It’s a city of small living spaces, short jobs, short relationships, short stints of fame, short attention spans, short skirts and short-cuts to everything! Ironically, only the dreams and the distances are neither small nor short!

Isn’t 55-fiction the perfect form for writing about Mumbai then – short on words, but not on ideas and irony?

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Other entries in the series: #1, #2

He took a turn onto Annie Beasant Road and yellow lights blinked at him, winked at him – traffic-lights playing truant like children unwillingly waking up for school!

Policemen lined both sides of the road from Worli to Wilson College, twenty feet apart, like an army of ants.

Just how many policemen are there in Mumbai?

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Other entries in the series: #1

Mahim at midnight is a blinding intersection of car headlights and streetlamps.

In the bedlam of car horns, I hear him before I see him – a lone man of indeterminate age hammering away at plywood in a tiny first floor room with three walls, above a tiny shop.

Mumbai is a city of insomniacs!

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Mumbaikar: There was a bomb blast in Malegaon yesterday. The bombs were rigged to bicycles near a burial ground, where Muslims had aggregated for the festival of Shab-e-Baraat. 37 people are dead and 200 injured so far.

Bombaywallah: That’s really sad. Where is Malegaon?

Mumbaikar: Malegaon is a Muslim dominated town near Nasik, 160 km north of Mumbai, known for its communal tension.

Bombaywallah: Ah! I have been thinking of visiting the vineyards at Nasik. But you have relatives in Nasik, don’t you? Is everything OK in Nasik? Is everything OK in Bombay?

Mumbaikar: Yes, things seem to be under control. The government has put the entire state on high alert. They imposed a curfew in Malegaon yesterday, but have lifted in today. In Mumbai, there were rumors of rioting in Mahim last night, but the police have been deployed on the streets and no significant disturbances have happened. Also, Muslim religious leaders have urged people to maintain calm and communal harmony.

Bombaywallah: It’s obvious, isn’t it, that the blasts have been masterminded to increase the communal divide, especially since they have happened so soon after the Bombay train blasts. I’m happy, though, that everybody has behaved sensibly so far.

Mumbaikar: I’m keeping my fingers crossed, if you ask me.

I overheard them outside the domestic airport, as Mumbaikar picked up Bombaywallah from the arrival terminal. I have never seen them so subdued, these two.

For more details see: India Uncut, Sepia Mutiny (here & here), Desicritics, BBC (here and here), Yahoo (here and here) and Rediff (here and here).

Read the other entries in the series here: (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), (9).
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Mumbaikar: The BMC claims that, by the September 1 high court deadline for making Mumbai pothole-free, they have filled all but 133 potholes in the city.

Bombaywallah: And how many have they filled? 13?

Mumbaikar: Actually, they claim that they have filled almost 43,000.

Bombaywallah: Ever since independence?

Mumbaikar: No, baba! After the rains.

Bombaywallah: So, they are saying that they have completed more than 99% of the work! And what did the high court say?

Mumbaikar: The high court told them that more hard work was needed and gave them another week to finish off the remaining work.

My car was stuck just next to theirs in an interminable traffic jam a few kilometers before the Express Highway to Pune. After a few minutes of stoic silence, just as I finished my cigarette and rolled up my car window, I overheard them again.

Mumbaikar: But this isn’t really Mumbai, you know, and maybe, they are starting from the city centre and moving out. Maybe these are the last hundred odd potholes left in Mumbai.

Bombaywallah: Or maybe, since there is no road here, only potholes, they have counted this entire stretch as one Absolut Pothole.

Read the other entries in the series here: (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8).

Mumbaikar: BEST is becoming modern. It has installed smart card systems in 200 of its buses and will install it in the rest of 3400 buses in three months. (link)

Bombaywallah: Really?

Mumbaikar: Not only that, it is also installing global positioning systems, PCO systems, CCTVs, and drop boxes by Hutchison Essar in its buses. They are especially excited about the CCTVs; they say that the CCTVs will help them counter the terrorist threat.

Bombaywallah: Are you sure their already falling apart buses will not collapse under the weight of all this gadgetry?

Mumbaikar: Come on! Stop being a townie all the time! I’m sure you haven’t ever been in a BEST bus!

Bombaywallah: Actually, you are wrong. I have been in a BEST bus, a double-decker one at that, on their tour of the heritage buildings.

Mumbaikar: You know that doesn’t count!

Bombaywallah: And I have had a shiver run down my spine every time a BEST bus has swerved suddenly towards my car, metal hanging from it at all odd angles. That counts surely. And I have heard you talk about your romantic rendezvous on the upper deck of almost empty double-decker BEST buses. Don’t tell me that doesn’t count either.

Mumbaikar: Now, you have made me sentimental. We were in college then and took the same bus everyday, from Girgaum Chowpatty, all the way to Santa Cruz, where she lived, and then back to Dadar. While the lower deck would be crowded, there were fewer people on the upper deck, and sometimes, there was no one apart from us. We held hands everyday and even kissed for the first time in the bus (sighs). Now, they are planning to phase out the double-decker buses, because there is inadequate demand for them.

Bombaywallah: No empty upper decks and CCTVs elsewhere; BEST buses surely aren’t romantic anymore!

Overheard outside the Lal Baug Ganeshotsav mandal, as a police constable struggled with the CCTV system in his patrol vehicle. (link)

Read the other entries in the series here: (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7).

The header says that it’s a foreigner’s view of daily life in Mumbai, but it’s not the usual foreigner’s view. In its sweep, it stretches from North to South and East to West, to a city that extends wider than even our local’s view of it. In its concerns, it covers Mumbai’s myriad street vendors, its twisted modes of transport, its many festivals and its melting pot of people, in short, the stinking, sublime, bitter-sweet spirit of the city. It seems, incidentally, that the the contributors are fixated on Juhu beach at the moment.

I decided to blog about it when I saw that the two of the first pictures at the blog were about rickshaws (here and here). I’m obsessed with rickshaws myself and have blogged about them here, here and here.

Read the other entries in the series here: (1)

Mumbaikar: I can’t believe you missed the book reading! Vikram Chandra just left two minutes back.

Bombaywallah: Endless client meeting and terrible traffic! Maybe they should build that flyover at Peddar Road! How was it?

Mumbaikar: It was OK. He read two excerpts from the book, one about a sardar inspector called Sartaj Singh and the other about a gangster called Ganesh Gaitonde. The sardar sounded quite like a loser, yaar!

Bombaywallah: Yes, they are the two protagonists. And Sartaj Singh does have a wounded cynicism, not only in ‘Sacred Games‘ but also in ‘Love and Longing in Bombay‘, where he first appeared. My girlfriend is quite crazy about his character.

Mumbaikar: That’s what Vikram Chandra said:

The women like him a lot; I don’t know why.

Bombaywallah: What else did he say?

Mumbaikar: He read from the book and people asked him questions. He talked about why it took him so many years to write the book,

I write very slowly, take a lot of time in putting words on paper.

He talked about

the magic of Mumbai that transcends its stench and squalor.

He talked about the structure of the novel, its alternating chapters on Sartaj and Gaitonde, and how it all comes together at the end. You know that I don’t read fat nine hundred page novels, unlike you, but it was fascinating, ekdam jhakaas!

Bombaywallah: Well, I’m five hundred pages into it and it is fascinating. He manages to lay out a map of Bombay, in all its maddening magic, makes everyday life dramatic in its detail. And both Sartaj and Gaitonde, inspite of their inspector/ gangster bravado, are flawed and humane beyond belief. I think I haven’t read a better book in a while.

Mumbaikar: That’s what Ashok Banker said, in a review in Hindustan Times. He called it

a great novel, perhaps the greatest book on Bombay ever written. Certainly a contender for the Great Indian Novel.

So, I asked him about the review, asked him if the book was really about Mumbai, asked him which was the second best book about the city.

Bombaywallah: I don’t have much respect for someone who is trying to re-write Ramayana, and not very well, but still. He must have blushed at that, did he?

Mumbaikar: He did. He speaks in an American accent, almost like yours, and he blushed like you are blushing now. He said that

the only true reward for a writer is to be read by a ’sah-hridaya’, someone of the same heart,

that Banker was being over-generous, that it was not possible to rank books like that, that the book was about Mumbai but also about other places and ideas.

Bombaywallah: Yes, it is an ambitious book, both in its size and its sweep. What else did you ask?

Mumbaikar: I had heard about his filmy family, and you have told me that the book reads like a Hindi film, so I wanted to ask him if he would write a screenplay based on the book, make it into a movie. But there were too many people with too many questions and not enough time.

Bombaywallah: Hah! A Bollywood blockbuster directed by Ram Gopal Verma with Ajay Devgan playing Ganesh Ganitonde and Abhishek Bachchan playing Sartaj Singh! That would make you happy, wouldn’t it!

I wanted to tell them that Vikram Chandra has a website and is known to answer e-mails, but didn’t; I like eavesdropping on them from a distance, on Bombaywallah and Mumbaikar.

Read the other entries in the series here: (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6).

Mumbaikar: Do you know that Omar Abdullah’s cousin, Saniia, will be acting in the film ‘Sirf Romance, Love By Chance‘? She was earlier called Khalida, and worked as a bank manager in Delhi for three years, before she decided to try her luck in tinsel town and changed her name because her director thought it was not powerful enough! (link)

Bombaywallah: You know I don’t track Bollywood gossip and neither did you, if I remember right? I thought you were only worried about issues of national and international importance.

Mumbaikar: I didn’t, but now that cable TV operators are on strike, I’m spending more time with my three daily newspapers!

Bombaywallah: The troika of daily tabloids! No wonder I haven’t heard about it. Between my work and my blog, I am left with so little time that I haven’t read the newspaper in months now! But, anyway, what do Omar and Farooq Abdullah have to say about it?

Mumbaikar: Actually, that’s the really interesting part. While Khalida refers to Omar as bhaijaan, he has told The Times of India that he doesn’t know her at all! (no link)

Bombaywallah: So, it’s a case of: “I’m your sister!” “No, you’re not!”

Mumbaikar: The interesting thing is that there’s another rumour of a rishtaa doing the rounds of tinsel town. People are saying that Jiah Khan, who is about to debut in Ram Gopal Varma’s ‘Nishabd‘ opposite Amitabh Bachchan, is the daughter of filmmaker Tahir Hussain, which makes her Aamir Khan’s step-sister. (link)

Bombaywallah: These wannabe actresses really know how to hog a few headlines!

Mumbaikar: Actually, she is not very happy with the rumours. Although she doesn’t know much about her father, she thinks that he was an American. Tahir Hussian, who admits that he is close to Rabiya, Jiah’s mother and a small-time actress from the yesteryears, has said that Rabiya is married to a man from Pakistan and Jiah is not his daughter!

Bombaywallh: Cousin! Step-sister! Not Sister! American husband! Pakistani husband! No husband! Bhahut confusion hai, bhai, tumhare Bollywood mein!

Overheard outside a multiplex at Bandra. Immediately afterwards, Bombaywallah and Mumbaikar almost had a fist fight over whether they wanted to watch the latest Bollywood blockbuster or the surprise Hollywood sleeper hit.

Read the other entries in the series here: (1), (2), (3), (4), (5).

Bombaywallah: It’s a pain these days to fly in and out of Bombay.

Mumbaikar: Yes, I heard that Mumbai airport is as crowded as Dadar station these days.

Bombaywallah: Not only that, after the train blasts and the foiled terrorist threat at Heathrow airport, they have increased security at airports.

Mumbaikar: Achcha! That’s why all these airplanes keep circling over Santa Cruz every evening, like a circus in the air!

Bombaywallah: And all the flights are taking off late too. Now, they are manually checking all cabin baggage, especially electronics items. They are not very good at it though. Yesterday, they made me switch on my laptop twice and almost confiscated my iPod and electric shaver. The flight was delayed because I was stuck in the security check queue for almost ten minutes.

Mumbaikar: No such things on local trains, of course. I carried my collection of Nepali khukris with me today. One of them even fell down from a hole in my backpack. The old man sitting next to me saw it and I showed him my entire collection. Everybody in the compartment was very impressed.

Bombaywallah: Really? If you were flying, I’m not even sure if they would allow you to check it in. They are so paranoid these days that they have even put anti-terrorist teams in civilian clothes at the airport, to keep an eye on passengers.

Mumbaikar: Baba! I would feel so conscious every time I had to pick my nose.

Overheard at half past midnight outside the domestic airport after my one hour flight into the city was delayed by three hour.

Read the other entries in the series here: (1), (2), (3), (4), (5).