2012 - Banga-bored

I grew up in a ramshackle government colony in South Delhi. I had the privilege of going to a large, uptown school filled with affluent pupils (usually the thick sludge at the bottom of the academic rank pile) and an annual batch of precocious, savant-like students (aka the toppers, floating to the top with the buoyancy of brilliance). The ratio of their numbers was kept at an optimum by our gifted administration so as to keep the school’s (academic) reputation intact – guaranteed by the genius-kids, while preserving the financial viability (profitability?) of the school – provided by the Richie-rich kids. During the summer vacations I visited my root-town of Bhilai, which in turn included a mandatory visit to my ancestral village in the dusty laterite outback of un-jungled Chattisgarh.

Rainbow Experiences - like Poppins

Such an environment and a sort of repetitive annual calendar gave me a unique opportunity to be in contact with drastically different people. There was a brief glimpse of Chattisgarhi rural life, with its obsession on birth, marriage and death in a 3-spoked life cycle. There were the small town prejudices and aspirations of the Bhilai crowd.  And then there was Delhi.

The kids I hung out in my colony were mostly lower-middle class boys. They spoke in a markedly Haryana-UP tinged tongue, characteristic of Delhi ruffians and swore with flourish. My friends at the school belonged to a different world altogether - a sort of suburban America in the heart of Delhi. That boys and girls dated each other with their parents’ consent, pretty much sums up what this world was all about.

Circa 2012. In terms of the variety of personalities I met in the past year at Bangalore, it has been a sore disappointment. Bangalore is a city of collars. Of people following identical schedules, doing identical jobs and having identical aspirations. It is monotonous and predictable down to the extent that the traffic pattern of the entire city is set by its residents’ office schedules. One can easily nestle warmly in the daily routine of morning and evening traffic jams, a bouquet of sights, sounds and experiences designed by and for worker ants. However, it’s a writer’s nightmare. Bangalore absolutely saps any possibility of a Poppins experience - encountering individuals with different colors of personalities as the day peels off progressively. The day folds and unfolds with Ctrl + Alt + Del. Incredibly boring.  

The Bangalore Moms - Jourdain 4

Author's Note: The west has its soccer moms and the more mother-sucking, micro-parenting stereotype, the Jewish mother. But closer home, the Mother India association’s Nirupa Roy award for best all round performance goes to a new breed of Indian child bearers.  

In the nooks and crannies of India where we come from, mothers are still maa, or baa, or amma or for the anglophile ‘forwards’, mummy at most. Using ‘Mom’ to beckon our mothers still sounds frosty at best and derogatory at worst. After all even in movies (at least a few years ago),’mawwm’ was still reserved for the nalayak aulaads, full of terrible vices which in the movie, either get them killed or lose a limb or two before being reformed by the hero. But here in the land of the IT revolution where children converse in English so fluently that it puts your sitcom and Hollywood flicks’ acquired tongue to shame, things are different. ‘Mom’ is firmly established. The age of the mataji is over. No more is she relegated to the background, only to give blessings to her son when he proclaims emphatically “maa main paas ho gaya”. Enter the supermom- the Bangalore mom.

The genetic origin of the B-mom is not so much different from the rest. The mutation of their mother-genome occurs when they marry the maata-pita ka raaj-dulara, 6 figure salaried IT dude and get Bangalored. It takes a few months, but the transformation is remarkable.

Enter the sharmili bahu, bagged by the frust IT engineer guy, who after numerous failed attempts to hit on his female co-workers and ogling at pics of false apsaras on fakebook, settles for a good-ol’ arranged  marriage, in a final attempt to vent his………(uhmm) steam.

“Aaj sham, friends ka get together hai. Taiyaar ho jaana” proclaims the newly installed groom. The bahu reaches for her best pair of salwaar-kameez. The groom moans inside, disappointed. But says nothing. The friends come. The bahu ogles in disbelief at their wives who wear T-shirts and Levis, sipping Breezers and Cola, their kids at daycare for the evening. “Such freedom, such vigour. I have to get myself one of those,” the groom muses. The bahu catches his hungry expression. She’s saddened, but filled with resolve, “I will become, I shall overcome.”  Thus begins the transformation.

But hang on, why call her the B-mom and not the B-wife. Well because being a mom is still integral to her being and the child an integral part of her marriage. The frustration of not being hip from the root-up and of her imperfect diction of the King’s tongue manifest themselves into an almost Mogambo like treatment of her children. “Mom, I passed” doesn’t elicit the same response either. “That means you got only thirty-three percent. Wait till your father gets here!” replies the B-mom. “No computer for a month.” 

In the true tradition of  this city, childcare gets outsourced to hapless thirteen year old nannies. A cost-cutting logistic solution imported from the hometown. The B-mom is free to pursue her new found interests. Mills and Boons and Danielle Steel novels adorn her book shelves. And in the evening, she has Salsa classes and aerobics to tame her torso. Even more interesting and intense are the meetings between two such supermoms which often become games of one-upmanship with their kids’ achievements pitted against each other.   

I am not being judgemental. This is what my eyes saw and my old school brain processed. And while this B-mom effect keeps bringing forth more pretty young newlywed damsels with greatly improved fashion sense, I am not complaining. (I am also a frust IT-engineer guy)

"The hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world," goes the saying. Well for generations, there was lots of rocking the cradle and lullaby wailing, without the reigns ever being handed over. Not anymore. The B-moms  rule!!

Launda Shahar Mein - Bachelor in the City

It’s almost a month in blackberry town. It wasn’t a rush, time didn’t fly by. I didn’t have as much fun as I would have hoped for, but I didn’t completely lose out on the jollies either. Here’s the journey so far.

Part 1: The Papa leg

I sat alone on my airplane seat from Delhi to Bangalore. That’s about the loneliest papa let’s me be. He sat in the middle seat in the front row, turning frequently to make sure my part of the plane hadn’t crashed. No, he’s not paranoid. Only concerned, protective, safeguarding my interests, he says. He believes in euphemisms. I don’t blame the generation who sired us. They’re not honest. Not their fault. It’s OK. And it’s sweet.

It was a comfy time spent in cosy sarkari guesthouses and meeting papa’s college batchmates. The Jain parivaar trying to make sure that I feel right at home. Auntie insisted on feeding me like a heifer (a bachda in desi) and uncle to teach me to get around Bangalore without my GPS. This is Marathahalli OK? That place over there is Whitefield. What’s that? That’s a road beta, not a parking lot. Bangalore traffic is a little...ahem...bad. Not a worry if you leave for office before 5 AM. And that over there is where you’ll work.

I nodded. What I had learnt effectively by the end of the day was how to get lost.

GPS it is, then. Satellites shall watch over me. Amen.

Papa left on Sunday, 7^th August. I was sad. I was alone and I was thrilled.

From L to R: Avuncular umbrella, Mr.Gupta, Mr.Mukherjee and Mr.Jain. And Papa.

Part 2: The Arpit Leg

Try boiling a potato this way. Put it in a small bowl of water and microwave for 40 minutes. The water evaporates and the potato bursts into pieces. The pieces are burnt to a crisp and glow like coal. It’s delightful fun.

I tried this for the first time when I was seventeen. Seventeen mind you, not seven. I grew backwards.

As a child I was fiercely independent. Mr. Size 4, chota chaddhi leader, bade bhaiya. I childified as I grew. Bacchi calls me un-adult-rated.

Arpit is a co-joinee from IITR. Thrifty and aggressive, he’s fiercely adult. We roamed the streets looking for flats together. 2BHKs for under 15k. He did most of the talking. Very few were interested in dealing with us. Once they realized we were bachelors (did we ever look like a couple), it was no saaar, sarry. Aap daaru piyega, waal par thookega, music bajayega, neighbour ka kaan fat jayega, uski ladki bhaag jayegi, mere bhi bacche hai. Main kya karega saaar. OK, Ok, Mr. Srinivas Naidu. We’ll get back to you when we’ll marry.

I eventually moved into a 3BHK, deciding to share a room. Sorry Arpit. I was settled.

Part 3: Naresh And Tara

Every college has its lingo. There are generic words – bakar, bakchodi, GPL, ghissai. Then there is IITspeak, every IIT’s own creation and legacy in a lingual nutshell. It morphs, it changes, it adapts. But it always makes you laugh, so ridiculous it is sometimes.

I met Naresh over the internet. No we were not stalking eachother. Naresh and I were unofficial single point contacts between IIT Bombay and IIT Roorkee respectively for OFSS recruits.

I chatted with Naresh over GTalk a lot during the period between recruitment and induction. Here’s what a usual conversation looked like.

		Why aren’t our offer letters coming? I’m getting a little worried. I think I’ll sue
		LOL :-P
		How’re things at IITB. Aren’t you guys worried? I think you guys are blissfully ignorant about this problem
		LOLmax :-D

I met Naresh in the flesh on 8^th August at the OFSS HQ in Bangalore. Our first conversation went like this:

Me: Is that you, Naresh.

Naresh: Yes. Piyush?

Me: Yes. Nice to meet you. I can’t believe they called us at eight AM and didn’t turn up themselves.

Naresh: LOL

Me: I think I’ll sue.

Naresh: LOL max

He didn’t speak, he GTalked! I was laughing so hard inside. Don’t you ever log out Naresh?

Skip to 4 hours later. The new bosses wanted intros. Nothing special. Nobody sparkled. Until, it was the turn of a prodigy. A dark, stubbled, softspoken boy rose. “My name is Tarakant.” Silence. Nobody moved. “That’s it,” he added. Epic! It was pure awesomeness. A few girls fainted. Tara revived them. A few boys did too. Tara forced me to revive them. I know I had to, had to hang around this God. Rest of the day was a blur. I just stared at him.

From L to R: Arpit, Me, Tara and Naresh

Part 4: The Training Leg

We all have certain restrictions at home. An inherited and instructed set of morals to abide by. What to do and what not to do. They slowly form what we come to know as our conscience. The pangs of guilt that we get chewing on a besan coated legpiece at KFC, chanting sorry mummy with each bite or the way the first ever gulp of beer is so damn hard to swallow, with fear of divine retribution constricting our throats.

Within a few weeks of joining Oracle, I felt guilty. There was a nagging guilt over doing something that was admonished at home. I had been sitting in front of a computer for six straight hours every day. Worse, I was beginning to enjoy coding. At my place, the poor computer carries a stigma. It being a bundle of all the things I was forbidden from indulging too much in: video games, TV and internet. Papa severely dislikes its ability to reduce men to just their brains, eyes and fingers.

“Let go of your laptop for a while,” he would say. “Watch TV for a change.”

Well, now that I am a software developer, my body will definitely atrophy. Friends say I should join a gym to stay in shape. Sure. Only if they have free WiFi.

A month in Bangalore. Coping without family and familiarity.

A bachelor in the city. Learning to walk.