68 - ANUSHKA SHARMA and VIRAT KOHLI, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK !

What a pleasant surprise, when I heard in the news that Anushka Sharma scolded a rich, spoilt, bad mannered, uncouth guy, who was littering.  This gives me a reason to be her fan.  As I have mentioned in my previous blogs, the rich don't care if they throw garbage onto the road, and also let their pet dogs poop anywhere in public places, as long as no one pulls them up.

It is so typical for the offender in this case, to troll Anushka and try to save face,  after being publicly shamed online.  This is the only way that such imbeciles can be brought to book and behave well.  Like they say in Hindi, 'ulta chor kotwaal koh daateh'.

Not so long ago, I had suggested to the BMC, that certain areas in this so crowded city are unsafe and ruined by miscreants of different classes, rich and poor.  The rich are too arrogant and get away with so many broken rules, the poor are too indifferent to care.  Many of the bridges over local train rails, have no shops or houses, only slums and chain snatchers, who get away with it with immunity.  Garbage, rubble etc is discarded by anyone and no one cares.  The underground subways in so many areas that have no shops, are dangerous and dirty.  The underground subway at Metro theatre, the one near Haji Ali and so many others.  If a large screen would throw the images of the subway to the public above, such areas would be used by everyone to commute, and not become a haven for loafers, flashers, beggars, urinaters.

But the Mumbai Corporation does not bother to do ground work on the feasibility and solutions to problems that arise in such schemes.

67 - A PAGE FROM AUSTRALIA'S BOOK.........

How do the Australians and the British and the Americans, manage their abandoned cars?

Why does the police in Mumbai and Pune have problems  managing abandoned vehicles?

In Australia, after six months of a vehicle being labelled with a sticker, as 'abandoned',  it is towed away to a scrap yard by the authorities and dismantled.

I fail to understand as to why the owner cannot be contacted through the license plate and asked to take it to a junk yard within a month. They have fun with old discarded vehicles, like junkyard battles, where teams are invited to innovate a vehicle from the old stuff and then challenge others for entertainment.

If our RTO and Traffic police only want to play the blame game, nothing good or progressive will ever happen to solve the problem of the abandoned vehicles.

So what is the use of a license plate? 

66 - IF I COULD, I WOULD . . .

There are a few things that I would like to achieve just by waving a magical wand.  Or even by using the help of the genie of Alladin's magic lamp.  Needless to say that I shall only mention the positive thoughts, because I do have negative wishes too, and would not hesitate to use the wand to get revenge too.

Here are a few things that I would change with a magic wand, in random order.

Walking along or travelling in Mumbai, I hate to see the air conditioners popping out of buildings, because they look ugly and they drip too.  So I would make them very tiny and yet effective, and not an eyesore anymore.

Footpaths with two wheelers on them is one of the biggest problems that pedestrians face in Mumbai.  I wish I could just wave my wand and make them disappear completely.

Visiting any public toilet is a real torture, as they are so unclean, or without basic water or a wash basin, and even the door does not latch or is broken.  I would wave my magical wand and turn the toilets into the most beautiful ones that I had seen in Paris, with perfume and music and clean tiles and mirrors and lots of soap and toilet paper.

Anyone who walks anywhere in Mumbai has to deal with illegally parked cars, on footpaths or on the road.  But the worst part of this is that the drivers are sleeping inside, with their feet popping out of the driver's window.  These tired souls would get a gentle pedicure with my magical wand.  At least then I would be assured of not having to witness dirty soles and soiled, uncut toe nails.

In Pune, there are many footpath stalls, with vendors selling scarves and purses and tee shirts and junk jewelry and footwear and artificial flowers and toys and foodstuffs like corn bhel, kulfi,etc.  All this commerce has a collateral of refuse, which is discarded along the footpath.  At one place, on M G Road in the camp area, the hawkers have stuffed the paper and plastic rubbish into the space between the tree trunk and an enclosed wire meshing around it.  the meshing is very closely hugging the tree trunk and upto two  metres high. which is now filled with the wrappings.  Mr. Adar Poonawala's cleaners would need to put their vacuum suction pipes to good use, but they have not, so I would use my magical wand to clear the garbage and make the vendors disappear too.

At any traffic, sometimes pedestrians just run across at the wrong time, and sometimes the traffic, mainly two wheelers do not stop when they have to.  My wand would then do the needful to restrain both, unless the traffic police have switched off the signals, then all are entitled to do whatever they need to.

Travelling in the train, locally or out of Mumbai, when passengers are throwing trash out of the window, I would let a dustbin catch the thrash and follow the train with a drone.  And whatever garbage is along all the train tracks, I would turn into green grass and pretty flowers and tall trees with butterflies and birds and bees and monkeys.

When I see many vehicles parked outside any police station, blocking the walking space, my magical wand would help me to stack them over each other and clear the space in a jiffy.

It is very depressing to see minors begging or selling flowers or toys at traffic signals.  I would make a very palatial dormitory appear and house all of them into it, and of course take care of all their needs, bathing, clean clothes, education, food, a place to sleep.   The same for old and lonely beggars on the roads, would be housed in a special home, and be taken care of.

When vehicles zip past during the red signal, I should just point my wand to the license plate and the owner's name and address would be registered to the police directly.

Anyone who is sick, especially my family members, I would cure with a wave of my wand.  This I would need urgently too.

During the rain, I would have the latest invention of the Japanese, the drone umbrella, follow me.  I think I am allowed one or two selfish wishes too.

I would want a magical flying carpet, to take me to Australia and Spain and Florida and Canada.

And I would want a mini television set with all the possible channels, in my bag.  So while I have to wait at the bus stop for hours and hours, or sit in a cab in the traffic jam, I would watch the news etc.  No, I do not want a mobile, I want a TV, because I am a TV addict.

65 - THE FITNESS CHALLENGE

Rajyavardhan Rathore started the fitness challenge, and it is getting linked with celebrities, who are boasting online about their fitness regimes.  But the message is so hypocritical.  These 'healthy' persons should also clarify that their fitness also depends on their diet. 

Dino Morea had installed 2 open air gymns at Marine Drive in the year 2016, which were dismantled by the BMC.  And then 'open air yoga' is sponsored by BJP?  So hypocritical!

The Prime Minister posted how he walks on the clean manicured lawns of his official residence.  Where can I walk on one?  The lawn at Nehru center at Worli is off limits for the public,  the one at Priyadarshini Park is fine,  the Governor's bungalow lawn is also off limits, as also the Tata garden lawn at Breach Candy.  It would be ideal if the public could exercise on the Chowpatty beach, but it is too polluted and dirty.  You cannot walk barefoot on the wet sand, without dodging garbage that has been washed ashore, and feces and urine. 

The main problem is that people in Mumbai waste a lot of time and energy in travelling.  I wait at a bus stop for more than an hour.  How convenient it would be if the BEST could facilitate their buses with GPS or global positioning system.  It would enable passengers to predict the exact time that they need to wait at the bus stop.  Anyway, until such a time, it is such a waste of time and energy, just waiting and waiting for the bus to show up.  So, after travelling in a crowded train or a very tardy bus,  where is the stamina for anyone to do exercise?  And where is the place?  Not in a tiny flat.  There are the wise ones who say that you must climb upto your flat by the stairs and that that would be sufficient exercise, but it is not possible to climb 20 or 30 floors when one is tired after a day's work or after returning home with a heavy bag of groceries.

Mr Rathore has a very posh carpeted office/ house, where he is demonstrating his 'fitness challenge' and Virat Kohli and Anushka, are doing their workouts in their personal, private gymn.  As are all the others who have been nominated.  I leave for work by six thirty in the morning, walking along a road that has traffic spewing out smoke and speeding along, dog potty to be dodged, and potholes and uneven footpaths.  I then return by three in the afternoon, but lose all my energy, waiting at the bus stop for more than an hour, and then standing in a crowded bus to return home by five.  It is exhausting just to follow this routine and survive, forget exercising by having to visit a gymn or a garden.  Gymns are expensive and have limited timings, as do gardens. 

But what is the most hypocritical scenario is that, all these famous sports, film and political icons, are not mentioning that good health is not only exercise but a good diet of fruit, protein, both of which are expensive, and so the public satiate their hunger with vada pau, sandwich, samosa, chai, throughout the day, and that is the main area, which affects the health of the middle class people.

So, my fitness challenge to Mr. Rathore and Mr.Modi, is that, show us what you eat and drink, and then motivate us to follow your dictats.

64 - DOTAGE, A CURSE . . . AND OTHER CURSES , NAMELY MAHUL . . .

If you are superannuated from your  job, then you get gratuity, provident fund and maybe a pension.  But your pension is given only if you have been employed at the same place for the last ten years or more.  In India, you are superannuated at 58 years.  And after that, you are due to a pension every month.  But.......

Central government employees get the highest salary and so their pension is also the highest in India, from rupees nine thousand upto one lakh, fifty thousand per month.  Wow! Just imagine what their salary would have been.  State government employees are the next well paid pensioners, including BEST employees,(and how they boast about it),  and private workforce employees like me are the lowest on the pension scale.  Hardly in 4 figures.  My pension is so little that I am almost ashamed to proclaim it,  it wouldn't pay one visit to my diabeteologist, forget paying for the medical tests that someone who is superannuated has to undergo, in our dotage.

Beside the renumeration discrepancy, between government employees and others, the pensioner has to visit the pension center or the EPFO (employees provident fund organisation) at Bandra east, every year, or the pension is not granted into that person's account.  It is to prove that you are alive and well and deserving the pension, or it goes to the spouse, or it is supposed to go to any minor children, which is hardly a possibility, unless the pensioner has died on the job, after 10 years, that is.

And so, it was time to visit the EPFO.  To access the Bandra east office, I had to walk along the skywalk from the station.  I had to dodge my way among the crowd, all rushing along in both directions, at different speeds.  The view on either side of the Bandra east skywalk, is something that our prime minister, the shiv sena, the chief minister, should all observe.  It is the dirtiest, most polluted area, with tinshed slums, built upto 4 storeys, hard to believe, but they should be seen to be believed.  scores of children of all age groups loitering in the plastic strewn,  garbage covered ground along the train tracks, rats running around, goats and hens and stray dogs too.    Forget Mahul, this area is worse, because these slums are thriving, their families are growing, and they flourish on hawking goods along the skywalk, begging, or running tiny shops along the tin shed slums.  Where are their toilets?  Where are their schools?  How many have TB or are drug addicts?  Which water do they drink?  I request the Mirror channel and Faye D'souza, to do an eyeopener in this urban area too.  These slums are happy as they can beg easily, travel easily in the locals and so..........

As I walked along the skywalk, the area on one side is a huge open sewer, with garbage and rubble dumped on one side and cultivated land along the other, irrigated with the sewer water obviously. The other side of the skywalk is a main road, with lots of traffic, and lots of tin shed slums, with blue plastic roofs, lots of open gutters along the road, and lots of barefoot pedestrians.  Shops sell cheap food, cheap clothes, cheap everything.  On the skywalk, these slum dwellers hawk mobile covers, bags, toys, belts, wallets, head phones.  If Mr. Waris Pathan has his way, Byculla will soon replicate Bandra east.  Already, the Khada Parsi statue vicinity is an open slum, after this very old monument has been renovated and been granted an A grade heritage status.  How is it that Mr. Pathan has sooo much empathy for the displaced slum dwellers in Mahul, but he tries his worst, and his goons too try their worst, to terrorise ordinary citizens near his Byculla office?

 Towards the end of the skywalk,  posh HDIC towers glass facade looks imposing, and then is the SRA (slum rehabilitation authority) with a very congested concrete building, the residents of which have thrown garbage out onto their lower roofs, a sad reminder that people do not care for their surroundings unless they are educated.  The end of the skywalk opens onto the Small Causes Court  and lots of advocates and lawyers standing around, soliciting clients, and newly married couples, with their larger family in tow, to sign up and legalise their bond.

At last, I reach the EPFO and am directed to the first floor with a chit in hand, that says number 125, and so my turn comes after 4 hours of sitting in a hot stuffy corridor, with a 'cooler' that dispenses hot water, an okay toilet that is quite clean.  There is a canteen, but it only had lassi and vada pau and sweet tea.  An office that has dotards visiting, with no sugarfree tea, no nutritious snacks for sale, and people are expected to wait for their turn, to be linked on their Aadhar card, and mobile  OTP, for hours and hours, after having travelled from far flung suburbs, to claim (in most cases) a puny monthly pension.  It is heartrending to see some of the dotardliest dotards, who cannot even walk on their own, are supported by relatives, just to come and get their 'alive' certification.

The lift was out of order and the other lift was only for staff.  There is an open area within the enclosed building with a throwball net, I wish I could have had a ball to occupy myself during my 4 hour wait.  At least a television should telecast news for the oldies who are waiting patiently.  Dear government officials,  old people need a little pampering.

So, business men should rejoice, that they are spared this debacle, as they do not qualify for a government 'pension'.

63 - A FART DEFINES ........................................

Pooja Bedi writes  a column for The Times of India paper,  an 'agony aunt' type of column, with a write up of advise and then personal queries are answered.  Last Sunday, the legend on her column was titled, 'A fart defines a relationship'.   I like to read her column and that of certain other female writers like Paromita Vohra, Bachchi Karkaria, Shobhaa De,  Namrata Zakaria and Twinkle Khanna.  But the title this week was a little crude.

There are many jokes about flatulence.  Amazon sells games based on this.  Fart cushions are a cause of humor at parties.  In Russia, special performers perform 'fart' songs.  it is also known as toots, trumping, passing gas, breaking wind.  One Mr. Methane even performed a fart song on Britain's got talent, and the entire audience and judges were disgusted.

Flatulence is caused by certain foods that do not agree with the person and cause gas in the intestine.  Pooja Bedi suggests that couples who can fart in each other's presence, can then bond well.  I beg to differ.  Etiquette demands that certain acts like farting, are not good manners.

New Zealand had levied a 'fart tax' on farmers because of their livestock flatulence.  37m tonnes of methane is produced by wind from sheep, cattle, deer, and it accounts for 60% greenhouse gas emissions.

In some cultures it is a cause of embarrassment or comedy.  Personally, it has affected me, so that I avoid visiting theatres, because the persons around fart inconsistently and then you can only squirm and suffer in silence, the sounds and the smells of disgusting farts.

It would be interesting if Paromita, Bachchi, Shobhaa and Twinkle, give their take on this topic.

59-TRAIN TRAVEL and TRAVAILS

Having to travel from Mumbai to Pune due to family constraints, prompted me to write this blog, and put down my personal experiences about intercity train travel, only confined to these two cities.

Personally, I prefer to travel by train between the two cities, rather than by bus or taxi.  No traffic jams, so I reach my destination on time.  Lots of people to observe,  sales persons come along throughout the journey,  a toilet is always handy.

The train has a soothing rocking movement, and it makes the traveler comfortable, but the train should not be overcrowded. The sound of the train is also quite musical.  CC F AA F,  common time count, with 2 crochets and a minim,  the speed changes from andante to allegro to presto, but always a tempo.  In my mind, when I doze off, there is an entire orchestra accompanying the steady beat of the train.

Starting off at Pune station, one has to be in the general compartment by one thirty to get a window seat, and not one of the aeroplane type seats that are parallel and facing the same direction and so very uncomfortable.  The journey begins at three fifteen, but you can eat, drink, sleep, or just stare at the people entering.  The main torture is that the lights and fans are off  and are switched on only at three.  The announcements are made incessantly and can hardly be deciphered, over the din of the hawkers busily shouting out their wares inside and outside the train.  One blind man walks up and down along the platform, with two noisy toys, one a whacker and the other a rod turner.  I envy the dogs sleeping peacefully under the seats on the platform, in the cool shade, and I also envy the guys walking along or sitting around to see off their relatives, the guys with the latest craze in haircuts, clean shaven, with only a plateau of a crop of hair.  They look so cool while I am perspiring in the hot train.


So many hawkers make a living in and around trains. There are two blind men and one blind woman, who sell Lonavla chikki and jelly sweets, walking along the train bogies with their heavy black reczine bags.  And five or six others, selling chikki, two for rupees fifty.  Some of the hawkers are donning blue tee shirts with the logo "Neelam", announcing their sales pitch loudly, garam garam wada pau, garam samosa, holding their loaded plastic trays adeptly in one hand, kulfi sellers carry a colourful bucket type of container, middle aged women hold tokris on their heads, selling small packets of chana singh, a young boy shouts 'timepass' as he moves along with a very large blue plastic bag, filled with ten rupee packets fried wafers, kurkures, pipes, etc.  What intrigues me the most is that there are innumerable hawkers selling water bottles, with the bottles in large cardboxes over their heads or shoulders, and the brand names of the bottled water, Aqua Power, Oxy Active, Rail Neer, Quench, Splasher, Kinnley, and so on and on. One female hawker sells copper tongue cleaners, ear cleaners and rings, another female sings aloud to sell some Hindu religious books.  The platform has fixed stalls selling cold drinks and bananas, and makeshift stands for guavas and bhel.  The bhel stand has a large tray with small packets of puffed rice and farsan, chopped onion, raw mango, sweet and spicy chutney packets, very attractively decorated with large chillies, tomatoes and raw mangoes.  Rupees twenty for one mixed bhel is value for money, if you don't mind eating from a newspaper poodee.

When the train is about to start, it blows its horn, and proceeds.

After the journey begins, the best natural views are between Khandala and Karjat.  The scenic western ghats with deep valleys and green mountains, with the clouds and mist and waterfalls, are the best part of the entire journey.  Young adivasi lads and lasses get into the train at this point, to sell jamuns, cucumbers, guavas, karvandas, mogra, gajra and the scented yellow chaafaa flowers.  The only man made intrusion along these scenic views, is that of the towering electrical pylons that support high tension wires, which look like tall slender females, dancing with their arms held wide.

I enjoy watching 'goods trains' with their 52 foreign containers in tow, and sometimes chilled tankers of milk.

When the train winds towards Badlapur and Diva, the air is full of a chemical stench, garbage is visible all along the tracks and a narrow water stream can be seen, looking black and blue, and full of garbage.  The ninth tunnel between Diva and Thane is the last one on this route.  The wares that are now hawked are cheap earrings, plastic and crocheted mobile covers, mobile headphones, lighted toys, wallets and plastic files and pouches.

Most of the passengers alight at Dadar.  A dirty half naked urchin comes through the bogies, crawling on the floor, begging.  That is a sure sign that CST is near.  Our olfactory senses can detect Masjid station as the aromas of freshly ground masalas permeate the air.  And then the destination has arrived and the train slows down and stops, as though it is a live creature that has now reached bed time.

As I move out of the platform to access the local train platform, I feel very relaxed as I walk below the ceiling fans with twelve feet long blades, turning so calmly above everyones'  heads.  But the peace is shortlived as I have to adeptly dodge the crowd milling around, walking in different directions, some towards the stationery trains, others towards the exit, while yet others are just talking on their mobile and walking right into others.

61-AN APPEAL TO MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES

This is my personal appeal to multinational companies that post print and TV advertisements which involve young children.  Often the products that are endorsed by very young children, are not appropriate for their age group.  Five to fifteen year olds, are used to promote cars, hair dyes, fabric soap and sugar supplements.

School students are portrayed in a very 'smart alecky' type of attitude.  Students, donning school uniforms, that too in a school environment, are shown insulting teachers.  The  'Colgate zig zag brush'  advertisement that shows a student admonishing his teacher during a parent-teacher meeting, with "teacher, kal raat aapneh palak kee bhaji khayee theeh."  Although the company has been made aware of the insensitivity of this ad, they continue to air it.  This TV ad is in very bad taste, and it makes the younger generation saucy.  What makes me angry, is that,  the 'student' is shown with four to five inch long hair.  Every school that I know of, insists that boys must have a short haircut, yet role models like these encourage long hair for the male students.

Here is a list of multinational companies that feature school going students and show the male students with four to six inches of long hair.  This amounts to surrogate reinforcement that school boys look good or best in longer hair.  Unfortunately, it makes the task of school authorities more difficult to maintain discipline of a neat short haircut for boys.

1)  Pepsodent - toothpaste badal bachoo - 2 boys with 4 inch long hair in school uniform, with two girls.

2) Vanish - Bunty, a school boy with 5 inch long hair, and 'ink kaa daag'.

3) Lifebuoy -  boy with unkempt hair.

4) Aquaguard - 'Rohan, tumhaareh plant meh pharak dikhtaa hai'  and the school boy with the longest hair in the class portrayed, answers, 'maineh healthy paani diyah hai.'

5) Dettol - Dettol kah dulhah. a boy student in school uniform is shown, washing a cycle.

6) Bournvita biscuits - a school boy with 3 inch long hair saying 'healthy tasty'.

7) Hershey's milk - a young school boy with longish hair.

8) Mom's Magic  biscuit

9) Usha air coolers

10)Mahindra SUV

11)Patanjali fresh fruit juice - 8 year old boy with 6 inch long hair, somersaults.

12)Colours channel - A new serial 'mard kah naya roop' a young boy with 6 inch long hair.

13)Nihar hair oil - shows school boys and girls in school uniform, the boys all have long hair.

14)Patanjali rice - patanjali rice, sahseh nice.  This ad shows school boys with 5 inch long hair and Shilpa Shetty.

15)Tide - It show the 'captain' banner on a young male student with a very white uniform and about 4 inch long hair.

16)Suthol talcum powder - a school boy with 6 inch long hair is shown.


Of course, the lengths of hair that I have mentioned are just approximations that I have visually measured.  But students with this length of hair would be sent back home from school, unless special permission has been taken for being part of ads.  So it is a very unfair tactic that multinationals use, by endorsing long hair for male school students.  Not only students but even parents get influenced by these ads and want to see their own sons look 'good', and so are very reluctant to maintain their school going boys' hair at a short length.  It is also natural that balding fathers too dote on their progeny's lush hair growth.

It is very contradictory that even the school that I work for, which strictly enforces the 'short haircut' policy for all male students, felicitated a young boy, with quite long hair, as a chief guest, at a recent interschool programme.  It may be that that boy is home schooled and can maintain his hair length without rebuke from 'school authorities',  but what sort of role model did this portray?  I recall how my son had taken great care to lengthen his locks during college days.  Shampoos, conditioners, straighteners, hair gels, filled up the bathroom shelf.  And then, he had to get a very very short haircut, as a hotel management student, which continues, now that he is a chef,

So, schools should counter the surrogate reinforcement of ads, that endorse longish hair for school boys, by spreading awareness of the 'why not' in this matter.  If anything, it would save a lot of  daily heartache for teachers, who end up being the 'devils' in the bargain.