We two, our two… perfect family!

Balya was in the fifth standard. An instruction had come from school that the next day, for the “Art and Craft” period, students had to bring a collage. There was only one condition— “The theme must be current, and it should show a blend of the old and the new.” As soon as he reached home, Balya shouted, “Baba, what is a collage?” His father—Gaballya—was busy peeling boiled potatoes at the time. Gaballya had little to do with deep thinking anyway. Thanks to the goodwill of the local corporator, Gaballya’s father had once set up a vada-pav cart. After his father passed away, Gaballya proudly inherited that cart as his “legacy.” Tall towers had sprung up all around Gaballya’s chawl. People from those towers placed orders with him on WhatsApp, and the corporator would often praise his vada-pav while passing by. Every Sunday, Gaballya carried twenty free vada-pavs to the corporator and asked, “Sahab, when will our chawl be redeveloped?” The corporator would pat his shoulder and say, “Gaballya, let the elections pass first. I’ll demolish your chawl before anyone else. A Marathi person must survive in Mumbai—even if it’s in a chawl!” Gaballya’s wife would taunt him, “With all the free vada-pavs you fed the sahab, we could’ve bought our own house in Virar!” But Gaballya stood firm on his “brand.” “Identity matters, not a house!” He snapped at his wife, “Today you say Virar, tomorrow Dahanu, and the day after Gujarat! A Marathi person must stay in Mumbai!” Just then Balya asked again, “Baba, how do I make a collage?” Gaballya asked on the WhatsApp Sena group. Immediate replies came—take scissors, take glue, cut old and new photos, and stick them together! Gaballya had plenty of old newspapers. He washed his hands and sat down to make the collage with Balya. He picked the first photo from the pile—it was of his “one and only sahab’s” son. Gaballya remembered the sahab’s words: “After me, take care of my son.” Gaballya had taken more care of the sahab’s son than his own. He respectfully pasted the photo right in the centre. Next to it, he pasted a photo of the sahab’s grandson. Balya said, “Baba, the teacher said the theme should be current. This looks very old!” “Keep quiet, Balya! This is our young leader.” “But it doesn’t look trendy,” Balya insisted. Gaballya suddenly got an idea. “Elections are going on, right? Let’s paste a photo of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on one side!” He pasted the BMC photo. Then he felt something was still missing—the “perfect family” wasn’t complete yet. So he added photos of the sahab’s nephew and the nephew’s son on the other side. On a single sheet, Gaballya preserved both his own tradition and the sahab’s lineage. Two branches of the same dynasty were now sitting snugly against the municipal corporation. Balya asked, “But Baba, where is the blend of old and new?” Gaballya climbed up to the loft to fetch even older newspapers from his father’s time. Meanwhile, Balya himself cut out an old advertisement from a newspaper and pasted it right at the top of the collage like a headline. Balya shouted excitedly, “Baba, my collage is done!” Gaballya adjusted his spectacles and looked at it. His potato-peeling hand slapped his forehead. Right in the centre, above all the photos, Balya had pasted an old advertisement— “Hum Do, Hamare Do!” (We two, our two!) Seeing this “perfect family” encircling the BMC made Gaballya sweat. In one sharp slogan, Balya had captured the essence of dynastic politics. The next day at school, the teacher looked at Balya’s collage and laughed, holding her forehead. She said, “Balya, there’s nothing ‘new’ in this! This has been going on in Mumbai for the last thirty years—‘we two, our two’ and our own perfect family! They still haven’t managed to make a collage of Mumbai’s development—only family photos keep getting pasted. This is a traditional collage of dynastic rule!” BMC is not a family business #notafamilybusiness