A few favourites and a few complaints in and about Mumbai

I spent two months in Mumbai and I think I'm now in a comfortable position to talk about what I liked and what I didn't like in and about the city.

First, the favorites. These are in no particular order.

1. Mani Bhavan: Mani Bhavan served as Gandhi's residence in Mumbai from 1917 to 1934 and it plays a very significant role in the independence struggle. See here to know more. Mani Bhavan is today, a tourist attraction, mostly visited by foreigners. Indians who are attracted to this place are scholars and researchers, thanks to its collection of over 40000 books in the library. The library is housed on the ground floor. The first and second floors house some of the rare photographs of important historical events of Gandhi's time, Gandhi's room, quotes from and about Gandhi and the beautiful miniature figures depicting Gandhi's life. To me, Mani Bhavan's library, its interiors, the exhibition and the thick greenery along the road has been very refreshing every time I've visited the place.

2. Prithvi theatre and the NCPA: As someone very fond of watching plays, I've always wanted to go to Prithvi theatre. As a frequent visitor to Rangashankara in Bangalore, I couldn't help compare the two when I watched my first play in Prithvi and to my surprise, Rangashankara beats Prithvi! Rangashankara houses a bigger stage and a much better seating arrangement, it's probably double the size of Prithvi and its cafe is more spacious and better maintained. In the cafe, I once found Shashi Kapoor, the founder of Prithvi on a wheel chair, barely being able to understand what's going on around him while people were busy taking selfies with full co-operation from his assistant. While I initially felt terrible, after a few moments, I wondered if all the attention he gets does make him happy. Even if it does, does it give anybody the right to take a picture without his permission and post it on facebook? I don't know. All I know is that I left the place with discomfort.

The NCPA (National Centre for the Performing arts) houses multiple theatres and is much more sophisticated compared to Rangashankara and Prithvi. One reason I'm jealous of theatre enthusiasts in Mumbai is that they get to see performances by some of the finest Hindi actors. I was surprised to see that there are quite a few actors who despite being active in Bollywood, continue to direct and perform plays. After watching a play written and performed by Pankaj Kapoor and a play directed and performed by Naseeruddin Shah during my short stay in Mumbai, I haven't been able to decide who's luckier - Me or the theatre buffs in Mumbai.

3. Fort: I fell in love with South Bombay, specially the Fort area. Most of my time on weekends were spent here. I even stayed in the fort area for four days. There's something really nice about this region around Church Gate, the Oval, flora fountain, the book stalls on the pavements, the cafes, the museums, all those by-lanes and the road that takes you to Victoria Terminus. Just like how I've never been able to explain to anyone why I like Church street, St Marks Road, Vittal Mallya Road and the entire area in and around the Cubbon park in Bangalore, I'll probably not be able to explain why I like Fort so much. 

Mahesh Lunch Home at Fort deserves a special mention. Every time I've been to Fort, I've had lunch at Mahesh Lunch Home, although there were so many other options available. I don't know if it was just because of the awesome sea food or if it was because of the people who work there, most of them from coastal Karnataka. After half a dozen visits, they started treating me like I've gone to their home for lunch, which probably nudged me to visit them half a dozen times more. I've been to the one in Juhu too, but the one in Fort is my favorite. 

4. Marine Drive on Sunday mornings: I'm not denying that Marine Drive is beautiful on evenings, but I like it more on Sunday mornings. I probably like the crowd better. A walk or a run on Marine drive is one of the nicest ways to start your Sunday if you don't stay too far. I like how places like Marine Drive so visibly destroy class apartheid. There's no way you can enjoy special privileges there no matter how rich you are!

5. Sewri mudflats: How often do you get the luxury of seeing thousands of flamingos and other birds in the heart of a city!? And the fact that the folks from Bombay Natural History Society often arrange a birding tour to this place also gives you the option of using their binoculars and telescopes to get an excellent view of these beautiful species along with some education on these birds and their behavior if you are a novice. Ideally, you should reach there by 6 30 a.m and stay till 9. As the tides rise, the birds move closer and closer to you, so much that at some point, you don't even need binoculars. Some pictures here. Apparently, these mudflats aren't the only place where you can see flamingos in Mumbai. 

6. Rickshawalas: I haven't had one bad experience with Rickshawalas in Mumbai. This is one area where Mumbai beats Bangalore hands down. It took me a little while to get used to arrogance of these guys here in Bangalore after I returned.

And now, a few complaints, again, in no particular order.

1. The scarcity of real breakfast: I now understand the value of having Sukh Sagars, Shanti Sagars and Darshinis every 200 meters here in Bangalore. These are places where you get real breakfast. I'm a big fan of South Indian breakfast and I wish I could convince people in Mumbai that Vada Pav, Burji Pav, Misal Pav and God-knows-what Pav aren't breakfasts! And the unavailability of filter coffee sucks. I've had situations where waiters didn't even know what filter coffee is.

2. The lack of participation by renowned corporates in solving city's problems: I'm willing to stand corrected here, but I don't see prominent people from Mumbai participating in city administration. If you have lived in Bangalore, you often see renowned folks from corporate world coming together and engaging with Government and urban reform agencies to help them through their expertise and aid. I see this missing in Mumbai. If you are wondering what I'm talking about, you should read about BPAC. In a city where 60% of the population lives in slums, public-private partnerships to tackle urban issues might help a lot. But somehow it feels like the rich and influential are indifferent towards city's problems.

3, Weather: I've nothing to say about this. 

The Mahatma and the Poet

  Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore, arguably two of the greatest Indians, were friends. Evidences of them saying nice things about each other and recognizing each other's importance for the country are easily available and one may read the book "The Mahatma and the Poet", a compilation of letters and debates between Gandhi and Tagore, to be acquainted with their mutual admiration for each other. But that's not why one should read this book. The friendship between Gandhi and Tagore wasn't just based on mutual admiration. They had serious disagreements about various political, social and economic issues and neither of them hesitated to be vocal about their opinions.

  The arguments and criticisms by Tagore were on very important issues. While a few were on large philosophical issues, a few were on issues of immediate concern for the country. By 1917-18, Gandhi was already a national figure. Gandhi's ability to mobilize hundreds of thousands of Indians for the independence struggle could clearly be seen during the non-cooperation movement of 1920-21. When Gandhi's Satyagraha became popular, Tagore criticized politicians who mindlessly used Satyagraha for politics. Tagore argued that their "minds were corroded by untruth, they cannot understand what an important thing it is that the Mahatma's supreme love should have drawn forth the country's love". Tagore believed that they had converted Gandhi's message into a "mindless mantra". Gandhi's call to boycott government schools when those were the only option available for children was also severely criticized by Tagore. Tagore was also skeptical of the burning of foreign cloth and advocacy of Charkha as the solution to India's problems. Also, Tagore famously criticized Gandhi's tendency to view everything that's western with severest skepticism. In one of the letters, Tagore tries to convince Gandhi to give up his fast for the sake of larger issues and in another letter, Tagore expresses his shock and displeasure over Gandhi describing the Bihar earthquake of 1934 as God's chastisement of upper-caste Hindus for their oppression of Harijans. While most of Tagore's letters to Gandhi on these issues were translated and published in a Calcutta magazine called Modern Review, Gandhi published his responses in Young India, a magazine that he ran from 1919 to 1932. 

  Thanks to Dr Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, former Vice-Chancellor at Visva-Bharati, Shantiniketan, all these exchanges between the two greats are available in this book, with a nice introduction by the editor . I mentioned earlier that this book isn't supposed to be read just to understand and appreciate the mutual admiration between Gandhi and Tagore. In my view, the book needs to be read to understand how one can put forth one's argument or criticize an opponent's views or actions, however strongly one wants to, without being disrespectful or abusive, without dismissing or disregarding the opponent's point of view. Needless to say, twitter trolls, journalists who shout at the top of their voice, and politicians who hurl abuses at each other everyday have a lot to learn from this book. Moreover, the eloquence with which the letters are written by both these men makes "The Mahatma and the Poet", a thoroughly enjoyable book.

Mumbai local

I had two pick one - To pay for the office bus or to buy a Mumbai local monthly pass. My relatives here in Mumbai wanted me to travel by bus. They scared the hell out of me and tried their best to help me visualize how before I make out which train to get on, people would push me from all sides and sometimes might even step on me while making way for themselves. I decided to give it a try and my experience on day one was not very different from what they told me. I had to get my priorities right. I first tried to make sure nobody stamps on my feet, only to realize in a couple of seconds that making sure nobody's underarm becomes a nightmare for my nostrils was more important.

Having been extremely lucky to have my office situated less than half a kilometer away and with most of my friends staying close to my place, Bangalore had pampered me so much that my intolerance level for the crowd, dust and traffic was at its all time high. Also as app based taxi services proved to be ridiculously convenient, I shamelessly started looking for excuses to not use public transport. And here in Mumbai, after a frustrating first day, I decided to give it a couple of more attempts and guess what, by the third day, I not only got used to it, but started liking the experience! After finding out the ideal time to leave home and office to ditch the crowd, most of my reading started happening on trains. Sometimes I manage to work too. And on those bad days when I can barely manage to move, I know for sure that unlike in Bangalore traffic, I'm at least fairly certain about when I'm going to reach and that is comforting. And when I look into the eyes of any random guy on the platform after I get off the train and they tell me "I know. I went through it as well. Now let's move on", I vow to take the train the next day too. What a spoilt brat I am though!

Time to be back

There was a time when this blog saw a minimum of one post a month. This went on for a couple of years, so although I wrote much lesser later, the blog had close to a hundred posts. However, recently, I deleted most of them and retained only a handful of posts because I found most of them either silly or pointless or badly written. A sign of growing up?

Last year, I almost stopped writing, partly because I was occupied with everything that fetches me marks in my college and mostly because of my laziness. I think it's time to get back. There's so much to write about, rant about. A close friend of mine incidentally told me, "I really used to enjoy reading your blog". Also, I was checking traffic stats on my previous posts and it was encouraging. So, watch this space, dear readers!

26

I turned 26 last Saturday. It's nice when the birthday happens to be on a Saturday but I couldn't reap the obvious benefits of it since some work came up and I had to get up early the next morning. As it happens every year, I got a lot of attention and I enjoyed every bit of it. A couple of new friends I've made this year were very sweet and after a lot of brainstorming, came up with some nice gifts for me.

This year has been very different from the last few years. For about first half of the year, I was unemployed and spent my time doing random things like teaching kids at a school, writing for a startup, travelling, spending hours together reading at the Central Library and at Koshy's or Indian Coffee House. And then in July, I entered into a completely new world. I joined a B school, thinking of systematically learning what I had been casually reading. More importantly, I thought it was going to be exciting to be among the folks with similar interests, creating an environment conducive for such learning.

However, I was in for a surprise. Conversations that I heard the most were on the lines of "He's so hot", "She's sexy", "I've heard he's rich", "Have you started watching season 5 of game of thrones?",  " I was so high last night". This annoying list is endless. As someone who joined a B school expecting peer to peer learning on economics, on the global economic scenarios along with basics of everything that a business leader should know, what I was introduced to, to mention a few, were David Guetta, pubs in Bangalore I had never been to because they play loud music and I prefer having comfortable conversations, gym and body builders that I had always stayed away from and folks who just need a reason to start dancing with an invisible placard that says "Please look at me". Looking at the kind of relationships, friendships, interests and attitude, I've lost count of the number of times I've felt like an old guy. In fact with a lot of fresh college graduates around, folks who are 3-4 years younger to me, I've struggled to have a normal conversation, may be because most of my friends that I had made earlier are either much older than me or are too matured for their age. After much struggle, I've come to terms with the fact that we all have our priorities although we are doing the same course.

It isn't all that bad though. I have a fantastic professor who has not only been a great mentor but is very inspirational. I also met a few guys, my roommate being one of them, who seemed to be interested in the kind of learning that I was looking for. We started conducting peer to peer learning sessions and were delighted to see a very positive response. I've also made a few good friends for life . A  rich curriculum and an experienced set of professors has been another positive aspect, although I wish there was more focus on research work and case studies by cutting short the number of hours spent on classroom teaching.

After I started doing my MBA, my mentor for bird-watching is disappointed that I don't recognise a lot of birds that I used to, my mom is upset that I don't call her often, my friends and relatives complain that they don't see me ever,  I've been reading lesser number of books, I've missed out on some plays that I wanted to watch, I've booked jungle guest houses and have cancelled them multiple times and except for a trip to Goa, Pondicherry and a couple of trips to Mysore, I haven't travelled. Also, I've almost stopped writing. Only time will tell if this was all worth it.

How can I end this ritual of annual writing without mentioning the books that I read this year! Here we go -

1. And then One Day - Naseeruddin Shah (Special mention : This is the book that made me watch some brilliant movies like Nishaant, Manthan, Ankur, Bhoomika and other Shyam Benegal classics that had an outstanding set of actors)
2. Restart - Mihir S Sharma
3. Gandhi before India - Ramachandra Guha
4. Nehru - A contemperory's estimate - Walter Crocker
5. Makers of Modern India - Ramachandra Guha
6. Wealth and Power - Orville Schell and John Delury
7. Ambedkar's World - Eleanor Zelliot
8. Karvalo - Poornachandra Tejaswi
9. Mahapalayana - Poornachandra Tejaswi
10. The Fault lines - Raghuram Rajan (incomplete)
11. The world of fatwas - Arun Shourie (incomplete)

Looking forward for the new year!

An open letter to Arvind Kejriwal

Dear Arvind,

Hope you are doing well. Hope you have had a good start (or restart) in Delhi and hope your government will live upto the expectations of the people of Delhi who have given you and your party, such a massive mandate. Obviously, they expect you to do exceedingly well. As a well-wisher and supporter of AAP, I wish you and your government the very best.

This letter of mine has nothing to do with your government in Delhi. I write this as someone who is not from Delhi, but an admirer and supporter of AAP. When AAP was founded, like any other newly formed party, it had nothing to showcase. It only had some things to offer and a lot of us who believed cleaning up of politics is important, who thought we need leaders who are incorruptible, who thought that there is a need for greater transparency in the functioning of governments, who lamented at the lack of transparency in funding of political parties were impressed by AAP's ideology. I personally believe that until recently, AAP stood up to most of our expectations when it comes to sticking to its ideology. However, unfortunately, during the fight to win Delhi elections, I started noticing a gradual dilution of the principles on which AAP was formed.

There were several allegations. To name a few, there were allegations regarding stocking of liquor by one of your candidates, some reports raised doubts on the background of some of your candidates, there has been an allegation that one of your candidates who is now a minister has a fake law degree and there was also a question of funding from 'shell companies'. Unfortunately, except in the case of allegations regarding funding, where your leaders did give a reasonable explanation, AAP's leaders seemed to be showing strange reluctance to come up with convincing answers to these allegations. Since the focus was more on elections back then and the other parties seemed to be facing bigger problems, these issues and the gradual deviation from the AAP's founding ideology  didn't seem to draw too much attention.

While I was hoping that at least after the elections, you all would ponder over the dilution of principles, you didn't seem to bother. It looked like just because you won handsomely, you believed that there's no need to look back at your mistakes. However, it was slightly relieving to notice that a couple of senior leaders in the party seemed to realize that there is a need to fix certain things. In the letters that came out, there was clearly an admission of loopholes and rightly so, there were concerns raised on the functioning of the party. Unfortunately, this is being projected only as "rift" within the party. Yes, there could be personal ego, political ambitions and insecurity involved which only you all can find solutions for between yourselves. As an AAP supporter, I'm not particularly bothered about the infighting, but I'm definitely bothered about the questions that have been raised by Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan.

Let us assume that these two leaders do have some personal enmity against you as your supporters seem to be suggesting. Let us also assume, though it's hard to believe, that these two worked against your party in the Delhi elections. How does it have anything to do with the concerns they have raised? In the most recent letter whose authenticity isn't being questioned by anyone (here is the letter), the demands of Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan have been quite reasonable. What's alarming is that none of the leaders who are supporting you have been agreeing that these are valid demands. The demands, if met, will try to bring more opinions on board while important decisions are taken in the party and will thus help encouraging internal democracy, will help the party to be more vigilant so that unethical behaviour is prevented and the code of conduct of office bearers is monitored, will help bring in greater transparency in the functioning of the party and will try to bring back the party to its core ideology which the party seems to be deviating from recently.

Shouldn't all these concerns have been your concerns too? You might agree or not agree on the solutions that have been proposed in the letter, but as the national convener of the party, do you agree that the issues raised deserve attention? If you think you should be more worried about governing Delhi now, isn't it your responsibility to instruct or assist others to address these issues? It is shocking that you are trying to stay away from this and the leaders who are unconditionally supporting you and want the dissent voices out of the party have reduced this to a personal fight and are conveniently ignoring the issues that have been raised.

Like I said earlier, as a party, AAP had nothing to showcase as its achievements. Yet, the people trusted you. They believed that your intentions were good. They believed that you would stick to your ideology. They gave you 28 seats in the very first election you contested. Even after you were badly defeated in the general elections and it was so easy to get demotivated, the volunteers stood by you. Now by behaving as if the governance in Delhi is all that matters, you are letting down all those volunteers and supporters who stood with AAP because of the principles it claimed to stick to. Please understand that it is your duty to address the issues that have been raised. You have always claimed that AAP is not like any other party. Unfortunately, now it looks like all that matters to you is the victory in elections.

The issues that have been raised by Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan are the issues that have also been bothering thousands of volunteers who worked for your party. These are not baseless accusitions by a rival group. These are issues that have been raised by AAP's own leaders who have had high credibility so far. Can we please expect you to shed your arrogance and address these issues? If the allegations aren't true, can you please come up with convincing explanations? Would you please stop letting the volunteers down? Will you please speak?

With Regards,

An AAP supporter

Shed your arrogance right now!

     This happened a few months ago, when “Modi wave” was at its peak. The BJP had just won handsomely and the country was eagerly looking forward for some good governance by the newly formed government alias “PM Modi” at the Center. Meanwhile, I read a news report saying the CAG had slammed Modi and government of Gujarat for “mismanagement of state’s financial resources” and unduly favouring Ambani and Adani (Read the report here). Then I asked a very good friend of mine, if this was Kejriwal’s “I told you so" moment. He in turn asked me “Who is Kejriwal!?”. This was my first personal encounter of arrogance exhibited by a well-educated Modi supporter after the elections. He went on to question the infighting and alleged lack of democracy in AAP and he seemed to indicate that he was convinced of AAP’s decimation. The alleged one-man-show in AAP, if true, was indeed a matter of concern, as much as disenchantment among its workers and leaders. However, I thought it was unfair to write them off and even worse to mock them for their poor performance in general elections without even looking back at how the first timers had performed earlier and forgetting that there was a huge wave which swept away almost every single party that contested elections.

    The arrogance of a lot of BJP supporters only kept growing from there, with AAP not being the only victim. It was fine though, but only until the folks in government too followed the same path. Every time the opposition created ruckus in parliament over certain issues, the minister for parliamentary affairs kept saying something like – “The people have given us this huge mandate, we need not listen to you”, so did a few BJP MPs, some of them repeatedly mentioning the number of seats the congress had got in the election followed by a round of applause from their friends. The PM, though initially did showed some signs of an intention to take everyone along, hardly attended the parliament session even when he was in the country. He was rarely present during debates and it wasn’t very easy for the opposition to make him speak about the controversies that were making news everywhere.  In fact, the controversies were very serious. A central minister had made a horrible remark in an election rally, a MP was allegedly willing to preside over a mass conversion programme in UP, another MP announced that Godse was a patriot and although these controversies were impacting the functioning of Parliament, the government didn’t seem to be bothered. The minister wasn’t asked to go and was instead sent again to campaign for the party, the behaviour of those MPs was neither strongly condemned nor were the MPs publicly warned. The Godse-admirer went on to decide the number of children that each woman of this country should give birth to. While some reports said the BJP did serve him a notice, he not only dismissed them as untrue but also asked the reporters – “Ye hamaare ghar ka maamla hai. Aap media waalon ko kya lena dena?” There have also been talks of building temples for Godse. The Prime Minister who never misses an opportunity to invoke Gandhi’s name to sell his ideas, didn’t find it necessary to openly condemn this. All we heard is that the “internal sources” say that he is upset. Does he or his party expect the people of this country to understand that their PM is upset, even if he doesn’t utter a word? The HRD ministry headed by a TV actress has been in news only for wrong reasons so far. Well educated and qualified folks have been resigning from their posts, allegedly due to her display of high-handedness and interference. The PM doesn’t seem to understand the importance of a good HRD ministry in a country like India where people under 30 are in majority. The government, with an exception of the Finance Minister probably, doesn’t seem to entertain questions from media and public. The Prime Minister’s idea of connecting with people is to address them through radio and podium. I would put all these under one umbrella – the arrogance.

    As far as Delhi elections were concerned, despite a strong “Modi wave”, the BJP kept running away and when the elections were finally announced, right from day one of their campaigning, they never failed to exhibit their arrogance. From abusive radio ads and posters to the PM himself calling Kejriwal a “naxalite” and asking him to go to jungle, their whole idea of campaigning was to make personal attacks. Their chief ministerial candidate followed her party’s style by asking Kejriwal to join BJP if he wanted an invitation for the Republic Day Celebrations. Yogendra Yadav, when asked about AAP’s successful campaign replied that BJP helped them a lot. He was probably right. The BJP underestimated people’s intolerance towards the arrogance of those in power, the negative campaign and personal attacks on a leader and a party to whom they gave 28 seats in the very first election the party contested. Although it looks like AAP would have won Delhi elections anyway, I think if the BJP government at the Centre and the party’s Delhi unit hadn’t been so arrogant, the loss wouldn’t have been so bad. The party’s high command was so blind-folded by its dictatorial tendency that it thought it was absolutely fine to bring in an outsider and an opportunist at the last moment and project her as a chief ministerial candidate. It failed to understand that the loyal party workers and leaders could be silenced but not supressed. If they decide, they can cause some real damage to their own party. I’m not claiming that is what happened in Delhi. I’m only saying, that could have happened.

    AAP’s astounding victory has made me nervous. To my relief, Kejriwal’s very first address to his volunteers seemed to recognize the ill-effects of arrogance of power. However, I’m still nervous. The country is going to watch Delhi closely.  Hope “Janta Ka CM” will be careful not to commit the same mistakes that his party convincingly defeated did. My personal wish is that Yogendra Yadav should guide the party and Kejriwal and other MLAs should listen to people like him. The BJP too should learn its lessons quickly. Fortunately for them, the jolt has come quite early in their period.  Hope they wake up soon!