The flawless facade of my Mumbai

It was a mundane Thursday, I remember. At 3 pm, Mumbai was on its routine course; in a couple of hours, a stream of people would rush out of their commercial spaces, roads would become non-traversable, and the trains would be packed with body mass of varied shapes and sizes, enough to prevent (in scientific terms) free molecular movement. 

I, on my part, was oddly enjoying a sabbatical from working at a news daily, and was on my way for a late lunch at a recently-opened brewpub The Barking Deer located in the city's now upcoming business district Lower Parel. Like most Mumbaikars, who believe in convenient, yet arduous commuting, I took the train from town side. Now, on such journeys, especially when they are short, I usually take to standing near the doors of the local and indulging myself in a little bit of sight-seeing. 

It is on this occasion that my eyes fell upon a dilapidated, moss-infested, stone-blocked, abandoned mill. I stared at it vacantly for a few breezy seconds, and allowed my mind to question what I had seen. Why did they shut down the mill, if only to abandon it? Who could possibly be in there? Is it guarded?

And then the train halted at Lower Parel station, I got down, my mind meandered and I forgot about it. I enjoyed my meaty lunch, visited my ex-colleagues and got back home. 

Next morning, an early morning call from a friend and an old colleague woke me up from my deep slumber. 

"Did you hear about the shocking gangrape in Mumbai?" she asked. "It is so sad, she was a journalist, like us. What's worse...It happened so close to our workplace in Lower Parel. It is so so scary," she continued.

Having deliberately shut myself from reading newspapers and watching news channels since the last few days, I was obviously clueless about the developments. "Oh S***! Where did it take place?" 

"Shakti Mills...that abandoned mill round the corner," she said.

My memory recreated the image of the mill, that had just yesterday, even if briefly, stirred in me a deep anxiety. The development certainly shocked me.  

That's how the news spread. From mouth to mouth, ear to ear, one home to another. Tweeters and Facebookers expressed distress. "Mumbai is unsafe for women," like a war cry, screamed its lungs out on my timeline and next-days newspapers. My mother was on loop, "What did I tell you about travelling alone in Mumbai?" The shock and dismay hasn't seized to pervade our lives. It won't for long. 

But am I 'very' surprised that it happened in my City? Apologetically, No.

Before spending over a decade in Mumbai, I lived in the city of Muscat in Oman.The city, which is only an-Arabian-sea away from Mumbai, is no Saudi Arabia. Women enjoy their freedom. They work, they drive cars, they shop, they travel, they take their long walks. But, often, they prefer being accompanied. Not because they believe it is unsafe. The city has no real reputation...all hearsay. So, possibly, it was just a norm. Having lived in such a protected environment for over 16 years, Mumbai became Las Vegas to me. 

This Indian metro, unlike other cities, enjoys a good reputation among its women folk. Many have not only taken this reputation for granted, but have believed in it, worn the facade like a badge on their chest, and lived it king size. When I came here in 2003, I got the taste of the freedom that this city had to offer. I could do my own thing, be myself, do chores alone; walk an isolated street at 11 pm in the night, without a terrible thought swinging in my head. All in all, I reveled in my newly-acquired freedom. 

But a sub-conscious alarm, always kicked in. Every time I heard someone say, "Mumbai is so safe, I can travel in the last local without having much to worry about," or mention, "Marine Drive is best to walk in the nights," I would fake agreement. I was at ease with my city, but would get goosebumps when I entered an empty ladies compartment in a local, and would rush to the general compartment for some self-assurance.   

In fact, just recently when a close female friend told me she would be coming over to my place in a cab late past 2 am, I had the most vexing time of my life until she reached home safe... not to mention her cellphone was unavailable. So, I possibly knew somewhere deep down, what I fervently believed, could not have been so true, so real, so bedecked in gold that it could never corrode. 

It is time we wake up to reality, not only women, but men too. We live in a city; we have the good, bad, ugly. The balance has never been retained, and this metro, of all places, is no blooming example of Marx's utopic living. Of course, we need to be shocked, but we also need to stop behaving like zombies, and stop reacting like it never happened. Mumbai has never been safe. If you read the newspapers carefully daily, you will find the story of a women, young girl, maid, daughter, sister or wife being raped and murdered, somewhere — often buried in a single column or a small box. It happens, yes it does. Let us accept it. We cannot live with it, is another fact. Sadly, it took us the gangrape of a photojournalist to realise this.         

I have one grouse. Our attitude. The convenience with which we label the city with negative adjectives, every time a ruthless and shameful crime slaps us in the face. Mumbai is growing by the day; its population has far exceeded the limits of law and order. And so, it is vulnerable. So stop the "shame Mumbai" campaign; stop branding the city as if it has always been the epitome of all righteousness; stop acting like we never knew fear. Who are we humouring? Ourselves, or those who live outside the limits of our city. 

No, I am not ashamed, shocked or embarrassed that it was my city, I am ashamed by the fact that my city is home to such horrible, fearless, demonic men. I am ashamed by the ruthlessness of the crime. I am saddened because it happened to one among us, and happens, everyday to many of us, in our so-called, presumed-to-be safe city. Some stay mum, some have the courage to come out like this young, brave 22-year-old. She opened our eyes to what prevails, and has been hidden in the glossy comforts of 'once upon a time in a safe haven called Mumbai'.   

          

The night that was their last

Synopsis: 

Forty years after two teenage lovers part ways, they are brought together under very unusual circumstances. The death of one brings the other back, only to revisit a past that is tormented by deception and a lie that has been hidden for far too long. The encounter with a six-month-old baby boy helps reveal a story that until then had never been told.

The short story has been shortlisted for the 2013 New Asian Writing Short Story Anthology. 

To read the story, click on the link below: 

http://www.new-asian-writing.com/2687/the-night-that-was-their-last-by-jane-borges/

To read my interview with New Asian Writing, visit the following link: 

http://www.new-asian-writing.com/naw-interview-with-jane-borges/

That drive to school...

The sky was still to open to the colour of time. A blanket of darkness had wrapped the early cold wintry morning and part of the town was still cocooned in the comfort of their beds. 

As the seconds hand of the clock ticked down and raised, from block to block the street lights slowly dimmed and the blackness grew paler, embedding itself in a dull shade of morning blue and grey. From within this fade, a pair of headlights emerged on the road, and the bus grew visible as it passed, solitary in its movement and alone at this hour. 

It hit the tarmac right across the building, with its ignition still on. The driver leaned out of the door, and then checked his watch. He continued the jittery to and fro movement for a few seconds, before he thrust his palm into the horn at the centre of the steering wheel. She hadn't come down from her flat as yet. After a flash of a minute, he horned again, and then looked straight up towards the balcony from where he was usually signaled to wait or leave. 

Another two minutes, he said to himself, and then he would leave. It was not like he wasn't used to this. The young girl always kept him waiting. He had been waiting for her for the last seven years, from when she was all of 5. But he blamed her less, and her parents more, for not being able to ready her for school on time. He couldn't wait for anyone this long, he had another bunch of children to pick up from across the town and drop to school by a sharp 6.30 am, before he started his second round. Yet, he waited, as he horned again. She would come, he knew. At least of all days, today. When she finally emerged from the entrance of her building some five minutes later, he smiled, relieved that it had not taken any longer, and that she had made it today.

Velu loved her, just like he loved his daughter, who was back home in the small village near Calicut in Kerala. She and her were of the same age, born only two days apart. It had been 10 years since he had seen his own daughter; circumstances as a school bus driver here, didn't help any better. The photographs his wife mailed him monthly, which he picked up from the postal office in Muscat, saw his daughter crawl, walk, talk and grow without knowing how her father looked like. He never sent photographs, and only restricted to weekly letters and monthly phone calls. He was afraid that his wife would worry at seeing him grey, wrinkle and thin in the dust of the desert in Oman. Velu wanted her to remember him as the man she had loved, and his daughter to know him as the handsomest father in the village as he had been, when she was born.    

Now, as he saw the 12-year-old girl approach his bus, he was reminded of how she compensated for all he had missed. He saw his daughter grow up through her eyes. Not to mention, how strikingly similar they looked. Their faces chubby and round, their skin a shade perfectly lighter than dark chocolate, eyes a deep black and hair pleated in a fashion only common to the two of them.  

"Velu uncle...," she mumbled as she entered the bus and sat behind the driver's seat, "I am sorry again. Tomorrow, I will wake up on time. Okay!" 

He smiled and started the bus. She was the only girl in the bus who referred to him as uncle, and not "driver" like the others reminded him as being.

"Don't sorry me Jaani. Next time, bus leave if you no come on time," he said, in broken English. 

The girl chortled, "Uncle...how many times should I tell you, my name is Jane, not Jaani."

"What to do...I can't say name like that. I so used to Jaani...now can't change."

"Okay," she said, and sat quietly.

All the children were dozing in the bus; to kill the silence, he played his favourite Yesudas track on the cassette player. Before he knew, a couple of them had woken up. "Not this song...please driver," they yelled. The girl was the only one who had the permission to head to the cassette player beside the driver's seat, and change the song with her own Backstreet Boys cassette. All the loneliness, has always been a friend of mine...

The song played, and lulled the children to sleep again. Though he did not understand the words, Velu loved the tune too, and would often deliberately put his native track, to get her to change it with his own. The Baackstreet Baays as he called them, helped him steer better. 

"Uncle, you like this song," she asked, in hushed tones.

"Ya...no tell anyone...ha. secret."   

"Okay, promise."

From tomorrow, he'd miss all this. He would not be able to speak to her, see her face, see her cry like she used to when she would enter the bus with a wound after having fallen on the playground, or see her smile as she had when she won those elocution competitions or scored full marks in a paper. An Omani driver, who for the last one month had been accompanying Velu on his pick up/drop trips, would take over. Velu had to break this to her, not like he thought she'd care. But she would have to come on time, or else, the Omani driver would leave. Having observed her delay, the local man had already warned Velu.

"Jaani...from tomorrow, sharp 5.55 am down okay."

"Yes uncle, I said I would come on time," she retorted quickly.

"No...I no there from tomorrow. Another uncle...he Omani. He no time for you, he no wait," he said.

"Why? Where are you going?"

"I don't know. May be I go home to Kerala."

"But why?" she asked again, dissatisfied.

"Omani Government ask all driver leave Muscat...so now, I pack up. My job finish."

"That is not right. The government is so unfair," she said, with the maturity of a teenager, though she still wasn't one.

"Ya. What to do?"

The conversation took a break from there, silence blanketing their fear of the unknown. Nobody spoke, not he, nor she. She stared right through the window, ruing as she watched the sun soak the sky, while he looked straight as he saw the school draw closer and closer. When they arrived, she was the last to get down, as if purposely halting her stay.

Before getting up from her seat, she asked, "Will you come to drop us today, or will we have that Omani driver?"

"Call him uncle," Velu said, immediately.

"No, I know only one driver uncle...Velu uncle."

His lips curved into a half-smile, not knowing what to say, as if a lump had stuck in his throat.

"Are you coming to pick us up today?"

"No. I going Kerala today." 

"Okay," she said curtly, and walked out of the bus, without another word. Velu watched her leave. Not a bye, not a thank you. He did not expect any of it. But he wished it had never ended, all so abruptly. 

Soon he would be with his daughter, and Jaani would be only a memory. Unlike his daughter, she wouldn't write to him or send photographs. This was the last vision he had to hold on to, the last sight of the girl. With these thoughts, running through his mind, he started the ignition to move the bus forward, the vehicle jerked as he veered it to the right, and from Jaani's seat, he heard something fall. He looked down. Below, was his favourite Backstreet Boys audio cassette.  

Dedicated to my school bus driver, Velu...A victim, or should I say, one of the handful, who fell prey to Omanisation 

What is Omanisation? 
(http://www.omanet.om/english/misc/omanise.asp)

       

Dreaming monsoon

I dreamt about you today,

My face flushed in sleep,

With the thought that you sprayed,

And on dry ground you weeped.

The earth's been parched and dry is the grass,

Man's temple dotted in sweaty beads,

We endured so long, this humid to pass,

And few even tilled the land till you paid heed. 

And now, before my eyes you lay,
In the sky a dull grey heavy mass supreme, 

I stare in awe a conscious sway,

As you unburden yourself, to sprinkle alive a dream. 

I dreamt about you today,

Your sight it made me leap,

How you parted the skies and wet'ted' both land and bay,  

before you washed the ocean deep.

The dilemma of fairy tales: To believe or not to…

Ask me what I'm most smug about and pat comes my reply, my parents' "unimaginably true love story". 

A boy of 12, falling in love with a girl of eight, only to be snubbed by her throughout school life. At the age of 25 (during a visit with friends to Mount Mary in Bandra) — when he's still holding on to those beautiful memories of how she once sashayed into the school exam hall, borrowed his expensive Parker for the paper, and unconsciously put its cap into her mouth — he's startled by her presence.  
"Johnny," she says, "After such a long time?" 
"Err...Sandra," he asks, shocked, but not once surprised at what youth had done to the geeky teenager he still loved from school.
"Wow, you've grown into a handsome young man," she says.
He stuttered nervously, "Err..uhh...well...Thanks," wishing he had the courage to say the very same words to her.
That was 29 years ago. Today, they are married with three kids, and a house, they've so meticulously worked on, to make it "their home." Their's is a fairy tale — one which could undoubtedly begin with a "Once upon a time," and end with an "And they lived happily ever after." 

I've grown up listening to this fairy tale, or so believing in it, cause it played right in front of my eyes and I knew how beautiful it was. So, I would be lying if I hadn't expectantly waited for my very own little love story. 

At the cost of being mocked at and being made to look like a fool, I continued being this so called "believer," who waited for her "Mr Right" — that Knight in shining Armour (so much so that I also wrote two poems on it http://www.janeborges9.blogspot.in/2010/08/one-of-them-is-in-love-with-you.html) —  who blew her heart away (Yes, I can be very corny or mawkishly sentimental as dictionary.com puts it subtly). 
I was teased for being single, with one saying, "you will end up like an old hag, rotting at your office desk, till a good old 60" and the other saying, "you just don't look enough... why don't you keep your eyes open when you walk;" or my mother telling me every time she came from church. "I prayed that you find the right man, who keeps you happy and blaah, blaah, blaah, blaah". Trust me, none of these dampened my spirits. 

Then, one day something happened... no, not the love story... like how I had imagined. 
But even as a new hope has spooled in everyone's heart, except mine...I am reminded of my father — he still has that Parker pen, and guess what, it hasn't been washed or used since then.