“Sex Mere Tann Mein Hai”

There is a raging debate in the country now about what should be the minimum age to have sex. This is part of a proposed Bill drafted by a Parliamentary Standing Committee to prevent sexual assault and molestation against minors. Interestingly, what started off as a law that would protect minors against rape and harassment by adults, has boiled down to the question of what is a good age for two consenting people to start having sex. At the very outset, this logic is flawed. Forced sex and consensual under-age sex are not one and the same (duh!). The laws that govern the former cannot be used to incriminate the latter. Just another example of the aptitude levels of our lawmakers.

The lawmakers have raised the age for legal consensual sex to 18 (the initial proposed age was 16). So two 16-year-olds having consensual sex will amount to statutory rape and will be subjected to the same punishment as a rape demands. Sorry if I missed the point here, but who is raping whom in this case? Predictably, child rights activists, NGOs, teachers, researchers and the “thinking” community of the country have lashed out against this “regressive” legislation. Newspapers are running articles and opinions every day decrying its absurdity. And while I join them in decrying the punishment this law entails, I am starting to wonder if anyone is stepping back to consider the imminent repercussions of the reverse (they shouldn’t even BE part of the same law to begin with, but now that they are, what does it mean?).

The legal technicalities aside, the larger conundrum is whether Indian society is ready to deal with two 16-year-olds having sex. The naysayers opine that this is “but natural”, this is what teenagers are thinking about and are prone to do anyways. Here’s my question to them – why restrict the 14 and 15 year olds then? Why not let them have their fun too? If we were living in a society that allows us to do everything we are thinking about, then even adults should have a lot more privileges than they do today. I am surprised that child rights activists are siding with the idea of almost “pushing” anyone 16 or above into a room and saying “go do it”. And while it’s great to let young people express themselves “to the fullest”, here’s the other side of what it can lead to.

Firstly, we have to realize that laws are deterrents. They don’t guarantee action, and they definitely do not change mindsets. With this law, I don’t see the father of a 16-year-old telling his daughter on a Friday night – “Ask that guy out, my child, and make sure you have fun *wink*”. Nor do I see a majority of Indian parents sitting their children down and talking to them about the need for protection and restraint and the possible risks of an impulsive action. Moreover, the fear that activists have of youngsters being incriminated unfairly for sexual acts still remains. The government has still not been able to act against khap panchayats that order killings of consenting adults from different castes who choose to get married. If we have not been able to protect our adults, how does it seem different from protecting our children? An analogy here is that of the decriminalization of sexual intercourse between two consenting adults of the same gender (yes, gay sex) that came about with the 2009 ruling of the Delhi High Court and has since been upheld by the Supreme Court and the Government of India. So basically, gay sex in private is now legal in India. What essentially has changed though? To my knowledge, people who supported this continue to support it, but people who were against it, continue to keep to their stand; people who were neutral continue to refuse to take a stand, while people who are ignorant or in denial of homosexuality do not think differently. The point here is that a law does not change thinking, and much more needs to be done to make a society ready to accept a transformation.

Secondly, the naysayers are doing what we in developing countries do best when pushing for a seemingly “progressive” law – citing examples of developed (read: Western) countries. It is being said again and again that the minimum age in developed nations for consensual sex is 16, thereby implying that we should toe the same line. What we fail to take into account are the social issues Western countries are faced with because of these laws. Do we have the resources and mindsets to counter the bane of single motherhood, something that the west is increasingly grappling with (24% of the 75 million children in the USA belong to single-mother families; 70% of children in single-mother families are classified as low-income or poor)? Given that in India, people still have to do confidence-building drills before walking into a chemist’s store and asking for a pack of condoms (if they do so at all) and school teachers still blush when lecturing on the reproductive system (leave alone talking about sex), what is the guarantee that we will not open ourselves up to a deluge of single mothers by legalizing teenage sex?

Finally, is anyone thinking about HIV/AIDS? A 2010 UNAIDS progress report on India claims that 2.27 million people in India were HIV-positive in 2008. Of these, a mind-boggling 87% transmitted the disease through unprotected heterosexual intercourse. 35% of this affected population is below 25 years of age, clearly indicating that there is a huge incidence of unprotected sex among our youth. These are numbers to think about when making this law.

If we think we are prepared to tackle all of the above, then sex should be a fundamental right for anyone post-puberty. The question is – between the idiocy of the government and the obtuse activism of the naysayers, who is going to take the responsibility of carving out a middle path?

References:

http://www.unaids.org/fr/dataanalysis/monitoringcountryprogress/2010progressreportssubmittedbycountries/file,33667,fr..pdf

http://www.unicef.org/india/children_2358.htm

http://www.prb.org/Publications/PolicyBriefs/singlemotherfamilies.aspx

The Privileged Poor

A week ago, half the city of Mumbai was brought to a standstill because the auto-rickshaw drivers went on strike. Predictably, they were demanding higher fares. On the day of the strike, in spite of the inconvenience, I have to say that the city looked beautiful, and felt quieter. The loud giant wasps exhaling black fumes, flouting traffic rules and running a drilling machine from one ear to another had gone on a day-long excursion! Besides this though, there was little relief. People walked kilometers in the sweltering heat; dozens of them ran at the sight of a taxi, only to be quoted exorbitant rates by the cabbies. Refusal, arrogance, shamelessness were the order of the day.

The newspapers reported the next day that 80,000 auto-rickshaw drivers had gone on strike that day, out of which the transport authorities served “showcause notices” to 198, and apparently only one cared to reply. There was no report on any action taken on the remaining drivers, including the taxi drivers who were having a field day ripping people off.

It is not just about the strike. Even on a normal day, taxi and auto-rickshaw drivers take liberties to say “NO” to wherever you want to go (actually, they just make the most constipated face and make a “click” sound that makes you feel you’ve just asked them to drive into a morgue). The rate and frequency of refusals have gone up exponentially in the 2 years that I have lived in this city. Sometimes I really wonder where they actually want to go, or whether they want to go at all. Sometimes, out of exasperation, I ask them, and some care to tell me stories (“don’t have gas, will go the other way, need to hand the auto over to the next driver”), some just do the “click” and drive away. Add to all this the reckless driving, the fake inflated fare charts, the tampered meters, the unionized refusal to move away from the ridiculous mechanical meter (which looks like it’s jumped out of a 1950s movie) to the electronic meters that are rotting away in government warehouses (they went to the Supreme Court for this!) – and all this in a city that is known for the availability and ease of public transport 24×7. Imagine the plight of the commuter in other Indian cities, where these problems are beyond the realm of conversation (in Chennai, they asked me for Rs.300 for a distance of less than a kilometer; in Bangalore, they refused to take me when I was carrying a heavy box in the rain and had agreed to pay extra; in Delhi, auto-rickshaws are a rarity – they should probably be put in a museum).

The problem is beyond just public transport. The low-income community (yes, better known as slum) next to my apartment is always in party mode. It’s either a wedding, or a religious festival (and we have innumerable religions in India, each with innumerable days marked on their calendars), or Dr.Ambedkar’s birthday, or the day Sai Baba attained enlightenment, or the day the Buddha shook himself out of meditation and decided he needed to pee. The celebrations are loud and expensive, and let’s not ask where the money comes from. They are marked by loudspeakers blaring the latest Bollywood “item numbers” and people congregate to show respect by doing pelvic thrusts. And while I don’t care much for Ambedkar or Sai Baba or Buddha, I am almost hypnotized into doing the pelvic thrusts at home because how else am I to deal with such blaring music? I once called the security guards downstairs and asked them to get the volume lowered, failing which I would call the police. They counseled me out of the idea, not because they were scared of the police, but because they were scared of the slum dwellers.

It is interesting that while we sympathize with the unhygenic living conditions, meager incomes and lack of amenities for our poor, and some of us even attempt to find solutions, we ourselves are victims of their quirks, idiosyncrasies, and worse still, anger and destructive tendencies. Our governments have not given them a respectable life, have not given their children schools to go to, or their women the safety and dignity of bathrooms, but as if to make up for all this, have given them the privilege to riot, to burn, to kill, and to go scot-free after they have done all of those. What is most disturbing though is not what they do or what they are given by the political leaders, but what they perceive to be their rights. Ever wonder why there are no protests demanding schools, hospitals, sewers? Our poor have stopped asking for water, electricity, food, shelter, clothing, education – and have convinced themselves that the privilege to wreck unprosecuted violence is what makes them powerful, is what ensures their respect in society, is what will lead to a better future. This is downright fatal, to say the least. If social development were a war, then the physical squalid conditions of the poor is the “vanilla” artillery. The potent nuclear weaponry is the squalid conditions of their minds.

And through this celebration of “the world’s most populous democracy”, in which politicians secure vote banks by criminalizing the poor, emerges a new class of underprivileged. Yes, that is us. You and me who are educated to read this, are intelligent to understand this, and care to process this. It is us, the “professionals” who earn “fat pay packages” every month, the face of India Shining, the middle class that was earning in hundreds 3 decades ago and now earns in hundreds of thousands, that are forced to buy apartments in hogwashingly exotic-sounding condominiums (“New Cuffe Parade” is actually located in Wadala!) at inflated prices; buy cars to escape the nightmare of public transportation and actually get to work on time so that we keep our jobs and remain the poster-boys of India Shining. We want to go on strike too, you know? We want to protest against the lack of amenities in spite of high income tax we pay every year; against the exorbitant taxes for eating at a restaurant, watching a movie; against inflated airfares, unavailable train tickets, overcrowded buses; against the continuous hike in fuel prices. So here’s what we do to hoodwink ourselves into thinking we have privileges too – we go to Ramlila grounds and shout a few slogans for a doddering septuagenarian who has suddenly risen from his grave to save the country, we get on Facebook and “like” every single anti-government and inspirational post we can see (clearly we need a LOT of inspiration!), and some of us even blog about it knowing that only a handful people will read this.

The spotlight is actually always on

When everything seems to be going just fine, what is this restlessness inside? What is simmering underneath this well-composed life I lead every day? Do I just need some silence, some time away from the laptop, internet, email, chat, Facebook? Is it as simple as that, or is that oversimplifying a larger existential question?

My trip to Haridwar and Rishikesh was planned in a manner as impromptu as it happened. I had been on a ’proper’ vacation for a year and a half now. I don’t even know why I chose these places. I just know that one fine day, I booked a flight to Delhi and decided to take it from there.

It is quite ironical that people from across the world go to these two places to find peace. Yes they are considered holy by the Hindus, and they have a unique juxtaposition of nature and spirituality. That does not take away the fact that these places are teeming with hundreds of devotees and animals and noise! But that is what makes traveling in India so interesting. Even if you are seeking peace, you cannot help but steal a chuckle here or have your blood boiling there. Quite expectedly, there was a surfeit of such moments on this journey too!

Have you ever seen a bull and a monkey fight for a piece of fruit on a hanging bridge a few centimeters wide that is, by the way, brimming with people trying to bypass the animals and make their way to God? Have you ever seen a Hindu holy man trying to teach Hindi to a Korean, only that each is trying to establish basic comprehension of the other in less-than-elementary English? Have you been woken up early every morning by a crow pecking vehemently on your mirrored window, thinking it has spotted another crow? Have you ever ridden a cable car with a family that is mortified by heights and is therefore chanting hymns throughout the 3-minute ride while they hold hands and keep their eyes tightly shut? Have you ever…..? Well, the laughs are endless.

But so is the overwhelming sensation of anger and despair that hits you every now and then. How would you feel if you saw people shampooing away in the ‘holy’ waters of Ganga? How would you feel if you saw plastic waste heaped everywhere, some of it even floating down the river? How would you feel if every few meters, you had to circumvent animal waste? How would you feel if you saw large tracts of water channels dried up and become home to the homeless? How would you react to the utter administrative dereliction that stares you in the face from all around?

And then there are things you don’t even know what to feel about. Cripples, lepers, downtrodden, hungry, destitute – some coming up to you for alms, some spread out basking in the October sun as if they were on a picnic. I’ve always wondered why a place of pilgrimage has such high numbers of such people. Is it because they think pilgrims are more inclined to giving? Or is it because they have been ostracized from their communities and have no one to turn to but God?

As I walked around Haridwar and Rishikesh in a semi-amused semi-enraged trance, intensified further by the nonchalant abandon and dark humor of Manto’s short stories, witnessing the varied forms of worship and faith, the only constant was the overpowering presence of the massive Himalayas and the endless gurgle of the waters of the Ganga. This feeling is accentuated by the hundreds of lamps lit by devotees and set afloat on the Ganga every evening. The flickering reflections of these lamps in the flowing waters spark the sudden realization that this river has existed for not just centuries but millennia and has fed not just generations but truly the beginning of mankind in this region! There is also something fresh and crisp about the cold Himalayan air; it seems indifferent to the dust and pollution that we humans so unthinkingly and often afflict on it. The ice-blue waters too seem unaffected by the onslaught of soap and plastic.

I don’t quite know what I was looking for, so I don’t quite know what I found there. It could be a regular trip – it was funny at times, mesmerizing at others, and largely silent. Having gone by myself, my conversations were restricted to placing orders or asking for directions. Some fellow-travelers did chat up, but they then went their way and I went mine.

I did, however, for these few days, feel that I had conquered something that I have been fighting throughout my adult life – time, or the lack of it. For once, I was never running out of it. My cornucopia seemed eternally and bountifully brimming with more than I could ask for! I would sit on the banks with my feet dipped in the ice-cold fast-flowing waters and go into deep thought, only to realize the whole experience cost me only fifteen minutes! Fifteen minutes? What is that worth in my world? I finished page after page of books in no time, I sketched after 15 years and finished them in a matter of hours. Was I thinking faster, writing faster, reading faster, walking faster, living faster; packing in a lot more of my actual self in every passing unit of time?

I have come back with no “Eureka!”. Being Indian and being Hindu, none of the chants, rituals and sages impressed me as much as they impress foreign travelers. Also, the poverty and anarchy is not enchanting, it is a problem that we need to fix, and pretty soon. But I have come back knowing that I can go back anytime, by myself, to sit with my feet dipped in the ice-cold fast-flowing waters, to do things I have not done in years, to stay silent and to conquer time! I have come back knowing that enlightenment is not God one day switching on Her/His spotlight on you; it is what you add to your life every day, but only if you stop to acknowledge.

The Phad came to town!!

Just as William Dalrymple’s  City of Djinns aroused a newfound fascination in me for the rajdhani Dilli, so does his latest book make me fall in love with India all over again. This time, for a completely different reason. Nine Lives delves into spirituality in modern India, expressed through various conventional and unconventional forms. While, on the one hand, there is the age-old tradition of idol-making for temples in Tamil Nadu, on the other hand there is the power and practice of Tantra shastra, usually kept at bay by us city types because of its eerie association with black magic and voodoo. Of the nine pehloos that Dalrymple chooses to relate after intense research but through easy story-telling, of the most interest to me is the pratha (ritual) of performing Pabhuji ki Phad in Rajasthan. An age-old custom, the phad is a long drape on which are painted myriad stories and incidents of Pabhuji’s life. Pabhuji is a local nomad-turned-chieftain-turned-deity who is today synonymous with the God of the Thar Desert and is credited with keeping the livestock alive and healthy, and providing sufficiently for the survival of the desert tribes. The spirit of Pabhuji roams the desert at night and breathes through the grains of sand, quite like the night-watchman, making sure his subjects are safe and the goats and camels are taken care of.

The narration of the legend of Pabhuji is called phad baachna. The phad itself is hung in the background in all its intricacy and grandeur. The responsibility of narrating this timeless legend is, however, not for everyone to take up. It is done by the bhopa and his bhopi. The bhopa is the bard, who typically tells the story with his wife, the bhopi. The bhopa sings a verse while the bhopi holds the lantern on the part of the phad that depicts the episode being sung. The bhopi then repeats the verse for emphasis. The bhopa plays the ravanhatta,  an elementary stringed instrument to keep the rhythm going. A rapt audience sits through an entire night of performance, listening over and over again to the tales of valor and chivalry of the great Pabhuji.  Blame the advent of modern civilization for the length of the performance. In centuries gone by, a performance would go on for four or five nights. It would almost be an insult to Pabhuji to wrap his tales up in one night, non?

Some very interesting facts stood out as very striking to me. For one, the bhopa’s choice of profession is as much a matter of destiny as it is that of talent. Yes he has to be a magnificent and powerful singer and has to begin learning the innumerable verses right from when he is seven or eight years old. But there’s more! He can perform only if his wife, the bhopi, is as good a singer as he is. Given that these tribes still practice child marriage, there is no way of knowing whether an aspiring bhopa’s wife would be able to sing, leave alone keep the verses in memory. There are examples of a bhopa having to turn to other menial work because destiny did not gift him with a wife who can sing. And of course, in such tribes, the idea of performing with a lady who can sing well but is not your wife is not a possibility. Secondly, a bhopa commands immense respect in the tribal community. Unlike us urban audiences who take the liberty to sneak out for pee breaks during performances, a bhopa’s audience dare not move while he is singing. It is only when the bhopa is tired and needs to re-energize himself that people  stretch their limbs. Throughout the performance, the audience calls out verbal affirmations and applauds the bhopa’s talent. How else will the bhopa get the energy to pull through an entire night? Thirdly, a bhopa is usually illiterate and commits all the verses to memory. An alarming fact is that one of the bhopas was sent to school and educated. Soon after, he began forgetting his lines and had to peep into his diary from time to time! I’m tempted to question whether education is playing its rightful role in preserving our rich heritage of oral literature, but let’s not get there today.

Just a few days after I read this story and it completely took over my imagination (a night-long performance in the darkness and starkness of the desert by a tribal couple with a lantern in hand referring to a tapestry), the most celebrated Rajasthani artiste of India today, Ila Arun, came to Bombay. Coincidence? Well, wait, not yet! She could have done anything really, but she was performing the phad. She had adapted one of Henrik Ibsen’s plays The Lady of The Sea into a Pabhuji ki phad format. The play is aptly called Mareechika, meaning “mirage”, since the sea is nothing but a mirage in the expanse of the Thar desert. The performance was divided into acts and scenes with Rajasthani folk song and dance copiously flowing through the two hours. Ila Arun and Ravi Jhankal played the bhopi and bhopa. What a pleasure watching them sing, dance, holding a lantern to the phad and playing the ravanhatta! Though not in the desert and not night-long, the performance helped to partially quell my desire to board the next flight to Rajasthan. Quite thoughtfully, to give full credit to the original creator, Ila Arun named the legend Ibsenji ki phad –  the mark of a true artiste.

The bhopi mentioned in passing that the best phad is made in Bhilwara. She probably knew that at least one person in the audience would not miss the information; because I am already dreaming of a desert holiday and what will adorn the wall of my living room.

The Tale of Two Cities

My flights to Delhi are usually in the evening (after a day’s work) and by the time I land and am in a cab to my destination, I am typically swearing away, cursing myself for making the same mistake again. “Why do you do this to yourself?” I ask, “Didn’t you promise yourself to land during the day or early evening?” Around me, Delhi is by 9pm a ghost town. The taxi driver is typically an illiterate smart-ass with zilch humility. He does not know his way to the most popular places though he claims to be driving for 11 years in the same city! He keeps calling Defence Colony “Difference Colony” till you give up correcting him (and no, he doesn’t shut up even after that). He swerves dangerously and cruises at speeds unheard of on Indian roads through the empty Delhi streets. But wait, your ordeal is not over yet! Because once you reach “Difference” Colony, after multiple phone calls to friends and colleagues and keeping your eyes fixed on any sign that pops up along the way, there are blocks, sectors, stages, round markets that you keep circling for 30 minutes because there is not a soul to ask, and when you find a few drunk men lounging around, all they can tell you is – “pataa nahin” (don’t know). Coming from Bombay (yes, again, I will call it Bombay. Please leave me alone!), this is almost unrealistic. When I fly back to Bombay, I ask for the latest flight of the day so I can complete all my work without rushing. I know when I land at midnight, the city will be as bustling with people, cars, vendors and shops as Cairo is on the eve of Eid. Yes, that’s true. Every day is Eid in Bombay, and every night is national mourning in Delhi. That is how far apart these two jewels of India are. They are not two different cities, they are two different worlds.

In Bombay, your worst-case taxi driver is the guy who drops hints that you should pay him Rs.50 extra for off-loading your saamaan. In Delhi, your best-case taxi driver is the guy who takes you on a ride of the city while you hide your laptop, phone and ipod into the deepest pockets of your backpack. In Delhi, I wake up on a Saturday morning at 11am to my host pleading with his plumber on the phone to PLEASE come repair the pipe in the bathroom. In Bombay, I wake up at 8am on a Sunday morning to my doorbell ringing incessantly and find my domestic helper, plumber, carpenter, presswaala waiting to do business and move on to earning more bucks. In Delhi, your best-case landlord is one who fights with you at the time of leaving the apartment for not returning a pair of scissors you borrowed six months ago. In Bombay, your worst-case landlord is one who turns up once in six months, and only when your rental cheque has bounced. In Bombay, your worst-case co-passenger does not follow the queue at the pre-paid taxi stand and hovers around you while you make your payment. In Delhi, your best-case co-passenger knocks you down when he spots his suitcase a mile away on the conveyor belt. What is it about Delhi that makes its people so naturally aggressive that even the most suave diplomat shows his rustic inner self? What is it about Bombay that makes its people so tolerant that even an uneducated auto-driver shares with you how he is struggling to pay the school fees of his children with tears in his eyes? The story goes that when a migrant worker (from wherever in India) lands in Delhi, he is constantly cheated and robbed until he is smart enough to survive, while the same migrant worker in Bombay is hosted by friends in their less-than-modest homes and served food by colleagues in the slums before he learns to survive. Interesting, isn’t it?

But then, what is it about Delhi then that every time I leave the city to come back to Bombay, instead of heaving a sigh of relief, I let out a gasp of sadness? That is because I know I’m leaving the most beautiful city of the country to go to the ugliest; I’m leaving the tree-lined margs and diving head-deep into a shit-hole; I’m trading the smells of guavas and tea leaves and mughlai chicken for the smells of smoke and dust and dirt; I’m leaving a city that has history at every corner and crossroads to go to one that is homogenously brown and dilapidated and on the verge of collapse (spare me the Victorian architecture of VT, I think we’re done with it for a lifetime).

My friend Dev once said – Bombay air smells of filth. It does! You smell it the moment you walk out into the city. You smell it on a relaxed Sunday evening while shopping in the upmarket locality of Bandra. You smell it just outside the posh Infinity mall. One evening in Delhi, my friend Rajshree-didi and I bought a box of baklavas from the Defence Colony bakery and sat in the nearby park to savor them. We couldn’t stop talking about how quaint the market and the park and the neighborhood were: individual bungalows, trees all over, people out on walks, young couples dressed in their best winter clothes, their beautifully sharp Punjabi features causing heads to turn from all around. And as if all this was not enough, Delhi sprung another pleasant surprise on us! The fountains in the park went off, and Rajshree-didi and I had to keep our sides from aching as we laughed at how a “park” in the poshest Bombay locality would mean a stretch of tired green you could walk in under 10 minutes. Funnily, when we came back to Bombay and told this story to a quintessential Bombay’ite, she remarked unperturbed – “are you sure those weren’t sprinklers?”. The idea of fountains in an urban park was too much for her to fathom, I suppose!

Both Delhi’ites and Bombay’ites will swear by their street food. When still new to Bombay, I eagerly went up to a roadside stall to try the famous vadaa pau. After much jostling and screaming and throwing my money in the guy’s face (just to make him notice me, I promise, and also because that is what everyone else was doing), the guy picked up two pieces of bread, shoved two miniscule vadaas between them, dipped his hands wrist-deep in two sauces and threw the vadaa-pau at me in projectile motion. It did taste good, but only as good as food can taste when you’ve punched 5 people, elbowed a few others, screamed yourself hoarse and hurt your feet for it. Just outside Chandni Chowk Metro Station in Delhi, I decided to try the rabri falooda. Having lived in Bombay for a few months then, I kept peeping over the counter to see why the guy was taking so long (clearly, I was looking for another projectile coming my way). Well, his annoyed look told me, I’m still preparing it. You want good food, you wait mister! So I waited while he mixed, added pistachios and almonds, gave me a little to taste and tell him if I needed a little more of anything, and finally, with a royal gesture, handed me the falooda. I still haven’t forgotten how good it tasted!

When I say Delhi has history at every corner and crossroad, I’m not exaggerating. It’s no mean feat to pull off a Humayun’s Tomb, Mirza Ghalib’s house, Nizamudin’s dargah – all reminiscent of Delhi’s rich heritage, within walking distance of each other. Nor does it happen in any other city that you can walk down by the national Parliament, past the Prime Minister’s office, right into the vast Mughal Gardens which is basically the backyard of the President’s Palace! Maybe an obvious extension of this is the culture that Delhi still breeds in its bosom. Walk into Nehru Park in Chanakyapuri on a spring weekend and watch for free one of the many celebrated Indian classical maestros performing! Wander around Connaught Place and catch the most fascinating art and photography exhibitions. Amble into Habitat Centre and right there in the amphitheater is an unknown singer whose chaitis, thumris and drupads sound so awesome that even foreigners are swooning away. A free concert by the best Odissi dancer of the country on a random Tuesday evening in Kamani auditorium. In Bombay, I’d have to pay thousands to watch these people perform, if they do, that is. But let me not make it sound like Bombay does not breed culture! The theater scene is always hot – like the weather of the city. The best actors of the country do justice to their creative juices and leave their legacies behind on the stages of Prithvi Theater and NCPA.

You are probably really confused by now, aren’t you? I haven’t been able to make a case in favor of any of these cities, and I don’t intend to. I love them both for what they are. I love Bombay for its easy-going convenience and filth. I love Delhi for its rich culture and high-handedness. I love the down-to-earth crowds of Bombay and the full-of-themselves people of Delhi. I love the endless sea in Bombay and the endless monuments of Delhi. No other city in this mammoth country of mine has as much character and covers as much range than these two do. They are the two women every man loves, and doesn’t know whom to love more. While Delhi is the cultured lady of the house, clad in her silk saris and gold jewelry, soft-spoken and appearing in front of only important guests yet very subtly wielding power over family business and politics, Bombay is the prostitute on the street, loud and outspoken, unapologetic of her lust for money, dressed in cheap fabric and tawdry trinkets, spitting out her paan as she suggestively tucks bucks away in her blouse. And just like a man needs both these women to make him feel complete, so does India need both these cities to be what it is.