Mumbai does have animals. Its a fact and its true. What with regular reports of leopards and such like encroaching on decent urban jungles and creating havoc amongst poor innocent mumbaites.
My experience with these strange inhabitants of this great city thankfully has been better. Detailed below are just a few:
Ravens:
Ravens. The messenger of death and destruction. Or as our great culture has, harbringer of more deadly news, guests. Ravens have always been an eternal visitor at our residence. When we used to live in Ghatkopar, a suburb in central mumbai, these medium sized black birds would constantly sit on the door of our garden amidst the city, the little 6 x 2 balcony we had assidously grown fragrant plants on. (Ok, so mom had done all the work, but I supported her, should count, right?). This bird would actually caw away to glory at each sight of Mum and she would respond to it in kannada, and it would caw right back. This would usually happen at unearthly morning hours like eight or nine o' clock. Then it would visit my window to wake me up and ready me for college. I always had this sneaky suspicion that ravens must have an innate ability to learn the Kannadiga's mother tongue, because the raven would usually be followed by my mom who would also try to wake me up. (with considerable less success, I might add. The raven was so much more ugly sounding.)
Then my belief was strengthened. We moved to a new flat in South Mumbai. I felt, finally freedom from ugly alarms in the morning. It lasted precisely one month. Soon, there was a familiar sounding caw each morning in my ears. How in earth did this raven come to know of its heavenly duties, I can only conjecture.I just think, he must have met his Gkopar friend at the weekly convention of the Ravens at the Parsi Tower of silence and gotten the message.
Suddenly one day, the cawing stopped. Relief and suprise were my main emotions in the morning. The reason was soon known in stark black and white. Crows in mumbai were a dying breed. This great survivor of the great Mumba's city, was being killed in murders. Due to some strange kind of bird disease.
Now I miss my feathered friend. His ungainly walk, his no nonsense flight plan. Now I rely on my mobile phone to wake me up. Can someone send me a raven tone, please?
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Monday, August 21, 2006
Sunday, August 06, 2006
Mumbai 2020
The setting is a small place in a neighboring country with a belligerent general and his minions…
General: What are we doing about the K situation?
Minion 1: We are continuing with the methods laid down by the great Minion Alpha 1 in 2005, destabilising their commercial capital using all tools of modern terrorism.
G: So, how come K is still undecided? No excuses please, I want results. Report.
(M1 looks uncomfortably towards M2.)
M2: Well Sir, we planned a complete package of terror for that city, but it just refuses to be terrorized. We keep coming up with new and innovative plans, but somehow this strange breed of Indian, Mumbaikar, refuses to bow down. Here’s what went down in the last decade.
We funded a massive influx of people in the city, specifically trained people with good skills, namely littering. We funded the plastic industry and manufactured close to a trillion tons of thin plastic bags. These we used to clog up all the main rivers, drains and catchment areas, not to mention the stomachs of the sacred animal of India, Cows.
After a couple of years of intensive littering, we procured a ton of AgNO3 or silver nitrate. Using a charter flight, we seeded the clouds during the high tide days off the coast of Mumbai, using the almanac so thoughtfully provided by the Mumbai Met Department.
The unique feature of AgNO3 in the clouds is that it causes artificial rains. Unleashing the terror of rain on a historic day of July 26th, we were able to create massive flooding in areas, trying to bring businesses down and generally create havoc with the infrastructure of the megapolis.
Little did we know of the close ties Mumbaikars have with our Chinese friends. Somehow, these guys were prepared for this eventuality. (Later we learnt that this flooding is the routine part of Mumbai life.) Every mumbaikar, small and large has an inflatable raft that fits in a trendy back pack, available in 15 different shades and 20 different sizes. The beauty of this handy device is that whenever needed, it unfolds into a man sized kayak with a handy plastic sail and carbon fiber oars. Using wind and arm power, the average mumbaikar reached his destination with little or no trouble. Actually they reached faster and with less fuss.
The recesses of this raft are stocked with emergency supplies like a bottle of rum for the sailor like spirit with assorted snacks to get through the day. Truly marvelous!
Looking at the storm clouds gathering on G’s face, M2 hurriedly moved on with his status report.
We then hit on the ideas of using age old bombing tactics. We then decided to plant some bombs on the lifelines of Mumbai, the suburban train network.
It was a beautiful plan. Synchronised strikes at different locations during peak hours to maximize human damage and create a fear psychosis.
G: That’s more like it!
M2: But, here we forgot the bloody Jews. With state of the art explosive detectors on each compartment, all the bombs were detected early. Then we discovered a new innovation on trains. The bottom opens out and on an electric signal, the tracks open a deep, cement lined pit or hole.
When the bottoms opened, the bombs dropped into the pits and exploded safely. The Police did not even bother to try and track our fidayeen, who disappointed at not being caught and tortured felt that they had been cheated of a chance of going to Jannat, commited mass suicide.
Then we hit on the master plan of it all. Why not use the people against the people? We funded political parties, slum lords and massive immigration. We filled the trains to the brim, created illegal colonies and formed political parties to divide them in sections of religion, colonies and what not. It was a huge operation one that almost bankrupted our whole economy.
But, this failed too. We soon realized our colonies were being taken over by the average mumbaikar to live in. Slums were razed and buildings built in their stead, creating value where none existed.
The worst failure of it all was the political parties. The Indians have a unique voting system. Where a general does not decide who gets to the parliament, but the people do. These people, decided to use the last option on the voting booth, the one that says none of the above, seats were lying vacant, till some activist rose up and contested and won.
Our politicians could just not get in!
G: (Tearing his hair out) so, what do we do now?
M3: (The guy who was quiet all along.) Well… sir, we do have one option, why don’t we leave this K business and start a new agenda?
G: And that is..??
M3: Mumbai hamara hai! Any city that can go through all what we have put it through, truly deserves to be part of our country.
General: What are we doing about the K situation?
Minion 1: We are continuing with the methods laid down by the great Minion Alpha 1 in 2005, destabilising their commercial capital using all tools of modern terrorism.
G: So, how come K is still undecided? No excuses please, I want results. Report.
(M1 looks uncomfortably towards M2.)
M2: Well Sir, we planned a complete package of terror for that city, but it just refuses to be terrorized. We keep coming up with new and innovative plans, but somehow this strange breed of Indian, Mumbaikar, refuses to bow down. Here’s what went down in the last decade.
We funded a massive influx of people in the city, specifically trained people with good skills, namely littering. We funded the plastic industry and manufactured close to a trillion tons of thin plastic bags. These we used to clog up all the main rivers, drains and catchment areas, not to mention the stomachs of the sacred animal of India, Cows.
After a couple of years of intensive littering, we procured a ton of AgNO3 or silver nitrate. Using a charter flight, we seeded the clouds during the high tide days off the coast of Mumbai, using the almanac so thoughtfully provided by the Mumbai Met Department.
The unique feature of AgNO3 in the clouds is that it causes artificial rains. Unleashing the terror of rain on a historic day of July 26th, we were able to create massive flooding in areas, trying to bring businesses down and generally create havoc with the infrastructure of the megapolis.
Little did we know of the close ties Mumbaikars have with our Chinese friends. Somehow, these guys were prepared for this eventuality. (Later we learnt that this flooding is the routine part of Mumbai life.) Every mumbaikar, small and large has an inflatable raft that fits in a trendy back pack, available in 15 different shades and 20 different sizes. The beauty of this handy device is that whenever needed, it unfolds into a man sized kayak with a handy plastic sail and carbon fiber oars. Using wind and arm power, the average mumbaikar reached his destination with little or no trouble. Actually they reached faster and with less fuss.
The recesses of this raft are stocked with emergency supplies like a bottle of rum for the sailor like spirit with assorted snacks to get through the day. Truly marvelous!
Looking at the storm clouds gathering on G’s face, M2 hurriedly moved on with his status report.
We then hit on the ideas of using age old bombing tactics. We then decided to plant some bombs on the lifelines of Mumbai, the suburban train network.
It was a beautiful plan. Synchronised strikes at different locations during peak hours to maximize human damage and create a fear psychosis.
G: That’s more like it!
M2: But, here we forgot the bloody Jews. With state of the art explosive detectors on each compartment, all the bombs were detected early. Then we discovered a new innovation on trains. The bottom opens out and on an electric signal, the tracks open a deep, cement lined pit or hole.
When the bottoms opened, the bombs dropped into the pits and exploded safely. The Police did not even bother to try and track our fidayeen, who disappointed at not being caught and tortured felt that they had been cheated of a chance of going to Jannat, commited mass suicide.
Then we hit on the master plan of it all. Why not use the people against the people? We funded political parties, slum lords and massive immigration. We filled the trains to the brim, created illegal colonies and formed political parties to divide them in sections of religion, colonies and what not. It was a huge operation one that almost bankrupted our whole economy.
But, this failed too. We soon realized our colonies were being taken over by the average mumbaikar to live in. Slums were razed and buildings built in their stead, creating value where none existed.
The worst failure of it all was the political parties. The Indians have a unique voting system. Where a general does not decide who gets to the parliament, but the people do. These people, decided to use the last option on the voting booth, the one that says none of the above, seats were lying vacant, till some activist rose up and contested and won.
Our politicians could just not get in!
G: (Tearing his hair out) so, what do we do now?
M3: (The guy who was quiet all along.) Well… sir, we do have one option, why don’t we leave this K business and start a new agenda?
G: And that is..??
M3: Mumbai hamara hai! Any city that can go through all what we have put it through, truly deserves to be part of our country.
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