The Child at Footpath Near Metro Site

We Mumbaikars will get our own Metro Rail very soon. Versova to Ghatkoper which takes nearly two hours will be achievable in 22 minutes. So the distance between them would be reduced. You might think I am talking nonsense but its a fact that in Mumbai we measure distance in minutes and hours not in kilometres and metres. Still if you dont believe me ask any guy from Mumbai how far is Dadar from Andheri? He will say in all probability, "Twenty five minutes by train." You ask again, "No, tell me how many kilometres it is.?" He will scratch his head and realise that he doesnt have an answer forsuch a simple question. 

Myself being a true Mumbaikar face lots of problems when I go to some other city. "How far is Qutub Minar from Malviya nagar?" I ask someone in Delhi. The pedestrian replies, "Seven kilometers." and walks away. Now I scratch my head. It would have been better if Mumbai would have used distance as a unit of distance and not time as a unit of distance.

Coming back to Mumbai Metro. The construction of Metro has shortened the width of already narrow roads of Mumbai by half. Everywhere we see signboards saying, "Please bear with us for a better tomorrow". I have been reading such signs since childhood. That tomorrow has never come. I feel myself lucky that Bandra-Worli sealink got completed before i turned seventy. 

The traffic was already bad on the roads on which Metro is planned. Now you cut the width to less than half and you have a nightmare. This is what roads in hell would be like I feel. 

I was on my bike with my brother passing through such a road. It was a Sunday afternoon, still there was bumper to bumper traffic. After waiting on a red light for some time I saw a few people on the footpath. Beggars, hawkers, flower sellers and a few street children. I have seen one thing about street children. They all have brown hair. Staying in such strong sunlight for so long has changed their hair colour. The Metro will provide them some shade atleast.

I also saw a small child sitting on the footpath. He was no more than a year old. Even he had brown hair. He was eating a fruit, probably a guava. He was relishing it. There was so much innocence on his face. I have seen many one year old kids. No one would have eaten a guava on their own. Probably it was the first and only meal of his day. The fruit fell off his hands and got mixed with mud. The child picked that up and was eating the mud mixed fruit with same relish. He probably doesnt know what taste is. The option he has is not of whether there is tasty food or bland food, but whether there is food or not.

I was thinking what will he become when he grows up? This innocent child didnt know what life has in store for him. He will be forced to beg. If he is lucky he will sell balloons or flowers. People will abuse him, big street children will beat him and take his hard earned money.

Who knows he is already earning. Maybe his mother starves him  and begs when he cries to get more alms.

The signal turned green, I kickstarted my bike and moved towards home . I was not able to stop my eyes from looking at that child. I realised that if I wont look in front, I might meet an accident. I focussed my vision on the road and drove away.

How shameless and helpless I felt at the same time!

TATA NANO : FIRST LOOK!

One of my colleagues told me today that NANO is on display in the mall opposite to the office building. He couldn't even finish his sentence and already five of us were on our way to the mall. Everyone wanted to see what exactly is TATA NANO.

I have seen the reaction of people when they see a new born baby of a freind or a relative. That reaction cannot be explained in words. The reaction of people around NANO was starkingly similiar to that. Yes, it is true NANO is India's baby. Just like relatives of a new born baby try to match its feature within the kin, people were doing the same with our baby NANO. "It looks like Zen Estilo from a distance", "The back is just like Indica", "The centre console is like Spark"

An autorickshaw comes for a price of around one and a half lakh. Pulling out a real car in that amount is really a miracle that TATAs have performed.

You will fall instantly in love with this machine the moment you will see it. It is definitely the most cutest car available in the market. The cute headlights. The baby bonnet. The aerodynamic wedges in the rear doors. The tall height. The space ship style front seats. Oh my God! I have fallen in love it seems! This car would have sold for 3 lakhs only for its looks, but giving it away for half that price is charity it seems.

This is a rear-engined car. So the bonnet doesnt have the engine. Something we are used to seeing since we remember cars. The bonnet holds the stepny tyre which is another innovation. One more difference from conventional cars is that there is no petrol filler caps on either side. The petrol is filled in a pipe inside the bonnet. It will be quite a nice scene to see petrol being filled in the bonnet of a car in our petrol pumps.

The car is surprisingy spacious. Two adults can comfortably sit in the rear seats. Even three people were able to sit quite comfortably inside. Autorickshaws are supposed to seat three people and NANO definitely has more space than them. Not only there is ample space inside the car considering its size, but its amazingly comfortable.  

The front seats have a very futuristic shape even though they are very thin compared to other cars. But they looked sturdy and definitely helped in saving space in the car. The view of the road looked very clear from the driver side. The large pockets provided on the dashboard on the driver and passenger side to keep everyday luggage like grocery bags, school back-packs etc. were really admirable. The cluster meter is in the centre so that every one seated in the car can see the speed on which car is going. This will be a pain to husbands, as their wives will keep on nagging them "Oh God! Why are you racing so much? Slow down. You are driving a NANO not a Ferrari."  

I had seen the bonnet, so wanted to check the boot of the car too. I kept on looking for the boot lever but couldnt find it anywhere. I thought that the boot must be opening with a key, so got down off the car confirm it. But there was no keyhole in the boot. I checked the front seats thoroughly again. I saw that the battery was fitted below the driver seat. (Jumpstarting NANO in case of battery discharge would be a pain). The tool kit was fixed below the front passenger seat. These space saving innovations deserve a salute to the TATA engineers. But still I couldnt locate the boot lever.

I sat on the rear seats for some inspiration. I saw a small plastic loop on the far top right side of the seats. I saw a similiar loop on the left side. I told one of the observer to pull the loop on the left side while I pulled the right side. VOILA, the seats folded and we saw a small boot below the parcel tray. I dont think there are many cars in the world with such a procedure to open the boot.

This kind of boot is definitely cost saving but has some serious disadvantages. In case of an accident, the denting of the dicky panel will be very difficult as there are no dicky lifters which open it an enable working on it. The dicky panel would be needed to cut out and then repaired. For fitting it back welding would be required. This will make the finishing pathetic and every NANO with even a slight rear damage will have to lose the original company seals which is a big let down. 

Now for some more negatives:

1. The quality of plastic used is very cheap. "Made in China" toys use better plastic. The head light lever and wiper lever looked as if they will break with slightest of forces. 

2. There is no glovebox. Where will the owners keep their car papers?

3. Tyres are too small. Slighty bigger tyres were desired.

4. The speakers looked odd and seriously out of place on the dashboard.

5. My left knee touched the dashboard while pressing the clutch. This problem will be faced by tall people who have the habit of reclining the seat ahead.

I have still not driven this car so cannot comment on the pickup, clutching, braking, suspension, A/C etc. Will try to test drive it soon.

All said and done. Nano is definitely the most amazing car to be launched in our times. Making something like this at such a cheap price is a big achievement for the TATA Motors and for our nation as well. This car will revolutionalise the Indian automobile market (Two wheeler and Used Car included) and to some extent the International market as well.

Thanks, Mr. Ratan Tata for keeping your promise. Shame on you Ms. Mamta Bannerjee for depriving people from experiencing this engineering marvel for so long!

Before finishing, two Nano jokes.

1. A Sardar's Nano was not starting. He opened the bonnet to check the engine. Definitely he couldnt see any engine in the bonnet. He remarked, "Oye teri. Now I know why Nano is so cheap. The bloody car doesn't have an engine!"

2. Two high maintainence Gujrati girls discussing:

"Why did you dump your boyfreind?"

"Oh Him! Uske pass Nano chhe." (Take help of a Gujrati friend if you havent understood the joke!)

Three Sentence Stories!!

Here I am going to post some short stories of mine. Some really very short stories! All the stories will have only three sentences. Watch this space for more!


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1.

I boarded a local train after watching the night show of horror movie at CINEMAX.

I went to the only man sitting in the compartment and asked him, "Sir, do you believe in ghosts?"

He looked at me, smiled, said, "No I don't, do you?" and disappeared!

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2.

I prepared the lecture on "Punctuality and Professionalism" till late night.

I was really pleased with my rehearsals and could imagine the applause I would get after finishing the presentation the next morning

When I woke up it was already afternoon and my mobile phone on silent mode showed "26 Missed Calls".

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3.

Even though I was quite friendly with my party freak neighbours, I didn't like their habit of playing music loudly in the night.

It was my birthday today and I wanted to sleep peacefully, so thought of requesting them to co-operate.

As soon as I entered their house I heard my whole housing society singing , "Happy birthday to you.!"

WINNERS

WINNERS!

We have been bombarded with TV shows recently which make winners out of ordinary people. You have an audition, sing well, dance well and keep on surviving the eliminations through SMSes and become a winner. The whole nation takes notice of you and you become a household name.

In my opinion these are not the real winners.

The real winners are around us, but we fail to see them because of our social blindness. This is not strange considering the fact that even though we keep in touch with people living on the other side of the earth through internet, we do not know who stays in our neighbourhood.

To see the winners we must look beyond the smoke of glamourous world created by television and other medias.

Everyone travelling in Mumbai's local train in rush hour is a winner. The autorickshaw driver who works twelve hours a day is a winner. The traffic constable who does his duty on a hot afternoon even though his hands pain is a winner. The youth who stays away from alcohol and drugs is a winner. The parents who sacrifice their whole life for the sake of their children are winners. The student who burns the midnight oil studying instead of visiting rave parties is a winner. The mother who delivers a baby is a winner. The man who works out harder in a gym instead of taking steroids is a winner. The office boy who cleans my office every hour is a winner. The doctors and nurses who tend patients day and night continously are winners. The child who prefers losing a cricket match on ground than winning a Worldcup on his computer game is a winner. The vegetable seller who pushes his cart in 40*C is a winner. The newspaper boys, dabawaalas, milkmen etc. who keep on pedalling their bicycles whether its snow, rain or sun are winners. The list can go on and on....

For me these are the real winners and I rate them higher than the contestants who win huge amounts of prize money in realty shows. Those guys must be fighting with fellow contestants but my winners are fighting with fate!

CIRCULARITY

(just wrote this piece for the sake of writing something)

Circularity

The world was in dark ages before "circularity" was discovered. Wheel was created and it made a revolution (pun intended). I tried to imagine how the world would look like minus circularity. Every morning we will welcome a square sun. People will go to work on their pogo sticks. Kids won’t play any ball games. There would be no cars, no watches, no elevators (it runs on circular pulleys if you don’t know), and no circles in geometry.

I would really love if we could get away from circles in geometry. All the shapes have such simple formulae for areas and perimeter; but circle brings pain. One has to consider a vague constant called “pi”. It always made my calculations troublesome. While I was in school I was made to understand that the value of “pi” is 22/7 or 3.14 as a good approximation. As I got older I realized this was a lie and no one knows the exact value of “pi”. In my engineering days I used a ten decimal value of “pi” which came as a standard function in my scientific calculator. Our life would have been so simple if the value of “pi” was a whole number. Not only circle but formulae of spheres, cones, cylinders, ellipses etc. would have been so simple. I won’t be surprised to know that many people hated geometry only because of “pi”.

I don’t know how our national flag would look like with a square Ashoka Chakra. How different would the flags of Japan and Bangladesh look minus the circularity?

Charity begins at home. So let me test this “un-circularity” in my room. How neat would my room look without the circles? All the square bottles could be arranged close to each other without wastage of space (remember Japan recently made square watermelons to save space). Then again my imagination stops when I think about square bottle caps! How will they operate, definitely not by rotating? I will never strain my back because things will never roll and hide themselves in the deepest corners of my bed. I see a round pizza in a square box lying on my table. I see wastage of space in the corners. If there were square pizzas these spaces would have been filled. I just calculated that a six inch square pizza will have more to eat than a six inch round pizza!

One more question I wonder at times is whether wheel was “invented” or “discovered”. Some say it was invented because it was not present and some highly motivated stone man made a wheel out of stone. I tend to disagree. Wheel was always present. Sun and moon were always round. Eye-balls were always eyeballs and never eye-cubes. Later some middle age scientists also told much against the wishes of the church that earth was round. All planets orbit in circular. If they had no problem in accepting a round sun and moon why did they object to a round earth!

It is hard to live without circularity. I can’t imagine going to office on a pogo stick. The wheels of my bike are good enough even though they puncture every month on Mumbai roads. Looking in square eyes of a girl would be unimaginable. Life without cricket, football, golf etc. would not be worth living! We should be thankful that we live in a circular universe instead of a square one!

Looks like God gave his angels a circular to make this world on a round table conference (another intended pun)! Why didn’t he give us two wheels instead of legs then?

WHY ALL INDIAN CRICKET FANS IN THEIR TWENTIES WILL FEEL SAD!

I was born two days after India had won the World Cup in 1983. My very first memory of watching cricket was 1992 World Cup which is quite faint. Infact the only match I remember was the one against Australia which we lost by just one run. No one explained to me what cricket was, how it was played, what were the rules etc. I don’t know how but I learnt them instantly. Looks like cricket is in the blood of every Indian.

I never saw Sunil Gavaskar frustrate West Indian bowlers. Kapil Dev was struggling to break Richard Hadlee’s record and I didn’t see the best of his bowling. Spin quartet of India was also one of the legends I had only heard, never seen.

One player that everyone talked about was Sachin Tendulkar. He was just nineteen years old while playing 1992 World Cup. I don’t remember his debut. He made kids like me to dream that one can reach high even at a young age. Everyone wanted to be a Tendulkar.

We also saw the emergence of another player called Anil Kumble. This man was bespectacled, mustached spinner who didn’t turn the ball much and had a very amusing bowling action. The Hindi commentators of Doordarshan reminded us atleast twice a day that he was an engineer.

I can proudly say that I witnessed India whitewashing the hapless England 3-0. Vinod Kambli suddenly caught the imagination of the whole nation.

A few months later happened the Hero Cup. The semi final between India and South Africa was the first one day thriller that I had seen. Sachin bowled the last over of the match when South Africa just needed six runs to win. Sachin just gave away three runs. Yeah, I was there to witness the first time South Africans choked!

Then came the final against West Indies. Mind you they were still considered the best team then. Kumble tooK 6-12 and we won the Hero Cup.

Sachin and Kumble became permanent heroes for us. People stopped making fun of short heighted boys while we played cricket. Spectacles became cool for spin bowlers and funny bowling actions were feared not laughed on.

Later came the 1996 World Cup and Sachin went on hitting good scores in almost every match. Jaysuriya started playing his own style attacking cricket and Sri Lanka took the cricket world by surprise (Mind you, they were respected as we respect give Bangladesh nowadays). I saw the great West Indies being bowled out for 92 by first timers Kenya. This was the beginning of end of West Indies cricket. South Africans choked once again and after winning all their league matches, lost the quaterfinals.

The India-Pakistan Quarterfinal match is still there in my memory. No one can forget the way Jadeja thrashed Waqar Younis. Amir Sohail hit Venkatesh Prasad for back to back boundaries and showed him the direction of the boundary line. Prasad clean bowled him the next ball and showed him the direction of Pakistani dressing room.

India reached the Semi-Finals. We were playing quite well, but Jaysuriya spun a web with his spin bowling and India was in a hopeless situation. The crowd started misbehaving with players and burning the stands. The match was awarded to Sri Lanka. The first time I cried after watching a cricket match. (Vinod Kambli was not the only person to cry after that match)

Indian cricket was going to the dogs and we looked to help from Lord. And help came at Lord’s. Here we saw the emergence of two players who became the pillars of Indian cricket for more than a decade. Ganguly showed that off side belonged to him. Dravid showed us what technicality was.

Immediately the boys were divided into either Ganguly camp or Dravid camp. Lefties were being called as Ganguly and every left handed batsmen (including myself) felt a sense of flattery when anyone referred to us as Ganguly. Any person who wasted balls but stood on the crease was being termed as Dravid.

I remember the time when Australians were also mortals. South Africa and India defeated them in all the league matches of Titan Cup. I can never forget the 50+ run ninth wicket partnership between Kumble and Srinath which lead to India winning a very close match against Australia. I had my geometry paper the next day. I saw the match till late in night and screwed my paper the next day. Still I didn’t have any regrets!

I am the one to witness the start of Harbhajan-Ponting rivalry. Harbhajan got Ponting stumped and told him to F**k off. The rivalry still continues. In the same series Tendulkar hit back to back hundreds and we won the Sharjah Cup. It prompted Steve Waugh to say, “We lost to a good player.”

Yes Indian batting at that time was only Sachin Tendulkar. If he played well we won. If he didn’t our batsmen collapsed like a pack of cards. Thankfully at a later stage India got a player like Robin Singh who despite being in mid thirties taught us to give our hundred percent.

I also remember the debut of a player named VVS Laxman. He was forced to open innings for India as there was no place for him in middle order filled with names like Azhar, Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly. He struggled. He looked as confused as a child in a topless bar.

We had heroes like Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly, Jadeja, Azhar and Kumble. Our parents were happy that we had such gentlemen as role models. This generation sadly tries to emulate Shreesanth and Harbhajan. No doubt they are good players. But I would rather have a Dravid as my son-in-law than a Shreesanth!

Then came 1999 World Cup. India lost a very close match to Zimbabwe. This time I didn’t cry. I just couldn’t believe it for three days. It was the only topic of discussion for the whole country. I think we were more shocked than we were in 2007 World Cup. India however played well in next matches and ended its campaign with some respect. Ganguly and Dravid hitting Sri Lankan bowlers in Taunton fascinated me for more than a week!

In 2000 happened the match fixing controversy. I think was big enough at that time. I was in my graduation. My childhood was over. We all felt cheated. Some players were banned. We swore that we will never watch cricket again. But I guess we loved cricket too much to do that. We continued watching cricket.

We saw Dravid struggling as a One-Day player. We saw Dravid keeping wickets to keep his place in team. We remember India thrashing Australia 2-1 at home and later getting thrashed 3-0 in Australia. We saw a spinner like Shane Warne treated like a school level bowler by Indian batsmen. We remember Anil Kumble taking 10 wickets in an inning. We remember India losing a Test to Pakistan by mere 17 runs and Tendulkar’s painful century went in vain. We saw the emergence of Laxman from a struggling opener to a solid middle order batsman.

We saw Ganguly taking the reign of Indian cricket and it started a new chapter. Tendulkar, Dravid, Kumble and Srinath were still very much a part of Saurav’s team. These were our childhood heroes, but they continued to play even when we went to college. They played even when we started working. It felt as if our childhood was stretched.

I saw them all. But now it looks like my childhood will end. We took for granted that Tendulkar, Kumble, Ganguly, Dravid and Laxman will stay forever. They never felt like leaving us anytime. The Indian Board was also kind enough to retain such players for such a long time, quite opposite to what Pakistani Board did to some of its best players.

Sachin taught us class, Kumble taught us accuracy, Dravid taught us endurance, Ganguly taught us aggression and Laxman taught us elegance. This didn’t happen just for a couple of years. They taught us for a decade and a half.

The reality however seems to have come. Kumble is retired, Ganguly is playing his last match and very soon Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman will also go and I will have no memories of my childhood left.

The day I will not see any of the above five names in the Indian team, probably I will stop watching cricket. I won’t be able to!

A MOVIE FROM HEAVEN!

FILM NAME: CHILDREN OF HEAVEN (BACHEHA-YA ASEMAN)
STARRING: AMIR FARROKH,BAHARE SEDDIQI
DIRECTOR: MAJID MAJIDI
RATINGS: *****

Most of the movies that we watch are out of our mind as soon as we read the closing credits. There are however a few movies about whom we keep on thinking for hours, days or sometimes months. "Children of Heaven" is one of these rare movies. Ali and Zehra are siblings living in a poor Iranian family. Ali goes to repair Zehra's shoes but lose them on the way. Now if their parents will come to know about it they will thrash Ali and also they are too poor to buy new pair of shoes for their daughter. To get out of this situation they have a long discussion and hold your breath by writing messages on a note book right under the nose of their parents.

Zehra has a morning school while Ali has an afternoon school. It is decided Zehra will wear Ali's shoes to school and will return them to him during afternoon at a common place. This is when the trouble begins. No matter how fast Zehra run back from school she is never in time to give the shoes to his brother. Ali gets late to school everyday and his principal even tells him to go back home once. He is a good student so he is saved by one of the teachers.

There is a scene in which one shoe fall off Zehra's feet as they are too big for her (remember its her elder brother's shoes) and they fall in a gutter. The water current makes the shoe drift away. The desperation with which she runs after the shoe makes will make your whole body shiver.

The brother-sister relationship is shown very beautifully in this movie. Even though they go through such suffering, they are always there to support each other's cause every moment.

Each and every scene of the movie is full of simplicity. I cant seem to think of any other movie which can match the simplicity of this movie. Ali and Zehra are ideal children which every parent would love to have.

The kids find out who is having the possession of Zehra's shoes and they go out to investigate. They see that the girl who is now wearing those shoes is a poor child with a blind father. They dont take any action against her and continue with their adventures with just a pair of shoes between them.

Later in Ali's school an inter school long distance running competition is announced. Ali takes no interest in it. After a few days on the notice board he sees that the boy to come third in the race will win a pair of new sneakers. His eyes light up and he requests his sports teacher to allow him to participate in the race. Since the boys for race are already shorlisted, his teacher doesnt listen to him. Ali knows that this is an opportunity he cannot miss. He pleads and weeps in front of him and melts the teacher who cosiders giving him a trial.

During his trial run Ali runs with all his strength and impresses his teacher so that he is allowed to represent his school in the race.

Ali tells this good news to his sister and promises her that he will definitely come third in the race and will win the shoes for her.

Now begins a competition in which probably for the first time one individual is running not to come first but to come third. While running this boy remembers the pain of his little sister who came running for him everyday so that he can wear the shoes and be on time for school.

The result of the race should not be told by me or else it will be against the spirit for those who havent watched this movie yet.

The ending of the movie could not be understood by many dumb people. So if you dont understand it, take an appointment in a mental hospital :)

I saw the English dubbed version of the movie which was done by un-emotional dubbing artistes. A more professional dubbing was expected for such a great movie.

I have heard that Darsheel Safari is going to play the role of Ali in the Indian version of this movie. Only time will tell whether he will repeat the splendid performance of "Taare Zameen Par."

This movie is much much better than the so called children's movies churned out by Hollywood based on expensive animations and senseless plots. It just shows that to make a good film, you dont need a big budget, just a big heart!