Post 3 - Indian Railways, everyone's home

Tatkal tickets are a myth. I am yet to meet anyone who has successfully logged on IRCTC’s website at 8 AM three days before his journey. In fact, Ripley’s Believe it or Not once featured this guy with facial hair who claimed he had managed a Tatkal booking on his own only to realise later that he was Mamata Baneerji. According to a study, booking a Tatkal ticket on IRCTC’s website is one of the five most unachievable things to do, if you are travelling within India. The other four are escaping gastrointestinal tumour after consuming railways pantry meal, getting an RAC (reservation against cancellation) with a pretty-looking thing, not have a 8-year-old boy in your bogie howling endlessly on a 16-hour long journey and hearing a TC say, “yes, we have spare unreserved seats. How many would you want?”

An off-season train journey in India.

Despite all the hassles we, Indians, still manage to spend half of our lives travelling with Railways. We all have bribed a TC to get half-a-seat on the reserved coach so that we don’t have to travel like exterminated-Jews-under-Hitler on the unreserved one. Before every trip we all pray to god or Sachin Tendulkar, whosoever we believe in, to have a damsel seated facing us so that the two us don’t have a choice but to fall in love and live happily ever after. I don’t know anyone who has ever got laid because of a subsidised Indian Railway ticket. By the way, there’s nothing called as a pretty lass onboard an Indian rail. Or may be, all damsels grow a lot of facial hair, and start resembling porcupine, also known as Indian uncles, for the much coveted journey on railways. I have only seen coaches full of voyeuristic uncles wherever I have travelled on Railways as if IRCTC has a special reservation quota for men with potbelly, hairy navel, unshaven underarms, and disfigured faces.

Much like the Indian society even the Indian railways is subdivided into classes. Lowest in the runk are unreserved guys, also known as the untouchables of travellers incorporated. These unfortunate guys couldn't wake up early enough to book a tatkal reserved ticket and they also couldn't plan their travel well in advance, say Before Christ. As a result, they travel on an unreserved bogie, also known as the train to Pakistan. An unreserved bogie often looks like a wild gathering involving excessive drinking, smoking and promiscuity, much like Roman deities. Some of these gatherings are often termed as the largest mobile orgy ever recorded.

Next is the reserved class in general coaches. There’s no AC, no complimentary food, fresh air, better countryside view, freedom to travel on the steps and cheapest fare among reserved coaches. In fact, these are the safest places to be at as somebody’s fart isn’t recycled and served to you as conditioned air, neither are you under a compulsion to eat rodent excreta in the name of evening supper. People who travel by these coaches are known for their inquisitive nature and by the end of an overnight journey often co-passengers know every minute detail about each other including the anatomy of each other’s bowel movements.

This is how Leander Paes got a confirmed ticket on Rajdhani Express

Top of the class runk are the air-conditioned reserved coaches, which is again sub-divided into RAC, 3-tier, 2-tier, and coaches for really fat people, aka 1-tier. These coaches are habitually filled with city-dwellers who believe it’s impossible to survive on fresh air. The members of the AC club are not known to be chatty and spend long journeys staring at the air-conditioner. In fact, the only time they speak is to express displeasure about food, cleanliness, comfort, pollution, stock market, corruption, traffic jams, rising prices, and preferential treatment given to Rajdhani over the other trains. In fact, they all secretly wish to travel by Rajdhani someday, the most coveted train in the country. Studies show that the only way to get a reserved ticket on Rajdhani is to book way in advance, most preferably when you are inside your mother’s womb.

Fun facts about Indian train travel

a) Everyone sleeps by 8 PM onboard as if it's a meditation retreat.

b) Sleeping is the most popular time kill except if you are a Gujarati. You munch, endlessly.

c) Gujarati is the most spoken language in the train and khakhra, the most spoken word.

d) The luggage secured with chains is the most stolen.

e) RAC are the Schedule Caste of trains. Everyone cringes at the sheer sight of them.

f)  Ticket-checker can be bought anytime. 

g) Everyone is family. We eat, sleep and suffer together. 

Post 2 - A short history of Kala Ghoda aka Suneil Shetty

Yes, I attended it too. Like every other immigrant in the Mumbai city, who has no life on weekends, even I attended the biggest festival of DSLR-owners-who-can’t-handle-the-camera. It’s known as Kala Ghoda. The festival started in 1999 when Suneil Shetty was spotted at the street area of Rampart Row doing crunches. To celebrate the acrobatic skills of what people initially thought was a black horse, they started a festival of food, art, culture, music, stampede, hippie clothes and DSLR cameras. To nobody’s surprise they named it Kala Ghoda (a latin word when translated in English it means Suneil Shetty). Since then every year hordes of people with Facebook accounts throng the festival so that they can upload variety of colourful pictures on their FB profiles to add to the usual honeymoon albums, drunk summing pool party pictures and look-now-I-have-a-cleavage pictures self-clicked in badly maintained society elevators.

A statue of King Edward VII with Sunil Shetty aka Kala Ghoda

So, what is Kala Ghoda festival all about? It’s about the expensive DSLR cameras and clicking multiple still shots of art installations which 8 million other people have already clicked a day before you did and another 10 million will click a day later. In fact, if you search ‘Kala Ghoda festival images’ on Google you’d get the same picture on the first 10,000 result pages all clicked by different ‘artists’.

An installation clicked by Rahul, Prakash, Ruchi, Priyal, and 1,50,000235 other visitors

When I got off my taxi at the Rampart Row street near the over-charging Rhythm House I could hear the crowd’s collective sigh as I didn’t have a DSLR strapped around my neck. Some of the stunned witnesses thought I was an Australian tourist, so they handed me a copy of Shantaram and pushed me towards Leopold Cafe. But later, I showed them my hairy Indian legs and convinced them that as per the festival norms I shall be taking 15 pictures of anything standing still for more than 3 seconds with my humble camera phone. So, they let me in.

The festival is also known for its zombie walk which visitors do at all popular venues including Asiatic Steps, Cross Maidan, Horniman Circle, Jehangir Art Gallery and but of course, Rampart Row street. In fact, visitors on the weekends actually believe that the festival is all about walking through a crowded alley with your nose on the shoulder of the person walking ahead of you. They have been following it for years like a religious practice. As a matter of fact, the festival has proved to be a social experiment on a variety of subjects. For example, the festival has helped us figure out maximum number of people that can fit on 37 flights of stairs (Asiatic steps) without looking like the core of a neutron star, or the number of ways an object can be clicked in a period of 9 days or less, and most importantly, does attending Kala Ghoda festival with a DSLR and cargo pants help single boys get laid.

An installation after smoking up a joint.

So here are some FAQs on the festival that might help you avoid it

What are the dates for Kala Ghoda Arts Festival this year?

Whenever you see a lot of Indian young men and women in pink and red pants roaming around the town you’d know it’s Kala Ghoda time.

How do I know what to see and do?

Follow the guy with the marijuana joint.

How do I buy tickets?

It’s a free event. Perhaps, that’s the only reason you’d be attending it apart from the fact that you have recently bought a DSLR that you can’t handle.

How do I Register?

By taking multiple shots of the venue using your DSLR.

Where exactly is the festival taking place?

The Kala Ghoda festival is conducted over 9 days and across several locations that you can’t reach unless you are Gregory David Roberts. So forget about it.

Post 1 - Mahakumbh, India's Rio equivalent

It's that time of the year when we go to Allahabad with a younger sibling and come back alone. It's called Mahakumbh, backpacking Jews in India would know. Or, as Manmohan Desai knows it Nirupama Roy-is-going-to-lose-all-her-kids event.  If you have no clue what I am talking about, obviously you are from Bandra, born in 1990s, sport Justin Beiber hairdo and believe Ben Kingsley is the father of nation. This piece isn't meant for you. BTW, it's 70% off at Zara.

Now, that the pretentious Bandra crowd has left I'd like to confess something - I can't afford a place there so I hate them. Anyway, for everyone's benefit, who isn't a tree-hugging hippie, and who doesn't live in Haridwar on a fake passport, basically Bangladeshis, here's a short history of the largest stampede in the world - Mahakumbh.

A glimpse of the Indian Baywatch. No, don't rub your eyes, certain parts in the picture have been blurred. 

Mahakumbh, also known as the Indian Baywatch, is a Hindu pilgrimage of faith in which people with no water connection at home gather at a sacred river for a bath. The festival is usually attended by people with expensive cameras and producers of ugly people porn genre. The festival takes place at a gap of twelve years at one of the four sacred places: Allahabad, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nashik and daily between 8 AM to 10 AM and 6 PM to 8 PM at Dadar and Kurla. The main attraction of the festival are Naga Babas. As the name suggests they are naked and they are related to versatile tone-deaf rapper Baba Sehgal.

It's very easy to identify a Naga Sadhu in a crowd of 100 million (number of people expected to attend Mahakumbh at Allahabad). Take Bob Marley hairdo add Robert Pattinson's pale skin, Hugh Hefner's wrinkles, playmate Sherlyn Chopra's wardrobe and Tommy Lee Jones' long beak. Put all the ingredients together add complexion of Samuel L Jackson, shake it a little and Naga Sadhu is ready.

Robert Pattinson + Bob Marley + Hugh Hefner + Sherlyn Chopra + Samuel L Jackson = Naga Sadhu 

Naked Monks (that's how I shall refer Naga Sadhus henceforth keeping in mind South Bombay crowd) smoke pot, not like the neighbourhood boy with a Furtados guitar in tow, but more like Syd Barrett, Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison put together. The belief is that smoking chillum will lead them to Nirvana (not Kurt Cobain's album), but instead results show that post smoking weed these monks end up attaining blondes from Nelson, British Columbia region. In fact, these sadhus can be seen teaching yoga sadhana to some of these blonde western hippie chicks during night at riverside camps. Though, it is highly coincidental that the sadhana position is similar to that of 69, as described in holy book of Kamasutra.

These sadhus are known for their man-are-you-high rituals. For example, some Naga sadhus wear eleven thousand Rudrakhsa beads in sheer respect of Lord Shiva. But, most tourists mistake them for beads shop at Janpath and start bargaining with them. Some Naga Sadhus are believed to practice copulation with the dead. Actually, it's not true. This rumour started when a Naga Sadhu was spotted having intercourse with Arjun Rampal.

These Naga Sadhus belong to different Akharas (camps) - for example Yash Raj camp, Karan Johar Camp, Salman Khan camp and Rohit Shetty camp. The sadhus of Yash Raj and Karan Johar camp are always naked under their heavy Manish Malhotra attire, while sadhus of Salman Khan camp are mostly bare-chested unless they are in their Being Human tees. Sadhus of Rohit Shetty camp are known for their acrobatic skills including pulling a car with power of their testicles. 

Mahakumbh is popular among all sections of Indian society. While, the middle and lower middle class call it Mahakumbh, the upper middle class know it as Kalaghoda festival. More on this in another post.