Ajith Nair

If you think this is about the futile attempts to find Osama, sorry, have better things to write about. Alternately if you thought this is about the attempt to find vegetated faces then read on, you might just find something worthwhile. My first encounter with beards occurred at the age of three. The first feared person, someone who my parents used to scare me into obeying things, had a beard. He used to stay in the vicinity and looked like he could gobble up anybody with his thick beard. As fear gave way to adolescent curiosity, the need for a moustache was prime but the fascination with the beard only grew. Especially at saloons when hirsute uncles around with thick moustaches and dense beards used to look much more in control that a meek me sitting in a corner. My admiration for the genuine care that went into the beard only grew with each visit. There was an art attached to it and sadly enough I didn’t even have the raw material. After a lot of prayer and puberty, a thin moustache ...

Angelina and Brad are hot property; they fetch much better rates than prime South Mumbai real estate. Greg Chappell gets mentioned in the papers if India loses, wins or the match gets rained off. John Wright, moderate opener, ordinary Kiwi, writes a book about Indian Cricket and sells like hot cakes. Fair and Lovely of course is the largest selling cosmetic in the country, if you discount some of Baba Ramdev’s remedies…. I watch 15 mins of news and that just about sums up my average TV viewing even on days when I have exclusive rights on the couch and feel like a potato. In those 15 mins I see Brad, Angelina and their Chinky and Negroid adopt-springs being flashed. They make a nice ad for probably Benetton or maybe racial unity. There is such a lot of ‘you know what’ reporting. E.g. “You know what Angelina boarded a local today…”You know what she also got off it”. There are journo sleuths following their motorcades, being thrown off like bad trash copy by their bodyguards, only to resi...

It’s very encouraging when I see people who otherwise don’t have even basic shelter taking a bath in the morning under public pipes. After that one liner on broadly what’s hygiene for us, let me list my pet grouses and feel good. The same set of people, whom I saw bathing (please don’t imagine me standing there and staring at those men) might have been defecating in the open if I’d decided to leave earlier or if their body clock was running slightly late. The debate on whether we have enough public loos can happen later, what matters is that shit happens, and all in the open. If you’ve stayed in buildings which have lousy acoustics which carry sounds in all directions, then you will recall, sounds of “khhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaashhhhhhhhh” at various pitches, decibel levels, surs, taals emanating from all over in the morning. Men have the copyright on this sound, which for those who’re deaf or don’t have the IQ to understand what I’m saying’ refers to the art of expurgation that...

I was at Bandra Bandstand yesterday after a long long time. Nice to see that It retains its defining characteristic of land on one side, sea on the other and couples making out in between the two. In line with the growing economy and India shining, the boldness quotient of couples also seems to be going up. For Non Mumbaikars and the uninitiated let me give you both sides of the story. Then (before India Shining, Bofors, during pouted PV as PM times, when Sachin was still slogging and we still had empty trains in non peak hours) Couples made out behind rocks. And making out would mean smooching kissing n doing that over n over again simply but cos one can’t do much else. The guy would be the aggressor and the woman the ‘slightly embarrassed but not wanting to let go of the fun’ receiver. There was the constant watch of ‘innocent’ bystanders and greedy cops who sometimes had to be bribed by the hour. The innocent bystanders used to be there just to learn the act and understand what to d...

Odd shaped posteriors in men are a frequent sight in Mumbai. Any conclusions on whether such observations form my favorite pastime may please be reserved till the end of this piece. There are multiple reasons for this apparent deformity. Genetics and the fact that the Brits kicked our backside too often could be the case. The other more plausible reason, I ‘figure’, is the presence of the wallet in the rear pocket. It’s not the wallet per se; it’s the wallet’s contents. The way we eat, the way we live and the way we stuff our wallets are all indicative of the same mindset. Our typical food is the thali, a serving of all that one could ask for during the course of a meal, served within the same circumference. Plates are stuffed to the edge with Papads tilted over achars and salads. Our houses are clustered settings, next to each other; cozy neighbourhoods are getting even cozier, congested in my opinion. Wallets are repositories of what was, what is and what may be. Some of the contents...

Mumbai is a vertical city. It reaches the heights of intolerance, impatience, gonnda-giri, bonhomie, floods and every possible event that you might imagine. To such a city of extremes, the presence of the double decker on its roads is a fitting tribute. The double decker represents an extreme of bus travel- both good and bad depending on the nature of the experience that you’ve had. My first sight of a double decker was that of the long necked one, which looked a bit like a crane lying flat on its belly. The driver was well cut off from the rest of the bus and seemed to enjoy supreme powers. Those didn’t last long I presume. The versions that are currently on draw the driver close in and hold the whole package tight. The driver is still cut off from the passenger compartment by a grill that makes one feel like prisoners sometimes. The joy of the double decker is obviously at the top. The bottom layer can almost be treated as a must have for holding the top up that’s all. The exhilarati...

The Carribeans are simple people. There’s beer, there’s calypso and then there’s cricket. In between mundane things like work n family happen. When beer’s inside, sunshine outside and the sweet sound of Lara middling Mc Grath- its pure heaven,. If any of those bearded bajaans had been at the Brabourne they’d have sobbed the beer out of them or maybe they’d have hurled some empty bottles in the direction of the Windies dressing room. The Windies, to sum it up, as Lara succinctly put it (much like his pull shot), had a stage fright. I know what they’re saying as I have gone through it in detail. Stage Fright for me began in class I when I couldn’t spell either Stage or Fright. I was pushed into Poetry recitation Competition by my English teacher simply because I had scored the most in English. The written word doesn’t guarantee Caesar like oratory else even Shakespeare would have been Churchill right? So after mumbling a mix of defiance, sorrow and the only two lines I could recall I ran...

In Mumbai and maybe in India at large, man and dog alike have mastered the art of instant sleep. There are multiple motivations behind this phenomenon, the first one of course being the much talked about, how under-slept we all are. The other is sleep spaces are at a premium, which might be causing under sleeping in the first place, vocations like call centers with the ‘graveyard shift’ don’t help the 'sleep well' cause. The most faithful of all animals, leads the evolution of instant sleepers. Stray dogs in Mumbai are leading lights in somnolence of all kinds. It isn’t rare to find a dog that’s nestled under your parked car, sound asleep but with enough warning systems in place to make way the moment you turn the ignition. In the most crowded market places of Mumbai you’ll find millions of legs and hands and in between them mongrels that are fast asleep. They are part of the Mumbaikar’s conscience and I’ve never seem anybody trip over them or step on them. If anybody does, the...

I don’t have too many memories of the 1983 World Cup or earlier. I just remember seeing my first test match in 1984 on TV when the fearful Malcolm Marshall was pulverizing Indians. My elder neighbour used to tell me that the West Indies could bowl any batsmen out whenever they wanted. I was baptized into believing that bowling like the West Indies do is the most appealing part of cricket. I turned myself into a rookie fast bowler, enrolled for a coaching camp. I would bowl like the West Indies do, provided the batsmen batted like Papua New Guinea. What was encouraging was that the senior members of the club started calling me Walsh. I later understood that the nick was not because of my bowling accuracy but rather due to the fact that I did a particularly poor imitation of him in bowling. The next season, Sportstar started the star poster offer with every issue and I remember plastering the wall above my study table with Waqar Wasim, Ambrose and Walsh. Ambrose though was the new heart ...