FOOD FOR A THOUGHT

This article was written on 15^th July 2013, a day after the last telegram in India was sent. Also at a time when I was head over heels in love with the Minions from the Despicable Me franchise. In fact, I still am very much in love with them. 

It was posted live from Bangalore Airport on that day itself at ManipalBlog.com

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Picture Courtesy: livingwiththemagic.com

Once again (and after a very long time) I find myself “trybbling” (typing|scribbling) at Bengaluru Airport… or as I often say, the airport without a name! I really wish I had something else to say about the airport, but apart from the fantastic steel and glass structure with the shiny stonework and everything else which makes one go gaga, the one thing I really wish is that they gave the airport a name apart from calling it simply as Bengaluru International Airport Ltd. We have an enormous treasure of great leaders and people who claim themselves as great leaders and I am sure none of them would mind lending their good names to the place.

On a second thought, maybe it is better just this way! Imagine all the names that could be given… *wink*wink*

Ahem! So lets see…

A casual observance, led to a profound thought this morning. As I was enjoying a pleasantly overpriced breakfast, I observed how well we have adapted to the self service system, where one pays at a counter then moves to a separate counter to take our food, place it on a tray and then carry it on our own to a table and enjoy the labor which we just undertook.

A few years in the past, as short as 8 years ago, this would have been a practice that would have been looked down upon strongly. One just did not carry his/her own food then. It had to be served. We pride ourselves in our culture where our food is served, drivers (chauffeurs for the elite) drive our cars and maids clean our homes, while some cook cooks our food. All this while… we do… I don’t know… What do we do???!!!

But coming back to what I was saying… yes… we eat our food… then we most pleasantly leave the tray on the table, for a cleaner to come and remove it.

C’mon, lets accept it. We have adapted ourselves to serve our own food. But throwing away the leftovers… Naah! That is just beneath us! After all, we are Indians. In the words of the former Chief Justice whose name I cannot recall anymore, we are a culture where throwing garbage is a work for the elite while the people who keep the city clean are the lowly ones.

How ironical!

And then I noticed another strange behavior. This one gentleman dropped one of those flimsy plastic spoons on the floor while carrying his tray to his table. He made an animatedly flustered face which was a complex mix of surprise and shame…quickly looked around to see if anyone saw the spoon fell… did not noticed me staring at him… then did a swift about turn to get a new spoon and quickly rushed to a table.

Now, this is a behavior that I noticed is pretty common. I really do not understand why we behave so whenever a spoon or a fork or anything similar falls down in a public place. Our faces emanate a look as if it is completely the fault of the spoon... how dare it fall down!

What I mean is that is it so difficult to just pick it up and throw it in the trashcan instead of going through such an enormous charade of emotions?

Once again I realize we Indians have weird social inhibitions.

We are trying to slowly ape the self-dependent society of the west where one does all their work on our own and although we haven’t achieved that status completely but somewhere someday we will do so… hopefully! *Sigh*

Before I end, a couple of things that I must mention…

Yesterday, the last telegram of the country was sent as India officially terminated the services owing to the change of times. In the words of the headlines in the DNA:

Telegram expired. 9pm. Sad.

The other point is regarding The Minions from the Despicable Me series. I feel they are the most adorable entities of this decade. If you still haven’t heard their own gibberish versions of “The YMCA song”, “The Banana Song” and the most amusing version of “I swear”, then I must say that you YouTube it at the earliest. And then you can consider using one of them as a ringtone… a thought you will regret as soon as your phone rings in public!

  

Now, I don’t know how to speak Minionese but let me give it a shot!

Papadom Papoye Bo Deep!

**Interestingly, the government of Karnataka renamed Bengaluru International Airport as Kempegowda International Airport just a few days after this post was published** 

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This article was first published in ManipalBlog, titled as "An Indian at the Airport." ManipalBlog is the largest and oldest multi-author blog based out of Manipal, for which I happen to be a contributing author.

WHY MUMBAI HATES DELHI AND DELHI HATES MUMBAI AND THEY BOTH HATE BANGALORE

Picture Courtesy: Wikipedia.org

The idea behind this article is not completely original. It rose from a comment made by Manu Joseph, the Editor of the Open Magazine when the veteran journalist and the founder of India Today, Madhu Trehan was interviewing him. It was there that he commented on how much he liked Mumbai and how much he has always hated Delhi.

I got his point of view pretty well. Since Manu had spent his teens and tweens in Bombay (he refused to call it Mumbai) it was pretty natural for him to say he loves Bombay. But his extreme dislike for Delhi was pretty uncalled for! But he did go to explain that as well. Now, as someone who is from Kolkata, I found the entire conversation very amusing. I decided I could be an impartial judge of this situation and taking into account that I have friends from Mumbai and Delhi, I decided to do a bit of background research by organising a discussion among all of them. The conversation between all of us twisted into another direction when Bangalore came into the picture and it was even more amusing for me to watch my friends forget their hatred for each other’s city and turn unanimously against Bangalore!

With a teensy bit of consideration and in good taste, I pen my observations not to start a war, but because maybe we all can learn something from this mindless bitter-batter and because it cost me a few cups of coffee and a night’s sleep as my friends kept fighting till four in the morning.

Mumbai and Delhi being two very old cities have developed a heritage. With time each city grew its own character and spread its wing into different direction. The core point upon which the intellectuals from Delhi and Mumbai fight upon are that Mumbai is natural city where as Delhi is a created city. Mumbai like any other great port city has developed gradually. Taking its own time to turn from a fishing village to a port to a Cosmopolitan hub. Delhi on the other was created to be power center. Delhi was created from scratch as a capital city. It was created to be the center of governance. It was a planned (I mean created) city unlike Mumbai, which turned into a city from a fishing village.

Due to this very basic difference, there rose a change of mindset among people. According to Mumbaikars, Delhites are too used to having things done their own way and are obnoxiously arrogant. The capital makes all its residents feel that they have a natural right to look down upon everyone else. Everyone from Delhi thinks that he/she is an intellectual and has a right to opinionate. Then comes the mindless boasting. Delhi has lots of pretense where everyone has to support a cause or behave as if he/she is next big social activist. You have to be political in Delhi or at least have an opinion. The power center makes all its residents to be drawn towards power. They keep announcing how one had dinner with that personality and met this other big shot and no one knows how much it is true! 

Delhi, on the other hand, hates how Mumbai is too casual on everything. They hate how Mumbai loathes Delhi and the fact that Mumbai laughs at anybody who calls himself/herself anything remotely serious. They feel Mumbai, for some reason, is too shabby. People in Mumbai discuss the prices of vegetable more animatedly than pondering upon the power plays of politics. Delhites hate how Mumbaikars make local train timings more important an issue than nuclear bombings. For Delhi, the entire attitude of Mumbai comes down to one fact – “I don’t care.”

My friends from Delhi pointed out that how Mumbai lacks style. They felt that even though Mumbai is highly fashion conscious and is always tuned to the latest pulse of fashion, but for some reason all this is done too mindlessly. Mumbai fashion starts from St. Xavier’s and even before one can wink, the look is copied by the entire city. Delhi on the other hand has a sense of selectivity. They don’t wear everything and are proud of the Delhi style of dressing… the kurtas, khadi, heavy eye makeup and junk jewelry. Where as in Mumbai everyone is in tees and jeans with a backpack! 

This bickering went on forever and with each point I could see the fierce pride in their words and faces.

Then most carefully I mentioned Bangalore and when it came to Bangalore, they both hated everything. They felt that Bangalore has nothing if you remove the shiny malls. The only big city from the state of Karnataka has no landmark and no history… as a result no heritage. Overnight, it has become the silicon valley of India and people from the rest of the country rushed in. It turned into a city filled with outsiders who are too modernized but the local population still copes to deal with the modernization. They agreed that Bangalore turned into a city too quickly and the people are too nouveau riche.

With that loathing of Bangalore, I realized how satisfied Delhi and Mumbai felt! These older cities always enjoy brow beating anyone else when they can’t really win against each other. It’s a general human psych. What I call years of frustrations venting out!

Anyway, amused still, I was wondering if the next time, I would invite Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai too into the conversation. Maybe I will… But in that case, I will surely have the police and ambulance pre-informed… Because you never know!

:P :D


This article was originally written by me for ManipalBlog, the largest and oldest multi author blog based out of Manipal (Karnataka), for which I am a contributing author.

If you like this post, please do read my other articles at the ManipalBlog.