We Need To Stop Running
  • Blog
  • Archive
  • Des Photos
  • Contact
  • Mjoezik
  • Eating In / Eating Out
  • Be Kind

De-Personification

1/30/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
This photograph bears no relevance to the text below, save perhaps for the fact that it is of a shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur
Tarini is at a birthday (ice skating followed by lunch) and Kumud, Mira and I are at the mall where eleven year old Tarini is to be picked up post lunch. 

The newspapers have been filled with articles on the increasingly expensive tastes of Mumbai's youngsters. Rs. 5000 in spending money per month is par for the course, the youth are becoming major targets for the luxury brands and leading restaurants. Children complain of feeling "unconfident" (sic) if their clothes don't carry a label. 
Picture
Phoenix Mills, one of Mumbai’s glitziest shopping malls on a Sunday afternoon
Went to Nagpur on work two weeks ago, a so called tier 2 Indian city. Nagpur is much cleaner than it used to be, thanks to an energetic commissioner who knocked the place into shape. "I now feel reluctant to throw my banana peels on the street", a customer professed, "and hang on to it until I get to the office". My colleague laughed and said that people faced no such inhibitions in Mumbai.
We drove 100 km outside of Nagpur, where life is still very rustic, basic and poor. People had lighting, but that was about it. Our visit was to a steel factory in the middle of nowhere that provided employment to 1000 people.

Mira talked the other day about the personification of cars. "My friends always talk about their 'car being late', 'the car not being able to find parking', all examples according to our budding scholar of the "personification of the car". Her mother (and my wife) piped up to say that the more relevant issue was the fact that the drivers are considered irrelevant and of no consequence, and certainly of less relevance than the Marutis or Hondas that they drive. Please read White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. I haven't ready it, Kumud has, so I feel like I've read it. By the way, I similarly feel that I have read:

Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Varghese
The Finkler Question, by Howard Jacobson
Beatrice and Virgil, by Yann Martel
The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes, and not to forget
The River of Smoke, by Amitav Ghosh

I'm still struggling (just a little) with Wolf Hall, another 100 pages to go.

Anyway, the relevant point about the drivers is of course their de-personification, more so than the personification of a piece of Korean engineering.

It’s 12.07 a.m., time for bed. Raja, one of the two mongrels dogs belonging to the compound, is barking at passersby. Raja was banned from his spot with the guards downstairs because he apparently bit one of the rag pickers. Rag picking is an organized trade in Mumbai I’ll have you know.

Raja has since started living with the guard of the other building in our compound, a half completed structure under litigation due to a dispute with the owners of our compound. He still comes to say hello to us when we walk Rustom, but has stopped tagging along for the walk. He has also by the way, made friends with the rag picker.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    About

    This blog documents our arrival in Mumbai from Chicago and our attempts to make this city home, our experience with finding housing, the kids’ first days at school, shopping, 30 year - old taxis, inundation by monsoon rains, street side shopping and boutiques, slums and $3 million apartments owned by rich playboys.

    Categories

    All
    All In A Day In Bombay
    Business
    Foooood!
    My School
    State Of India
    The State Of Us.
    Vacation

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    May 2021
    July 2020
    April 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    August 2017
    May 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    September 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    April 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010

    Btw, the banner photo was taken from our holiday home outside of San Gimignano at 6.20 am. What light! It lasted all of five minutes.
  • Blog
  • Archive
  • Des Photos
  • Contact
  • Mjoezik
  • Eating In / Eating Out
  • Be Kind