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| Diary |
Magazine | 30 Mar 2009 |
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| Bombay Diary by Anil Dharker |
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This is the season for new books, yet in all the different kinds of volumes being released, there is one type that’s missing: poetry. Why is that? Scholarly research has provided the answer; in order to have a book launch, you first need a book and which poet gets published nowadays? A non-poet, that’s who. The biggest impediment to having poetry published is to have a cent per cent certified poet of really good pedigree. But if you aren’t one, hey presto, publishers line up at your door. Dr Abdul Kalam is the most famous example. These thoughts came to me at the launch of
Kapil Sibal’s
I Witness, which he appropriately terms "partial observations" and whose distinctive feature is that the observations are in rhyme.
"Inflation is
much in the news,
fodder for many
differing views.
Inflationary products,
when in use,
have attributes
somewhat obtuse...."
The function was held not at a book store but at the Taj Mahal hotel with Vinod and Kavita Khanna the gracious hosts. On hand was Gulzar characteristically modest about his Oscar-winning Jai Ho, and Suhel Seth. Since we were at the Chambers, and later at the Taj poolside, both of which had seen much of the 26/11 action, thoughts inevitably turned to terrorism. Soon Seth had turned the conversation around to the security preparedness of the country, and the hitherto admiring audience began to corner Sibal with impolite questions on the subject. Poor Kapil Sibal! When he punched in his rhymes into his mobile phone primarily to amuse himself, how could he have imagined that he was jumping into such dangerous territory?
Rants and Raves
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With elections being announced, all conversation now inevitably turns to political alignments, their impact on the results and who will form the next government. As an aside, talk turns to the IPL, whether the Twenty20 tournament should be held at all and how the election dates will affect the tourney’s schedule. But no one is mentioning, even in passing, yet another byproduct of elections. It may seem unimportant in the overall scheme of things, but it has a profound impact on Mumbai’s social scene when it happens. We are talking of the Dry Day, as much a part of elections as missing names on electoral rolls or the lack of queues at middle-class voting booths. Some national holidays are dry days too.
"Dry days are a real headache," the general manager of a five-star hotel told me. Minibars in all rooms have to be locked up and they can serve alcohol only selectively in the restaurants. You don’t get booze if you’re Indian; you get booze only if you’re a foreigner. Indian guests get angry, foreign guests embarrassed. Who thought of dry days? And what is the logic, if any, in having them? Prohibition on national days, I am told, is to ensure that they are celebrated with sobriety, while election day prohibition is to prevent booze-for-votes. I try to imagine the scenario if the second rule were not to be implemented. I will be settling down in the Taj’s Zodiac Grill, when the captain bends low and whispers in my ear, "A complimentary double shot of Lagavulin for you sir, if you vote for Mr X."
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Speaking of Lagavulin, there’s a new kind of snob in town, the Single Malt snob. Like the wine snob, he will tell you what kind of glass to drink from (certainly not a tumbler, not even an old-fashioned whiskey glass, but one whose rim curves inward to keep the aroma in). He will only splash water in his drink, but no ice at all, thank you because they don’t in Scotland. (But surely Mumbai is a bit warmer than Edinburgh?) They will join exclusive single malt clubs in London and boast of the private, club-only bottles they bought there for a small fortune. One of them ordered two of these by mail, quite forgetting about the Indian customs department. And ended up paying Rs 22,000 duty on them. We drank the liquid with great reverence.
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But is even the biggest whisky snob equal in his knowledge to the raddiwala who comes to my door on Sunday morning to buy old newspapers? A few years ago, just months after Johnnie Walker had introduced Blue Label, their premium and atrociously expensive blended whisky into the market, the raddiwala did his routine of asking for electronic items, perfume bottles, Blue Label bottle.... My ears pricked up. "What did you say?" I asked him. "Yeh naya whisky nikla hai," he said. Did I have a bottle? As it happened, a friend had just given me a half-consumed Blue Label. So, yes, I said. Did it have its original packing, he asked. The carton which he described vividly? The little rope? The small booklet hung from it...? My mouth fell open as the raddiwala gave the most minute details. Yes, I lied. How much? Five hundred rupees, he said. Later that evening, I took a careful look at my bottle and made sure not a drop spilled.
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