It was a beautiful Sunday evening. It was one of those days when even the least outdoorsy of people would find it difficult to say no to a walk in the park.
A group of young mothers are in animated conversation, seemingly oblivious to the kids that have accompanied them.
A new mom, pushing an oversized pram in one hand and carrying the pram’s 6 month old occupant in the other, is looking harried; the words ‘first-timer’ are written all over her face.
Nearby are a couple of dads, indulging in quality time with the offsprings they barely get to see during the week.
A bunch of tween girls, too old to play on the slides and swings and too young to join their college going seniors at Mocha for coffee-conversations-and-more are looking bored as they hang out on the fringes of the park.
Domestic helpers are squatting in random groups, some on the grass, some on the strategically placed rocks and boulders, originally conceived as landscaping elements, but now just convenient perches for the bored squatters; their expressions alternate between boredom and irritation, waiting for that 7 pm deadline when they could ferry their wards back home.
Everyone is out in the park…Everyone has thoughts on his / her mind….
The 24X7 mom envies the working mom who gets to dress up, get out of the house, and meet people her own age every day, escaping the madness of household chores and errant kids. If only she could trade places with her….
The working mom envies the full time mom her uncomplicated and fulfilling life at home in the company of her innocent little children and not having to deal with errant subordinates and demanding bosses every day. If only she could afford to give up her job….
The new mom wonders how her life has changed and if she has what it takes to give her child the best…
The baby wonders why he cant be left free on the grass to explore and learn….
The dad in the park is eyeing the yummy mummy and wondering what her fitness secret might be. He makes a mental note to make this outing a weekly ritual….
The tween is wondering when she will grow and be able to dress and hang out like her teenage role-models…
The teen-age role-model is hatching a plan to make her coffee-conversions-and-more outing last beyond the 9pm deadline…
The teen-ager’s mother, no longer regular at the park, is sitting in her empty drawing room worrying herself sick about the ‘more’ in coffee-conversations-and-more….
The young maid can’t wait to deposit the kid to his parents, so that she can hook up with her driver boyfriend before heading home for the night….
The driver boyfriend in the meantime is waiting to show off his employer’s gleaming new sedan to the maid and a daring plan is taking shape in his mind. Maybe he could take both for a spin before the boss and his kids get back from the park…
In every way,it was just another Sunday in a leafy suburb of the city…
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Maid in Mumbai
In all the years she spent with us, P could never see what the fuss was about this city, variously referred to as ‘maximum city’, ‘city that never sleeps’ or ‘city of a million dreams’. She was after all a Chennai girl and a reluctant immigrant to Mumbai when she first came to work for us. 'People here don’t speak Tamil, how can it be a great place’ summed up her attitude to any city outside Tamil Nadu.
First thoughts
Her first reaction to Mumbai after stepping off the train at CST was not very different from that of any first time visitor to the city– where are the all these people going and why are they in such a hurry. Dirt, squalor and a sea of strangers was not exactly a welcoming sight, I guess. The two hour long drive to the suburbs where we lived took us past slums, gleaming skyscrapers, more slums, 5 star hotels, plush residential towers and then, more slums. We even pass the largest slum in Asia (if you know Mumbai you’ll understand that no statistic about the city can be modest, everything has to be prefixed with biggest, most, longest and so on).
A home with a view
We live on the 27th floor of a high rise in a posh suburb, far from the city, with a view of the lake for which we have paid a handsome sum. Only now, the view is a mere glimpse, that can be had only from a demarcated 10inchX10inch spot in the living room, provided we crane our necks at a 45% angle to get past the new high rise in front. P is amused that we pay a premium to get this high from where everything looks like an ant, we can’t call out to vendors from our doorway at will, and it takes longer to get in and out. And it is not as if you escape the mosquitoes at this height - she has already seen a few buzzing about. ‘Did they take the elevator with us?’ she asks in her own inimitable, wry style, something we get used to in time.
‘In Madras, people pay a premium for a ground floor flat which comes with a small garden.’ I knew right at that moment, this was only the beginning of the Mumbai-Madras comparison saga.
Food and culture
She looks at us as if we are traitors who have sold our souls to the enemy when we eat rotis instead of sambar and curd rice for dinner. She doesn’t buy the fact that for even ‘Madrasis’ in Madras have switched to rotis for one meal on health grounds. As for her, P made it clear that neither would she eat rotis nor would she learn to make them while she was here.
Over time P had mastered the art of communicating in sign language with the milkman, dhobi and driver. She had even managed to teach the cleaning lady a few words in Tamil, but not a word of Hindi had entered her system yet. She was a great source of entertainment for friends and visitors who called on us. She always assumed they knew Tamil because they were our friends and unleashed a barrage of greetings on them in fluid Tamil. Anyone who knew even a smattering of Tamil got to sample P’s extra special filter kaapi.
Bollywood
I remember the day Shah Rukh Khan came to our building for an ad-film shoot. There was an air of nervous excitement about the entire building. Everyone from the security guard to the grandmother with arthritis and the blackberry thumbing honcho was dressed in his/her Sunday best, hoping for a photo or at least an autograph opportunity with the superstar. After all, it was not every day that the badshah of bollywood paid a visit to a leafy, peaceful suburb.
If there was only one person in the midst of all this action who was truly unmoved – it was P. In Madras, between the movie stars and the movie-star-turned-politicians, there is enough going on for the average Tamilian to give Bollywood the cold shoulder.
P’s reaction to Bollywood’s undisputed superstar was thus :
‘he’s not dark (=not good looking), he doesn’t have a moustache (=disgusting),he is dressed in jeans and t-shirt like normal people (=hardly the garb befitting a superstar) 'What sort of superstar is he? Give me a Thalaiavar (Rajinikanth for the uninitiated) any day' she says with a shrug and gets back to her chores on the 27th floor, completely unimpressed.
It took a while for me to realise how culturally alien Mumbai was to P. We could have well been living in Papua New Guinea for all she cared. To her it would be just another place that was not Madras.
I realised I had taken P out of Madras, but hadn’t succeeded in taking the Madras out of P. She’s gone now, while all I can do is hope and pray that I find someone half as well-meaning and endearing, to fill the huge void left by her.
First thoughts
A home with a view
We live on the 27th floor of a high rise in a posh suburb, far from the city, with a view of the lake for which we have paid a handsome sum. Only now, the view is a mere glimpse, that can be had only from a demarcated 10inchX10inch spot in the living room, provided we crane our necks at a 45% angle to get past the new high rise in front. P is amused that we pay a premium to get this high from where everything looks like an ant, we can’t call out to vendors from our doorway at will, and it takes longer to get in and out. And it is not as if you escape the mosquitoes at this height - she has already seen a few buzzing about. ‘Did they take the elevator with us?’ she asks in her own inimitable, wry style, something we get used to in time.
‘In Madras, people pay a premium for a ground floor flat which comes with a small garden.’ I knew right at that moment, this was only the beginning of the Mumbai-Madras comparison saga.
Food and culture
She looks at us as if we are traitors who have sold our souls to the enemy when we eat rotis instead of sambar and curd rice for dinner. She doesn’t buy the fact that for even ‘Madrasis’ in Madras have switched to rotis for one meal on health grounds. As for her, P made it clear that neither would she eat rotis nor would she learn to make them while she was here.
Over time P had mastered the art of communicating in sign language with the milkman, dhobi and driver. She had even managed to teach the cleaning lady a few words in Tamil, but not a word of Hindi had entered her system yet. She was a great source of entertainment for friends and visitors who called on us. She always assumed they knew Tamil because they were our friends and unleashed a barrage of greetings on them in fluid Tamil. Anyone who knew even a smattering of Tamil got to sample P’s extra special filter kaapi.
Bollywood
I remember the day Shah Rukh Khan came to our building for an ad-film shoot. There was an air of nervous excitement about the entire building. Everyone from the security guard to the grandmother with arthritis and the blackberry thumbing honcho was dressed in his/her Sunday best, hoping for a photo or at least an autograph opportunity with the superstar. After all, it was not every day that the badshah of bollywood paid a visit to a leafy, peaceful suburb.
If there was only one person in the midst of all this action who was truly unmoved – it was P. In Madras, between the movie stars and the movie-star-turned-politicians, there is enough going on for the average Tamilian to give Bollywood the cold shoulder.
P’s reaction to Bollywood’s undisputed superstar was thus :
‘he’s not dark (=not good looking), he doesn’t have a moustache (=disgusting),he is dressed in jeans and t-shirt like normal people (=hardly the garb befitting a superstar) 'What sort of superstar is he? Give me a Thalaiavar (Rajinikanth for the uninitiated) any day' she says with a shrug and gets back to her chores on the 27th floor, completely unimpressed.
It took a while for me to realise how culturally alien Mumbai was to P. We could have well been living in Papua New Guinea for all she cared. To her it would be just another place that was not Madras.
I realised I had taken P out of Madras, but hadn’t succeeded in taking the Madras out of P. She’s gone now, while all I can do is hope and pray that I find someone half as well-meaning and endearing, to fill the huge void left by her.
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