Tales of rum, milk and honey

The ever-reluctant but sometimes-indulgent Mishti guests here once again. Here he is with some tales rum, milk and honey.

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Tales of rum, milk and honey
Last night I had to meet for dinner a friend at a suburban five star hotel in Mumbai. I was early and thirsty (as usual my wife may like to add), and asked for a "bar menu". I was politely informed that it was a "dry" day and the next few days were also "dry" days, which meant NO ALCOHOL. Disappointed I ordered a fresh lime soda (sweet) and buried my head into "Saturday" (a novel by Ian McEwan), as I waited for my friend to turn up (he was arriving from Chennai).

Then I noticed that some people were being served drinks and it dawned on me that foreigners are served liquors even on dry days. They are not forced to pay respect to Gandhiji. On enquiring I learnt that even NRIs will be served liquor on producing proof of their being NRIs. That cheered me up a bit since my friend was a NRI and I promptly SMSed him to get proof of his non-resident status, which will buy us a couple to quench the thirst.

Once my friend came in he ordered two drinks - a W&S for himself and a R&C for me. And this is the fun part of it and how the law is sometimes an ass, as someone more eloquent than me had once said. The person who took our order took my friend's identification, gave it a good look up and down and noted down some numbers. He said that these details have to be sent to the Excise Department.

Imagine there is someone in that government department who is supposed to check that the hotel has genuinely sold liquor to only the ones who are permitted to drink (or who need not show their respect to Gandhiji).

I started wondering how will the hotel respond if the Excise Officer asked how and why one person was mixing his drinks by ordering R and W simultaneously and will the government ban such degenerate NRIs from coming into the country? Is mixing drinks allowed or is it against the law? Should there not be a restriction then on how much alcohol one foreigner or NRI can consume on a given day/ night?

I remember two incidents (1) once before breaking the law sitting in the environs of a five star hotel with a foreigner (gora) and quaffing a pitcher of the chilled golden brew. Then my friend's passport had ensured that we were not denied the elixir. (2) The second was related to me by a journalist friend of mine. After an awards ceremony (where else but a five star hotel), there was a dinner party. Some leader of some country had passed away and India had declare a five day mourning. The minister's and government officials were apparently under strict instructions not to partake in alcoholic revelries - that is a Government of India rule when it is declares mourning although many people drink when they are sad. So the chief guest, instead of attending the dinner, quietly slinked away to his room to have a couple. Before leaving he told my friend that if any newspaper the next day publishes his photograph with a glass in hand, then his political career could be jeopardized and therefore, he preferred to drink in the solitude of his room. I am happy to report the minister's career continues to flourish.

That brings me to why I was "inspired" to write this piece. Very early on I was once told that you command respect and you earn it, you do not demand it. So why do these state government's demand that we respect the memory of our leaders in this way? Does it really help or honor anybody, least of all the memory of a dear departed leader?

The liquor shops start telling their customers way ahead of the D-day to stock up. People who want to have a drink any way do. In fact I am told by an ex-student of IIM Ahmedabad that bottles were delivered to their dorms - this is indeed unique and must be thanks to prohibition in Gujarat because in other institutes (at least in the two I have studied), we always had to go out to buy. Their was no friendly neighborhood brewer or seller who did a door to door service. For hooch in Kharagpur, - that was all we could afford - you had to go to the den of the local madam brewer.

To respect the memory of Gandhiji, the government can take one more step. On his birthday and death anniversary, having sex in India can be banned, in respect to Gandhiji's celibacy vows and experiments. On those days condoms will not be sold and only foreigners and NRIs should be allowed to have sex (and only with their likes and not with resident Indians) in India and then report the same to the Ministry of Human Resources .

Better still, they should report beforehand their intention to engage in you-know-what so that an official of the Ministry can verify that they indeed are foreigners and NRIs. Hopefully Arjun Singh will be gainfully employed and have no time for looking at reservations and other pet issues of his. Gandhiji, by his own account, had alcohol and sex in his youth and gave up for his own reasons. How does his memory get respected by forcing his countrymen by banning alcohol in certain states and by banning alcohol sales and serving of liquor on certain days I fail to understand. I wonder how we should honor Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru's memory?

I will end this piece with the story of a lunch that I had partaken more than a decade back.

I was visiting a factory under construction in central India in the early 90s. This town in Maharashtra also practices prohibition. The first thing the PRO of the company had done was to procure a medical certificate, which said that for health reasons he is allowed to drink and buy alcohol. A group of ten people had a boozy beery afternoon and then toddled of to pay respect to the late Mahatma in his Ashram in the city. India must be the only country where people want to get themselves certified as alcoholics and that does not carry a stigma! It is high time such silly rules and laws are dismantled. The citizens will anyway pay respect to the Mahatma if they are aware of his teachings and believe in the same. A film like "Lage raho Munnabhai" does it far better than all the Congressmen (and women), the self proclaimed upholders of Gandhiji's legacy, put together.

I am reminded of a Hindi verse learnt in school (it was by Sant Kabir or Surdas) - "kar ka man ka dari de, man ka manka pher" (drop the rosaries in your hand, and try and reform the rosary in your heart.) And meanwhile lets say three cheers for "sura".

(The intention of the author is not to hurt anyone's sentiments. My apologies in advance to anyone whose sentiments may have been hurt by some of my comments above.)

Economic Times - how much lower now ?

Mishti is kind enough to guest on my blog today.

He writes on the latest hoo-ha, courtesy the Slimes/Crimes Group whose publication, the Economic Times (ET), recently carried a so-called smooch between Kiran Majumdar Shaw (of Biocon) and Vasundhara Raje Scindia (Rajasthan Chief Minister) on their front page. Needless to say, that photo created the required controversy.

If that photo wasn't stupid enough, they've stooped even lower by the apoplectic fit of self-righteousness they raised in this column carried on their yellow rags today.

Over to Mishti who, also angry at the ET, has written this piece below. Comments welcome.

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The Times of India group every day sets lower and lower standards in journalism (if you call it that for the lack of any other more appropriate word) and never tires of its sick holier than thou attitude. One example was recently pointed out by Amelia Gentleman, a columnist at the International Herald Tribune.

The ToI group has this smartly designed logo (I must give credit where it is due - ToI groups ads and logos etc are smart; after all it is a marketing juggernaut and nothing about journalism) called " The Global Indian Takeover", which in a celebratory mood it appends to any and every article. Do not know which moron decided which article it should get appended to, but apparently last week it got appended to an article on a girl of Indian origin winning the Miss UK title (pointed out by the IHT columnist) . Someone out there is in a desperate need to have his/ her head examined.

Economic Times believes it is a financial newspaper just because it aped the colors of Financial Times many years back (called it salmon pink, I remember, although I am yet to see a salmon on my plate of that color. I have a suggestion - they should change the color to yellow). In recent times ETs budget coverage has been especially deplorable especially for the visuals that they use. It suffers from an identity crisis as it tries to ape its sister publication Bombay Times.

But I am digressing. What takes the cake is today's article "Much ado about...." on page 3 of The Economic times. This is on the picture of Rajasthan's CM and Biocon's CMD air-kissing each other, with the camera angle being such which invited a lot of comment and some called it obscene.

ET felt that the politicians and Hindi TV channels are bereft of ideas (true for once, but it forgets that it itself false into the same category) and hence, debated on what was just another picture. Fair enough. But ET with all its sagacity and wisdom, decided to devote a couple of columns to it, after having published the picture the previous day. It castigated the TV channels and the politicians for starting a debate on the photograph.

And in its holier than thou attitude, ET went on to say "At ET, we had carried the picture in good faith, without any intention of hurting the sentiments of both Ms Raje and Ms Shaw. In our wall-to-wall coverage of the World Economic Forum, this is one of the few pictures we felt deserved to be carried." Good faith, ha, ha, ha.

Will the ET editor (if there is one, because the Jain's do not believe in editorial content or freedom or how can a newspaper have two viewpoints on an editorial subject matter on the same day) please clarify why "this one is one of the few pictures" that deserved to be carried? Were they the two most important personalities gracing the occasion at WEF on that day? Did they make some major news by what they had to say on that day? I do not remember ET mentioning anything about what they said in ETs "wall to wall" coverage!

ETs stooping does not end there. It also says, "As readers of ET know, air-kissing is a common phenomenon at corporate dos and high-society parties." ETs readers are indeed a wise lot. Other poor souls who do not have the benefit of reading ET do not know such social niceties.

Unfortunately (I believe) the ABP group (erstwhile owners of Business Standard) did not show its marketing acumen with Business Standard the way they showed with The Telegraph in Kolkata and T N Ninan unfortunately never had the backing of the financial muscle power of the Bennet Coleman group. BS would have punched ET if only FDI in newspapers and journals was allowed.

Guess which votary and champion of reforms puts out editorials against FDI in newspapers? No prizes for guessing - it is the venerable publications from the ToI group, which are so keen to protect their turf. Of course, their editorials are full of righteous indignation against Bombay Club and any whiff of protectionism in any other sector. Hopefully HT in association with WSJ will launch a paper which will tell us something more about business, companies and sectors rather than tell us what kind of kissing is a common phenomena at what dos. That I must admit can be safely left to ET, Bombay Times, Mumbai Mirror and of course, the one and only Times of India.

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Addicted to Bombay

As part of a lively debate on his Bombay v/s Delhi series, Dhoomk2 asked me to put in a post on Bombay. This is my attempt.

Bombay is a drug. Prolonged use is lethal. Highs include money, wealth and success. That's what draws the droves into the city everyday. From the uneducated exile arriving at VT with Rs10 in his pocket dreaming of becoming a film star, to the IIT-IIM grad arriving at the airport dreaming of heading Citigroup India.

For this, they are willing to endure a painfully low “quality of life”. As is oft said – “People in Bombay don’t live, they exist”. Commuting in jam-packed trains or stuck in traffic jams. Walking over perennially dug-up streets, choking from the dust in the air and nearly drowning in the rains. Living under a polythene sheet supported by two poles, with a gutter flowing below you, and sharing that space with three others. Or staying in matchbox-sized flats paying rents that could feed an entire village. And dreaming of buying an apartment at a price that could feed a hundred others. It's all part of the dream.

So, then what is it? What is that keeps everyone going? X factors, sex factors, Y factors and why factors. Here’s my take.

Welcome to the jungle. Bombay throbs with activity. Enterprise runs in its blood. From the fish markets of Sassoon Dock to Lion Gate, to the Stock Market to kapda bazaar, Dawa bazaar, Chor bazaar, Null bazaar..to the tanneries in Dharavi, the tabelas of Jogeshwari, Film City in Goregaon...and on and on. Each place an industry on its own. Each place with thousands of people chasing their dream.Too many places, too many people, too little time..too many dreams. All in one city.

For all its crowds, Bombay also gives you privacy. Even if you share it with a million others, your space is still yours. With the sea as your constant companion. For each harried commuter that pushes you to get ahead at Churchgate station, there will be many others who won’t care as you ponder life’s vagaries over a sunset at Marine Drive. Or Chowpatty. Or Worli Sea Face. Or Carter Road, Band Stand, Chowpatty and Juhu. You will come here again when you fall in love. And probably when it’s raining.

Bombay doesn’t believe much in sleep. Its lifelines – the local trains – sleep only for three hours. Buses, I’ve heard even less. You can find a taxi almost anywhere at any hour. The driver won’t fleece you, unless you’ve taken him from the airport.

When the trains do wake up at around 4am, life’s already gathering pace. On the first trains out, you’ll find a man with a large basket of gendas (marigolds) sitting next to you. He’s headed to Dadar’s flower market, where there are already hundred others lined up on the roads. Once he’s gone, you’ll be joined by the newspaper-wala grappling with a bundle of papers under his armpit, defying various laws of physics. There’s even a good chance now, that you could be joined by dance bar girls. Perhaps you won’t recognise them. Away from the dance floors they rule, and devoid of their make-up, Roshni, Chandni, Huma, Rupa and Mona look like the girls-next-door. They are.

Dance bars. That quintessential part of Bombay nightlife. No, dance bars aren’t about sex. There isn’t any. Dance bars are about the yearning. And the money. It’s about the garlands of Rs10/100/500 notes (depending on which one you visit). After showering garlands of marigolds on his God, the same man now showers garlands of currency on his girl. And oh, how he yearns for a smile from her. It’s the only time he realises the true meaning of “Salaam-e-ishq meri jaan zarra kubool kar lo, tum humse pyaar karne ki zaraa si bhool kar lo”. The mohabbat ka maara to his maseeha.

And then the people. Bombay belongs to its masses. Bombay belongs to Sailu, the nariyalpaani-waala, who personifies the typical quiet do-gooder in our city. Bombay belongs to the street kid who peddles a whole array of books at traffic signals. And then asks you for a lift from Mahalakshmi temple to Worli Naka. He’s not worried if you refuse. This is Bombay and he’ll get his lift. His day is over. It’s time to study. Under the streetlights on the road next to the Doordarshan TV Tower. And there are many others like him at the steps of Asiatic Library. They will make it in life. In their own way, all of them will. If they will, so will you. This is Bombay.

Money, wealth, opportunity, lust, agony, ecstasy, crowds, loneliness, privacy, space, fun, people, food, Gods, demons, poverty, affluence, effluence, greed, power, movies.

Life. Bombay.

Suketu Mehta took 584 pages to narrate his Bombay stories. And his publisher is now thinking of a companion volume with the stories that didn't make it.

Me? I think Bombay can’t be defined and is beyond description. Just like the high you get from a drug. Bombay is a drug. And I’m an addict.