Thursday, November 20, 2008

Bombay Diaries Volume 2: Scatty thoughts of nothing in particular

I have realized that in my life, how the day is likely to turn out is completely and absolutely dependent on traffic choke points which I encounter in my daily routine. For me, one of the big ones is the Mahim-Bandra causeway. On the rare days I manage to sail through it with minimal traffic (No traffic is a myth in Bombay), I will suddenly find that every other aspect of the day suddenly falls in place. I will not get delayed in queues, the bus will leave on time and land on time, won’t be stuck with a smelly co-passenger, the maid will come, and every other chore will automatically be done smoothly without me having to hit my head on a few hundred walls.

That is my "I'm feeling lucky' day.

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Speaking about the co-passengers, I find that my patience with blushy, gushy giggly sheltered women is very, VERY low these days. When a female in her late twenties calls up her husband and has conversations like this (transliterated from Marathi) "Ticket was for Rs.235 they gave it for Rs.225 ...giggle giggle...maybe it’s because it is afternoon they have reduced the ticket fare ..paroxysms of giggles...they also gave a small water bottle..giggle some more" and about forty five minutes more of this silly laughing fest. The urge to throw the woman under the bus to see if she giggles is quite high. I certainly WILL chuckle quite happily then.

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Random conversation with the mother

Ma: I want to go to Kolhapur to see the Ambabai Temple and to Ganapathi Phule to see the Ganesh temple there.
Me: Are you planning to do a tirth yatra?

A sidebar here. My mother is NOT one of those prayer-bead-counting super religious people. She is quite street-smart, social and outgoing and well very Bambaya (almost verging on tapori sometimes). Not the devout pilgrim school of thought/deeds in other words. heck the couple of times, I have asked her to meditate she has gone off happily to sleep.

So anyways conversation continues

Ma (Dramatically sighing) : Haan ab umar ho gayi, kya karein tirth yatra hi karni padhegi.
I have to kindly point out to her that not less than a month ago she was clambering on to the Fort at Aguada with the best of us and frolicking (well standing) in the sea and behaving in a very untirth like fashion.

My mother is such a fraud.

14 comments:

Nikhil Narayanan said...

The lucky day bit, I can relate.
I escape one signal and I get to skip all the 8 signals to work.
I believe its the traffic flow or is it my day ?

-Nikhil

Australopithecus said...

lol! yes. I hate those sheltered characters myself. painful.

Nandini Vishwanath said...

Mothers are always frauds, methinks. My mom is a super fraud. She is very modern and all that per her convenience. Otherwise, it is emotional blackmail wonly!

Epiphany said...

Looks like your mom is an MBA too :D

As for the phone conversations, I am happy that public transport in b'lore sucks so I don't have to endure stuff like that!

sra said...

Isn't a li'l bit of superstition a lot of comfort sometimes? There, that's a question and a statement with an escape clause thrown in all at once!

Mums tend to turn surprising in more ways than one as they age. What I have noticed is that many of us turn into our mums quite unconsciously ...

Mo said...

Ah, my Mom turns very religious in front of certain people and suddenly starts asking them about the "holy" dates.

It's a riot.

AmitL said...

LOL- Cyn, what you just described, is what I term as 'signals'-so glad to find someone else who also keeps an eye open for them..:)Like,if in the morning,I'm all jumpy,or,drop a thing or two or three,that means the day won't go too smoothly,and I should be careful...and so on.:)
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LOL-your Mom sometimes seems to the young one between you two...the tirth yatra tete-a-tete just reaffirms it..So,when do you plan to go for the Chaar Dhaam yatra?

Cynic in Wonderland said...

Nikhil - the traffic bit is just one part of it. how does it explain the fact that the rest of the chores happen without any fuss or tears?

austro - super annoying when are have to sit next to them for four hours man.

nandini - yus its convinient everything no. kab modern kab traditional. but its good fun to take out hawa.

epiphany - bombay pune trip conversation ji not local so make that a LONG conversation.

sra - wonder whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. i for one wouldnt mind having the joie de vivre she has but not the rest i guess. hmmm. point to ponder.

mo - full drama no? my mother goes all abla naarisque and all. i find that quite hilarious.

amit - so u see where i get my genes from. and my dad was the funny one. blame em for everything i say.

VB said...

I have had days which begin amazingly well, with everything falling into place, but end horribly bungled up.
I have had days which begun all muddled but ended unmitigatingly in order.
And I have had days with permutations and combinations of the two.

And because of all this, then there was a time when I was buoyant on bad days and gloomy on good ones.

Failure is good! You fail a couple of times and your superstitions are out of the window :)

Sud said...

Good to see the fellow pattern finders. I have always been looking for a correlation between the time it takes the train to come and the my pnl.

I now strongly believe that the ninth power of the time to get the train is strongly correlated with the arctan of the pnl!

Pinku said...

hey that sounds like my mom....

btw she just did tirth in Bombay (she is currently visiting the city) so it was Haji ali, Siddhi vinnayak and Mahim church in a single day....

and she is headed towards Goa now...

Anonymous said...

Things not okay but such is life. Hope everything is good for you.

A

Cynic in Wonderland said...

Reluctant warrior - those too. But traffic signal one is DEFINITELY lucky i say. Besides, if you can get through without getting stuck in mahim, thats a pretty lucky occurence quite on its own i reckon.

sud - am an obsessive pattern finder and and a terrible mathematician so you pretty much lost me after the first line.

pinku - will she do the tirth yatra there?

A - Ok, now i am spooked. folks,health - ok? give details. pls. Dont know WHY i had that strange, surreal feeling which prompted the query.

Anonymous said...

like mother like daughter!!

we be in mumbai soon. should meet?