The EggStory

A bright, sunny day. 10:25am at the Egg Shop. An elderly man is being handed his two dozen eggs in two precariously thin paper bags. He picks them up and balances them home.
Next in line is a filthy little urchin with a grimy jute bag. He places two plastic egg trays on the counter. Silently. That’s code-do for: I would like to have these filled with eggs, please.
This, however, does not happen. A buxom lady woman overtakes me, marches to the counter, waves two 10-Rupee-Notes and demands six eggs.
Nice.
„Excuse me“, I say. „I am not standing here for fun. Go back in line.“
She steps aside, more out of shock for having been reprimanded than for a sudden realization of manners. But she collects her wits quickly: „What are you waiting for?“, she snaps at me.
„My turn“, I say and point at the urchin in front of me.
„He came later!“
This is the moment I fail to realize she deflected, so instead of pointing out to her that her turn comes after mine regardless of who may or may not be ahead of me, I simply answer: „He’s been here when I came“.
She negates this.
I confirm it.
Meanwhile, I place my order. And that is the bizarre part: The boy has to wait anyway. For two reasons: Firstly, he is only a dirty boy and therefore not a valid customer. Secondly, he places a large order meant for another shop. His existence there first in line at the egg shop could not possibly put other, more valued customers at the risk of losing two precious minutes of their life span.
That is what the woman next to me argues on: That two minutes are being wasted. I am unwilling to tune into what she is saying so I am not sure whether she means the boy or me, but someone is stealing two of her minutes.

This situation is totally absurd to me. This woman there is playing out the all-Indian trouble: She is better than the boy. Someone is always better than someone else and, by virtue of this undeniable fact, must be served first.
I step back from this awesome scene of human foolishness: The egg shop. The urchin. The woman. Firangi-Dani. Bitching about who came first. It is amazing! I wonder why she would put herself at risk of being beholden to this argument of inequality which she has put forward by telling me that This Boy Can Wait. I wonder whether it has occurred to her that, just as she is rubbishing his presence, someone else might come along and rubbish her presence, claiming superiority.
I would not file such behavior under „Long-term Strategy“. It does, however, occupy lots of space in the folder titled „Everyday occurrences“.

Like I said:

Nice!

The Local Trains Women’s Compartment

The Women’s Compartment of Mumbai’s Local Trains heralds, I am certain, the death of feminism in the not-so-distant future. That’s because the evils of the Women’s Compartment by far surpass the horrid discomforts suffered in the General Compartment, where salivating stares can at least (and under application of rioting fantasy) lead one to the conclusion that one is, in fact, an excessively juicy, gorgeous piece of double-X-Chromosome.

Not so in the Women’s Compartment, henceforth shortened to W’s C, which must – after minimal travel time – lead one to the irrevocable conviction that, truly, women are a mere spin-off of the male, and a sub-standard one at that. Nothing more could possibly have gone into the production of the female than a sodding spare of rib-cage.

There are rules to the Local Trains. What looks like a rush of madness to the uninitiated newbie is a finely tuned mechanism of in&out, which has converted countless carnivores into vegetarians – assaulted as they were by a sudden onslaught of compassion for sardines. For example, one needs to learn just how far you can push those in front of you before they plant you a facer.

Another rule of the Locals is „Ek aur ho jaye“ (One more/Einer geht noch), which means that a seat manufactured for three standard butts can easily hold four. So you are expected to „thoda adjust karo“ (Adjust a little/Rutsch ma rüber) for a fourth person to squeeze onto the bench. The logic behind this is simple: why allow three people to sit in comfort if you can harass them with your close presence and sit yourself? Get the point?
Me neither.

„Thoda adjust karo“ is in fact a pleasant if deceptive euphemism for „move over, b-„ (henchod/itch, depending on the addressee).

However, the „Ek aur ho jaye“ rule does not apply to First Class. But females, their Gray Matter wholly consumed by detailed recollections of past shopping escapades and the anticipation and careful planning of any such future event, cannot be made to comprehend such higher principles as „Comfort“. :. Therefore, you are required to adjust just a little in the Women’s First Class Compartment as well. The very purpose of the First Class having been successfully eliminated by the overpowering female desire to attach her bum to any horizontal slab regardless of its size (both slab and bum), led to me travelling Second Class.

The occasional fisher woman, bag of leafy vegetable or betel-chewing beauty is so much more bearable than First Class office women travailing in an unpleasant cloud of assumed superiority.

However, the W’s C Second Class is still hazardous! Yesterday, a woman with large storage compartments for fat cells attached to her buttocks demanded us to adjust just a little, so that she could be the Fourth on our seat. I was instantly prompted to doubt she would be able to force anything more than a quarter of her gigantic derriere onto the seat, but I had not reckoned with the momentum such a monstrous piece of jelly flesh develops when swung very hard. I swear my hips have been compressed by two inches at least, while I calculated just how many truck loads of soap Brad Pitt could have made from this fine example of gluttony.

Another fatal flaw of the W’s C is the noise level. There’s such a vicious strumming of vocal cords that any attempt at a meaningful telephonic conversation must be frustrated, while any reading activity is frequently interrupted by graphic images of bloodshed. I am now convinced that polygamy is prohibited for the benefit of the male, since no man could be with more than one such euphoric female speech organ without suffering severe hearing loss. :lalala:

It is due to these ignominious conditions (amongst others) in the W’s C that I have come to believe that having two exemplars of one kind is not necessarily a good thing. X-Chromosomes for one. ;D

Of Anger, Acidity & Ambassadors

It is Sunday afternoon. We pass by Sarojini Nagar market when a car stops right in front of us. The driver, a man oozing smugness, had chosen a parking spot neither hither nor thither. Not at the side of the road designated for parking by those funny No Parking signs, nor in the centre of the road to clearly identify himself as the bugger he was. He had carefully positioned his car in a way that said, I won’t move for quite some time, and neither will you, since his front bumper bumped right into our lane. So we followed the Indian protocoll. We honked.

He turns around with this Now what is it you want look on his face and, with his index straight up, says „Ek minute“. It gets my hackles up. Like so. And I did it again. I sunk low and snorted at him.

It was at this moment when I realized that Delhi is not suffering from acidity because of all the chole bhature it gobbles. It’s road rage. That sour feeling crawling up your food pipe has got nothing to do with any food orgy but with simple things in life. Such as traffic. And the anger it causes. Unless you choose to stay aloof. Which I don’t.

I rewind this entire episode in my mind and play it again, only this time I am driving one of those ravaged Ambassadors. That’s because an Ambassador never stops. Unless of course it breaks down. But it never stops voluntarily, especially not to give way. So when that driver pokes his index at us I stomp the accelerator and I do what Ambassadors do: I make way.

Roti-Shoti

Every morning I open the door to my balcony to check the nature of the surprise my friendly neighbours deliver daily. Sometimes it’s a tuft of hair which is but natural since many Indian ladies prefer to get rid of dead hair beautify themselves outside their home, standing on the balconies. On several other occassions I picked up mysterious strips of plastic with blue checks. At the end of a thourough investigation stood the conclusion that some neighbour’s blinds (that cheap blue plastic type) was coming un-done strip by strip by bloody strip. Once I found a more useful gift – a comb!

But today it was a bunch of roti-pieces. Of course. I understand. Even I usually rack my brain how to ditch the chapatis lying on my plate. You see, I’m not a big fan except if I happen to sit at Karim’s. So it is comprehensible that there may be more people like me who come up with creative ways to let mother’s rotis disappear in places other than their oesophagus.

However. Rahul tries very hard to further my understanding of Indian culture by explaining that it’s not uncommon for Indians to cut up left-over rotis for the birds and fling them some place they can’t see them. I see. Aha! That place is usually the „chhajaa“ – that little stone slab above the windows. Yeah, and you thought it was some sort of sun protection. Mysterious are the ways of architecture, food recycling and animal welfare. Sometimes, of course, a cheeky little wind gust might swish the rotis off to, let’s say, my balcony. But thou need not worry for the birds, since they just switch on their chapati-tracking-system and feast on the wheat-offering (with or without ghee).

By the way, this rustic animal-aid-programm is cultural candy from U.P., a state known for its unconventional approach to every-day problems.

So. There it is. I’m not the victim of a naughty neighbour’s attack pelting my home with rotis. It’s for the birds!

Birds?, I say. You mean those flying creatures that feed on grains, seeds and fruits and occassional bits of non-veg?
They eat rotis, too, says he.
Well. Seems like they didn’t.

But why would any of those happy-go-pooping-all-over-Delhi pigeons let go a sumptuous roti so I wake up to the dried, crunchy version of it strewn all over my balcony? And yet deep, deeep inside I know he’s right. Chapatis are a staple for Indians as they are for their pets. I remember a neighbour’s labrador gorging rice and rotis. Daily. And why not? Have you never seen a wolf hunt down a juicy cabbage on NatGeo? Strange.

I finally understand why Rahul and I were the only ones at a different time and place who’d feed the stray dogs (oh yeah we did!) with left-over chicken bones while our neighbours chucked a couple of rotis packed in a plastic bag, usually referred to only as ‚cover‘.

For a brief moment I receive flashes of newspaper cuttings dealing with a young vegan couple in the U.S. trying to feed their new-born with soy milk and apple juice. I think it’s very useful to have apple-juice-glands in your boobies. Juices are expensive in India. A reasonably tasty packet will set you back by seventy-odd rupees.

Ultimately, I resign myself to the fact that diet varies considerably across cultures. Maybe the birds just weren’t hungry last night. So I take out my broom and sweep away those sad pieces of roti-shoti.