The Avatar experience

Joyride warning: This is not for heart patients, people with claustrophobia, migraine problems, or those with any proven record of 3D-o-phobia.

So, I saw Avatar in IMAX 3D. And? Well, it made me want to throw up.

There. I’ve said it. It’s an honest admission, and no matter how hard I try to tell myself that it was the bad popcorn they served at the premier, 3D, the IMAX version at least, doesn’t quite suit me. It’s good to know that a few other film reviews and online posts I read expressed similar opinions. Phew, I am not a wimp, certainly not the only one. Apparently, it’s not such a nauseating experience for everyone. Good for them. That’s Cameron’s target audience. As for me, I prefer my characters to stick to the screen.

But between surges of nausea and double images (without the glasses which I took off for a good portion), it’s kudos to the graphics guys. This is the high point of special effects, with vivid forest scenes, out-of-this world creatures, and some of the most brilliant fight sequences.

That, and the hype that Cameron’s 3D publicity generated (right back to when the 15-minute trailer released), it's a perfect Hollywood formula for BO success. Avatar, as everyone had predicted, is set to be a huge grosser. After all, even if you’re one of those who gets that splitting headache (I fall comfortable into that category), you will discover it only after having bought the ticket. Technology has always been a Hollywood thing (remember Technicolor, or talkies for that matter), and with the first to do it, it often drives collections better than a storyline.

Cameron’s Avatar wouldn’t win an Oscar for original storyline (though one never can be certain). Blue-skinned 10-feet Na’vis (think of the blue-skinned god, Krishna, and that perhaps explains the film’s title) reside on the planet called Pandora. The evil, however, doesn’t reside within, but comes attacking from outside: in the form of humans. The clichéd ‘future’ means our own planet is a wasteland and we need new resources. But the iron-pumping baddy chief (Colonel I-can’t-spell-his-name) is not the adorably plump captain of the spaceship in Wall-E. “You have to stay tough,” he says, and does, till he dies in the climax.

Digression: Remember the 'Boss' from Virtual Cop? Yes, that point-and-fire computer game from the last millennia. 'Boss' was the one that fought the final battle and had the longest ‘life-meter’. Pretty much defines the villain of the Hollywood action film.

So, the humans come looking for a mineral called Unobtanium (yes, it remains unobtained), which is highly precious back on Earth. A war ensues, with gunships against bows and arrows. It’s that and the in-between developments—Jake Suly takes on the Na’vi avatar through a virtual reality programme (it’s not Johnny Quest, but similar), learns their ways and eventually fights for them—where Cameron spends his multi million dollars, creating fantastic, dream-like images.

Think Matrix on a hallucinogenic, and then think if something could beat that. As for the director, this is not Titanic, but a throwback to his Aliens and Terminator. Future, big fighting machines, super natural creatures—this is signature Cameron.

No pain, no gain. Guess that holds true. For as I walk out of the theatre, and the normal world comes back into focus, I know I have seen something new, yet glad it’s now over.

Future of animation and what projection technology can be? For sure. The future of all cinema? It’s a heady thought.

Unique Selling Product

As they say, the best USP there can be is the product itself. If that’s good, half the publicity is taken care of. Well, anyway, I’m no marketing guru, so I’ll steer away from this before someone grows suspicious of my expertise (lack of it, rather) on the subject.

Besides, that’s not what this post is about. It is about a product though. Two, actually. Every month, a new product sells on local trains in Bombay (are we still allowed to say Bombay?) like there’s no two questions about its necessity,

The first item that proved a heads-down winner was the head massager. Priced at a just-on-trains-exclusive Rs 10, looking oddly like an egg whisk, this sold through all of September to October. The success was obvious, for otherwise, there’s no way on ...err...train, that it would sell for 2 whole months. I ignored it at the moment and felt thoroughly like a ‘Boka Jamai’ (a Bengali tale about the foolish son-in-law who mistook kheer for rice and milk) later.

Having discovered its joys only much later, oddly enough on a visit to Hyderabad, I went looking for the head massager as soon as I was back in Bombay (oops, censored word again). To no avail though, not for the Standard Train Price at any rate (no pun, as usual).

For anyone desperately still seeking one, try Colaba (Rs 30! Insane) or the pavement in front of Jehangir Art Gallery (bargainable to Rs 20).

Anyway, the latest hot seller on the trains is as bizarre as it gets. Curious ear muffs, or their poorer cousins, in all patterns—leopard spots and zebra prints (animal prints are in, by the way)—and various colours, down to the conservative black (that’s in too).

Ok, now why is this bizarre? Isn’t it perfectly normal that people should want to buy ear muffs in November? Well, not really, not in Bom.. errm...You-Know-Where. Because You-know-Where doesn’t really have a winter, and the present mid-November temperature is 30 degrees! This city just pretends to have a winter for five days or so, between Christmas and New Year.

But I did see a young man wearing full-sleeved pullover on the train today. I thought only advocates and marketing executives had to pretend that it’s winter all year round, sweating in their black blazers and woollen suits, respectively.

The young executive in a formal striped shirt did check out the earmuff though, for pure curiosity’s sake I would imagine. I don’t think he’d fancy wearing them to work, or even at work, even if he has to sit right under the air conditioner!

So far then, the only ones wearing these funny earmuffs—and quite nonchalantly too, as if everyone else is foolish not to be—are the guys selling them. The price? Rs 10 of course.

Frankly, I don’t see this one making it for two months. Unless the Met department issues a heavy snowfall warning next (to top the cyclone warning earlier this month). I’m not buying one regardless. As for a Rs 10 deal on the head massager, I’m still on the lookout.

Note: FYI, the head massagers were manufactured in China. As is everything else, including fake ipods to hideously loud cellphones. That’d explain the peculiarity of the idea and design and the low pricing.

The Calcutta update

Alright. So part of the reason I’m writing this post is so that I can test the keypad on my new laptop. Even otherwise, though, back in Calcutta after 6 months, and back for the Durga Puja after 2 years, the need for an update is a bit of a necessity.
This is perhaps my longest stay in Cal since the time I moved out of the city, in 2006, to Hyderabad. It’s been a week so far, and everything around is quintessentially Calcutta (of course you dont expect things to change much in 6 months, especially in this city). That, of course, apart from the assault on my senses caused by the newfound DJs’ tunes (or so I think they’re supposed to be) during the idol immersion. We’ll come to that. But here’s to begin with:

Cricket fever, the odd Pakistan fan and Dada, the TV-show host
If you’re a Bong away from the mad cricket-loving people you left behind here, welcome back! I arrived bang in the middle of the Champions’ Trophy, with an India-Pakistan match on sched. As usual, the whole town’s talking, expecting a win and well... we lose! And if I were in Mumbai now, I might not even have known this bit of news till the next day’s newspaper. In Cal, however, my old reputation meant that the odd Pakistan fan who lives next door made a point to tell me the result, with a grin pasted firm across his face! Of course, there’s no way to tell him that I didn’t really care. So, I left him talking to himself about Pakistan being the inevitable champion, and their loss to Australia being “got up” (meaning fixed).
Arguing Bongs readily allude to odd things and to Sourav Ganguly. So, it was Dada again. Without cricket to talk about, since we were out of the tournament (you must understand by now, I had sat down to watch the next game... old habits and joblessness), Sourav’s show on TV is the talk of the town. I saw one episode, and I must admit he’s got more screen presence than the whole of the Indian team put together. He’s humorous, witty, diplomatic, and tactful with personal questions people ask. It’s not surprising though that half the quiz questions are about him—his records, his centuries, and video clips of him. Quite a TRP-stealer, I hear. As for the local news channels cursing Zee for this, they had their fair share of him on Dashami evening, with the ‘Breaking News’ being Ganguly dancing at the immersion and playing the Dhak (a kind of drums) for the cameras.
With so much publicity, dbe surprised if Rituporno Ghosh decides to cast him in his next! Don’t think a Hadippa (the Rani Mikherjee-Shahid Kapoor disaster) is down Ghosh’s lane, but if, say he does cast Ganguly as the coach, he could play Rani’s role himself: man playing woman playing man! (No pun on ‘playing’ intended).

Now, for the constants
The chicken roll at Hot Kati (on Park Street) still costs Rs 20! And it’s as good as ever. Not so pleasantly, the list of constants includes the airtime still given to Mamata Banerjee. The traffic-blocking, andolon-calling stuntwoman-turned-leader-and-now-Rail Minister is still at it. Cheap publicity remains her forte, and she’s still calling for the Government’s head, on new issues and old, pledging to start a ship service from Andamans for the poor passengers stuck there due to the Air India strike (she’s in apparent ignorance of the fact, of course, that the said ship service has always existed).
As for things only slightly more important, Badla’s 100-something-old grandmother is alive and bent! (She’s been this way for the last 20 years that I’ve seen her). The hot rosogollas (Rs 2 each), jalebis (Rs 1 each) and the bhoger polau (priceless), are still made in Cal like nowhere else!

Culture shock
Right, now to talk about the immersion on Dashami (10th and last day of the Durga Puja), and the accompanying ‘DJ’ on the truck with every locality’s immersion procession. He’s basically the guy who sings (yeah, this DJ sings), changes the track (he plays whole songs because it’s a long crowded road to the ghats) and not-quite-seamlessly switches from Bengali film music and pop to Vengaboys (I’m sure they’re still available, ’cuz the Mc D near VT station in Mumbai was playing them the last week).
For all those old-timers (and I weirdly enough stand with them on this one) who thought that dhak and Dhunuchi (ref. Sanjay Dutt dancing in Parineeta) was the way to see off Ma Durga and family, telling everyone “Aasche bochhor abar hobe” (“Till next year”), guess tastes have— in lack of a better expression—evolved.

PS for Durga, from Cal: Divine mother, please dont misunderstand. We were not recommending you visit Brazil for the Pujo vacations next year. We love you and hope to have evovled to Backstreet Boys next year.

Beware! Masked men about town

It’s the August of 2009 and there’s a new villain on the prowl. The crowd-and-sweat loving citizens of megatown Mumbai have a new menace wreaking hovoc, striking fear in their hearts. The swine is in the air!

And as the city pushes and shoves into the 9’o clock Borivili Fast, the dark new face of evil lurks surreptitiously about. Stretching its dark, invisible fingers, it reaches out for the unsuspecting victim in a striped shirt and tie, thumbing away on his blackberry and feasting on the vadapaw and samosa without a care in the world.

In a flash it reaches for the innocent victim. Only the healer can save him now, with the magical ingredient legend calls Tamiflu. But he’s hard to reach these days, since he’s doing overtime in neighbouring Pune.

The Daily Planet reports, voicing a general fury—“Swine kills 2 more! Where is Superman?”

The man of steel who had called it a day, retiring to Crypton after red innerwear over blue spandex went out of fashion in the ’70s was last seen in a theatre near you in 2006. The world’s safety is at stake and everyone is looking up to the skies.

But just as we thought the swine will reign as the new king of crime, there are new heroes among us. With level 6 pandemic comes great responsibility. And for the first time, resolute Mumbaikars are ready to step up to the task.

“Even on the brink of a shutdown, as a panicky government calls for malls and schools to shut down, heroic Mumbaikars don the masks,” The Planet announces with gusto. A young man in a Led Zepplin t-shirt and cropped hair steps into the medicine shop, asking for the mask. His face is solemn. He isn’t doing this by will or for fun, but because he must. At the risk of slimming down his chances of finding a girlfriend this season, he dons the mask. He’s ready to take on the swine!

So is the blackberry-punching corporate and the one-piece safari suit-donning Mr Shah.

Funnily, there are more masks in the First Class than in second. Some with handkerchiefs tied around their faces, I assume, are interning to be heroes. In a week, they too should qualify.

It’s mid-August now, and people are ebbing back to reopened theatres to see Fahid Kapoor’s Kaminey. Schools are gradually opening again. Normalcy seems to be returning to the megatown. Evil forces still exist, but they’re losing the battle. The masked men have succeeded. For now!

Disclaimer: This one might sound a little dated, thanks to engagements halfway though, and sheer laziness (Note: I was not struck by the swine, nor by anyone I’ve called by that name! I swear!)

Truth, anyone?

Let’s face the truth here. We really are better off with Ekta Kapoor (Gasp! Her name begins with ‘E’. She should call her self Kkekta Kapoor). Jobless women bitching about each other, running around the house hatching plots; going to sleep in couture and flashy jewellery; and crying without spoiling their make-up. ‘Suspension of disbelief’? Little did Coleridge know!

Why, you ask, must we put up with this make-believe soppy drama and episodes number 9,99,999, and eternally-living and eternally-sobbing saas-es and bahus? Because we’re not ready for anything better. Or so the government will have you believe. Eternally controlling what our naive TV-audience should watch, in a latest, they’ve decided Sach ka Samna, the Indian version of The Moment of Truth (Another ‘inspired’ show, of course) asks “obscene questions” and thereby corrupts our pure ‘Indian’ morality.

Well, what were you expecting? They’d extol the show for talking about sex, cheating, marital discord, drugs and single-motherhood on TV? Chhee, chhee… Shocking! That is just way too truthful and goes against everything Indian tradition and values stand for. It’s not about not staying away from any of these things… but about not admitting to them. You can do what you want, of course, that’s perfectly alright: polygamy, discrimination, domestic violence and drugs. But that doesn’t mean you be open about them… that too on national television!

It took our films decades to have actors kissing rather than the flowers doing it on their behalf, though Deepa Mehta and Nandita Das are still censored. MF Husain is unable to return to India and we still suck up to a farce of a film on homosexuality with a corny title Dostana (My Brother Nikhil is offbeat, so too bad, we don’t watch it). We can’t miss that 9,99,999^th episode for anything.

Well then, for the poor audience we are, guess it is for granddads in parliament to decide what’s best for us. Your guardians have spoken. Finish your soap and off to bed!

Seeking sal(i)vation… even as the swine arrives

AAA… THOOO… There goes another one. A convoluted missile of saliva flies through the air as I dodge just in the nick of time to avoid it landing on my foot!

There would be no research necessary perhaps to establish that every single square inch of public space in Mumbai has been spat upon at some time or the other. It’s a joint effort that the people of this city collectively take credit for. No mean feat, mind you, considering the expanse of Mumbai… And yet, every morning, on their way to work, study, eat, drink or visit relatives, resolute Mumbaikars are ensuring they have made their contribution to the day’s quota of saliva on the street.

But maybe, just maybe, it’s time to give this noble cause a temporary rest. As the headlines on my morning newspaper announces the first case of swine flu in Mumbai, the unavoidable images of public ‘spitributors’ carrying on their mission to coat the city with saliva returns to haunt me. TB is, of course, just a small price to pay in the larger cause of a city seeking absolute salivation. But somehow, I’d have imagined the threat of swine flu to be a bigger deterrent.

But Mr A chewing paan and colouring the newly whitewashed walls of Bandra station (just-renovated and already beetle-tinged towards the base) knows he doesn’t have the flu, so it’s safe for him to be spitting. Meanwhile Mr B, who’s just come back from America the other day, rolls down his glass and lets out another wet missile… he’s not in quarantine, so he has the right too. Mr C, leaning out of the crowded Borivili-Churchgate local, of course, is a seasoned campaigner; so, even if he’s caught the headlines or is aware of the health hazards, he knows he spits with such precision (and sound, for good measure) that it lands metres away from anyone who might reprimand him for it.

Well, for me, I’m just glad for the temporary respite of a weekend. That means I don’t have to brave any saliva-attack today, neither from the ‘united-we-spit’ activists at VT Station, nor the sweeper running a covert operation at the Perry Cross Bus Stand at Bandra, going about his business on the spot that he’s just swept clean.

So, I stay indoors all morning and afternoon, while there’s invariably spit flying all over the city (Someone somewhere in Mumbai must be spitting right this second!).

The rare cloud cover (it hasn’t rained yet, so there isn’t spit-mixed water flooding the roads or getting into your shoes) finally inspires me to go out for a walk in the evening. And just as I step out, Mr D from the neighbouring building shows solidarity—in one fluid motion, he has stuck his face to the grills of his window and let it fly… ‘Duck!!’ Sigh… just in time again!

Shrinking world?

To write in a post that ‘the world is shrinking’ or that technology is bringing the world closer is to say nothing new. It’s almost like being a Gallileo-too-late and waking up to declare to the world that it…is actually round. ‘Yeah, what of it? What’s new?’ So, well, nothing ‘earth-moving’ in that (if you follow my desperate attempt at pun).
Yet, you wonder sometimes if we take these statements and progressive (or so I’m made to believe) proclamations—in technology, economy, or yoga practices—at face value, believing much too easily and without debate. So, what prompts me on a work-evening to launch into a sermon that will pull you out of the Matrix and make you see the conspiracy theory behind it all? Just a couple of articles I read, each startling in its right to either side of the spectrum (besides temporary joblessness).
One is about the latest social networking sensation (yeah, I know, ‘another one!’) called Twitter (GQ-British, May 2009) that allows you to tell the world ‘What you are doing’ in 140 characters.
The other is about the 11-year old ‘suicide bomber’ called Abdullah (police say he’s the youngest they’ve seen) who was caught, strapped in explosives, and who said when interrogated that he knew he’d be ‘in pieces.’ (TOI, Mumbai, 8 April 2009).
Twitter, according to the article, is a rage in the US and the UK, and a lot of celebs are ‘on it.’ The idea is to write out pint-sized texts of your day to day, nay, hour to hour activity. So, the ‘real Britney Spears,’ as Twitter promises, tells you what she’s doing right now, just as does Barack Obama, it seems. And thus, you get to follow other people’s lives. And you get to tell other people about such things of utmost importance as ‘sipping coffee,’ ‘lazing at work’ (if your Boss is not on your list), ‘going to sleep’ or ‘visiting my grandmother.’ I know you’re probably saying, ‘he’s late to the party,’ but it’s quite amazing for me to think that things I thought trivial, it seems, are now things that interests the entire world, if Twitter’s 1000 per cent rise of users is anything to go by. And in this mad rush to almost-voyeuristically peep into others’ lives and exhibition your own (obviously celebs love it), it seems that worlds and peoples are coming closer than ever before. I’m not ‘Tweeting’ yet, but my Facebook homepage tells me I can change my status message via sms. So, there’s already competition on the horizon to fuel a mad rush towards, what this writer calls, “a test of our powers of concentration” and what some would call, a fresh onslaught at privacy. Millions of lives and activities are closer to us than ever before. Truly technology is connecting us like never before, connecting people across time-zones, social boundaries and cultures. I can brose Google Maps to figure out my way from VT to Juhu, the gyms I am enquiring give me info on phone, and I can access my bank account online! Yay.
But even as my friend visiting Calcutta from London and taking a flight back from Hyderabad to Heathrow tells me about the convenience and reduced flight-rates, I know that the 11-year old suicide bomber and his country are less flying hours from Heathrow and yet, beyond my reach, physically, and in thought.
It’s amazing how in our happy bid to create out hi-fi little ‘global village,’ we left out people, races and regions entirely. Young Abdullah goes to a school where he’s taught how to use Kalashnikovs, and “about the foreigners coming to Muslim lands, killing women and children.” “When I’m older I’ll kill non-Muslims. If I don’t, they’ll come to our homes and kill us” is his warped image of our global village.
So, what went wrong, I think. Why, when everyone woke up to the happy, 20th Century modern world, did this boy and his entire race get left behind? Global politics, ignorance, or religious extremisim, I don’t know for sure. But our cocooned little worlds aren’t as pretty or as small as we think it to be. Abdullah is not on Twitter, but Google gives me 168,000 results for ‘Abdullah suicide bomber.’

Sonia Gandhi and the Hyd invasion!!

My farewell, a friend’s due birthday treat, a bucket of chicken wings at KFC and the last of the good times and people that I will miss about Hyd. [Here’s to the entire populace that keeps track of my blog (a number you can count on two fingers!) news that I am shifting to Bombay…sniff sniff.]
Anyway, so all goes well until guess who spoils the day…Sonia Gandhi! The Congress supremo is in town and everyone on the busy Begumpet crossing on a weekday is suddenly hauled to the side of the road and traffic is cleared with amazing efficacy. It’s pindrop silence (without any exaggeration) and Sonia Gandhi zips past in her bulletproof car and Z-category convoy. She waves as she goes, of course. And that one supposes should make me and everyone else who’s been rudely shoved to the side of the road vote for the Congress. ‘Oh, ma’am, you waved…you actually waved at …it’s deliverance!’ Worth me and the rest of earning India pay for her swank bullet-proof car and the Porsche Cayenne S that zips behind it? I have my reservations (no double-meaning intended).
As it goes, the big Congress extravaganza takes place in the heart of Hyderabad, at the Secunderabad Parade Grounds, and that means hell for all traffic in the city. Add to that the misfortune of being on the same stretch when the rally gets over.
A multitude pours out of the grounds and makes its way towards Secunderabad station, effectively throwing traffic out of gear at peak office-time. By the look of it, this invasion has been gathered from all over rural Andhra, perhaps at the promise of a biryani or electricity. Are these congress devotees or political hardliners who wouldn’t miss a word of Mrs Gandhi’s Italianised Hindi? Nay, I doubt, but huge vote banks, that they are.
So, here’s the proposed paradox. The Congress plays up 'Soniaji’s' visit, and professes it as the star-event in their pre-election campaign. She comes, brings the city to a grinding halt getting everyone to curse the traffic and whatever caused it…and they expect it to translate into votes in return. But wait, that’s isn’t the paradox I’m talking about…that’s in the fact that the translation probably does come true!
Iconic leadership, anyone? Oi, everyone start humming ‘Jai Ho!’

Up up and away to Chandni Chowk

Akshay Kumar after reportedly being attacked by bricks and bats by a bunch of haggard critics has come out to say in an interview, ‘I am not Superman,’ by which I think he means he would’ve willed all the bricks to fly in the opposite direction by mere eyesight and then fly away cape fluttering to the Great Wall of China.
Yes, almost all of China in Akshay’s Chandni Chowk seems to stretch from one end of the Great Wall to the other, and it also seems it’s perfectly alright to fall off it and survive; to throw chopsticks and kill people; to have mad double roles, coincidences and Asian Sky Shop products, including the amazing umbrella that’s bulletproof, stabproof and can fly. All in all…it’s completely mindless.
But since when did we Indians start complaining about mindless scripts? Our suspension of disbelief is in perfect condition when Sunny Deol uproots the tube-well to kill villains (Gadar), when Shah Rukh jumps off a tower and survives (Koyla) and of course, when Aamir Khan breaks chairs on his backs, slaps a deputy-of-a deputy-villain’s neck backwards, and kills 30 odd goons apparently within 15 mins (Ghajini).
The problem it seems then is when the message actually tells us to suspend disbelief, when we’re told beforehand to “leave your brains behind”. Shouldn’t have done that, Akshay…totally your faullt. It seems that offended the viewers – someone finally told them the close-guarded secret - most of what we watch has no sense and doesn’t require any brainpower…none, absolutely.
But hang on…the film’s done not so bad at the BO, but critics seem to be bashing it in unison. Did they then…oh, now we get it…it’s not us viewers, but you guys who got offended, who thought we were questioning your brains. So, here’s what I think you did (and Akshay might agree) – you didn’t heed the advice and brought your brains along, it obviously malfunctioned and then you wrote.
While you could digest Sanjay Singhania’s bizarre Ghulam-like office dressing (sleeves rolled up, mawalli style), to-be-doctor Jiah Khan’s (that’s already a laugh) pointless item number, and Aamir’s ability to remember to exercise every morning to kill the villain, you couldn’t accept a film that is, as the Hipposaur has said, “self-consciously” made.
The over-the-top humour, the v.v.v Bollywood judwaa behnein, bichhraa baap, and the fight sequences and cinematography done like a B-grade Chinese-to-Hollywood dub…are to me, very self-conscious. In fact, the hero fighting with a sickle and hammer, and the red tones (in case you don’t get it: think Communism) are quite brilliant.
The film does stretch and some portions aren’t all that entertaining, but the spoof is deliberate and the action sequences are as good as they get.
But SRK gets away poking fun at Bollywood because he’s SRK (I too liked OSO) and Aamir gets away with a mindless remade script because he’s Aamir…Akshay doesn’t, evidently, because he told-you-so beforehand.
Sorry Akki, you didn’t throw the right people off the wall before making the movie. And I gtg now, ‘cuz I see the zombie haggard critic looking for a brick.

You’ve been Stafl-ed!

“Stafalmandi, Stafalmandi…” the ring of the autowallah’s shout is something I can recall at will. I sometimes suspect it’ll stay with me forever.
Well, this ‘Stafalmandi,’ or Sitafalmandi, as it less-commonly, and more accurately known, has been my residence for the last year-and-I lost-count in Hyderabad. I moved here initially when I was doing a French course. That’s over, but you get the drift when I say ‘lost count.’
My office at Banjara Hills is a good 13-14 kms and Banjara Hills of course, looks like a different city to the lansdscape of Stafalmandi.
But, the station is close by and the train’s not all that bad, if you ignore the frequent delays and the crowd. But, that’s not the point of this post.
Every place has a landmark, right? Shyambazar in Calcutta has the Netaji statue, Panjagutta has Central, Lifestyle has well…Lifestyle, and so on. The most prominent structure on the ‘Stafalmandi’ main road is the road-over-bridge (ROB)…or what should have been an ROB already. Basically, it’s under construction…I hear it’s been under construction for 7 years! Yes, it’s “nearing completion” now, I hear, and the water dripping or shifting pits around it mean it may be operative in 6 months (I’m not guaranteeing that.)
Along with itself, this ROB has dragged a few other things into… limbo (in absence of a more-impressive jargon to illustrate my vocab). The lives of workers, for instance, who now form a settlement that looks like a post-civil war refugee camp. They live on the road and sleep on the sand dump, loose gravel mound, station parking lot and on vacant vegetable troikas. They’re mostly from Bengal, North 24 Parganas, going by the twist on the Bengali accent. And for all these 7 years or part thereof, they’ve lived here, cooking rice on the street and draining the starch into the drain right beside, sleeping on tarpaulin under the open sky, giving birth and having drunken brawls…all right here in ‘Stafalmandi.’
Besides, there are the half-broken shops and houses, unique of Hyderabad, wherever there’s a bridge being made or a road being expanded. There’s a curious front-porch of a house with a miniature temple that’s now been compromised for the bridge. Imagine…I actually walk through what was technically their house everyday now!
Localities like Sitafalmandi are, however, increasingly rare in Hyderabad. Narrow gallis, naughty urchins, poor lives and anna’s kiranas that still sell stuff for 50 paise – in limbo, without the polish the rest of this city has.
But I don’t seem to mind …even the sound of the autowallah’s confidently erroneous shout sounds like home now. Guess I’ve been Stafl-ed.