Tag: Prashant Shankarnarayan

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Soft Coroner

Mumbai konachi?

Prashant Shankarnarayan wonders whom to call a son of Mumbai city’s soil, and who can be termed as an outsider. Or are these words just words?

Prashant ShankarnarayanThe situation – A colleague casually retorting to the sons of the soil theory by stating that “Mumbai’s original inhabitants were kolis and East Indians”

The observation:

Last week in office, we were discussing the funeral of ‘those we don’t speak of on the Internet’, when the conversation predictably veered towards “Mumbai konachi?” (Whom does Mumbai belong to?) That is when a colleague wryly mentioned that Mumbai’s original inhabitants were the kolis (fisherfolk) and East Indians. Obviously the sons of the soil would have retorted by landing a punch on his face for not mentioning Marathis. The ones who won’t punch but support the theory would upload on Facebook that the kolis and the East Indians both spoke Marathi, and that Mumbai is the capital of Maharashtra. But what many of us conveniently sweep under the carpet is the vast difference in the Mumbai ruled by indigenous rulers, and the Mumbai that stands today.

Everyone and his uncle stakes claim on Mumbai without admitting that the city as we know today was ‘created’ by the British. In 1784, the Governor of Bombay, William Hornby, officially completed the Hornby Vellard project which united all the seven distinct islands into one landmass. Future reclamations and road and railway projects shaped the Mumbai as we know it today. There were many communities and nationalities that preceded the English but the conjoined map of Mumbai was not created by the ones who claim to be sons of the soil.

Hence to put an end to this question, it is imperative to honestly and neutrally consider:

In terms of race

Kolis, who are of Dravidian origin, are the earliest settlers of the erstwhile seven islands that form present-day Mumbai. Kolis have lived here for thousands of years but as per the Hindu caste system, they are a different community compared to the Marathas, and even though their mother tongue is Marathi, quite a few of them converse in Konkani and English. Yes, Marathi precedes English, but if we were to apply the same logic then the kolis have been eking out an existence even before the reign of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka (around 3rd Century BC), which means that they probably communicated in Prakrit or one of its dialects. The Mauryans were followed by the Satavahanas, who were of Telugu origin and so on. In a nutshell, the kolis existed in Mumbai even before the colloquial Marathi was used as a spoken language.

In terms of religion

My friend was right about the Kolis, but wrong about the ‘East Indian’ bit, because for the Europeans, every Indian was an East Indian. But for us, an East Indian is someone who is a convert to Christianity, incidentally from the western coastal belt. At one point, Mumbai was also ruled by the Gujarat Sultanate, which led to the spread of Islam. However, it is a documented fact that the oldest form of organised religion prevalent in these islands was Buddhism, preceded by Hinduism which again must have been preceded by animism. This means that the original residents of Mumbai were indigenous people who believed in an indigenous religion.

In terms of language

Since ancient times, the seven islands have been ruled by the Mauryans, who communicated in Prakrit, Shatavahanas who communicated in Prakrit or possibly Telugu, Vikatakas who spoke in Maharashtri Prakrit, Kalachauris who were Kannada kings and many other kingdoms including the Marathas (briefly) at a much later stage. Marathi is derived from Maharashtri Prakrit, but so are Konkani and few other dialects. This clearly shows that Mumbai was not necessarily ruled only by Marathi speaking rulers in the past. In fact, Mumbai was already a multi-lingual city even before the Marathas captured parts of Salsette in 1737.

The Mumbai story

So whom does this city belong to? If it belongs to the kolis, then we are only mentioning the ancient seven fishing hamlets and not the present land mass as it exists. And while Mumbai was originally ruled by Hindu and Buddhist rulers, we can’t ignore the contribution of the Muslim royals from Gujarat and European Christians at different junctures.

In a way, Mumbai’s reputation as a land of opportunities enhanced when Parsis, Gujratis, Dawoodi Bohras, Jews, Goans, etc landed here after the British established the first mint in 1670 – four years before Chhatrapati Shivaji’s coronation as the first Maratha emperor. It clearly indicates that Mumbai was a melting pot of communities even before the Maratha Empire came into existence. It’s because the only distinct identity that Mumbai possesses in context to other Indian cities is its fabulous work culture and cosmopolitanism.

Mumbai belongs to the one who works hard and the only indigenous culture is the thriving work culture. It belongs to the Parsee philanthropists who built the city and its great institutions, to the Gujarati and Marwari businessmen who transform first class compartments into a mini share bazaar, to the Marathi housewife who juggles her job and family even as her husband works hard to make ends meet, to the Sindhi and Punjabi refugees who lost their motherland to another country, yet carved out a successful life, to the South Indian educated class who brought in their professionalism and sincerity that defines Mumbai’s rise, to the Shetty hotel owners who have been feeding Mumbai since pre-independence days, and to millions of  migrants from every community, and different nationalities who have equally contributed to Mumbai’s success story in their own way.

Hence, watching an autorickshaw driver from another state refusing to ferry Mumbaikars is as painful as watching a few locals trying to hold a Talibanesque control over the city. We owe a better Mumbai to the martyrs of the Samyukta Maharashtra Movement and to the many unsung heroes of the past. Over hundreds of years, many outsiders worked hard to convert few islands into one of the world’s leading cities and hence, in my humble opinion, the only insider in Mumbai is the outsider.

Prashant Shankarnarayan is a mediaperson who is constantly on the lookout for content and auto rickshaws in Mumbai. ‘Soft Coroner’ tries to dissect situations that look innocuous at the surface but reveal uncomfortable complexities after a thorough post mortem.

(Picture courtesy wikimedia.org)

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Soft Coroner

The power of aa-darr

Prashant Shankarnarayan writes on how Mumbai decided to stay indoors on Sunday – and nobody was forced to do so.

The situation – A total lockdown of Mumbai last weekend.

The observation: The lockdown was spontaneous and done to show respect.

A recent event shook the city to its foundations. It closed down all essential services for over a day, made people sit at home and watch TV, and gave rise to the kind of crowds Mumbai hasn’t witnessed in years. Most of those who thronged the streets that day were there out of respect for a leader. The others were forced to wait it out in their homes out of aadar that they were made to show in varied forms. But I believe we’re all making a fuss out of nothing. My life and those of the people I know was as normal as it always has been. Let me give you a few examples to show how nothing changed over the last weekend:

#1) Me: Psst…maal hai kya?

Guy on the street: Hai…kitna chahiye?

Me: Ek kilo milega?

Guy: Theek hai…aap zara aage jaake chupke khade ho jao, main leke aata hoon.

This is how I’ve always bought potatoes from my vendor – I dodge through alleys, hide in the shadows, tiptoe to my vendor and whisper my requirement to him. Similarly, he pretends to be asleep and when I approach, dumps a kilo of vegetables in a bag, eyes still closed. I glance around, quickly throw money at him, and let the shadows take me home. Everybody in my area has always shopped this way – housewives, youngsters, married couples, senior citizens. Nothing changed for us on Sunday.

#2) In front of my eyes, nobody snatched baskets from vegetable vendors and emptied them on the road. There were no onions, cabbages and other vegetables strewn about even as cars passed over them. Simple taxpaying onlookers and thela owners did not stare helplessly at the way their area was converted into a mini Deonar garbage dump.

#3) The shutter was almost down, but people had lined up outside the store. The supplier was selling his stock under the supervision of four policemen. This is how I have always bought milk – under police protection. No wonder I feel safe in Mumbai.

My friends also tell me that nothing happened elsewhere in the city.

#4) My friend stays on the fifth floor of a housing society in the Central suburbs. His ground floor neighbour did not pay him a visit to request him to ‘switch off his Diwali lights’ hanging on the window. Nobody had threatened the lady and told her to switch off her Diwali lights, and nobody told her to visit all other flats in the building and tell everyone to switch their lights off.

#5) My fiancée informed me that cabbies were not charging Rs 1,500 to drop passengers from the Airport to Santacruz.

#6) Cable operators did not block out entertainment channels in different pockets of Mumbai. Cinema houses, malls, multiplexes did not shut down – people just decided not to watch a movie or shop.

#7) A girl was arrested for updating her Facebook status because it was deemed ‘blasphemous’. Even her friend who ‘liked’ her status message was arrested. Nobody vandalised her uncle’s clinic.

On Saturday, nobody blocked traffic going towards Mahim and Dharavi, the media thrashed itself and broke its cameras with its own hands, two buses and a few autorickshaws were struck by lightning at Kalyan and Dombivli and hence got smashed, a neon sign of a closed shop at Bandra suddenly shattered on its own, and stones rained down on BEST buses from the heavens, at Ghatkopar, Pratiksha Nagar, Kamothe (Navi Mumbai) and Naupada (Thane). These were a few reported incidents; I’m sure they did not happen.

Nobody called for a total lockdown. The city chose to sit at home without milk, vegetables, medicines, food, water, and in some areas, newspapers, because the city spontaneously decided, “This is a great day to go hungry and watch the news!” The city was unanimously respectful and chose to go without food and entertainment on its own accord. Nobody was forced to do anything – has anyone ever been forced to down shop shutters or stop plying cabs and autos in this city?

Now excuse me while I go out to get milk. *calls for a posse of policemen to escort him to the milk store.*

Prashant Shankarnarayan is a mediaperson constantly on the lookout for content and auto rickshaws in Mumbai. ‘Soft Coroner’ tries to dissect situations that look innocuous at the surface but reveal uncomfortable complexities after a thorough post mortem.

(Featured image courtesy www.rediff.com. Picture used for representational purpose only)

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Listen

A cracker of a song

We wish you a Happy Diwali and present to you 9XM’s firecracker jugalbandi song – and how it was created.
by Prashant Shankarnarayan | prashant@themetrognome.in

Artists have used their voices, daily items and even trash to create music, but have you ever heard of creating music by bursting firecrackers? This Diwali, 9XM came out with an innovative classical jugalbandi – one between Konnakol and firecrackers. The music channel’s in-house team came up with the concept of juxtaposing bursting fireworks with vocal percussions in the Carnatic style, called ‘Konnakol’. The music video’s plot revolves around a strict TamBrahm music teacher forcefully teaching his disinterested students on Diwali, even as people burst firecrackers outside their homes.

Jugalbandi, also referred to as ‘Sawaal-Jawaab’ in Indian classical music, is when two or more musicians challenge each other to a musical duel by singing or playing instruments. While embarking on this project, the team did face three major challenges – to find clean sound samples of fire crackers, to interpret the sounds musically, and lastly shoot it within city limits.

 

To tackle the first challenge, the team decided to record real firecrackers for the project as clear sound samples  of crackers were not available easily. So, armed with a stash of rassi bombs, lavangis, Red Forts, laars, anars, sparklers, whistling rockets, etc. the team headed for an isolated bungalow in Khandala where they burst crackers till their palms turned silver. Every cracker was recorded in mono, stereo and with a lapel as well as a boom mike.

Then came the next challenge, of musically interpreting these crackers and creating a music piece out of it. A responsibility that was handled with utter ease by a Mumbai-based percussion band named ‘Dipesh Verma’s Indian Beaters’. The artists created rhythmic patters with the firecracker sounds in sync with their Konnakol, and later added percussion instruments to the track. Says Dipesh Verma, whose band composed the track, “Initially when we got the brief from 9XM, we were a bit skeptical. But when we started mixing the firecracker sounds to create music, we realised that we were onto something utterly fresh, wild and fantastic.”

As for the music video, the programming team converted the Saraswati Vidyalaya in Chembur into a housing colony. There were many safety concerns raised as the plot involved children and firecrackers, and was being shot in a residential area. But timely police permissions, crowd control and apt handling of the fireworks saved the day. The team considers itself plain lucky to pack up the shoot without any complaints from nearby residents.

Says Sunder Venketraman, Content Head, 9XM, “Other than interpreting noisy crackers musically for the first time, the music video also highlights the idea of going back to our roots and celebrating festivals with our near and dear ones, something that seems like a lost trait in our times.”  The music video went on air on November 7 and is already being shared as a viral on the Internet.

Prashant Shankarnarayan was a part of the creative team at 9XM that conceptualised and created this music video.

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Soft Coroner

The Partisan of India

Prashant Shankarnarayan muses on the North-South Div(why)de, and wonders why history books omit South India from the Indian freedom struggle.

The situation – A friend’s casual comment, “Tum madrasiyon ne toh azaadi ke liye kuch kiya hi nahin!”

The observation: A good-hearted Punjabi and a funny radio host, he just blurted it out. However, his jovial comment reflected a deep sense of prejudice hosted by many compatriots. He is an innocent by-product of an indifferent education system that made us believe that South India did not contribute anything to the freedom struggle, and the North was where all the action occurred. So here is my response to that lame comment but before that:

Is this article about freedom fighters? No, because I have no moral credibility, right and intention to even comment on them just because I happen to sit on a chair with a backrest and know how to operate a laptop.

Then what’s the fuss about?  Because although North India saw more bloodshed because Punjab and Bengal were divided amid political machinations, and considering that Kolkata was the erstwhile capital before Delhi took over, it still doesn’t mean that the southerners were sitting around eating appams and drinking payasam all day while the feisty North battled long and hard.

This is just a humble rumination on a few known but not often-discussed facts which, I believe, need to be included in our history books and conversations, so that our institutions stop manufacturing Northies and Southies, but Indians.

India’s first Sepoy Mutiny

No, it wasn’t the 1857 one at Meerut. Actually, the first one occurred on July 10, 1806 at Vellore. The Hindu and Muslim sepoys of the Madras Army protested against army rules that hurt their religious sentiments, and were also fuelled by a desire to put an Indian prince on the throne. The mutiny broke out and the sepoys killed many British officers, raised the flag of Mysore Sultanate at the Vellore Fort and declared Fateh Hyder as the king before the rebellion was crushed by the rulers in a day.

The Queens

Who was the first Indian queen to take on the British? The mind conjures a brave and beautiful Rani Lakshmibai seated on a horse, with her infant boy tied around her waist, wreaking havoc on the battlefield and dying a heroic death in 1858. They called her the most dangerous of all Indian leaders, yet there were other queens who took on the might of the British long before the battle of Jhansi. Chennamma, the ruler of Kittur in present day Karnataka, fought with the British East India Company for the same reason as Rani Lakshmibai would later fight for – to ensure that her adopted son remained her heir. The courageous queen was captured and later died in prison in 1829. As for Velu Nachiyar, the queen of Sivagangai, she was amongst the first ones to use a human bomb way back around 1780. She even created a women’s army to face the British soldiers and named the unit ‘Udaiyal’ in honour of her adopted daughter, Udaiyal, who died detonating the British armoury.

One of the many revolutionaries

This patriot, affiliated to a nationalist outfit, assassinated an English officer and eventually committed suicide by shooting himself to evade arrest. Before you say Chandrashekhar Azad, let me tell you about Vanchinathan. Born in Shenkottai, he was a member of the Bharata Mata Association and shot dead the district collector of Tirunelvelli, Robert William d’Escourt Ashe – almost 20 years before Azad’s martyrdom.

The list can’t continue further as the article runs the risk of being branded as a history lesson by a rank amateur. But it is an earnest appeal by a layman to stop viewing Indian history from a partisan North Indian perspective. It is this sheer ignorance that makes a random North Indian guy rebuke a random South Indian guy just because the former doesn’t know even an iota about South India’s contribution to Indian independence. And it is the same ignorance projecting in different ways that very subtly sows the seeds of alienation fuelling the Aryan-Dravidian or Hindi-Madrasi undercurrents that we see in religion and politics.

No one knows why our educators decided to chuck quite a bit of South India from history books, but as a result, people like my friend have created their own incorrect opinions about the freedom struggle. More importantly, my Punjabi friend thought that he represented all the freedom fighters from the North just like I, for him, represented all the so-called docile South Indians. What matches his pathetic gleeful ignorance is the equally rigid Dravidian politics of certain parties from the South. As commoners, it is definitely better to erase each other’s ignorance rather than feed on it like Dravidian netas.

I believe that the honourable frogs who set history curricula should jump out of their North Indian wells and take a dip in the Indian Ocean to familiarise themselves with the adjacent Indian land mass. Lala Lajpat Rai and Tiruppur Kumaran both held on to flags, at different locations and a different time, even as the police assaulted them, and both eventually succumbed to injuries. I asked my fiancée, and as expected, she had studied about the former leader in school but knew nothing about the latter. Worse, she accused me of being a defensive South Indian after reading the first draft of this article. No surprises, considering she is a North Indian.

Prashant Shankarnarayan is a mediaperson who is constantly on the lookout for content and auto rickshaws in Mumbai. This column tries to dissect situations that look innocuous at the surface but reveal uncomfortable complexities after a thorough post mortem.

(Image courtesy Satish Acharya)

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Soft Coroner

A little more. And a little more.

Our national penchant for something ‘extra’ will have us become shameless and expect freebies in every situation.
by Prashant Shankarnarayan | prashant@themetrognome.in

The situation – A matrimonial ad seeking an extra-brilliant groom

The observation – There were the usual clichés – the girl’s father needed a groom from a good family. Expecting a brilliant son-in-law seems perfectly rational. Who wouldn’t want to flaunt an IIM son-in-law or an IIT son-in-law or an Ivy League son-in-law? But what caught my eye at first seemed like an error. This family wanted an ‘extra’ brilliant groom!

What on Earth does that mean? Is it a level between brilliant and genius? Was Einstein brilliant or extra brilliant?

To be honest, we do understand that the girl’s father wanted a smart and educated groom, but what it signified is just an Indian trait to expect something extra out of every situation. This demand for ‘extra’ brilliance is just a reflection of our culture where an extra could mean different things at different times. Yes, I know the first thing that comes to mind is the extra something that we pay under the table, but that is just one of the things ingrained in the Indian psyche. Don’t believe me? Read on.

Habit: The hand drops the last pani puri in the mouth and the throat gulps it, the lips sip off the leftover pani off the plate and even before the tangy concoction reaches the tummy, the hand shoots out at the vendor to rightfully demand…an extra puri! Or an extra peppered alu with sandwich. Sometimes, it’s extra sheng chana with paanch rupay ka bhel. Even I remember coolly picking up a few extra sheng chanas and walking off nonchalantly, even as the chanawala gave me a nasty ‘bloody shameless freeloader’ look. It’s in our blood to demand extra.

Class: The idea of demanding extra also reeks of class consciousness. The same person (me) who would demand an extra puri at a chaat stall will abstain from doing so in a restaurant. No one does it. It looks cheap. Instead, I will tip the waiter lest he thinks I am a cheapskate. In fact, the tip is directly proportional to the status of the restaurant and/or the amount in the bill. On one hand, I tip the waiter and on the other hand, I take an extra puri from the street vendor irrespective of the possibility that both might be from the same economic strata.

And not to forget the local trains in Mumbai. It’s perfectly fine to rest one bum and then slowly push and prod to create a fourth seat in a second class compartment. The ‘extra’ seat is a part of the system. But try doing the same in a first class compartment and…well actually you just can’t do it there! It’s an unwritten rule – no fourth seat here because we pay more. And as a true blue Mumbaikar, even I completely agree and follow this maxim. First class commuters might be unaccommodating, but then what is the point of paying more than three times the second class fare if we have to travel cattle class.

Peer pressure: What started as an innocuous filler to pep up boring CVs has become a scary proposition; it goes by the name of extra curricular activities. Agreed that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, but all work and all play makes Jack’s father pay through his nose even though Jack will still grow up and most probably slog like his predecessors. Extra curricular activities are a must and should be encouraged. I have carved my career in a discipline which was not a part of my school or college curriculum. But when my 12-year-old neighbour goes to the USA as part of her ‘school trip’, I do shudder. We used to go to Chhota Kashmir at Aarey Milk Colony in Goregaon for a picnic. While it is heartening to know that schools have taken on the mantle to create super students, I don’t know how many of these kids will grow up to be rocket scientists-cum-horse riders-cum classical violinists who represent their country in Judo or Karate even as they win dancing and singing talent shows on television – when they’re not busy with Vedic maths, that is.

Our generation turned out okay. I hope future generations turn out better. Desperately piling extra curricular activities on the kid doesn’t seem the apt way to go about it. Still, if the parents believe that it works for their kids, then I wish them ‘extra’ luck.

Tradition: This is bit light-hearted. It’s the act of adding 1 to every transaction. 11 coconuts to bribe the gods. Rs 11 in an envelope as shagun from relatives. Rs 111 in an envelope to make a relative more endearing. Festival celebrations in the colony means it’s time to shell out Rs 501. This harmless extra numeral stems from the belief that 0 puts a full stop to a transaction, whereas 1 adds perpetuity to auspiciousness. Weird logic, but works for me.

Oppression: This I mention on behalf of all those struggling writers, including yours truly. It is one of the main reasons why many professionals prefer a full time job that assures a stipulated salary, as compared to having one’s own set-up. Dear clients: when you say ‘pilot’, we hear ‘free’. It’s like the housewife telling the vegetable vendor to thrown in extra kotmir with the lot. Freelancing professionals hate this extra work that is thrown in by clients even as they dangle the usual carrot – we’ll rope you in next time for sure. The more desperate you are, the more ‘extra’ work you do even as an ‘extra’ carrot keeps getting added to the dangling list. And I’m sure this gets replicated in every industry. What matches this ‘extra’ oppression in its ruthlessness is our next aspect – double standards.

Double standards: We’ve heard it before. How one needs to report on time; something which I sincerely follow. How one needs to be presentable at work. How employees in developed countries are thorough professionals and we need to match up with them. Our bosses want us to be like them, but in our own way, which boils down to extra working hours without extra pay. Our stickiness to copy ‘foreign ishtyle‘ corporate culture ends there, simply because there are 20,000 people in line waiting to grab your job.

Sporting conscience: No surprise that the sport that Indians follow passionately is often defined by its extras.  Think it doesn’t matter much? Cut to the match when Sri Lankan spinner Suraj Randiv bowled that no ball, leaving Sehwag stranded on an unbeaten 99. More than India’s victory, the columns were filled with lectures on the spirit of the game and a denied century. True to our style, we even prefer sports with freebies.

p.s.: Although I have just touched the tip of the iceberg as far as our natural penchant for an extra something is concerned, I will vouch that no extra is more beautiful, deserving, fulfilling and quintessentially desi than that ‘extra’ half mark doled out by a generous soul that helps you touch the most important barrier in life –35 out of 100.

Prashant is a mediaperson who is constantly on the lookout for content and auto rickshaws in Mumbai. The Soft Coroner attempts to dissect situations that look innocuous at the surface but reveal uncomfortable complexities after a thorough post mortem.

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Places

Out with the X-Men

A scenic Rajmachi trek became a screaming free-for-all as Prashant Shankarnarayan shared his trip with the loudest people on Earth.

So I went to Rajmachi recently. It’s a village situated on a hill that is part of the Sahyadri range. The itinerary was clear – Mumbai to Lonavla by bus, then an uphill trek from Lonavla, reach Rajmachi, roam around and stay overnight in a villager’s home, next morning trek downhill to Kondivade village where the bus would wait for us, head to Mumbai.

Everything would have gone as per plan had it not been for one aspect, a pretty important one – the company. When my friend told me to hop on with him, his wife and just a few friends – the reason why I even tagged my girlfriend along for the trip – I never realised that his definition of ‘a few friends’ meant a cluster of families who will henceforth be referred to as X. (Hint to decode X: the loudest families to frequent Mumbai’s restaurants and theatres).

Anyway, we set out from Mumbai to Lonavla in a private bus and no, I am not going to share the details of my bus journey, lest you mistake me for a 16-year-old girl armed with a dairy in one hand and her teddy in another. So what hits you first in a bus filled with X? The sheer noise, damn it! How could someone be so loud?

All the way, X maintained that we will ‘trake’ from Lonavla to Rajmachi. Soon enough we arrived at the spot in Lonavla where our trek  and their trake would begin…with a prayer! Let’s not even go there – I have stopped commenting on people’s religious beliefs, but I couldn’t help but stand at a distance from the prayer session. So we started walking uphill around 2 pm. It was the usual out-of-Mumbai-everything-is-green-and-we-should-do-this-often experience. But soon I realised that it wasn’t a trek. I tried correcting the Xs by explaining the difference between a hike and a trek, but eventually trake won hands down.

After an easy hike that lasted a few hours, we reached Udewadhi village in Rajmachi at around 6.15 pm. The lone toll-collecting guy (still don’t know why you need one there) said that it was better to trek to Shrivardhan Fort atop the hill the next morning. Although I wanted to go on, I opted to stay with X just to thwart unwanted attention.

Udewadhi village has accommodation arrangements, provided that sleeping on bare floors without sanitation facilities counts as arrangements at all. Being a regular trekker, I had no issues with this aspect of the matter, although the women in our group were soon mumbling about how they wouldn’t feel comfortable about defecating in the open. Thankfully, our room owner has constructed one toilet just for women. The villagers provide homemade Maharashtrian staple food and you can have pure vegetarian as well as Jain variants, provided you inform them as soon as you reach.

So after a tiring hike, just when my girlfriend and my friend’s wife thought it was time to doze off, the X-Men uncorked their bottles and started yelling. In some parts of the world, they call it singing. Then the X-Women joined in. Then the X-Kids. Not a single person could sing in tune, and there were around15 of them. Their unflinching loyalty to Kishore Kumar songs for almost two hours moved me…to the next room. By the way, did I tell you that a bunch of youngsters from another random group were sharing the house with us, and yet the Xs kept bawling without a thought for the poor strangers?

Post a decent dinner at the villager’s home, we crashed for the night. This is where you make a note – get your own sleeping bags, bed sheets and mattresses. Post dinner, the Xs continued howling Kishore Kumar hits, while the others tried to sleep in the  heat. The great Kishore Kumar’s soul could finally rest in peace as the X-Men went to sleep.

And then…it happened. In the dead of night, we awoke to strange noises. We were exclusive witness to an orchestra featuring natural wind percussion, or farts. The X-Men just went on with their fartestra without even considering that they were sleeping in a room filled with strangers (Hint #2 to decode X: the loudest in Mumbai’s local trains.)

Anyway, let’s cut the crap and talk about the one that everyone takes. Like the early bird that gets the worm, the early riser gets to take a crap in the loo reserved for women, instead of defecating in the open. So if you are staying overnight at Rajmachi, the trick to evade defecating in the open is waking up early. As X stayed put in the rooms, some of us trekked to Shrivardhan Fort, and needless to say, it’s a must-visit. It just takes around half an hour to reach the top of the Fort and the view is like that from any other fort, but it is still something the serious traveller must do.

After clicking few photographs we came down and headed for a dip in the nearby pond and it was serene, especially without a single X-Man, Woman or Kid in sight. It was soon time to head back.

The ‘real’ trek – the descent to Kondivade village, is not easy. Okay, it’s pretty tough, and really tough if you are a novice. The downward trek includes manoeuvring uneven rocks, random thorny plants as you pass by streams and waterfalls. Do carry enough water, unlike us – we set off with just one bottle between us. Every trekker worth his/her salt would love this part of the trip.

We were trekking silently, when an X-Kid repeatedly started shouting for her papa. We trekked faster just to avoid that kid, then we added pace to avoid the entire X cluster and soon enough we were way ahead. We trekked in peace for about four hours to Kondivade, where the bus was waiting to drop us back to Mumbai.

I used to cringe on hearing clichés about how its not about the destination, but the journey and blah blah blah. But this is the first time I understood it. I am someone who prefers to trek in silence, observing keenly whatever meets the eye and exchanging gyaan with other trekkers. But on this trek, I was put outside my comfort zone, and that changed the entire perspective of my trip. Maybe if I had been with a different group, this account would have turned out different. Maybe if someone from X had written this, they would have branded me a misfit because I was aloof and never mingled with them. I guess that is the idea behind any journey – knowing where you fit in.

Do you have a travel story to tell? Write to us at thetraveller@themetrognome.in and we’d love to feature your experience.

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