight years old. Only I didn’t know it was grief at that time.

 

I was hanging out of our balcony on the second floor to get a glimpse of my father as he locked up his green Premier Padmini and strode into our house. It was an everyday ritual for me. I’d hear the bell ring a little after six and drop whatever it was that I was doing and rush to the balcony to wave at him excitedly. Only it was different that day. I heard someone shriek from inside the house and saw his lifeless body being carried into the house by two men I hadn’t seen before. I learnt later that they were passing by when they’d seen him collapse in front of the house.

 

I was curious and bewildered at the same time, a hollow feeling inside my chest. A feeling that would return many times over the years when I encountered losses of any kind. A constriction in my chest, a feeling of not being able to breathe. Wanting to run away and hide from it all.

 

For my mother, it meant drowning herself in domestic routine. I remember her each evening after Baba died, sitting with piles of clothes, mostly our school uniforms, ironing with a vengeance. She didn’t shed a tear or complain and fret about the depleting finances -- she was ironing clothes with determination. Many years later, she told me that it was her way of dealing with her emotions. A catharsis of sorts. I understand it now. I feel the same when I do the dishes while the pandemic rages all around us.

Over the years, there have been many heartbreaks and losses and each time I coped with it differently. There were times I drowned myself in work, other times - in alcohol. There was times when music helped, other times I wrote bad poetry or even a book. But the hollow feeling in the chest was a constant. The wanting-to-fade-away-till-it-all-goes-away remained.

 

Is there any one way to grieve, I wonder? We have our own different ways of dealing with pain. I might not understand it but does it mean that it is not valid? Why are we so skeptical when people grieve in ways we don’t understand? I’m not sure what my class teacher was expecting me to do that day – bawl in public perhaps. Tears have always been an acceptable currency of grief. Perhaps if she’d just let me be, the tears would have come in due course? 

 

 

Grumpy Gram: Smiling is NOT injurious to health!

Photograph courtesy: www.bangla-kobita.com

There’s a woman I bump into when I go for a walk. She’s known me (by sight) for the longest time. We probably moved into the condo around the same time, twenty years back. Yet each time our eyes meet, she looks away, lips pursed. And it’s not her, there are others. They will fix you with a blank stare when you smile at them. As though there is a tax that’s been levied on smiling.

Now I can understand men not wanting to smile at other women. Especially when their wives or partners are within line of sight. But what’s with these women? There’s another one I know from back when my daughter was in nursery school. She behaves like Aamir Khan in Ghajini. The same glassy stare when he had memory loss. Only I'm pretty sure she has nothing of the kind.

 

Sukumar Ray couldn’t have possibly come to Gurgaon but I’m quite sure he was talking about these specimens when he wrote the poem Ram Gorurer Chana. The mythical cult of creatures for whom smiling is forbidden. Gurgaon is full of them. In fact, Gurgaon should be renamed Gorur-Gram from Gurugram. I think I’m going to write to the administration today.

Who are folks so unfriendly? Is this a Gurgaon thing or are people in other cities just as hostile? The Calcutta I knew growing up was never like this.

 

There are so many benefits to smiling. According to studies, it relieves stress, elevates your mood and helps you live longer - among other things. Given how fitness is a fad here, it would probably help people if they smiled more. Maybe I should offer face yoga sessions to help people smile. What say? Do you know anyone who might need it?

 

Why I love Gurgaon

I love Gurgaon more than the city of my birth - Kolkata. Before you raise your eyebrows, let me tell you that it wasn’t a love-at-first-sight kind of story for me. Rather, a love that developed, matured over the years and stood the test of time. The best sort of love really! In fact, I would go so far as to call Gurgaon my muse. Most of my novels and short stories have been written about this place that I now call home.
 
Twenty five years ago, when I arrived at this dusty hamlet, my first instinct was to hop right back on a flight headed to Kolkata. I still remember the first sight of Gurgaon from the airplane window, in between the cotton wool clouds, as vividly as though it were yesterday. Wide, open spaces everywhere I’d looked, not a building in sight. 
 
A bumpy touchdown later, I discovered that the hamlet was bustling with life. There were multinational corporations and call centres. Genpact and car manufacturer Maruti were the star attractions those days. There were condominiums, bungalows and a smattering of grocery shops, tailoring boutiques and hole-in-the-wall eateries selling rajma chawal, tandoori chicken and jeera aloo. There were no fancy malls, restaurants, lounges or pubs to hang around in. It was North India’s equivalent of a quiet little Gaulish village.
 
The years brought globalisation and rapid economic growth.  The sleepy Haryanvi hamlet was transformed into a throbbing, bustling urban hub. The empty spaces got filled up by glass and steel skyscrapers, the grocery stores turned into supermarkets and the local boutiques run by homely Punjabi women morphed into swanky malls and designer stores. Rajma chawaland jeera aloo became passe. Sushi, bulgogi and imported truffles were de rigeur. There was an influx of migrants from all corners of the globe.
 
The contrasts and contradictions of this rags-to-riches story were too obvious to ignore. With the glitzy hub having come up almost overnight, Gurgaon didn’t have the infrastructure to support the demands of development. There weren’t proper roads, lighting or sanitation.  Come monsoon season each year and all hell would break loose. The roads would be submerged (if they were not caving in, that is) leaving residents and officegoers stranded inside their fancy condominiums. In winter, there was the problem of heavy fog and inadequate street lighting. Add to that, the incessant power outages. 
 
Gurugram’s success story was developing holes. Almost as deep as the ones on its roads. The earthquakes only made it worse. Gurgaon was high risk seismic zone IV. 
 
The BPO boom also had an unlikely beneficiary. The language of the rustic hamlet had changed overnight in a manner that would have put Danish linguist Otto Jespersen out of business! People were now conversing in a language that can, at best, be described as a fusion of Haryanvi, Hindi and English, peppered liberally with Americanisms.
 
There were other, subtle changes in the colour of the place that were hard to spot at first. While, on the one hand, wallets were getting deeper due to the industrial and property boom, there were people living in abject poverty. The construction boom had also made the air in the city unsafe to breathe. Air quality index in Gurgaon had touched the 700-mark making it the most polluted city in India!
 
You may ask, where is the silver lining in this rather gloomy story? Well, I’ll tell you.
 
The best part about Gurgaon for me are its people. A motley crew that has gathered here from across the world – literally! The same bunch that gathered at Leisure Valley Park recently to protest against air pollution. It is Gurgaon’s community that gives the place a warmth and vibrance I have not found anywhere else in the world. Some of my closest friendships have been forged at Gurgaon. My human and book babies were conceived here. This place has given me a lot.
 
In fact it’s not just me. I’m sure the canines would also agree. Take a walk to Galleria, Gurgaon’s answer to Khan Market, that happens to be a few steps away from my house. You will find the strays well looked after -- blankets to sleep on, water and fresh food provided by kind-hearted Gurgaonwalas.
 
A few years back, I fell and became unconscious outside my condominium while returning from a grocery run. A young woman and some auto-rickshaw pullers found me, retrieved my mobile phone and dialed the last number called (which was home) to say I needed help. I will never forget their kindness. That to me, is the essence of Gurgaon.

A Christmas Carol

 

 
I was woken up this morning by a ghastly sound. At first it sounded like someone was being electrocuted. 
 
Aaaah eeeeeeeeehhhhh eeeeeeoow
 
I jumped out of bed in alarm trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. It seemed to be originating from the school next door so I pressed my face against the window trying to make sense of the horrific cacophony. I soon realized that no one was dying a painful death. A woman was singing Christmas carols over the loudspeaker.
 
Aaaah eeeeeeeeehhhhh eeeeeeoow
Saanta Claus is comeeeeng to taaaoouuun!
 
Don’t get me wrong. I love carols. There’s nothing that puts one in the festive mood like the sound of voices singing in perfect harmony. Divine voices. Angels we have heard on high.
 
But this carol singer had a spectacularly bad voice. She'd managed to scare off the pigeons on my ledge. And that is no mean feat. I felt like opening the window and yelling at her.
 
Lady, if you keep singing like that, forget Santa - no one will be coming to town! 
 
I didn’t obviously. It did cross my mind, however, that now would be a good time to try the ice bucket challenge. Mental peace is as good a cause as any.
 
But Christmas is all about feeling sisterly and charitable, blah blah blah, so I closed my windows with a crash and decided to sulk all day. 

A microphone, in the wrong hands, can be a weapon. I hope Santa gets me a pair of noise cancelling headphones this Christmas.

Six Degrees of Social Media!

My cook sent me a friend request on Facebook the other day.

It was her all right. There was no mistaking that round, smiling face, red bindi plastered on the forehead and brightly coloured saree. The notification said: Shakti D wants to be friends with you.

Below the friend request was a lineup of people Facebook thought I should befriend. The list included my plumber, Acquaguard service technician and the cab agency owner I hire taxis from regularly. As I stared at the screen in disbelief, I realized that six degrees of separation was not an abstract idea anymore. It had become a rather grim reality in my case.

Now it’s one thing being connected to Kevin Bacon through someone or the other you may know in life. Footloose is one of my favourite movies. I’ve practically grown up watching it and drooling over Bacon and his slick dance moves. But the rest, I have a problem with!

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not me being snobbish or classist. I’m an intensely private person and the only thing I share with the world at large is my writing and funny takes on life. It’s bad enough that my family and an assortment of relatives have invaded my online space and I have to befriend them on various social media platforms and dutifully like their Whatsapp messages (read spam) on a daily basis so that they don’t get offended. Relationship quotes, inspirational sayings, funny videos and memes. Bring it on. My phone is struggling to function with the burden.

But when I get a message and a picture of an ugly-as-hell bouquet of flowers from an unfamiliar number that says: “Didi, how you like my latest flower arrangement? You can buy from my shop” I have a problem. I mean, I’ve just ordered flowers from the guy once and he is already on my Whatsapp list of contacts behaving as though he were an old friend!

Delete. Delete. Delete.

Block. Block. Block.

As for my cook, I’m still wondering what to do with that invitation. I really don’t want to offend her. My life depends on her turning up to work at the right time and putting hot food on the table for the family. If I jeopardise that relationship, my life will be turned upside down. Literally.

I could live without my relatives but not my cook.

Kevin Bacon can wait. I will make do with Shakti D for the time being.

The Horrors of Halloween!

It was eight in the evening and I was getting ready to settle down in front of the television when the bell rang. Several times. Loud and insistent. Cursing under my breath, I ran to the front door and opened it. Count Dracula stood outside, scowling at me. 

He was probably around eight, dark circles under his beady eyes and red lipstick smeared all over his mouth. He held a Meena Bazaar plastic bag under his arm which he thrust at me, somewhat rudely.

 

‘Aunty, give me candy!’ It wasn’t a request, but an order.

 

‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’ I asked him.

 

‘Forgetting what?’ Dracula Junior blinked at me. ‘It’s Halloween today. You are supposed to give me candy. Don’t you know that?’

 

I noticed that he was yelling but that didn’t bother me. The last part of his statement made me wince, however. The underlying assumption that I was expected to fall in line with his demand.

 

Now I know he was merely a child but something about his attitude had started grating on my nerves.

‘I know its Halloween and I will give you candy but aren’t you forgetting something?’ I asked him again.

 

He looked really angry now, eyes flashing. I could make out that he was used to getting his way at home. An image of an indulgent mother running to cater to every whim and fancy of his popped up in front of my eyes. I was sure the little fella would stamp his feet and have a hissy fit right in front of my door. Well, let him, I thought to myself, I do not like impudent children.

 

‘Before you ask anyone for candy, you are supposed to say, ‘Trick or Treat’ and wish them Happy Halloween. Don’t you know that?’ I told the little brat. It was really juvenile on my part but I’m sure you are not going to grudge me that. I couldn’t help but smile when I delivered the last part of my sentence.

 

The vampire shrugged. The expression on his face said that he was bored and couldn’t really care less. Could he have his candy now and leave?

 

I sighed and headed back to my kitchen. I didn’t have a lot of sweets lying around but there was a packet of Cadbury’s Eclairs left over from a birthday party. Grabbing a fistful of Eclairs, I walked back to where Dracula stood, fidgeting with his Meena Bazaar bag. ‘Here you go,’ I said, extending my arm to dump the sweets into his bag. He moved the bag away quickly staring at me as though I had morphed into a ghoul myself. 

 

‘Eclairs? Kya aap ke paas achhe candies nahi hai?’ the scorn in his voice was

unmistakeable.

 

I could have smacked him right then and there but I didn’t. My fingers were itching desperately. 

 

‘What do you mean by ache candies?’ I asked innocently.

 

‘Who on earth eats eclairs these days. Don’t you have Ferraro Rocher or Sour Punk, Aunty?’ 

 

Was that the hint of a smirk on the child’s face?

 

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘No, I don’t,’ I said. ‘This is all I have, you will just have to take these.’

 

‘You could always give me money!’ That brazen little...!

 

I regained my composure and told him coldly, ‘I most certainly won’t give you money. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. So please take these sweets or ring someone else’s doorbell if you like!’

 

That monster. He stormed off in a huff, his red cape flying around him. I’m quite sure I heard him abuse under his breath.

 

I slammed the door shut.

 

Over the years, Halloween in Gurgaon has become a frightening experience for me and it has nothing to do with witches and warlocks. I’m scared of the ill-mannered little children (read brats) who land up at my door demanding outrageous things. Foreign candy, money, the list goes on.

 

Gurgaon’s Halloween phenomenon is fairly recent though, the expat population having imported the spook fest to the city. What’s alarming is the gigantic proportions the festival has assumed in the last ten years or so. Everyone in the Millennium City celebrates Halloween these days. Kids dress up and go from door to door collecting candy.

 

It’s not just the children. The adults dress up and throw Halloween parties. You will find party shops all over Gurgaon stocking imported Halloween costumes and accessories to be bought at astronomical prices for these parties. I’ve been invited to a few myself but I’ve had to decline politely. Spending the evening dressed as Morticia Adams sipping a Bloody Mary is not exactly my idea of fun. The funny thing is, I’m quite sure if you quizzed these Halloween enthusiasts about the origins of the festival, they wouldn’t have a clue! Like most things in Gurgaon, this one is a fad too!

 

Growing up, the only exposure I had to Halloween was through comic books, story books, movies and the occasional postcard sent by a relative abroad with a picture of some kid dressed up as a ghoul holding a giant Jack o’ Lantern.

My daughter was invited to a birthday party on Halloween once. When all the guests had assembled at the birthday girl’s house, the mother had sent all the kids out to collect candy from the neighbours. The chocolates, sweets and chips that the kids got as loot was the food served at the party. If you can call that serving food. I was horrified when I heard the story, making a mental note never to send the girl for Halloween-themed birthday parties again!

 

I don’t think it’s a terribly good idea to send your kids to a stranger’s house asking for candy. It is asking for trouble, in my opinion. Renting out exorbitant costumes to dress children is also a no-no in my books. If you really must dress them, why not put some thought and let the kids create the costumes themselves?

 

Still, I’d be willing to tolerate it all if the children, in question, were better behaved and minded their Ps and Qs. I am not very good with entitled brats!

 

I had lousier luck for the rest of the evening. An assortment of ghosts, ghouls, vampires and witches came calling, asking for expensive candy and money. Some had maids in tow, lurking about furtively while the kids made the demands. These were all sorts of scary creatures, dressed in the finest of clothes. I could hear them laughing in the corridors outside. ‘I will drink your blood,’ one of them was threatening the other, rather dramatically in Hindi. ‘I’m a vampire, I will bite your flesh!’ Loud shrieks, squeals and howls echoed in the stairwell throughout the evening.

 

I’ve never been more frightened my whole life. What horrors are we unleashing onto the world, I wonder.

(excerpt from my book, Gurgaon Diaries: Life, Work and Play in Drona's Village)