October 17, 2011
Monday morning, after checking out of the guest room, Vishnu gave me a quick campus tour in the car. I say checking out but the preferred usage in India is "to surrender".Indians like to surrender everything: rooms, cooking gas connections, telephones, cable TV...almost all amenities and previleges.
The campus hostels have all received commendable facelifts. Across from Hostel 2, where once stood a Chinese food shack upstairs, our go to place for chicken garlic and veggie manchurian, now stands a state of the art air-conditioned indoor swimming pool. Hostel 3, my home for 4 years of bachelor's degree (when I was strictly a bachelor), sports a reconstructed mess hall. Outside Hostel 5 is a new fresh fruit juice stall. Hostel 6 used to be the end of the universe back in the days. Today, new hostels 12 and 13 stand proud in that area. A hostel 14 is under construction.
I wonder about the conical structure accompanying the new hostels. It looked too elaborate for a security room. Vishnu enlightens me that it is the entrance to the underground mess hall. This dining hall had a partly mechanised kitchen. But this architectural beauty proved a little imprudent in last year's heavy rains in the city. The whole underground area was flooded and kitchen needed replacement. Later on Vijayalakshmi aunty told me that one of her official guests from Europe who was put up in the new Renaissance hotel that flanks lake Powai had seen these new hostels and requested to be transferred to these "hotels" that are closer to the office buildings. I am told the new rooms have concrete and stone beds and tables to save on cost and maintainence.
Couple of new gardens, couple of new synthetic tennis courts. A small army of men were at work maintaining the green hockey field. Certainly more young ladies on campus. Good luck with those bachelors degrees to everyone who is in pursuit.
Right after 10:45, Sundeep Kapila telephoned to say that he is starting towards the campus from Arey colony and should be able to meet me by 11:30. Kapila is without question the friend with whom I have spent the most amount of time on this campus. Numerous rides on his sputtering but reliable old Chetak. The back cushion of that scooter was screwed down. It would go flying whenever a speed breaker tried to break the speed and my momentarily levitated ass would land back on the cold metal surface. We had a weekend ritual of riding on it to Shreyas theater in Ghatkopar to watch whatever atrocity was being projected on the screen.
By 11:30, I waited for him outside the faculty housing called the white house. The cows were grazing, bulls were herding them, cranes were looking for dung maggots, I suppose. Outside the campus wall, Mumbai flowed restless in perpetual heat.
Kapila came on a motorbike. He had sold the scooter in his final year after I had left. "Idhar hi kahin ho gaya" (It'll be somewhere here only) he said. He has sold it to a staff member on campus. On his bike to the coffee shack. Parking carefully between two freshly laid steaming hot piles of cow dung.
We reconnect where we had left off. Kapila wonders how I managed a PhD! "Saale, tera BTP tu ne mujhse karwaya tha!" (You had made be do your BTech project). He rues the fate of Indian Space Research if I begin teaching here. He asks if I had written any new plays. I give him the 2-minute synopsis of Kumbhakarnam. I find out more about his life. From campus, he went to work straight for an MNC. Had a good stint. Quit couple of years ago to start Swasth India. I listen wide-eyed as he narrates the progress of that venture. Commendable social service. I couldn't help being proud of this young man.
We met for all but 15 minutes but that was enough to erase the decade of absence from each other's lives.
12:15, Rajan uncle drives us outside the campus to get a taxi to the airport. Luckily, aunty's nephew and family are in the same flight. So I have company. The taxi driver agrees to make the trip for Rs. 250. He pours water into the radiator and we are off. Hardly a minute into the road, a policeman waves us down. The driver pulls to the side. We were supposed to take the outer lane but the driver didn't want to be slowed down. The level-headed and well-behaved policeman doesn't fit the stereotype I had in mind. The driver apologizes profusely. "Agli baar nahi jhodunga" (won't leave you next time) we are let off with the warning.
The trip in the heat is a nightmare. The driver curses the heat and the traffic. Multiple near-death experiences, let me tell you, are nothing like multiple orgasms. At one point, a huge truck swerved so close to us that I instinctively moved closer to the driver from my seat. Some red lights are meant for decorative purposes. Those who find them entertaining can stop. Rest of Mumbai is busy moving.
At a red signal near Ville Parle, we face a huge hoarding of Tata Retirement services. Three faces stare down at us: men of different ages. A young man with a stylish leather jacker, a middle aged, slightly balding man with a dinner jacket and finally an old man with a winter jacket. The theme is that Tata retirement services got you covered at all times. Our driver cannot read English. "yeh kuch lene ki baath ki halath dikhaya hai kya" (Is it some before-after photos of some medicine) he asks about the three similar looking models featured in the hoarding. I explain what it is. "Tata tho bahut bada company hai! Acha hi hoga" (Tata is a huge company. It will be good). We move on.Was he thinking about retirement?
The 25-30 kilometers I travelled within the city, not a single beggar was in sight. I wonder if it is impossible to survive in this city by begging or if the city manages to provide means of livelihood for everyone who migrates.
We make it to the airport in 40 minutes. Long queue at the Indigo check in counters. Staff members hurrying the "Lucknow-Patna" passengers through. A young Malayalee mom at the check-in counter 33 calls out to "Sharada-akkan", her old maid servant, who is taking care of her baby boy in the waiting area. She loses patience as Sharada-akkan takes her sweet time to finish feeding an orange to the kid.
Past the security check, onto the crowded lounge. I visit the men's room. All the urinals are occupied, I point towards one of the toilets to the staff member standing with the mop. He opens the stall, soaps and wipes the commode, mops the floor, flushes...everything in 30 seconds. I tip him when I come back and from his grateful expression I assume that many don't.
Most of the crowding in the lounge is because the sun shining through the huge glass skylights render a slowly shifting pattern of a couple of dozen chairs uncomfortable at any time. In the 10 minutes available before boarding, I reflect on the slow genetic mixing of the races in the subcontinent; the thought process triggered by the textbook aquiline nose of the middle aged woman sitting three rows away.
As if to make up for the delay in my onward flight, Indigo flight 177 to Thiruvananthapuram takes off 15 minutes early. Before take off, the woman in the seat across from the aisle refuses to remove her choir bag from between the chairs. "Madam, in case of an emergency, this will block this young lady" the air hostess, semi-squatting on the aisle, tries to explain the safety priority. "But I have been coming like this only from Delhi...from Delhi" says the woman wondering if the air hostess didn't get the memo about unbroken 'jalebis' and uncrumbled 'laddoos' being more important than human life. A minute before take off she agrees for a compromise. One of her other bags can go into the overhead bin and this sack can sit on the seat. And in the exact moment the aircraft tyres leaves the ground, she talks to someone on the cellphone. She covers her mouth with her palm as she speaks. Despite that precaution and the engine sound it is clear that some 10 lakhs needs to be arranged by the night.
The seat next to me is vacant. The young man on the window seat is sleepy. I continue reading M.N. Vijayan's "Vaakkum Manasum" (Word and Mind). Vijayan discusses deep seated complexes and hysteria. The woman across the aisle continuously eats during the trip. An apple followed by spicy potato chips as she browses real estate ads in the Times of India Delhi edition. Finally, she starts chewing her nails. Jung, Sartre, Lacan and Freud, discussed in the book, would love to have met her.
Captain begins descent 200 km away from Thiruvananthapuram. Burnt styrofoam type clouds over gorgeous Arabian sea. Aircraft banks to reveal the greenery of the city. The landing gear drops with an irritating noise as if a huge zipper is being repeatedly opened and closed. Safe landing. 40 minutes ahead of schedule.
I call Achan to find out how much I should pay for the autorickshaw home. He says a little over hundred rupees. As I walk down the road towards the airport compound gate, rickshaw drivers and their agents approach.
"Vellayambalam ethrayakum?" (How much to Vellayambalam?) I ask.
"Saar ethra tharum?" (How much will Sir give?) they answer with a question.
"Ningal para" (You say) I insist.
"Irunoottambathu" (250) an agent says.
I laugh out very loudly and continue laughing for a few seconds. That scares a few agents away. "120" I say. "Koode oralu koodi kanum" (it will be a shared ride). Fine by me.
A young man was waiting in the rickshaw. Obviously not a Malayalee.
"How much are they charging you?" I ask him.
"200 to Kowdiar" he says.
"You are not from here" I seek confirmation.
"I work for Air India, they have given me a flat in Kowdiar".
"What do you work as?"
"I am pilot"
"I am an Aerospace engineer". We shake hands. He was genuinely pleased.
"It is such a great pleasure for us pilots to meet aerospace engineers" he says. I keep a lid on my stock market inclinations.
Wonderful ride home. New friendship. He is now based out of Thiruvananthapuram. Flies Chennai-Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram-Delhi and a few other routes. Was staying at Kovalam. Recently moved to Kowdiar. 7 other pilots from his batch are staying in different parts of the city.
I tell him about my Austrian friend from Amarillo nicknamed 'airplane whore' for his ability to and excitement for flying any type of aircraft. "That's how it should be. You can ask any pilot. They would tell you that the best thrill is to fly new, untested designs and aircrafts. " He had wanted to be a pilot ever since he was in primary school. "Now but I want to be a director. I love watching movies in any language." Hindi film director Rajkumar Hirani's wife is a captain flying with Air India. He had approached her for opportunities in the film industry.
Born in Bihar and raised in Delhi, he wanted to join the National Defense Academy but ended up getting pilot's license from a school in Philipines that operates out of an American base. He is deeply impressed with the recent progress in Bihar and would like to go back and settle there. We exchange numbers. I promise to help him explore the city, "such a clean, laidback city with so much history" and introduce him to a few Malayalam movies.
My home. My room. My bed. Best part of any trip is the return home. With rekindled old friendships and exciting new ones.
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