[Reader-list] TC

[zainab at xtdnet.nl]

TC

I have decided to call him TC. Even at this stage of research, I grapple
with questions about privacy of my subject. I don’t know how far I can
tread into my subject’s life and how much of him can I reveal to the
public. I even grapple with the question of whether the subject is a
subject as in a person of inquiry or more than that. What happens when the
relationship deepens and the person is no longer a subject but a friend?

When I walk around the city and write stories, people imagine that I am a
journalist – I could not be anything else! To top it all, I have this
funny name and appearance which makes me an unintended bahurupi. And I
wonder about journalistic expeditions and research inquiries – what are
the lines of differences and similarities?


He is TC, a TTE i.e. a Traveling Ticket Examiner at one of the railway
stations in Mumbai. On day, about nine months ago, as I got off from the
train, he, in his plainclothes, asked me to show him my ticket.
Unquestioningly, I showed him my railway pass which made me a legal and
legitimate traveler. “Nowadays, people ask me to produce my identification
card when I am checking tickets in the train compartments,” he tells me,
laughing in his characteristic tired and sloppy manner, “No trust,” he
concludes.

TC is an interesting person in the city. He is a bigger and better
researcher/journalist than me. And he has more stories to tell than I have
– again, bigger and better stories! After all, he is not just a TTE, but a
multiple-personality disorder like myself (though I am becoming more sane
now with research terminologies and layered language OUCH!). Let’s see
what TC is all about.
His passion is basketball and his primary identity is that of a basketball
player who graduated from the famously infamous Nagpada basketball court
(more on the court in the next posting). He now coaches young girls in
schools in playing basketball and he also leads his railway team. “I got
into the railways through the sports quota,” he announces proudly.
Apparently, TTEs are of different quotas including the sports quota,
culture quota (?), reservation quota, etc. Then, TC has a family business
of poultry. “We supply chicken to some of the famous restaurants in
Mumbai. But I never sit on the shop. My elder brother does,” he says
again, casually, adding, “But on Sundays, our father sits on the shop
because both my brother and me go to play cricket. Sunday is the day for
cricket!” So TC is a poultry man + basketball player cum coach + TTE –
well, that’s not at all all! Let me go on to describe his typical day.

TC starts his day at about 7:00 AM, with his practice sessions. Then, by
9:00 AM, he is into the train, checking tickets and fining faulting
passengers. “We have a set quota of fines to collect per month. Earlier,
the fine was fifty rupees plus ticket fare. Now, since last July, the fine
has been hiked to two hundred and fifty rupees plus fare. And if the
passenger is traveling in first class, he pays two fifty plus first class
ticket fare, the minimum of which is fifty rupees and can run up to two
fifty. Now, imagine shelving out three to four hundred rupees early in the
morning? For an office-goer, this is major sadma (shock!)! But I like
checking tickets in first class. Passengers pay quickly in first class.
There is less rush and the crowd is much sophisticated in the first
class,” he concludes. By 11:00 AM, he is done with his ticket checking. He
then wanders around the railway station, hanging out with his co-workers
who are also from the sports’ quota (that is why they say perhaps that TCs
of the same feather flock together!). By 2:00 PM, he has finished lunch
and is out for coaching. Come evening, he is around at Nagpada or with his
wide variety of friends, doing the rounds of the city and accidentally or
intentionally creating stories. Of course, during his two hour ticket
checking session of the morning, he is part of several stories – either he
is weaving them or he is woven into them.

Now, the most interesting part of it all – apart from all his multiple
identities, TC is Muslim, which becomes his major identity when he is
performing his duties as a TTE. He gets marked as a Muslim owing to his
beard. With Muslim passengers, he is fraternity. With non-Muslim
passengers, he is a woh wala (other party fellow)!

The series of postings this month are aimed at exploring the character of
TC and my analysis of my own research practices vis-à-vis him.

In stories (as in in solidarity!),
Zainab Urban Bawa!




Zainab Bawa
Bombay
www.xanga.com/CityBytes
http://crimsonfeet.recut.org/rubrique53.html