Bombay. Bambai. Mumbai.

Coming from a town where everyone I knew had a bungalow, how the world looked from a seventeenth floor apartment was fascinating, if not enchanting. I sit at this huge French window and look at Bombay, its streetlights, its yellow and black Padmini Premiere taxis, rivers of molten lava of the bumper-to-bumper traffic and the sea beyond. You’d be lucky if you could spot a single star in that sky. Yet, the zillion skyscrapers twinkle, celebrating something known only to Bombay.

Aamchi Mumbai. Maximum city. City that never sleeps. City of dreams. Tinsel town. Too many epithets, too much hype for the big apple of India. I never, not for once, felt new or lost here. Even when I had just come, it felt like I’d always been here. Maybe that’s what Bombay is all about. There is no space but there’s place for everyone. The page three millionaire is here and so are the urchins. The queen of high fashion has her Bombay and the famous dabba-wallahs have theirs. The rich dad’s girl holds on to her Gucci shades and listens to her iPod while the lower middle class Maharashtrian clerk shoves and pushes to grab a seat on the train so that she can cut vegetables on her way back home after a long work day. The Shiv Sena has its Bombay and the stoned-out-of-their-wits firangs have theirs.

At one glance from my window, I can see the hutments in the little slum below, the 7-star hotel a little away, the queen’s necklace a little farther, Porsches on Marine Drive and the fishing boats on the sea. And none seem to disturb the harmony. The warm damp sea breeze carries the perfect song. And just then my reverie is broken as a Borivali fast local screams its deafening whistle on the rails below.

That’s Bombay for you.

Effortless

Surfing channels, I caught a little part of one of these ubiquitous reality T.V. shows. The judge praised the contesting dancer and said ‘Good Effort!’. The dancer gushed, delighted.

‘Good Effort!’ I repeated, analyzing the sound of it. It can be used with sarcasm. But people probably won’t catch the sarcasm and I’d hate the waste of it. Effort! That’s not a flattering remark. Some things are beautiful only by virtue of seeming effortless. Like singing. Like playing an instrument. Like writing. And like dancing. If the effort shows maybe you haven’t put in enough of it. Ironic, isn’t it?

Effort probably is the only thing that you must make more of so that the evidence of its existence may be erased.

Who are you kidding?

Scene I

Bob sees Alice across the café. He is scared of her for she will break his bones for what he must tell her. ‘Hey’, he says timidly. ‘I broke your guitar’, he blabbers it out before his nerves could fail him. ‘Brrreak???’ She wishes she could break his bones and say just as matter-of-factly ‘I broke your bones’. Nostrils flaring, she gives him a hard look and turns around and walks away to get coffee just to keep herself from slapping him.

Alice comes back to the table to find a chocolate kept on her seat and a pleading-eyed Bob. Another one of her hard looks. ‘Don’t try silly tricks’, her eyes seem to say. She sips her coffee while Bob thinks of more silly tricks to try.

‘You know what, I saw this café the other day, just like the one we want to have’, says Bob.

Alice looks at him for the first time in ten minutes, interested, but trying to retain her anger.

‘It even has the wood and stone look we talked of, just imagine,’ Bob goes on.

‘But I’m sure it doesn’t have bonfire on winter nights like ours will. And dude, we have to coin a new word. Café doesn’t fit. It’s a café, lounge, pub and music place ya,’ says Alice, all indifference gone.

Bob: ‘Yaar, it’s going to be awesome. Every evening we’ll sit by the fire with great music and a beer. And Sundays ko only coffee. We’ll just keep sitting there’. :dreamy eyed:

Alice: Ya ya, why not. If I keep sitting there all the time, I’ll have to sing cats in the cradle when thinking of my kids ;)

They laugh.

Alice: And my husband will beat you up.

Bob: Haan, koi na. Tell him to come beat me up once a week. I’ll take it.

Between laughs Alice says ‘I’m so gonna break your bones for breaking my guitar’. The coffee, cold now, sits on the table amidst the planning and excitement.

Scene II:

Bob is smartly dressed, ironed corduroys and a striped shirt, tucked in, unlike his usual dirty t-shirt and shorts with torn pockets. His hair is neatly combed back and his stubble shaved. Files in hand, he walks in for an interview.

‘So Bob, why VLSI?’

‘When I design a circuit/IC I passionately try to better my design, reduce redundancies, increase gain and optimize it. My creativity comes into play. And when I’m done designing I feel immense satisfaction. VLSI is my passion.’

He gets the job.

‘Bob, we have a five year bond, is that fine by you?’

‘Yes of course, I look forward to a long rewarding and enriching career with your company’.

He signs the bond.

Scene III:

Alice sits in the library. ‘God, I haven’t read this month’s Business Week and I must start reading Eco Times cover to cover too’.

‘My percentile in the mocks is quite ok but I must work harder now. There’s just three months left. I’ve got to pull up my socks if I want to walk down the dark dingy exposed-brick-work, architecturally awesome corridors of IIM-A, my dream.’

Who are they kidding?