My Electric Nights With Vikram Chandra

Published in Tehelka Magazine 14 November 2010

http://tehelka.com/story_main47.asp?filename=hub201110Vikram_Chandra.asp

End of a Romance

Published in India Today, 11 September 2010

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/112179/Nation/end-of-a-romance.html

Mumbai is 'like a novel written by a magical element'...

Or something to that effect:

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5867818,00.html

A Mouthful of the Big Apple

(published in Mumbai Mirror, 20 May 2010)

JFK airport's immigration counter was where I least expected to be addressed as “Altaf-bhai”. It was also the last place on Earth that I hoped to see a copy of Chetan Bhagat's The 3 Mistakes of My Life. Not only was my immigration officer from Mumbai, he was Muslim, too, and all-too familiar with Byculla, my neighborhood. Despite being severely sleep-deprived, I thought it prudent to be cordial with a man who could, theoretically, send me back on the next flight home.

We chatted in Hindi as the officer stamped my passport and fingerprinted and photographed me. Oh, you know, just two Mumbai boys catching up over crucial port-of-entry formalities. I asked the gentleman how he was liking Bhagat's book, a dog-eared copy of which lay on the side counter. He seemed non-committal. I suggested that he read my novel. The official had never heard of it, of course, and until that morning he had never heard of me. We exchanged cards and bid farewell with a “Khuda haafiz”. Ticket to New York? Forty-two thousand rupees. Being reminded of one's literary insignificance? Free!

To Be or Not to Pee

America's economic recession is showing up on Manhattan's streets with a vengeance. Every block has at least a couple of stores with forlorn 'For Rent' signs or little notices announcing the closure of some decades-old deli or cafe. The dwindling of fast-food restaurants and coffee shops has spelled bad news for pedestrians in a very significant way: Fewer eateries mean fewer restrooms that one can stroll in and out of as the need arises. On weekdays there are veritable mobs waiting to use the loos at Starbucks and McDonald's – the only chain-stores that seem to be weathering the rough times, although no one can be certain for how long.

I ventured into an Au Bon Pain one blustery evening with an insistent bladder. When I asked for the key to the locked restroom, the cashier informed me that the restroom was for customers only. I argued: “But I do intend to be a customer.” “You gotta buy something first,” the cashier replied. “I can't think of food till I don't use the restroom,” I said. “Buy something first,” was the cashier's stony answer. Such unyielding customer service would've been unimagineable in pre-recession America. Maybe that cashier had a sixth sense for full bladders. I considered purchasing a croissant so I could obtain that key. But two-something dollars for a leak? No-uh, not in recession-time America.

Stick-Shift Prez

The automatic transmission in American cars permits no measured responses on the road: it's the accelerator or the brake, you either speed up or slow down – two extremes that more often than not end in disaster. How people drive says a lot about who they are. Considering that the average American drives 33.4 miles a day, and close to 90% of the population drives automatics, that's a lot of people spending a lot of time veering between the extremes at dizzying speeds.

This behind-the-wheels extremism carries over into other walks of life. America is not a country of fence-sitters, of multiple party democratic options, or of tempered approaches to policy making. It is either Republican or Democrat, pro-war or anti-war, White or Black. All other options are mere background noise.

I arrived in New York just in time to witness what the media was terming a “historical” vote on the Health Care Reform Bill. The run-up speeches in the House of Representatives were a crash-course in American polarization. Those opposed to the bill were vicious and unrelenting, those in favor were gushy and evangelistic. The Bill itself was neither here nor there, an ambiguous googly delivered by one of America's least huggable of Presidents. Since his election, there have been a rash of articles about President Obama's reserved public demeanour, as if this is an unusual quality to find in a head of state. The two previous Presidents, both of whom served two terms, were reflections of America's affective national character. Whether indrawn Obama will be voted into office a second time remains to be seen, but for now he is the stick-shift America sorely needs.

Ignorance Is...Kindle

New York's subways are the spotting ground for the world's latest entertainment gizmos. 2010 promises to be the year of the e-reader. Kindles and their ilk have begun showing up in the hands of subway commuters with increasing regularity. The technology is still new enough to turn heads. It must take heroic self-control to remain focussed on one's e-reader screen while half the subway car is peering over one's shoulder. Until now one could scope out fellow-commuters based on what they were reading. If predictions about e-reader usage prove to be accurate, it is likely that in a few years most subway passengers will be holding these slate-like devices that reveal nothing about the contents being displayed on them. The Roth-addict will be indistinguishable from the Coehlo-junkie. For many writers, present company included, this will be a God send. If there's no telling what an e-reader is displaying, it would be safe to assume that one's own book is being read on every e-reader in sight, including, some day, an e-reader at JFK's immigration counter.

The Delhi Anxiety

(Published in Mail Today, June 2008)

Walking through my city, Mumbai, on any given day, here are some sights I might typically encounter: slums, missing footpaths, minimal greenery, loads of people, and maybe the shooting of a film or soap opera.

Now compare this to what an average Delhi-based writer might stumble upon while riding through the Rajdhani: a semi-nude march against rising prices, or a candle-light vigil by Tibetan exiles, or thousands of poor and landless tribal farmers picketing for their rights.

If I were that writer in Delhi, I’d be grateful for such periodic and forceful reminders of how bad things truly are beyond the sedating confines of our urban enclaves. It would inspire me to know that I was just a walk or drive away from 10 Janpath and Parliament, where our hot and dusty nation’s destiny is charted, albeit in air-conditioned comfort. I wouldn’t have to travel the country to know what ails it. The nation’s beleaguered masses would converge at my doorstep, waiving their banners and yelling their slogans in a futile attempt to gain the Central Government’s precious attention. Being a writer in Delhi would, I imagine, lend my vocation gravitas; it would sharpen and authenticate my politics and prevent me from falling into the trap of frivolity and navel-gazing. I might even nurse the fantasy of being read by an MP or bureaucrat, and of my words subconsciously affecting the opinions of those shaping our national policies.

Alas, I am not a writer in Delhi. I am a writer stuck in Mumbai, where the only politics we know of are the sort played out every night at ten between the inmates of Big Boss. The biggest protest-march in Mumbai’s recent history was of MNS workers stoning business establishments that didn’t give precedence to Marathi on their signboards. It hurts to admit this about the city of my birth, but the cultural and political landscape of Mumbai is by and large petty and provincial. Presiding over our superficial middle-class lives is Bollywood’s gigantic silver-screen, ever-ready with its brain-dead plots and well-choreographed dance numbers to distract us from the gruesome realities of our city and our nation.

Delhiites, much as they may want to turn their faces away, often have no choice in witnessing first-hand the horrors and ironies of our fledgling post-colonial democracy. When I imagine a Delhi writer waiting for a VIP convoy to pass, and how the ensuing rage might feed that writer’s art, I am filled with an envy that has, over the years, turned into a full-fledged syndrome: Delhi Anxiety.

Delhi Anxiety is the sense of inferiority and worthlessness that our nation's capital engenders in writers who don't live in it. It is a purely imagined disorder, unverifiable and little known, and it increases in intensity the further one resides from the city of Gandhi topis and No Confidence Motions. As a born-and-brought-up denizen of steaming over-crowded Mumbai, and a long time sufferer of acute DA, I wish to catalog the malady's symptoms in the hope that someone – a Karol Bagh chaat-wala, for instance – might concoct a cure for this crippling affliction. Because as far as I can tell, short of moving to Delhi & NCR, there is no known cure for Delhi Anxiety.

I first became aware of DA after the publication of my debut novel. Like most first books, mine too was a barely-concealed fictionalization of the milieu I'd known since childhood. The chicken shop I was sent to for half-kilo broilers, the loud over-eating aunts I encountered in marriages, the abortionists' fliers I noticed during my train-rides to work - all these and more wormed their way into book one, which was, not surprisingly, marketed as a 'Mumbai novel'.

When it came to writing book two, I discovered within me an ambitiousness that was astonishing. I wished to write the next Truly Great Indian Novella. I wanted it to be the literary equivalent of our national anthem, a 'Mile Sur Mera-Tumhara' type of pot-boiler bound in hard-cover and selling for Rs. 495. I assumed that I had only to widen my canvas - from my city and its hinterland, to the staggering landmass demarcated by our squiggly national border. I never doubted my grasp over the nation's pulse. Why else did I read Tehelka and Outlook? Why else did I endure Aaj Tak and follow the dreary debates on NDTV? I knew our states; I'd encountered people from all over the country in the course of my life. I may not have traveled beyond 250 kilometers of Mumbai, but what the hell kind of novelist was I if I couldn't fib my way through Kolkata’s Kalighat and Hyderabad's Begumpet. The technicalities were still sketchy in my mind; all I knew was that book two would be tri-colored and big!

And then, soon after book one was launched, I visited Delhi for the first time and my world came crashing down.

My cocooned existence in politically stunted Mumbai had led me to believe that India’s nationhood was a fluke, and that there was no meeting ground between our nation’s unseen rulers and their subjects. In Delhi I stayed at my Malayalam editor's home and attended a Sindhi wedding and was introduced to people from Kolkotta and Hyderabad. I even ran into folks who remembered the Partition well enough to flinch at my Muslim name. I met at least one writer who claimed to be on phone-calling terms with a Cabinet Minister, and several other people – doctors, journalists, etc. – who seemed to possess a casual and intimate understanding of the workings of power. It was awe-inspiring and even a little intimidating to be among ordinary people who were, by necessity, forced to look the state machinery in the eye (even if, in the process, their knees knocked and their hands trembled). Delhi Anxiety knocked me out, and when Delhiites spoke, I found myself unable to argue. For what did I know? What did I really, really know?

I considered moving to the capital. The climate repelled me. The prospect of having to engage with national-level nitty-gritties, after decades of luxuriating in state-level trivialities, seemed too enormous to bother with. I may crave consequence as a writer. But as a citizen of a flawed democracy, I know all too well that one can’t be too close to the smoldering center without being occasionally scorched by it. My pan-Indian designs for book two have been tempered by a more realistic assessment of my abilities. Pending the Central Government’s relocation to Mumbai, I’ll have to make do with the MNS and its Marathi chauvinism.

B.E.S.T. & Worst

(Published in Time Out Magazine, April 2006)

Five rupees is a lot of money. Two weeks ago, I saved a lot of money when I rode ticket-less from Fountain to Cuffe Parade on bus number 138. 'Free hai, free hai!' the conductor said when I held out a tenner. What? Why? The conductor motioned me to move along. 'Ticket nai, free hai, free hai!' is all he would say. I sat down next to a middle-aged man. 'No ticket?' I asked delightedly. My fellow-passenger shrugged coldly. I looked around at the other deadpan faces. What was wrong with everyone? A free ride, in a city like this, was an occasion for joyous revelry!

As the bus pulled in at the next stop, I suppressed my chortles and watched the next lot of passengers clambering in, oblivious to the pleasant surprise awaiting them. A bumpkin-type became alarmed when the conductor refused to give him a ticket. Other passengers had to intervene and assure the panicky fellow that there really was no charge for this ride.

I looked out of the window. Our double-decker bus was now winding down Marine Drive. The city seemed more beautiful than usual. There was the sea glittering under the afternoon sun. I wanted to stick my head out and yell at passersby to hop on and enjoy this unprecedented gesture of municipal munificence.

The bus took a turn towards LIC. I restrained my over-excitement and tried to imagine some sane reason for this bonanza. Was the B.E.S.T. finally shutting shop? Was this free ride their swan song? Or had New Delhi taken mercy on Mumbai at last?

I looked around. The conductor was sitting in the opposite aisle, two seats behind me, enjoying the ride for once. This time I wouldn't take no for an answer. 'Free kayko hai?' I asked. My listless fellow passengers turned their heads perfunctorily. 'TV channel ney bhaadey pey liya,' the conductor replied. What channel? Which channel? The conductor named a popular Hindi TV channel and pointed to the front, where a twenty-something man was sitting in the seat behind the driver's. The chap was wearing a T-shirt and cap with the TV channel's logo. I knew that TV channel; was familiar with its imbecilic programs and its vociferous media campaigns. But this was a new low: bribing citizens with free bus rides in an attempt to earn our precious viewer-ship.

After the bus had pulled away from the Mantralaya stop, the TV channel stooge in T-shirt and cap stood up and addressed us passengers. He began talking about some soon-to-be-aired reality show. By then I had already rushed to the back of the moving bus. I stood on the exit platform for the rest of the journey, clutching a metal railing, swearing to get off, but never quite managing to.

Mumbai Spirit – R.I.P.

(Published in People Magazine, 1 December 2008, days after the Mumbai terror attacks)

My family’s first outing since bloody Wednesday was to a mall near our home. The place wasn’t as packed as other Saturday evenings. Yet, there were enough people around who, like us, needed the reassurance that normal life was still possible – something we’d begun to doubt since the mayhem began on Wednesday, and continued into Thursday, and even as we went to bed on Friday night, Saturday threatened to be no different (which, thankfully, it was). The food court, as usual, was the busiest place in the mall. As one looked on to the subdued crowd of couples, college students, and families with kids, one couldn’t help imagine what horror might ensue if someone rushed in and fired indiscriminately at the unsuspecting diners. Thoughts like these drain the joy from life. Yet, it is something we must live with from now on – with the probability of sudden and deadly intrusion into our most innocent and lovely moments.

The ‘spirit of Mumbai’ was first lauded during the floods of 2005. After the train blasts of 2006, it was exhumed, dusted like an old blanket, and waved about like a banner. Like some dependable old saint, the ‘spirit of Mumbai’ has repeatedly come to our rescue, calming our nerves, making us feel less stupid for allowing ourselves to be targeted and screwed-over and killed, again and again and again. Mumbai may be drowning, blasted out of its wits, and a sitting duck for every psychopath organization out to make its gruesome point, but at least we Mumbaikars have had the fortitude to keep working, to keep traveling and smiling no matter how many bodies we’ve had to step over to get to our destination. It’s no wonder that inept politicians and corrupt government officials have loved the ‘spirit of Mumbai’. Despite repeated instances of systemic corruption and official dereliction of duty, we’ve carried on, often without a choice, always with the cheerfulness of slaves.

Know what? This time the slaves are angry. They are truly, inconsolably, and immeasurably furious. And the god-damned spirit of Mumbai can shove it. While people like us were being systematically and cold-bloodedly butchered in other parts of our own city, the rest of us had to pack our lunches, pack into trains, and trudge to office, pretending like it was just another normal working day.

Past tragedies have made us experts of aftermaths. We know how to forget, how to move on. But this time, we were asked to do the impossible: we were told to disregard the evidence of our own senses. We could hear the gunshots and feel the explosions. We could see the plumes of smoke. We could smell the stench of rotting blood as we got off our trains. And every uniformed gun-toting policeman was a terrifying reminder of the battle unfolding just kilometers away.

The attack on Mumbai lasted long enough to make us despise our own resilience. If only we weren’t so well behaved; if only we weren’t so brave and hardworking and good. The whole of New York City stayed shut for days after 9/11. In most parts of Mumbai, life remained normal even during what is unimaginatively being called ‘India’s 9/11’. (Journalistic laziness has truly reached its nadir.)

People who claim that Mumbaikars have no choice but to get to work are underrating the affluence of our city. For every Dharavi-dwelling peon who would starve if he didn’t toil, there are at least a couple of moneyed merchants living in Breach Candy or Malabar Hill who could afford to live comfortably without ever getting out of their homes. It is on the shoulders of these affluent, privileged people – and make no mistake, there are hundreds of thousands of them in Mumbai – that the responsibility of our city’s well being truly lies. This time, by striking at the very playgrounds of rich Mumbai – the Taj Mahal Hotel and the Trident-Oberoi Hotel – the terrorists have embroiled the city’s high and mighty. These are people with contacts and financial muscle, and if they decide to, they can use their clout to force politicians to make this city safer not just for their own employees and business interests, but for all seventeen million of us.

The ‘spirit of Mumbai’ may as yet have a chance to break free from the stranglehold of cliché and to become an active force that can inspire the rest of the nation. Those of us directly unaffected ought to be no less enraged by the attack on our city. The important thing will be to keep our anger going until there are no further occasions when we must be praised for our so-called spirit.