On the Rebound
Commissioner of Police Rakesh Maria was briefing journalists about the Ganeshotsav bandobast when someone said that volunteers gamble all night at Ganpati pandals to keep awake. “Yes, we have discussed this with the mandals and I have told them to get carrom boards and play carrom all night to escape boredom,’’ he replied. “If they get bored of that too, I will get them treadmills to walk on all night. That should suffice. But I won’t tolerate gambling.”
Domestic Issues
Domestic workers want their due and the household that hires them wants its money’s worth too. But here are small instances of the depths some ladies of the house sink to when it comes to extracting their pound of flesh from the bai — respectfully called maushi by the entire household — but no maushi with blood ties would tolerate such treatment for even one day unless she were in dire straits. And one is speaking only of the lady who does, what in Mumbai parlance, is commonly referred to as ‘Jhadoo-pota’ (sweeping and swabbing) and ‘Bartan’ (dishes) or what the anglicised refer to as ‘top jobs.’ So in one household, after the maushi had finished sweeping and swabbing the floors, she was asked to swab the bathroom floors and dry them out. She had to refuse because this was a request that went beyond her call of duty. Then in another house where she was hired to do the dishes, one day, there were no dishes to do, so the lady of the house, instead of just letting her take the day off, asked her to sweep and swab instead. Once again, the maushi had to refuse because she had not been hired to do that task. Then there was one household where to ensure that she was working hard for her money, messy pots and pans would be allowed to go dry as they awaited her so that she would have to exert twice as much elbow grease to do the job. Anyone who has scrubbed that holiest-of-the-holies, the milk pan, will vouch for the fact that it is a challenging task even when the said pan has been soaking in water, so when it has been allowed to dry out, the task is ten times more challenging and the same goes for a dried rice pan, encrusted with crumbs whose pointed stickiness could give lessons to leeches. Then there is the lady who will not bother to even do a cursory clearing up of the floor after lunch or dinner because why exert herself or other family members, when the family was paying for the services of the bai? And come vacation time, she asks the maushi to stay away since her children, read daughters, can be doing the chores for ‘free.’
All one can wish for such callous people is that they take their wealth and move to the US, where, upon bringing in sufficient capital to invest we are informed by advertisements, they can procure green cards and then, try to find themselves a nice maushi over there. But there can be no such fortuitous riddance, even a top-level diplomat in recent times couldn’t do it.
Help Desk
In Mumbai’s ever so busy trains and railway stations, help is never far away. In fact, it seems to be the only place in Mumbai where one can find people who extend a helping hand to any stranger be it helping one catch a train or give directions or which side the platform is located on which station. However, it can often be seen that in their desire to help others, some often tend to go overboard too. One such incident happened to this diarist a few days back when he was trying to use an ATVM machine.
This diarist got his ATVM smart card recently and was standing in the line to use the machine at Sion station. Since he had no idea about how to use it as it was his first time he got the card recharged and was trying to find how to use the machine to see his card’s balance. While standing clueless in front of the ATVM, one eager youngster reached out to him figuring out he was having trouble operating it. Right away asking the reporter where he was headed, the ‘Good Samaritan’ showed him how to operate it. However, what followed can only be explained as over enthusiasm as the youngster without seeming to bother what the reporter was trying to do with the ATVM drew out a return ticket for CST just to show him how its done, much to the surprise of the reporter who only wanted to check his card’s balance as he had already gotten his ticket when standing in the queue to buy the smart card. When the reporter asked him in shock as to why he actually bought a ticket, bang came the reply ‘mujhe laga aapko ticket lena tha’. Perplexed whether to thank the youngster for helping him or to hit him on the head, the reporter walked away in angst after having spent Rs 20 on a ‘tutorial’ on how to operate the ATVM.
Sub Marine
This correspondent recently visited INS Viraat and was taken aback by the tiny living spaces of the officers on board Viraat. As its name suggests, the ship in itself is huge but officers serving on it have nothing more than a tiny metal room to call their own.
The rooms barely occupy more than two people at a time. The steel basins inside the room remind you of jail cells in movies. the iron cots do nothing to make the ambiance any better. The metal walls of the tiny room make you feel like you’ve entered the washroom of an Indian railway train.
The accommodation described above is the kind that is provided to officers on the ship, it can only be inferred that sailors have to make to with much poorer living conditions.
INS Viraat has 12 floors on it and five of these floors are underwater. A major part of the petty officers and sailors live on these submerged floors. Most of these rooms don’t even have a glass opening to look out from.
Little Mercies
Mumbai is all about expecting the unexpected. Its erratic rains, sudden acts of kindness from random strangers and friends you make at the most unexpected places are poof of Mumbai’s eccentricity. This correspondent recently experienced all three of these situations in one go.
It was one of those days when it started raining out of no where on a bright sunny day. This diarist was on her way to an important press conference and was dressed for the occasion. While waiting for a taxi, the rain Gods decided to come down in all fury. This correspondent’s immediate reflex was to reach into her bag for an umbrella only to realize it was not in there anymore.
While all this was happening a little girl who sat in a shop nearby was noticing this correspondent. She realized the helpless position this diarist was in. A minute later she ran up and handed this diarist her umbrella and said , “Le lo didi aaj aape accha kapda pehna hai, kharab ho jayenge” (Keep my umbrella, you are wearing nice clothes today, they will get spoiled due of the rain).
This correspondent had never spoken to that little girl in the past but had passingly noticed her in her little makeshift tea stall. Turns out the little girl used to notice this correspondent too. She became so familiar with this diarist that she didn’t think twice before giving away her umbrella to a person who technically was a complete stranger.
From that day on this diarist always makes it a point to have a cup of tea at this little girl’s shop before setting out for work.
Tailpiece
Best traffic advertisement of the year:
Picture of Lord Ganesha holding a helmet and saying: `Take care of your head. Not everyone gets a replacement like me.’
Contributed by Sindhu J Mansukhani, Geeta Bhagat, Arun Venkat and Adele Macdonald.
Compiled by Anil Singh.
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Sweet Nothings
“Bhai, mithai khao akele par iskey baad jo bhi miley usmain hamaara hissa zaroor rakhna, (Have these sweets by yourself but share whatever you get after this).’’ This is what supporters of the chairman of a commission told him after offering him sweets on his appointment recently.
The chairman who was surrounded by so-called activists, laughed with a motichoor laddu in his mouth and replied, “Akeley naheen khaoonga, sabko uskaa hissa doonga, par mujhey SRA builders aur unkey construction ki jaankari detey rehnaa (I won’t eat alone, everyone will get a fair share for their contribution but let me know about the SRA builders in your area and details of their construction).’’
Then, turning around to newspaper reporters, the newly-appointed chairman said with a straight face, “I will work hard for the upliftment of the poor.’’
A woman activist sitting next to the chairman offered sweets to reporters of a newspaper, to which a reporter said, “Humaarey paas kuch aisaa naheen hai jismain aapkaa koi hissa lagey, (We don’t have anything from which you can claim a share).’’ The woman replied, “Koi baat naheen, hum press sey hissa nahin letey, jo humain hamara hissa nahin detaa hum press ko uskaa saara kaala chittha detey hain, (Doesn’t matter, we don’t expect any money from the press but those who deny us our share get their black deeds exposed in the press).’’On this, the entire group of `activists’ burst out laughing.
–Zeeshan Shaikh, September 8, 2013
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