by Sharell Cook
Just ask anyone who's ridden the ‘Mumbai local’.
I'd thought India's long-distance trains showed an unfettered part of humanity, but Mumbai's local rail network exposed me to a very raw and uncompromising side of the city's citizens, where the mentality of scarcity caused self-interest to reign supreme. For the harried and tense passengers, missing a train meant wasted precious time. Time that could be devoted to some other important task.
The Mumbai local transports around eight million commuters a day, making it a lifeline as well as a source of loathing. Not for the faint of heart, it has the ability to make people shudder merely at the mention of its name. Trains can be impossibly overcrowded, the doors never close and constantly have passengers hanging out of them. People even travel sitting on the roof. It's the cheapest and quickest way to get from one end of Mumbai to the other, about 50 kilometres from north to south. Keen to feel independent, capable, and a part of the city, I was undeterred from becoming acquainted with it.
Mumbai's train stations are worn and unkempt, sullied by the multitude of passengers who traipse through them every day and the homeless who dwell on their platforms. The fragrance of sweat, urine and ubiquitous spices is unmistakable. On my first train trip to Churchgate in south Mumbai, Aryan delivered me to the correct platform at the station, to a place where a large group of women had congregated.
‘This is where the ladies' compartment will arrive. Make sure you get on here, and be prepared to push,’ he warned.
The Mumbai local had separate compartments for women to spare them from the unwelcome advances of misbehaving men. However, being a woman certainly did not make one a lady in the inaptly named ladies' compartment. As the train ground to a halt, the crowd grouped together and surged towards the doors en masse, screeching like parrots. Passengers who were trying to get off were unceremoniously pushed aside as the unruly mob forced its way on, before again separating and scrambling for a seat. An elderly woman sitting on the floor was trampled in the process. She shouted out, but was completely ignored.
As I stood, barricaded by bodies in the aisle, I watched a fight unfold between two women. One had claimed a seat by placing her handbag on it, but the other had removed the bag and sat down. It was a bold move, and one that brought swift reprisal. A shouting match ensued, but the offending woman refused to budge. The other woman flew into attack, pinching the woman's arms and scratching her neck. The spectacle had me transfixed, and I blatantly stared like the most curious of Indians. Finally, another passenger intervened to prevent a brawl.
The lack of etiquette wasn't just restricted to overburdened facilities such as the local train or to the less privileged part of the population. Absence of manners was also prevalent at the shopping mall where I bought my groceries. Hefty Indian housewives overlooked me in the queue at the vegetable weighing counter. They waddled past me and attempted to hand their single items to the clerk as if I didn't exist and without any acknowledgement or asking if I minded. On occasions, I even saw mothers deploying their children to do it for them.
Venturing out was like going into a battlefield, where I constantly had to fight to get ahead. When hoards of women barged onto the train and jammed the exit, without allowing anyone to disembark first, I ruthlessly grabbed them and shoved them aside so I could get off.
‘Tum paagal ho,’ they shouted at me, calling me crazy. To me, the way they'd forced themselves aboard without any regard for disembarking passengers was crazy. I shouted back at them in return. The city made me as harsh and as unforgiving as it itself could be.
Meanwhile, at back at the apartment complex, occupants on the upper floors of our building seemed to mistake our balcony for a large garbage bin. They carelessly threw their garbage out their windows and onto it. Empty food packets, drink bottles, and even old magazines ended up there.
We obviously weren't the only aggrieved residents. An amusingly worded notice appeared one day, taped to the lift and noticeboard in the lobby:
It has been observed that flat owner in B wing are throwing waste material like plastic bottles, Plastic Bags, peace of Bread, other dirty things throw Window. They are also splitting in Corner of Staircase. It is a request to all Flat owner to behave like educated, qualified, and civilised person. Let us keep our Building clean then Mumbai and then Country. From: A humble request from Flat Owner of B Wing.
Unfortunately more than a mere notice was required to get people to change their habits. The paradox is that Indians aren't as unclean as they appear to be. It's just that for many, what constitutes cleanliness – or lack of it – is very different from the west.
According to Hindu scriptures, cleanliness is necessary for spiritual advancement. The body and mind must be kept clean, like a temple. Any substance that comes out of the body is considered polluting. As a result, Hindus try and expel as much as they can from their bodies. The chorus of gagging sounds that can be heard across India every morning as people clear their sinuses and bronchial passages reveals how enthusiastically they go about it.
Inside the home, the kitchen is traditionally considered sacred, as food from the kitchen is offered to the gods before it's eaten. So care must be taken to wash and purify the body before entering the kitchen and cooking in the morning. In very conservative households, people of a lower caste aren't permitted to enter the kitchen. Women even refrain from entering it when they're menstruating.
As can be expected, people are fastidiously clean inside their kitchens, paying as much attention to its cleanliness as they do their bodies. Utensils are scrubbed until they're sparkling and rubbish is quickly removed. That's where it ends though. Once all offending substances are outside the body and the home, they're no longer of concern.
To get me out of the apartment and distract me from my frustrations, Aryan took me around Mumbai on the back of his motorbike. Aksa Beach was only ten minutes away from where we lived, and it soon became my favourite place to go. During the week, it was relatively deserted, the shore dominated only by a resort and a few snack stands. We sat on the sand eating vada pav (spicy fried mashed potatoes in a bun, otherwise known as the Indian burger) and drinking fresh lime soda.
In Bandra and Juhu, we staked out the homes of India's Bollywood stars. As unfamiliar with them as I was, I was still fascinated by the huge part they played in people's lives and how the glitzy movie industry contributed so much to making Mumbai the city of dreams. Every Sunday evening for almost two decades, fans gathered outside iconic actor Amitabh Bachchan's house, Jalsa, in Juhu. Whenever he was home, he routinely appeared on his balcony to greet them, causing a mini traffic jam in the process.
Yet, for most of the part, suburban Mumbai lacked the charm of south Mumbai. Auto rickshaws weren't allowed in south Mumbai, but in the suburbs, they ruled the roads. The sheer volume of the incessant traffic spewed out noise and pollution.
The refined residents of south Mumbai (or south Bombay, as they still preferred to call it) very rarely crossed the invisible border into the suburbs. There was little to attract them. South Mumbai catered to their worldly wants with foreign-replica restaurants, designer stores and exclusive clubs. But, at the other extreme, it also provided opportunity for those less fortunate, such as the barely literate dabba-walas and dhobi-walas, who were vital for the city's functioning. It amazed me how rich and poor existed alongside each other, their lives intertwined in many ways.
The thousands of dabba-walas, men who carry containers, delivered around 200,000 tins of freshly cooked food to the city's office workers for lunch, at the same time every day. Rather than eat out, workers prefer to have home-cooked lunches made by their wives or mothers. Every morning, with precision, the dabba-walas collect the tins from residences and return the same tins empty in the afternoon, travelling by bicycle, on foot and by train. I marvelled at the skill of these dedicated men, decked out in crisp white kurta pyjama suits and caps, for whom the usual concept of Indian time proudly didn't apply.
The dhobi-walas also
had a remarkable system in place at their huge open air laundry, the dhobi ghat which borders one side of Mahalaxmi railway station. Their job is just as arduous, if not more so. They spend most of their waking hours standing knee-deep in seemingly endless rows of concrete troughs filled with chemicals, manually scrubbing and beating the dirt out of close to a million items of laundry every day. The dhobi ghat has become a popular tourist attraction, offering a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of the city. One day, I was brave enough to venture down from the viewing spot on the bridge above it and sneak a peek inside. Hundreds of families live and work there, in the colourless grey interior, surrounded by mounds of sheets and shirts. Instead of toys, a group of three barefooted youngsters played with a chicken. When they saw me, they ran over and, smiling, offered it to me to hold in a heart-warming gesture.
There is no doubt that life in Maximum City can be brutal for those without resources. They toil endlessly just to survive, with very few pleasures as we know them in life. However, even those who are better off can't completely escape the city's foibles. Although I'd been blessed with a job that gave my life meaning, Mumbai refused to yield to my love of order and control. After welcoming me, it was apparent that the city was determined to test me and my worthiness to be there. It did it slowly by confounding me in a different way on a daily basis, pushing me closer and closer to the brink of insanity.
Just when I'd finally accepted the absence of our water supply, the kachra-wala (cleaner) knocked on the door wanting to hook a hose up to the tap in our toilet and use the water to wash down the first-floor landing and stairwell. Pouring water everywhere then brushing it away with a broom is a common method of cleaning in India.
‘Lekin paani nahi hai (But there's no water),’ I tried to tell him. I'd barely had time to finish washing the lunchtime dishes before it was cut off.
I was wrong though. The kachra-wala connected the hose to the tap, turned it on, and water came gushing out. From where, I had no idea. Another of the landlord's illicit storage tanks? He spent the next fifteen minutes hosing down the landing and stairwell. Water poured down the stairs and out into the lobby. A couple of hours later, I went outside. The stairwell and landing were still wet, but dirtier than ever from the mud off people's shoes where they'd walked. I shook my head in dismay.
It was the Internet that actually troubled me the most, particularly because I constantly needed it for work. Most days brought a different issue with the connection. If not the cable, then the server. Or maintenance work. Or outages that would last from a few hours to a whole day, the duration of which could never accurately be predicted.
‘Half an hour, madam,’ I was invariably told when I called up to complain.
To add insult to injury, the service provider deliberately disconnected the Internet once a month while the account was settled. Instead of issuing a bill that we could pay, they sent a representative around to collect the cash. Once, it took days for someone to come and get it, and therefore for the connection to be reinstated. I had to go to an Internet café on a number of occasions to meet deadlines. The ongoing connectivity problems made me so enraged that I stormed into the company's head office and demanded an explanation.
I hardly recognised the angry person I'd become at times. It felt like I was embroiled in a twisted, dysfunctional relationship. Deep down, I did love India. But on the surface we continued to wage war on each other. There was yelling and sulking, and a desire to part ways. Coming from an orderly country that valued courtesy, I found it difficult to reconcile myself to the messy way that the city operated and thoughtless manner in which people behaved. I really struggled to make sense of it all.
Yet, I didn't want to give up on India. Her whims were part of her appeal. She was untamed. A land of mystery and possibility, where something different and interesting happened every day. There was only one way forward, and that was to bear with the daily trials and tribulations. Eventually, hopefully, I'd notice them less. I'd become accepting and detached. Then, maybe India and I could reconcile and reach common ground.
When Strangers Call
NO doubt I would have dealt with the daily challenges a lot better if our apartment was a sanctuary I could retreat to. For me, home is a place to escape from the outside world, a peaceful haven where I can relax and rejuvenate myself. But not in Mumbai. I didn't live in a fashionable, foreigner-filled suburb such as Bandra; I lived in conservative, middle-class Kandivali West. Very rarely was a foreigner seen there. As a result, I was a spectacle.
I'd accepted that unwanted attention would be a part of life in India when I went out, but I'd always been able to close the door on it. When I was safely ensconced inside, I could dress how I wanted and be myself, away from prying eyes. Yet, at the apartment complex, a constant and steady stream of people knocked on our door. Children wanted to collect cricket balls and shuttlecocks that regularly landed on our balcony. Tradesmen wanted to collect tools that they'd accidentally dropped from higher levels. The newspaper, cable TV and Internet providers wanted to collect payment. The landlord wanted to collect his mail.
As is the case with many people in India, the landlord was disconcertingly fond of unannounced visits and not turning up when he was supposed to. The informal and open nature of Indian culture, along with the ancient Sanskrit phase Atithi Devo Bhava (A Guest is like God) that's ingrained in Indian minds, means that visitors have been dropping in on each other unannounced for centuries. In big families with blurred boundaries, unannounced visits keep alive the sense of kinship. They also provide interest for bored housewives with nothing to do all day apart from cook and watch saas-bahu (mother-in-law and daughter-in-law) serials on the TV.
One hot day, I was in the middle of washing the floors while the water supply was on. There was a knock on the door. Dressed in shorts and a singlet, sweating profusely and showing an indecent amount of leg, I opened the door to the landlord. I had no option but to invite him in.
‘Please sit, I'll be back in a minute,’ I told him while I dashed into the bedroom to put on something more appropriate. Not being a tea drinker, I didn't have any tea or biscuits to give him. The only thing I could offer him was water.
The landlord's mother also dropped in unannounced once in a while. The first time she did so, she headed straight for the kitchen like every other Indian woman. There was some bread sitting on the bench.
‘What do you eat for breakfast and lunch? Do you eat this bread for both meals? It's not healthy. You should have roti (Indian bread) only,’ she informed me.
‘But it's so much trouble to make it,’ I said. Aryan's second eldest sister, Amita, had given me a demonstration. I'd tried it a few times but found the process messy and painstaking, as dough got under my nails and stuck to my rings.
‘No, no, no, it's quick once you know how to do it properly. I will show you.’
She went over to my shelves and started searching for the ingredients.
‘These shelves are very badly organised. Look here, I will sort out all your containers for you.’ She started pulling them down, taking out their contents and changing them around. I could hardly believe it. Here was a stranger completely rearranging the containers on my shelves – never mind if I approved!
Although I preferred that they let me know when they were coming, I didn't mind the occasional presence of the landlord or his mother too much. He was a young engineer with an interest in spirituality and compelling things to say, despite his staggering self-interested behaviour. She was a warm and intelligent schoolteacher who often brought me clothes.
The landlord's wife, however, possessed none of these graces. The first time I met her was during an unannounced visit. I was still in bed, so Aryan answered the door and let her in.
‘Where is your wife? I want to see her,’ she demanded.
‘She's not up yet.’
Undeterred, the wife opened our bedroom door and barged in. I was stunned. I was half-asleep and half-dressed in bed, with a woma
n who I'd never seen before standing in front of me.
The wife's second unannounced visit was as bad as the first. It happened on the day my grandmother's funeral was taking place back home in Australia.
‘You get the door,’ I told Aryan as I ran for the bedroom.
I'd been crying and really didn't want to see anyone. Again, she came looking for me. When she opened the door to the bedroom and entered, I could barely even manage to smile at her. Feeling terrible, I later explained to the landlord what had happened.
‘She must have been coming to offer her condolences,’ he joked. Then he added, ‘She's a little less cultured in her mentality.’
The landlord's excuse was a legitimate one. Unfortunately, many of the people living in our apartment building had the same mentality as his wife. There were six apartments on our floor, including ours. One was vacant, and one was a childcare centre. I very rarely saw the people who occupied the apartment next to ours, so was never sure who lived there. However, the remaining two apartments housed a rotund man who roared like a bull when he fought with his wife, and an elderly Maharastran lady and her husband.
The elderly lady who lived in the flat at the end of the hallway liked to go on frequent walks around the complex. It didn't take her long to come and investigate who we were. If she saw us returning home, she'd follow us back to our apartment and then come inside. Although she only spoke a few words of English, it didn't deter her from talking to me.
She took to knocking on our door at all hours of the day and night. It wouldn't have been so bad if her visits had a beneficial purpose. Rather, she sat and looked over my shoulder while I tried to write, or walked around the apartment and snooped. Nowhere was off limits, even our bedroom where my desk was located.
