Too Much TV

The last few weeks at my mami’s place have made me marvel at my cousins’ seemingly endless capacity to watch TV. My mami has two daughters, aged 6 and 13, and a live-in babysitter. All three of them are permanently planted in the front of the television all day long during these vacations.

The daytime is spent with my two cousins fighting over what to watch: the 6-year old wants to watch Dora the Explorer or Mr. Bean or some other show on Pogo or Disney, while her elder sister is equally determined to watch the rerun of Dill Mill Gaye (though she watched the same episode the previous night).

Late afternoon, my six-year old cousin calls a friend over so that both of them can watch CID together. She has now taken to declaring that she’s a CID officer and goes through all my stuff when I’m not at home, looking “for drugs”, as she sweetly informs me when I reach home. I have now taken to carrying anything that I don’t want her to find with me to work, because telling her not to search my stuff has no effect whatsoever. Apparently, a good CID officer is immune to complaints from their suspects about any invasion of privacy.

The TV is off for about an hour at 6 in the evening, when both the cousins go downstairs to play and the babysitter goes for her daily walk. And then it starts again. I didn’t catch the name of the show that’s on currently, but the grandmother with the pistol aimed at her grandson is now chasing said grandson through a park as he escapes from her clutches (he effected the escape by telling her that there was a cockroach on her hair, which obviously made her screech, stop her car and start a search for the cockroach, at which time the kid leaped out of the car and took off). The heel of one shoe has now gotten stuck in keenchad (wet mud) in the park. One hopes that the kid is now safe, but I’m sure there will a new twist soon.

The night starts with Rang Badalti Odhni. Which is followed by Geet – Hui Sabse Parayi, and then Dill Mill Gaye. There are the “reality” shows such as Indian Idol and Desi Girl and one more involving child magicians, I think. And once the kids sleep (at around 11), there’s another show that I didn’t quite catch the name of that keeps the babysitter up for another half an hour.

The TV, unfortunately, is in the guest room, which is currently occupied by me. So the children and the babysitter are glued to my bed all day long. After one weekend of trying to follow the dramatic sound sequences and the repeated scenes and the convoluted story lines of Dill Mill Gaye and Geet, I gave up and have set up house on the sofa in the hall. My bedtime is dictated solely by what show is on that night (and so, by what time my room will be emptied).

In those two days that I spent trying to unravel the mystery of why the story-less drama unfolding on the television set interested anyone, the babysitter saw fit to explain to me the basic story of each show. I was wrong. The shows are definitely not story-less. After all, Geet was abandoned by her fake husband who happens to be her new boss’s (and love interest’s) brother, which is a storyline that’ll progress no further for a couple of weeks. Armaan did love Ridhima before Siddharth came along. If it wasn’t for the disease that forced Ridhima to jump into bed naked with Siddharth, and so, obviously marry him later, Armaan and Ridhima would still be a happy couple.*

But all jokes aside, the storylines of the shows aren’t even the point. It’s the unnecessary and extremely blatant and forced drama of the shows that gets to me. Star One has even picked up this annoying technique of showing the last scene of the episode three times with advertisements between each occurrence! And yet, my cousins keep the TV on. There were 20 minutes and two advertisement breaks between the time the host of Desi Girl announced that he was going to declare the winner and the time he actually declared the winner. And yet, no one changed the channel.

I am quite baffled.

*I may be wrong about the storylines. The dead-but-not-dead characters and the time jumps kept me quite confused.

Snippets of Conversations

Bits of conversations between my cousin and her parents (I have paraphrased a bit, but I think the meaning behind the statements remains intact). The cousin is either 13 or 14 years old.

1) Mami: “Those cousins of mine stayed at bed-and-breakfasts all over Switzerland, and they really liked it”.

Cousin: “Chee! How could they?” (As far as I am aware, my cousin has never actually stayed at a B&B)

2) Cousin: “That bakery was so good, but it was in an all-Muslim area, hai na mumma? All those people in the shop, with the big beards, they all looked like Osama Bin Laden. I was quite scared”

3) “In those photos, nani was wearing Western clothes and looking just like a foreigner! Who gave her those clothes? She never wears them, she’s a grandmother.”

4) “Yuck. I feel like vomiting every time I see that man’s face.”

5) “Oh, those people? They’re damn fat no?”

And then there are the conversations between my mama and mami about how Maharashtrian men are damn lazy. The generalisation doesn’t seem to bother them at all.

I don’t protest, or say anything at all when such conversations take place. Both my mama and mami are very sweet and helpful; they took me in for the entire month when I needed a place to stay in Mumbai and generally, I like it here. But conversations like the ones I’ve mentioned above happen often and are commonplace. I believe they would be very surprised to think that someone might object to the statements they make.

Rain

I used to love rain. It transformed the world into green, wet wonderfulness and got me a couple of days off school. It made all kinds of crazy games possible by flooding the garden. It allowed me the great joys of jumping hard into puddles, making awesome splashes and swooshing sounds with my bicycle, and following earthworms as they wriggled around the driveway.

Then I came to Bombay, started this internship, and started using public transport. Which requires walking. And then the rains started. And suddenly, I'm not so fond of the rain anymore! From being the amazing phenomena that meant green leaves and awesome rain-smells, now it means perennially wet feet and wet clothes. Umbrellas do not manage to keep me (or my bag) fully dry, so I'm always stuck with damp clothes, hoping that my bag is waterproof enough to keep my laptop safe. And with wet feet.

Then there are the umbrellas themselves. Practical, helpful inventions, I know, but so messy. There's always the problem of where to keep a wet umbrella after walking in the rain. There's the problem of actually holding the umbrella while walking in the rain and simultaneously trying to cling on to two bags and a cell phone (I realised later than texting is really not meant to be done in the rain, so the cell phone went into the bag: one less thing to hold). And then there's the fact that people on the road can't seem to comprehend the obvious reality that holding an umbrella will require more space than not holding one. So that 2-inch space between me and the wall that you're trying to squeeze through? The only result is going to be the pointy ends of your umbrella stuck in my hair, water from your wet umbrella dripping onto my already damp clothes, and you right where you started.

And then there are the wet feet.

There are still some cool things about monsoons. Primarily the awesome swishing noise that my umbrella makes when I press a button and it zooms open. And the feeling of efficiency I get by opening and shutting my umbrella in 2 seconds flat, as I go from covered space to non-covered space while walking. But writing this sitting in a crowded train, watching the rain outside, and knowing that I’m going to be out in that rain again in 10 minutes, I'm having a hard time thinking of more things I like about the rain.

Seen on the Train

I saw four of these posters in the ladies' compartment in a local train in Mumbai four days ago. For those befuddled by my photography skills (combined with an average-at-best cell phone camera), the poster says:

"Never forget 25th June 1975. The day the Emergency was declared. Scrap all repressive laws. Defend the right to dissent."

I don't really know what to think about the poster. It's interesting, definitely, also because there was no mention of the name of the organisation (or person) who put the posters up. I was concious of a feeling of surprise though: the only politically inclined posters I've seen before have been advertisements of some election candidate or political party. I've never seen posters with a message beyond "Vote for me".

Opinions of Strangers

People have been proffering their unasked-for opinions and advice a lot lately. I’ve started noticing this recently: complete strangers are very willing to tell me their opinion on something, or to give me to advice on matters that have nothing to do with them, without the least amount of encouragement from me.

A woman trying on a kurta at the trial room next to mine in Westside asked me how I think she looks, gave me a minute to give the polite answer, and then immediately told me that the kurta I was trying on made me look “a bit pale”. The security woman at the entrance of my workplace started her morning by telling me that I’m very tall and also fat. Clearly, I enjoy food more than I should. A tailor taking my friend’s measurements for a dress told her that her breasts were too small, and gave her “tips” on how to make them appear larger. Two taxi drivers were more than merely expansive on their respective opinions about women working (more on that later), and the importance of God in a young woman’s life.

People assume that random strangers are interested in their opinions and are open to their advice. But we’re usually not. I am not interested in the security guard’s opinion on my weight. I am not interested in knowing what the woman standing next to me in the queue for the bathroom at Pizza Hut thinks about the abominable state of bathrooms in Jaipur. And I definitely do not want to be told by a man that the fact that I work is against Indian culture, against the will of God, and probably against the wishes of my parents too.