Dhobi Ghat

Given Aamir Khan's recent movies, I expected the film to be melodramatic. I had read that the film was an ode to Bombay and expected it to be an aggrandized portrayal of the city. However, it wasn't either. It was a stitched collage - stories of seemingly parallel lives quirkily intersecting - weaving through the melancholy of Bombay. Incredibly, this movie did not tell what the city does to you or how it does it, rather showed it doing what it does to people. 


I liked the movie very much and was reminded of a line from New York Times' review of Arundhati Roy's The God Of Small Things in which it described the book as is "heartbreaking and indelible". The description could easily befit Dhobi Ghat, I felt.

From Golm, Germany

On Friday last week, Nirumama and I drove from Dossenheim to Luxembourg to Nishithbhai's. The Luxembourg trip has not much to write about, except that I loved the drive to and fro, and that Nishithbhai and I went to the cricket nets to chance our arms at batting and bowling after over a year. And I also discovered my new interest in chess, a game I utterly disliked before.

The realization that my carbon footprint had grown

Delhi

I think i have kind of started settling in Delhi. It is radically different from Bombay and it takes a while to come to terms with how this city functions.

With more than three thousand years, Delhi is the longest surviving capital city in the world.

Sunday Sundry

What comes to your mind when one says: “art exhibition”? People, champagne in hand, staring at canvass smeared with color that makes you think the artist might have plagiarized your child’s accidents with water colors, new age or classical music playing in the background? Women wearing expensive jewelry, perfumes, hair color air kissing? Or men wearing suits and wives stepping out of their dirty big German cars talking, in weird accents, about means to combat climate change? Something elitist?

Well, pictures like these would definitely flash across my mind. Not that I am against the whole elitist cliché associated with art exhibitions – I enjoy it myself at times. So, once I went to a much hyped about art (performing arts) event with a couple of colleagues of mine. I was thinking of wearing my cool blazer and leather boots, but decided against it when one of my colleagues said that she believed in art for the masses and was just gonna wear her jeans, t-shirt and flip-flops.

Today I happened to be at Jehangir Art Gallery, looking at some modern art. When you think “modern art” one would think only the elite who’d understand (or at least pretend so) what’s on show and dare to venture. But much to my pleasant surprise, the gallery was chock-a-bloc with people one might condescendingly categorize as “lower middle-class”. True, there were times that the curators had to ask the visitors not to touch the artifacts, but then it was a delight to see these people appreciating what most of the “upper middle-class” might grudgingly call elite modern fart. My activist colleague would have been proud.

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King’s Circle garden is one of the few densely green parks left in Bombay, with many tall, lush green trees. One of these trees, if I am not mistaken, has stood there for around to two centuries. It is a lovely Peepal – most Hindus revere a Peepal tree as holy. The amazing part about this park is that it is actually a traffic island on an arterial Bombay road with hundreds of thousands of cars driving around its circumference on a daily basis. Inspite of the manic traffic around it, it always remains calm and peaceful inside itself. The mere sight of this park, while one is waiting for the traffic light to turn green, is soothing to the senses. Hundreds of people throng this park everyday. Correction: hundreds of people thronged this park, until last week. Today I was riding back home, admiring the lovely park, only to find the people missing. I enquired to find that the MMRDA is gonna construct a flyover over the park. Sixteen trees will be axed tomorrow to make way for the flyover. The Peepal tree too, amongst those sentenced.

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My dad just told me of a report on NDTV today. It is supposed to have said that the river Ganga might cease to exist by the year 2030. Apparently, about eight square kilometers of the mouth of the river has dried up in the past one year. The corresponding figure, the report is supposed to have said, was four square kilometers for the previous year. It is mind numbing to imagine the impact it could have, if the Ganga were really to dry up! And Al Gore will tell us that the possibility is nothing less that an inconvenient truth.

One name however, immediately crossed my mind – a gentleman by the name of Mahesh Chandar Mehta (or as many law students would know: Mr. M.C.Mehta). I told my dad, knowing how naïve it was to say it, “M.C.Mehta wouldn’t let this happen”. “What will M. C. Mehta be able to do all by himself”, my dad questioned. It was only once my dad asked that question that I could really understand what the man has done for the country so far.

Almost single handedly, with a little cooperation from the Justices of the Supreme Court, Mr. Mehta has successfully fought many an environmental battle over the past two and a half decades. A few prominent cases amongst are the CNG case, the Ganga Pollution case, the Taj Trapezium Case, the Oleum gas leak case… you could ask any law student and one would give you a seemingly endless list. That is what Mehta has been able to do, all by himself. And what’s more? Mehtaji’s integrity has never, in a mission lasting over a quarter of a century, been questioned and he hasn’t been shot dead!

Easter Greetings

Hope it has been a great Easter weekend for you guys. It surely has been a good one for us here in India. In fact, it has been more than just good for us. India, quite infamously has very many holidays as we have very many Gods! But alas, Bombay being Bombay, isn't quite always as fortunate. However, this Easter weekend has been a nice long one for us and that is a real rarity in our city, which races with time with steel wheels on iron tracks.

This year the Gods seem to have come together and smiled upon us - we've had four consecutive holidays – Thursday was Id-e-Milad, Friday was Good Friday, Saturday was Holi (Bombay mostly works on Saturdays as well), and then today – Easter. So, it has been a great mini vacation for us!

Hope you too have had a ball of a time.

Cheers!

some blah

There is a marked difference between being sound at something and being good at something, isn’t there? And at times one may confuse the former as not only being good, but maybe also being great at something! The founder member of the firm I work with calls it the MBA syndrome – MBA for ‘Mane Baddhu Avdeche’ (Gujrati for “I know everything).

My mentor always tells me that there are no shortcuts in any practice when I used to get hassled, everytime that I could not find something instantaneously. He always told me that the legal practice is a lot about knowledge which comes with a lot of experience that one gathers along a rather long and circuitous journey and that one must enjoy every moment of this journey. Because there are no shorcuts.

I guess that is why they call professions “practice”. Its all about practice – like cycling – one needs to internalize the balance before one can do what seem like gravity defying stunts. After all its all about balance, which comes with practice, doesn't it?

Rodent Of A Car

I recently got an email about the the much talked about the Rs. 1-lakh Tata micro-car, which is likely to be launched sometime in 2008. Here are my first thoughts:

I am a car afficinado, all right; but when it comes to this new 'revolution' Mr. Tata seems to have successfully endeavoured to bring to life concerns me a great deal. Firstly, because the car runs on fossil fuels; and secondly, because it is so inexpensive - given that we seem to have no carrying capacity to accomodate large numbers of these that seem to be on the cards.

I am taken aback by the fact that the car is likely to come with a diesel variant! It might make business sense for Tata not to think electric car, lest it should lose its USP, which is its cost advantage; but it amazes me as to why Tata would not drive their car environmentally cleaner fuel modes like CNG or LPG, given the fact that Tata has the necessary technology; widespread availibility of these fuels; and most of all, these fuels are incredibly cheaper than either of the two oil variants that Tata proposes to run its micro-car on - in line with the motto of building a cost-effective car, which competes with motorcycles and scooters!

Second, most apparently this is a car for urban roads - do we really have the carrying capacity to accomodate large numbers of these small four wheels? Imagining a scenario where half the two wheelers turn into the Tata 1-lakh car is as scary as any nightmare - Do we have as much parking space? Do we have as many lanes? I think the already scary situation is all set to get worse.

It amazes me further that Tata - a company that pom-poms itself as a pioneer in the field of CSR is manufacturing rodents of cars. I would tend to think that there is tremendous scope for business in public transportation. Should Tata invest as many funds in the railway sector or Eco-friendly buses, it stands not only a great opportunity to stake its claim as the numero uno in bus manufacturing, but also generate revenue from the international carbon market. And we are all aware that a certain Mr. Tata is capable of doing so.

Mondays and Fridays

Last winter while interning with a Supreme Court Lawyer, I used to regularly follow Court proceedings on a daily basis and I was amazed at the Special Leave Petition (SLP) days -Mondays and Fridays. I was amazed on two counts: firstly at the manner in which almost every matter would be given a minute or two before being thrown out; and secondly, and more importantly, the sheer number of cases the Court heard.

The Supreme Court of India hears close to 60,000 cases in a year, most of which have done rounds of numerous fora at lower levels and appealed right through to the apex court. In contrast, most other apex judicial bodies around the world hear only a small fraction of this number. Also, most of these cases that our Supreme Court hears are SLPs and there are very few constitutional matters with of 5, 7, 9, 11 judge benches.

There are two questions that arise in my mind in this regard. Firstly, what causes so many appeals to the Supreme Court in this country? And secondly, why have Monday and Friday hearings at all? Could judges not decide whether or not to entertain an SLP by simply looking at the papers, given that counsel are barely heard?

The answer to the first question, it seems to me, is rather obvious – litigants are simply dissatisfied by lower court judgments. I guess these could be the reasons:

1. Corruption amongst judges of lower courts;

2. Intellectual capacity of Judges of lower courts;

3. Judges may tend to decide a case in a manner that minimises the risk of it being overruled on appeal, at the expense of justice (so, for example, in a case with 9 contentions where 4 favour the plaintiff and 5 favour the defendant the judge might decide all 9 points in favour of the defendant, lest the judgment should run a greater risk of being overturned on appeal);

4. Judges on a division bench almost never differ.

As yet I cannot find much reason for the second question, but looking at the disparity in the number of lawyers present in court on SLP days and those on final hearing days, I would think SLP days exist to provide for lawyers that might otherwise be unemployed!

Weeping the Sedimented Dirt Off Her Face

Have you ever felt a sense of being abandoned by the only ONE you know you can rely on? I think, the very fact that you are reading this suggests that you are not in a position to comprehend what I am talking of. Not even the writer who speculates my sub-conscience as he writes this. It is something I have often felt -almost every day -but I am not in a position to be present to it. Most things to me are mere objects -of little importance. Like cars, which I do not bother about anymore than avoiding being hit or run over by them.

Yesterday, I was walking to a friend's on my way to work. I saw a bovine family walking, one following the other, in a row, off the road. "How well adapted to the urban discipline of walking off the streets", I thought. Just a little further down the way I saw another family walking in a similar fashion. The last member of this family was the tiniest on her feet. Trying to walk her fastest, but trailing by about ten meters. She was a little girl -must be barely two or three years old -weeping away the sedimented dirt on her face, down her baby cheeks.

It was as if she had been with me a long time back and over that time she had drifted away, not too far away, but continued to drift farther -slowly, but apart. I tried pushing the road behind me to the best of my ability; but she pushed better than I did.

Tears just poured out of her eyes that were stuck to her mother's back -her mother was trailing the rest of the family with another child -an infant -in her arms. I do not think the girl herself was aware that she was crying. Her eyes were just stuck on her mother. It seemed like she must have felt like a sole last survivor of a shipwreck with a buoy floating about just ten meters away, trying real hard to get to it, but the buoy keeps gradually drifting -slowly, but away -in the middle of an ocean. The mother did not once look back at her older offspring. She didn't once look at the infant in her arms either. She just walked with dry eyes -following the rest of the herd.

All I could feel was... nothing. I thought I would never get to her. Thought she was abandoning me. I just wanted to get to her. My cries sounded distant and I wanted to get to her. I tried pushing -but the road was too heavy to push any further -but I was trying. Suddenly, from behind me, two large hands grabbed me and lifted me into the air and left me next to her. She stopped. I was standing next to her. I could now hear my cries -they sounded loud~

So, I just lifted her off the road and took her to her mother. The mother stopped and so did the rest of the family. "Don't leave a child alone like that", I told them. Not a word was spoken beyond that. They just looked into my eyes. Each one's eyes were as dry and looked as perforated as the other's -they seemed hollow -maybe the last drop of tear had evaporated long time back. The girl continued to cry, just as profusely -her eyes were shut this time around.

Fear

I think I remember when I was as scared, scared as against afraid, as I am now. I think it was when I was five years old –or maybe ten.

I have been wanting to go running early in the mornings ever since I have been here in Delhi. So far it has been the cold that has prevented me from daring of venture out of my warm sleeping bag –but then, on those days my eyes would open at about five or six in the morning and shut within almost no time. Today, I have been up since 5 AM and my eyes haven’t really shut me back to sleep. I really want to go running today. The time right now is 6:25 AM and that’s how long it has taken me to even get to me computer and write this. And the fallen mercury is not the reason.

It is still pitch dark and one can hear the watchman blow his whistle and hitting his baton against the road and making sounds that go ‘tak… tak… tak-tak’. A truck roars past on a nearby highway every few minutes. It is still pitch dark.

As a child I was scared in the dark. I would have dreams of being eaten up by a giant yellow duckling with red wings –a magnified version of toy answering that description –eaten in one peck. While walking in then dark I would break into sweat (maybe literally) in fear of being shot with a double barreled rifle –like the bandits in Hindi movies use.

Last night we were talking of how unsafe Delhi is against Mumbai. One even spoke about how people in Kota –a small town would mercilessly get butchered for a few Rupees or next to valueless things. This, against the backdrop of about 31 kids’ skeletons having been found behind a house, which is a few blocks from where I put up here in Noida – a satellite town –a few kilometers from New Delhi. The kids (boys and girls) were butchered after being raped by two men.

And it isn’t only today that I feel so scared; I have been so since last night when I was driven to riding my motorcycle at an insane speed of not less than 80 km an hour while returning from a friend’s after dinner.

I have not been this scared in over a decade; not even when I traveled to the remotest of places in India –not even at night with no street lights. Today, I have been so scared, of something uncertain that I have spent close to two hours entertaining this fear. It is insane. I have even run the fear of having a schizophrenic streak. Writing this helps. I do not feel the fear anymore.

Looks like the Sun is set to rise in a few minutes now… I better go running.

Cheers!