Chemical Locha

When I wrote ‘Amchi Mumbai’ in this Kolkata Kolling column a few months back, I had mentioned about the wonderful city of Mumbai and how I have learnt so much from it from the time I shifted here. The most challenging of all things which took me some time to master was crossing the road. For all other cities mostly, the difinition of crossing the road would be “going from one side of the road to the other”. However, as I have learnt, this definition does not apply while crossing roads in Mumbai, for in this city, you may intend to cross the road but maybe unable to do so for quite a while till you are frustrated and just walk – expecting the traffic to stop for you. So it took me a long time to come to terms with this, that in Mumbai you have to cross the road even when the cars keep on going past you as noone stops! Let alone zebra crossings, if you put actual zebras on the road, I doubt if anyone has the time to stop and look.

This brings me to my second revelation in this city. I have learnt that in Mumbai, people have money, they have wealth, they have good cars and small toilets, people have tenacity, dedication and the ability to accommodate themselves into spaces on local trains with an agility that would put our olympic gymnasts to shame. In Mumbai some people have everything, while some have nothing but one thing common that noone has is – TIME! No one has time. One reason which I figured would be because most of it is spent in traffic.

If you wish to buy something, the prices depend on where you stay. Price of real estate varies from one end of the street to the other by a margin which is equal to the sum you will pay to buy a house in any other city in India. Just with the difference. Unbelievable – but true. I have seen the price of commodities change from one street to the other – for example if apples cost Rs 120/- a kg in Santa Cruz, the same quality would cost around Rs 150 in Bandra and Rs 180 – 200 in Worli. Of course these things happen everywhere but in Mumbai the costs differ in short distances and consumers know it too – the bottom line is no one has the time to travel to places to avail cheaper costs. And I am not only taking of apples. I compared the cost of furnishings between two shops located just a mile apart and was amazed to find unreasonbale difference between the two for products of the same quality. I wondered how the owner kept a higher price even while another shop not far off kept lower prices. On asking, I was told by the shopkeeper, ‘sir our customers do not travel to the other shop for lesser prices, they don’t have that much of time’.

There’s just no time in this city. It never sleeps. I have faced traffic snarls at one of clock in the morning and wondered where all the people in the cars were going?

These are the two of my precious learnings in the city – one is to be able to keep walking and cross the road in one piece and the other is to value time. Both are linked, traffic does not stop for you to cross the road because they too have no time! The other thing which I learnt in Mumbai, is the word LOCHA! This is something you cannot beat, its one of the best words which the local Mumbaikars use – I spell it again; L-O-C-H-A. If you have stayed in Mumbai, you could not have missed this word. It means something going wrong or awry – something which is not what it seems to be and in which there is some amount of suspicion but you don’t know what – so you say there’s a locha. You have made a mistake, it’s a locha. You wish to do something but not able to – it’s a locha. A plan going wrong – locha. An approval not coming – locha. Failing in exams, - big time locha. Passing in exams when you were sure of failing – surely a locha! Girlfriend saying NO to your proposal – locha. Father finding out about your smoking habits or that you have been bunking class – locha, locha, locha!

There’s a beauty in this word which matches to nothing. There’s some sort of helplessness stitched to this word. It is a part of the local Mumbai lingo.

This word came to me again today as I was reading the fb post of my friend Piu which read as follows:

“I just read a fb friend’s post that said love weakans you – you lose your heart and mind, someone starts taking over your life and blah blah blah…the stereotypes about love, Gosh!

For heavens sake, NO that is not love. That is a neorological disorder, its what ‘Munnabhai’ terms as a ‘chemical locha’. Love empowers you. It gives direction to your life and a team mate to you who plays his own innings while he rides alongside just as the player at the end of the crease in case it’s a bad day for you; and you do the same for him / her. ….if it doesn’t strengthen you, doesn’t give you a better drive, an an urge to shine brighter, it is anything but love,,,in the name of love..love cannot be breaking your identity. Its real nature is to establish the individual you are, even more concreteley than you otherwise were. Love is power. It helps you be you in a world that’s constantly wanting you to change into somebody you arn’t. Love is the parachute you need to live on & then come what may. Love is your team mate for life, Love is a gift. Gosh. Mankind has conditioned us with horrific myths & definitions. Love lets you create..it doesn’t follow or repeat, create your story..one that you’d want to live – Life is created. Yes, that’s how powerful you are as an individual, in case you have been taught otherwise. Write your story. Be love.”

Yes indeed, love is things going awry for sure. It takes you to a point of helplesness. You lose control. Reactions takes place in your body and soul and you are directed to a specific path even without you knowing where you are off to. Sometime you don’t even know that you are in love and that’s a problem. On the other hand, when you know that your are in love, that poses a greater problem. So some people wish to stay away from love, not because they have no faith in it, but because they have too much of faith in it and don’t want to drift away with the magnitude of it’s current. Some people like the flow while others don’t. Mostly all of them like to be in it though. There’s no other mystery in this world greater than love. There’s no training course in the world which can teach you to love. There’s no training course in the world which can teach you not to love. Over the ages, people have lost themselves to love – they have dedicated their lives loving others. There are others who have always loved themselves and noone else, and they have lived guilt free lives too. Love binds and love seperates. It releases clandestine toxins in your body – toxins which no scientist till today have been able to name. People have so many difinitions of love. To me, its truly a chemical locha.