Trying to make sense of Sao Paulo

Have you ever been to any place in the world where having checked out enough of its streetsmdashtherersquos absolutely no picture of you at a touristy spot to show for it Thatrsquos Satildeo Paulo shortened SP or Sampa and I Bizarre noExcept for one hazycrappy photo before a grand church at the City Centre That got hurriedly clicked because there were cops stationed My local SP friend Iara would simply not allow the cellphone to be fished out of the pocket even for a second otherwiseNobody does Wersquod slide into shops cafes malls like shady spies to call for an Uber Paulistanos are evidently swift with snatching cellphones Irsquom sure they pawn secondhand devices at cheap rates But thatrsquos not what explains this obsessionItrsquos for quickly hacking into bank detailsapp on your phone to siphon off money Thatrsquos what thieves are after Lesson 1 Donrsquot download bank app on phone Transact on laptop Transactions can wait a few hoursFeisty Iara herself has had her cellphone attacked for more times than she can recall Gun laws in Brazil are mercifully strict Her defence move is simpleShe screams aloud and never lets the phone go of her hand no matter how hard the muggers in motorbikes pull ldquoPush back Look the bully in the eye Theyrsquoll let you berdquoThatrsquos her jungle law to deal with fellows from favelas slumsghettos who throng SPrsquos streets ldquoin search of food money really theyrsquore that poorrdquo Thatrsquos still no excuse to steal is it It isnrsquotSurely Catholic Iara tells me ldquoItrsquos got everything to do with their disconnection with religion How else will you civilise if not through books and teachings of GodrdquoI donrsquot tell her about my own pet pseudophony theory on why you barely experience muggings etc in India instead where poverty and income disparity are among the globersquos highestThe Hindu belief in rebirth has a lot to do with it That whatever your actions in this life you will have to pay for it in the following one Itrsquos much less copslaws more the fear of being born an insectcockroach that saves the rich from poor Indians Karmarsquos cool that wayOf course I canrsquot chat deep about this with Iara Her English is at 40 per cent which is 39 per cent higher than most Paulistanosmdash13 crore of every colourrace including the largest number of Japanese outside Japanmdashwho essentially speak Portuguese Also Iara wonrsquot let me talk ldquoShoo Theyrsquoll know yoursquore a tourist mug yourdquoGod she is paranoidmdashhaving made me sweat inside three layers of clothing in the South American winter which is all of 10odd degrees Celsius ldquoBut the homeless are dying in the cold from pneumoniardquo she points outSounds like India alright Only that SP looks as First World as it getsmdashas you walk into their mostly topend bars open spaces Ibirapuera Park topclass public art graffiti included wide roads their highstreet Oscar Freire lsquoConnaught Placersquo Paulista AvenuehellipThe most important lsquoFirst Worldrsquo criterion to me isnrsquot so much GDPeconomy as genderratio among those up and aboutmdashyou see more women on SP streets than anywhere else beats Manhattan by a mileWhatrsquos equally true for Brazilian men the young women are possibly the smartestdressed fittest in the world Almost anyone could star in a Bollywood blockbuster Irsquom surprised only a couple of them have Bruna Abdullah in Grand Masti Giselli Monteiro in Love Aaj Kal Must be the distance Theyrsquore the bestlooking version of IndiansTheir own popculturemusic scene seems strangely frozen in retro US which as a country is also a good 1015 hoursrsquo flight away Practically everywhere you gomdashfrom a hotel lobby to an underground nightclubmdashit seems Michael Jackson is topping pop charts and Shaggyrsquos Boombastic is the song of the seasonAlso most big countries it appears to me have a DelhiBombay DB divide of their own in terms of their chief metropolisesmdashthe one thatrsquos got more chilled blokes perhaps by the sea killing it with the nightlife divebars smaller spacesmdashgenerally fewer hangups with masses of all socialincome groups intermingling more easilyIn Egypt I felt that with Cairo D Alexandria B in the US itrsquos probably LA D NYC B in the UAE maybe Abu Dhabi D Dubai B of course it starts with our neighbours in Pakistan who usually say Lahore D Karachi BhellipLargely landlocked SP is decidedly lsquoDrsquo People seem more inward They hang out a lot in fancy hotels The poor from favelas have been relegated to the outskirts Breezy Rio De Janeiro with its slums staring straight at highrises sounds more lsquoBrsquoMaybe Irsquom thinking so because I caught dengue fever from Delhi once And from the streets of SP only a few months later againDengue being an incurable viral epidemic around since the late 1700s common to the tropics IndiaBrazil that top labs in the West have had no reason ever to invent a vaccine for Virus not lsquoFirst Worldrsquo enoughYes wersquore both Third World That said Delhi dengue felt like it was gonna kill me SP relapse was milder If it helps to know the score Delhi mosquito 1 SP OMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper