On a spirited October Monday I reported, danced and got drenched

Today was like a good old Monday, when you plan for the week and get every story you wanted on day one. There was no blue feeling about the day. It was all bright and cheerful. Your sources call you early in the morning, when you are still in a jam packed train. You get your first quote while inside the cab and when you reach office your other source confirms. You feel that adrenalin rushing.

You stop for a while, look around, walk like James Bond on the arched corridors of your swanky office, chew the coffee stirrer in a rustic Hindustani style and sip the coffee, again with English sophistication.

You are on a roll and think you can do things the way you like. You quit a relaxed discussion on the canteen table and suddenly rush to your desk. "I have to file the story soon." Just another confirmation needed. And yeah! You get the story.

Too much on my plate, but good it’s ready to be eaten. These are happy days for a good reporter. Years of source building, meandering in the dilapidated alleys, where most of your sources lived and still do. And it’s only on days like this you get a big, breaking story at the comfort of your air-conditioned surroundings and a few phone calls.

The story that you live through the day is like a movie, where you are the chief character. Its box office success depends on the follow-ups the competitors do, the publications that carry it. When you know you are being chased. It’s a very good feeling. Very celebrity feeling.

The good day ended. Time to go through the travel travails. You come out of the palm tree planted neat multi-storied office campus to meet eyes with the revelers of a couple of Durga Puja processions through Parel village.

No taxis to be found you have to walk fifteen minutes change two trains to reach home. What you do? I joined the revelers. Danced to the tune of popular Hindi numbers like bidi jalaile, munni badnaam hui.

I drank some buttermilk supposed to be laced with bhang. I danced for a while and felt melting into the sea of people, who actively led me to the Currey Road station, which always sounds like an Oxymoron to me.

The dhol-beats, genuine excitement and prayers it seems invited the Rain Gods at a short notice and look at me I was completely drenched before reaching station. I, however, discovered I was walking properly and was in my senses. Seems the buttermilk was pure.

The decade ends; remembering poppy flowers, ghats, rock pythons and friends

In past few days, I had a sudden consciousness about losing or going past another decade, the third one in my life.

When you think voluntarily, the recollections become vivid, unpredictable and leave you with sighs and mild laughter depending on what situation has appeared from memory lane like calling up a rare video from YouTube.

It comes up in your mind all the time. While preparing a cup of pepper-mint special tea for yourself on a Sunday morning, while jogging inside the small park in your locality, while travelling in a jam-packed Mumbai suburban train or even while chewing a Kalkattia mitha paan from the local cigarette and paan vendor in posh south Mumbai after office hours are over.

The first memory I had was of the undergraduate university days in eastern Uttar Pradesh. My university consisted of large colonial academic structures, a whitewashed small Chapel and vast stretches of green farm land and Orchards spread over 600-acres on the banks of mighty Yamuna River.

The 100 year-old campus was secluded from the crowded Allahabad city, separated by an old dilapidated Naini bridge that officially expired in 1970, but was able to support five-million-strong city populace, hundreds of passenger trains and every logistics carrier on its way from the north down Madhya Pradesh.

The winter months of December 1999 and January 2000 were full of hope and hesitation thanks to the the next century will be India's optimism, world will end fear, Y2K buzz etc. Those were also the months of floriculture practical classes for us. We were given small plots to grow and identify flowers. There was faint love affair with the delicate flowers in an otherwise boring and secluded campus. Three flower patches -- gladiolus, carnation and poppy – were in my kitty.

I loved of all, the bulbous red and pink poppy flowers which belonged to the Papaver genera popularly known as the Oriental or Opium poppy . When I remember how I welcomed this decade and millennium, tossing poppy flowers on windy wintry evenings instantly appear on my mind.

The early years of the decade also remind me of the morning and evening Yoga classes in another University in neighouring city of Benares, the mindless but spiritual wanderings on hundreds of ghats of the 3000-year-old settlement, the occasional association with bhang and regular listening to BBC Radio to improve English pronunciation and soft old Bollywood songs on Vividh Bharti to get a nice sleep.

The long hours spent in the huge lighted central library of the university, where I was the only one reading The Economist, Times and The New Yorker always taunt my present day painful reading adventures on a bean bag in my small sub-urban apartment balcony in Mumbai.


The memory lane also took me to my early days with the Indian Express newspaper in Delhi. The support from the Police, the threat from a builder and the protection from another bigger builder while doing a particular story was interesting.

A year in solitude, when I dared to craft a dream livelihood intervention project in southern Jaharkhand districts, and failed against the system touches me till date. I still remember the early morning trips to impassable villages crossing torrential rivers and rock pythons with a passion to connect with village women and build self-help groups for them.

The passion that forced me to try for cheaper innovations for the villagers.... How aggressively I fought with the local bank employee, when he passed lewd comments against my clients a 27 year-old Oraon tribal woman, whom I called didi, and her 14 year old daughter Chini, when they had approached the bank for a loan to buy a goat to sustain their six member family. There were many haunting moments that come to the memory but I have no words or intention to shock myself or readers.

The later half of the decade showed me journalism of different shades. Investigative, page 3, human, colourful and business. I travelled across many parts of India, exposed to its diversity and unique blending propositions.

Living in two megacities -- Delhi, followed by Mumbai – has been less than fun but an immersing affair. Witnessing the mindless terror acts and being a victim of one left me a changed person, almost like a new born.

The greatest discovery of the decade for me, were friends, who stood by me at all costs involved. That was the most permanent and satisfying discovery precious than hitting crude oil blocks or gold mines or even being nominated for a Nobel.

Working on a rainy day

Working on a rainy day is not new to me, but it was new to discover, what happens to those who lose their food and home, when rains arrive.
Mumbai's rains are unique, they are as disciplined as its people, they pour and pour atleast more than any of the four other metropolitan cities India has. Yet, more people turn up at work in Mumbai, than in other places, on a similar rainy day. Reason, rains come at all the unwanted times in those cities. In Mumbai, it always hits its highs only after an average worker reaches office. It is also synchronized with the exodus time of the commuter for home in the evening. Rains stop, during the peak commuting hours, as if they are offering guard of honour to the spirit of Mumbai.
Interestingly it lashes on Saturdays and Sundays,when most of the workforce is back at cozy, homely atmosphere, thereby not comprising on its duty of water distribution to this part of the world. Well my analysis is based on my two years of stay in the city and sans the horrible rainy July in 2005, when the city was in rocks, as it experienced highest preipitation in its recorded history.
Now, I think my idea of Mumbai is too limited. I'm talking about the white collar workforce, what happens to those who have to work everyday for their food.
Last week, Rags...(heart of gold as I call him) helped me to have a sneak preview to the that world. I was not exactly convinced to curtail my leisurely Sunday plans for knowing the constraints of of people in Bharat (as we all deprived India). But then it was heart of gold (HOG), who had asked. I couldn't refuse.

It was raining since the morning, we took a train from Belapur, which stopped after 30 mins, or after covering about 25 percent of our destination path. Then we walked, took a bus, again walked and finally reached near the opulent Hirnandani township near Powai. HOG took me to Mrs Thanawalla, living in one of the swankiest Hiranandani villas. I was surprised to see a Humvee, the giant utility vehicle, most prefered by the American military , in front of her house. Well that was not anyway related to our move. Mrs Thanawalla gave us six bags of biscuits and bread and a bucket full of milk. I knew HOG, can mould people to help his cause. But I was got more interested in knowing how he got to this lady, and what's the story behind the hummer (you can't run it on Mumbai roads then what was it doing there). Anyways the time was not conducive for me to ask such questions then. So I had keep the questions with myself.

We left in a hurry from her house and entered into the nearby slum, which was like a dilapidated valley surrounded by exceptionally tall, brilliantly designed plush skyscrapers. But the look of the slum was equally dreary, dingy and broken if we talk of a comparison with the buildings. Suddenly some twenty kids ran toward us. "Raghuda".."raghuda" alare (meaning here comes Raghuda)...offcourse they were referring to my friend, HOG.

HOG asked me to help him in distributing the food stuff. We had a nice time chatting with the kids while getting drenched in rain. HOG knew everyone by name and had a personal chat about health, school and food. After about two hours we were to leave when HOG asked for 'what would they require next Sunday'. Milk and Parle-G they all said. HOG immediately informed Mrs Thanawalla about next weeks menu over phone.

Now it was time to go back home. HOG seemed to be happy after serving the kids. I too was feeling more confident about myself after talking to the kids. I was pursuing HOG to come to my place, but he had to live for Latur for delivering another menu in some village. I said goodluck. As I reached Kanjurmarg station to get back to Kurla, found all trains of the track due to heavy rains. Spent some four hours in the station before services resumed. Was sipping coffee and thinking about working on a rainy day with the kids and HOG. But, yes intermittently, the surprise of Humvee was entering into my mind.