Telephone behind a glass partition

Veni, vidi, reveni

November 9th, 2008 Roshan Posted in Me |

I am back, bad Latin translations and all, to the city where I was born. Bombay is one hell of a city, count me impressed. Madras is an okay place, an overgrown town perhaps, but there’s nothing like having everything just the way you want: from cabs that you can register by email to drinks with your dinner just about anywhere. In Bombay, things get done…except if you’re Vodafone. I’ve had them for a month and a half now and I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to a human customer care rep. and they don’t honour their own DND lists.

There’s nothing like taking a train into the south end of the city and being faced by tranquility along long sidewalks, overhung by trees. I got my tickets to concerts sent to me by SMS, my wine delivered to my door, my local train pass in 40 seconds. I’ve walked by crazed BJP activists, stared in apprehension at TV sets on my bus fizzing with police warnings while the MNS’s riots were stopped short by the police, and anxiously stood silent as a truck loaded with Hindutva nutcases waving flags careens around the corner in front of me. Excitement and wonder are cheap. I’ve lost myself on paved streets, wandered into cricket matches and bazaars alike, and stood on the edge of a mosque’s sea-wall staring into the sea. It was bright where I was, the people had changed.

Things happen in Bombay. You open the papers to find someone or the other shot, to find someone caught for shooting someone else, or the best of all, to find that the cop who shot all those people was a mob hitman, extortionist, and land-grabber. Posters called for alertness, plainclothesmen played terrorists to catch sleeping guards. Getting to work is an adventure, the lines ferry as many people as there are in all of Chennai. Everything is faster, bigger, more complex. Everything was nicer.

I was happy.