press conference, press conference, see.. see..

But what to do. The only loo they have. Happy World Toilet Day!

And you enter the loo. And it is small. And the light is dim. Most of the flow finds it way into the hole in the ground, rather than the porcelain cavity.

The fireworks this Diwali

COCK BRAND

A. Rama Nayak’s UDIPI

We went to A. Rama Nayak’s UDIPI again. Since before independence. 1942. Just outside Matunga station on the east side. YO YO YO YO YO YO YO.

Mumbai in the afternoon

Photos from within an auto rickshaw this afternoon:

“Slumdog Millionaire” in real life

“I have come from Uttar Pradesh. I came here in 1997, ticketless, by train. Some people from my village were here before me. They’d made friends with the local slumlord and acquired a portion of this pavement, for business.”

Sachinder and his friends run a juice centre on a pavement at New Bombay. Flies, mosquitoes galore! He lives in a 10 feet x 10 feet pigeon-hole like space, that he shares with thirteen others, bachelors, like himself, from Uttar Pradesh, at New Bombay.

Rains in Mumbai

A group of us were to go check out an installation/exhibition at a popular art gallery in the city, the theme being the monsoons, and Mumbai’s equation with the monsoons, inspired by the heavy downpour, in 2005, that brought the city to its knees. I was to leave home by 9:30, reach Victoria Terminus by 10:15, run a few errands before assembling, like the others, at the popular art gallery.

Alarm bells rang at 8:00 AM, sharp. Snooze. Alarm bells. Snooze. Half hour later, the phone rang:

“Are you coming for the exhibition?”

“Oh yes! I’ll be there at eleven!”

“Okay, there is no rain that side, is it?”

“Yea, it is raining, but I’ll be there. I have to run a few errands downtown anyway!”

“Okay, I’ll see you there!”

A further half hour later,:

“It has been postponed! 2:00 PM!”

“Oh, in that case, I might not be able to make it!”

Pitter patter fell the rain,
On the school room window pane,
And the puddles, Oh, the puddles,
Are a sight to stir one’s blood.

I left for Victoria Terminus anyway, to run a few errands. I have never seen these many people on the platform of the local railway station in all my twenty eight years of existence! As many as three trains came, and left, over a span of an hour and a half, not an inch of space. I just about managed to climb into the fourth, only because I’d upgraded to first class.

I reached Victoria Terminus a good fifteen to twenty minutes more that it’d usually take. But I got there. I ran my errands.

The return journey was peaceful, though it poured heavy. On the walls of the compartment, in front’of my seat, I found this bill:

They say that they’ll come repair your computer anywhere in Mumbai, for a charge of one hundred rupees. I know a few, who’d set up services like this, and they struggle, so I thought I’d help these *Charlies* by sticking them up here. If I have a problem with a computer that I can’t fix, I’ll try these Charlies.

I am back home. The phone beeped, ah, an SMS:

“Forwarding msg frm martha reg soak exhibition- “Please tel all that it is canceled. My bat is down.”

It is still raining. There are floods.

FIN

Nelson doesn’t love us.

Nelson is Goan, almost retiring, a couple of years, perhaps.

“We, in our time, were very loyal to our workplace, our company. We’d stick. We’d learn. We’d perform. We’d be sincere to our company. Today’s young generation, they have no sense of loyalty, they jump from one company to the other for five hundred, one thousand rupees more.”

Nelson is a highly qualified hardware engineer. He’s spent almost all his life in this one company, that manufacture audio hardware. He’s got a good ear, and taste in music.

“I stopped taking interviews. I am fed up. Sagar now does the interviews. I cannot stand the youth of today, they’re a bunch of shit. One day, someone came for an interview and asks me – which company is this?
Can you believe it? I asked him – you’ve applied, you’ve come for an interview – and you don’t know which company you’ve come to for an interview?
And he replied no – I don’t have access to the internet – my brother has Internet at work – he applied to several places for me – now how do I know where all he’d applied!
Can you believe that?”

Nelson is full of stories.

“I asked him, what are your expectations?
- twelve thousand!
I meant to ask – what were his expectations of the company, his work but straight away! A fresher! Twelve thousand they want! Any sense!
I gave him a written test – bugger doesn’t know how many centimeters make an inch! He phoned a friend and asked him to check it on a foot ruler! Any sense? What is a decibel, we asked – he wrote a whole theory and equations – took an extra sheet of paper! We only expected him to write – a unit of sound!”

THIS WAS A VERY INTERESTING CONVERSATION. BUT I’M TOO BORED TO CONTINUE. I GUESS I’M DONE WITH BLOGS AND BLOGGONG. PERHAPS NOT, BUT NO MORE STORIES FOR YOU.

Sanitation concerns in South East Asia

Filmmaker Girish Menon, last year, released a documentary film, on a World Bank funded project, the Slum Sanitation Program, in India. The film takes a close look at, sanitation facilities, in the armpits of the third world. Inadequate sanitation facilities, is a major concern, in the third world, exposing its residents to contagious diseases, because of which, one isn’t able to report to work, resulting in a decline in income, the standard of living and children’s education.

A documentary film on Sanitation in India

Today, seems to be a day of announcements. Someone I know, one Mr. Girish Menon, recently made a film on Slum Sanitation in Mumbai, this a World Bank Project for Slum Sanitation. The film is online, http://girishmenon.com/films.html