A happily devious Sunday..

What started off as a filling-up-the-time conversation waiting for the phone to ring on a quiet Sunday, turned out to be an enchanting afternoon with a new-found vocal, disgruntled citizen. Yay. My tribe increases.

It all started with B telling me about his recent trip to the UK and filling me on things to see and do while I'm there. And then, we moved on to how tourism there was linked to the history of the place and inevitable comparisons to how we promote our heritage emerged (I hold responsible the article in Mid-day about school children being told about Phoenix Mills history - it's the same place where Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose once addressed a rally, that's now a parking lot for the mall). But I digress.

The conversation moved on animatedly. And I was drawn in, fascinated by the range of emotions expressed. I watched, after a long time, someone who felt like I did about "issues". Reminded me of a younger ME - vocal, angry, we-have-to-do-something-about-it Me. We talked about the city, about how traveling is getting increasingly difficult - any time of the day or night; we talked about how drivers (cars, autos, cabbies) have no regard for anybody else on the road - how they park where they want to, at what angle they want to, and how everybody else will just move around them silently. We talked about bus conductors and how they've given up ownership of their buses to the queue breakers and their relatives. We talked of the rise of hooliganism and how it was difficult to travel without hearing an obscenity thrown at you - especially if you were a woman or were with one.

And then the best part. All that frustration and rage was apparently constructive. Because young B already had well thought out ways of solving the problems, the least of which included devious ways of getting rid of corrupt BMC and government officials (which for reasons of personal safety, I'd rather not disclose here!).

That was a cathartic afternoon indeed. By the time I was ready to leave, I was so glad that all is not lost. There still ARE people who feel strongly about stuff that everybody else doesn't have to energy to think about. And they're willing to DO something about it than mouth mere platitudes.

The city's just cracking up under the pressure. And we, i/e Young B and yours truly are determined to do our bit about it.

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Have you seen any earthworms around this monsoon? I haven't. Not in Churchgate, not in Borivili, not in Bombay Central,Byculla or Bandra. For that matter, I haven't heard any frogs or seen a butterfly ............

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