The other Mumbai wakes up

Early on a Sunday morning, the Fort area of south Bombay ought to be deserted. No throngs of suits and ties, no briefcases and cellphones, no long and short cars, and traffic jams and honking and cursing, and sweating policemen just barely managing to keep a semblance of sanity in the chaos. None of it.

The suits are in pajamas at home sleeping off the week and the traffic policemen are yet to arrive on duty. I expect to find a deserted Fort. It is strikingly different, but as I look around I realise I have unwittingly wandered into the morning rituals of the other Mumbai - those who have no weekends.

For, work must still be done for that wage that will buy today's dinner for the family. That walk to work must still be done. That bus caught. That cycle trip made. Sunday is not a weekend. There are no weekends.

Teeth must be brushed before those gas cylinders are delivered.
Hair must be brushed before the day's business starts.
Last night's laundry must be picked up from the park fence before a bird ruins it. Rubbish must be cleared.

I'm clearly the outsider: Who is this woman toting a camera? She isn't supposed to be here so early on a Sunday.

Pictures must be posed for.

"Didi, humaari bhi photo le lo"
(Big Sister, please click a picture of us too)
Lots of posing and giggling ensues.

"Maddum, hum bhi khinchwale?" she asked shyly.
(Madam, Can I also have one?)
I loved her smile.

"Arre Maddum, lage haath meri bhi le lo!"
(Oh Madam, while you're at it, please take one of me too!)
Strikes a pose, pretends to talk on the phone. Never mind the trash in the foreground.

It's always like this on Indian streets. It's more endearing than annoying. I click, while an amused old taxi driver watches. I train my camera on him, but he doesn't flinch.

Back to morning business - tobacco and choona (lime) must be shared, over routine morning greetings.

"Arre Maddumji, ye kaunse aqhbaar mein chhapegi?!"
(Hey, Madam! In what newspaper will this picture get published?)

I smile and shake my head to indicate a no and walk on. Perhaps I should have explained what a blog is. But the sun was getting higher in the sky and sweat was streaming down my back. It would have taken too long - too long for my comfort.

Meanwhile, the old taxi driver is still watching. He's smiling now. One more picture to let him know that I know he's watching. He could have been a statue.

Up on the road, business has already begun. The first customer of the day, the first few rupees. That heavy delivery of potatoes that will take hours on a cycle. The posh shop front must be prepared for its posh customers. The underwear drying on the plants must be removed.

Someone else cycles past me and waves me a loud hello. He's faster than my camera. My car's waiting, the driver slouching in air conditioned comfort, probably wondering what the hell I'm up to, but too polite to ask. I want to stay and watch some more, but I'm drenched in sweat now. I'm not used to this. The rest of Mumbai is still asleep.

I glance back before I sit in the car. The taxi driver is still watching me, his smile wider - the kind of indulgent smile that the elderly reserve for what they consider the foolish young. I laugh and take one last picture.

The India Chronicles | Another Life - 3

We had to return to the lodge due to the heat, albeit on a high from our encounter with the girls. But we promised ourselves we'd stop by at the village again.

The next day, our our way back, I made the driver stop in the village so that I could click this beautiful path winding down the valley that I'd noticed the previous day while driving in. It took the eye almost as far as the horizon - it was truly stunning and this picture does not do any justice to it. Wander-bug that I am I would have set off down it, if I didn't have the better-half to restrain me and a deadline to get back to the city.

I took several shots, and so engrossed was I that I didn't realise that there was a steadily growing audience behind my back. I turned around to find this.

The children of Karapura, again. Curious, shy and bold all at the same time.

And this group had a leader - an older boy called Shyam. Shyam spoke a few words in English.
"Tourist?" "Bangalore?" "Photo!"
He even told the group something to the effect of "stand straight and smile/pose"(in Kannada) when I pointed my camera at them.

Good fun. And true to Karapura style, these kids gave us a very enthusiastic send-off ... running alongside the car, waving, laughing and yelling "bye bye" until we drove out of their sight.

The India Chronicles | Another Life - 2

Continued from here.

It were the children in Karapura who grabbed our attention. As we drove into the village on a Saturday, and waved back at the excited children trying to keep pace with our lurching SUV, we couldn't help but notice that all of them were in school uniform. Every single child we saw. Given this is an Indian village, that was more a happy anomaly than the norm and I have to admit it filled me with joy. It was past noon and these children were walking home from school - which, on second thoughts, must have been adding fuel to their glee.

So I decided to go back to the village and try and catch up with these children. By the time we settled into the lodge and walked back into the village, the excited chatter and screaming of children had given way to a mid-afternoon lull. The afternoon heat had risen and presumably, the children were all safely ensconced in their modest but cool homes.

But we soon came across these two little girls. We tried to say hello to them but realised they only spoke Kannada - a language we don't know a word of. But they seemed to be saying something to us.

"Payn? Payn?!", they said to us, excitedly.

We were a bit puzzled at first, but soon realised what they wanted. The older girl made a scribbling gesture in the air.

"Pen?" she said again.

For these children, a pen was the most exciting thing on earth. They probably realised how privileged they are to be able to go to school in rural India, and they seemed to know that it' is that privilege that is going to give them a better life one day. School was exciting, a pen was fun! And these strange tourists carried pens! Of course, I only assumed all this for we couldn't talk to them given the language barrier; I only fervently hoped that this is the way they saw it. As for us, were just overjoyed that they were asking us for a pen - that all they wanted from us was a pen, if we had one on us. They were not interested in my camera, or in the other contents of my large bag...they probably didn't bother to take in the way we were dressed, or our shoes, or my sunglasses. All they wanted was a pen!

We wondered what to do. I didn't have a pen on me just then. We wondered if we could buy some from a village shop and give it to them but there wasn't a shop in sight. And as we wondered, the girls slipped away quietly, possibly disappointed. Then my better half rummaged through his hip bag and fished out two pens - one, a simple Biro and another, a pen branded with his company's name. We excitedly walked back, found the girls again. Their smiles turned to whoops of joy as we handed them a pen each! They went running inside their homes to show off the pens to their parents. The older one squealed with happiness when she saw hers was a branded pen. Such unbridled joy! In their hearts and ours. All I wanted in return were pictures. They posed, shy at first, happy giggles bursting out from time to time.

We never found out the names of these girls. But they sure made our day.

The India Chronicles | Another Life - 1

Karapura is a tiny village in the heart of southern Karnataka, set in the idyllic lap of nature - the Nilgiris to one side, the river Kabini on another and lush green tropical forest all around. Its location is its lucky charm, its passage out of the obscurity that marks thousands of remote villages around India - for it marks the gateway to the Nagarhole National Park.

But it seems there is nothing else to distinguish this village from the hundreds of others we passed on our way: swaying fields of paddy, broken by small carpets of orange marigold in full bloom or the odd coconut grove; specks of hard-at-work bent heads and hunched backs contrasting against the fields; ramshackle huts and handmade barns dotting the vast undulating expanse of green; children running alongside the dirt tracks that is the only motorable access to the village, waving and yelling gleefully at the odd four-wheeler that passes by...and as you laugh and wave back, you cannot but notice that although only a hundred miles from the city, you're in another world.

The people of Karapura live in another reality - a reality where four-wheeled vehicles are a rarity to be waved at; the occupants of these vehicles - those slick city dwellers with their big cameras and their absurd ways - a curiosity; where life begins and ends with the paddy fields, the village church and temple, the tiny village school, the herds of cattle, sheep and fowl and the simple aspiration to keep one's head out of poverty; where nothing breaks the peace except the odd SUV that roars into one of the tourist lodges that sit on the banks of the Kabini - those lodges that sit behind those enormous forbidding gates beyond which life and the way it is lived has nothing in common with the villagers' life.

This is the Indian village - this is another life.

to be continued...