Wealth is the ruin of mankind

'Do you know what will be the ruin of all mankind, Landretto?'

'No, but I will wager that you are about to tell me.'

'Look aound you at the villas, the palazzi, the laguna - feel the hum of life, listen to the laughter and the songs. Hardship will not be the ruin of man.'

'No?'

'No, 'said Pietro, 'for poverty does not breed envy.' He stretched his arms wide, his face grave. 'No, the ruin of mankind is wealth.'

(Excerpt from the book "The Dante Trap", written by Arnaud Delalande, Phoenix).

Not much needs to be added...

Mumbai at first sigh...

 "The first thing I noticed about Bombay, on that first day, was the smell of the different air. I could smell it before I saw or heard anything of (the city), even as we walked along the umbilical corridor that connected the plane to the airport. I was excited and delighted by it, in that first Bombay minutes, (...) but I didn't and couldn't recognize it. I know now it's the sweet, sweating smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and it's the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. It's the smell of gods, demons, empires and civilizations in resurrection and decay. It's the blue skin-smell of the sea, no matter where you are in the Island City, and the blood-metal smell of machines. It smells of the stir and sleep and waste of sixty million animals, more than half of them humans and rats. It smells of heartbreak and the struggle to live, and of the crucial failures and loves that produce that courage. It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches and mosques, and of a hundred bazaars devoted exclusively to perfumes, spices, incense, and freshly cut flowers. (...)

Then there was the people. Assamese, Jats and Punjabis; people from Rajasthan, Bengal and Tamil Nadu; from Pushkar, Cochin and Konarak; warrior caste, Brahmin, and untouchable; Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Parsee, Jain, Animist; fair skin and dark skin, green eyes and golden brown and black; every different face and form of that extravagant variety, that incomparable beauty, India."

The text above is an extract from the international bestseller "Shantaram", written by Gregory David Roberts (Abacus, 2003), but it reflects with great reality what I felt myself when we first arrived in Mumbai. I knew beforehand that India was a country both intriguing and controversial, but I feel Mumbai is the place where the opposites are a thousand-fold more exponential, more obvious. It screams at you from every alley, every corner, every glassed-eye look of every face, every skyscraper or makeshift hut in the endless expanse of shantytowns. 

The helpful train commuters in Mumbai...

Only local train passengers in Bombay will know how helpful commuters try to be......  

Last week, a hapless victim fell prey to the over-enthusiastic Bombay's local train commuters.

Our hero, a man from Pune, wanted to go to Matunga, but as luck and trains would have it, boarded a fast train that would not be halting at his destination. He panicked on realizing his mistake but by then the locomotive had started moving. On seeing his plight, a sympathetic co-passenger decided to come to his rescue.

It seemed that he had been commuting by that particular train (6:03 pm Kasara Fast) for the past 6 years and had noticed that the train always slowed down just before Matunga station and crawled at a snail's pace while passing through it. He told the man to jump out of the running train as it slowed down and that with a little bit of fleet-footedness, he would make it safely on terra firma.

However, knowing the man's inexperience, he added some words of caution:

"Keep running the moment you jump or you'll fall. Just keep running." He stressed the word "running" lest the man not know the laws of motion.

The train did slow down just before Matunga station and at the prompting of his mentor, our hero jumped out of the train and started running as if all Hell had broken loose.

What he didn't realise, of course, was that he was running parallel to the train instead of running away from it. Meanwhile, the train slowed down further, so that the man was running faster than the train. In the process, he reached the door of the next compartment and the footboard commuters there pulled him in thinking he was trying to board the train!

To his agony, the train picked up speed and sped past Matunga and his new co-passengers started to congratulate him on how lucky he had been, until he told them that they had actually undone what he had done with great difficulty.

Those standing at the door of his "ex-compartment" had witnessed the whole drama and just couldn't stop laughing at the poor man's situation, while he grinned sheepishly!!

Let it start...

Well, since a long time I have been revolving in my mind the idea of creating a blog of my own. I love to write... and I love to read as well. Sometimes I don't have the time to do it as often as I would like to, but it's a question of time management, I guess...

So, what to write about? I've decided to go random. There are many fields of thought to be pursued, but I shall concentrate basically on information.

There are many ways to find the information we need, but sometimes it's just not enough. Sometimes there is an important aspect missing, and that makes all the difference.

Information you read somewhere might be a starting point, but as for myself, I always like to read an information that comes with some experience and that's not biased in any way. If I read something about religion, for example, I can't be satisfied by reading an opinion of someone that hates a certain faith. I ought to read something neutral and based on actual facts.

I consider myself a world trekker, like a back packer who carries no prejudice about anything and who has the freedom to think freely, with an open mind and an open heart.

I shall wander on the several paths of life with no specific destination, allowing myself to express opinions and insights about the most diverse subjects, from hot topics to the most obscure and forsaken corners of thought.

Well, let it start... My mind shall be my guide.