I really can't get into the skin of non-vegetarian and experience the agonies of watching a wonderful apartment slip out of my hand because of my food preference (I'm veg!). But this has become so common in Mumbai that people have simply shut out their options or found their way around it. I spoke to some who for the love of the flat, faked to be vegetarians!
Notes from the diary of an under-cover non-vegetarian (living in a vegetarian society):
July 9
8.00 pm: I get separation pangs. It’s been 10 days and I haven’t cooked non-vegetarian food. I stay in Goregaon west but the fear of being caught red-handed makes me drive all the way to Goregaon east to pick up some good old sea-food.
9.00 pm: I want to eat prawns but I can’t. Prawns stink and the whole neighbourhood will know I’m non-vegetarian. So I settle for some crabs. They are a safer proposition.
9.15 pm: I also pick up a packet of incense sticks.
9.45pm: I put the crabs in a black bag. Put the black bag inside another bag and put that bag into another one. I enter my society, a little nervous, like I was committing some crime. But I tried to smile at my neighbours as I passed them. I said to one of them, “Just went vegetable shopping”, even when they hadn’t asked me a thing.
July 10
9.00 am: Before I begin to cook, I open my main door and light the bunch of incense sticks outside the door. My neighbours feel proud that I energise my house with these agarbattis. Obviously, I do it to mislead the folks who pass through the staircase.
10.30am: Phew! I’m done with the cooking but damn, I forgot to keep my big windows open. The smell can’t stay in the house! But it’s not too late to mend the damage. I quickly open the windows.
10.45 am: I’m just laying the table when the door bell rings. But I don’t need to panic. I have trained my maid not to open the door without first checking out through the key-hole. That key-hole is my saviour. She does just that and not to worry, it’s just a courier boy. I collect the package and begin to enjoy my meal.
11.15 am: Ok, there’s some left-over food. I can’t possibly throw that into the dustbin. The CIA agents in my society will smell it and catch hold of me. So I ask my maid to send the food across to my secret non-vegetarian friend in the society.
11.30 am: My super-intelligent maid takes the plate of food covered only with a thin tissue paper. In five minutes I get a call from my friend who yells at me. “We both would have been thrown out of the society if that piece of tissue paper had flown on its way to my home.” I swear never to send the food like that again. I take a spare tiffin from the cabinet and make it my new secret non-vegetarian tiffin.
12pm: A fish-seller passes from outside my gate. I’m almost about to yell to him asking him to deliver some fresh fish. Just then I realise, for him to walk into our society gates would be like crossing the Pakistan border.
July 11
7am: I hear some voices arguing from the ground floor. My next door neighbour had checked the bin and he found some egg shells. They were from the omlette I made last night. The garbage boy knew which house he had got that from but pretended he didn’t. Phew, I survived again.
8pm: We meet in the society hall for a senior citizens birthday. Women start talking about how people should not kill somebody for their food. I object saying it’s a personal choice. The women disagree and stick to their point. I secretly smile to myself. “Ladies, I have been fooling you for the past 10 years!”
Here's what the food politics has done to the people of the city, and made them think if the cosmopiltan Mumbai is just a myth?
Sudha Deshpande, Goregaon
Sudha Deshpande has to sneak in meat through her society gates each time she craves for some non-vegetarian food. She has been living the life of an under-cover non-vegetarian for the past 10 years. “I loved the society and the locality was good. The broker was a vegetarian himself and he refused to sell the flat to me because I was non-vegetarian. So I had to lie and get the apartment directly from the builder,” says Deshpande.
Deshpande is not the only one. Several non-vegetarians have gone through hell finding a flat in certain vegetarian dominated pockets and societies with unwritten rules on vegetarianism even when they had cash in their pockets. Food preference is one of the first things a broker will ask you and will not show you flats that fall into the strictly vegetarian category. “There are owners who have strict instructions not to get any vegetarian clients so I cut off non-vegetarian clients at my level,” says a broker who refuses to be named.
Amar Khamkar, Lalbaug
In 2003, Amar Khamkar, who lived in Parel put up a fight against a housing society which refused to sell a flat to him because he was a non-vegetarian Maharashtrian. “I had the money. I had been living in that area for donkey’s years. They would just lie to me saying the bookings were full or would quote a price three times higher than the original one, making it impossible for me to buy the flat,” he says.
Aditya Pandya, Kandivali
Aditya Pandya, who writes on real estate says that a personal experience while trying to sell his flat in a Kandivali society made him realise how divided the city is over food preference. “Jains and Gujaratis are a majority in the area in Yoginagar where I had my flat. There was a Jain temple attached to the building. When we decided to sell the flat we were sure that we would get a good premium because of the presence of the temple. But there was a non-vegetarian family living on the ground floor, and no one would buy the flat. Non-vegetarians refused to buy it since the majority living there were vegetarians and vegetarians wouldn’t buy it because there was a non-vegetarian living in the building.”
Pandya further explains that several clusters of buildings in Kandivali and many other areas of the city become vegetarian dominated over some time and then a boundary gets drawn automatically. “You cannot define that a particular area or suburb is a vegetarian zone but the number of these vegetarian clusters has definitely increased.”
Marwari Ekta Parishad defends
Food in the city can easily become a political issue, as illustrated by the growing phenomenon of organisations, societies and pockets of the city where vegetarians try to prevent meat from being eaten or sold. Recently the Marwari Ekta Parishad had protested against meat being sold at the new retail chain of the Aditya Birla group. “A Marwari family can’t support slaughter. Should commercial interests get ahead of our culture and tradition,” says Narendrabhai Parmar of Marwari Ekta Parishad.
There have been several instances in the past where majority vegetarian communities have turned food chains and outlets in their area of interest vegetarian. The entire stretch of Marine Drive caters only to herbivores now. Dominoes, Pizza Hut and many other small time restaurants too had to go veggie. Some shut down as they could not run a vegetarian place.
Cosmopolis: Two Tales of a City
The question is whether the vegetarianism has taken over public spaces from being a private choice of food? Paromita Vora’s film Cosmopolis: Two Tales of a City explores just that. It talks about the politics of food, and divisions over class, caste and food, and whether cosmopolitan Mumbai is a myth. “These unsaid differences based on food always existed. But the trouble begins when people begin to control public space. It also turns into land politics,” says Vora. “Like-minded people can definitely come together to build their own society based on their preferences, but by doing this they are being intolerant upon others. You need to be tolerant if you are living in a city like Mumbai. You can’t go around telling people how to run a business or how to mould public spaces.”
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Box
The quaint little dark wooden box had been lying in her closet for years. It had begun to smell like the bark of an old tree preparing for a dry winter, still damp from the spell of the first rains. But Shivani often took it out, wiped it with a clean cloth and placed it amidst her pile of clothes. After her mother’s death, Shivani had sorted out all her belongings. She gave away everything except for her wedding sari, and the little box.
Her mom spoke fondly about how her father, a small time mechanic back then, had gifted this sari from his first salary. And when they eloped and got married, she had nothing else to wear but this brown sari with golden zari work. It was a small Brahmin wedding, conducted in a temple on the outskirts of Pune. They began their wedded life in a friend’s house and her father did odd mechanical jobs to keep the kitchen fires burning.
Her mother often spoke about how the sari was a symbol of the courage that her father’s love had given her. Her father had soon managed to build his own garage. And after Shivani was born, they shifted into a small one-bedroom apartment. Money came but in small spurts. When Shivani had to go to school, her father sold his Bajaj scooter to provide for her fees. But by the time Shivani was 6 years old, he had managed to own a car show room, and slowly but surely the show rooms multiplied in number, making life easier.
Shivani thought of the days when she watched her mother count the money her father gave her. But her most vivid memory of her mother was of her hiding away the wooden box in one of the cabinets atop the ledge, above the cupboard in her bedroom. Shivani often wondered what her mother put in that box. She wondered if the box contains the money that she often counted. But Shivani never got to see what was in it. Somehow her mom always managed to put her things in it when Shivani was away or sleeping. She kept it locked and Shivani could never find the key. Even after her mother’s death, Shivani searched every possible place in the house but the key wasn’t there.
She did not want to break it open. She thought that it would not to be fair to break open this beautiful box of secrets. Then she decided not to open it at all. She was scared that she would find something very disturbing in it. She also thought that her mother never wanted anyone to see what’s in it, so it would not be the right thing to do. She knew that her father never got to see what’s in it either. He died when Shivani was 16. His was a silent death much like her mother’s. Both of them died in their sleep. Her father was asleep when his car crashed into a truck on the Pune-Nasik Highway. And her mother, at the age 37, never woke up after a lovely dinner with Shivani at home.
She smiled whenever she thought about the fact that her parents didn’t have to suffer to death. Now, 24-years-old, Shivani lived alone, worked with a corporate house as a public relations officer.
Tonight, she stared at the beautiful patterns on the box. There were curved lines around the edge and flowers at the centre. There was a golden line running around the end of the lid. It was rectangular in shape and had a tiny little brass lock hanging from it. She suddenly began to feel the urge to burst it open. “I want to know what secrets it holds within,” she thought to herself. Shivani was disturbed. Siddharth had refused to go against his parents. He didn’t have the courage to fight for their relationship. She hadn’t slept the whole night and ended up not going to work in the morning. Her eyes were swollen and her throat was dry. The five-year-old fairy tale was over. She felt like she had come crashing down to the ground after she tried to fly with broken wings. Today she needed to open this box. She felt that all her questions will be answered once this box is opened.
She brought a knife from the kitchen, and prepared to go for it. Then stopped again, took a deep breath and slowly began to dig into the lock. She struggled for five minutes before the lock split open. “Will I find my answers in this box? Does this box contain a secret that I need to know at this point in life?” she thought in the fleeting second before she slowly raised the lid.
And her eyes gleamed in the low light of her bedroom as she glared at what was inside this little wooden box. Her tensed look was replaced by a grin as a mirror shone back at her from inside. And she saw herself more clearly than ever before.
Sometimes the darkest secrets are the simple truths of life.
Her mom spoke fondly about how her father, a small time mechanic back then, had gifted this sari from his first salary. And when they eloped and got married, she had nothing else to wear but this brown sari with golden zari work. It was a small Brahmin wedding, conducted in a temple on the outskirts of Pune. They began their wedded life in a friend’s house and her father did odd mechanical jobs to keep the kitchen fires burning.
Her mother often spoke about how the sari was a symbol of the courage that her father’s love had given her. Her father had soon managed to build his own garage. And after Shivani was born, they shifted into a small one-bedroom apartment. Money came but in small spurts. When Shivani had to go to school, her father sold his Bajaj scooter to provide for her fees. But by the time Shivani was 6 years old, he had managed to own a car show room, and slowly but surely the show rooms multiplied in number, making life easier.
Shivani thought of the days when she watched her mother count the money her father gave her. But her most vivid memory of her mother was of her hiding away the wooden box in one of the cabinets atop the ledge, above the cupboard in her bedroom. Shivani often wondered what her mother put in that box. She wondered if the box contains the money that she often counted. But Shivani never got to see what was in it. Somehow her mom always managed to put her things in it when Shivani was away or sleeping. She kept it locked and Shivani could never find the key. Even after her mother’s death, Shivani searched every possible place in the house but the key wasn’t there.
She did not want to break it open. She thought that it would not to be fair to break open this beautiful box of secrets. Then she decided not to open it at all. She was scared that she would find something very disturbing in it. She also thought that her mother never wanted anyone to see what’s in it, so it would not be the right thing to do. She knew that her father never got to see what’s in it either. He died when Shivani was 16. His was a silent death much like her mother’s. Both of them died in their sleep. Her father was asleep when his car crashed into a truck on the Pune-Nasik Highway. And her mother, at the age 37, never woke up after a lovely dinner with Shivani at home.
She smiled whenever she thought about the fact that her parents didn’t have to suffer to death. Now, 24-years-old, Shivani lived alone, worked with a corporate house as a public relations officer.
Tonight, she stared at the beautiful patterns on the box. There were curved lines around the edge and flowers at the centre. There was a golden line running around the end of the lid. It was rectangular in shape and had a tiny little brass lock hanging from it. She suddenly began to feel the urge to burst it open. “I want to know what secrets it holds within,” she thought to herself. Shivani was disturbed. Siddharth had refused to go against his parents. He didn’t have the courage to fight for their relationship. She hadn’t slept the whole night and ended up not going to work in the morning. Her eyes were swollen and her throat was dry. The five-year-old fairy tale was over. She felt like she had come crashing down to the ground after she tried to fly with broken wings. Today she needed to open this box. She felt that all her questions will be answered once this box is opened.
She brought a knife from the kitchen, and prepared to go for it. Then stopped again, took a deep breath and slowly began to dig into the lock. She struggled for five minutes before the lock split open. “Will I find my answers in this box? Does this box contain a secret that I need to know at this point in life?” she thought in the fleeting second before she slowly raised the lid.
And her eyes gleamed in the low light of her bedroom as she glared at what was inside this little wooden box. Her tensed look was replaced by a grin as a mirror shone back at her from inside. And she saw herself more clearly than ever before.
Sometimes the darkest secrets are the simple truths of life.
Age of Innocence
"What are Mp3 players?" she asks. "Don't mind but I'm pretty ignorant about all this things. I want it to gift it to my mother."
I wasn't surprised that she didn't know. She was over 50 years of age and her mother over 80.
I explained how Mp3 players work. Then came questions about how you can put music on the player, on Mp3 speakers, difference between Ipods and Mp3 players etc etc. Then more followed- computers, WorldSpace and so on. I answered them all.
The development in technology leaves the seniors more helpless than you can ever imagine. Instead of making their life easy, it becomes difficult. It is easier for them to operate their old landline phones, cassette players and refrigerators but makes it difficult to even switch on and switch off CD players, microwave ovens, ipods, laptops and things which have become so common in today's homes. I'm sure they feel like they are reborn into a different time suddenly, or have been transported into a new space. Kids operate gadgets more easily than most. They are born into a gadgetty environment unlike the seniors in today's time.
Anyway, the point is that there is a strange innocence that some people possess. They are not afraid to ask questions. They don't care or even give a thought to the fact that people might make fun of them. These people usually find out about life's realities the hard away, yet that does not discourage them. Derineh, my office colleague fits the description. She is growing old, but her experience hasn't made her cynical. She still has dreams, wants to learn things and asks innocent questions. You feel good about life when you see people like her. You feel everything is not lost and that the age of innocence can never pass.
I wasn't surprised that she didn't know. She was over 50 years of age and her mother over 80.
I explained how Mp3 players work. Then came questions about how you can put music on the player, on Mp3 speakers, difference between Ipods and Mp3 players etc etc. Then more followed- computers, WorldSpace and so on. I answered them all.
The development in technology leaves the seniors more helpless than you can ever imagine. Instead of making their life easy, it becomes difficult. It is easier for them to operate their old landline phones, cassette players and refrigerators but makes it difficult to even switch on and switch off CD players, microwave ovens, ipods, laptops and things which have become so common in today's homes. I'm sure they feel like they are reborn into a different time suddenly, or have been transported into a new space. Kids operate gadgets more easily than most. They are born into a gadgetty environment unlike the seniors in today's time.
Anyway, the point is that there is a strange innocence that some people possess. They are not afraid to ask questions. They don't care or even give a thought to the fact that people might make fun of them. These people usually find out about life's realities the hard away, yet that does not discourage them. Derineh, my office colleague fits the description. She is growing old, but her experience hasn't made her cynical. She still has dreams, wants to learn things and asks innocent questions. You feel good about life when you see people like her. You feel everything is not lost and that the age of innocence can never pass.
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