India Everywhere

sunset2
Originally uploaded by psranga_99f.

So here I am, driving along the sexy DND (Delhi noida Delhi) superhighway in a rickety white rented for the day Ambasaddor car (with affable chauffer Thomas, as part of the deal), as BMW's, Chevrolets and humble Hyundais and Marutis pass us by. We've just passed through an American style toll collection booth and on the side of the road are fields, with a few stray thatched huts spread out over them. Some white turbaned farmers are sitting by the kerb, scratching their heads at development as it literally whizzes by their doorsteps. Newspaper reports of their country cousins committing suicide on an almost daily basis have vanished or if present, been reduced to a short 2 lines of so, somewhere on page 13. Meanwhile, 'India Everywhere' rocks as the theme of this year's Davos summit, on the front pages (along with simultaneous exultation at the Sensex having crossed the 10k mark – Tensex, announces the Times of India, with glee!). On my flight from Zurich to Bombay, there is an entire posse of India's cultural ambassadors – the Hari Om Hari India-rock legend Usha Uthup, big red bindi et al, and Shiamak Davar's dance troupe… flying back from Davos after performing at a superhit Bollywood inspired show for the world's business barons. I think of the troupe dancers, ennui writ large on their faces, so used to whizzing all around the world, to dance, entertain, earn. What a different world it is for them – participants in the new India, as compared to the concern-laden, wrinkled faces of the farmers that blur by us… and then disappear, at the gargantuan edifice of an unbelievably ugly mall comes into view. Inside, the shops are mismatched, and placed (at least to my mind) senselessly next to each other. A Ford dealership next to a Benetton clothing stopre, opposite a cookie and coffee kiosk…. And the mandatory multiplex on top. But no one seems to care. The hordes are out – uncles, aunties, mummies papas and loads and loads of cellphone carrying bachas. Eating, shopping and timepassing with practiced nonchalance. Just outside, there's a tangle of garbage, plastic bags, wires, pigs and stray dogs…. And in the distance, the mall's precursor – a rickety marketplace kind of building, covered with hundreds of multicolored hoardings. Field, mall, garbage, pigs, gleaming steel and glass building… scratchy fade-ins and fade-outs, snapshots of an whirlwind India trip gone by.

India is definitely booming, at least for some. I find it difficult to get a ticket to Delhi for a 6 am flight out of Bombay – despite the fact that there are now at least 30 daily Bombay – Delhi flights…. And on my return, on the midnight flight back, the plane is fully packed too. One can never find parking anywhere in Bombay city – rows and rows of double and triple parked cars obstruct traffic, which on most good days, proceeds at a snails pace. House prices have gone up by 100% in the past year. Salaries are stratospheric, at least in the new economy fields – software, media, banking, etc. Everywhere I look, it seems that people are hell bent on spending money like its water. At Salt Water Grill, the newest 'it' place on Chowpatty beach, the waiting period for a rickety beachside bench – and that too for only a fucking drink, is more than a week. When I finally get my ass on to that hallowed bench, man, it's such a let down. Surely, the quality of life, even for the rich, is patchy. Bombay city is completely dug up – dust and fumes clog up my respiratory system almost immediately on landing. My dial up internet connection at home still sucks – even broadband at a friends office is no better. My building, in so called posh south Bombay only gets water for an hour every morning and evening. If you want to shit and use the flush some time during the day, you have to fit in your own private tank in your apartment. Even then, water may (and usually does) run out. And these are just my idiotic whiny NRI returned plaints (all my friends roll their eyes when I start reciting them… you've become one of 'them', they shudder, no longer part of 'us') – in a city where more than 70% live in slums, and daily life is unimaginably tough for most. Still, I can't help but be upbeat during my India trip. I really don't know why – there's SO much that's fucking wrong. Still, there's definitely something that feels that it could be right. From auto drivers, to maids, to accountants, to the company CEO's that I meet… there's a perk in the step, and a confidence in the eye… everyone except the sad-looking farmers on the DND highway kerbside, that is.