Mean Streets Of Mumbai

I saw something today that troubled me for a long time. It made me do some rethinking about the kind of people I thought existed in the world. I was stumped beyond belief at the behavior of a fellow citizen.

We were driving down the beautiful Peddar road where we stopped at the Haji Ali crossing. (Always a red light there) A gang of young boys attacked the waiting cars with armloads of pirated books, hoping to make a quick sale! Now, I’ve bought tons of stuff from these crossing wala vendors and I’m sure that others have too. From the aforementioned books to flowers to toys... It’s always a decent deal.

A young vendor, around 10 years old, was showing his books to the passengers of a taxi. And suddenly the traffic lights turned green. The taxi sped away with all his books and didn’t even pull over beyond the lights to pay up. (As I thought it would and as it was supposed to)
The image of the young boy with fear writ large on his face, running among moving vehicles with all the speed he could muster behind the speeding taxi, a sense of despair which touched an emotional chord in me will never be forgotten. I was hemmed in by cars from all sides, couldn’t even help the poor kid as he ran from that red light to the next crossing looking frantically around for that one elusive car. Panting, he stood there desolate as the taxi mingled with all the other taxis, making it indiscernible.

How callous and how uncaring have people become? Somebody who can afford to ride a taxi, who can buy books on a whim couldn’t afford to pay the poor young guy his due??? How is that possible? Why did he do it? For a lark? For the kick of having robbed the boy of his job? (For he would surely have been fired that evening itself.)
This incident shook the very foundation of my belief that there is a basic goodness in everyone. I had thought people were nicer.

2026

Barely a month into third year, and that feeling of "damn, is college really gonna be over so soon?" has already started creeping on to us. And the feeling sucks. It's amazing how quickly time flies by when you actually want it to freeze.... but okay, we won't go into any of that depressing stuff now. Soppy weepy "I miss college" entries will be put up later. The genesis of this post took place one lazy afternoon (three days ago) when nostalgia - which should ideally have been reserved for the Farewell week - started flooding us all of a sudden.

And we began planning our 2026 reunion. Twenty years later & all that, y'know. And began speculating who would be doing what, doing whom, and doing how well in life. Well, here it is, our speculations out in the open.

--- Quick background info ---

Date: Aug 4-5, 2006
Venue: Day 1 - Nirula's. Day 2 - College canteen.
Speculators: Amiya, Harpreet, Ishani, Jayant, Neha, Vidur (and Richa, on day 2).

[ Note: Harpreet's a gal, in case the name left anyone in doubt :) ]

Q: In what order will everyone get married?

Sequence decided as per individual vote count:

Neha – Harry – Ishani – Amiya – Jayant – Vidur

Q: Who’ll be the richest?

Amiya thinks. . . Harry
Harry thinks. . . Harry
Ishani thinks. . . Amiya
Jayant thinks. . . Ishani
Neha thinks. . . Neha
Vidur thinks. . . Harry

So the vote counts stands:

Harry: 3; Amiya: 1; Ishani: 1; Neha: 1; Jayant: 0; Vidur: 0

Q: Who’ll lose their virginity first?

Amiya thinks. . . Harry/Amiya
Harry thinks. . . Ishani
Ishani thinks. . . Amiya
Jayant thinks. . . Vidur/Amiya
Neha thinks. . . Vidur
Vidur thinks. . . Harry/Vidur

And the vote count is:
Amiya & Vidur: 2 each; Harry: 1.5; Ishani: 1; Jayant: 0; Neha: 0

Q: Who’ll probably have an extramarital relationship?

Amiya thinks. . . Neha/Vidur
Harry thinks. . . Neha
Ishani thinks. . . Neha
Jayant thinks. . . Neha
Neha thinks. . . Neha/Vidur
Vidur thinks. . . Jayant/Vidur

And the vote count is:

Neha: 4; Vidur: 1.5; Jayant: 0.5; Amiya, Ishani & Harry: 0

Q: Who’ll be the fattest when we meet in 2026?

Amiya thinks. . . Neha/Vidur
Harry thinks. . . Ishani
Ishani thinks. . . Neha/Vidur
Jayant thinks. . . Vidur
Neha thinks. . . Ishani
Vidur thinks. . . Neha/Ishani

And the potential future fat count is:

Ishani: 2.5; Vidur: 2; Neha: 1.5; Amiya, Harry & Jayant: 0

Q: Who’s most likely to have a paunch by then?

Amiya thinks. . . Vidur/Neha
Harry thinks. . . Vidur
Ishani thinks. . . Neha
Jayant thinks. . . Amiya
Neha thinks. . . Jayant
Vidur thinks. . . Neha

And the dreaded paunch count is:

Neha: 2.5; Vidur: 1.5; Amiya & Jayant: 1; Harry & Ishani: 0

[ So I'll be the fattest, but I won't have a paunch. Lucky! ]

Q: Who’ll have the sexiest spouse?

Amiya thinks. . . Harry/Jayant
Harry thinks. . . Harry
Ishani thinks. . . Ishani
Jayant thinks. . . Amiya
Neha thinks. . . Vidur
Vidur hopes Vidur but he thinks. . . Jayant/Harry

And the lucky bugger count is:

Harry: 2; Jayant: 1; Amiya, Vidur & Ishani: 1; Neha: 0

Q: Who’s most likely to have gotten arrested by then?

Amiya thinks. . . Harry (for drunken driving/doping)
Harry thinks. . . Jayant (radical activism)
Ishani thinks. . . Harry (something to do with being too drunk)
Jayant thinks. . . Jayant (activism) / Neha (killing her husband)
Neha thinks. . . Harry
Vidur thinks. . . Jayant

And the likeliest jailbirds are:

Harry: 3; Jayant: 2.5; Neha: 0.5; Amiya, Ishani & Vidur: 0

--------

Okay, just for the record, coming up with great enough questions isn't easy. While this entry only lists some of the more interesting Qs, there were also many that we came up with... then chucked. Sample this:

Jayant: Hmm... Do you think Amiya will have written a book by then?
Ami & Ishani: Dude, will YOU have written a book by then?!
(For those who don't know, Jay's the writer amongst us)
Vidur (thoughtfully): Do you think I will have read a book by then?

And if you happen to know Vidur, you're expected to drop dead laughing here, right here.

--------

Now back to our questions.

Q: How does everyone see everyone else’s future spouse/partner?

Q: What’s the wildest thing everyone SEES others as having done by then?


[ To quote Jayant, so around the time we're all 30, you'll mostly see Vidur naked. ]

Q: And what’s the wildest thing they probably WOULD have done (for real)?

There. This entry shall go up on the net as our final speculation on each other's future, and our 2026 reunion shall reward all those whose guesses came closest to the reality. May the best guesser win.

PS:
If you read this so far, and have decided to leave a comment, please copy your comment & paste it on Amiya's blog and Jay's... that feeling of all-togetherness and soulmate blogs and all, y'know.