Why must I live in Mumbai?

We don't like change, we tend to prefer that with which we are accustomed. I was born in Mumbai and have been living here for more than 25 years - which reminds me that I am getting older - and oddly, I can't think of another place where I would happily move to... Sure, I may think in dreamy terms of a better city, but the massive upheaval that would ensue were I to move away is quite daunting.

This city is bursting at its seams, in-seams and even through the patchwork and fabric that makes this city what it is. Quality of life is rather poor on an absolute scale and one wonders why one ought to keep living in a city with which one is so familiar. Sure, there is great comfort in knowing one's surroundings, sub-culture and the general pace and flow of things.

But I want the ability to cycle at 6 pm on a Sunday. It's a simple desire, which if unmet will leave me mildly pricked, nothing more.
The industrial age norm of working 9 am to 5 pm has somehow transformed itself to 9 am to 7 pm because of an overpopulated and hyper-competitive country - and people take it for granted because there really is nothing that one can do to challenge that; it's how the capitalist system works. Survival of the fittest.
A repercussion of a long work day and a Saturday being included as a work day is a spill-over effect on people who work fewer hours - they are envied, ridiculed and laughed at. And that is OK. But it is poisonous. It is akin to straight people looking at gay people and saying that the gays are wrong. Funnily, it works the other way round too.

But why is it so difficult to think of leaving one's home? One's 'own' city?
I want to.
For a peaceful neighbourhood, for proximity to nature, for a more sparsely populated city, where individual rights are respected, where I can feel safe with whoever my family will be, where power is relatively even and it is still a city.

Don't know how people can afford a 2 Cr home here and be afraid of moving to a smaller, cheaper, nicer city? I have the question, don't have the answer.

Woman

The past is important and reading from the past brings us closer. Tagore had thoughts and these thoughts gave rise to speeches around the world. I am currently reading Speeches by Tagore in the book called "Race Conflict and other Speeches". An excerpt from a speech titled Women's Place in the World:

"A man's interest in his fellow beings becomes real when he finds in them some special form of usefulness or striking gift of powers, but a woman feels interest in her fellow-beings because they are human, not because of some particular purpose they can serve, uncommon talent which they may possess. Her exuberance of vital interest is spontaneously expressive; it makes her speech, her laughter, her movement, graceful and picturesque: for the note of gracefulness is in this harmony with all our surrounding interests."

...

"Woman has her natural power that penetrates through the surface to the heart of things, where in the mystery of life dwells an eternal source of interest; and therefore her love has not necessarily to wait for the excitation of surprising qualities. God has sent woman not merely to explore or exploit but to love the world which is a world of ordinary things and events. She is not in the world of fairy tale where the fair woman sleeps for ages till she is touched by the magic wand. In God's world women have their magic wands everywhere, which keep their hearts awake, and these are not the golden wands of wealth nor the iron rods of power.
Of late, with the help of science, civilization has been growing increasingly impersonal in character, so that the full reality of the individual is more and more ignored."

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Tagore wrote well and thought better. It's important for us to look back at what he wrote and from what I have read thus far, this essay has struck me most.

Unshackle

There is something horribly wrong about spending a large chunk of one's day on a computer as opposed to society-oriented work like film-making or reviewing art forms, but not something like cold-calling or boring marketing...
The glory of life is so easily shut out under numbing conditions like succumbing to a work-life. The pursuit of money and of filling up a day with something that is meant to be meaningful (and which very often isn't) may ruin me which is why I take steps to think rationally (something I hope I'm good at but am sure most are not).
Knowing what work can be in a place like Bombay, it pains me to see so many people enslaved, ignorant of the raw beauty of meeting somebody new or seeing something new or at least something different.
It is so easy (as I have seen myself there) to get engaged in a mundane activity which bears no real fruit - but in that moment, it means a lot. "I'm learning" or "I'm getting paid for this" or "I have to do this quickly so my boss is not unhappy with me".
I miss my vacation. It's time for another trip. Going next Friday :)

The Futility of it All

"We are fated to pretend" - MGMT
There is a monotony to life which was encapsulated well by an older man I once spoke to; he said, "Everyone lives like that, why does he think he can live differently."
As one grows older, and I have seen it with a few people, one tends to accept the flow of life and the fact that the ambitions and freedom of a younger age are momentary.
Too many people succumb and hopefully I (and you) don't look back with disgust at this post. Fighting is important and fighting the norm is crucial, it's what makes life - for humans, at least.
'Recreation' has an odd place in Indian diction; outings are social events and social events are largely mandatory.
There is a strong global movement of people going back to themselves and nature, to independence and solitude, to self-actualization and respite from the race - the race that has eaten the very essence of our desire to live.
The futility is in the pursuit of that extra unit of currency. It is a topic I think of ceaselessly and speak of continually. At the expense of hoarding more space on the internet I will say that making a living is essential but forgetting to live is sacrilege.
Earning a living becomes a habit and people refuse to look back or look away or step back to get a better view - the same society, the same neighbourhood, the same commute and yet people get by. Why? Because getting by is what everyone, and I mean everyone, does.

Some of my friends have lambasted my thoughts and/ or my actions for being outrageous or naive or privileged. Many believe that I am a 'wannabe' - with a negative connotation. But I am a wannabe with a whatever connotation. I want to be closer to nature, I want to experience a few of nature's showcases, I want to meet new people and I want to breathe some fresh air, I want to go for Oktoberfest in September of 2011 and I will find a way to go there.

I was writing yesterday, it's something I love; I wrote of limiting restrictions. I hate being answerable to a boss and may be that is a very Gujarati trait in me... I hope that I don't fall for a girl who is ever going to truly doubt my sincerity or restrict my simple desires for travel - that is a massive expectation. So I'm going to be single till I am 47 years old. Alas. Not something I want, which is why I will change my behaviour and limit my eccentricities.

This is an example of letting go of something glorious for something more glorious.
Somewhere, people have it all down in a weird way... "I will take 2-day break from office even though my boss hates it and I will go to Lonavala!!! There, I will eat at Smokin' Joes." Exaggeration - yes. Is it alright to be afraid of being frowned upon and ridiculed for being too carefree with life? Yes. Only because we live in a country where people are aggressive about attaining things - the competition is so fierce that one has to continually outperform. It's a miracle that the IT related jobs came to India, otherwise the pay scales used to be hilarious (They still are I should say).
People don't realise it often but they work for a pittance even though companies can afford something more wholesome for their employees. But people are commodities in India and hence, are not valued. It's something, I believe, that will never change.

So, do we accept this sitting down? We don't have much of a choice do we? Leaving the country is daunting - O with all the burden of family and marriage and Indian food and Indian customs.

My request to all the deadening souls out there - spend a little of what you are earning on something that will last you well. My friend exclaimed the other day, "What fool spends 15 Lac Rupees on a car??!!! - that's insane." And I thought, "Yes, it is. And that same person will think twice about buying a plane ticket to Goa for the weekend. That same person will be outraged at a proposition of spending Rs 50,000 for a vacation."
That is the sad reality of Indian behaviour. It's sad because there is a melancholic monotony to our lives.

For all its evils, I love India and I love what Indians are capable of enduring and creating. I hate the culture that values rote-learning and discipline. I hate the system that encourages paperwork and long lines. I hate the apathy that people have towards things more than 5 minutes away from them - I belong to this club.

I might have to endure terrible pain in the very near future - I might be diagnosed with cancer or suffer from a life-changing injury. I might become a pauper or I might lose my sight. I might have to suffer the loss of people close to me and may be this world ends in 2012. I might suffer from bronchitis or my liver might fail (I won't be able to have wine, bourbon or wheat beer then :( ). Is it wrong for me to want a little adventure and dream just a little? If it's not wrong for me then it isn't wrong for you.
Yes there are restrictions. But please put your foot down and find your spine. Rebellion is glorious. Pain is cruel. Rebel before you succumb.

The Simple things

I have written in the past about this on my other blog (Khadda) but may be it makes sense for me to write them separately.
I was watching Boston Legal today - a very smart series revolving around legal practices. Today's episode, from the second season, spoke of a woman suing a video game firm because her child died while playing it. The boy had been playing it for 36 hours straight without rest, food, etc. and suffered a heart attack by the end of it. The game was known to increase dopamine levels - dopamine is associated with pleasure and addiction. The mother had been working 2 jobs daily to make 'ends meet' and hence could be said to have been neglecting her child.

The simple things:
A young child is at home playing a 'game' on a television. The game revolved around being born as a ghost, getting through hell and finding his soul just to be alive.
The alternate reality that a lot of us are living right now is appalling.

We have facebook and online poker and 'farmville' games, alternate personas, computer games, a hectic work life... where did we disappear?

The mother in the above story seems to have barely had a social or family life. Why?
Capitalism has changed the way we are living and it is difficult to question the way we live...
Do we question why we are making money or why we have fake friends or why we give so much importance to useless people or why we choose emotional servitude over independence?

The simple things have been forgotten.