Diwali Baksheesh

For a festival of prosperity, Diwali leaves me real broke. It's not like I blow up my money on new clothes and firecrackers alone. What kills is the Diwali Baksheesh tradition of Mumbai.

I guess this requires an explanation - on Diwali, all workers in Mumbai are supposed to be given a gift, or 'baksheesh', in the spirit of the season. So you are supposed to pay an annual tip, of sorts, to every person who provides some service for you - be it your domestic help, your cook, your watchman, everyone.

As my Dabbawaala (a guy who delivered a dabba for 8 days exactly but now knows where my office is) puts it, "aap ko apni khushi se 100 rupees dena hai"

(You have to give 100 rupees out of your own volition).

In my building, like everything else, Diwali Baksheesh is also regulated. As a new entrant last year, I was given a briefing:

Domestic Help: Double the salary, salary plus new saree.

Watchmen: 50 rupees each

Gardener: 20 rupees.

Garbage lady: 20 rupees.

Municipality workers: 50 rupees (for five of them)

So the first year, I conscribed. Except that I used to get home too late to catch the day watchman, and by the time I left, he was usually missing. In any case I didn't like this guy, Sunil, he was also the letchy Secretary's snitch-in-chief. So I willingly spazzed out.

One morning Anita, the maid, comes in. She never asks me anything. She never passes any value judgments on what we do. Instead, she adopts a different tactic:

Instead of : "Who are these boys who keep coming over?"

She says : "The so-and-so's wife was asking me, this girl keeps getting these boys over. I said, I don't know. Anyway what's it to her?"

This time around, however, I was provoked:

"Sunil was saying that he hadn't gotten a Diwali bonus from you. He asked if you gave me. I didn't answer him, I said why are you asking me?"

"Really? Well, I haven't been able to locate him", I lied.

"Then he asked the garbage lady, and she said that you had paid her..."

I blanched at the idea that I was the subject of discussion over pan masala beedi exchange at the gate. It's disconcerting, how much of information your domestic help, watchman and garbage collector possess. What else do they discuss? The Seagram's Fuel Bottles that are placed outside our door every monday morning? The nocturnal visitors? The maroon satin underwear? How we changed our home pack to Durex ultra thins since last weekend?

"Well, I was just about to pay him," I said.

I saw the day watchman washing cars later that morning. He was a little balder than I remembered, and a little fatter. It had been some time since I bothered about him. I tapped him on the shoulder, gave him the money and saw his eyes light up.

Done.

Two days later, the Bai started off. "Sunil keeps disappearing, and then he says that you didn't pay him. I told him that you are so busy. Where will you go looking for him?"

"Uhh...", I was wildly confused.

"It doesn't help that he went on leave in between."

"He did, eh?"

"Yeah, and he sent that silly brother of his, Anil."

Oh crap. This was awful. I had become the victim of a identical twin plot. Argh!

I found Sunil, paid him his 50 bucks, and told him that I had also paid Anil. Nothing like a little sibling rivalry to spice up your Diwali.

This year, A and I decided to screw the system which was in place, for the reason which provoked most of our actions - spite. I thought the Society was being sweet in telling me the maximum rates of Diwali Bonus. They weren't. It was just a cover up for the Great Maharashtrian Brahmanical Stinginess.

Obviously. Now that I found out that Baksheesh was a debated and discussed subject amongst the menials, it was a prestige issue for the residents as well. Uniform Baksheesh reduced controversy. There would be no "He got a promotion but he still only gives 20 rupees" whispers. We also felt a little rebellious, especially after the good girlness we displayed on Diwali.

Heh Heh.

In case confronted, for the record, we have taken into consideration that since we are two women living alone with slightly unconventional habits, it would be nicer to have everyone nice to us. And come on. We end up tipping waiters more than a 100 at times. Finally, neither me nor A get a Diwali Bonus. We might as well to be bitchy.

So, the Bai got double salary and fireworks for the kids, the Watchmen got 100 bucks each, the Garbage lady got 50 bucks and clothing and shoes that are unsuitable for office wear anymore for her kids. Everyone's a winner.

Contrary to our ambitious plan, we got tired after using half our of stock of fireworks. Also, we realized that we are very old, we only had 'chakras' (spinning wheels) and anars (fountains), and missed out on atomic bombs in chakras, and the thing that lights up into a bouncing flubber ball. Not to mention the banshee sounding like fountain. After packing up, we went to have beer at Sea View, Juhu. Other than that, it was a largely traditional Diwali. We giggled as neighbours gave us guilty looks while passing by us doing a Rangoli. Would alcoholic philanderers celebrate Diwali in such a traditional fashion?

Excuse me while I flutter my eyelashes.

Diwali, or is it?

Appalled at my inactivity, Lax, probably the only dedicated reader of this blog, sent me some food for thought to provoke me into writing. Some article about some ex employee of his Company. Yes, very much a "Your uncle who lives in Bombay is getting married on March 15th. Your Board exams are going to be held between the 10th to 20th of March. Write a letter to your Uncle explaining the difficulty and conveying your best wishes (20 marks)" effort, i realize.

But its the Diwali long weekend. My grandfather used to say that whatever you do on Diwali is reflective of what will be happening the whole year. Therefore you should follow the routine that you would want the next year to follow - so you get up early, have a bath, wear nice clothes, eat sweets... so that you end up sleep deprived and fat, but at least neat and clean. This is my standard Diwali story, and being "our" first Diwali I narrated this to the Boyfriend, whose reaction was: "Well, we should be having sex, then." Sigh. One could only hope. Instead he is hopping a flight to Bangalore, and I, well, am here.

Coming back to my Grandfather's theory, I suppose it was only poetic therefore that today morning was full of controversy. My Maid looked appalled when I opened the door in a visibly just out of bed state. I hadn't just gotten up, I was up since 5am, having been unable to go back to sleep after early morning bathroom, thanks to crackers being burst continuously.

"Haven't you gotten up? Haven't you done the pehili angol?"

Roughly translated, that means "first bath". When you smear yourself with Uptan and Oil and spend two hours in the bathroom trying to wash it off.

"Why?", I yawned. "Diwali is tomorrow, isn't it?"

"That's what even I thought. But everyone is doing it. Can't you hear the crackers?"

Why you need to burst crackers after having gotten up at the crack of dawn is beyond me. Maybe its out of spite, to wake up everyone else who decided that this part of the holiday is clearly a waste of time. As I lay awake in bed I recalled an article saying that anyone who bursts crackers after 1030PM can be fined upto 1 lakh for Noise Pollution. Isn't there a Starting Time for these legislations?

"We don't have holidays today", I said, walking back into the bedroom. "Tomorrow".

My neighbours are secretly miffed at my non participation in Diwali gallata. But that's about to change. A and I have decided to go for it. The building kids, who have been told by their parents to avoid us and sneer at us, will face a dilemma of sorts. A and I have decided to buy fireworks, and we have two advantages that the Building Kids do not:

1. (Relatively) Limitless Budgetary constraints.

2. No parental supervision.

Muahahaha.

Anyway, back to the task at hand:

"...about 30 minutes after the aircraft took off, Chandrashekar apparently fell asleep. “The girl realised that Chandrashekar’s head was resting on her shoulder. She however did not take it seriously thinking it was an accident and unintended,” Sidam said.However, after about 10 minutes, the complainant was shocked to realise that Chandrashekar was not asleep, but had unzipped his trousers and was trying to touch her."

The man in question, Sriram Chandrashekar, is said to be a 'software engineer from Bangalore' in the mid day story, however, Lax tells me that he is actually some IIM alumni who used to work for big Indian Group and now with big Software Company in the US. Still, he was flying Indigo.

But honestly, what a creep. What a creep.

Who does that? How long does it take to travel from Bangalore to Mumbai? 2 hours, tops? You think you can score in 2 hours, that too in a low cost carrier which doesn't provide water, let alone alcohol, which could have given you half a chance? And say you really were into the chick, instead of trying to get her into a comfort zone, you plonk yourself on her shoulder and start a 'hand party'? And you really don't expect to be noticed? What are they teaching at IIM nowadays?

Once on a bus from Bangalore to Goa, I was asleep and I felt something strange on my back. For a few minutes of drug induced confusion (I had taken a avomine for motion sickness-effective but it knocks you out) I couldn't figure what was happening, but when the feeling moved towards my underarm I figured exactly where this was coming from - from the crevice between my seat and that of my neighbour. I pulled the hand, whirled around, knelt on the seat and slapped the guy. My neighbour woke up, as did most other passengers, and watched in horror, slap after slap. No one knew what to do, and neither did I, so I kept the slaps going. After maybe 6 slaps my palm was burning and my head was whirring with the Avomine. By this time the Conductor was woken up, and the Villain of the piece was moved to the front of the bus and evicted at the first stop off the highway.

Not afraid to show my little might at happy go lucky molesters, in a bus from Girgaum once, I noticed a man's hand moving slyly towards the backside of a young girl who was standing right in front of me. As his hand moved to the point of no excuse (just about to slip into her back pocket), I rolled up my file and swatted his hand, much like one would do to a fly. More chaos, the girl turned around to see what was going on, other passengers had witnesses the whole scene, chants of "Ghar mein maa behen nahin hai kya", "Haramkhor", "Tujha mayyla" erupted as the guy was thrown off the bus. The Girl looked at me inquisitively.

"He was going to molest you, but I intercepted him"

"But he didn't touch me!", she protested.

"I know", I said, reassuringly, "He didn't, because I hit him before he did that"

"No, but he didn't touch me, really!". She glanced around at the other passengers nervously and then pinched the skin of her throat and shook her head from side to side. "Godpromise, I didn't feel anything!"

I wanted to say something, but she was about to cry. Luckily, my stop was just around the corner. Come to think of it, with air fares becoming so cheap, I guess its only natural that creeps would find new hunting grounds. And success would ensure membership of the esteemed 'mile high' club.

I wonder what my Grandfather would say if he saw me blogging about molesters on Diwali (if it is Diwali?). He'd probably blame it on my waking up late.

Hmm. I think I'm going back to sleep.

Society Matters

The Co-Operative Housing Society in which I live is one of the many banes of my existence. Not so much because they are extremely sensitive to the activities of the ground floor flat which I inhabit, but also, that this is my grandparent's flat (cackle, cackle) and so my activities are even more, well, noteworthy.
So we have many characters, like a Priyadarshan movie - some wasted, some talented, mostly irritating, and its all the stuff you've seen before. One is an old lady in the next door flat who insists on sitting at her window till 2 am in the morning just peering out. And so she probably notices all of our late night entries. That's fine, no big deal. But, she is the friend of the grandmother. The good thing about old people though is that you can always claim that they've gone senile. And other old people are perfectly willing to believe you - as long as you establish that they are not the ones who've gone senile, its fine. That also covers the other senile lady across the compound.
The noisy shaggers on the floor above, however, aren't so easily avoidable, for the following reasons:
1. The husband is the secretary of the co-operative housing society.
2. Once, we had a late night drinking session and at 2am, the bell rings and I open it to find a very peeved uncle saying "What is the time?". Ignoring the fact that this would make a kick ass watch ad, I apologized very profusely and looked very innocently at him, thankful for the neutral smell of Vodka.

"It's my birthday today!"

"Happy Birthday." He growled.

The next morning, his cheeky daughter wished me a "happy birthday" from the window. One of the other building toddlers asked her how she knew it was my birthday. The little brat winked very conspiratorially at her. Biyatch.

3. The uncle is a bit of a roving eyed fellow. This isn't the first late night interaction we've had. Whenever the water would be limited, or the sewage pipe was being worked on, our man would have the courtesy of informing me of the same at about 1030pm every night, you know, the time when women are usually chilling out in abbreviated clothing and free from the confines of the contraption called the brassiere. This ended when Uncle wasn't too pleased with the quality of exposure - he came by one night to encounter a bare chested Dad who had come for a visit.

4. The Society's functioning is kind of excessive and pretty illegal, and I'm in on the game. They don't like the smug look I give them too much.

Being on the committee of a Co-Operative Housing Society has to be the most thankless job on earth. Honestly, the majority of people who stand for such posts are the victims of subordination in various other spheres - be it office, or at home. For such frustrated souls, the idea of being able to bully unsuspecting people over trivial issues originating from the hallowed bye laws which no one has any idea of brings many of them to ejaculation. Because of the supposedly unbridled power of being able to throw someone out of a house which they may have paid/be paying a bomb for is a mindfuck.

So my pals Bunny and Pandu in Sion have to leave the house late because their Society Hitler has decreed, in pure Nana Patekar hindi, that "Eh, Kachra baher naahi rakhne ka. Jab Ghanta bajega, tab rakhne ka. Uske pehla nahin. Baas aaata hai". So my boss, who is some port member of his posh colony, salivates on the ides of every month at the prospect of typing out minutes of the Society meetings. So another friend had to empty a house out because the Society decided, after he executed the lease agreement and paid the deposit, that "bachelor log allowed nahin hai". So my Society, on account of scarcity of water, decided that the shortage is more likely due to the fact that the "irresponsible girls" on the ground floor than say, a fault in the pump, so they tried to break into my house and letch uncle claimed a copy of the keys for his very own, you know, to check. I told him to file that along with a threesome with me and my roomie in the "think about it and get castrated" dreams drawer.

But by far, my trippiest Society experience has been defending a group of three consultants. The story was notable for several reasons, one of which is more fully described here. The girls were the victims of a dispute between their landlord and the society, and they were being forced into being evicted as the good society's opinion was that their late nights and male visitors... well, you get it. The landlord very shyly told me how in one of the meetings they were even referred to as "call girls" (not recorded in the minutes, of course). In time, I was called upon the argue out objections to the Society being granted the injunction of evicting these girls. Along with the legal principles enshrined in several supreme court judgments on granting of temporary injunctions (yawn...yawn...), I summarized my arguments with the following:

"Your Honour, these girls may be coming back late at night, but so what? They stay on the ground floor. They would put their keys in their door, enter the house, and shut the door behind them. End of story. How would they disturb anyone else by their conduct? Unless, of course, we have members of the Society staying up till the wee hours of the morning, waiting for these girls to return, perhaps, with not the noblest of intentions?"

The Judge blushed. I got the Injunction rejected and my Clients got to keep their flat. I'd like to claim that my wild accusation was the reason for my success, but I think my alternative argument that "These are youngsters from the IITs and IIMs, the most prestigious institutions, the cream of the country... and they are girls, your Honour, from respectable families... "

Aren't we all? :)