Mumbai Spirals: Day 3 - The Darker Side to the city

A chilling and disturbing photograph about crime in Mumbai that has lodged in my mind is the one I saw two years back at a press photograph exhibition at Express Towers. The photograph is attached alongwith this article. A mentally disturbed individual armed with a knife had attacked two girls at the Gateway of India, tourists from Manipur enjoying a stroll along the promenade. It was a completely random attack, with no real motive or even a connection with the victim. One moment, they were happily strolling along the promenade and the next, were being repeatedly attacked by a stranger, who stabbed one of them to death before anyone could react. He attacked from behind and slit one girl's throat and when her friend tried to stop him, he stabbed her on the forehead. A photographer from the Indian Express had captured this incident shortly after it occured, and that's how I got to see it one damp, windy, and gloomy saturday morning.

I saw this photograph early in the morning in my office lobby while waiting for the lift(my office used to be in Express Tower). This was a day when I remember being all alone at work, and feeling consistently disturbed by that photograph in a strange manner. Maybe it was the randomness of the attack which struck me, maybe it was the (by now, sad) beauty and youth of the victims. I remember feeling a deep rage against first the attacker, but then realising he himself was a victim who couldnot cope up with societal norms. Next, i was angry at the photographer- how dare he click snaps when humanity demands him to help the victim? Then i reasoned, he was performing his duty and pehaps there wasnt much he could do to help either. I was therefore left without a villian and didnot find anyone to blame and move on. The incident shouldnot have taken place, and someone with so much to look forward to, shouldnot have sufferred such. More so, I should not have been left feeling so confused and helpless. That is exactly the feeling which comes over me everytime I read or hear about a major attack of terror in Mumbai.

Thankfully, i get spared having any such feelings while reading about crime in the Mumbai Mirror. For the Mirror, crime is a joint venture. The serious half of the venture is handled by Times of India, their sister publication. Left-overs and hat-ke incidents is what this publication gets to dish out. And it does so with aplomb. Creating and dishing out twists where none exist. Building angles to the incident which neither the victim nor the villian would have thought conceivable. Jumping to conclusions faster than the proverbial bullet. Imagining criminal ideas, which would shame even the most ingenous criminals about their ineptitude. Have a look at some of the headlines from the crime section of the Mirror that i've managed to hunt down in my May spiral:

Fig 1: A former gangster goes to meet Balasaheb Thakare. Random article

created only to come up with a catchy headline.

Fig 2: After airlines, its now trains. It takes a Mirror to come up with a

full page practitioners manual on "Hijacking Trains for Dummies"

Fig 3: Previous day headlines- Docs booked for Making Suggestive

Gestures in local park. Next day headlines, its turns up they were only

following Ramdev's instructions.

The guiding principals of the Mirror editors seems to be "What's a city with no crime and no gangsters?" Chicago without an Al Capone, London without 'Jack the Ripper', Munich without the massacre, Calcutta without its pocketmaars, Paris without 'the jackal', and Gordon City with no joker and no penguin just wouldnot be the same. Mumbai, they gleefully point out, is after all the city with the best network of organized crime in the country. After films, horse racing, matkas, and movie hall popcorns it is the city's most profitable industry. After Sachin Tendulkar, the city's most talked about son has been Dawood Ibrahim. Gangsters in this city are not pure criminals, they are required by the tabloids to be entertainers as well. Pure crime can get you to TOI, but its only if your crime can come with a tapori twist would you find yourselves in the pages of a Mirror.

Mumbai Spirals Day 2: 1'st of May, Friday

As in humans, quirks are really what make a city. Rest is all just details.

Mumbai is blessed with many such. Local trains, scary monsoons, smiling terrorists, mithun chakrovarty, parsis, iranian restaurents, double-decker busses, long but polite queques, a chalu language, both reliance and tatas, fiat kalli-peeli taxis, nuclear reactors, electricity realiability surcharge, one shoe-house and millions of match-box ones, etc etc. Each quirk mentioned here, is in itself material enough for a popular volume of encyclopedia. Fertile ground for anyone with a little bit of imagination and license to come up with blockbuster hollywood movies, bollywood potboilers and "arty" cinema, theatre, and revolting reality shows. Imagine what brilliance someone with a twisted imagination and an ulmost unlimited license to run amok with facts can come up with. You get a good idea about the tabloid i read each night.

While at work, the folks at Mumbai Mirror seem to save the best of their opinions and advice for the entertainment section. It almost seems like after being world weary reporting on slums, hospitals, crime, blocked drains etc. they finally get a chance to let their pent up creativity flow in this section. And the results are facinating, to say the least. My travels through the spirals of the May calender took me to the 1'st of May issue. It was delight on this count. The issue had a one full page analysis on the future of the middle finger (in the election season this article sought to give advice to stars about the right pose to strike after the deed is done), a feature article on Kareena Kapoor giving advice to her ex. (with a pic of a very sincere and thoughtful Saif looking on nearby), an article invitingly titled DATE-TRAP on Abhi-Ash, and and small section on Kamal Khan's next blockbuster- Deshdrohi 2.

Of course the post mortem of the middle finger was the most interesting of the lot. In the words of the reporter, "when celebs posed for the cameras after stepping outside polling booths, how they choose to provide evidence of their democratic leanings was a crucial indicator of their funk." Huh?? Celebs who made the mirror cut were Aamir Khan (Aamir Knows what to show) and Shatrughan Sinha's family (Bihar ke Ungliyaan). Defaulters were chastised in Mirror's own unique way. Abhishek Bacchan was adviced to "understand the repurcussions of image better", Govinda and Bhagyashree were given up as no-hopers, (they proved crasser than their on screen personas) whereas John Abraham's stance was flirtingly chided as "John for some reason seems to pull off the middle finger with an endearing mix of boyish vulnerability and rakish charm."

Of course there was no reference to any possibility of celebrities being gleeful about getting a chance to merrily show their middle finger to the assembled paparazi in the feature.

Mumbai Spirals Day 1: Wednesday, May the 13

The main headline for this day was a flight scare which happened on board an Air France Paris Mumbai flight. Apparently the pilot heard a "thud" and decided to return back to paris, where they checked and found it to be a false alarm. The sensational bit was a radioactive cargo on board, 3 gms of a radioactive isotope called Yttrium-90 on its way to Tata Memorial Hospital at Wadala. The article then went into a long discourse about what Yttrium-90 is, what are its usages, percuations, etc etc. I, along with about 16 Lakh mumbaikars got empowered with the following useful daily tips on handling Yttrium.

a) Superconductor needles made of Yttrium- 90 can cut more precisely than scalpels and are used in surgery.
b) Yttrium- 90 has to be stored behind lead and lucite (google tells me this is a trademarked organic chemical compound) shielding.
c) In case of exposure, Urine samples need to be quickly taken and analysed.

But perhaps the more interesting twist in the tale is only to be found in a related article on page 4. Once the flight landed back in Paris, Indian's amongst its passengers were apparently shoddily treated, and later they accused the airline of racism. As a build up to subsequent racist attacks on Indian students in Australia, the issue gained great prominance and was subsequently followed up prominantely by the national media!

Looking back, its just amazing what 3 gms of Yttrium-90 can do, isnt it?

Also, notable in the paper was this ad in first page. Like a corny tag line in a Yash Johar movie(It is all about loving your Family!) this ad. too had a masterpiece. It said, Vasista Rishi- It is all about knowing your life history- past, present, and future!

Nadi Shastra: Solutions for your problems in your thumb print

Mumbai Spirals- Intro

A city is defined by its human idiosyncrasies. That is what makes them unique. Of course, there are things such as topography, architecture, location, temperature etc. which vary. But none perhaps as interestingly as the behaviour of humans living within.

I just finished reading Sam Miller's "Adventures in a Megacity". Essentially a tour of Delhi in concentric circles, he presents a piquant view of how its people interact with the city. With a creaky knee, he covers nooks and crannies of "my" city that i didn't even know existed. And perhaps will never be to, and experience. Not only perhaps because i'm downright lazy, but also perhaps because Mr. Miller is a firang and i'am desi. Some of the things described in his book are never going to happen to me. Like the touts at CP surreptitiously squirting shit at my shoes. Hoping to have me pay them back to clean up. Nor would ear-cleaners above Palika Bazaar be ambitious enough to approach me with a chart of written references from Irish nurses and a Rs 300 bill.

At the same time, i would perhaps never be alarmed whenever i see people nonchalantly walking across tracks of a local train. Nor would i get concerned about "killer" pigs following me at a slum in Rohini. Not because pigs are perhaps not attracted by my brown skin, but because i would seem affected while trying to be excited about such mundane happenings.

So does that mean, there is nothing about Indian cities that i can find idiosyncratic? Of course that cant be true; and that's what instigated me to start my own "Adventures in a Megacity" Except for some problems for which I had to find immediate solutions to. I was 1600 kms away from the city i wanted to write about, ie. Delhi. Serious problem. I had to compromise by replacing it with the city I am in right now. Thus my mega city becomes Mumbai.

Next, came the challenge of it not being something original. Mr. Miller, and countless others have done it already, and clearly, i would not be doing anything unique just by replacing Delhi with Mumbai. Plus the Geography of Mumbai doesnt really support movement in concentric circles. Unlike the plains of Delhi, its shaped like the palm of a hand, and attempts of circumlocution might require me to walk across long stretches of the ocean. Also, i was not exactly excited about having to meander through the inevitable slums in this city . So in the hope of doing something original, i hit upon a plan of meandering across Mumbai through the eye's of others. I chose my medium to be the unique rag which is synonymous with the city. Mumbai Mirror.

Tabloids, by their very raison d'etre, provide citizens an alternate interesting perspective about happenings in their city. They may be scandalous, more closer to base feelings, and spread innocuous rumours about starlets; but are in general colourful and harmless publications with no greater pretensions then their circulation figures. Fulfilling citizens need for material to gossip on. Mumbai is blessed with several such. Maybe its because of the film circus here, or maybe its because people here are too closely stacked up and need an emotional vent. Whatever be the general reason for the increased gossip appetite, my specific contribution till date was as a dedicated bed time reader of the Mirror. All that has now changed.

Mr. Miller set up on a concentric spiral across the city. I decided to set up on a similar spiral of the pages of the Mirror across one month in time. He picked up the Delhi map and plonked his finger at the centre and spiralled it outwards to chalk his route. I, similarly picked up the calender for the most recent month, ie. May, put my finger on its centre date (it auspiciously turned out to be May the 13'th) and spiralled it outwards. And thus began my derivative adventure.

Fig 1: Mr Miller's route Fig 2: My Route