When will Mumbai's Housing Societies feature on The News hour?

A colleague of mine who is getting married this month was pretty happy after they identified a flat in Andheri W that they planned to rent after they got back. Then I heard that the rent deal fell through. The housing society insists that they need a wedding certificate. Their parents met the society and yet the society didn't agree. And they can't even take the house when they get married as the certificate needs 2,3 weeks. That they are planning the wedding in some coastal spot in Kerala with loads of folks coming in doesn't count.

The landlady is helpless and loses a tenant.

There are many mafias in Mumbai and the housing societies sit pretty much at the top

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The importance of being 'Nyaka'

'Nyaka' is a Bengali term which beats translation. It could mean coy, coquettish, scheming, la di da. There is no one word which captures it. The term is used in a pejorative context and has a sarcastic tone to it. Used a bit more for women than for men. Has a feminine context when used for men. I posed the challenge of translating 'nyaka' into English to fellow Bengalis in Facebook. Here's a sample of the answers that I got. I have removed the names and kept the statuese as is, hope it's not too difficult to read Bong man 1 Coy.....but that does capture the essence 14 December at 14:37 · Me No ...not entirely. A colleague just suggested precocious. Maybe its too intrinsic a Bong trait to be translated :) 14 December at 14:50 · Bong woman 1 kol-lan, difficult to get a english / hindi word for nyaka. 14 December at 15:11 · me that's the point 14 December at 15:15 · Bong woman 2 oh, i think the essence of the word 'nyaka' will be lost in translation. ...

The impotence of middle class morality

We studied George Bernard Shaw's 'Pygmalion' in school. I remember a character, Mr Dolittle (not sure of the spelling), who made a compelling argument against what he called middle class morality . The crux was that the rich can do whatever they want, the poor are desperate and therefore have no standards to match up to. It is the middle class who get screwed (I am paraphrasing heavily here) because they have to live up to certain norms of morality without the means to do so. Closer home was this serial called ' Wagle ki duniya ' which used to come on telly in the eighties . This was about a middle aged, middle class man, Mr Wagle , and his struggle for existence. There was an episode where he had to give a bribe to a government official. Nothing new about that. But the twist was that straight laced Mr Wagle had no idea about how to give a bribe! I remember our then school principal, Mrs Kapper , gave that as an example of how all of us should be good, honest,...

Just another day in India

I went to Hearsch Bakery near Holy Family Hospital after ages to pick up a burger for breakfast this morning. I saw an elderly gentleman, possibly in his mid sixties, standing opposite Holy Family in the alley. He was simply dressed like middle class folks of his genre, white bush shirt tucked out, grey trouser. He had a red and white jhola , the sling bag favoured by folks of his generation. He had round glasses, was slim and probably looked the way my grandfather would have looked twenty years back. A typical, middle class gent in the early years of his retirement. And he had his hand stretched out asking for alms. I remembered seeing him when I had come to Hearsch's months back. I was very puzzled even then. I wondered what his story would be. Was he abandoned by his children? Was he laid off? He did look in good health. Didn't look particularly poor. Yet, there was a strange mix of serene desperation on his face. What would have driven him to beg? Should I offer him some ...

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