Once a Mumbaikar, always a Mumbaikar.... is it?

The last time I checked, travelling to work in a train compartment filled with the scent of sweat from every pore of every person, and your sweaty arm brushing against seventy other sweaty arms wasn’t a very welcoming idea (at least not so welcoming to me). I have, on several previous occasions, been honored with scathing looks from women for my poor choice of clothing, my hairy forearms etc. But here, I beg them to try and differ with me, for I welcome thoughts that might make me feel optimistic about this too! Here I was, in the city of dreams, the place where business giants and Bollywood stars reside; the place that strikes back after a terrorist attack, stronger and more united than before; the place that makes the lives of a million and ruin that of few more. Yes, Bombay! The place where my cousins had moved torecently, but that certainly wasn’t the whole point of coming to this place was it? In fact, I wasn’t too keen to seeing them again after just a month, I just wanted to catch a glimpse of Deepika Padukone! And there couldn’t be a place better than the city of dreams itself! (Guys! Off with the smile now, we’re trying to be serious here).

My recent trip to Bombay (I’m sorry M.N.S., I prefer calling it Bombay) compelled me to write
about it in my personal diary. After so many discussions with my blog-partner (Siddharth) and others, as you saw in the previous post, I decided to share it on the blog. I’d like to call it ‘the not so glamorous side of Bombay’ for a few reasons that I’ll share now. I remember once travelling in a local train from Kandivalli to Churchgate, one hour of standing rooted in an overflowing train coach with the most ‘inviting’ odours, and if you’re lucky, you’ll get to smell fresh fish from a close proximityand everyone knows how it differs from a well cooked fish-delicacy. Another major problem was my weight which had seemed to have increased a bit. No, I didn’t weigh myself literally, but I felt heavy. And the part that seemed good to ponder over for a little while was that it had nothing to do with my body mass! Yippee! But then why the hell did I feel heavy? I realized this a bit late (as I always do) that my clothes had gained a few extra grams! And for sure it was Bombay’s ‘drenched’ air, which was to be blamed! Horribly humid! Sticky air that made me feel more uncomfortable and irritated!
But I composed myself. Guess why? Deepika…*sighs*

Seized by composure, I started noticing people’s facial expressions. Blank, stressed, fatigued, one smiling face among the 150 and more blank faces. Some people play games on their cell phones for the complete fifty minutes of their journey. The capacity of a train coach is only 86, but at least 100 people, or even 150 at times are onboard. I was taken aback by their concentration. Even though I’m 19, I can’t stare at that small, dimly luminous screen for so long, undistracted, however interesting the game may be.
And Oh! We have to face so many battles in life, don’t we? And one such daily battle that
people fight there is boarding and de-boarding the local trains in peak hours (which usually
extend for 5 hours in the morning and 5 in the evening, practically the whole working day). In the short, 10 seconds halt, more than fifty people de-board and a hundred others get on board and increase the traffic.
Believe me, it is a very exhausting process, and after this, they go to work and slog for eight
hours! Hats off to them! Finished as they are by the end of the day, they still have to go back
home. This might be the only place where a warm bed and hot food seems not so pleasing
because it is preceded by the local train journey.

I needn’t talk about their mental state after this; I am sure you can imagine it. If you really feel
like seeing them more flustered, just add a small quarrel with their spouses in the morning
before they leave for work, and Voila! You have successfully made it, the ‘worst day’ for anyone!
(like all Indians, they have “learnt to live” with it and they deserve some appreciation for that).
The best part is, people from all over the nation are still migrating to
Bombay in search of money, after knowing all this!

This was just a personal opinion and observation. It can be debated endlessly. I merely
attempted to bring our focus to the unquestionable truth, that there is a darker side to glamour
too! And yes for all those people who started empathizing with me while reading this, of course I
couldn’t meet Deepika Padukone.......

Food for thought…

The Two Self Proclaimed Writers....

“An impeccable display of cowardice Mr. Adventure”, I announced and quickly wore a “31 teethed”
smile. It felt as if I had won the American Idol and hence awarded myself with a bite of a “Jumbo chicken
club-sandwich” which looked like a triple-storied apartment. After checking out a girl sitting diagonal to
MY plate, I rolled my eye balls towards my 6-foot tall classmate, Hrishikesh. He sunk into the equally
monstrous chair that he warmed, deep in thought.

If I was provided the remote-control that Adam Sandler owned in “Click”, I would love to
rewind the last fifteen minutes of my life and show you how I had won our latest argument.

15 minutes earlier:

“WHAT? You’re scared of a house-lizard! God! I can’t stop laughing, hahahaha!” roared Hrishikesh with laughter.
“Oh man come on! So what? God made such creatures in order to remind us that we shouldn’t judge
anyone according to their size! Even a small lizard can scare the shit out of you… that’s the whole point
of nature man, to respect everything!”, I declared and tried to hide my smirk. I didn’t plan to utter
a word of what I had blurted out a just now . Maybe I said this nonsense in order to defend
my dignity, even I was ashamed of my reaction after seeing that little reptile, but I couldn’t help it.

“Oh! Hahahahahaha! Superb sense of humor! Hahahahahaha! Oh God!” He continued to make
fun of me.

“Ok that’s it.” I gathered the scattered shards of my self-respect now. “Mate, you think you are really brave, eh? You can’t generalize one event and label me a coward!”, I continued.

“Objection My Lord! I am not generalizing it. In fact I should have said this before! You are scared of
heights, of a mere domestic reptile which even a 2-year old can scare away, you don’t drive a car above
50kmph and on top of that you are not even ready to come paragliding with me and are even scared to
ask a girl out you like! Shall I call you Superman now?” He said that with the most irritating smirk of the Milk Way.

“You repeated one point though…fear of heights and paragliding are the same.” I declared a little sheepishly, and after a little pause both of us burst into laughter.
“And in that case you are also a coward.” I continued.
“Me? Why me?”

“You are going to do a course in journalism and all, aren’t you? You write your shitty-romantic poems, articles and stuff…but you are not even ready to put that in public! Ha! What a journalist in the making! I know your scene man; you WANT TO EDIT A NEWSPAPER which no one else reads, so that you’re not laughed at! Hahaha!” I straightened up with new dynamism; I seemed to be winning this argument now.

He didn’t utter a word, he couldn’t. I thought he was really questioning himself like a depressed and lost person does in Bollywood films with low pitched violins playing in the background, “Am I really scared? Why am I so scared to put my material in public! I am an aspiring journalist! And he is an aspiring engineer! Then why don’t I have the balls to do what he does?”

Yes! That’s what happened fifteen minutes back! Welcome back to Hrishikesh’s public display of
cowardice.

“That was one hell of a provocation. But if it is so, let us do it then.” Gathering all the courage could, he declared.
“Hmm…alright then. Let’s put our respective stuff on a blog and satisfy our inner J.R.R.
Tolkiens and Khushwant Singhs”, I exclaimed.
“Yeah! Yes man! Let’s do it”, and Hrishikesh was enthralled. Maybe he only heard the names I took towards the end of my speech. Maybe he really thought that I felt he had a Khushwant Singh inside him, which I doubt.

But deep down inside even I didn’t know what we were heading towards… what am I supposed to do on
this blog? I know people just share their experiences or write about nearly anything, but were we really
ready for this?
“What will it be called Mr. Schumacher?” he asked me.
“How about www.thelogicbrigade.blogspot.com ?” I asked him for his suggestions about it.
After a lot of ‘pretentious’ pondering, he uttered “Sounds good…”
Writing an article a month was fine, but writing weekly or more often seemed scary… scarier than the Tushar Kapoor‘s films (maybe it’s a double S in his name, who cares). So we thought that we’d put an end to this and start with it, I am sure no one shall ask us to write more after reading our blog. Hrishikesh thinks differently. He said people might even delete us from their Facebook profiles!

That was Siddharth’s say people, an established story teller (a little exaggerated stories at times). Believe me, I’m not THAT scared of publishing my stuff, although this is admittedly my first attempt. We’ll try to be diverse this time. Not everyone likes talking about cricket and social issues, we know that.

The only thing common about us is our interest in writing and nothing else. So I was even more excited,
we can together write about things we couldn’t earlier, individually. I am not much into music but he
is, he doesn’t watch many movies, but I do. I prefer non-fiction to his fiction. Do visit the blog, your encouragement and criticism will lead us to betterment as it always has.
PS- Others are also allowed to post anything interesting they want to share with everyone; about your
college fests, your boring homework schedule, power cuts or the vegetables your mother force fed you today! (Even I hate green vegetables, junk food rocks!)

The Logic Brigade