Shiv Cable Sena

Yes, my network in Mumbai is from one of the small cable operators affiliated to the Sena. We have subscribed to a plan that allows us unlimited usage, pretty much the same plan that I have in Singapore, but with some differences.

I pay about S$70 (Re.1820) for my plan in Singapore, my father pays about Re.193 for his plan, almost ten times cheaper! How does this come about? Bandwidth throttling, how else? My father gets speeds of about 20-30 kbps, which is lesser than even a dial-up, while I manage to get around 800-1000kbps, forty times faster!

Presuming that an internet connection with the speed and stability that my internet connection gives me costs Re.2500 in India, I could be making Re.5000 a month from just one internet connection, including deductions from the depreciation cost of the hardware, which is, incidentally recovered from the consumer in terms of installation charges.

Thinking further, if I purchase three 6 Mbps pipes, I could serve 400 connections with the same speed and reliability, and pull in a profit of at least Re.35K a month, close to what most MBAs get paid in India! This, after the cost of hiring some university students to maintain the network and a receptionist!

Such a lucrative business plan, isn't it? It does sound too good to be true. It is. Most of these small operators are members of this union called the Shiv Cable Sena, the cable operators arm of the [multi-armed] Shiv Sena, a idealist political party in Mumbai. While I can offer no evidence to support my claims, I would speculate that unionisation of this kind comes with it's territorial pissings and nepotistic tendencies. By this kind, I mean a union formed on the political clout of a party, whose idealism overflows the political scenario into the socio-cultural scene, and where nepotism causes frequent rifts in the party, decreasing the political sailability [sic] of the party.

So, the million dollar (literally) question is, 'Is one of your relatives a Shiv Sena shakha pramukh (divisional head)?'

Iqbal

At noon yesterday, the Mac comes to my house and says, 'Man, I have to go to VJTI today, you wanna come?' Since I wasn't doing anything, I said, 'Sure!' and after lunch, we left.

After a fag at Mulund station, we got tickets. There was a decrepit old man with a Vaishnava mark on his forehead, wearing a saffron turban, begging. He was squatting on his haunches, his mud-spattered dhoti covering his feet, clutching his staff with one hand, and shaking a steel tumbler that possibly had only one or two coins in it, for it tinkled like a bell rather than rustling like a bag of beans. One distinguishing thing about the old man was that he wore Buddy Holly glasses and those made him look like he'd make a good village elder in some small far away village in the dustbowl of India. But here, in Mumbai, he was just another beggar on the bridge. I gave him a two rupee coin and made my way towards the platform, as he murmured some customary blessing to my back.

Since Mac and I were travelling second class, we could not get into the Video Coach, which is the first class gents compartment that has an almost unobstructed view of the ladies compartment. It used to be a big deal when we travelled to college in my Ruparel days, but now that seemed juvenile. I had been watching Q tv and seeing Zakir Naik fool already foolish people, so we talked about theology for a while. However, the Mac slipped into something much more interesting, The psychology of the Marathi mind, about which we talked from Ghatkopar to Matunga.

We got off at Matunga and I lit up; we talked whether getting a larger place in Navi Mumbai was indeed better than having a nice quiet smaller place in the Dadar Matunga area, you pass some really nicely shaded houses on the way to VJTI from Matunga. Once we reached VJTI, we realised that the office in question that was going to give him the result had been relocated to the Gymkhana and that we would have to go there. I decided to go to the canteen instead and help myself to a cup of tea.

The kids in the canteen seemed really juvenile, and I was fighting the urge to 'orient' them. Suddenly the Mac appeared there with his mark sheet and ordered a tea for himself. We were deciding whether or not to watch a movie, he strongly in favour of watching No Entry at nearby Sion and me totally against it. Finally we decided to watch Iqbal at Gossip, Bandra where the movie was going to be running in an hours time. We decided to take a cab just in case, and the Mac was feeling generous, so he offered to pay for it. We got off at Matunga station and crossed the Z bridge. This brough back memories of Ruparel; pretty strongly too, for I felt this rush when I looked at the flight of stairs that went down to Ruparel.

My day-dream was broken when the Mac realised that he had no idea where this Gossip theatre was. We asked a couple of cabbies, but they had no clue. Then the Mac had a hunch that it would be somewhere near Hill Street, so we hailed another cab and off we were, with half an hour left for the movie to begin. We cabbed it to Hill Street, wherever that is, by which time the Mac had phoned his friends and found out that Gossip was one of the G theatres that included, Gemini and Gaeity.

I have suddenly realised tat I am a bad narrator, or maybe I am good, but I tend to be too damn verbose at times, so I am going to take a break now. Tough luck. Email me if you really really really want to know what happens next. :-)