At the outset, I think it is my duty to express my profound gratitude to Ms. Rao (See I told you, that your name would be in the first line) - an attractive and bubbly 20-something whose creative use of languages amuses me to the hilt. Not to forget the “Roys”- the charming couple who has always made me feel at home in Mumbai (After telling me that I have started looking like somebody called Omar Abdullah). Also, my sincerest regards to a gentleman by the name of Dr. Anirban Bose who wrote an amazing read in “Bombay Rains, Bombay Girls”.
An archipelago of seven Islands, the city was under various rulers before the “Treaty of Bassein” ceded it to the Mughals. Later on, the Portugese occupied it before it became a dowry for the British Ruler Charles II, who married the Portugese Princess Catherine of Braganza. It was the Portuguese who gave the city a majority of its regal buildings-mostly churches. Charles II, unable to find a fruitful use for this piece of dowry, leased it to the East India Company for an annual lease rent of £10.
Life changes for anyone the moment one steps into the city. From the far flung suburbs like Dahanu road, Bombay starts getting into your system. By the time once reaches Borivali, the secretion of adrenaline into one’s body increases manifold. Even the laziest human being who lives in a state of trance between “play” and “pause” is forced to go into the “fast forward” mode the moment he steps into Bombay. The city is huge and the distances unimaginable. This however does not deter any “Mumbaikar” from pursuing any kind of vocation.
Bombay is comparable to a “Big Mac burger”. There is a different layer giving a different taste every time one bites into the city. Bandra or Juhu shocks you with awe with its elite rich while Dharavi makes u shake your head in disbelief with its poverty. Colaba & Churchgate gives you the taste of British remains with its old Victorian architecture while the skyscrapers at Andheri or Powai welcome you into the future. Nariman Point oozes of power as the address to India’s biggest corporate giants while Hiranandani Gardens at Powai send you to a foreign locale without any air fare. Oh! How can I forget the mills in Parel. Numerous nameless mills stood there as proof of the “industrial revolution” of India’s commercial capital. Most of them have now gone down with time and given way to office complexes and shopping malls. One of them was “Phoenix Mills” which gave way to “High Street Phoenix”- a shopping mall that could compete with the best in the world. A part of this is “Palledium”- home to biggest brands worldwide.
Ms. Rao, I think of you as I type out these words. Your expert comments as a tour-guide coupled with your motherly affection for me (although our age difference could be termed a “generation gap” with me on the higher side) makes me always remember you with lots of warmth.
Now, my readers need an introduction to this charming young lady. Ms. Rao is a smart and attractive, bubbly student of advertising who is on the right side of 20s. She owns a variety of talents which include speaking half a dozen languages (at least she abuses Holmes in all of them!) and designing posters selling you things which one is in no need of. Her choice of world cuisine is phenomenal and she was successful in introducing Holmes to “Nachos” (Please don’t try to pronounce it as it is Mexican and is more related to a certain Ms. Mori) and “Maroosh”- a Lebanese joint that serves yummy “Butter Chicken wraps”. Her words & pictures speak of a beautifully designed 22nd floor apartment (imagine 22 floors) but Holmes decided not to think of it as he suffers from “Vertigo”. So, in a nutshell- she is a “pure” Mumbaikar.
Ms. Rao’s directions led me to Matunga. The distance was to be bridged with the help of a “local”. The Electric Multiple Unit (EMU) trains run by Western Railways and Central Railways affably known as “locals” in Bombay parlance run like arteries through the heart of Bombay. Now, if one is not from Bombay and is not used to this mode of transport, one has to be very careful. First, there are three lines-western, central and harbour. A wrong choice might lead you to the opposite direction. Secondly, they are a quick-guide to the aftermaths of having the 2nd largest population in the world. They are so crowded that an infrequent traveler would be scared out of his wits. There is no room for being gentlemanly and all primate skills remaining with us “homo sapiens” should be used to the maximum. So, if one wishes to board or disembark, following rules is extremely important. Failure to do so might result in different kinds of injuries.
Braving all of this I reached “Matunga Road”. Without asking for directions Holmes used his “sixth sense” of topography. Now this is something one should not do in Mumbai. This led him into a “vicious circle” which did not end till a Junaid Miyan, a tea-stall owner gave him proper directions. The advise that I give you in the above lines also came from him along with the directions.The hunt for “Ramashray” was over. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the place that serves the best south Indian food in Mumbai. The idlis melt into your mouth and the sambhar seems to be straight from Tamil Nadu or Karnataka.
Supporting the Railways ably is the Bombay Electric Supply & Tram co. (BEST) which run the bus service within the city. Nostalgia sets in when the sight of BEST double deckers in old feature films run in front of our eyes. Not to forget the yellow and black cabs that ply around the city. Known locally as “Dukkads” (Gujarati for Pig), originally they were cabs run on Fiat 1100 model cars which later changed to Premier Padmini (Holmes so much misses the sight of a Premier Padmini in India now) and now cabs in all models can be found plying. No Indian city can beat Bombay as far as public transport is concerned.
The biggest problem Holmes faced in Bombay was that every face looked familiar. It was during a visit to Bandra Bandstand and Marine Drive that this problem surfaced. There were beautiful faces all around and all looked familiar. It is said that any visit to Bombay is incomplete without going to “Chowpatty”, but Holmes decided to keep the visit incomplete. The crowd was too frightening.
Initially, this problem of familiar faces was dismissed as some kind of delirium, but later this was confirmed when Holmes visited the “Roys”. Mr. Roy happens to be a classmate of Holmes since his teenage years. An extremely sharp fellow, his technical skills were always in demand. After a degree in Engineering, he served the Tatas for a while before he shifted to another MNC which weighed him in “pieces of silver”. It was during his stint with Tatas that he found his better half in “Mrs. Roy”. Now, the lady in question happens to be extremely beautiful. These two lovebirds have always proved to be the best of hosts whenever I have met them. She dishes out the best chicken biryani in town and his bar serves handsome proportions of Scotch whisky. So, the combination will attract Holmes time and again to Mumbai.
I was on my fifth helping of “Jack Daniels” when the bell rang. The hostess was out shopping and the host was in no mood to get up. I kicked him on his posterior as I got up to open the door. As the door swung, what do I see? An angel was standing in front of me with a cup in her hand.
“Hi @#$#$%” she said as she looked at Mr. Roy. “Hi &^%”, Roy replied back lazily.
“I need some milk” she said to me. I wished I was a cow, but “by Jove”, I was not. So, I walked to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and poured a cup of milk for her. As I put the cup into her fragile fingers, she smiled at me and said, “Thank you so much”. My eyes remained opened as the smile smeared itself on my heart like butter. A flustered Mr. Roy looked at me and quipped, “She is Sonia from #$%^**- the serial that is aired on ……”
Oh Yes!!! (I copied Archimedes). I was on cloud nine.
This “Oh Yes!!” continued the whole days because his apartment complex hosted more than a dozen TV artists. Mumbai is full of people from the “silver screen”. With Bollywood being based there, the city is a dream destination to all who wish to shine in this tinsel town.
This brings me to the two greatest wonders of Bombay- Bombay rains & Bombay girls. I am ignorant of Dr. Bose’s standing as practitioner of medicine but as a writer he is par excellence. The beautiful way in which he weaved a story on both these sensuous topics is simply praiseworthy. So, Holmes couldn’t help adding his own observations to them.
When the almighty turns on a faulty tap which leaks for a while before it is fixed, this phenomenon is called Bombay rains. Come July, and nature starts with a heavy downpour. It is so extreme that it brings life to a standstill. Television footage shows different walks of life reacting to it in a different manner. The poor curse nature, while the “secure and dry” elite talk of coffee & romance. Then it recedes but the drizzles continue till the last weeks of September. It keeps drizzling non-stop for days together. Any hope of the rains stopping completely is futile.
Normally, rains stop life in various cities. Life doesn’t stop here even when the heavens are pouring out. The whole city is engulfed by umbrellas. From an aerial view it looks like the earth has been engulfed by a myriad of colours. On a normal day all one can see in Bombay are people. On a rainy day all one can see is umbrellas.
It is during the rains that “Marine Drive” is the most romantic of places in the world. Holmes too decided to get drenched in the rain. Although the feeling was quite incomplete without the presence of Ms. Adler, but it was something that I could use to coax her to join me in Mumbai. A merry-making Holmes was walking down from the “queen’s Necklace” to Churchgate when a stern voice said, “Have you gone crazy? Dancing like this in the rain would kill you with pneumonia”.
The voice belonged to Jankibai. Jankibai in her 50s and lives in one of the suburbs of Mumbai. Everyday she travels two hours to and fro to sell flowers. Her clientele she tells me consists of the office-goers who get down at Churchgate and buy flowers in various forms before going to their workplaces. Her day starts at 3 in the morning and ends at 7 in the evening. How much struggle one has to go thorough to survive, Holmes thought.
Bombay girls- my face lights up as I write on them. Ladies, Holmes is a big fan of yours. Dr. Bose, I must tell you that your observations on them have been slightly incomplete as well as inaccurate. Holmes wishes to add a few more tit-bits to your observations. These women are the mascot of Bombay’s grace and charm. They portray the strength and agility of this city and its steely resolve.
The best places to observe them are the “local” railways stations. As the trains pass and one cast a glance at the “Ladies only” compartments, one can see the different women who constitute Bombay. Madam Sandra Felix lives in on Sandhurst Road and travels everyday to the “Portugese Church” at Dadar. She has been doing so everyday for the past four decades. She was on one of the trains which some miscreants blew up some years back. Did it scare her to travel in a train? Holmes’ question had a very queer effect on her. She blankly stared and got into the train as it made its way into Sandhurst road. Holmes did get the answer he was looking for.
Abhilasha Kadam was my co-passenger in the first class compartment from VT (Victoria Terminus, now renamed as Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus after the biggest Maratha Hero) to Panvel. We got talking on the way and she told me that the marathon journey from her house to VT never tired her. She was interning with a law firm which had its offices near VT. Dressed in a lawyerly white shirt and black pin-stripe trousers, she gave me a word tour of the Bombay High Court and the field of Corporate Law in Bombay. Two hours later when the train made its way into Panvel station, she bid me goodbye and walked her way into the crowd. I would never see her again but she had made her mark on me.
It is the gritty determination of these womenfolk and their confidence which make me appreciate them so much. In one of the compartments, I saw an upper middle class girl reading Kafka’s “Amerika” and in the same compartment a group of ladies returning from the office were chopping vegetables. What a sight. This could never be seen in any other city of India. Where can one two such different kind of women coming into close contact of each other in their daily lives?
Now guys, please at no point think that Holmes took a disguise to get such details. You can compliment my sharp sense of observation for that.
Another piece of addition I wish to make is the”Bombay Spirit”. This is a city which will never be short of it. Anything may come by, anything may happen, but the spirit and morale of the “Mumbaikar” will never be found lacking.
Assistant Sub-Inspector Sharad Mulshankar Gaitonde retires from his service in Mumbai Police in a few months time. These days he is posted at Juhu. In his prim and proper uniform and his peak-cap by his side, he sipped a “cutting” (A “cutting” is a portion of tea which is over in 3-4 sips. This peculiar portion originated in Bombay and is an integral part of it) on a roadside joint. I approached him asking for directions to Colaba and then tried to strike a conversation while I ordered a cup of coffee. Initially, he was very reluctant to talk about his profession to a stranger like me. So Holmes had to use the old method to befriend him. When I offered him a Benson & Hedges cigarette, he did not miss the opportunity (After all cops in India never refuse anything they are offerd).
Then he got talking. He was an eye-witness to two of the most gruesome happening in this city. In the 1993 bomb blasts, he was a constable on rounds near the Air-India building when the blast took place. And when the terrorists attacked on 26th Novemeber, he was in a Patrol car near colaba. Both the incidents are fresh in his mind. One sentence of his is fresh in my mind, “I have seen enough bloodshed in those two days to last a lifetime. But that will not dampen my spirits. I shall serve the “force” till I retire”.
As me and ASI Gaitonde talked suddenly a chaos broke out. I was surprised. In a cool voice he said, “Amitabh Bachchan must have come out to his balcony”. What a city! What a city! Holmes did not even realsie that he was standing in front of his house. ASI Gaitonde added, “Earlier they came to see him. Now they come for Asihwarya Rai”. Holmes smiled at the grey-haired man whose irritation with the crowd was clearly visible on his face. He called a constable and asked him to disperse the crowd.
Bombay evens out everybody. From fishermen to milkmen, from middle level babus to well-dressed executives, from top-notch Investment Bankers to coquettish starlets, from industrialists who drive Indian economy to entertainers who drive India crazy—everybody shares Bombay. It doesn’t belong to anybody. Even the regional elements who tried time and again to stake a claim to Bombay being theirs failed miserably to do so.
In the end- it is the spirit of Bombay that survives and triumphs. Victoria Terminus may turn into Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Parven Babi might fade away to give place to Katrina Kaif, a new economic scandal may come and go, even the nature of attacks on Bombay may change, but one things remains standing upright- The spirit of Bombay. It is the grit and determination of these people which keeps this city standing on its feet. People like Assistant Sub-Inspector Sharad Mulshankar Gaitonde, Abhilasha Kadam, Madam Sandra Felix, Jankibai, the “Roys” and of course, the bubbly Ms. Rao.
Shalom! Bombay.
