Cheap Source of Entertainment in Slums

Apart from Video theatres and video game parlours this in one wacky source of entertainment I came across !!

The Slum dwellers next to Andheri Station on the East side have some really wacky source of entertainment.
Trapping chameleons and coloring them! Long sticks with a lasso made from thread attached to one end are left near the tracks. Somehow, the chameleons get caught in them. The boys who set this trap pick the sticks up and bring them near their homes which are on the edge as if encroaching onto the tracks. I was taking pictures of a bunch of them playing cricket when my friend pointed the chameleons tied to the stick on the ground. I nearly jumped! Two boys around twenty years old came and picked up the sticks, isse khelogay? I was wondering if he would pick the sticks and sway them in mid air and one of the chameleons would just pop out of the lasso and fall onto me! He pressed the edge of the stick to the chameleon; nothing happened, then, moved one chameleon over the other. Suddenly one of the chameleons jumped. They all burst into laughter, arre, aap kucch der pehle aaye hote toh dekhtay, hamne isse bhi lambaa waalaa pakdaa thaa! Then one of the boys placed a pebble under one of the chameleons. The bugger picked it up with its hind limbs! The lifted up the stick and the chameleon was hanging by its throat in mid air carrying the pebble with its hind limbs! The chameleon followed suit. Two chameleons were suspended mid-air clutching a pebble each in their hind limbs. They brought the chameleons close together, due to the posture and the fact that the chameleons were stunned they clutched each other too and appeared as if in an embrace. The boys were laughing and cracking jokes as if this is something they have been doing ever since they were born. Then they separated them, took away the pebble and went near the tracks. Here they started coloring the chameleons with a sketch pen. Agli baar isko nahi pakadenge. Hum har baar alag waalay ko pakadtey hai! Aap yeh kyun kartay ho? Mazaa aataa hai, aisai hi, timepass!

I went to Dharavi today and found many of them playing Housie! Group of boys and girls gathered at a place, and a young boy reading out the numbers. One of them shouted meraa full house ho gayaa! And he won Rs.15. I took a few pictures; some looked but most were engrossed in the game.

People

Gandhinagar - Image post

Sector 23 Gandhinagar (grid plan)

Circle (with Gurukul Educational institution in the background)

Words and Water - Do not use more than necessary

Inside Swaminarayan Temple

Smooth roads - no signals on any road in G'nagar

Dipan and I

Folley

Home

Sugar Cane juice

Surreal

I decided to visit the slums along the Link Road near Inorbit, Malad. The main reason was the presence of the numerous video parlors on the road front. After walking the entire length of few gullies in a couple of the slums and not finding any video parlors inside the gullies I decided to go to the ones on the road. At the entrance of one particular slum a boy was marking on the road the boxes for hop-scotch. The rest of the gully was lined with shops. Lots of them, selling lots of things. Many kids were running around, some were playing cricket, some were playing chor police some just riding cycles/ tricycles. There was one video game centre, where many boys were gathered. The small shop had three machines with screens and joysticks to play the games. On seeing my camera all of them started posing, one of them, as if he was playing the game. Otherwise it was quite fruitless.
The video parlors outside, had posters of old films put up and right next to them were the C-grade Hindi films and some English/foreign language “sexy movie”. On asking when the sexy movie will be played the ticket seller says, it is just put up to attract people but we will not show it. These parlors had wooden benches on stepped floor for people to sit and (maybe comfortable be able) see the film. One other video parlor did not allow me to take any photos, saying it was not allowed! So, I walked away. A little distance away, a young man asks me why I needed photos, I told him my purpose and reasons, and then he said, ‘Mai aagay Behram Baag mein ek aisai video parlor mein triple X film dekhnay jaa rahaa hoon, tum aaogay?’ I was stunned, overjoyed, dumbfounded, and shocked!! I agreed and walked with him. On the way, he started telling me about this side of Mumbai, and all out of his past experiences. He told me that there is not one whore house he has not visited in Mumbai. He started telling me the general rates, about the college girls outside Mithibai College who are in this trade, and many more. Then he said, all this video parlor business was run by the bhais- the underworld’s big shots, hence, one must be very careful and specially careful not to take photos in front of them. At Behram Baug, in a span of 100mts there are at least 5-6 video parlors! They have a variety of posters- old Bollywood films, English/ foreign language sexy film and triple X film. The system followed is, on the table there is the CD cover of the pornographic movie being played, so one has to say, ek triple X and pay Rs.15, the ticket seller, will give u a ticket and write a time on it. Each ticket would allow one to sit for 90 minutes. Now, there are no doors at most of these video parlors, there is a curtain. After walking in, there are many wooden benches (most of them are occupied), with people sitting and watching the movie with absolute concentration. They were playing Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaayenge. My friend led me till the left corner of the screen where there was a ladder leading upstairs (upar double X- sexy movie dikhaate hain). In front of the ladder (on the same wall the movie was projected- but the left most part) there was a curtain, behind which was a small room (150 sq.feet) with a 21 inch TV placed on the wall (directly behind the wall on which DDLJ was being screened) and a DVD player under it. On entering, in the light of the TV I could see people sitting on wooden benches (three rows of benches and a couple of chairs as the first row) and staring seriously at the TV screen. The floor had water from the leaking tap flowing on it! People would spit into it while watching the movie. We sat on the second last row. I was now watching a pornographic film. My friend told me to extremely careful while taking pictures because if anyone saw it then meri waatt lag jayegi. So, I captured whatever I could, however I could. Here the system was, after every half an hour a person would walk in, turn on a tube-light, check everyone’s tickets, whoever’s time was up had to leave and the rest could stay. The movies would run non-stop. If one got over, then someone had to go out and call the person, he would change the VCD and the porn continued. After all this I wasn’t surprised when a person sitting in the far corner started masturbating. After I took some photographs, I wanted to leave, apart from the absolute repugnant environment, it was terribly hot. The exhaust fan directly below the TV sucked out the air from the pedestal fan afore it into the hall that was playing DDLJ. I told my friend that I wanted to leave, he said thodaa baittho, itni jaldi niklenge toh usay shaq ho jayega, waisai hi shaq hai ki camera leke andar aae ho, waisai bhi aadhe ghante kay baad apnaa time up ho rahaa hai. Somehow I managed to sit through the absolute torture. But it was quite amusing to see everyone’s expressions while watching the movie. The couple of boys sitting behind us appeared totally doped out a person in front kept going out and coming back in, another one, kept moving his legs, and the rest staring at the screen like zombies. Finally, after sometime, we came out, and I was so glad to see sunlight and feel fresh air!

Kolkata

Home

I was in Kolkata for a week. And how hot it was! And how humid it was! I visit Kolkata every year, and like every year even this time I noticed – how bad the traffic is, how many people there are on the roads at any given time of the day, and how many of those people have a potbelly (or bhoori in Bengali), how annoying a cycle rickshaw is, how noisy the traffic, how narrow the lanes are, how many buildings there are, how early the sun rises, how dense the city actually is!
On the road each driver thinks he is the king of the road and drives right in the middle, no matter how slow or fast he’s going. The cycle rickshaws clog the narrow lanes. Inspite of constant unbearable honking the pedestrians just don’t move from the road. Absolute madness!
But according to me, Kolkata is one BIG village! Everyone talks to you as if they’ve known you since ages, Apart from the main roads most of the other roads are narrow gullies, or narrower bypasses. The numerous pukoors (Bengali for ponds) that dot the city provide the relief in terms of space- physical and mental. It feels wonderful to cycle down the narrow alleys near my home. Very romantic. Our house is located in Behala in the area that belonged to the Raichoudhury family (one of the richest landowners in Bengal from whom the British had taken land). Near the house there are three pukoors. At times one might get to see water snakes slithering across the pukoor. Around ten years back when there wasn’t so much development (in terms of building construction) one could hear the calls of foxes and wolves at night! Now, only frogs croaking, the area watchmen whistling and the loud tapping of their dandas. The Kolkata sky at night is usually quite clear (surprisingly) and hence the celestial bodies are visible. Glimpse of the odd shooting star isn’t that hard to get. But the mosquitoes, Bah! They will fall in love with your blood. And the lizards, big lizards and they are everywhere! I am awfully scared of lizards, always check the ceiling who knows when one of them would decide to fall on me! So, I prefer sleeping under the mosquito net, so no lizards falling on my head, or no lizards sleeping next to me! I awoke one morning to find the sun shining brightly and no early morning breeze blowing, hence, I thought it must have been around 9.30-10, but it was 6.15AM! And then it struck me, Kolkata is an hour ahead of Mumbai longitudinally!
Cycling around in our paaraa, I saw people bathing in the pukoors some bhadroloks standing in their verandahs feeling their potbellies and brushing their teeth, some watering plants in their gardens (some beautiful gulmohar trees and many pretty flowers), a father teaching his son to cycle, group of boys marching on a field, I could hear the tring tring of the cycle rickshaw wallas carrying kids to school, and many such sights.
But no matter what the time of the day is, the roads are always packed. The traffic density in Kolkata is phenomenal! I don’t want to get into it, as the more I think of the traffic the more it pisses me off! There is the local bus, the state bus, the mini bus, the private cars, the cycles, the cycle rickshaws, the bikes, the scooters, the trams and the people!
The building development in Kolkata is scary! Buildings coming up everywhere, most of the outdoor advertising is on building and housing complexes, feels asphyxiating! Some extremely monstrous towers coming up. I used to think it was Mumbai where one could easily look into the neighboring apartment of the neighboring building, but it is worse in kolkata, you can literally walk into the flat!
Even for all this, Kolkata still manages to appeal to me. For all the mess, all the crowd, it has its own elegance and grandness! I like the names of the roads, the streets, the avenues, the schools, the localities, Lansdowne Road, Shakespeare Sarani, Salt Lake, La Martinere School and many more. Might feel primal as they are just names but somehow the colonial feel of Calcutta has remained through them and compared to whatever else they appear better.
Kolkata is a never ending story for me. Every moment of the day I realize something or the other about the city, something related to me or my family. I am saying this maybe because of the sheer size of the Sen family and the closeness of all of them still, and the long lineage that it has, somehow I feel powerful in Kolkata, a sense of the condescending demeanor settles in. Maybe it is because of how I used to be pampered by my grandmother and my aunts and others. Maybe because of how someone or the other in my family knows someone or the other in nearly every field possible. Maybe because the entire city has a homely feel to it. Maybe because it is the greatest village ever!