Six Degrees of Separation

Did you know that if you stood a step away from all the people you know and they in turn did the same and the sequence continued, then you would be at most 6 steps away from EVERY SINGLE PERSON on EARTH...? Of course, for all practical purposes this theory has not been tested, so we’ll never know its veracity for sure. But, nonetheless, it is a theory that has never ceased to fascinate me...

Six degrees of separation... Imagine that!

It is no wonder then that at the most unexpected (and sometimes unfortunate) moments you run right into someone who knows you... or worse still is a friend of your mother!!
Think about the times when...

... You complained about an aunt’s nasty habit of gossiping and you turned around to find her glaring right at you... No points for guessing who the target of the next malicious rumour will be!

... You cribbed about how bad the food was, the day AFTER the party, only to find out that the person you’ve been cribbing to is the host’s sister... Well, you won’t be on another invite list for a while, but at least that will save you from dangerous cooking!

... You bitched about a classmate only to realise that she is sitting right beside you... You definitely won’t be exchanging cards over Christmas!

My story, well, THAT could be potentially more detrimental than these... And, for those of you concerned for my well-being, here’s the story...

I am in the train... I am with my best pal and we are both bursting with news... Gossip and girl talk... What better place than the Ladies Compartment, right?! (Or, so I thought!)

My friend begins... Juicy gossip first...
“Guess who broke-up... Oh, and... Guess who just got engaged... AND! You will never guess who still HASN’T found a guy... I mean, come on, her parents have been looking out for an eligible bachelor FOREVER!!”

And then, she smiles wickedly and lets me in on her story... She has a secret admirer. His only identity – his 10 digit phone number. And they flirt over SMS!! Naughty!!
She shows me a few of the messages which bring back some funny memories of my own. I warn her, like a good friend should, “Stay away! He reminds me of McCheesy!!”

And, now it’s my turn... I smile demurely...
“I talked to HIM for about 2 hours... And it was a GOOD conversation... But, we’re Just Good Friends! Well, I said... and then he said... and then I said, “It was disapPONTING that Australia lost the match”... And he thought the joke was funny...!!” (Dreamy sigh)

And, at that instant my friend needed a tissue. (No, not to wipe her tears at my sweet love story, but to wipe her chocolate-stained hands.) So, I dutifully fish for tissues in my seemingly-small-but-surprisingly-large hand bag... And, then I thoughtfully also dig out my hand-sanitizer... My friend, in the meanwhile, spies my new perfume and asks to try it... And as I pull out the bottle, the lady opposite me comments, “You have EVERYTHING in that bag don’t you...?!” And, as I fake-smile at her, I think to myself, “This woman sure is nosy!”

Undeterred, she goes on... “Are you by ANY chance so-and-so’s daughter?”
I am mortified, and embarrassed, and bewildered, and shocked, and stunned, and astounded and amazed, and SPEECHLESS...
Slowly, I reply, “Yes, I am!” and think... “Oh! Sweet Lord! I wonder how much she has heard... WHO is this nosy woman... AND how on earth does she know ME... More importantly she knows MY MOTHER???!!!”

My latter doubts were cleared as she offered me explanations... But I don’t think I will ever know the answer to my first question. I hope I NEVER have to find out...

Well, don’t worry, my disbelief and embarrassment did not last very long... As soon as I had gotten off the train (and away from “Aunty”), I found the whole situation quite hilarious... And, I couldn’t stop laughing till I reached home.
I even greeted my mum with a silly grin as I entered... When she asked me the reason, I thought it best to tell her... Of course she received lesser details than even what I have revealed in this post!
I expected an outburst... “Hai Daiyya! Log kya sochenge... Kalmoohi, Namakool... Tumne hamare khandaan ka naam mitti mein mila diya...”

But none came... She seemed to have gotten over it quite quickly and seemed to be more interested in the colour of “Aunty’s” saree and the number of bangles she had worn...
Well, I was lucky... You might not be... So, true or not, it would do you good to remember “Six Degrees of Separation”.

Beware!!

Mama Told Me Don't Be Talking to a Stranger...

I met a stranger today. Since I don’t live in a sappy romantic movie, it wasn’t love at first sight with a tall dark handsome hunk. And, since I don’t live in an action packed thriller novel, my life wasn’t hurled into a series of unfortunate events. I live in fact in enchanting reality – a medley of emotions, a sequence of precious moments, a rollercoaster ride of highs & lows. I live in a reality where time is rare & trust rarer. I live in a reality where life often passes us by in a blur. I live in reality – and it is this fact that makes a chance encounter and polite conversation with an utter stranger noteworthy. And Reality looks something like this...

I wait for 20 minutes, amidst a weary crowd, for the local train to arrive so that the next 30 minutes of my travel are a tad more comfortable. And as I wait patiently, I watch 5 trains go by – all brimming with people. People alight and just as many board the train, all seem lost in their thoughts. All seem to look and none see, all hear but none listen... I wonder at this thought as I bound into my train. Here too hardly a word passes between strangers. Even when necessity forces people to talk to each other, the exchange has only precise words with measured courtesy. Marvelling at how we so literally took our mothers when they told us sternly, “Don’t talk to strangers”, I fall into a fitful sleep.

I alight half an hour later at the bustling suburb I call home. If you thought that siblings could only be separated at the Kumbh Mela, you obviously haven’t been here during “peak hours”. You can lose yourself in this crowd. Without any effort you will be propelled forward by the sheer energy in this throng of thousands (which is a euphemism for saying “you will be nudged and pushed until you have no option but to move with the crowd”). And here, even if you wish to disobey your mother’s instructions, you will be unable to do so!

As you finally step out onto the road, you barely have a minute to drag in a deep breath as you instantly have to begin dodging traffic. And as you, along with hundred others, vie for the attention of the auto drivers, all civility and common courtesy is lost.

And in a cruel world like this, to actually exchange a smile with a fellow fatigued traveller is as likely as Mumbai not getting flooded after even a drizzle. And in the rare mood that I was, I smiled sympathetically to another stranded victim of Mumbai’s transport system. The smile was returned and followed by a question, “Which way are you headed?” I answered and threw in a question of my own, “What about you?”

As it turned out we were headed in the same direction, so we decided that 2 is better than 1 when it comes to tackling the arrogant autowallahs. Our combined efforts paid off and soon we were on our way, relieved to be bumping over the familiar potholes rather than wading through them. The stranger heaved a sigh of respite and I grinned in response and then we were talking – what we do, where we live, work and studies, the pain of travelling in Mumbai till the stranger’s home arrives...

And after that spontaneous conversation I couldn’t help but smile... We may never see each other again, hidden in this mob of millions but if we do I know that we will at least stop to smile.

Now I marvel at the amazing feeling of sharing an instant connection with another person – a knowing smile, a kind word, an unexpected compliment, a helping hand, an encouraging look, a reassuring pat, or a conversation with a complete stranger...

The Order in the Chaos

Dan Brown’s audacious book, The Da Vinci Code, is a fast paced thriller that has captivated audiences, capturing their imagination and catapulting them into an adventurous medley of history and mystery. But of all the speculation the book brought to the fore and of all the far-fetched long-forgotten theories it brought back into the limelight, there was one line that seemed to hold an infinite truth - “For all the chaos in the world, there is an undying order.” And who better to vouch for this fact than a person who has spent a few years travelling by Mumbai’s most trusted and over burdened mode of transport – the trains.

Chaos – utter disorder – is not hard to imagine when you are travelling in a local train especially during “peak” hours when millions of office goers are packed in compartments like sardines in a tin. And will it be too hard to imagine the chaos that might prevail in the Ladies compartment?

Station after station women, weary with the world, hop on before the train can halt completely. Their only hope is to find an empty space sufficient to at least rest both feet firmly on the floor. Frazzled women eager to get to work or home to their families and chores make a beeline for the exit in a bid to scramble off before the train resumes its somnolent journey.

Once inside the chaotic medley is unmatched. Women will be standing in every nook and cranny available and in positions that even expert acrobats would find it hard to imitate. It is nearly impossible to move without upsetting another’s balance and without dropping something. And what makes this disarray even more interesting are the number of activities that are accomplished despite the crowd and such activity only adds to the chaos – appointments will be fixed; children will be placated; maids and husbands will receive their instructions; weekends will be planned; many will doze on their neighbour’s shoulder; hawkers will somehow find their way in the melee and there will always be those who will haggle with them; office work and even household chores (like cutting vegetables and knitting!) will be attended to; prayers will be muttered; food will be eaten; many will read or listen to music or solve crossword puzzles; gossip will fly; fights will erupt; and the din will be overbearing.

Amidst the jostling and the jeering, the yanking and the yelling, there is an inherent order that can only be spotted by a few - either the astute observer (who is involved in none of the aforementioned activities) or the seasoned traveller or the truly bored yet imaginative (yours truly)! As a service to the general, unsuspecting public let me introduce you to some of these very elaborate, seemingly chaotic but exceeding orderly procedures…

The doorways will always seem to be cramped with women in the most haphazard manner. Yet there is an age-old and unbreakable code of alighting and boarding the train. Only half the exit will be used for such purposes at a given station while the other half will be occupied by women queuing to exit at the next station. This alternate pulsing in the flow of traffic in the compartment continues till either the crowd has thinned considerably or the train reaches its destination. Usually it is the latter that is first to come about.

And that is not all. There are elaborate rituals when it comes to queuing to exit at a particular station. When the compartments are jam-packed leaving barely enough space to squeeze through, women have a typical manner in which they make their way to the exit. This usually involves systematically tapping the shoulders of those already stranded in the corridors ahead of oneself and enquiring if they too have lined up to exit at the said destination. If they are, then one carefully positions oneself behind them and makes a general enquiry if all those ahead of them will also be alighting at the same said destination. This, of course, is a thoughtful query to avoid even further confusion when the said destination does arrive. This should not be misunderstood as an implication of the enquirer’s superior judgement.

If, however, the poor trapped soul has to alight at a destination after your own, then the efforts begin to painfully move ahead while the said person struggles to move out of harm’s way in a less obstructive place (if there might be such a place). One follows this process of tapping-enquiring-struggling-to-push-past process till one encounters another who has to alight at the same said destination as oneself.

While on the issue of alighting let me enlighten you as to what the official rules state. “Allow passengers to alight first” is the norm laid down and expected to be followed. But it is a known fact that the dynamics change dramatically when, during peak hours, the train is pulling into its final junction and is set to take off again to another destination after a brief halt. Everyone knows the unspoken law of the land, where passengers waiting to alight have to remain relegated to a corner out of harm’s way while others board, nay bound and leap, into the train while rushing to grab prime seats.

There is also a different set of etiquette for “reserving” or, as is known in local parlance, “claiming” seats. As the train gets crowded and seats meant for 3 are occupied by 4 passengers (a matter of seconds during peak hours after the bounding and leaping). The ladies left standing (read: Ancient art of balancing) begin the systematic ritual of “claiming” seats. This system is so inherent and prevalent that often verbal cues are redundant. The code of conduct while claiming seats is simple. One always begins from the prime seats (near the window on the “breezy” side) and makes one’s way methodically towards the lesser-favoured ones. Attention is sought by taps and jabs and sometimes, though extremely rarely, a polite “excuse me”. Next one simply points at the recipient of the tap or jab and the person replies (often grunts) their destination.

The often unspoken deal is struck if 2 conditions in the prescribed order are satisfied – 1) The person seated will alight at a destination before oneself and 2) one will receive sufficient time to catch up on some sleep after being seated & before one has to alight. The deal is sealed, again, by non-verbal cues. Usually the cue involves pointing to one’s self and then to the owner of the seat implying that one will occupy the seat once the person seated vacates it. Very rarely is a smile exchanged between the jabber and the jabbee, though it is known to happen.

Friend circles are formed among those with similar interests or backgrounds – harrowed working women, college girls, or members of the same society or workplace. These groups often indulge in one or more of the aforementioned activities. But in addition to that, these groups are also known to celebrate birthdays or anniversaries (with food and drinks et al), sing songs and hymns, play activist roles whose agendas may be as varied as allotment of seats or the functioning of fans or the more profound moral policing.
There are other patterns and peculiarities that emerge in this daily affair of travelling by trains. Women, protective of their accessories, will stow away their jewellery and stoles and scarves safely in their bags. No sooner do they get seats (usually after leaping and bounding or following the rules of “claiming”) than the meticulous process of dressing up begins!

There are also enough displays of compassion to restore your faith in humanity. The way women who are standing inside the compartment assist the ladies stranded in the passageway by taking their bags and stowing them on the overhead racks is touching. And when a kind lady offers her precious seat to another tired one it just stirs your heart.
The pattern in the peculiarities and the method in the madness is evident when one looks closely –, the unique rules of boarding or alighting, the elaborate system of “claiming” seats, the myriad of pursuits accomplished, in the deft tactics employed in making one’s journey a mite more comfortable... Indeed, the order in the chaos exists in the entire gamut of minute manoeuvres that ensue when travelling by our beloved trains!

Discovering the Adventure in Every Moment...

I always did hold it against the Powers That Be for depriving me of An Adventure of a Lifetime……

The day will go down in History as one of the most disastrous ones as Mumbai drowned in the furious deluge of Biblical proportions. Thousands of Mumbaiittes waded through chest deep water, walked for miles and spent the night on any nook and cranny of the city that wasn’t being choked with muddy water. I, on the other hand, got the last train out (before all services came to a standstill as water seeped onto the tracks). I waded through only calf-deep water and got back home while the phone lines were still functioning and electricity still powered the TV set to announce “Breaking News” of the mayhem that was just beginning to unfold. On the bright side, I did get soaked to the bone because I had unwittingly chosen this day to leave my umbrella peacefully resting on the window sill back home. But even this little silver lining around the large big black clouds (some of which were bursting with rain and submerging the city) waned when I realised that I missed my “adventure” by a mere seconds - one second too late and I would have been stranded like all the million others who did get their adventure (though none of them shared my enthusiasm, I suspect!).

However, a wise old man managed to swing my perceptions. “Adventure”, the great one quote with a great insight, “is not outside a man, but within him”. And in a flash I realised that in my pursuit of that ONE life-altering adventure I was ignoring the many little things around me that were just as exciting. In hoping for a night where I would skirt danger, win millions of rupees and find the love of my life (sounds quite like a movie, I admit), I was overlooking the inherent adventure in living each day.

Adventure is indeed within each of us. While for some adventure may mean sky-diving or bungee jumping, for others jumping in and out of still-moving, over-crowded local trains of Mumbai is an equally exhilarating experience. While for some white water rafting or jet skiing provides the rushes, for many others riding in auto-rickshaws over Mumbai’s many potholes, weaving in and out of heavy traffic and the occasional sudden swerve is enough to set the adrenaline pumping. While for some rock-climbing and hiking doesn’t seem like an uphill task, many others would sweat simply at the prospect of attempting to cross the roads at one of Mumbai’s many chaotic junctions.

Adventure could mean many things for many people – adventure sports, a whirlwind romance, a leisurely walk in the dead of the night, a back-packing trip across Europe, watching the kids play, wedding preparations, a trip, the miracle of birth, waking up each morning…! Indeed, life itself is a rollercoaster (Ronan Keating!) and Adventure, the pursuit of life (Daniel Roy Wiarda)!

And so I reassess my definition of adventure – scrutinising every moment of my life that I have felt a thrill or when the butterflies in my stomach stirred to life or when the adrenaline pumped so hard that I could hear nothing else over the buzz in my ear. Where I once believed an anonymous Smart Alec when he/she said “If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space”; I now adhere by Laurence Sterne’s philosophy that “A large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life, by him who interests his heart in everything.”

So just to recapture some moments that I now consider “adventures” now…

• First Days – in a new class, at college, at work
• Flying – the butterflies in my stomach during take-off, flying over the hills and the seas and then sailing above clouds, to the beat my heart skips when the plane jerks a bit during the landing…
• Visiting a new place – a new city, suburb, or even just a restaurant
• The slumber parties where we would share secrets, have heart to heart chats, cry, giggle and scare each other with outlandish stories;
• Sitting at our “Haunt” with my gang of friends reliving “those days”…
• The numerous games of “Truth and Dare”!
• Walking in the rain in the wet fields and rescuing a stray dog – we later called “stormy”
• Being stranded thanks to the rains and the not-so-reliable public transport…
• The many exciting Girls Night Out
• Dancing like no one’s watching – all night in Goa or at parties, or even all alone at home…
• Jet Skiing and para-sailing at glistening beaches or Skiing in pristine snow…
• Roller Coaster rides – feeling your insides turn and screaming because that’s the only thing you are capable of doing then!
• Learning to ride the bicycle after numerous collisions into walls and tress and a thousand scrapes to the knee.
• Sitting behind the wheel of a car for the first time…
• The first ever scratch to the car!
• The numerous near-misses – getting hit by swings, sofas and stones and of course the boiling hot water that left me a rather fascinating mark on my left arm (serves as a constant reminder of which is left and which is right!);
• Crawling into dark corners and under thorny shrubs (where no one else dared for fear of snakes and other creepy crawlies) to retrieve the little rubber ball we played with.
• The stress of Exams, then relieving the stress by watching the corniest movies afterwards and the imminent results later…
• Sharing a smile, a compliment or even a conversation with a complete stranger!
• All the movies I’ve watched with friends – sitting in dark theatres or on comfortable sofas at home, with a bowl of popcorn and laughing at the silliest of comments!!
• The numerous efforts to cook a meal
• Watching a nail biting cricket match – hopefully one day it’ll be in a stadium…
• The silly feeling every time I discover a new Crush!

So, slow down.. stop to smell the roses and catch the beats of music and take every exciting moment of this adventure called LIFE!