I Grew Up, As Many Indians Do,

Go To The Tea Shop Anywhere Along The Ganga, Sir, And Look At The Men Working In That Tea Shop - Men, I Say, But Better To Call Them Human Spiders That Go Crawling In Between And Under The Tables With Rags In Their Hands, Crushed Humans In Crushed Uniforms, Sluggish, Unshaven, In Their Thirties Or Forties Or Fifties But Still "boys." But That Is Your Fate If You Do Your Job Well - With Honesty, Dedication, And Sincerity, The Way Gandhi Would Have Done It, No Doubt.

Neither. I Am Just One Who Has Woken Up While The Rest Of You Are Still Sleeping.

Mangalore, The Coastal Indian Town Where I Lived Until I Was Almost 16, Is Now A Booming City Of Malls And Call-centres. But, In The 1980s, It Was A Provincial Town In A Socialist Country.

I Gather You Yellow-skinned Men, Despite Your Triumphs In Sewage, Drinking Water, And Olympic Gold Medals, Still Don't Have Democracy. Some Politician On The Radio Was Saying That That's Why We Indian Are Going To Beat You: We May Not Have Sewage, Drinking Water, And Olympic Gold Medals, But We Do Have Democracy. If I Were Making A Country, I'd Get The Sewage Pipes First, Then The Democracy, Then I'd Go About Giving Pamphlets And Statues Of Gandhi To Other People, But What Do I Know? I Am Just A Murderer!

Having Plenty Of Living Space Has To Be The Greatest Luxury In A City, And I Guess In Some Sense Bombay Is The Antithesis Of What Living In Canada Must Be.