Mumbai Meri Jaan

Every once in a while, unexpected joys sneak out of life’s crevices to lighten the weary heart. Like this afternoon, I found catharsis in the form of a writer of Pakistani origin called Kamila Shamsie. Last year, I’d given her book Broken Verses to a dear student as a parting gift after her post-graduation, since I liked what the back-cover said and because I’m partial to women writers and curious about Pakistan. This year, it came right back to me as the only fitting present she could think of on our first meeting after her move to Dubai. “Read it. I think you’ll like it,” she smiled.

And I did -- much more than like it too. Enough to comb bookshops for Shamsie’s other works and come upon Kartography, which, in turn brought on the epiphany that my befuddled brain desperately longed for. Both books speak of everlasting, fated love; but that’s not why the coin suddenly dropped. It’s the fact that both are as much about the city of Karachi as the characters that live in it -- its own story flowing through their blood streams and, in more ways than one, defining who they are and what they are destined to become. 

By the time the second book was over, not only had I fallen in love with Karachi (a city I’ve never seen), I’d found a mirror being held up to the only place on earth I can call home, Bombay (Mumbai, Bambai, call it what you like; name don’t change the place). Of course Shamsie’s Karachi is far bloodier than I’ve ever seen my hometown being – gunfire and random killings being a matter of routine occurrence (in between civil war and ethnic cleansing) and curfews and deserted streets a norm. 

Or at least it was, in 1971 and 1995, (if Kartography bears any resemblance to facts) when the lives of two generations of friends unfold amidst torrid times and for most part, the primary agent of upheavals in their lives is the city, tearing them apart while burning in its own misery. Both cities seem like soul sisters – port towns, symbols of their respective nations’ prosperity, melting pots pock-marked with innumerable scars of petty bigotry, plundered and pulverised by millions and yet pulling along with undue resilience. 

I’ve feared for some time now that Bombay is dangling over a precipice. And when it goes down, it’ll take me with it. Mawkish as this sounds, it is the truth. I’ve grown up here. I know the city inside out – and many of the cities within. I can differentiate between the wide-ranging smells of its filth and myriad sounds of its hysterical pace like they are a part of my own being. I’ve hung out of crowded trains to suck in the breeze, been ensconced in anonymity amongst swarming crowds at Churchgate and Dadar, watched the sun drowning behind the Haji Ali mosque from my car window, exulted at the sight of a B.E.S.T. bus at Chembur after just a week’s absence from the city and even grinned gleefully to myself aboard airplanes approaching touchdown over Dharavi after vacations in far, far cleaner, greener, safer and fancier lands. 

But I can't bear to romanticise my city. I don’t love it for what it is – nor what it was when I was growing up in a relatively quiet suburban neighbourhood and revelling in its indestructible spirit as a child or as a youth full of dreams that my beloved hometown promised to fulfil. If the western world lost its innocence in 2001, Bombay lost hers in 1992-93 (at least for me, it did), when self-righteous right-wingers stalked the streets, systematically burning up Muslim establishments and dragging people out of their homes and buildings like ours, to ascertain their faith and punish them, ostensibly for ‘wrongs’ committed by their ancestors and later, when the first bombs exploded in her face (an equally mindless act of alleged retaliation, but plainly put, the city’s first official terrorist attack) and ripped apart much more than the lives of 1000 people who were either killed or maimed in their wake and their loved ones.

I still remember getting up every morning through the riots of 1992-93 and nonchalantly boarding a train to college, unmindful of the tension in the city, or standing on the building terrace and watching tongues of flames bursting forth from burning shops in the neighbourhood, a gentle gust floating towards us with the smoke and the heat of those fires and scorching our eyes with collective guilt. 

It’s not just the senseless violence that shattered the myth. It’s the feeling of being lost in your own home, battered past recognition by forces beyond one’s control – deplorable politicians, crumbling infrastructure, unsafe roads, apathetic policemen, unbearable pollution, opportunistic scamsters… The list goes on and on. But most distressing of all is the much-vaunted resilient spirit of the citizenry – their eyes either too dazzled by the possibility of winning that one big lottery or too numbed by the drudgery of a lifelong struggle to survive at any cost whatsoever. The incongruity of gleaming shopping malls standing right across the road from slums, wretched beggars pecking at your complacency on every traffic signal, ugly skyscrapers blocking out more and more of the skies, the weight of a million immersions reducing the sea to a stinking discoloured mass and the entire city gasping and reeling under the aspirations of 15 million people – and slipping away from my grasp. 

I’ve sometimes been tempted to walk away from it all – more now than ever before. The colony of my childhood is now like an old people’s settlement, most of the children I grew up with, long gone in search of better opportunities. I too have tried imagining a life away from this madness, in tranquil climes relatively untouched by the brutality and inequity of human life. I’ve closed my eyes and conjoured images of being someplace else and instantly snapped them open, feeling disorientated under unfamiliar skies. It doesn’t look like I have a choice in the matter. My parents were born here, as was my daughter. And somehow, the city is as irrevocably tied to me as the umbilical chord. No place on earth can make me put Bombay out of my mind, and there’s nowhere else I can put my head on a pillow and feel like I’m home. 

A Marriage Of True Minds

In the middle of a perfectly harmless online chat, a journalist friend popped a snap poll question for an article she is writing: "If you had to choose between being bored out of your mind in your marriage and your husband's infidelity, which one would you prefer?" It was a no-brainer. I'd choose the latter option with or without its qualitative comparison with lifelong boredom (which, I'm afraid, is a logical inevitability in any long-term relationship, but especially marriage -- considering the floozy, faulty premise on which it's often based). She was taken aback and I asked her why. "You are the only one who's chosen this option," she said. "Most people I spoke to (and they're all 'people like us'!), are mortified at the mere idea of their spouse's infidelity."

I'm not surprised. Most people grow up with fairy tales that inevitably end in "And they lived happily ever after", watch Hindi films (or their Hollywood equivalents) where the hero and heroine walk into the sunset having overcome all odds against their undying love, read Romeo And Juliet (or Mills and Boon, depending on their literary leanings) and have dreamt of eternal love. They may never actually have seen a perfectly happily married couple (I confess, I haven't, and am beginning to suspect it's merely a fictional concoction), but believe that they have the will, the capacity, and most of all, the patience, to build that one exceptional marriage which makes the rest of us believe fervently in this institution and plunge headlong into it with foolhardy bravado. I did too. But this article isn't a confessional about my relationship (which isn't any better or worse than any other I've seen from close quarters -- which, I might add, is almost a huge relief, considering my own impatient temperament!), but rather about the very nature of marriage and the idea of infidelity.  

It is not, therefore, with cynicism, that I believe monogamous relationships between woman and man (or woman and woman, or man and man) are a mythical idea we are desperately trying to cling to, because of generations of brainwashing and lack of other practically suitable alternatives. As a point of argument, I'd invite anyone who's ever got married (or even been in a long-term relationship) to stand up and declare she/he was never maddeningly attracted to another member of the opposite sex (movie stars and tennis players included, because they're far easier to embed in our fantasies than real people who have the potential to complicate matters), or wistfully imagined being with someone/anyone else, or contemplated the hypothetical possibility of not being in marital bondage and hence free to exercise choice without guilt. Naturally, none of the above has anything to do with eternal love. If anyone were to actually try being in love with another human being with single-minded devotion forever, they wouldn't have the time to do anything else, and would eventually start slipping into boredom. Guaranteed. Remember, Romeo and Juliet died long before they could find out. 

Marriage is a practical option to keep the human race better organised and easier to manage, just as prisons are a sensible way of keeping errant elements isolated from society to minimise their nuisance. So instead of exercising our free will in accordance with our animal instincts and mating without moral inhibition, which in turn may lead to innumerable social inconveniences, we choose to 'settle down' in matrimony, and like all good creatures of habit, soon forget that it's possible to even conceive living any other way. Then we turn this practical necessity into a virtue and swear by its near-religious sanctity like hard-core fanatics. Obviously then, infidelity must seem equivalent to complete blasphemy. We expect our spouses to be utterly 'faithful' (like our friends of the canine variety), no matter what, and can accept almost anything else, but the thought that perhaps we aren't actually entirely equipped to fulfil their needs on a lifelong basis (nor is it our cardinal duty to do so at any cost) and hence, they are well within their right to look elsewhere. Infidelity generally isn't about 'us'. It's about 'them', and their tendency to stray from the straight road, while we continue to trudge along, despite the odds and the temptation -- which also gives us the higher moral ground. Mostly we do it because we're reined in by our upbringing and because it's too much trouble to rock the boat and live with the consequences. 

If there really were an 'ideal' relationship (marital or otherwise), it would be one that has no room for 'ifs' and 'buts'. Where two people didn't live in dread of each other's choices and actually encouraged each other to live to the fullest, irrespective of its impact on their own lives. That would, I suspect, also be the relationship that's truly based on love, where no risk is too high; and not the conditional contract we seem to mistakenly refer to as the real thing.As my beloved Sting aptly put it, "If you love somebody, set them free." 

Children Of God

I am an atheist. And am acutely aware that it's not a very nice thing to be, considering the alarming level of intolerance to dissidents and freaks within the human race. All the more reason to be grateful to my parents and grandparents who taught me about honesty, hard work, simplicity and compassion, without ascribing any covert or overt divine significance to them. I was never told to speak the truth because god says so or because god will punish me if I don't. These values are their own virtue and a measure of our being 'human'. I was allowed the freedom to form my own ethical framework for living and to practise it without fear of divine retribution. 





I admit I don't have too many answers about the evolution of the universe, but am entirely unconvinced about the idea of a supreme entity that may have created the world. It could have come about instead, through a series of accidents beyond human comprehension. Because after all these million years of evolution, humans can't claim to have understood the story of their evolution and that of all those who came before them, with exactitude. Which is perhaps where god comes in.

It is my belief that god didn't create man, man created god -- to help understand all the complexities of the world he was living in, and the worlds beyond that he hadn't yet explored, and all the natural phenomena that overwhelmed him and threatened his race, and all the strokes of good luck he couldn't explain rationally (it had to be a man, because women have been obliterated from human history for most part, so nobody really knows if they could think back then -- today, we know that they are allowed to think, but only just and so long as they behave themselves within the realm of man-made morality).

It is possible then, that god was born of human weakness. 

It is also possible to believe that food and water cause human strife, because they are essential for the survival of the species. All animals kill for their own survival -- humans may be intellectually better of, but that doesn't necessarily dull their primitive natural instincts. So they fight for the most fertile land, negotiate for exchanging their goods and services for money, hack each other for profit etc. without much gumption. But the human race has also invented this mammoth monster called religion and further divided it into a million 'gods' of the mythical and super human variety, most of whom apparently preach the same thing, but according to their subjects, each is holier and more relevant than its predecessors and contemporaries -- be truthful, be kind to your neighbours, love is god, wisdom is divine, work is worship, don't be greedy, desire is the root cause of all suffering, etc. The vocabulary may differ, but the message is always the same.

You don't need new gods to tell you this, but we invent them anyway -- just in case they have some ready answers to questions we haven't cracked yet. I haven't seen a single follower who worships their gods with such astounding fervour, actually adopting their preaching in their own lives -- because there is a direct conflict between being a child of god, and fighting for survival, and these days even more, sacrificing the lure of material comfort. Most times, you can't achieve both. But you can pray earnestly, break innumerable coconuts, take pilgrimages, sing praises of your god, do elaborate rituals to atone for your sins and hope that all this adds up and is taken into account with the 'final judgment' is delivered; or if you don't believe in such hogwash, at least alleviate your guilt about being human and therefore, shamefully flawed. It's far easier than giving up a cushy life and being simple in thought and action, stepping out of the competitive environment and not lying to make a fast buck, being the sole judge of your own worth and actually spending time reflecting on the human condition and the meaning of life -- let's just wait for some god to tell us what to do while we go about our business of making lots of money, so that we don't have to think and stand up for our beliefs, irrespective of whether the rest of the world agrees with them or not. 



The beauty of the idea of god is that it's so vague, anyone can interpret it in any way and claim a copyright on its absolute superiority. For some reason, this entity which no one has actually seen or experienced (except in their dreams -- and that too perhaps because it's so much a part of their daily consciousness, it's bound to visit them in their dreams too) has become such an overwhelming aspect of human life that now, we don't kill each other for food, we kill each other to prove the superiority of our god! We decide the worth of a human life based on what religion it's affiliated to. If it's not the same as ours, it has no value -- and worse, is a threat to us because if its tribe grows, our superiority comes under threat.

Then there are the decent sort, who don't actually pull out a knife and stab people to uphold the supremacy of their deity. Instead, they build temples and erect idols and worship them at every street corner and then find unique ways of spreading their religion -- remember the Christian missionaries who came to India and offered bread to the poor in exchange for undying devotion to Jesus Christ? Something like that -- the Parsi Panchayat provides free housing to those who keep the faith and throws out those who've 'dissented', the church builds schools for its own, gurudwaras feed the poor, as do shopkeepers who distribute leftovers to beggars lined up outside the Mahim dargah; various gurus float socially beneficial schemes and their devotees go around doing the 'good work' with one hand and handing out photographs and memorabilia with the other, lest the poor beneficiaries forget where the charity came from -- it's a bit like corporate branding; only because it's attached to god, you can be struck down for calling it that.



I've yet to see a religious group that goes about helping the poor without telling them who their benefactor is, i.e. merely for the cause of doing good to society. For that you don't need god, you need the spirit of men like Baba Amte -- who never sat on a celestial throne, never gave lectures to his subjects about how they should live their lives, never claimed moral and spiritual superiority, but stuck his hands in the muck no one else was willing to touch and didn't get carried away by his own greatness. Baba Amte would also be the kind of god who had his own human weaknesses (which he wouldn't need to hide in the garb of divinity), who wouldn't want his followers to worship him -- he'd exhort them instead, to keep the good work going, without attaching a 'deity' to it. I am convinced there must be others like him around the world, doing things for others in their own little ways. I've heard of a doctor couple in rural Maharashtra who don't eat in restaurants because they believe the money spent there can be put to better use to treat their poor patients. Only, given their lack of flashiness or visions of immortality, they don't proclaim themselves gods, don't expect their followers to pray to them for salvation, don't allow them to build temples for them, nor promise deliverance through charity.

In short, they are the losers who've understood the essence of human existence, and have forgotten to move with the times and advertise their methods for maximum exposure. They're the people nobody wants to know because they don't qualify as achievers -- they're probably all poor, having emptied their pockets to benefit others, don't dress for the part of god men and can't act like they've understood something lesser mortals can only dream of. 



Give me these nameless, faceless gods any day and I'll worship them with all my heart -- and no, I won't need temples or idols or banners all around to remind me of their existence or the value of what they stand for. They live in my conscience and pinch me when I err and help me tell right from wrong. That's all there really is to it all. 

Celluloid Dreams

Ok. So I haven’t seen a film in what seems like eternity. Which explains why depression is fast setting in – coupled with the fact that we’ve a working Saturday in office (blasphemous! I say). The family decided to catch Heyy Babyy (let’s wreck the English language beyond recognition and add to our kids’ confusion!) last night – while I was slaving it out at work. Daughter loved it and made her mother proud by dancing on the seats when Shah Rukh made his ‘surprise’ entry and hogged the whole show in the process. Husband ate popcorn, nachos, veg roll, among other multiplex delicacies, dozed off when his mouth was not full, and finally gave his profound verdict: “It’s ok, but full of Bollywood clichés.” He’s an everyman critic with stock, monosyllabic expressions: “timepass” (any film with Govinda and one item number), “bakwas” (a film without songs, and of the painful, socially hyper-conscious variety), “hot” (fast-paced, perfect combo of sex and violence), “solid” (Don, Mr. Natwarlal, Muqaddar Ka Sikander or indeed any Amitabh Bachchan flick that nostalgically reminds him of his own ‘angry young man’ days).

Daughter’s cinematic vocabulary is still quite undersized – it begins with Hrithik Roshan (her first film outing was to see Koi Mil Gaya when she was just a year-and-a-half old, which explains this choice) and ends with Shah Rukh Khan (that’s genetically transmitted obsession). So, while at home, when she’s not watching Hannah Montana on the sly (she figured out how to switch channels in a flash to cover up her transgression) she’s devouring Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Kal Ho Na Ho and Main Hoon Na in rapid succession. Still floating in her woozy fantasy world, she then insists that we call her Anjali and that her father must play Rahul and give her a perfect hi-five. Last heard, she and her gang of girls (who already claim not to like boys!) were playing a new game called Chak De! on the building lawns.

Oh yes, we did watch Chak De! India, but that seems like a long time ago. Which reminds me, I’ve recently re-discovered an old quirk – crying copiously in the movies. Chak De!, with its rousing speeches (70 minute, sirf 70 minute hai tumhare paas) and underdog pitch proved to be tailor-made for catharsis. Before that, there was Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix which had me crying in despair – it flew right past my small, very limited brain and for two excruciating hours, took the charm out of cinema. Back in my childhood I’d wept profusely when I watched Amitabh Bachchan die in Dharmendra’s arms in Sholay. It’s my earliest memory of cinema and one that’s still vivid. I have a strong suspicion that Ramgopal Varma Ki Aag is going to revive that moment and induce a fresh crop of tears at the merciless marauding of my favourite Hindi film and the tragic descent into dementia of a filmmaker I’d thought held much promise. A decade ago, that is; nothing RGV has made post-Company has been of any interest. Yes, including the allegedly slick Sarkar, which I could have peacefully slept through but for the loud bullet-spraying bangs at regular intervals in the second half, which had my heart breaking into palpitations.

Fortunately, there’s still something to look forward to for the rest of the year, after RGV Ki Aag has come and gone, generated some debate (mostly fuelled by the director himself) and sank into oblivion. The Yashraj banner seems to have woken up from its long slumber (let’s see: Fanaa, Kabul Express, Tara Rum Pum, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom) and finally accepted that big stars can’t make great films without sensible scripts and directors with minds of their own. So there’s Pradeep Sarkar’s Laaga Chunari Mein Daag, followed by Anil Mehta’s Aaja Nachle which hold some promise. Ashutosh Gowariker’s Jodha-Akbar is scheduled to come up next, but I have a faint suspicion it might get delayed. Amitabh Bachchan candidly admitted on television last night that Aishwarya was no match for Rekha’s Umrao Jaan. Let’s hope she’s done slightly better with her take on Jodhabai! Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Saawariya, meanwhile, has already announced itself with a poster that looks dangerously like Devdas revisited. The promos are grandiose of course, as Bhansali attempts yet another magnum opus in extra, extra slow-mo.And so the dream-machine chugs on….Deepa Gumaste

Critics and the Filmwallahs

Did anyone watch Koffee with Karan last week? Only by accident of course. I can't imagine why anyone would actually, purposefully sit down to watch this 'iconic' filmmaker giggle incessantly at his own daft jokes and take pot-shots at all those in the film industry he doesn't like (perhaps because they refuse to acknowledge his greatness) and poke fun at the media in general and film critics in particular, like he himself is the ultimate guide-book to 'authentic' cinema. His guests are mostly people who like Karan Johar (i.e SRK, Rani, Kajol etc) or those who are dying to work with him – read Shilpa & Shamita Shetty, Bobby Deol, John Abraham etc. There have been a couple of notable exceptions, of course. Like Hema Malini, who said it like it is and didn't gush over inane questions respectfully thrown her way. Or Richard Gere, who was delightful to watch as he made Karan squirm at the edge of his usually comfy sofa over questions about his views on the Tibet crisis or on world politics. Karan looked uncharacteristically tense as he mumbled 'hmmm', 'yes', 'of course' and tried to smile his way out of the situation.

A couple of months ago, Jaya Bachchan, featured on the same show next to Hema amma and questioned the very existence of film critics in this country before breaking into a 'Guddi' giggle. Then, there was Shilpa Shetty, fresh from her singular claim to fame (at last, she has some claim to fame other than her ancient fling with Akshay Kumar) 'Big Brother' and ranted about how unfair the Indian media had been to her while the British press was showering her with so much love and "positive vibes". What Ms. Shetty probably wouldn't like to accept is that the British media hadn't even heard of her till she accidentally won 'Big Brother', a reality show stuffed with wannabes and riff-raff, and therefore not something anyone in their right mind would be 'proud' to be associated with in any case. 

Ms. Shetty is supposed to be an actress by profession and has been around for the last 15 years. In all these years, one doesn't recall a single noteworthy performance given by her, with the possible exception of Revathy's 'Phir Milenge' where she seemed somewhat natural. And yet, she's always managed to make headlines because of her off-screen escapades. Now can you imagine what Shilpa Shetty's career would have been like if the media hadn't showered its benevolence on her?Imagine, even Bobby Deol doesn't like film critics. And since he was Karan's guest last week, alongside Preity Zinta, who fits in perfectly because her greatest cinematic achievement is the ability to giggle disarmingly at all times, he had to state his opinion about criticism from the media. Now realistically speaking, when was the last time anyone saw Bobby Deol 'act'? Seriously. His cousin Abhay has managed to do in just three years what Bobby couldn't in 13. And that must be the critics' fault, because while they unanimously shower praise on Abhay for his affable screen presence and his no-nonsense style of acting, they have summarily dismissed Bobby over all these years.

Meanwhile Aamir Khan has suddenly grown friendly on the media. Firstly, he needs to defend his land deal in Maharashtra by proving he's a farmer and secondly because after six long years, he's releasing the DVD of 'Lagaan'. Since he needs the publicity, he didn't mind doing a primetime half-hour show on Headlines Today (very boring, one might add) or giving an exclusive interview to CNN-IBN last week. The same Aamir had dismissed the media last year in an exclusive interview with 'Tehelka' magazine arguing that since the media lacks ethics, he had decided to stop speaking to them. Now either he's changed his mind about the media's ethical standards (which have slipped even further in the last 12 months, if such a thing were possible) or he's just exploiting his star status when it suits him.

Ditto for the Bachchan's and their bahu, who apparently wanted a 'private' wedding at home, but got the traffic police to bring all of Juhu to a standstill and then blamed the media for intruding on their personal lives. What's more, someone miraculously got hold of pictures of the newlyweds aboard Anil Ambani's private jet en route to Tirupati (must've been the pilot who leaked the pictures!), where they once again brought life to a grinding halt and forced other lowly devotees to languish in long queues while the lord gave them 'exclusive' darshan. Thank god no media channel felt it worth the effort to send a spy crew to Tahiti where the couple reportedly went for their honeymoon and mercifully, we've been spared the gory details thereof!

But seriously, why is the media obsessed with these filmwallahs in any case? Considering the ones who can act, don't generate much news. Those who can't find ingenious ways to stay put in the limelight, without actually doing anything (Shilpa Shetty can start a training academy for such aspirants when she's done opening restaurants and boutiques in London). And then guess what Karan's up to these days? After lampooning the media week after week in 'K with K', he's about to launch his own entertainment channel, where you can be sure, among other things, there'll be favourable reviews for KJo's films, and endless rounds of Koffeeing with Karan and his kronies….PS: For those who're interested in listening to a serious cinema aficionado talk about the art, read Naseeruddin Shah's column in 'Filmfare'.