A man is no substitute for a full-length mirror
I slept a little late this morning, because I really couldn't get out of bed, because didn't get much sleep last night (about which more, later) or the night before (ditto), and then I was dashing around frantically, because I knew we had, of all things, a "duck and cover" drill at work at 9 this morning. Moreover, my boss and I had had a bit of a philosophical difference regarding said drill. No, not about the efficacy of a plywood desk in providing shelter from a 500-pound car-bomb. I've long since learned to accept directives like that under the mantra that whatever doesn't kill me will make good fodder for Diplomacy!. No, our disagreement was about whether to forewarn the staff. My boss was of the opinion that a really effective drill should not be pre-announced, whereas I was thinking, specifically, of the heart condition of my secretary, an older and immensely dignified Parsi lady, whom I adore. I decided my compromise, only borderline insubordinate, would be to position myself right by my office door, so as to be able to leap out at the very first hint of klaxon, and announce, "It's a DRILL, folks! It's only a drill…!" but that definitely required arriving more or less on time.
Thus it was especially vexing to realize that, although I'd ensured my jacket had been pressed, my intended skirt was lying in a crumpled heap on the bottom of the laundry basket. My five-second compromise was to go with a pair of black pants that fit well 20 pounds ago, a tight black T-shirt that was perhaps a little low-cut for Mumbai (but, I figured, I only had one scheduled public appearance for the day, and it was likely to be low-key), and a heavy silk purple jacket. A little LA, I thought, but serviceable.
Our apartment is very dark in the mornings. I mean, it’s cave-like at the best of times, but mornings are not the best of times for either of us. And half our light switches shoot sparks and smoke when switched on, and I can never remember which, so, frankly, I’m afraid to turn on the lights. So it was that I asked K, while dashing out the door, “Look alright? Too lumpy?” and K, barely looking up from The History Channel (I did not hate ancient Rome before meeting K), said – what else? -- “Sure. You look fine.”
I arrived at work at two minutes to nine, put down my stuff, leaped out, and made my announcement. My secretary looked up from her Reader’s Digest crossword.
“What drill?” she asked mildly.
“That noise…that…that…huh.” I ran over to the speaker at the other end of the floor, and put my ear up against it, and confirmed a little tinny whine was warbling out intermittently.
“EVERYBODY GET UNDER YOUR DESK” I shouted.
They looked at each other, shrugged, and complied. In their minds, I’ve probably made weirder requests.
Later, jacket off, I tried to finesse the issue with them.
“Look, it’s important that we have someone put their ear to the speaker every morning, just in case there’s a drill.”
“What if it’s not a drill?”
“Then you don’t have to get under your desk.”
“No, I mean, what if it’s an attack?”
“Well, S, what are the chances that’s going to happen first thing in the morning, hmm? C’mon, use your head, here. Ok, that’s enough rehash, folks! Everyone back to work! No, sorry, that’s enough questions. Let’s go!”
Figuring the weird looks weren’t all due to the incipient revolt of the staff, I ducked into the bathroom and checked out my reflection. The phrase “two cats fighting in a gunnysack” sprang to mind. I put my jacket back on and kept it on for the rest of the day.
Unfortunately, I had to go to a “school inauguration” later in the day. I wasn’t sure what that really meant, or why I was invited, but I knew it was in “Navi Mumbai,” an exurb a long way away, and I’d been invited in person by two very sweet (and canny) young ladies, who spent hours on the train just to spend five minutes handing me my invitation in person, and thus pretty much ensuring I’d be guilted into going.
Navi Mumbai is a planned city, and a failed attempt to create a new urban center to relieve Mumbai’s crowding. It also turned out to be more than halfway to Pune, and took about two hours to reach. En route, S explained how political schools are here, with the fees going directly to the sponsoring politician. Which sort of made me giggle. I can’t cite the name of the school, for plausible deniability reasons, but it was supposed to be an eco-friendly place, and its name contained the word “green,” which suddenly became an apt double-entendre.
S and I were both stunned when we arrived: the streets were roped off, and there were parked vehicles everywhere. We had some initial trouble getting past the standard-issue fat, khaki-clad cop, but then I was recognized, and suddenly grabbed and pulled through the crowd to a VIP room. I barely had time to smile nervously at the school principal, before I was again beckoned out and placed next to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra and a horde of photographers. In the confusion, I didn’t understand that I was actually standing in front of the plaque they were waiting to unveil, but we got that sorted out. I stepped aside, more pictures were taken, a few more ministers joined us, and then we were in motion again. S managed to whisper “I heard they’re taking you to the stage,” before being restrained by a warning lathi and getting submerged by the crowd.
I stood rather stupidly on stage, behind the Chief Minister, who was giving a speech in Marathi, and tried to figure out where, in the two rows of chairs, I was supposed to sit. An amusing fact about politicians in Maharashtra: they all make a point of wearing simple kurtas of khadi cloth, the homespun thin white cotton made famous by Gandhi. So do drivers, bodyguards, and other servants, because that’s all they can afford. I stood there trying to figure out who was a lackey and who was a major political player, and only managed to do it because the ministers were more ostentatious in their simplicity. Even so, when I took a seat I judged to be appropriate to my station but out of the way, I was nudged front and center.
And where was this stage, you ask? It was under a tent the size of several airplane hangars, and it was hotter than Thailand. All the chairs were neatly lined up, and I counted rows and columns to come up with a figure of approximately 6,000, but I think it was actually more, because the rows in the back were shimmery and indistinct in the heat and sort of merged hazily with the horizon. Men and women were segregated. In the center; men were clad in white khadi, looking like a zillion naval platoons. Off to the sides, an explosion of colorful saris and headscarves and the constant tinkling of bangles. Around the perimeters, I saw empty buses in the fields, and realized I was finally witnessing something I’ve read about in Indian novels: the rounding-up of rural villagers for nominally-paid attendance at political rallies.
The speeches were all in Marathi, but I could more or less follow the broad strokes without any language, having sat through too many of these. And I could tell when the speaker was talking about the U.S. by the way that the entire audience looked at me, but I was never sure whether I was supposed to smile or scowl, so I just tried to keep a neutral face. Which is awkward when there’s sweat sheeting off you, and you’re worried that you’ve perspired through your jacket, or your entirely-too-low-cut T-shirt might have slipped down, exposing your bra to an audience the size of your hometown. Except the photographers were bored senseless, too, and every time I subtly tried to wipe the sweat dripping from my nose, or tug at my shirt, or assess the damage to my jacket, I saw a telephoto lens begin to swing my way. As most of the papers’ society pages have started a really odious habit of adding MTV-style snarky captions to their photos, I backed off and tried to sit stock-still.
This was made more difficult by the fact that the German Consul General came in late and sat next to me and kept leaning over and whispering things like, “’Its a wery nice school. Thank you all for coming.’ Gut gott, man, vutt more is there to say?!”
Somewhere around the second hour, I started getting tunnel vision and began wondering, if one of them had to be inevitable, whether it was better to throw up, faint, or take off the jacket. But the next thing I knew, the crowd was on its feet, I was propelled into the school itself – a modest, spartan building – and, in the best traditions of oblivious Indian hospitality (detailed in another entry), being absolutely forced to drink hot tea. S was located, and we slipped out.
As we were waiting for the car to make its way through security and get us, I was struck by the sight of the plain but modern new building, surrounded by the vacant lots that were supposed to contain Mumbai's urban-planning triumph. Around the sides of all the lots, as if the school were hemorrhaging, all the nicely-dressed farmers, whose only benefit from the school would likely be the ten rupees they received today, trickled back toward the dusty cage-like buses. And, in the grassy areas, oblivious to the thousands of people milling around, were several khadi-clad men. You could tell they were villagers and not ministers only because their faces were lined and looked nobly weather-beaten. In preparation for the long journey back, they had raised their kurtas and squatted on their haunches, and were solemnly crapping in the fields.
Thus it was especially vexing to realize that, although I'd ensured my jacket had been pressed, my intended skirt was lying in a crumpled heap on the bottom of the laundry basket. My five-second compromise was to go with a pair of black pants that fit well 20 pounds ago, a tight black T-shirt that was perhaps a little low-cut for Mumbai (but, I figured, I only had one scheduled public appearance for the day, and it was likely to be low-key), and a heavy silk purple jacket. A little LA, I thought, but serviceable.
Our apartment is very dark in the mornings. I mean, it’s cave-like at the best of times, but mornings are not the best of times for either of us. And half our light switches shoot sparks and smoke when switched on, and I can never remember which, so, frankly, I’m afraid to turn on the lights. So it was that I asked K, while dashing out the door, “Look alright? Too lumpy?” and K, barely looking up from The History Channel (I did not hate ancient Rome before meeting K), said – what else? -- “Sure. You look fine.”
I arrived at work at two minutes to nine, put down my stuff, leaped out, and made my announcement. My secretary looked up from her Reader’s Digest crossword.
“What drill?” she asked mildly.
“That noise…that…that…huh.” I ran over to the speaker at the other end of the floor, and put my ear up against it, and confirmed a little tinny whine was warbling out intermittently.
“EVERYBODY GET UNDER YOUR DESK” I shouted.
They looked at each other, shrugged, and complied. In their minds, I’ve probably made weirder requests.
Later, jacket off, I tried to finesse the issue with them.
“Look, it’s important that we have someone put their ear to the speaker every morning, just in case there’s a drill.”
“What if it’s not a drill?”
“Then you don’t have to get under your desk.”
“No, I mean, what if it’s an attack?”
“Well, S, what are the chances that’s going to happen first thing in the morning, hmm? C’mon, use your head, here. Ok, that’s enough rehash, folks! Everyone back to work! No, sorry, that’s enough questions. Let’s go!”
Figuring the weird looks weren’t all due to the incipient revolt of the staff, I ducked into the bathroom and checked out my reflection. The phrase “two cats fighting in a gunnysack” sprang to mind. I put my jacket back on and kept it on for the rest of the day.
Unfortunately, I had to go to a “school inauguration” later in the day. I wasn’t sure what that really meant, or why I was invited, but I knew it was in “Navi Mumbai,” an exurb a long way away, and I’d been invited in person by two very sweet (and canny) young ladies, who spent hours on the train just to spend five minutes handing me my invitation in person, and thus pretty much ensuring I’d be guilted into going.
Navi Mumbai is a planned city, and a failed attempt to create a new urban center to relieve Mumbai’s crowding. It also turned out to be more than halfway to Pune, and took about two hours to reach. En route, S explained how political schools are here, with the fees going directly to the sponsoring politician. Which sort of made me giggle. I can’t cite the name of the school, for plausible deniability reasons, but it was supposed to be an eco-friendly place, and its name contained the word “green,” which suddenly became an apt double-entendre.
S and I were both stunned when we arrived: the streets were roped off, and there were parked vehicles everywhere. We had some initial trouble getting past the standard-issue fat, khaki-clad cop, but then I was recognized, and suddenly grabbed and pulled through the crowd to a VIP room. I barely had time to smile nervously at the school principal, before I was again beckoned out and placed next to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra and a horde of photographers. In the confusion, I didn’t understand that I was actually standing in front of the plaque they were waiting to unveil, but we got that sorted out. I stepped aside, more pictures were taken, a few more ministers joined us, and then we were in motion again. S managed to whisper “I heard they’re taking you to the stage,” before being restrained by a warning lathi and getting submerged by the crowd.
I stood rather stupidly on stage, behind the Chief Minister, who was giving a speech in Marathi, and tried to figure out where, in the two rows of chairs, I was supposed to sit. An amusing fact about politicians in Maharashtra: they all make a point of wearing simple kurtas of khadi cloth, the homespun thin white cotton made famous by Gandhi. So do drivers, bodyguards, and other servants, because that’s all they can afford. I stood there trying to figure out who was a lackey and who was a major political player, and only managed to do it because the ministers were more ostentatious in their simplicity. Even so, when I took a seat I judged to be appropriate to my station but out of the way, I was nudged front and center.
And where was this stage, you ask? It was under a tent the size of several airplane hangars, and it was hotter than Thailand. All the chairs were neatly lined up, and I counted rows and columns to come up with a figure of approximately 6,000, but I think it was actually more, because the rows in the back were shimmery and indistinct in the heat and sort of merged hazily with the horizon. Men and women were segregated. In the center; men were clad in white khadi, looking like a zillion naval platoons. Off to the sides, an explosion of colorful saris and headscarves and the constant tinkling of bangles. Around the perimeters, I saw empty buses in the fields, and realized I was finally witnessing something I’ve read about in Indian novels: the rounding-up of rural villagers for nominally-paid attendance at political rallies.
The speeches were all in Marathi, but I could more or less follow the broad strokes without any language, having sat through too many of these. And I could tell when the speaker was talking about the U.S. by the way that the entire audience looked at me, but I was never sure whether I was supposed to smile or scowl, so I just tried to keep a neutral face. Which is awkward when there’s sweat sheeting off you, and you’re worried that you’ve perspired through your jacket, or your entirely-too-low-cut T-shirt might have slipped down, exposing your bra to an audience the size of your hometown. Except the photographers were bored senseless, too, and every time I subtly tried to wipe the sweat dripping from my nose, or tug at my shirt, or assess the damage to my jacket, I saw a telephoto lens begin to swing my way. As most of the papers’ society pages have started a really odious habit of adding MTV-style snarky captions to their photos, I backed off and tried to sit stock-still.
This was made more difficult by the fact that the German Consul General came in late and sat next to me and kept leaning over and whispering things like, “’Its a wery nice school. Thank you all for coming.’ Gut gott, man, vutt more is there to say?!”
Somewhere around the second hour, I started getting tunnel vision and began wondering, if one of them had to be inevitable, whether it was better to throw up, faint, or take off the jacket. But the next thing I knew, the crowd was on its feet, I was propelled into the school itself – a modest, spartan building – and, in the best traditions of oblivious Indian hospitality (detailed in another entry), being absolutely forced to drink hot tea. S was located, and we slipped out.
As we were waiting for the car to make its way through security and get us, I was struck by the sight of the plain but modern new building, surrounded by the vacant lots that were supposed to contain Mumbai's urban-planning triumph. Around the sides of all the lots, as if the school were hemorrhaging, all the nicely-dressed farmers, whose only benefit from the school would likely be the ten rupees they received today, trickled back toward the dusty cage-like buses. And, in the grassy areas, oblivious to the thousands of people milling around, were several khadi-clad men. You could tell they were villagers and not ministers only because their faces were lined and looked nobly weather-beaten. In preparation for the long journey back, they had raised their kurtas and squatted on their haunches, and were solemnly crapping in the fields.
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