Below are the 6 most recent journal entries recorded in zainaburbanbawa's LiveJournal:

Wednesday, November 30th, 2005
2:25 pm	Recycling and City Streets I really need to thank Kiran for this! While he might be roaming about the streets of Bangkok, I am walking across the streets of Mumbai! (Maybe we can do long distance connections / descriptions this way!) Walking the city enables me to slow down and watch. I cease to become a participant in the city's practices. While walking, I am watching the city closely, observing and taking in details which I miss out in the hush and rush of everyday life. This morning, I walked down from Noorbaug to Grant Road. I was not sure of what directions I would take. I am hoplessly bad with directions and maps. At one moment, I thought I might just get lost in trying to find my way out. It is then that I questioned, 'what is it about getting lost that I fear?' How would it feel to be lost in one's own city? Then again, what does 'one's own city' really mean? I guess we never own the city in its entirety (not even in our cognitive senses and cognitive maps); there are only parts of the city which we are familiar with and like to be in. And maybe, in today's times of personal spaces, the city is only a matter of ownership of a house, a source of security. I started walking down the outsides of Bohri Mohalla, traversing do tanki which literally means two tanks. This is exactly the area where we were walking last month for the Ramzaan walks at night and today, it felt so different from that period of 'cultural ho-ha'. The outskirts of Bohri Mohalla until do tanki give a sense of being in a Muslim neighbourhood. For a while, my mind went back to the downtown areas of Sringar which I used to travel through in my days in Kashmir. A Muslim neighbourhood is sensorially different for me and I wonder whether it is sensorially different for everyone else. I could have said instead that a Muslim neighbourhood is characteristically different, but I chose the word sensorial because I guess in situations of crowd, the senses are awake and alive, just like the antennae on mosquitoes. The pace of this neighbourhood is different. I start to imagine whether this is the same city which is now has a major service sector, which has malls and call centers? The enterprise in this part of the city consists of restaurants, dealings and small-time underworld. And it is the character of exchange, of trade, which defines the pace in this part of the city. Relationships take on a different meaning therefore. While walking, I saw a Bohri Muslim woman dressed in the traditional rida, riding on a scooter. As I walked ahead, the character of the street changed. Roads were crowded with vehicular traffic. It was difficult at times to walk peacefully because I was constantly dodging with vehicles. The street was laced with open air garages - men with grease on their person engaging in repairs of vehicles. Walking further ahead, I passed through the Anjuman-i-Islam college of Commerce and Economics, with four students hanging outside the 'campus'. Further on, I became conscious of the recycling shops, many of them looking like old, family owned businesses. These were scrap shops. There were workers outside these shops, weighing trash, segregating usable from non-usable items, etc. I did not pay much attention to the activity because I was lost in my own thoughts. I remembered the time when I would have a lot of friends visiting from abroad and who I used to take around the city to show. One of the things I would tell them often was about the aspect of recycling in the city - you sell old newspapers for money; you exchange plastic trash for garlic pods; you exchange steel trash for some money or biscuits which my neighbour used to do. Trash was not wasted; it was always traded. And this impacted the ecology of the city. As the city transforms and grows, I wonder what space trash has in the emerging economy. And what space do we give to recyclers in this city? Maybe I need to figure this out soon before recyclers become extinct species. I kept walking ahead. At the last leg of this street, before I hit Grant Road, there was a little wooden table stall which was selling old fax machines. I was amused as a matter of irony. At some point, this trash will become antique and collector's items!!! Maybe that's how we recycle ancient practices of the city, making them into collector's commodities! Love, Zee (Comment on this)
9:50 am	Of friendships! These days I am experiencing different nuances of friendship. And I do have some great friendships going for me. I am convinced that each one of us just happens to be at the right place and at the right time in each other’s lives and it is that planned coincidence which leads to friendship. There are no thank-you’s in friendship because you were meant to be there at that time, at that moment and you played your part well! (Comment on this)
9:49 am	Contradictions/Appendages! Now here is an appendage to what I have just written about writing and me not being a writer and not wanting to get paid to write. Last night, dad and mom were having fun at my expense – they call me crack! Dad, at one point, began talking about gifts. He says that we are all blessed with gifts in our lives. We have a choice to use our gifts the way we want to. Maybe writing is actually a gift I have. Gyan had also said to me that I have a gift of writing. And I believe in using my gifts for furthering goodness in this world and for attaining wholesomeness. So I want to write – write lots and someday, I will write a book! (Comment on this)
9:47 am	Of writing and writers! Thanks to Kiran for getting me to write again after his LJ post yesterday. Writing is crucial for me because it is a means of expressing myself. People usually have a problem introducing me to others because I don’t have a ‘set profession’ – I am not an MBA or a doctor or a geek or a researcher or something – I am just slightly crack. Hence, because of my blog and posts on Sarai, people introduce me as a writer. I am very clear that I am not a writer. Writing just happens to be a medium through which I am able to express myself. But that does not make me a writer. I AM NOT A WRITER! (I am just Zainab Bawa!) The other day, Daniele, Ankur and I had gotten together. Ankur is a photographer. Daniele lives in France and works as a consultant. We happened to discuss art somehow. Daniele spoke of her brother who is an artist. She says that her brother creates art for the sake of creating it. He does not bother whether his art sells or not. On that comment, Ankur asked Daniele if her brother actually manages to sell his art. She said that he does not sell much. He manages his living through rents of his various art galleries and his wife also works. That is how they manage to make life together in monetary terms. As Daniele spoke, I became conscious of my own state where I am wanting that I should not be paid to do the research I love doing. I want to do it out of love and passion for doing it. And it is the love and passion which produces the results that it does – always! (Comment on this)
Friday, November 11th, 2005
9:41 am	City Streets - not ventured! Decided to take a taxi from Grant Road to Mohammed Ali Road since dinner was happening at Mohammed Ali Road. As I was trying to cross the road at Novelty Cinema, a man walking towards me started singing a sleazy song, as if trying to solicit me. I was upset and blurted out ‘bastard’! I tried to get away quickly because the crowds were in little clusters and the activity at 10 PM tonight was seeking women for satiation of biological instincts i.e. sex (and this city!!!)! I got into a cab. In my mind, I had mapped the route the cab driver would take to get me to Mohammed Ali Road (and I was also calculating the fare and cursing myself to be so profligate these days!). The cab driver started and before I could realize, he was steering the cab in the lanes of Delhi Darbar Restaurant (now Jafferbhai’s). The lane of Delhi Darbar Restaurant at Grant Road is notoriously famous (just like TC’s Nagpada area which is known by the lingo of Bombay No. 8) for prostitution and all that which we fondly and repulsively call ‘illegal’ (and yet cannot survive without it!). I started looking around and the sights and scenes completely fascinated me. Daily I travel through Dimtikar Street, known as Foras Road, where I watch women who have patted their lips with a noxious red colour lipstick and are seeking customers. The women on Foras Road wear a bored look on their faces. There are more middle-aged women here with a wry look, going about the (usual) business. But on this road which I am passing by today, the women were much more playful and young. They were explicit – one of them wore a sexy blue blouse which showed enough of her cleavage and breasts and this was accompanied with the same light blue coloured flair skirt! Her lips were patted with maroon lipstick and she had literally let her hair down. She was flaunting herself as she walked all over the streets. I saw three young girls in jeans and body hugging tops hanging around together. I thought I also saw a couple (literally two) of pimps. There were Nepali women too. And the rooms where the sexual activity was taking place were one room tenements. The space was congested, yet the space was personal and private. The one room tenements gave a cramped appearance and made me uncomfortable in terms of the available physical space – somehow, I conceive that sexual activity requires a decent amount of physical space, but I realize that in a city like Mumbai where space is an absolute premium, our biological instincts have made adjustments to the physical settings. (And then we also have social norms and regulations – I am not sure how I place them vis-à-vis physical space). The street was absolutely fascinating. I have never been here. I’d like to come here, though, as I am traveling, I am imaging how difficult I will find it to walk on this street without being seen and sought as a potential provider. In my fantasies, I want to be a geisha once and I know for sure that this street was never and perhaps will never be part of my geisha fantasy imaginations. Ray was right when he said that Bombayiittes rarely walk in the city. They just use transport! Anyway … the ride continued through lanes and streets which I had been unaware of. I watched in awe. It was like the taxi driver was my guide tonight. I became curious and decided to chat with him to see how come he knew these places in the city. I started chatting with him: Where do you usually drive your cab? In these areas? (imagining that he is also a pimp in a way or at least a regular who ferries customer and provider regularly) No. I go uptil Panvel, Virar, Vasai, Mira Road, if I ever those kind of fares (standard response). Do you get these fares usually? Not often, sometimes. Hmmm. So how long have you been driving taxi? Six months err … no, no, six years. But actually, I am in this line since 1985. I was in private (sector). But a private is no good. It is better to have your own venture. So I decided to get into driving taxi. Yeah, private is no good. Best to be on your own! So, are you from Bombay? No. I came from Nepal years ago, about twenty seven years ago. Children happened here, marriage happened here, everything. But why are you asking me these questions? I was just curious. I have never been through those streets which you drove me through tonight. I thought you know Bombay very well. Oh, that! Actually many people don’t like me driving through those streets so I take them through other routes. But the deal is that it is faster to get to your destination through those streets and it costs less fare. If you had told me, I wouldn’t have driven you through them. No, no! I completely enjoyed the ride. Thanks. I was sad to end the conversation without asking him for his name and contact numbers. He would have made an interesting person to talk to. Damn me! But the question which I have been thinking about since the ride is what makes streets the way they are in Mumbai? I am not implying that all the streets are the same. In fact, the vibrancy of the city is the character of difference and diversity! Can planners and governments determine the fate of this city? (I hope the city will continue to upset their designs!) Good night! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 10th, 2005
8:13 pm	Blog Daddy Jace is my blog daddy for Live Journal, just as G is for Xanga! I think I am already liking it here! (1 Comment |Comment on this)