2014, goodbye!

You realize that 2014 smiles at you. It tries to show you how it has been the best than others. Yes, it has been the best, how? I do not know. Sometimes, not everything needs an explanation. That's how 2014 has been. Gentle, quiet and loving. It is like re-uniting with a lover. It's a feeling that life will hold you in arms and you would be surprised how it has made you stronger, happier.

No, it is not one of those self help books types work. It is life, that's all.

A small part of sunlight sits on a bench, you run towards it. Soon enough, it runs from you. You cry. That's how hope tricks. Next morning, you wake up with swollen eyes, sunlight wakes you up. It is with you, even when you do not notice. That's how 2014 has been.

To know that not every one can understand you.

And those who do, will not make you miss what all happened.


2014 has been the year of getting all that back in my life, I had spoilt my macbook. Cried enough, nothing happened. But this year has got it back. Not materialistic. My life has got many such things back, uncountable things. One has to wait.

Finding the passion in life,finding that you have people who would leave anything just to see you smile, is there anything more beautiful?

You have been hurt enough. You have been troubled enough.

But time is never stagnant.

Ring out the old, ring in the new.

shed the skin.

walk.

Walk in the Jahanpanah park.

Walk in the Lodhi Gardens.

Walk in the city that has usually been painful.

Walk in the city that says,

"here, here's the joy. I am late but I have given you laughter, trust."

Walk, don't stay. Time is passing.

Movement is  beauty.


2015, you are here.

I welcome you with all my smiles, all my happiness.  Thank you, for killing the sadness 2014- you made me realize only beautiful things last longer.



Tum chale jaoge to sochenge, humne kya khoya,
humne kya paaya.

(After you have left, I'll think about this-
What have I lost, what have I gained.)

Non-Places.

It is sunny, but the intensity is mild, softly dissipating warmth-what would have been possible at seven in the morning a couple of months ago. Today, it is eleven in the morning. I walk outside the campus, it is a long day, long journey.

I see an auto, I wave at him. He stops and agrees to take me to Dadri. His hands accelerate the steering once I sit in. He presses the grip firmly the moment there is a puddle or a deviation. In ten minutes, we reach Dadri. I hand over money to him, he loosens the grip and looks the interaction between our hands- although for a fraction of seconds. I look at his palm, it looks rough. The mounds at the base of the fingers have small other mounds of dry skin.

They are shaped in the shape of the gaps in the steering of the auto-rickshaw. 

The bus to the Koshambi metro station will take time, there is a traffic jam. I have to wait here for sometime. I decide to take a walk in the market at the crossroads.

An old man is beating cotton on a pile. There are piles of cotton lying on the weighing scale, with old shapeless rags nearby for making quilts. The old man is constantly talking to the customers, picking up the cotton from the piles, negotiating. I look at him carefully. He doesn't look that old. In wonder why his henna colored hair has random spots of white, from far it looked as if his hair was white. I walk close to his shop.

His hair has lots of cotton and so does his hands and feet.

A small pan (betel leaves) shop, a man is sitting next to a wooden box, with lots of small boxes, filled with nuts, licorice, cloves, peppermint. His eyes are at the customers, ears at their voices, but his hands have a movement.

His index finger red, with constant coloring on the betel leaves.

A shop for apparel. There are some clothes hanging outside, he is folding some. One of the workers has a small gaudy golden colored saree. And the other one is folding.

The one holding a gaudy saree has some golden dust on his hands and the one folding them- his index finger is a little towards the middle.

A small restaurant, young boys are cleaning the place, some are chopping the vegetables. There are tomatoes, onions and green chillies lying on a container and the floor has onion skins.

The boy has some dark lines in his hands, very similar to the marks on the onions by the knife.

 The apple seller shouts to me, I had requested him to tell me when the bus comes. I can make from his voice, it is at the same pitch as when he was shouting, apples fifty rupees per kilogram.

I board the bus, sitting next to the driver. His left foot looks arched in an unnatural way. He presses it to a small elevation to stop the bus.

There is still constant dust.

My hands remove the speck of dust from my eyes.

Surat, Memory and Metaphor

"What events do you recall in the city post 1990's?"

Pareshbhai is looking carefully at the workers cutting the small threads in the synthetic laces. He turns his face towards me after a couple of minutes, asking to repeat the question by saying, hmmm?

But before I repeat my question, he remembers it. His 'hmmm' sounds more like an act of remembering to me.

"Oh, 1990's? You know, there was an alignment in the city area (Kot Vistaar) of Surat. Lots of houses and shops were re-built according to commissioner Rao's instructions. In fact, many people lost their shops because the roads were to be broadened and they were not the owners, they had this 99 year old lease with the corporation."

I take out the cadastral map of Surat and he shows me the places that are no longer there, that are merely concretized as roads now. He looks at the map again and says, this Viramgaami mohallo is a Muslim locality but it was not the same.

"Why?" I wait for a long time after this question. I wait for his 'hmmmm' but he doesn't say anything. He scratches his sideburns. I still wait in anticipation.

I ask him again, "Do you remember anything else? Any other event in the city? Anything that affected the communities in the city area?"

"Oh yes, the floods! And the Plague! These were terrible times. The floods have ravaged this city so many times but you know, Surat is strong enough to rise back from ashes. Within fifteen days, you'll see the machines working, you'll see the city working. People do not sit back and lament the past. Which also means, we forget."

"Do you remember anything else that is forgotten?"

"No!"

"Can you tell me about what happened in 1992, 2002?"

"What happened? In Surat, we leave peacefully, in harmony. Nothing happened. We are not like them."

"Them?"

"I do not want to talk about it."

I sit there, looking at people constantly winding laces, winding pasts, throwing them in big bundles. I remember 2002 March, my birthday and the small Dargah near our house.

I look at that Dargah again. There is a striking green patch on the wall. I let a hmmm, a sigh though and remember the crack on this wall because of an axe and some stones. I look at the old man swiping peacock feathered broom on someone's head and I remember the street in March smothered with reminiscences of peacock feathers.

But hey, that road is now concrete, with multiple cars, some five fly overs and a big business complex on the right. Should I remember?

Pareshbhai and I have series of conversations, almost every day. He tells me how he remembers the story from his grandfather that the Nawabs always ruled Surat, that the Portuguese could do away with less taxes because the Nawabs were constantly thinking about their own benefits. That the Muslim merchants wanted to mint money and marginalized the Hindus. That Gurus had to come to  in Surat save the Hindus. That Hindus could not own much during the Nawabi rule, they were constantly worried about their safety and being stereotyped.

During these series of conversations that entailed memories of his grandfather's stories,

Pareshbhai never had to utter, "Hmmm?"

Prague/Praha Diaries: 1) Kafkaesque.

I like to think about the most recent and then delve into the past. Memories have no terrain. They move in crests and troughs. Sometimes, they do not move and become a narrative of the past, entertaining present. My trip to Prague was by far the most enriching experience. The city moves you. The concrete under your feet softens the pace.

While coming back from Prague, on the last day of the trip, I visited Kafka Museum. I couldn't leave the city without it. Prague is full of narratives and I could understand why it has moved Kafka, Milan Kundera, Eluard and so on. The walls are full of radical posters, on which drunk youngsters lean and kiss each other. Streets are full of music, where one singer sings a folk song and a nearby Vietnamese store entertains the tourists with drum beats and 'temperature' songs.

There's so much.

But today, it is Kafka's day.Happy Birthday Kafka.

There were no lights. A deafening music, but a piercing one. No, it was not loud. It was just sharp. There's difference.
The first wall has Kafka's childhood picture, noting- "Kafka was born into a myth called Prague".
So many times, Praha has been remodeled. From the scholars of Kebbala to the Jewish astrologers/ astronomers, everyone wanted to be there. 1895, urbanization, Praha was again organized into a new myth. Kaflka must be young at that time, probably around eight.

He must have preserved his memories of the old myth.

Walking to the school with his cook, encircling the town, carrying images of his father's shop near the town square. That circle of the city center. It encircled his life. Made him a ravachol.

Buried in the piles of bureaucratic work, Kafka wanted to move out.
But.
"Prague doesn't let go, of either of us. This Old Crone has claws."

Praha truly doesn't let go, it mesmerizes you to the point that you do not want to go out of that city's myth.
Pain can be mesmerizing too. Emptiness, nothingness, fullness.

A step further and you see Kafka's letters to his father. To his father, who was always busy expanding business and bringing the latest brands and styles. Kafka was disgusted. He leaned his shoulders, wore ill fitted clothes just to be that ravachol. To be away from that designed meaninglessness. 

When an old man comes to you at two in the night, and says, "I have nothing to eat, nowhere to go. I am old. Prague is for tourists. Prague is not for old men."

When you see the windows, houses always closed. And you wonder why.
When you know that all those are just hotels, to bring people to the myth.


But Kafka had those narratives. Behind the walls. Outside those windows.
He knew, his life is about writing. Not insurance. Not bureaucracy.

There is big slide through which Kafka shouts.
" I am nothing but literature and I want to be nothing else."

Yes. Literature consumes. It asks for that exchange of sensitivities.

His letters depict that.

There is a room that has all the posters of women Kafka loved and wrote letters to.

My favorite is Milena.

After reading all the letters, I don't know why, but I always wanted those letters.

Kafka's confession from being sleepless to discussing Dostoyevsky. His confession that her letters make him calmer, sitting in that balcony.

He writes, (My 38 Jewish years have this to say in face of your 24 years)
"Your two letters arrived together, at noon; they aren't to be read, but to be unfolded, to rest one's face on while losing one's mind." 

...
"I am too heavy for myself and too light for you."


I owe my hopeless romantic ideas to these letters. I know, that though there is nothingness, boredom, metamorphosis, but there's that spark. That spark of being charmingly united. Of loving and expecting similar things in life. And even if different things, then loving each other too much.

LH 756/757 Frankfurt

Fortuity in continuation on the spatial terms leads to long term connections. LH 757 is one of them for me. Frankfurt airport in 2012 was merely a chance- I was prepared to go to Paris.I forgot about the numbers. All I remembered was the occurrence. by which I reached Mumbai.

LH 757 for Frankfurt in May 2014 was again a chance. The travel desk for the university had booked it for me so I had no intervention in this, leave alone divine.I realized about the constant occurrences when I thought about the timings-1 AM, you reach Mumbai. Well, that has been in 2012, as well as 2014!

But LH 757 again in June. There must be something with this number. I have dreams with this number. First Heidelberg.No, no. First- Surat, then Heidelberg and now for the third time- Goettingen and Prague/Praha. I had no idea that I would be able to make it to Praha. I had my academic engagements in Goettingen. But thanks to a very good school friend, who acquainted and helped me with the arrangements. I was awestruck in Praha. Magnificent. I never thought it would be so random and I would be walking in the city, that looks like a king. Should I forget about LH757? This number has been taking care of my dream places. And why just places?

Carnival in Prague. singing, dancing, salsa, sitting on riverbanks, breathing in the golden color of the city, Kafka museum, Rudolfinum. Meeting wonderful academicians in Goettingen, listening to stimulating presentations, LH 757- you have done much more than just spatial.

First trip- I came with a baggage. I had this baggage of dreams- to see Heidelberg.
Second trip- I released it. Came back free and happy, with life beaming in.
And third- learning about life, self and places.

There's more- Vienna, you are still on my list and this time, LH 757 is going to get me to you. :)

Heidelberg!

The day I got to know I would be going to Heidelberg in May, I was crying, smiling, happy..nostalgic. I, for the first time, experienced what it is to experience mixed feelings. Heidelberg, after so long. After I had set my heart on that city. It was more like a pilgrimage for me. And academic congruence with your dream could possibly be the best thing that could happen.

I waited in Hall B at the Frankfurt airport, and I saw TLS service. The tag had a beautiful red heart on it. I knew, this would take me to Heidelberg. I don't believe in signs, but sometimes, you betray beliefs. I looked out of the window, but my eyes were constantly glued to see if we have touched Heidelberg.

Ah, there it comes. Beautiful Neckar flowing along with us. Guesthouse at the Bergheimer street was not that far from the river. Perfect. That's exactly what I dreamt about. To live closer to the river. I have shared memories of that place. The moment I reached, I unpacked and started working on my research paper. Oops, my laptop crashed. I panicked like anything.

What I knew about the city- there are no internet cafes, no pay phones. I ran to the nearest electronic store- Saturn. People were so very kind. They told me, Heidelberg has so many internet cafes. Nearest one was Haag. The walk was nice, weather was wonderful.

After finishing my presentation, I met a lot of people and we all went for a walk at the Philosopher's walk. The view of the Altstadt was brilliant. I could just sit there for hours. No wonder I set my heart on Heidelberg. It was actually so romantic.

After the philosopher's walk, I had to go back to sleep because I was too tired. I loved the German food and the hospitality. I felt that belongingness even if I had never been to this city. It was certainly not because of my pre conceived ideas and notion. 

Next day, after meeting my amazing friends, I went for a walk in the city. Walking is like honoring a place, you walk with the breeze, the fragrance, the touch, the warmth, the coldness- all these walk with you, show you the city, make you acquainted with the city. 

My first walk started from crossing the bridge. I had inhaled the old town (altstadt), now I wanted to cross the river and see this town from the other side. It was quite late. May be around 12 AM or so. But I had another engagements as well- I had to see the moon in the night. 

I had no maps. I just knew the other side is Neuenheimer Feld. But there were a couple of places I wanted to see. I asked two ladies on the road and they drew the map for me in my notebook. As I said earlier, I felt that I know this city.

Neuenheimer Feld was full of mechanical tall buildings with numbers on it. One building, number 282 caught my eye. It had these fluorocent green round decorations. A small bench to sit with the flowers. I sipped my coffee there, sipped some feelings. And went back to the bridge. Graffiti under the bridge struck me. and the ducks resonated with the liberal ideas. Liberal-Lieber-Liebe.. 

Heidelberg invites you. 

It generates that feeling of love. 

It enters your mind through that symbol of heart.

As simple as all this. 

A friend of mine had written, it is better to fall in love with places. They don't leave you. People leave you. Places always make sure you meet them.

Heidelberg did. 

N/One of us.

Eldest son in the family- Who knew that a small wound in his armpit would result into a serious illness, and eventually, death. His father had hopes with the eldest son, who would join the diamond industry and bring money. Jari industry pays in peanuts. He has to marry five daughters. His wife places her hand on his shoulders and tells him that he should be patient and things would work out. But patience? Would that be a virtue or a vice? He decides to get all of his daughters married as soon as possible. After all, they know the Jari work and men would definitely want a helping hand in the family. He married three of them in the Rana Samaj, his own community. One of his son-in-laws lived in Kodiwad in Begumpura. Most of the families in Kodiwad are either Ghanchis or Ranas. He interacts with them, if there's any Ghanchi guy who wants to get a Rana wife. Ghanchis have a very poor ratio of girls over boys, probably 842/1000. These days, any Ghanchi girl would marry only when the Ghanchi guy has a bungalow in the posh locality, has cars and a very stable job with a regular income.It's been approximately ten years that the Rana women have started marrying in the Ghanchi community. 

They have a very old house, almost in ruins, in Kodiwad. Which Ghanchi girl would come? They cannot sell the house. The rules and regulations of the Municipal Corporation have troubled them in serious ways. The law in the 1980's, "Vaave tenu khetar, ane rahe tenu ghar." (The one who toils in the farm owns it, and the one who lives in the house, owns it) has troubled most of the owners in the Kot Vistaar. Their grandparents had rented the basement to a Khatri family at twenty five rupees per month and that has been going on till today. They cannot raise the rent, they cannot sell the house, the tenants demand thirty lakhs if they decide to sell it. This is the house they have and that's all. A house where the basement looks like a haunted place with the typical smell of urine, the first floor has broken wooden pillars that stand just on the pain residing in the house. The second floor has partitions made out of tattered curtains. Sunlight peeps in through small holes in the walls. The small spaces between the greyish brown tiles have gathered enormous dirt. 

In this house, he makes his way to sleep all day. His only income is through selling the stamp papers, a craft accumulated because of the social capital of his grandfather. The small black board, acting as a name plate, bears the vague recognition- 'Stamp Vendor,.. ". Sometimes, people come and he makes five hundred rupees by selling one legal document. He cannot go to the Bahumaali building to toil hard in the sun and make thousands. After all, he has been a Ghanchi, residing in the Kot vistaar. How can people expect him to work? He eats mutton at the Laari once he gets that sporadic income of five hundred-one thousand rupees. He drinks ten rupees Potli, a cheap liquor to forget about the real world issues, like why his parents are not able to find a match for him. 

She thinks about him, her only son. She has to make his life settled. A Rana girl? She ponders. At least she would be able to earn through Jari and support my son. At least she would beget children to keep the family lineage going. 

She calls him. "you told me about the Rana girl who would want to marry in the Ghanchis. Is the family still interested? But we are strictly vegetarian and our culture is high. We don't consume alcohol, please make this all clear."

He talks about the family. Her father feels relieved, one more girl would leave the house. Ranas are doomed with so many girls. Her mother tells him, "Please get some details about the family, we cannot send our daughter like this." He gets very angry, "They are bhagats, pure vegetarian and have not even touched alcohol, what else do you want? They are cultural." 

She gets married to him. All her life, she has seen Jari machines. She dreams about life where she would take a nap like the Ghanchi women, where she would sit on the porch and indulge in gossips. She dreams about her children who would not be forced into Jari industry and can study as much they like. She dreams about the man who can take her responsibility and brings a salary every month. No more of this society where the woman has to keep the child in her lap and work all day, just to earn hundred rupees per day. No more of this life where the roles for women in the society- just doing the household chores and raising children, are altered and added with earning money to run the house. 

He still sleeps all day. He still eats mutton. She has to go to the markets in the afternoon, just to sell some pins, earrings and necklaces, to earn something eat one meal a day. She cries and fights with her mother in law, "If your son was so incompetent, why didn't you tell us before? Why didn't you confess that he eats and drinks?"

She smirks and feels that a Rana woman shouldn't expect this much. Ranas are used to this kind of life. If the other daughter in law of the family, who is a Ghanchi, says all this, then one can understand. Ghanchis have a high culture. She says, "If it was so good at your father's place, he wouldn't have left you in another family. You think you can say anything, but we know what goes on in the Rana community."

She wonders if she is one of them, or none of them and keeps dusting the hair pins to sell them that afternoon. 

All work and no play, makes Jill take another way!

Part 1


She orders some tea at the chai walah downstairs. Holds that plastic cup but her eyes are holding the Zari machinery. She sips unknowingly and looks at the street of Hanuman tekra number 4 in Golwad. Her son must be on his way back to home. She dumps the plastic cup and crushes it underneath her foot. Rubbing her glittery forehead, she goes inside the house and methodically starts holding the golden threads to fill them in the rolls. Her husband is also doing similar kind of work, but at a different place. At a relatives' place. They all know each other and so the work becomes familiar and familial. But he doesn't get the family money, he will just get the wages, approx five to eight thousand rupees per month. He comes back home in the evening. Opens a bottle of scotch, made from fake essence and drinks it. She is busy cooking the meal. The radio has been turned off now. It was a companion for the whole day's work with glitters.

Now, it is the real world. The reality shoots in the house. The wooden staircase has fossilized the hard work and is resonating pain. The ceilings have befriended the rainfall and so the water from the skies observes them. The noises from the other end of the street are of the gamblers. They have come in cars, someone will make a lot of money tonight and someone will lose. The fingers of people inhabiting this house seem blunt, with flat nails. Some even have scratches that run into dark colors. One can see his face in the same room and can cook meals in the same room. The mattress is adjacent to the boxes of copper threads to be processed to make zari. A second hand school book with names scribbled has its corners folded because of the carton of empty reels that has been mistakenly placed on it. The house has sections, but no rooms. There are no walls. The walls are outside the houses, the invisible and the inevitable.

She stills thinks about it. She has autonomy, she can spend her money but she has to work for it. She wonders if this is same for all the 'she' out there. The Zari business has seen huge recession now it is no longer the silver and gold zari but it is metallic zari and that yields very less. Everyone in the family has to work, it is a difficult world.She shares some gossip with her neighbor. They tell her, the story of 'she' is different everywhere. Not everyone has to work this much. But why? Because they didn't like daughters and now they have a poor sex ratio of girls over boys. Is that why they want to marry daughters of our community? Yes. Our daughters adapt easily and besides that, there's very little work one has to do. All one has to do, is to cook some nice meal and watch television. She had heard about it, but now it is more or less clear.

Part 2

He is sitting on that small wooden chair and folding the packets to be arranged neatly in his 100 year old shop in Begumpura. The shop is small and he doesn't want to change anything about it, not even its visual contours. He is worried about his son. He is now 25 and is unmarried. He has learnt some computer accounting and works in a 'company' and earns about twelve thousand every month. Who will give his daughter? He tried to bring him in this shop and expand the business but that has been an unsuccessful attempt. Whenever he comes, he would sneak out with his friends and spend money on food and tea, laughing and chatting at some crossroads. That's why he has asked him to better be in the 'company'.

His house is in Sonifaliya. A flat that hosts people from various communities. He likes chicken and mutton, so burns incense sticks and cooks so that nobody knows about it. The irony is that, a street next to Soni Faliya, there are Muslim who eat this on a daily basis. But he doesn't want to go to their localities and eat chicken/mutton.  He wants to get his son married and no girl will come to his flat in Soni Faliya. He has to change his house to some other locality. He is trying to save money for that.

He gets to know from his son that there is a girl who is nice and would be fit for the family. She is from Golwad. She has been busy doing the Zari making work since her childhood. She is not much bothered if he lives in Soni Faliya because she would be fine anywhere. She belongs to Gola community and he belongs to Ghanchi community, they have similar culture of eating non-vegetarian food and consuming alcohol. The alliance would work very well. Besides that, a Ghanchi girl would want a car, a house in Adajan area, a well paying job or a business and she might throw tantrums.

People living in the neighborhood could afford moving to Adajan because most of their family members are in the Powerloom sector. Powerloom has always been a great area to work, the Marwadis have also created a lot of capital by entering the sector.The saraiya or the incense sticks business doesnt yield much and the 'company' doesn't pay well either.

Part 3

All day she has to work. She hopes that once she is married to a Ghanchi, she would not have to work this much. She could go to the weekend trips to Piplod with her husband. She could take a nap in the afternoon and escape the golden glitter on her face.

All that she would miss is, ordering tea in plastic cups from a local vendor at her own wish.

Big Brother is watching you!

His eyes were constantly glued to the television set right across. I had heard that men usually pick up places in restaurants, shops where they can clearly see the scores of cricket matches, tennis matches and F1 races. I thought that may be he is busy looking at that. Well, I did check see the newspapers that day and didn't see any notifications about live cricket matches or anything interesting coming up.

After a long interview, I looked back. The television showed some random rooms, one after the other. A young man was combing his hair and He was busy looking at the actions. Another video showed a bed near huge boxes and a guy was drinking tea in a plastic cup. After around 20 locations, I turned my head and saw the remote control in His hand. He grinned at me and told me that these are the places where he stores all his goods. Fire crackers from Sivakasi. He called someone and said, why is that guy spending so much time on drinking tea and combing and I saw suddenly on the television that they started lifting the heavy fire crackers.

This was also the case with the next room, where I saw people pinching each other's elbows, Big Brother is watching you! The chain was huge and long. This shop had videos from 40 locations. Another shop's big brother was small scale manager and he had cameras at only 5 locations in the house/store house. I came to know that this has been the case since a long time, when the Gola Ranas and the Ghanchis decided that they weren't able to cope with the management of so many workers under them in Jari business. For the Gola Ranas, it was still easy because most of the workers were either relatives or known ones. Those who had huge Jari industry set ups, they had to bring in some element of Big Brother in them but the rest were fine. When the Ghanchis entered the Powerloom sector after 1965, once Ashok Mehta gave the permit of buying powerloom machineries to everyone. This not only created a boom in the textile sector, with the increase of machineries from one thousand to one lakh, but it also gave them ideas of replicating the vigilance machineries. Ghanchis were expert in copying any machinery, skill from anywhere. It is said that in 1974, in the expo in Japan, the factories were closed during the Ghanchi visit because they might copy everything if the factories were working and those factories would lose their monopoly.

It is unknown how the idea of video vigilance started in the Surti communities, but He said that he brought it first in Surat when He had to take care of both the medical store and the Fire Crackers. Replicating what goes on in the super stores was easy, put cameras and see what is going on. He says he started in the 1990's. How He made his style of video displays (the Ghanchi skill) and how that has added to the growing industries of Surat.

Kabir Mohanty says, "We are individually multiple."
Sometimes, Our multiplicity is individual.

Cooking Alliances?

Hostel dining rooms always seemed a ritual for me, where you stand in a queue with your plate, say your room number and then sit on the huge metallic shining table to gulp all that was there on the plate. Sometimes, the gulping verb would turn to savoring and enjoying. But it was never more than that. If you don't like the food of this mess, shift to another. There were a lot of them (especially if your energy can be invested in going outside the halls of residence and eating at the tiffin services). I could never imagine anything more than this happening over a plate of lunch/dinner in the tiffin services.

And when you never thought about dinners and lunches catering to more than this, you would be definitely amused when you hear that wedding proposals and love was also catered to, in the catering businesses. It just gets you more interested in how! (of course, the way proposals are presented is quite interesting).

Surat's urbanism developed in fascinating ways and there could not be one linear pattern you can follow. And for me, the most interesting time frame is when the Diamond industry and the Textile industry developed. The Diamond industry mainly had migrants from Mehsana, Kathiawad who could not earn much in farming in the Saurashtra region. The Diamond Industry flourished with the industrious workers who slept in the same factory and considered the place as their 'home'. But there was one issue, most of them didn't know how to cook. What could be done about this, during the 1970's, when there were hardly reasonable restaurants and eateries outside? Women in the Surti communities, mainly in the Ghanchi and Golas were quite good at cooking and they had the 'business acumen', be it in the Jari, or in the 'saraiya' business. They started the tiffin services and the Kathiawadi workers who came to dine here found it very cheap. (around 45 Rs per month when the restaurant offered thalis for 4 Rs per meal)

The men who had migrated, did not have a lot of property back in the villages and had quite a difficult time finding a suitable match for them. Here, they earned better compared to the earnings through Jari work in Ranas and the shifted powerloom sector in the Ghanchis. Golas and Ghanchis consume liquor and they were fine with the workers bringing in a quarter everyday and drinking in the house where the meal was served.
They tried to woo the women in the Rana and the Gola communities by bringing expensive gifts and that one quarter peg, of approximately 7 Rs per day. So the women would think, "aah, he can afford liquor worth 7 Rs per day, so how rich he may be!" (As told by a ghanchi man)

The city's lure for easy money and luxurious life did tempt the women and some of them decided to get married to the Kathiawadi diamond workers. The workers were quite happy with the alliance because they could show off in their villages that they got a 'city girl' as their wife. (and of course, they got a wife)

I am sure there are other complexities involved in the alliances between various communities of Surat, like the Ghanchis, Khatris, Golas and Kathiawadis, may be the mobility of women because of work culture allowed in Ghanchi and Golas, may be the alarming sex ratio of women and men in the Kathiawadis and the Ghanchis, or may be the economic tie ups translating into social tie ups. But this one's fascinating.

Dinner tonight?

And you thought, this is the only way to ask someone out.

Kitsch-es and Cliches

They sprinkle them with cyanide, those elongated wires from copper rods. They play with silver, they play with the constant humming sounds of the winding into kasabs, those rolls. They match the sounds with the songs and jokes on the radio channels, playing loudly through black speakers. They compare its thickness with the strands of hair. They try to make it glistening through gold plating and flattening. Sometimes, all that glitters, has some amount of gold, probably 30 grams in 100 kgs of copper, beautifully made into threads. They run through Kimonos in Japan, minutely blossoming into golden flowers, or inspiring a writer by taking form of small pattern in a diary. Oh, you might be wearing a scarf from France bought via Madame Soussou that has antique golden threadwork. Or who knows, you are glued to a textile art piece in the Metropolitan museum in New York that states its existence in Safavid, Iran.

But people of the Rana Samaj do not know that which bride blushes in her Banarasi Saree, filled with the Zardozi work of these threads, Jari. They just know the constant working hours, that fetches them 5-7 thousand every month. Their hair smell of chemicals used in the gilding process. Their fingers, as if made blunt and short through constant work and their eyes yellowed and greyed with vision of work in those narrow gala type houses. Gola Ranas live in the typical gala type houses in Surat. Their houses are long and narrow, just to accommodate those Jari machines. These houses were probably constructed by the Britishers after a fire diminished the slums in the early 1920's (that's what their narratives told me). Their memories peal when they see the road running on the Kotsafil road close to the walled area of the city. They remember the dirty moat running through the city which has been covered and a road runs on the same path now. Even today, their life is all within the circled area of that moat and their relatives living within that area. Their Surat is quite small, with its own borders and its own communities. In the Ka, Kha, Ga, Gha of Surti communities, (Ka for Kanbi, Kha for Khatri, Ga for Golas and Gha for Ghanchis), they have replaced the Ka with Kathiawadis. The traders and the merchants in the Jari industry were Kanbis and they had the hold over the capital till the 1960's. Kanbis did the labour work and brought the Jari home for flattening it and filling them into kasabs.Women in the Rana community also indulged in the work and tied the Jari bundles with cotton and wool threads and saved 50 grams of gold in every 100 kgs of gold as the weight of the final product increased with the threads.After saving money, they raised capital for buying their own machineries, lowered the costs by asking every member in the house to work in the Jari production and literally threw out the Kanbis from the Jari industry. Kanbis used to calculate individual labor cost, rent of the house (even if they owned the house) and other small costs. Ranas never did that and kept the Jari prices quite low. Agents from Bangalore, Banaras, Coimbatore started buying from the Ranas.

But somewhere the complexity has occurred and the Ranas could never play with the markets and the savings could never translate into accumulating more capital. Capital could not generate capital, losing on the front of 'small town capitalism'. Capital again went to the Kathiawadis and the Marwaris in Surat in the form of contracts and initial supply of materials. Although, there are still saddened faces of the Ranas with the fluctuation of the prices of the precious metals- silver and gold because they face lots of problems with the payments on finished products.

But they still dance wearing glittery sarees on loud music when they go to weddings. Some of them still drink Jack Daniels in the evening just to forget the day's hard work. They still dream of owning ATM cards so that they'll be allowed in the shopping malls in the posh localities like Ghod-dod road in Surat. Women love the autonomy of spending the way the like- be it on a tea in the nearby tea-stall or be it on the latest Deepika Padukone movie. They don't mind being the actors of Modern times and enjoy the form of leisure as defined by James Fulcher, going to the Piplod area every Sunday and enjoying food sitting on the pavements in 'Gaurav-path'.

They create Kitsch-es, with piles and piles of glitter to be woven into popular art and piles of smiles to be imitated by all the workers.

Their story is a cliche, to be entangled in the world of capitalism. Almost everyone today has his/her form of the same story.

Cities. Sites. Cites

Cities have sexes: London is a man, Paris a woman and New York, a well adjusted trans-sexual~ Angela Carter

Cities are malleable, ductile and very fuzzy entities. Just as metals are. When you speak of metals, you have the adjectives hard, tough, heavy, etc but at the same time you remember that they are alloys and not the pure forms, not the ores. Cities are ores. They have the ability to mould into phases, phrases, reduced to some words that can describe them. If they have sexes, they also exhibit the dynamism of being multiple and complex at the same time. Multitudes of greenhorns from Raban's Soft city scratch their elbows together and move in unison. They become one with the city, yet one in the city. Cities are the sites for individualism, each woman would have a different cheekbone blush. Each man, a different height, with a different posture. Raban mentions that only the non-organic elements like dresses, make up, hair-dos (in case of earlocks of the Jews in America) change for the amalgamation process in the cities but then I realized even the organic starts changing in the cities. The heads always held high, hair strands meticulously arranged to grow in the same way, toes and fingers long with lots of ideas sprinkling. What else would differentiate for individualism? You need at least the core that might differ. But we would buy the same brands, same swooshes and the same leopards. 

I always had this fetish about villages, a rural synedoche, a part of me that signifies the village. Just as the Highgate Hill in London, where you have village pubs, village churches, people wearing country clothes.. these were the sites for me. I always wanted to sit by a brook and enjoy the idea of village, go to some village resort that has huts near the sea beaches and think that I am close to the countryside. I guess I have been the greenhorn, who still has that rural fascination and who would always live there. I remember my visits to Hariharpur, where I could run in the fields, knew Anil uncle's wife, knew their daughter who did not like mint leaves in the chutney, I still know Sampatiya's mother who would never let us get water through the handpump. I knew almost all of them. My one month's trip covered my absences of eleven months (Of course, not very legitimate argument). I knew who lived in which house, who steals mangoes from our gachchi. I knew it all. I knew the ways, though they were never perpendicular to the cul-de-sacs. More so, I knew where they ended, and who ended them. This knowing was not instant, this was through breeding familiarity (God knows why everyone thinks it breeds contempt). It was about me just being so used to it. Being used to your own being in the small place covered through your one attempt of eye balls on the terrace and one force of decibels. The only grinding mill's noise- tuk tuk tuk tuk.. and the firefly's chhik chhik chhik.. 

Born in Surat, I had inhaled the smell of a city. I walked in uniforms, even unofficially. I still do not remember how I also scratched the elbows with fellow passengers and dined on the same tables with strangers in a restaurant. I spent years with people, they are all in touch. I love how the word touch has lost its meaning. A city bred touches with mobile phones, emails and distant smiles. Baroda was another one. But then, Baroda had my village. A village where the only resident enjoying was 'I'. Or was that I? Sitting alone in Abhivyakti and staring closely at the Sursagar's huge Shiv statue, I was there. 

Amherst, thankfully. Ah, there it comes. A small place. Certainly no one knew about me but then I knew people who knew about each other, quite closely. They had seen people growing up, jumping in their own porches. But again, I still longed like the greenhorn, where is my village? Why can't I see them who would just know about my toothache and ask me if I still liked sweet potatoes. Where is that Sonali who loved the fragrance of Jasmine and always made two plaits. I still didn't know a lot of people. The only people growing up you've seen are your own siblings, in my case, my brother. I know why he has that scar on his eyebrows, it's because he fell from the bed and an edge hurt him. No, no, he doesn't fight. He has to explain this to everyone he meets, his friends. Cities recognize through one scar, one word, zodiac signs, palmistry.  That's why he has to explain so that people do not judge through one scar. 
Cities make their inhabitants experts in judging. You folded your hands, you are not considering my opinion. You are looking the other way, you are not confident or you are lying. You just swiped your keypad, you are hiding something in your phone. Your every action is a metonymy. Your mind is being x-rayed. 

What sign are you? Pisces? Dreamy, Imaginative, charming etc. Oh Gemini? You are friendly but then a two-faced person, no, Taurus? You are a bull, quite strong but adamant. 

We get these small booklets to use whenever we get chances to judge people (usually, we get only one)

हर आदमी में होते हैं दस-बीस आदमी 
जिसको भी देखना हो, कई बार देखना
~ (निदा फ़ाज़ली) 

How will you meet someone regularly? This is a city, you cannot meet. And even if you will, you will only meet the parts of somebody. In cities, you do not see anyone who is a complete form. We have assembled forms. This was really good, so why not adapt. We adapt, like Le Corbusier's plan. We adapt with the transverse and the parallel lines. We move in union. I reiterate. We move in uniforms of same expressions, same tags that have been assigned by us, the city dwellers.