Whoever knows where the winds of change take us.

Clockwise from top left

Prashant: Director, Evolving Technology Projects, ISRO

Roshan: Managing Director, Capital Market Investments, Credit Suisse First Boston

Shripati: Chief Technical Officer, Infineon Future Techik Ltd

Bhupesh: Sr. VP, Asset Management, JP Morgan

Jayesh: Err!!

You could say I was born with the obsession. Not for the balloons...notice that thing on wheels in the back!

Finally!

So what if it was a Tata and not a Koenigsegg (yep Primus, one day it shall happen; optimism lives on...in the unlikeliest of places)

It is that feeling that I've only slightly known, courtesy the hand-brake on a Hyundai Santro; that queerly addictive vacuum in the belly, as everything from the intestines to the stomach to the pancreas gets thrown around with merciless g-forces. Ok, in a Santro, they weren't too merciless. Which is exactly why I say I've only "slightly known" the feeling.

It is just the feeling I came just a little closer to experiencing. Never mind it was in a massive Tata mini-truck powered by a wheezing, pitiful 2.0l indirect injection (old Safari) diesel engine. Ugh! Nevertheless, the fuel, tyres, brakes and car were all someone else's. And they were actually exhorting me to go all out for quite a while. Quite in contrast to my dad's (and on another occassion mamma's and sister's) expression when I asked if we could have fun with the Santro's hand-brake.

It is just the feeling I want to know intimately. The smell of burning rubber, the thrill of applying rapid opposite lock as the tail threatens to menacingly overtake the front, the hollow feeling, the delirous joy, the infectious enthusiasm, the satisfied grin. Someday. In a Koenigsegg, possibly. (Pessimism, Primus? Perhaps you'd want to change a few definitions :) )

And then again, there's something about petrol being cheaper on the other side. Always!

1986, Jerez, Spain. The April sun beats down mercilessly on the track. Not as merciless though, as the battle between positions one and two on the racetrack. Ayrton Senna and Nigel Mansell are involved in a closely fought battle for race lead and eventual victory. Mansell’s Williams-Honda is even match for Senna’s Lotus-Renault. It is a battle of man against man, machine against machine. At the end of 72 laps, it takes mind-boggling advancements in timing technology to put Senna on the top-step of the podium, with Mansell perched one step lower. The difference in height between the two drivers on the podium is a few feet – in no way representative of the margin by which Senna has beaten Mansell: fourteen thousandths of a second. The ‘0.014 sec’ figure will undoubtedly remain the magically hair-thinnest time interval separating two Formula 1 projectiles, for many, many years to come.
A Renault has crossed the finish line first at Jerez, but the name was as unfamiliar to young Fernando Alonso as ‘Williams’ or ‘McLaren’.

Or ‘bullock cart’, for that matter. Born on July 29, 1981, in Oviedo and all of five years old, Little Fernando didn’t have a clue as to what ‘R-E-N-A-U-L-T’ would have to do with his life. But then fate always has a trick or two up its sleeve; and that’s a long, long sleeve. Destiny, meanwhile, seemed to be the last thing on Little Fernando’s mind, as he went about thrashing his opposition in the junior kart leagues all around Spain. He travelled from circuit to circuit on weekends, racing in the kart that his father had built him two years before. Little Fernando’s merciless domination of every competition that he took part in, coupled with a fiery aggression and instincts and maturity far beyond his years led his family to believe that their kid was born to inherit bigger things. Another six years passed, during which Little Fernando decimated every championship that was thrown at him. His racing career started assuming serious proportions, and his family had to accept, with some amount of chagrin, that they could not longer afford to send him to races too far away from home; or even pay for his getting-faster-every-year karts. Calls for support were sent out. Little Fernando conjured up a breathtaking display of mercilessly fast racing as well as mature, intelligent driving, in the Catalan Championship, drawing the attention of IAME – a famous name in the world of karting.

‘Little Fernando’ had matured into ‘Young Fernando’, graduating to more serious racing as IAME took charge of his career. The Junior Spanish Championship was promptly captured in 1994, and the time was ripe to unleash Fernando on some of the most competitive European Karting Leagues. IAME was doing all in its might to help Young Fernando realise the true potential of his abundant talent, and yet it required that little bit extra from Fernando’s side. Ever the fighter, Young Fernando helped make ends meet by working for cash as a mechanic for kart drivers even younger than himself. 1996 saw Young Fernando being crowned World Junior Karting Champion, no doubt a momentous milestone in a nascent journey.

The ‘Fernando Fireworks’ in the junior series all across Europe made former F1 driver Adrian Campos sit up and take notice of the little champ who was setting racetracks on fire with his pace. In 1998, at the age of seventeen, while most mortals his age were still grappling with the nuances of a three-point parking manoeuvre, Fernando got busy learning the finer aspects of handling racing cars with gearshifts. Amazingly (not-so-amazingly for people who knew him well), he took to it like he’d learnt it when in his momma’s womb. A year later, he was crushing opponents in the Formula Nissan series. A debut season championship victory compelled his managers to instantly promote him to the next logical rung in the auto-racing sphere. At the turn of the millennium, Fernando was driving for the Astromega team in Formula 3000, considered by most to be the breeding ground for F1 talent.

Formula 1 talent Fernando sure was; and in no small measure. One test for F1 minnows, Minardi; and team principal, Paul Stoddart, a man reputed for being an exceptional talent-spotter, was convinced he had found his man for the 2001 season. Alonso made his F1 debut in 2001, at nineteen years of age, the third-youngest driver to start a Formula 1 race. Minardi were no Ferrari though, and in almost all races, tottered at the back of the grid. Frustrating? For a lesser man, perhaps. Alonso bid his time patiently, and did whatever he could with an inferior machine. By sheer dint of his talent, however, he impressed the powers that be, coming up with brilliant flashes of magical talent to outpace opponents in far superior cars.

Flavio Braitore, a man second to none in discerning ability to spot a diamond when he sees one, signed on Alonso as a test driver in 2002 for the Renault F1 team. Renault itself was going through an arduous team-building phase, and Alonso’s young talent seemed to fit right in with the team’s long-term goals. He was moulded and groomed to be Renault’s top driver for the following season. Statisticians and record-keepers were readying their erasers and sharpening their pencils. They had a feeling 2003 was going to be a busy year.

They could not possibly have faltered. Alonso rewarded them by becoming the youngest F1 driver on pole at Sepang, Malaysia that year. Surely, ‘Youngest Formula 1 GP Winner’ could not have been very far away. It was but a few months away, coming with much pomp and celebration at the Hungaroring. Alonso made the podium a total of four times through the 2003 season, finishing at an impressive sixth overall. 2004 saw the Ferraris dominate ruthlessly, keeping Alonso away from the podium top-step. However, Alonso stood a creditable fourth overall, pointing to Renault growing consistently stronger by the season.

In 2005, Renault were determined to reap the benefits of their consolidation and rebuilding efforts. Who better to lead them than the fiery Spaniard, who took to the challenge effortlessly! Three straight victories in the first four races, and Alonso had stamped his authority on the 2005 season. While closest rivals, McLaren, struggled to hit the sweet spot with their set up, Renault – driven by Alonso’s fiery show – galloped away with the championship. Three more victories followed before the Silver Arrows got their act together. Alonso was still a regular feature on the podium, his initial burst and consequent consistency rewarding him with the precious cushion to the Flying Finn at bay. Fernando’s crowning seemed inevitable, and yet Kimi kept the pressure gauges working overtime. As Kimi ensured that Alonso would have shorter fingernails than he would have preferred, the Formula 1 World Championship moved to Interlagos for the sixteenth round. Alonso needed six points to seal the championship; he had everything to win, Kimi had nothing to lose.

2005, Interlagos, Sau Paulo, Brazil. The rain beats down relentlessly on the track. But it has abated, just in time for Fernando Alonso to make one more attempt to snatch the 2005 Formula 1 World Champion’s crown from long-time incumbent – the formidable Michael Schumacher. Two rows and twenty-five points behind, in a McLaren, is another suitor to the crown. It has been an excruciatingly close battle through the season, and the Finn yet refuses to give up. Alonso needs six points to make the record-book keepers go back to their erasers and pencils. Close to half a decade after Ferrari’s ruthless domination, this is as close as it gets for most F1 fans. Kimi’s Silver Arrow zips past the finish line twenty-two seconds ahead of Alonso. But nothing matters more to Alonso than ‘6’. Alonso crosses in third, seven points and the World Championship in the bag. It’s all a haze of blue and yellow as, at twenty-four, the youngest ever Formula 1 champion returns to parc fermé. As he takes off his crash helmet, he looks poised and calm. It has not sunk in as yet. As the magnitude of his achievement hits him with a ferocious punch, Fernando Alonso announces his arrival to the world with a heartfelt scream of joy, of victory, of triumph.
A Renault has not crossed the finish line at Interlagos in first place. And yet, ‘Fernando Alonso’ is a name as familiar as ‘Ma’ or ‘Pa’ to every little kid around the world. The new king has been crowned. Bow to the new champion!

Zooming down the Bombay-Pune Expressway at speeds in excess of 150km/h is the stuff fairy tales are made of. If someone else is paying for the fuel, it transforms itself rather effortlessly into quite a cost-effective fairy tale too. No fairy tale – from Mr India to Cinderella and the thirteen dwarves to Aladin and the eleventy terrorists – can be complete without a villain. There is a villain in this case too; the New Tata Safari DICOR. Explanations are due. Here goes…

The Safari advert: the car going all sideways, muck flying all around in generous measure, and that soulful voice asking you to ‘reclaim your life’, rather than sit in front of the idiot box and watch the ad. I don’t know about you – leave a comment and I’d find out – I found that ad compelling. It made me think about buying a Tata Safari if I had the kind of money. In today’s day and age, to make the consumer consider one’s product is half the battle won. So the Safari had won half the battle. And it had a battery of loyal fans from the late 1990’s – the time when the Safari was launched in the country as India’s first SUV. Add that to the equation and the Safari had won much more than half the battle. What about the rest?

It had to give in to that all-sweeping common rail revolution that’s sweeping across the diesel world, in the process sweeping people off their feet with some fantastically enjoyable diesel cars. In case you’re starting to jump up and down in your seat (or/and salivating) at the prospect of a heady common rail diesel in the Safari that will propel you to mind-numbing speeds on tarmac, err…settle down there. Sit down please, at the back there. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a no-show.

I want to start with the most annoying parts. Why? Well, this happens to be my blog. So shut up and listen. The door handles and brakes are suspiciously related in many ways. Yes, you read that right. Neither works. Neither works, that is, till you lose patience and give up. And then they kick in with a deadly vengeance. In case of the door handles, the matter is rather trivial. It is ok if they don’t work. You keep pulling the door handle, it refuses to open. You pull it some more, it doesn’t give way. And then one last yank with a generous splash of expletives, and clack opens the door. In case of the brakes, the matter assumes serious proportions. Pesky cyclist on the highway veers suddenly 100m ahead of you. You jab at the brakes. Nothing sir, this is a Tata. Cyclist is now 50m away, some panic is setting in. You kick the brakes harder than before. They’re still sleeping. Cyclist is now 20m away – and you can smell the eucalyptus oil in his hair – oblivious of the two tonne plus mass that is hurtling at him at an unmentionable speed. Last attempt then, palms have gone sweaty, forehead has gone beady, heart is supplying blood from within the mouth. You muster up as much strength as there is in those sedentary thighs and calves and give it one hard boot. They wake up, yawn, wonder why you’re being so nastily rude with them, and then decide to bring the car to a stop. Yes, they disturb ABS too, who was yet involved in a thrilling game of silicone chess with the traction control system and the airbag deployment system.

While the brakes and door handles are involved in a generous display of sibling affection on one side, on the other – inside the hood, it’s a different game of one-upmanship that is starting to gather force. The air-conditioning system on the Safari reckons that the winter sun is getting a bit too harsh for its comfort. It promptly shuts down. It has every right to, it’s a Tata. Starter bits are not one bit pleased. They think that they’re being dealt an unfair deal, what with having to deal with a crazy bunch of motoring journos who make it expend considerable effort to get the monumental (?) 2956cc motor to life. Every ten minutes, mind you. Starter bits think that if the AC can decide to go on a strike, they can flit in and out of automotive coma as and when they please. Which they do. Who is to stop them? Me? No, well I tried peering under the gigantic hood – trust me, it’s so massive, it’s got hydraulic arms to lift up the bonnet – all I saw was a few plastic compartments in varying shades of white, all covered in plastic caps of wonderfully youthful hues. There was also a massive cover-plate that screamed ‘DICOR’. All that marketing acronym wizardry on paper makes me go a little weak in the knees. Inside the car, in flesh and blood, it made my pupils dilate at 3600rpm; which coincidentally happens to be the redline of this massive, lazy pushrod engine. That is not the point though. Suddenly, life was a haze, and in the haze, I thought it was best to let the engine compartment be at peace with itself.

Those things are quite bad. And in a fourteen lakh rupee car, they’re unforgivable. I mean, think of it. What can you do with fourteen lakh rupees? You can buy a Honda Accord after throwing in a lakh or so more (if you’re spending that kind of money, a lakh or two here and there scarcely makes a difference). You can buy a Sonata Embera, which, in spite of being an Accord clone, is a rather nice-looking, nice-feeling and nice-driving car. You can get yourself a Skoda Octavia RS. It’s a petrolheads dream, and it’s turbocharged. It’ll hit 212km/h in a jaw-dropping blur of trees, rocks and tar all around. Plus, it will average close to fourteen kilometres to a litre in the city. Impressive eh? But if you insist on an SUV, for whatever reason you do, go buy yourself – and I hate to say this – a Ford Endeavour (kill me, Lord). The less said the better.

The Safari has a couple of strengths. But I won’t bother listing them down here. Because I don’t need to. This is my blog and not a magazine (haha, cheap thrills), and I can afford to be downright mean. Anyway, I so do want to love the Safari. I want to love it for the respect I have for Tata Motors. C’mon it’s been less than a decade since the Tata’s got serious about graduating to passenger cars from trucks and tempos. To their credit, they’ve come up with some swashbuckling cars (ok, not really, the Indica is not a casanova car, the Indigo, even less so), and they’re now the second largest auto manufacturer in India. No mean feat this, considering that in automotive timelines, ‘less than a decade’ is equivalent to a few minutes.

There, then. I want to go off-roading in the Safari. I want to go sideways. I want to love it. I want to spend fourteen lakh rupees and convince myself that it’s good value for money. Like that – “Calm down young man. The fourteen lakh that you donate to Tata Motors this day of 2005 will all flow into their R&D wing. In many ways, it’ll help Tata Motors traverse the steep learning curve quickly and smoothly. When your son buys a Tata twelvety seven years from now, he won’t have to worry about eccentric door handles or slumbering brakes. Peace, young man. Peace!”

But I can’t. Because it’s a bloody bad car. Period.

I miss Bombay.

Less than two weeks back, everything was at peace with the world here in Pune. The thought of bird flu scarcely passed my gourmetically-inclined brain as I dug into a plate (big) full of sumptuous chicken biryani. How I was thanking my stars for my vertebral column did not have to bear the brunt of the municipal corporation’s apathy travelling to and from office. But the constellations have changed their alignment just that little bit. And I miss Bombay now.

The paradigm shift is indeed driven to a very large extent by the stars, which – hold your breath – are very much visible in Pune skies. Deeper analysis, and I have come to understand that this momentary bout of homesickness has been triggered off by a paucity of Misal Pav in Pune. I have been craving for Misal Pav for the last ten days now – for the first three of which, I did not eat anything at all. I have lost weight, and that is the only piece of supposed good news in this seemingly depressing post. So much for Puneri Misal, restaurant waiters, young and old, look at you with a queer curiosity which makes you think whether you asked for moondust masala dosas with a sprinkling of red Martian earth and blue coconut chutney, with coconuts from Jupiter’s third moon. You really just asked if they served something adequately famous, something my Maharashtrian buddies call a Misal Pav. You repeat the question, and their face contorts as if you asked for – prepare for this – low sulphur unleaded makkhanwala with carbon fibre rumaali rotis. No, don’t get wild at the analogies. I shall spare you; beyond this point, you don’t ask for more. You just have a normal, conventional, boring vada sambhar and walk off. Into the shining sun.

So then, Pune is starting to act pretty dull and dreary. I miss Bombay. And just as my home-town-sickness starts to plunge to the bottommost abysses of despondency, Times of India, Pune has pulled it off and carried a phenomenal news report about Bombay. One look at the insides of the ‘Millennium Rake’ and I was instantly teleported – emotionally of course – amongst a thousand men of varying sizes and hues. I could almost smell the sweat intermingled in just the right quantity with a whiff of cheap eucalyptus oil and cheaper ‘saint’, if you know what I mean. I could almost feel one old chap’s grey hair being thrust into my nose, and another’s facial hair poking my left ear like a thousand needles. I could almost feel muscles in my body that I never knew existed contort to compress my bulk to fit into a pigeon-hole. Remember, we’re talking 6ft x 4ft x 100kg here, just to put things in perspective. Ah wait, I could feel none of those, really. I think I’m taking the ‘homesickness’ theme too deliriously far.

The Millennium Rake, err…in true Railways tradition, is five years late. Five freaking years; not minutes, not hours; not even days or months; years, can you believe that? The Millennium has come and gone. Millennium children are close to five years old now, and can walk, talk, read, write and abuse. All that, in addition to watching (and understanding) porn. So there’s nothing new there, honestly. You can trust the Railways – and no one, absolutely no one – to pull of a stunt as temporally molest-ive as that one. But ‘Rake’?? What where they thinking. Why not call it just a ‘train’? Or better still, a ‘local’? Or if they were determined to be suave and sophisticated, why not call it a ‘multiple-coach, electrically powered vehicle that runs on many wheels and two tracks’? Do they think Mr Paradkar – all 80-pan-chewing kilograms of him – will understand what a ‘rake’ means? And what about that new immigrant from England, Mr Smith? I am sure he wouldn’t make too much sense of it either, what with the Oxford dictionary enlisting merely two meanings for ‘rake’ – ‘collect’ and ‘search’. Picture Mr Smith sweating like a starved pig, 1830hrs, Dadar station and a pleasant female – I am tempted to use ‘effeminate’ – voice booms over the few functioning loudspeakers, “Local expected on platform number two is Millennium Rake for Karjat. This rake will not halt at any station.” Mr Smith, now ferociously sweating like an angry and starved pig, digs deep into the recesses of his knowledge of the Queen’s language. But he’s flummoxed; because there is nothing remotely Millennium-ish about platform number two on Dadar station at 1830hrs on a normal working day. And uh ‘Rake’ – he’s likely to register himself at the nearest loony bin at the earliest opportunity. Mr Paradkar, meanwhile, is hanging on by the skin of his teeth – his left leg snugly fit between the thighs of two unsuspecting, and unmindful commuters; his right leg firmly entrenched in the miniscule millimetres between two other unsuspecting and unmindful commuters’ feet; and his eucalyptus-oiled hair filling up the nose of yet another commuter, who, I must add, is amorously enjoying his daily ogling at page three in Mid-Day – yes Sir, it’s the irrepressible (ahem) Mid-Day Mate.

That, ladies and gentlemen is the saga that unfolds on every rake, day in and day out; be it the Millennium Rake or the Zillennium Quake.

And that is what the Railways is upto nowadays. Surprisingly (and agonisingly for young Indian patriots), the Indian Railways is the world’s largest employer. Larger than General Motors, General Electric or General Pathetic (General Pathetic treats the American masses’ pathological disorders in a pathetic manner)! Capacity addition? The Railways is least bothered. More trains? That features a pitiful second-last on the Railways’ priority list. Cleaner stations? ‘Clean’ doesn’t feature in the Railways’ limited vocabulary. Commuter comfort? “Why does a commuter need comfort? Are sheep herded in air-conditioned caravans?” Commuter safety? “We can distribute free safety pins in trains. That should help! Ae chal Pawar, gheoon taak!”

So what have we got? Dirty stations, toilets that stink so much they could classify as Nazi concentration camps, trains that never run on time, ‘rakes’ that are bursting at the seams with young (and old men) who’s determination to ogle over Mid-Day Mate is legendary. Dirt, grime, sweat and eucalyptus-oiled hair in the mouth.

Sigh, how I miss Bombay.

Statutory Warnings:

1. Post may seem disastrously out of context. But there's a sequel coming. If you miss that after reading this, well, what can I say really. I can say 'sex without orgasm', but that would be a little crass, wouldn't it?

2. Post may seem awfully long. Don't bear with me. Honestly. If you can't stand this one, err... there's a sequel coming. Go, hide!

3. Post may seem repetitive. I am reading Catch-22, and I don't bother to mask that fact. The literary style seems to have rubbed off a bit.

4. Post may seem to have a long-ish introduction. It is just to test your patience. If you think you can endure beyond this, think again! Good luck!

Young man J is fresh out of the rigour of what Bombay University calls a Bachelor of Engineering program. He is now an IT professional – big words, those – especially after coming perilously close to them KT monsters. ‘IT Professional’ has a nice zingy tone to it, and it’s bound to get better too, because young man J is going to be joining a fast-growing super-happening IT company. And young man J is pretty happy too, mostly because he’ll finally be able to put the ghosts of engineering college to rest. He won’t be the shy young man brooding in the corner saying nothing, talking to nothing and doing nothing. He’ll go out and meet new people, make new friends, learn new things. Most importantly, he’ll pay for his own fuel. Out of his own pocket. From his hard-earned money. There’ll be no pangs of guilt after driving a few kilometers more than he should have.

Somewhere in the background, David Gilmour is singing ‘Coming Back to Life’.

Corporate life beckons; young man J now prefers to call himself ‘Big J’ – weird names with ‘Big’, ‘Snoopy’, ‘Puff’ are the in-thing these days. P Diddy Combs has changed from that silly name to the decidedly sillier sounding ‘Puff Daddy’, and then back to ‘Puff Diddy’ and then suddenly to ‘Sean Combs’, or something to that effect. The good thing is that JLo seems rather impressed with his inclination to change names he responds to as frequently as the Big J bathes. And he bathes everyday, mind you. But that is besides the point. The Big J is ready for corporate life – with all the snazzy new half-sleeved t-shirts and crisp, wrinkle-free cotton trousers. The future beckons with a shiny, shimmering glass-and-aluminium building. The Big J is dazed. It’s not easy dazing the Big J remember, because, err…well because he’s so big. But the building is bigger, shinier and more awe-inspiring than anything that the Big J has seen before. It holds his future in its resplendent glass façade.

Two months have passed at the shiny building. The Big J has been soul-searching with 89 other similarly-aged, similarly-ambitioned things. After weeks of looking inward, the Big J thinks he knows what he wants in life. He thinks most others do too. But two-months of ‘talking to oneself’ is really pushing the envelope a wee bit too far. Most of his batch-ies are itching to get working on real technology. The Big J, meanwhile, is shuddering at the thought. He is content drawing sketchy sketches of weird concept cars that he someday hopes to build. And sell. And make some money.

A tryst with technology is inevitable in a software company. Unless one is in HR, in which case, one gets to bring fresh new ‘talent’ onto the deck of a rapidly sinking ship. Or one is a vice-president, in which case one gets to go to the beach with the freshly-recruited young ‘talent’. Or one is a team-leader or project-leader, in which case one gets to bark orders at the freshly-recruited young ‘talent’. Or one is a Project Manager, the biggest and most important pillars on which the performance of the company does not depend. In case one is a PM, one gets to develop incisive managerial skills managing project accounts on Microsoft Excel, and do nothing else significant. Except pester freshly-recruited ‘talent’ of the female variety. Tch tch, quite a shame. Actually, if one is anything but a freshly-recruited ‘talent’ – isn’t that starting to sound like a ‘freshly-plopped heap of cow dung’?? – one can avoid technology. There’s not much effort or brain-power needed. Probably the equivalent of about 32.548% of Bush’s total grey-cell count, and you’re through. Put that percentage of your brain to work, and the very next day, you could be sitting in Bush-land, with nothing to do. Except drive Yank muscle cars on eight-laned superhighways, eat the fattiest chicken burgers dripping with mayonnaise and sleep in five-star comfort. Err, strip club once a week, if company finances permit. Eh, none of that applies to fresh cow dung, because that is what makes the company go around. No, it doesn’t work on gobar-gas fuel, rather, these young energetic recruits are the only ones who know a little bit of techie jazz. Most of them so good, they can’t write a program to print all prime numbers from 1 to 99. The Big J, as you must have guessed by now, falls in that category too. In fact, the Big J can just about manage to write a program to list all odd numbers between 1 and terrimetabuxillion.

A few months’ worth water flows under the bridge, and the big J has just about satisfactorily managed to pass his time earning enough money to fuel his car by creating pointless reports to be used by a haggled manager somewhere in the US – undoubtedly himself worried about how his teenage son, now addicted to coke and Mary Jane will get through high school. Soon, the project comes to an end, and the Big J, much like a (big) volleyball is tossed around from project to project, bay to bay in search of his next destination. There’re too many projects, he is told quite enthusiastically. He thinks he can detect a hint of affected optimism in their demeanour. The Big J is despondent. He knows he should be playing around with car engines instead of tuning Application Engines. But the future seems bleak.

Three more months have passed with nothing to do. Nothing except boring breakfasts, dreary lunches and endless coffee breaks. The Big J has developed a liking for sadistic songs of the Pink Floyd genre. The Big J hums his favourite line very often nowadays – “And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but its sinking. Pacing around to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way, but you’re older. Shorter of breath, one day closer to death.” Everyone looks at the Big J as if he has lost his bearings. The Big J, meanwhile, smiles a knowing smile.

A few more months go by. The Big J sees people all around filling time-sheets with fictitious working hours to fool the client into paying the company more money. And people who don’t fill time-sheets for the client, fleeing before office hours, getting their attendance cards swiped by a cooperative partner in crime; all of it in an attempt to wring out that last paisa from the company for the work that they never did. Or never had. Who’s bothered, really. Finally, the Big J is on a real live project; needless to say, he’s really happy. Day one sees him looking at two thousand lines of sickening code that must be cleaned, optimized and rewritten. At the end of day one, the Big J wants to return to the comfortable confines of his cabin with nothing to do all day. There’s something about ‘green grass’ that strikes him with the ferocity of a cricket ball that only a silly point fielder knows. Day seven sees the Big J smiling a benevolent smile. What is the matter? While the rest of the project team runs frantically in all directions to meet unimaginable deadlines, the Big J is as serene as a Himalayan sage. Frustrations have given way to jokes so bad, they make everyone laugh. A jeer and a sneer have made way for two dimples on the fat face. On the fatface, rather.

The Big J is basking in warmth of the knowledge that soon, he shall be out of this dastardly place. Soon, there’ll be no Application Engines to optimize, only real car engines to test. Soon, there’ll be no Structured Query Reports to code; the only structures he’ll think of will be the monocoque structures of rugged SUVs, the only queries would be the ones the masses would ask the Big J about their next car; and the only reports would be road-test reports.

Somewhere in the background, David Gilmour is singing ‘Coming Back to Life’.

"I think I MAY NEED A BATHroom break? Is this possible? Wh..."

Trust the man to effortlessly propel Bush-isms to hitherto untreaded peaks of stupidity. Yes Sir, the President of the United States - the one man who single-handedly controls the most powerful nation on earth with a pitiful paucity of brain cells - falls pray to the Loo Leveller.

Err, happens to all of us once in a while. But one wonders why he's waiting for the green signal from Condoleezza Rice. Note the handwriting too, and the eclectic mix of capital and small letters. Was it the pee, waiting to burst out? Your guess, my guess - all the same!

Condo, Condo, Condo...strikes a familiar note. Ah, yes of course, Condom. Bush Sr should've used a condom. Then again...it's the hereditary Bush genes. There's only so much one must expect!

Am I getting a Bentley? No?

A BMW then? Umm?

Am I getting that thing there?? Oh shit!! Bull shit! :|

Coming Soon!!
(Right, as if the whole world is waiting in astounded suspense. As if George W. Bush's (few) brain cell's are hanging by the skin of their teeth, waiting for me to unveil the latest razzmatazz in my life)

There is something about a ‘first’. People don’t remember the second man who chimed “hello” over the telephone, or the twelfth person who fiddled with the controls on that newly invented television set, or the three hundred and twenty sixth lucky mortal to feast on the thirty eighth cake that came out of the microwave. I must confess, I do not remember the one thousand and seventeenth time I got stuck in the rains with my beloved M-800; but the first misadventure, now that’s a legendary tale in our family, all baked up and ready to be handed down through the generations.

In an auto journo’s life, generally devoid of significant milestones to brag about at those pyjama parties, the first test drive assumes unparalleled significance. It is to him what the first kiss is to a diehard romantic; what the first puff is to that familiar human chimney which spews out Marlboro smoke at regular intervals.
As I waited with for my first test drive with bated breath, I couldn’t stop my hyperactive imagination from conjuring up images of me sitting in the cockpit of a 600bhp Ferrari, lighting up the tarmac, laying down dollops of expensive Pirelli rubber onto the road. Mr Editor Sir walked into office on bright sunny morning, cheerful as ever, with a piece of good news for me. It was to be my first test drive in a few days time. Where is the Ferrari? Eh, Ferrari? In India, we have the Ambassador.

Fake smiles don't get better than this!!

The optimistic recesses of my intellect were trying hard to overcome the dark, cynical lobes of my mind, which were now threatening to drown me into the depths of despondency. “It is a rear-wheel drive”, Mr Optimistic shouted above the din, “Isn’t that a sure-fire recipe to tail-stepping-out turns and unadulterated fun at the wheel?” Mr. Cheerful was ready with his two-pence, “It’s been selling in India for decades now. There surely has to be something about it”. I could already hear the turbocharger wheezing away to glory as the tyres squealed, struggling to keep up with the prodigious amounts of power that the engine was generating. The optimists’ victory saw me waiting outside the dealer’s with a spring in my step and a broad grin on my face. Out she came, in pristine white, with the majestic air of an old lady who has aged gracefully, Botox shots notwithstanding.

This is the Ambassador Grand ’05. In keeping with Hindustan Motors’ recent strategy of launching a new Ambassador every year, we have an all-new machine for the new year, ‘all-new’ being the keyword there. For starters, the Grand ’05 gets some much-needed grunt under the hood. In come a turbocharger and an intercooler, boosting total power output of the 1995cc Isuzu engine to 75PS. All the new gadgetry makes it less harsh to the plants and trees, this one being Bharat Stage III compliant. It gets new clear-lens headlamps, integrated body coloured bumpers, and full wheel caps. On the inside, it gets beige colouring all through – beige dashboard and steering wheel, light brown fabric upholstery for the seats, and jarring black seatbelts. Power windows, power steering, day-night rear view mirror, central locking and even a rear seat armrest can not compensate for the poor fit and finish and the depressingly substandard quality of materials that make up the interior. Attention to detail is abysmal; the car sports different ‘HM’ logos at different places. So while the steering gets the new stylised insignia, the wheel covers, with the old logo, are still time travelling from the nineteenth century. The instrument cluster tries to create a retro-chic aura inside the cabin, a la the Mini Cooper. Alas, failure is imminent.

I turn the key – perhaps the spirited powerplant will make up for the disappointment thus far. More disappointment! The engine lets out a mighty roar. It does not take me long to figure out that it is roaring about poor NVH levels and not eager horses under the bonnet. The car is sluggish, with such a noticeable turbo lag that it’ll take some cajoling before it manages to overtake the pesky cyclist who is defiantly riding in the middle of the road. The disenchantment is magnified many times over owing to the fact that I had started out with as much expectation as is evident in a stadium full of Bangladesh cricket team supporters.

The engineers at Hindustan Motors have made little change to the underlying setup of the Ambassador. I am talking about changes over the last few decades, mind you. So, even though you surely will not get earth-shattering performance, pinpoint handling, or futuristic looks (err…you won’t even get nineteenth century looks, we’re sorry), you will be blessed with the Amby’s inherent strengths. Not a difficult job listing them down, because there aren’t too many. In fact, only two come to mind – an almost surreal ability to gobble up massive potholes without as much as a burp, and technology so outdated that it can be repaired at any roadside workshop.
It is time the wise men at HM shook themselves out of the colossal time warp that seems to have enveloped them. It’s time to stop selling the same old car under a different garb every year. It is time to wake up to a world where ‘new’ means much more than a redesigned headlamp.

Perhaps it is time to knock ‘first’ off its pre-eminent position of significance in history. Perhaps HM can pull of a memorable ‘second’ that will be remembered much more fondly than the ‘first’ ever was. Perhaps...just perhaps.

Ladies, Gentlemen and Aliens,

Today onwards, this blog belongs to a real, live, in-the-flesh journalist. I am tempted to sticker up my car with garish P-R-E-S-S sticker, but it will cause the resale value to plumet significantly. I am also tempted to scan my press card and put it up here for show-off's sake. But I really haven't been able to figure out yet how to host pictures on Blogger. No wonder they kicked me out from the software industry. :)

"Do you want to sell sweet water all your life, or do you want to make a difference?"

"Do you want to write characterless programs all your life, or do you want to make a difference?"

I do not know what difference I will make over here. But at the end of the day, knowing the fact that each day I make a significant contribution to a product that people actually enjoy reading gives an unmistakable high. Its a far cry from the days of being an inconsequential resource in a homogenous resource pool - one where everyone is the same, irrespective of height, weight (I had certain advantages there) or intellectual ability. The organisation doesn't care a damn about whether you write the piece of shitty code that has been assigned to you, or your dog's brother does it (it's a dog's life, really :D). Quite a scary thought!

Once again, I am not sure of the difference I am going to be making here. But at least I have an opinion about what I do. And it happens to be a strong and informed opinion. I revel in the fact that I am capable of making a difference. When the time comes, we shall see. No, the journalism world isn't going into a tizzy about my earth-shattering exploits. Err, not yet anyway.

The pen is mightier than the sword. The pen, now being relegated to the obscure environs of the Prince of Wales Museum, has been very conviniently replaced by a white keyboard with keys that make sophisticated click sounds. I really don't know why I am talking about keyboard ergonomics here. But being a journalist, it's all forgiven :) Creative liberty they call it. Ah, the keyboard being mightier than the sword can influence some pretty crucial decisions. For instance, I could make a Getz look like a Porsche and a Swift look like a bullock cart. Lets say it influences 10 potential buyers to switch from a Swift to a Getz. Assuming Maruti makes Rs.20,000 on every Swift that is sold, that's a hole in Maruti's coffers which will allow roughly Rs.2,00,000 to flow through as swiftly as iodised salt out of those thingees on the dining table. Impressive self-ego boosting mechanism I have, what say!!

Which brings me to a brief (oh yes, the briefs haven't been washed in a few days now) description of daily happenings. Work (vacation) hours are insane - 12 noon to 3am. First, the food. Lunches are some nice affordable tiffin victuals that fill up the stomach rather well. Just right actually, not straining the muscles to burst out of the jeans, and yet satisfying in a sublime sort of way. Dinner usually causes a few chicken to lose their lives (In spite of how depressingly disgusting that sounds, the chicken in Pune is fabulous). Dinner consists of a 7 course meal, soup, main course, biryani, raita, desert, et al. Almost, its generally biryani - mark my words, the food in Pune is mind-blowing. As is the weather. It doesn't rain much. So that's good bye to gloomy grey skies which are nothing but harbingers of imbalance and discord. Yet, its cold, sunnily cloudy, and I don't know how, but there's sufficient water to drink, bathe and wash utensils and clothes amongst other things. Miraculous! Utopian! A bachelor lifestyle rocks, with all the unkempt clothes, the unwashed undies (alliterative coup), and smelly socks (one more alliterative coup). With all the inconsistencies about where one could be sleeping every night (in whose bed, basically), it gives one a freedom much akin to emotion one feels when one has got out of the fashionably tight pair of jeans before getting into those airy boxer shorts (err, airy?).

It is the consequence of such a lifestyle (in addition to having absolutely no similar-aged female company) that this post might start to be classified as a trifle more explicit than the previous ones. What with all the undie alliterations, I can already see a few of you ready to puke :D

Many firsts come with this post. Apart from the fact that it boasts of some of the most disgustingly "male" language I have ever used on a publicly viewable forum, it happens to be the first time I have posted after turning into a journalist. It happens to be the first post where I discuss my life in such great detail. It seems that a journo's life is infinitely more interesting than a software professionals. So, till now I had only other people's lives to bitch about, now I have my own.

I do not know what course we follow from here on. I do not know if the story-type-strongly-opinionated posts of yore will stop forever. I do not know if I will be discussing my life this way, in a conventional blog-type of way, again. Rather, I do not know if my life will continue to carry the incredibly instable inertia (third alliterative coup, I am an awesome alliterator, ain't I? I cheated, its unstable, not instable. Creative liberty) carries forward to the coming months.

Life is unstable, the future's unknown. But its so thoroughly intoxicating.

POP! (That was the champagne)

It must be some inter-galactic conspiracy that the Thirteenth of June always turns out to be Monday. Almost always, that is.

It also happened to be the first day at school of a new academic year. I was not like most other kids. No, not just by way of my physical dimensions, (and intellectual capabilities, haha) but in a few other ways too. For one, I hated Monday, the Thirteenth of June.

It was a rather gloomy day to begin with. One was required to wake up at unearthly hours – 6:00 am to be precise – to the shrill sound of an archaic alarm clock that had been passed down through the generations in my family. A cold bath later, one was expected to dress up in shiny new school uniforms for the new academic year. I distinctly remember that feeling of freshly starched cotton chafing against my delicate soft skin. Gosh did they make those clothes for pterodactyls? I wasn’t one for sure. Though I looked elephant-ine dimensionally, my skin was far from being as hard as theirs. I am tempted to make a mention of those unsightly, rubbery, deplorable little brown sandals that our school (Smt. Sulochanadevi Singhania School, my alma mater. I miss you) required all students to wear. I’d really not like to waste words here. They were disgusting. Period.

Not being used to these torturous routines of slavery, quite unsurprisingly, I’d be running late on the first day of every year, unfailingly. To expedite proceedings then, my mother would generously (and judiciously) equip me with a couple of tight slaps where they mattered the most. What a delectably enjoyable start to the year I say!

So then, it was a rather gloomy day to begin with. And the Gods concurred. They let loose mighty thunderstorms, unmitigated rains; and the BMC dutifully complied with dug up roads, choked drains and tsunami-floods. The Rain Gods sure didn’t like young kids being pulled out of their cozy beds at unethical (unethical?) hours. They showed it. And how!

Then one day, it was Monday, the Thirteenth of June. I was going into Standard Ten. The morning had nothing new to offer from the past nine Thirteenth of June’s that I had successfully endured. “This is the last time”; I kept telling myself. Bang! It landed right in the middle of the sweet spot of my well-endowed cheek. I had to hurry up. But it was the last time. I was trying hard to get into those goddamn trousers. After five minutes of breathless wrestling with my own tummy, (of the caliber that would earn me a place in “Ripley’s Believe it or Not”) I heaved a sigh of relief…that, unfortunately, brought about my undoing…and the undoing of my trouser button. Zwang Twang it let loose from the shackles of its thread with ferocious velocity – enough to help it break the shackles of the earth’s gravity as well. (Last I heard, it was on its twenty seven thousand five hundred and thirty first trip around the sun.) It was the last time in any case, so it ought to have been the worst of the ten. It was!

Since Standard Ten in school, the ghosts of Monday, the Thirteenth of June had been exorcised to oblivion till…

Till err…Monday, the Thirteenth of June. I get out of a swank car, push my Ray Ban into my hair and hand over the keys to the valet to park the car at my reserved parking slot in the huge parking lot. (Wow, rhyming. I am making poetry!) The sun, shining resplendently, has banished all those gloomy clouds to another day in July. The past few years have seen me struggle past an Engineering degree, and fight my way into a fast-growing software company. I am being paid well (uhh, creative liberty, ok). But I am being paid, so I have to pay the Government of India. Do I hear a voice at the back there saying “For what?” Let me elaborate, young man. I have to pay the Government to dig the roads, to choke the gutters, to create floods and famines, to increase unemployment, to worsen traffic conditions, to fight a pointless war, to pay for those dastardly politicians’ needless foreign jaunts, to finance their…hey, don’t get me emotional ok. There’s only so much I can fit into one column. The bottomline being, that I have to pay the Government. “How much?” Good question, young lady. That brings me to the frightful, chill-down-the-spine activities of this day, Monday, the Thirteenth of June.

“How much?” is what everyone I know is trying to figure out. Without much success, I must add. At last count, I was told I should be expecting Rs.11,892 to be credited to my bank account. That amount has successively gone down from Rs.14,542 to the current number; rather depressingly, needless to say. Out come the huge MS-EXCEL tax calculators, with their garish disclaimers and endless set of rules; and an unbelievably complex concept of Fringe Benefits, which is intended to help me save tax – 10% to 6.732% (Wow, I can buy a Maybach with that kind of money!)

Mr.P.Chidambaram is a wise, intelligent and supremely sensitive young man. In a magnanimous display of unprecedented philanthropy, he has allowed the Indian masses to invest up to a maximum of Rs.1,00,000 this financial year and claim gigantic tax benefits; gigantic being the ironically sarcastic keyword there. In effect, that opens up a world of possibilities with respect to what one wants to with one’s hard earned money. As an aside, did you know that the buyer of a Maybach gets to choose from a few thousand leather seat options, a few thousand dashboard wood colour options, a few million seating configuration options – if one applied simple permutation and combination formulae, that would translate into three million plus total combinations. No wonder when a prominently infamous Gutkha baron’s dumb lass went shopping for a Maybach, she had to hire McKinsey and Company as “Automobile Option Selection Consultants.” My point being that the number of possibilities of saving tax that Budget 2005 throws up is mind-numbing to the senses, to say the least. May be it’s because it’s my first year as BreadWinner. And my first year as a TaxWhiner.

I am learning the tricks of the trade though. Much like I learnt those silly history lessons on the first day of every academic year. I wondered then – why was history made in the first place. I wonder now – why do they pay me at all?

The mystical figure has gone despondently down to a pitiful Rs.9,734 for the month of June 2005. Hardly an amount that justifies driving to work in a swank little car. As visions of me wading through waist-deep water (fortified with bits of shit, and garnished with dollops of sewage) to get into the company bus flash before my eyes, I can see dark clouds appear on the horizon. The sun’s gone. It’s going to rain. It’s Monday, the Thirteenth…of June.

I am reading India Today. No, I don’t love Prabhu Chawla. I am reading India Today to…well get to know what “India” is doing “Today”. On a more sincere note, I have figured (with absolute sorrow) that my knowledge about current affairs is at an embarrassingly disgusting level. For starters, I do not know the name of the Third-level General Secretary of the Cabinet-level Minister in the Ministry of Urban Legends. Heck, I don’t even know if a post like that exists.

That’s the background then, and they tell me I am supposed to “have a clear understanding of national current affairs; an in-depth knowledge about international issues; and an exemplarily perspicuous opinion about everything under the sun” in order to be in a position to make sensible contributions to Group Discussions. Group Discussions, unfortunately, happen to make a scarily significant contribution to any B-School’s admission procedure. And incidentally, a good B-School is where I want to see myself in the immediate future.

Towards that objective, I am smashing my skull against problems of a rather bizarre nature. Classified under “Logical Reasoning”, these pearls of gibberish have to do with “Family Trees”. An almost frighteningly long passage talks in considerable length about Sita, Sunita, Suparna, Aparna, (notice the literary rhymes, these paper-setters, I tell you!) their husbands, fathers, uncles, daughters, aunts, in-laws, and dogs. No, no cars in there. What one is expected to do is come up with an ingenious little tree structure – the catch being that the structure is seldom “little”. What follows is a set of questions that would have flabbergasted Albert Einstein in his absolute prime. As the entire family is dissected, trisected and multisected to a level of depressingly miniscule granularity, one can’t help but scratch one’s head in disbelief. But hey, there’s no time to scratch heads during the examination, 40 seconds a question is all you get. No no, there isn’t enough time to scratch anything else either.

Kinda reminds me of the script of “The Bold and The Beautiful”…now in its quintozilliotriplionic episode. A path-breaking television series that ushered in an entire generation of laterally interconnected family trees; that placed absolutely no restrictions on who could sleep with whom (they don’t get married there you see, its not fashionable enough); that single-handedly motivated the powers that be to introduce a hitherto unknown category of questions into the CAT, “Family Trees”!

Then again, why look across the seven seas at a fictional television series, when we have a live display of partners flitting across beds faster than famine-tormented butterflies let loose on a blooming orchid. All of it, here, in India. On national television, across the few thousand news channels, its all being broadcast 24 X 7 (pun unintended) – straight into your homes. It’s the real story of the “The Boldly Shameless and The Disgustingly Ugly”. It’s the story of dirty Indian politics that unravels itself every minute on the telly. It’s the shameful story of a few thousand prostitute-esque political parties that is so disgusting, it needs a “Grandparental Guidance” certificate.

It is really quite difficult to choose the worst of the lot. But the Congress being in power (with able support from its motley bunch of idiots) will have to tentatively take the honour. With the mind-numbing number of parties in the coalition at the center, it wouldn’t really come as a surprise if the Congress lost track of who is giving it support at the Centre, who it is supporting in which state, who is it against in which district, and whose dog is lost…err, almost. With coalitions in command in every other state (I refuse to provide statistics, because the thought of having to research about these buffoons is enough to put me off completely), the Indian voting masses are clearly a confused lot. (Things came to a head when the Congress fought the Bihar elections. From my limited know how, I figured that it was fighting with the RJD in certain constituencies, with the JD in certain others, and in some it was fighting itself. I also figured it was best to know little, or suffer permanent dementia). I hope the use of the word “Prostitute-esque” will not be frowned upon hereafter; rather, in light of the Congress’ conduct in recent months, will seem only adequately appropriate.

India Today then reports in its cover story of this month (forget it, I am not quoting the name of the article and the date; being politically incorrect is so bling) that the Congress has decided to drop cases against Mayawati. Don’t even move to asking “Why?” It’s purely because the Congress, in its Uttar Pradesh honeymoon in Nainital wants to feature (“sleep with”, in un-euphemistic terms) Mayawati (and others). Correspondingly, it has decided to reopen all cases against L.K.Advani, cases that were unsurprisingly dismissed when the BJP was in power…ugh. It goes on to say, and I quote – “Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav inspires even more hostility that L.K.Advani, despite the Congress’ support to his government”. Looks like he’s not performing in bed. Last heard, the Congress had set up a high-level committee to efficiently determine WHICH case against Mr.Yadav was to be reopened. (Oh c’mon, can’t you spot a joke in the trash!) And yes, lets not forget Amitabh Bachchan’s latest arm-candy, Amar Singh. A four-year-old murder case against him is likely to be reopened. Just one? Sigh.


A minute fraction of the extent of the The Great Indian Political Lunatic Family Tree

Don’t even get me started on the BJP. There’s enough in-fighting in there to ensure that any kind of criticism from outside sources is only supernumerary. Much less from a self-confessed ignoramus.

No wonder I am not reading India Today anymore. I figured Sita, Sunita and her sisters were waiting for me to help them out with who their husbands, sons, uncles and fathers are. Give me my super-complicated “Family Tree” problems any day. There’s no partner-swapping, no illegitimate children, no divorces, and no multiple-parentages. And yes, it’s all fictional. The Great Indian Political Lunatic Family Tree has all of those. It is for real. And God knows it stinks to the mighty Heavens!

There’s MUIP – Mumbai Urban Infrastructure Project. Then there’s MUTP – Mumbai Urban Transport Project. There’s also a BUTP – Bombay Urban Transport Project. There’s MUDP – Mumbai Urban Development Project. And then there’s the queen mother of them all, MMRDA – Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority. Sigh…trust the pan-chewing, Ferrari-red-spit spewing Babudom in Mantralaya’s air-conditioned chambers to come up with more innovative acronyms than those well-heeled marketing maniacs that the FMCG’s employ at heaven-kissing salaries. Sample the ingredients of Surf Excel for a start – Powerboosters, Crystalline Grease Cutting white-washers, Super Anodized Hyper Multiplying Mega Dirt Busters, and their innumerable brethren. Mantralaya’s Marathi Maanus has nonchalantly obliterated every acronym that the marketing maniac from IIM-A created by sheer force of the innovative use of English synonyms to create thousands of “Projects” – significantly, all pointing to the one (the only) thing that the Government of Maharashtra is doing, screwing the masses by looting them left, right, center and every other direction one can think of.

At this point, I decided to go to MMRDA’s website to see the status of the various “Projects” that they’ve undertaken. I could already visualize myself composing sentences like – “With the Bandra-Worli Sea link now a few decades behind schedule, and a few billion rupees over-budget, all we have a convoluted flyover that goes round and round in circles and finishes where it started off, a promenade for kissing couples and oldie-goldie uncle-aunties, and a dismal piece of incomplete road hanging over the Arabian Sea”. However, the content I stumbled across on the website flabbergasted me to the mighty heavens. As I wipe tears my eyes have produced to counter the uncontrollable laughter, as the muscles of my stomach, (stop laughing there, at the back – I do have a few stomach muscles, its not just FAT) I realize that the Mantralaya’s Marathi Maanus can write far better humourous fiction than P.G.Wodehouse himself. Helmets off to you oh famed emperors of Babudom!!

Sample these rare masterpieces; all of them verbatim from www.mmrdamumbai.org –

· The ever growing vehicular and passenger demands, coupled with constraints on capacity augmentation of the existing network, have resulted in chaotic conditions during peak hours. (Are we glad you guys finally realized!)

· The five main north-south roads in the suburbs are not fully developed to the planned width, have many bottleneck points and constraints due to large number of intersections with major and minor roads. (Looks like you got a PhD armed committee to do research for you! Bravo!)

· The major east-west links proposed in the Wilbur Smith Associate Study of 1962 have not been finalized. (1962?? Not finalized?? Should we be surprised, or is that a typographical error? If its not, should we expect this sentence to be there on the website till the generation after ours sports gray hair??)

· The World Bank funded MUTP focuses mainly on strengthening of mass transport particularly improvements in suburban railway services in terms of efficiency and capacity, with very few proposals of road improvements. (The World Bank!! They got conned into it?? Very few proposals of road improvements? Of course, our roads don’t need improvement at all)

· It has been considered necessary to take urgent steps to strengthen the road infrastructure in Mumbai. (See! They’ve used figures of speech even. This one – “Transferred Epithet” – the adjective “urgent” is transferred from “the act of making money by illegal means” to “steps”)

Half past six on Sunday mornings then is the best time to zip through the city on a set of four wheels. The roads are still dug up (A recent ad spotted on a billboard – “What is the BMC digging for? Gold, Oil or Fun), and the one’s that the set of four wheels is expected to go over resemble the moon surface in more ways than one. “Zip”, then, is not intended to conjure up images of sane road cars zooming at insane speeds of 160 kilometers per hour. 40 would be a closer guess, but what the heck, 40 in Bombay is as exhilarating as 160 in Santa Monica (wherever that is).

My Sunday mornings are therefore reserved for a good two hours with the car, and a generous dash of exhilaration thrown in for good measure. Oh yes, the subliminal drive is my way of connecting with the higher force, the God we worship. After I have connected sufficiently with the Almighty, my car and me go to the mandir, to connect in a more tangible (and conventional) way. We pray for world peace and we pray for some good sense to be bestowed upon the babudom that runs BMC and other infinite acronyms. No, we don’t pray for the Lord to give George W. Bush to grow some brains, we’re sure He is yet not capable of achieving that feat.

Of late though, these trips to the famed Siddhivinayak Temple in Bombay are turning out to be awfully similar to second-class local train journeys that the MUTP (or was it MUIP) promises to improve vastly within the next few millennia. It is difficult to fathom why people would jostle, wrestle and generally be ready to beat the daylights out of any buffoon who dares to come in the way. That too in the sanctum sanctorum of a temple. It wouldn’t take the brains of a chess champion to figure out that its something that is ingrained in the psyche of the city now. The thing is that since time immemorial, we, the citizens of this great city (ahem!) have been subject to countless sufferings, which include hanging out of local trains, shoving people while getting into BEST buses, and getting the spinal cord pulverized by the merciless jerks from the moon-surface roads. Consequently, even before a baby can start to utter “mama” or “papa”, he has been imparted sufficient training (by his bitter parents). So much so, that he has already mastered the techniques of getting into a BEST bus by wriggling under the arm of the uncle in front, or deftly jumping in and out of a local train within a few eye-blinks; all that, even before he’s potty trained.


Recognize this place, bereft of the masses??!?!


What results is a spiraling culture of creating an inhuman, inconsiderate species; members of which will stop at nothing at all to get ahead of the next man, not even in a temple. Needless to say, the best place to observe a colourful potpourri of such humans (or is it the runners in a rat race?) is Siddhivinayak Temple on Sunday mornings.

Check out India’s next Olympic medal hope. With a bouquet of flowers for the deity in an outstretched hand, he has already slithered under my armpits and is slicing through the crowd with the alacrity that would put the United States 4x100m relay team to shame. Absolute contempt for any kind of human presence characterizes the way Mr. Olympics is behaving. Utterly despicable, I say! By the time I come back to my senses, Mr. Olympics is already on his way out, grinning ear to ear, as if he’d just beaten Tim Montgomery in a 100m dash by an hour. Looks like his only objective was to sink his elbow into a few people’s bodies (I am sure he found the masses of fat around my tummy quite enjoyable. Ugh!), bulldoze by a couple of God-fearing citizens, and generally leave a bad taste in people’s mouths (and that’s only because of the stinking eucalyptus oil that his hair was dripping with, and he kept stuffing it into honourable six feet tall giants’ faces).

Don’t miss the mighty Gujju aunties (with due respect of course, to their entire clan). They come in a mighty explosion of colour, noise and err…eucalyptus-oiled hair. They enter the holy place like a pack of disgruntled bulldozers on a mission – to wipe out all traces of humanity. They turn around in the mandir like a full cavalcade of multi-axled, eighteen geared, thirty-four wheeled massive American trucks trying to do a U-turn in Juhu Gully. The moment there’s contact (which, considering their sizes, is bound to happen more often than not), check them out screaming like a bunch of deranged mutant elephants, trying (unsuccessfully) to make you feel like you were the most lecherous example of humankind on the face of the holy earth.

As I stagger out of the temple, I realize that in the mad rush, I didn’t pray; I didn’t even look at the orange idol of Ganpati Bappa, which kept smiling benevolently upon me. I was busy avoiding Mr. Olympics and his brethren, who kept trying to slide in through every inch of space that was available to them (and a few more which weren’t). I kept fighting bravely against the immense onslaught of the Gujju aunties, trying hard to keep away from their humongous anatomy at all times. I was trying hard to win the rat race that kept unfolding; that will keep unfolding before the smiling idol, day after day, year after year.

Like everyone else, I had forgotten to pray. Which is why we get no world peace. Which is why the babus running the BMC continue to be bereft of their top floors. Which is why a brainless idiot runs the most powerful country in the world.

But I’d already savoured my two seconds of bliss, with my car, as we zipped through the city. Sigh…it made me see God.

Then again, I have just two words to say to the MMRDA and its kin. The first one ends in a “K”, and the second one is “You”.
THANK YOU, MMRDA. It is you who gets me out at half past six on Sunday mornings.

One of my blessed friends (blessed to be my friend, of course) decided to splurge a few hundred grand on a big bash in the center of the city (financially blessed as well). It dawned on me that driving to Bandra, and then driving back from Bandra at 3:00 am would be pretty close to an out-of-body blissful experience. Ever willing to make compromises with my personal value system for these little opportunities to spend time with my car, zipping by sleeping beggars on the streets, I decided to go (dressed up in my newest bestest clothes). H2O seems to be the latest hotspot where every pretty, young and scantily clad – this is turning out to be an irritating cliché – thing wants to be seen now days. First time at a nightclub then. Here I come!!

As I walk in the massive door guarded by two huge Stumbo-The-Giants, I am hit hard. It’s the bloody music! Heaven-knows-how-many watts of non-sensical noise are blasting out of those blighted speakers. It was so loud, I couldn’t hear myself think (Boy, am I glad these autovalas aren’t allowed inside, we’d have a buzzillion watts of crazy noise in every auto then). And the songs, eh, I can’t understand a single word of what they’re saying. And hey, they’re saying something only once in a year, or some sort. Those precious words are interspersed with the booming ballasts of maniacal percussions. What happened to music I say!

It’s also dark, very dark. And the darkness is accentuated by psychedelic blue lights embedded in the floor. Huh! Yes, they also have that stunningly expensive laser equipment that draws funny abstract figures in garish colours on every wall. Interesting! Ah there, a number of people have cute little orange LED’s on their faces. Nice way to light up the path ahead of you, I must confess. I generate the gumption to ask the waiter (I think he’s a waiter) for one of those nice pathway-illuminating devices. A white stick has magically materialized from nothingness. Hey! It’s that surefire key to lung degeneration and subsequent oral cancer we commonly know as a cigarette. Funnily, everone’s smoking one. Now, the thing about cigarette smoke is that it stinks, unlike the smoke from a Tata Motors Direct Injection diesel engine. Now that smells like it was made in heaven. Beats me why these people prefer to smoke then. Then again, it’s not the only thing that beats me!

As the irises have deftly modified their size to let in as much light through to the retina as is humanely possible, I can make out something that resembles a dance floor. Eh, there’s a bar as well (with three foolish men throwing bottles at each other – they’re just and arm’s length away from each other no, why not just pass them over in a civilized manner. Beats me). There’re a few LED-equipped human beings acting demented on the dance floor as well, they call THAT dance? Ugh!!

There’s “Slithering Snake”, who, not more than a few moments back was innocuously sipping a Diet Coke, sitting on the seat next to mine. Looks like some senseless “50 Cent” song has galvanized her into action. There, I can see her now, dancing away like a mutant crossbreed between Britney Spears and Prabhudeva. All the suggestively-sex-simulated Britney steps, now magically (ahem) married to junglee-jerk Prabhudeva jigs. She has her date-for-the-night as company, put your hands together for “Lame Leftfeet”. Lame Leftfeet isn’t enjoying proceedings too much. Slithering Snake is slithering too close to his body for comfort – this is a public domain remember! Well, he’s not too good at dancing either. He’s got two feet that are left-er than the Communist Party of India (Marxist). He’s struggling, I am enjoying!

Not to forget, “Gender Indeterminate”, wearing a weirdo costume that does exemplarily well at veiling its…err…gender. The less said, the better. I cannot, though, resist mentioning that in the ensuing melee on the floor, I have inadvertently stamped Gender Indeterminate’s foot with size thirteen leather boots that ensconce feet that support a tenth of a tonne of pure fat. Gender Indeterminate has taken the shock surprisingly well. Makes me wonder whether it’s a human at all! The less said, the better.

In one corner towards the far left, there are a few fair mountain-like entities, sincerely trying to move tectonic plates with their boogie endeavours. “White Elephants” suits these imported female giants to a T. White Elephants are taking simultaneous swigs from two bottles of Bacardi Breezer, one in each hand. I speculate they’re trying to blend a few Breezer flavours to electric effect. God bless them!

There are various other colourful specimens of varying sizes, shapes, and err…genders. All stuffed into a cramped dance floor. Yes, we’ve built the city on an island, and space does come at a hefty premium, but it hasn’t come to THIS yet. Look beyond Chembur Sir, the government is doing a darned good job at reclaiming land hitherto occupied by mangroves and saltpans by using priceless debris. There’s so much space there. Why don’t we go and dance there, like free souls, with not a single human body to bump into every few seconds? Yet one more question beats me!

At the bar, there’s magic of a different kind in full flow (like the beer and the vodka). The aforementioned three monkeys are now disinterested with throwing bottles at each other; they’re indulging in interesting activities of a different kind. One of them has created a fire and is playing around with it, swallowing it up as if it were sumptuous chunks of succulent chicken tikka. A couple of them also sport weird nozzles which they point at glasses, press one of an assortment of buttons, and voila, the nozzle is spurting out spirits faster than a Formula One refueling rig. With all my self-confidence intact, I make my way up to one of the monkeys. “Can I have a glass of chilled water?”, I shout over the blasting ballasts of 50 Cent moaning unintelligible gibberish. One of the monkeys has fainted at my request. Looks like the last time someone asked him for a glass of water was when Mumbai was home to Tyrannosaurus Rex – quite a few millennia have passed since then. The other two monkeys kept gaping at me as though I had time-traveled from Chhatrapati Shivaji’s age. What’s wrong with asking for a glass of water at H2O I say? Isn’t it as natural as asking for a double-crust cheese pizza at Domino’s? One more question has beaten me to pulp!

At the dance floor meanwhile, Slithering Snake, Lame Leftfeet, Gender Indeterminate and all their innumerable brethren, now inebriated by limitless quantities of the choicest spirits, are dancing with each other in all permutations and combinations that the laws of mathematics permit. After watching the same girl (name withheld for security reasons) dance equally closely with three buffoons at three different times, my thoroughly exhausted gray cells have given up on determining who’s dancing with whom and who wants to dance with whom. The ghosts of “Permutations and Combinations” from Std. XI math have come back to haunt me with a vengeance, and what a vengeance! Suddenly, the decision to leave out that chapter as “option” (ugh, Maharashtra Board) does not seem too prudent. Nature has its own ways of putting its point across. I stand beaten, yet again!

After what seems like centuries; staring aimlessly into the detestable haze of cigarette smoke, psychedelic blue lights and brain-dead drunkards, with nothing but a glass of iced-tea for company, the mind starts drifting towards matters of a more spiritual nature. What is it that is respected? A swig from a bottle of Foster’s with a Marlboro in another hand?

Why is it that this chivalrous, considerate, handsome, kind, mature, non-drinking, non-smoking, sensible, sensitive, stable, young (alphabetically arranged for your convenience) man (ahem, yours faithfully) is perennially dismissed as being too old for his age? Why is it that this chivalrous, considerate, handsome, kind, mature, non-drinking, non-smoking, sensible, sensitive, stable, young (I heard cries of “Once More”. Promise!) is considered to be impeccable husband-material, but dull, dreary and boring date-material? Why is the world so unfair that immeasurable quintals of “Fair and Lovely” would not suffice to make it a little more fair, just an iota? Beats me!

Disclaimer:
This is a piece of fiction (ahem). Any resemblance to any person, place or incident that occured in the past, is occuring in the present, or will occur in the future is purely coincidental and utterly unintentional (err, somewhat!).

Sometimes, you are inside an autorikshaw. The auto makes its way through immensely dense traffic. Traffic that is a motley multitude of everything on wheels. The auto snakes its way through the massively crowded street. A street so packed with vehicles, it’d make the number of hair on Anil Kapoor’s body look like a mere number. The driver wields the archaic handlebar like a fairy waves her magic wand. He dismisses the tremendous traffic around him with a flourish of the said handlebar. He cuts through lanes in a manner that reminds you of a hot knife cutting through butter. Effortless! You gape at his consummate skills. Here is a man at the peak of his prowess, not unlike one Mr. Michael Schumacher. The auto wafts through the street with characteristic intrepidity, much like the heady scent radiating from the beautiful lady riding that Scooty in the next lane. Poetry in Motion! The auto lets out a throaty roar, provoked by a gentle twitch of the hand that controls the accelerator. Soon, it has left mere mortals behind, spurred on by the unending power that the mighty engine delivers. As the auto makes a clean getaway, everything else is relegated to being mere dots in the rear view mirror. Soon we (you are one with the driver and the auto now, its subliminal) are coasting along a scenic road, completely devoid of everything else with an internal combustion engine.

Sometimes you are outside an autorikshaw. Your car stands like a lone warrior, surrounded by nothing but autos; so many of them, they’d make the number of hair on Anil Kapoor’s body look like a mere number; as far as the eye can see, stretching away far into the horizon. They are all the same, trying to snake their way through the terrifying traffic. All of them in a hurry to get to the same place – nowhere. Cutting lanes as if there were no tomorrow, further complicating an already convoluted conundrum. The situation is getting worse, each auto trying to waft its way through the traffic, much like the odour that emanates from the pile of uncleaned garbage a few feet away on the same street. All the drivers are trying to wrestle with their accelerators, coercing their autos to break the shackles and leave the traffic behind. All of them are met with as much success as India found at Athens not so long back. The autos let out a collective moan accompanied by a black blast of carbon monoxide clouds; they move but a few inches. You are left honking your horn till it shouts itself hoarse, all of it to no avail. After what seems like a few millennia, the mess has cleared up a bit. And then you find yourself on a road devoid of everything else with an internal combustion engine, everything but a solitary auto. The auto is coasting along as if the road was leased out to the driver’s great grand uncle by the ever-munificent Brihanmumbai Mahanagar Palika.

As a string of the choicest exotic expletives finds its way out of your mouth, you can’t help but think – sometimes you are inside an autorikshaw.

The Sunday Times of India is flooded with columns. Every Tom, Dick, Harry and their cousins want to adorn the pages of the Sunday Times with one of their prose masterpieces. It’s led me to believe that a columnist's profession is the easiest of them all. Yes, easier even, than the job of one Jeremy Clarkson, who has the top-of-the-line variants of Ferrari's, Porsche's and other choice supercars delivered to his doorstep, so he can thrash them around a track and then pan them in his reviews.

When I was a little kid, (stop laughing there, at the back) I remember being in awe of these columnists. "How do they find something new to write every week?", I used to wonder. I'd then seek the help of my minute gray cells (in scarce number) to answer questions of this nature for me. Alas, they always ended up in magnificent failure. With the passage of the years, and the accumulation of worldly wisdom (and massive amounts of saturated fat around the tummy), I concluded, "Hell its not so difficult anyway!!"

Talking of saturated fat, my father isn't a very happy man. I blew up ten thousand rupees of his hard-earned money on a gymnasium - yes, you heard me right, a bloody "Fitness Center". Think of the endless gallons of super premium high-octane fuel that much money can buy. Think of the limitless thrill and the infinite enjoyment that results from such a purchase. Instead, I got talked into a gym membership by a stupid forward mail that asked me my age, height and weight; pretended to do a few bizarre calculations; and screamed out in bold red (font size 48) "Your body mass index is way above safe levels, it's a miracle you are alive. Get working boy!". I wasn't even married then. The possibility of my life coming to an end without having tasted marital bliss (whatever) sent a chill down my spine (it had to make its way through dense layers of fat) and put bridal beads of sweat on the expanse of my forehead. Off I headed to the nearest gym and readily got conned out of a full ten grand. Sigh! (Interesting tidbit of information - I weighed a colossal ninety eight kilos when I started frequenting the blighted place, now I weigh a humongous hundred and three. Fancy having paid a months salary to slam a century - in the wrong department)

First day at the gym, the instructor mouthed the dreaded four alphabets - D I E T. I wasn't giving up on the sumptuous delicacies the higher Lord had created for mankind. Not for losing a measly few kilos. The body mass index can take a ride in the woods with the saturated fat for company. And marriage doesn't seem so blissful anymore, at least not at the cost of my meals. In the ensuing bitter arguments, there was only one winner, and he ended up gaining five kilos and a few inches around the waist in the bargain. Any guesses?
Long after Indian curries became the flavour of the season in the United Kingdom, the Brits have woken up to the presence of carcinogenic dies in the chilly powder that we sell them. The ensuing brouhaha has culminated in some interesting facts coming to light about the things we in India consume so wholeheartedly. And bringing it all out in the open is the fearless journalism of the Times group. Long live!

Sample the contents of the table that appeared in the Times of India a few days back. By the way, the table was replete with vivaciously vivid colours (shades of green and blue) and wonderfully entertaining graphics. The milk we consume sir, now comes fortified with oxytocin, which is likely to cause abortions and sterility. I can't start to imagine the amount of oxytocin that all of us have so heartily consumed. Everything from coffee to pickles to ladyfingers to brinjal is supposedly adulterated with myriad substances ranging from coal tar dye (ahem...coal tar die) to lead chromate (exotic) to phosphomidone (same to you) to Methyl Parathin (God in the middle). What takes the cake (made with cocoa containing benzyl super aluminate) with the cherry (enriched with Rhodamin B) is the seemingly innocuous Dhania Powder. Hold your horses friends, it is enhanced with nothing less than HORSE DUNG (pun unintended). We all knew that bullshit had certain magical properties; it always took you to the top at any MNC. But HORSE DUNG??? It shall not surprise me if a study were to come to the conclusion that the average Indian middleclass family feasts on more toxic delicacies at each meal than were let out during the infamous Pokhran nuclear tests.

I am pestering those gray cells yet again to tell me if all this is part of a massive international ploy to reduce obesity. Publish news articles like that once in a while, and there you go, half the worlds fat men immediately give up their gourmets (I gave up dhania powder for sure)
Is there nothing untouched by the human urge to make a quick buck? Nothing at all? Forget food for humans for once, even food for our cars isn't untouched. But hey, its not adulterated. Instead, its made better by adding a few exotic chemicals, things that help your car run better. Come to think of it, the car gets better food than the car's owner does. But then, in most cases, the car really is better than the owner, and deserves more. Engine Oil Rotis with Unleaded Fuel Kolhapuri anyone?

Who's having the last laugh then? It’s not the Brits for sure; they're choking over their carcinogenic chillies. It’s not the world's fat men, they're ruing those cursed forced diets. Its not even George W. Bush. Its those oppressed, malnourished horses on Chowpaty; they're beaten to pulp by their owners, mocked by every Chunnu Munnu on a Sunday outing with his family, and yet they selflessly provide those joyrides along the beach, everyday, day after day. They're the ones laughing, and laughing out loud, because we're eating their shit.

Mumbai wanted to do a Dubai. So Vilasrao uncle and (revered) colleagues came up with the “Mumbai Shopping Festival” (and actually fooled Orange into sponsoring it)

“What is the difference between ‘Mumbai Shopping Festival’ and ‘Dubai Shopping Festival’? The difference is only ‘Mum’ and ‘Du’, everything else is the same.”, thus mused vivacious Vilasrao. “With an extra alphabet, we will end up being more successful than DSF.”, concluded bubbly Bhujbal. Now you know why these guys run the state. Nice!

Dubai organized a go-kart race in the parking lot of a popular shopping mall. (The parking lot was actually good enough to race on, using tiny go-carts with microscopic wheels – think about it) Mumbai decided to go a step further (one small step for mankind, a giant leap for Mumbaikars) “We will organize an autorikshaw race on a go-kart track”, said peppy Patangrao (wow!).

Thus, we return to the saga of the mighty autorikshaw. Yes, for all those people who’re shouting “Hey! What about peppy Patangrao’s plan??”, it did materialize. So now we had 50 maniacal dogs in urgent need of relieving themselves. Like the prize were a ticket to pee (in the Sulabh Shouchalayas, of course, constructed by one of Patangrao’s aides), and only one dog could win it, so they kept racing each other, till only one was left, recipient of the priceless pee ticket.

Which brings me to my current muse, the beautiful (ahem) auto. My first auto ride was at age three months; the jerks caused immutable damage to my chromosomes, which causes all the flab in my body to proceed to an infinite state of inertia. Yes, all the flab remains just that, FLAB. Hell, it doesn’t turn into muscle even if I work out as much as Mr. Asashoryu. Asashoryu, by the way, has won the prestigious Emperor’s Cup sixth time this year. And I am talking about Sumo Wrestling.

My Momma tells me that in 1975, there was a single auto in all of Mulund. Now there’s one for each person in Mulund (and a few for the unborn babies as well). Quite an explosive growth then, one that is ahead of the baby-making machines we call humans, by a long long way. The first autos were small, sourced their power from a 100cc scooter motor, and ran on three scooter wheels. Three so that the driver could carry over-fed, super-plump aunties (sometimes three of the kind) over the harshest terrain in the country – Mumbai roads. They had a really curious stance, with the ‘diving-down-nose’ (much like the dog sniffing the ground) and the conspicuously raised ass (like the dog didn’t care about the rest of the world). And yes, the ass came with a cute muffler that peeked out of the center, the source of all those ugly gases. So many similarities! Bajaj realized that these autos were possibly designed by a pervert, and bore too many anatomical resemblances. What followed was a notable design change. The new ones featured a wider backside (quite like a PYT’s after marriage). The ass was made to be lower, so as to show some respect to other road users. And yes, the cute muffler now peeked out of the side, to wipe out any more anatomical similarities. Impressive!

As a result of the somewhat vulgar design of the old autos, I shall indulge in an act of self-censorship, and restrict the rest of this discussion to the newer variants – the ones with the wider backsides. (Long live the wider asses!)

These autos then, are of three types. The really old ones; the not-so-old ones; and the spanking, gleaming, shimmering, (and wonderfully smelling) new ones. The really old ones and the really new ones are quite innocuous. Which brings us to the not-so-old ones (lets call them ‘uncles’), the real culprits of every transgression on the city’s roads. Uncles can be identified by two year old babies, eight year old Alsatians and any year old George W. Bush’s. They are characterized by loud music systems (replete with super tweeters for the dhinchaak beats) belting out the latest remix number at 226.86 decibels (albeit without the unclothed young ladies – I hear that advances in in-vehicle entertainment technologies will make LCD screens affordable enough to be fit inside autos, you can have the ladies then). Uncles’ owners like to dress them up quite aggressively. So they come with unimaginably massive amounts of chrome, enough to dismiss any American muscle car worth its name to the bottomless pits of mortification; a weird triple edged accessory (in shimmering, light-reflecting chrome of course) to decorate the front wheel (like jewelry for the nose); and a blaring, shouting sticker on the windscreen (that makes half the windscreen useless) that says something to the effect of “Shivneri” or “Magnificent Maratha” or “Shraddha and Saburi”…the likes. I don’t even need to mention the tinted glasses, the premium fabric upholstery and the motorized wiper, because they’re a sure-shot given. Some Uncles also sport peculiar stickers that spell “Chrysler” or “Harley Davidson”. Queer! (On his last visit to Mumbai, George W. Bush was taken aback by the sheer number of Chrysler vehicles on Mumbai roads. His well-endowed gray cells couldn’t figure out though, why they were all black and yellow, more importantly why they ran on three wheels. The CIA enlightened him – Chrysler was cutting costs in India they told him!)

Uncles’ drivers are also peculiar, and the eccentricity is uniformly evident across the entire city, from Malad to Mulund and from Bhandup to Borivli. The drivers are most likely to be middle-aged, aggressive, stupid and as intelligent as Dubya. They sport a thick gold chain, the source of which needs to be further investigated (possibly at considerable peril). It would not be unreasonable to suspect hidden sources of income. Drivers classified under this category are not driven by mere material motivations (read the jingling of coins). Consequently, they are often seen whiling away their work hours on the roadside, listening to the afore-mentioned item songs. These are the ones who stop in the middle of the road, as soon as they smell the slightest traces of a prospective customer, brakes working with the ferocity that reminds one of Mercedes’ patented ceramic braking technology.

I’ve stumbled upon a new trick that I play on the Uncle drivers to satiate my sadistic self. I stand on the edge of the road with a stupid expression on my face, an expression that screams to an Uncle driver, ‘Come pick me up from here. I am dying to go someplace far off!’. In come the dudes, they get a dirty look from me which screams ‘On your way buster. I ain’t hiring your vehicle’. The ‘Dubya’ look on their faces is worth dying for. As if the Mr. Universe title got snatched away from them. Highly recommended!!

That then, is the saga of the bizarre Uncle autorikshaw and its equally eccentric driver, forever adding colour to Mumbai’s humdrum landscape. Something that will stay for ages and ages to come, unaffected and unchanged through decades. Now how many people do we know of do THAT??

Indian Cinema. Two good movies in two weeks. When was the last time that happened? When Tyrannosaurus Rex beat Triceratops in a mighty bloodbath much reminiscent of Pakistan’s ignominy down under? Or was it when India last won a hockey gold? In any case, it was a long time ago.

“Black” came up first. So much to learn. Superlative movie making. Nice! Its beautiful to see people actually wake up out of their slumbers – this guy’s last slumber cost a certain Mr. Jhamu Sughand a few xilodazamibillion rupees. Some period epic called Devdas. Yes, its forgotten. Coming back to the fractured slumbers, the period of wakefulness has given us “Black”. Wonderful to see movies being made without stupid red heart balloons, suggestively gyrating PYT’s (with minimal efforts required on the costume designer’s front) and 40-year old uncles without shirts or baniyans, swollen (shaven as well) chests and ballooning biceps (much like the aforementioned red hearts, only a different shade). Well you see, when someone makes a movie like “Black” he’s not worried about the percentage opening in Chandrapur, or the box office collections in Ghaziabad. He’s just interested in making a good movie, and that’s the way a good movie is made. Three cheers! (with goblets filled with 98-octane low sulphur petrol)

Then there’s “Page 3”. This Madhur guy is on a roll. He won’t make tones of money on this movie. He won’t even make new friends. But here is realistic cinema at its absolute zenith. Wonder if he was taking realism to new heights IF (or WHEN, as the case may be) he tried to bed that starlet from Delhi. May be he wanted to “live” the movie he was making, so he could succulently convey the feel of his message to the audience. But then again, it’s a wicked world after all, may be the female was lying through her nose (imagine what exotic elements would garnish the lies then). Who knows! Give us a product like Page 3 once a year, and everything’s forgotten.

Talking of Page 3, the thing that struck me the most is the ubiquitous autorikshaw (Hey don’t brand me insane as yet – I am a little different that’s it) Think of it. Isn’t it there everywhere, everytime, be it dawn, day, dusk and night. How many times has one been failed by one’s car, friend, girlfriend or such, loitering on the streets of Mumbai, without a place to go to, or clue of what to do next. And then it comes, rattling down the street on its three puny “scooter – wheels”, the road ahead basking in the golden glory of its solitary headlight. Few things in the world demonstrate “light at the end of a dark tunnel” better. This is it!

As a little kid (yes – I was little some time in my life), I was always flabbergasted with the way these black and yellow, stupid looking animals ran on three wheels. They always reminded me of a dog in urgent need of relieving himself, one leg up, but nowhere to go, running around like a maniac, desperately hunting for a place to expel the waste liquids out of his body. Then again, they always took you from point A to point B reasonably cheaply, (if you shared one, you could obliterate BEST bus fares to obscurity) the safety however was sure to raise more than a few things (I am talking of eyebrows, perverts) at the European Union’s council for road safety. (I hear they’re going berserk – more of that some other time)

They’re as much a part of Mumbai’s landscape as those pitiful shanties hanging by the skin of their teeth from the hills near Ghatkopar (At one time, it used to be a green and brown hill. Now the only thing green is the neighbour’s envy when you can squeeze out a kholi that’s 1.2964 square millimeters bigger than his. And the only thing brown is – well, the shit. No euphemisms). Not to forget, the boundless slums lining the runway that belongs to the International Airport. Welcome to Mumbai!

Ok, after the momentary digression, (which went a long way in alleviating my frustrations about the poor state of civic affairs) we return to the magnificently moronic autorikshaws. As a young kid, I had a habit of classifying autorikshaws and their venerable drivers. What results after 10 years of protracted research in the said field is an all-encompassing guide to Mumbai autovallahs, their whims, fancies, dreams and desires (ahem). Not to mention, foolproof ways to deal with all their multifaceted varieties.

More to follow!