On the ground

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Bombay may or may not be the Maximum City, but maximum respect goes out to local writers Dilip D’Souza and Mutineer Emeritus Manish Vij for their pieces in Salon today. Dilip offers a reporter’s chronicle of the day; Manish, a very elegant urban essay centered on the railway.

Props to Salon for having reached out to these brothers. It’s well worth the small annoyance of watching a Stoli Blueberi (sic) ad — talk about irrelevant! — in order to read the online mag’s content today.

33 thoughts on “On the ground”

  1. Any one else having trouble with Salon.com? No “sponsor logo” graphic shows up on any of my pages; thus I can’t access either of these essays.

  2. I skimmed both articles — they look great. Will sit down and read over lunch.

    Btw the by line says “Blogger Manish Vij is writing a novel about New York and Mumbai (Bombay).”

    !!! 🙂

  4. Btw the by line says “Blogger Manish Vij is writing a novel about New York and Mumbai (Bombay).”

    looks like the cat is out of the bag, eh? 🙂

  5. I will be the first one to buy it. Maybe the Sepia Mutiny readers can get an autograph copy of his book.

  6. from the essay

    There’s time to get their names: Binaifer the woman, Shoukat the driver, Tabrez, Maaz, Anil and Nawaz. We have, ladies and gentlemen, sound the trumpets, a Hindu, a Christian, four Muslims, a Parsee and an agnostic (me). All here to give blood for faceless fellow humans.

    BEAUTIFUL

  8. the man’s got fans:

    almost like being there

    My daughter is due to arrive in Mumbai as an exchange student this month. The writing by Manish Vij helped humanize the bombing for me and to attach associations other than violence with riding the trains. I felt transported into the daily experience of which a very small piece went very wrong. Thank you for the perspective.
    Sus Austill
    Macclenny, FL

  9. Great article by Manish. Now I dont think I’m going to read anything else for the rest of the day so I can keep the mood.

  10. 1

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  11. I spent two months 10 years ago in Bombay and all I did was riding trains. Thanks for the warm memories, Manish!

  12. “Blogger Manish Vij is writing a novel about New York and Bombay.”

    I’m sure we all kinda knew that all along 😉

    Thanks Manish, beautiful essay.

  14. “Blogger Manish Vij is writing a novel about New York and Bombay.”

    Ooh ooh, can I design the cover? Let’s see here…sari border, Sanskrit-inspired font, mehndi-ed hands holding mangoes, blurb comparing the novel to…

  15. Am I missing something in Vij’s essay? As siddarth said, it is a great urban essay, but what about it makes some mutineers want to cry? D’Souza’s essay is the one capturing the sombre atmosphere and the poignance of it all.

  16. Ooh ooh, can I design the cover? Let’s see here…sari border, Sanskrit-inspired font, mehndi-ed hands holding mangoes, blurb comparing the novel to…

    (Getting up off the floor and back into my chair) Kobayashi, can I help? Pleeeease? I know some real professionals who might have some original ideas as well….

  17. I agree with Zai #15. D’Souza’s article is very touching. Manish hope your novel is better than this writing. Some Soul in your words please!

  18. I’m on the line right now with my investment adviser. I’m going to tell him to buy me a thousand shares in Haterade…

  19. Perhaps at this point in time it may be better for everyone to focus on the contents of Manish’s essay and the spirit of the message, rather than picking holes yet again in another desi author’s writing style…..

  20. brownindian, I didn’t actually imply that Manish’s article is devoid of soul. It accomplishes fully, and with eloquence, the author’s intent to capture the experience and joy o f riding indian local trains. I wanted to point out that D’souza also achieves (but without much credit in the comments) his goal of capturing the human aspect of it, and I can understand people tearing up in response to that.

  21. having done semi-regular freelance writing, I’d like to offer that often the original article a writer submits gets hacked up and reworded by some jackass editor. Regular mutineers can probably tell which tone belongs to our dear Vij, and which was “additional input”…

  22. Am I missing something in Vij’s essay? As siddarth said, it is a great urban essay, but what about it makes some mutineers want to cry?

    Because for me it evoked happy memories of childhood when the annual summer vacation pilgrimages were made with my grandparents on the packed Mumbai Nasik train. Occasionally an older cousin would take the train with us and I’d get to sit on the steps of the open door while the train was moving. The journey included making new friends on the train and eating vadas in Igatpuri. When the train went into a tunnel someone would tell a ghost story. The past two days of carnage have been depressing and Manish’s article brought an endearing image of the Indian trains. Perhaps others were feeling the same way.

  23. DD # 21 I second you. I’ve been thru my own set of battles where the flavor of the article would change because some editor thought to change something in my articles. Irrespective Manish’s article was fab.

  24. Speaking of poignant evocations of the Bombay trains, this one by Suketu Mehta (from Maximum City) is beautiful and true:

    If you are late for work in Mumbai and reach the station just as the train is leaving the platform, don’t despair. You can run up to the packed compartments and find many hands unfolding like petals to pull you on board. And while you will probably have to hang on to the door frame with your fingertips, you are still grateful for the empathy of your fellow passengers, already packed tighter than cattle, their shirts drenched with sweat in the badly ventilated compartment. They know that your boss might yell at you or cut your pay if you miss this train. And at the moment of contact, they do not know if the hand reaching for theirs belongs to a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian or a Brahmin or an Untouchable. Come on board, they say. We’ll adjust.

  25. Thanks, everyone.

    JoaT, I’m touched!

    D’souza also achieves (but without much credit in the comments) his goal of capturing the human aspect of it

    I didn’t actually witness the bombings, Dilip was on the scene shortly afterwards. So we got asked to tackle different angles.

    Manish hope your novel is better than this writing.

    Me too 😉

    Ooh ooh, can I design the cover?

    Blud it better not be no mango or someshit, innit?

    This is actually my first essay in a somewhat mainstream publication ever. Salon took my cherry. As DD and JoaT mention, I actually didn’t see the post-editing piece before it went live. They were on deadline, I ran on IST.

  26. This is actually my first essay in a somewhat mainstream publication ever. I actually didn’t see the post-editing piece before it went live. They were on deadline, I ran on IST.

    Right on brother you made it where no one around here has so go forth and conquer.

  27. Manish, I do you hope you heard the hushed applause in my comment. But then, jeez, do you really need any more overt adulation? 😉 Congratulations on the Salon article!

  28. Word on the steet is that the death tally is double the actual reported amount. Little surprise though, in Gujarat the media doubled the amount of Muslims killed, but here the amount dead is halved. Wonder why?

  29. Manish,

    Congratulations on getting your article published, and best of luck with your impending novel. You deserve every success.

    Mutineer Emeritus

    I was considering the term “Rogue Mutineer” as possibly appropriate for you 😉

  30. Heeeyyyy, do some of your earliest internets supporters get signed copies of the book some day?

    Good luck with the writing, Mr. Vij.

  31. ah, sounds like you’re doing a Suketu – with the novel and all. Scheduled your trip to the dance bars?. Good stuff Manish.

  32. Zai– got it, and thanks. Sorry, the acoustics in this sphere are echoey 🙂

    Jai– ‘ultra’ (-brown) has a specific meaning in the Indian media. Please don’t call it terrorist chic 😉

    MD– why wait? I’ll even put the Hancock on your LCD.

    Derick– yeah, Chandni Bar. Baar baar (again and again).

  33. Manish,

    Jai– ‘ultra’ (-brown) has a specific meaning in the Indian media. Please don’t call it terrorist chic 😉

    Well, I thought it would be a cool-but-tongue-in-cheek term, as in “Manish is a Mutineer on the edge…..He’s a Mutineer on the run”…..and so on and so forth.

    Okay I admit it, my suggestion was inspired by Wesley in the earlier seasons of Angel when he went through his whole “Rogue Demon Hunter” thing (and didn’t he turn into quite a badass guy by the time the show was cancelled).

    Whoah, that sounded slightly nerdy and more than a little gay (damn TheKingSingh and his flamboyantly ambiguous influence). I’d better do a quick recovery:

    Er…..Angelina Jolie…..Bikinis…..Item-number songs…..Monica Bellucci…..High-heels…..Spanking……

    Angelina Jolie and Monica Bellucci wearing nothing but bikinis and high-heels while spanking each other rhythmically in time to the latest racy item-number song.

    Phew That was a little too close.

    But I still think “Rogue Mutineer” would be a good label for you, man 😉