Celebrate BandraBuggers!

Coming to you live On the 26th and 27th Nov at 7:30 PM at The Hindustan Lever park near St. Anthony’s garage, extension of St. Paul Road BANDRABUGGERS Vignettes of Bandra . by Denzil Smith, Neal Neil and Neale, Fiona Miranda, Brian Tellis, Asif Ali Beg, Naresh Fernandes, Leandro Dsilva, Anita the traffic warden,Keith Pereira, Aylma Curry with maybe a little Q & A after A few posts are also in the Celebrate Bandra brocure.

Field of Dreams

As a great blogger once said. It may be Mumbai in Marathi but its Bombay in English. Always. What we see in the map of Italy as Florence will always be Firenze to the Italians. And the people who live there are Forentines. Unless you’re an Italian in Goa. Where if you’re a Florentine , you’re in Saligao.
Head down the CHOGM road from Calangute towards Mapuca. On the left you pass houses with tile roofs, pigs in slumber for the night and 20 foot wide buses roaring down a 10 foot wide road, occasionally. You see a blot on the landscape called Cottage Industries or Cottage exposistion or some similarly named tourist trap. Next to it is a field. Next to it is a field. Full of cars and motorcycles. Somewhat eerie. Lots of vehicles. No people. Quiet. A Maruti Tourist taxi van emerges from the lane next to it. You had’nt even seen that there was a lane on this new moon night. Park in the field. Walk down the newly unveiled lane. Dirt track actually. You can feel the buzz and around the corner you see a ten cars and thirty bikes in a space meant for three. Bikes i.e. The parapet of the well on your left has a few Ronaldo and Beckham fans sipping beer. Their fan-ness being proclaimed by their T shirts. Green and yellow and blue and white against a backdrop of red laterite. The unfortunates, of which there are many who cannot find a slot on the parapet wall are condemnded to stand. And wait. Wait for a seat in this backwoods restaurant. Where the seating for the Beckhams and Ronaldinhos and Perpetua and Augustine is in front and to the right of you. Where tube lights wrapped in green and pink cellophane paper provide the mood lighting. Where music is not played because it gets in the way of conversation. While you stand near the well which happens to be just outside the kitchen. Platters of food pass in front of you. So near but yet so far. Don’t worry, as Aunty Aggie says” Hunger is the best sauce”.
People move out, satiated. You glare at the table in your field of vision.
For crying out loud, do you have to take such small bites of your bibinca.
The heavens part and you are called to the table. The menu runs to two pages. Ignore it. Order Chicken Cafreal. And poi. And Feni or Urak if it’s that time of the year. Yes Feni and Urak are proper nouns in my lexicon.
While you wait admire the plastic furniture, the fake flowers, the beer glo signs. Because once you taste the cafreal you will remember nothing else. The Feni comes first. Home stuff. Not that factory made stuff they sell in the wineshops or at the Fort Aguada. { The Fort Aguada bit is hearsay } . And then comes the cafreal slapped down with not even an iota of the respect it deserves. If you use a knife and a fork to eat it then leave now and never return. Chunkofy [ break into bite sized pieces] the poi. Dip it into the gravy and go straight to heaven. Where as the flavors become a part of you Lorna bursts into song, you property dispute with the neighbour pales into insignificance and your neighbours daughter who was a runners up for Miss Tivim asks you to dance with her. And that’s just the first bite.
Repeat order soon enough for the food and the beverage. There’s a family at the entrance glaring at you. Murder in their eyes when they hear the repeat order issued. “Damn Bombayites” you hear in angry undertones.
So in a spirit of charity you forsake the bibinca and call for the bill. The crowd at the well has gotten larger. Some of the parked bikes have been commandeered as waiting benches. The glasses perch nicely on the flat tank of the hero Honda. They tend to slide on a Bullet. But the Bullet seats are wider.
Back to the field. Home and back to your dreams which till just last night were real.

Disclaimer. :- My friend Jack[ who first took me to Florentines thus making himself eligible for canonization] tells me that the competition is trying to give Florentine a bad name by claiming that pork fat is used to cook the chicken. Of course the appropriate response to anyone who tries to malign the said restaurant with the aforementioned statement is “ Who Cares?”

Down on your knees!

Head down to St. Peters church. [ Bandra not Rome]. Whether you’re catholic or not. Or Non. At 10.00 am on a Sunday morning. Hang at the back half of the church. The usual stuff. Prayers for the faithful. Petitions, thanks givings, sermon, offertory etc. etc.
Communion. Now sit down. Close your eyes. And let the music of the choir come to you. Till the saxophone steps in. It lifts you up. Think of all the superlatives you know. Then double them and it might begin to say what you feel. In fact I may even be dead and in heaven. Unlikely. Dead? No. The ending up in heaven bit.
Cat Stevens ‘Morning has broken”. An inspired song. An inspired rendition. While the lines shuffle on. While the dog that wants to get out of the muck tries to find a dry spot beneath a pew. While prayers are finished and positions change from kneeling to sitting.
And as the last notes draw out, you change from sitting to kneeling once more. To give thanks and give praise. Praise for the music,…[ Thank you Cat Stevens and thank you Rhys ].
And the reason you hang at he back of the church is that the acoustics are better there.

Rhys:- On Saxaphone
Merlyn:- On organ and keyboards
And if Fr. Jerry preaches the sermon that’s an added bonus.

Win -Win.

I know. I know. It's a marketing gimmick. But it sounds like a lot of fun. So go enter http://www.greatdrivingchallenge.com. You might get to pass go. And you might get to collect the million bucks. A win win situation for all concerned.

What's Leonardo got to do with it?

You get married and you have children. They cry for food. You give them food. They cry because of a wet diaper. Abracadabra. Wet diaper gone. They look up to you like you look up to God. They ask you questions and you reply. A for apple B for Ball Z for Zebra. You begin to feel a little bit like God. All knowing , all powerful. You are. In the kids eyes at least. Then it starts to get tricky.
“Why is the sky blue?”
“I’ll tell you later, first finish your milk.”
“If Grandpa is in heaven and can see me why cant I see him?”
“Go to sleep now it’s late.”
“Why do you have hair there and I don’t?”
“Lets finish our bath quickly, Mummy’s waiting.”
They now know you have feet of clay. Even though you hide them with Nike’s. So the questions stop coming as frequently. They learn how to Google and Wiki is a verb not a noun.
We walked into Josy’s house for dinner. On the wall hangs a poster of The Vitruvian Man. We were made to study that piece of art in college. Da’Vinci’s incredible mind at it’s peak. While he churned out designs for helicopters and submarines. He also studied the proportion of mans fingers to palm of palm to feet and arms to height and width. An antiquated poster that is a conversation starter. So we are looking at it when the child to whom till so recently I was a combination of Albert Einstein, Jesus and Barrack Obama piped in.
Child :- “ Why don’t you put a mirror on the opposite wall”
Josy [ Host for the evening] & Me aka Einstein aka Jesus aka Obama :- “Why?”
Child:- “ So that you can read what ever is written in the poster.”
Josy [ Host for the evening] & Me aka Einstein aka Jesus aka Obama :- “What?”
Child:- “It’s mirror writing.”
Josy [ Host for the evening] & Me aka Einstein aka Jesus aka Obama :- “Bull!”
Child:- “Daddy can I have some Pepsi?”
Josy [ Host for the evening] & Me aka Einstein aka Jesus aka Obama are scrutininsing said poster. Give up said scrutiny in favour of Old Monk.
The next morning I call on the all knowing Gods of Google. Yes. Da Vinci used mirror writing for the Vitruvian man.
My feet of even clay are quickly dissolving into dust.

Save it for a Rainy Day

If it was raining when you went to sleep, you prayed. Very hard that it would rain thru the night. At the intervals when you woke up during the night and heard the heavens continuing their downpour you kept your fingers crossed. When the newspaper was not outside the door like it was every morning., you knew you were almost there. So you got into your Duckback raincoat and went to school and halfway there you met Joe-Boy who was on his way back and he gave you the news that it was a rain holiday. Thank you God. That’s why I believe in you. Not for the ascension and the holy trinity and the sacrament of confession. But because you can change a day on which we had a Marathi test scheduled, which I was going to fail in , into a holiday. Now I promise I’ll study for it and never leave things till the last minute again. But first let me get home and change. Out of the uniform and into old clothes that nobody minded you getting dirty.
Then onto the World Cup. A football game played on the road. Which by then would be under six inches of water. So the ball floated. When their was imminent danger of a goal being scored it wasn’t against the rules to kick a spray of water into the potential scorers eyes effectively qualifying him for dark glasses and a white cane.
You had to watch out for the gutters on either side of the road whose 3’ depth was made invisible due to the law of physics that says” Water finds it’s own level”. If you didn’t you were suddenly dwarfed and kicking against concrete instead of the ball.
The football game done we’d be back home scrounging. Scrounging for the motor boat we’d bought at the Bandra fair. The one with the candle in the middle that went round and round in circles. The candle was lifted off the altar and cut into sections that would fit into this yacht that Onassis would have been proud off.[ When he was 3 ] A cigarette lighter would be begged for after a million attempts to light a matchsticks from a box that had more water in it than the Niagara. If you couldn’t find your motor boat then you looked for fallen coconut tree branches. With your mothers sharpest kitchen knife [ which she didn’t know had left the hallowed premises of her kitchen] you cut of the boat shaped bit from the end of the branch. With paper and cello tape you sealed off the back ‘ giving you a boat more seaworthy than the Titanic. Which you launched in the gutter. Before you had a chance to crack the champagne across the bow she’d be away. With you behind her. For that gentle nudge to keep her clear of sticks and stones and other assorted gutter filling debris. The gutter ran below the driveway of the building. Into that tunnel of darkness she went while you ran across and waited on the other side. After ten minutes you realized she’d got stuck. After having failed to find a stick long enough to reach her from either end, you decided to go down with your ship in the best traditions of sailing men the world over. But even though you went down into the gutter your 15” shoulders refused to get into a 12” drain pipe.
The rain would start to ease of. Soon it stopped and you would wait by a tree. Along came Clara and friends happy that the rain went in and the sun came out. Only to find that vigorously shaken trees dislodged a lot of water even when it wasn’t raining.
The day would end. The rain would end. Three days later you would be looking at the Marathi test paper and praying for a miracle while deep down you knew that two miracles in three days was asking for too much, even though you’d promised to only look at the board when Miss Nigli’s back was turned to write on it and not at Miss Nigli’s…….. back.

Sonia , Sonia, You are my Sonia....

Yesterday the face of our city changed. The Bandra Worli sea link opened. This now links the original seven islands of Mumbai in more ways than one for the first time ever. { Discounting the helipad at the racecourse. Because you and me baby are never going to use that }.Its actually been ready for a while. But Soniaji was’nt.
So why did they wait. Because Sonias parents wanted her to go abroad for a higher education? So did mine. Sonia thinks Indira Gandhi was one of the best leaders we ever had. So do I. Sonia has two children. So do I. Sonia’s catholic. So am I. Sonia likes pizza. Me too. Sonia speaks bad Hindi. So do I. Sonia loves having a billion people looking up to her. I would too.
So where’s the difference. I could have cut the ribbon and we’d all have been using the Bandra Worli sea link from a month ago.
Jai Hind.

Where were you?

When you heard that Indira Gandhi was shot . When you heard that Rajiv Gandhi had been assassinated. When you heard that Elvis or Kurt Cobain had been found dead. Why does it stick in your head ? The moment when you heard that there were blasts on the Mumbai trains. That terrorists had attacked Mumbai and were holed up at the Taj. The thoughts race thru your mind. How ? Why ? The details come in thru the TV and SMS’es . Thru phone calls from friends and family who want to know that all is OK with you. You call up anyone who may be even remotely connected to the danger zone. You wonder about the impact it will have on you, your city, your work, your play.
Later much later, when the immediacy is gone. You hear recounts of the incident. With the personal stories at the end. The reactions and the analysis. Rashômon, a hundred times removed.
On the 28th Sept 1978 we were on our way back to school after our lunch. Yelled out to my friend Aloysius [Ok Aloo] to hurry. He came out and told me that the BBC had just announced that John Paul I was dead. Did we worry about the impact this would have on the faithful? Or the conspiracy theories that would spring up? Or who would step into his shoes? No. All that mattered was whether the school would shut down for the day and whether the next day would be a holiday or not. When the announcement did come and we trooped back home, we tried manfully , on the instructions of our principal, to hide a joy that was not appropriate and display a mourning that for us that day was as distant as Mars.

Cry baby!

The music has gotten out of control. CD’s that are largely unused. MTV and Channel [V]. The MP3’s on the Ipod and the cell phone. Play lists on the computer. The Karaoke set the kids use. The neighbours surround sound system that has a 5.1 speaker system. It’s more like a 6.1 because it sounds like one of the speakers is in our house. The Worldspace radio, the F.M. in the car. The tune on the Aquagaurd. The tune on the same neighbours car when it gets into reverse gear. The elevator music. The hymns in church and the bhajans in the train. As we go through the day with all it’s attendant forces at play.
Of singers who mourn for loves lost , journeys not traveled , of words said and unsaid. The country singers and the rap artists. Both detailing lifes cruelties but on different canvases. The blues playing out on a rainy day. While we go from waking to REM sleep and back again with their stories being little more than the rice in our dal chaval.
I turn around from the table to see my daughter with a big fat tear rolling down her face.
“What happened Aalia?”
“It’s such a sad song”.

Yvonne falls the third time.

She ran. Chasing butterflies. The fall did’nt really hurt. The surprise to find herself a tangle of arms and legs was what made her cry. The scrapes on her knees were kissed over and she was up and running again. Chasing butterflies and wind up toys that moved further and faster than they were supposed to go.
He asked her to join him for an evening walk. Yes. The world was full of color. The love songs suddenly sounded like they’d been written for them. He thought so too.
Fifty years. He’d been gone for ten. The children many years before that. The love songs still made sense. The children called once a week. From parts of the world where they were raising their own. Morning mass, breakfast alone, lunch alone, tea alone, dinner alone. She kept the TV volume high. So that as she went from hall to kitchen or bedroom she didn’t loose the story. It was the swine flu that got her. The story had been in the news for the last week. Mexico, the United States, Canada. The TV breaking the news that the first case had hit India. She was on her way to the bathroom . The curiosoity to see where and when and how had made her turn and slip and fall. She tried getting up. Too far from the sofa to get a grip on the handle to help herself up. The TV had moved on to the weather. She was still stuck on the floor. One of the longest nights of her life. She must have fallen asleep for some time. The maid let herself in with the key from the neighbour. Helped her stand up and to the bed. Washed her up. [ She had been on her way to the bathroom ] Embarassed. The neighbours called the children to tell them what had happened. No, no bones were broken.
She moves more slowly now. The walking stick with her all the time. Sometimes, she sees the butterflies outside her window.

Twenty Questions ?

What did a blogger do before there were blogs? Where were the poems, the stories and the angst stored ? Are there diaries and notebooks lurking in family heirloom cupboards ? How did the boy loves girl, girl loves boy, boy leaves girl, girl blogs, stories pan out earlier ? Or the boy loves dog, dog gets run over, boy blogs ? Where were the memories kept ? Or was everything black and white ,so those shades of grey that are everywhere today, nonexistent then ? Was Filmfare enough information for Amitabhs and Aamirs fans ? Do you really think Amitabh writes his own blog ? Does anyone care that Benjamin Meyer and his lovely wife Jen, enjoys collecting Transformers and learning more about programming ? Were Sumeet mixers simple enough not to need Daves Technology Blog ? Were holidays a step into the unkown ? Or did you visit the offices of makemytrip.com or talk to them over the phone ? And when you got there did you send picture postcards whose stamps would be fought over back home ? Did the content of the postcard matter ? Was the name of the spellcheck you used Mother ? Who did you talk to when you got a cold ? Could you die from a cold ? Is there a support group for my life threatening cold ? Are support groups the new Ladies Sodality ?

FHC

Communion ? Communication. To commune with. The first time it happens it’s holy. And overwhelming. You have to tell your sins to a stranger. Who you hope will keep them to himself. Absolution you’re told does’nt give you a carte blanche to go forth and hit your smaller cousin again. No. Even if he doe’nt share his new bike with you ?
“ But that’s selfishness Father.”
“ God will send someone to punish him and you’re not that someone.
Three Hail Mary’s and three Our Fathers and go forth and sin no more. “
And you are given the white suit with the bow tie and the white shoes and new underwear [which was always white anyways]. So you line up outside church and march in, in procession with all the uncles and aunts on both sides of your family and all the cousins small enough who were too small to be left at home on their own and not a single one of those who were old enough to. When the priest placed that host on your tongue which you stuck out as much as you could as you had been instructed to, the earth shook and the halo fell mightily on your head. You were then dragged off to Hill studio for the requisite pictures. Before you got your white suit even more dirty. The picture had to be taken with you turned around from left to right to hide the orange Fanta stain on your left sleeve.
The only thing left to do for the party was fry the fugias. The chairs were in a circle on the terrace. The music system had been taken out from the living room [ok hall ] and reinstalled on the terrace, near the light bulb which had been tapped for electricity. The ice had been broken into small pieces and piled around the beer and cold drinks in a metal tub. The watchman had been told to keep an eye on it to see that there was no pilferage. And the chips from Blue Circle had been collected [against order ]. Uncle Ken had been commissioned to take pictures of the party. Black and white. Anyway the communion outfit is all white, so who needs color ?
You ran around playing catching cook between the chairs with the constant
‘ Don’t get your clothes dirty ‘
instruction being given by any adult who came to the terrace to check on bar arrangements, the seating arrangements, sound system, lights, pilferage of cold drinks, etc. etc. etc.
The guests came, they saw and they feasted. But they first gave you presents. Which you said thank you for and tried to not be caught in the ongoing game of catching cook before the next guest came. And when that happened you could officially call ‘Times”. The parish priest showed up. He quickly said the grace before meals even though dinner was a long way off and he had many other houses to visit. The bar got lighter by the minute. The food was photographed. You were photographed. With uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbours, friends.
“ No, you don’t need a photo with the dog “
The cashews were sprinkled on the rice just before dinner was announced. The real thing this time. Food ,glorious food. How do I love thee ? Let me count the ways. The vindaloo and sorpotel, the potato chops [ circles of geometric precision ] , chicken curry for which the chickens would have been happy to die, dinner rolls [ Go to A1 bakery now if you don’t know what that is ]. Pies with browned crusts that you received a slap on the wrist for, for attacking horizontally instead of vertically.
“ If you like the brown part wait till the dish is over and then scrape the bottom.”
“ But it’s My first communion “
“ The guest’s come first.”
Russian salad. Which no Russian on either side of the Volga has ever seen. Fish mousse in fish shaped dishes. All washed down by as many glasses of Fanta as you wanted. And accompanied by a steady stream of fugias that came straight from stove to table.
There hadn’t been a cake cutting earlier. Because the cake was going to double up as dessert. So you cut the cake. Without damaging the marzipan Jesus.
The aunties would be hassling the uncles to stop drinking and start eating. Finally they did. The kids would be rounded up. Goodbyes and god blesses. The remaining F & B sent down in dribs and drabs with each departing guest.
And when you were changed into your night clothes, then and only then were you allowed to open your presents. Future generations of first communicants would get PSP’s and IPods and DVD’s of Harry Potter or gift vouchers from Crosswords. You got enough bibles to put the Gideons out of business. More rosaries than you could go through in a lifetime. Even if you joined the Apostleship of prayer.
Gift coupons from St. Pauls, and three envelopes with money. Which you never saw again, because it was taken away to “ Put into your bank account “ Which even at that tender age you knew was a one way street . But what goes in must come out.
I’m waiting…

The mountain came to Mohammed...

Thursday was a holiday. Every Thursday. Because the Jesuits in their wisdom realized that schoolboys need a break after three days of school. Or did they need a break from the boys. So on Wednesday night we were allowed to stay up a little later. Most Thursdays were our own. To ride our cycles and shoot pigeons.
Unless the barber came. He was a thin man. All dressed in white. With a black hat. And an aluminium trunk. Bent over , a little . The kitchen stool was hauled out of the house. Yesterdays newspaper was spread out on the staircase landing. The stool then took centrestage, and you the chief protagonist sat on the stool. Three steps on the flight leading upwards, the barber placed his trunk. The lid flipped to reveal combs , brushes, scissors, cut-throat razors, creams and a white sheet. The sheet would come out and be draped around you with the tightness at the neck that threatened the oxygen supply to your brain. It had to be. Otherwise the cut hair would slip thru. He’d then ask you wheter you wanted your hair cut long or short. Long. These were the days of the Beatles and Peter Frampton. He’d snip away. While yesterdays headlines slowly got obliterated. When the cutting was done , he’d take a little steel cup ( Ok Vatee ) out of his trunk. He’d then head to the kitchen door for the required water. And you would hear your Mother tell him as she returned his water filled vatee that ‘Short’ was the order of the day. Between the devil and the devil and the deep blue sea.
“Baba [ We were all called Baba ] Mummy says short”
Damn. Goodbye John, Paul, George and Ringo.
Ok but not too short.
So the vatee would be put on hold and the scissors and comb were pressed into service once more. When Long had been morphed into Short and the days head lines went from , Black and White and Read all over, what is it ? To just Black.
Then the vatee was called upon once more and he’d lather the back of your neck. He’d strop the razor to an edge Maugham would have been proud of. Those little bristles at the back of your neck did’nt stand a chance. You held that sneeze while he had that razor going. The razor went back into the trunk and the brush came out. Loose hairs brushed away, the brush went back and the powder tin came out. To reveal powder and puff. Which would be dusted onto your freshly shaved neck. The powder tin went back in and the mirror came out. He’d hold it up in front of you so that you could partake in his masterpiece. From all angles. He’d go behind you and the ballet would unfold. Of you trying to see the reflection of the back of your head in a mirror held behind you without turning around so much that the object at the focal point of the mirror changed. The toga then came off and you would arise. And while you went to the bathroom and looked at your head for twenty minutes running in the mirror, he was busy. Packing up his trunk so that brushes and razors would hold their assigned place in the universe even after the trunk went from horizontal to vertical. Packing up all the hair in yesterdays paper. Collecting his payment from Skinhead sympathetic parent. Who would be yelling at you to go for a bath immediately.
‘ Do you want to get barber’s itch? ‘
No. Then hurry up and have a bath.
And he’d be gone. To more heads that needed lightening.
After the washing was done you were instructed to hang the clothes out on the line.
I will, but where’s the stool ?

The Joy of Flying

You get onto the plane. The erstwhile air hostess, now cabin crew welcome you on board. Plastic smile that you could make a bisleri bottle out of. But the smile cant be anything but, when you think of how often it has to be called upon. The hustle to have your hand baggage in an overhead locker as close to your seat as possible. It’s the storage of first aid kits and extra blankets that destroys the each one take one symmetry. The doors bolt and you wait. The announcements begin that the first time fliers follow avidly. The regular fliers ignore. And the second time fliers try and look like they’re ignoring but follow to make sure that if this plane becomes a boat they know what to do. Drill in school would have had us following it more closely if we had a movie of Yana Gupta showing us what to do rather than Mr. Pandey or Mr. Tamhane at PT. Even they would have followed it more closely than they did themselves. Seat belts are retrieved from below seats and butts. The cabin crew inspect you and pronounce you of sound seat beltedness and therefore certified to fly. Seat upright. Why do they do that ? Does the plane fly slower when the seats recline ? Or do does the force of gravity increase ? Or does the balance get put off if some of the seats on the left aisle recline while the ones on the right don’t ? You taxi to the start of the runway and wait. While the plane starts shuddering with enough force to work the rivets of the control tower loose. And its on your marks get set go. To that magic moment when you become one with the Gods. Hermes, Hanuman, Dirona here we come. You crane over the person in the window seat. You can see the Searock Hotel. So working backwards down what must be Hill road you can almost see home before the plane turns and you have the open sea before you. Bandra did look exactly like it does on Google Earth. Not as clear though. Maybe they photoshop the satellite image. The seat belt sign goes off with an announcement requesting you to keep it on. Was the guy whos making a beeline for the loo nervous ? Or to many beers at lunch ? But he cant get in until the crew use a ball pen to slide open the door lock. Does he normally stand with his legs crossed ? The newspaper and the evacuation card in the pocket in front of you compete with the inflight magazine. The inflght magazine wins. Why do BMW advertise their 7 series here and not in the Bandra Star ? That’s rhetorical. But the travel articles make even Dharavi look glamourous. The food trolley comes around. Veg or non veg. To a catholic from Bandra with a cross tattooed on his thumb, you have to ask ? So on the postage stamp in front of you , you lay out you starter, main course dessert, water, paper cruet set, pickle, knife fork spoon, coffee cup, stirrer for said coffee cup, napkin [ yes we say napkin not tissue. Tissue is what you cut into for a biopsy. ] water bottle, dessert and the white gloved maitre de who will assist you. The foil that covers all has you wondering where to put it as you unravel it to reveal Non-Veg.
The Brahmin with caste marks on his forhead in the seat next to you is trying to climb onto the wing. While holding both his ears and not breathe in any vapor of your Non-Veg. Ha! He put the shade down when you wanted to see wheter the clouds were cumulus or sirrius. Justice is here and now. The pickle and salt and pepper and aniseed [ ok badi shape ] you keep to give the kids to play house-house with when you get home. The food trolley comes around once more. No seconds. Just empties. They’re in a hurry. Estimated landing time is in fifteen minutes. The toilets are locked once more with the pressed into service ball point pen. The crew come around corrected the imbalance caused by reclining seats . Trays up, seat belts on. The only constant has been the no smoking sign. This is your Captain speaking. … blah blah blah. The Kenny G music comes back on. Do they give Kenny his due royalties. If all the elevators and all the planes and all the super markets that played his music paid him he’d probably be richer than the Sultan of Brunei. And it’s a touchdown. Shake rattle and roll. How do the wings stay fixed onto the plane ? You’ve seen scooter side cars detach themselves with less vibration. And sidecars have the ground for support. But the wings stay on and the plane taxis to the terminal. The cell phones start going off. Twitter has nothing on this. The seat belt sign is ignored. The cabin crew is’nt even trying to protest. You leave behind the newspaper and the evacuation instruction card. The inflight magazine you put into your bag [ surreptiously, you don’t know if you’re allowed to take it for free ]because you need more time to decide whether it’s going to be the 7 series Beamer or the string of pearls from Cartier. In front of you is the whole trip and the flight back and the rickshaw ride home,which should give you enough time to decide.

Anita

Head down St. Andrews road in a north south direction. When you can go no further , off to your left is the Vienna Stores. Its been there forever. Selling bread,chips, ballpens, matchboxes etc.etc.etc. It used to be run by a man called Peter. Peter had three daughters. Who grew up watching the traffic on Hill road get more and more and more. More buses, more cars more people. More fights. Over who had right of way. Wheter the car hit the bus or the bus hit the car. So One of Peters daughters signed up to be a volunteer traffic warden. The Traffic police trained her. They gave her a whistle and a uniform. She took her post at the junction. And traffic snarls were suddenly a thing of the past. In a neat and orderly fashion traffic flowed out of St. Andrews road. Schoolchildren were given right of way. Ambulances could actually get into Holy Family Hospital before their occupants needed the morgue instead of the emergency room. Anita held sway. Over drivers who questioned her authority. Once. Over errant rickshaw wallahs whose customers failed to tell them that St. Andrews was a one way. Or a no entry depending on your point of view. Over kids on motorcycles who thought that traffic rules were only for those who actually had driving licenses. When rush hour slackened Anita doffed her beret and headed back to the shop.
A parent at a local school was run or by one of their own school buses. DOA. An enlightened PTA called in Anita. For a span of duty every morning. To sort out the spaghetti of buses, cars, motorcycles, cycles, maids, parents, drivers and schoolchildren. Voila. Law and order reigns. Rows of children file past. From designated alighting zones. A whistle to hurry any offender off.
And after this Anita goes back. Back to selling bread and butter for her bread and butter. To being just another shopgirl. And you would never guess that this is Anita the Fearless. Who if she’d been on duty at 4.00 am one morning would have stopped Salman in his Landcruiser before it reached A1 bakery.

That thing that you do...

The day closes and the dogs are hungry. Until a car drives up. Unloading from it’s boot a meal that’s been cooked just for them. Just one of the many stops this girl makes. Giving the friendly neighbourhood strays their sustenance. Somewhere else laws are being passed. Laws that limit the freedom of your dog. A rule that says he has to be on a leash if he is in a public space. But this girl loves dogs in all shapes and sizes. She has a few medicines in her pocket. If a ear is infected a few drops are administered. The dogs know her well. Pavlovs whistle is replaced by the sound of her car engine. She does’nt find favour with most people. Who think stary dogs are a nuisance. Until their barking scares away a midnight visitor who wants their Blaupunkt car stereo. Or the junkie who thinks walking away with a manhole cover is free enterprise. It’s tough being a dog. There are fewer spaces which have mud and trees. Lamp posts and car wheels have to make do. The traffic is an obstacle course. But you know there is a doggie god when a car drives up and someone who really loves you, feeds you.
And so it goes. With the old man who has a pavement class on Carter Road. Old. Very. Probably is due VRS from VRS. Each morning. Children from nearby building sites. Sitting before the sea trying to master their A’B C’s . The O for Orange obscured by an early morning walker. No it’s not O for Parrot the old man say’s. They have only a little time before the rising sun hits their stretch of the pavement . Till tomorrow morning then.
When another day will dawn and let him once more do that thing that he does.

I have a dream...

In the CHS we live in there’s a kachra walla. We also have a paperwallah, a doodwalla, a bhaji walla, a jaripurana walla, a machi walli, and so on and so forth… And CHS for the unenlightened is Co-operative Housing society. Which means we spend three hours debating about wheter the water pump should be switched on at 7.00 am every morning or 7.01.
Our kachra wallas name is Sonu. His is a hereditary profession. His parents are in the same line of work. Between them they have the neighbourhood covered. Every morning he shows up at our door. Lugging a big plastic drum. Gathering everything we don’t want. From yesterdays banana peels to empty Old Monk bottles. He finishes his rounds and then hands over the days collection to his wife. Who does the sorting. Of all the dry goods. Old plastic bags in one pile. Paper in another. Bottles. Wire. Old shoes. The dead gold fish. Just kidding. The dead goldfish’s fate is inextricably linked to yesterdays banana peels and the sucked empty bones of the paya curry. There’s a market for everything. Cassettes, odd socks, the cardboard carton the new fridge came in, dead batteries, chipped glasses, both drinking and ocular.
Sonu is way ahead of the BMC with it’s Clean Mumbai campaign. He was segregating from when segregation was what Martin Luther King was fighting against. The actual collection pays him little. The recycling is what brings home the bacon. Or the aloo paratha. He now has a mobile phone. He gave me the number in case of 'Emergency'. It is an emergency when Sonu does’nt show up. And the goldfish’s mate has also died out of loneliness.
Sonu is green. In the truest sense of the word. With a rating the Exxons and the Union Carbide’s will never achieve. Even in their dreams.

Carols 2008

A Carol for Mumbai...
All of us on St. Anthony's Road invite you to CAROLS 2008 on Saturday 20th Dec at 7.00 p.m.R Nine years and counting.
It's fun and it's free.
The line up....
Suzanne De Mello,Beven Fonseca,Merlin and Rhys,Rajiv Raja,Prabhakar Mundkur,Gsus [Suresh Rupert and Friends],Mahia ,Clarry Devisser ,Franco Vaz,Neale Murray
& Megan,Cliffy The Pope,Brian Tellis,Jazz Junction [ Colin Dcruz, Lester Godhino, JoAnn Fds.]Jean Michael ,The Jingle Bell Dancers,Dean Gregory ,Dominique Cerejo,Cyril,Joe vessoakar And his Big Band,Samantha Edwards,Elvis Sid Meghani
The Glee Hive with Celeste Cordo ,Denzil Smith, and Bashir Sheikh.
A Carol for Mumbai with Lyrics by Asif Ali Beg and Music by Merlyn will premiere on the 20th. Holding it all together will be Sandia Furtado and Conrad Curry.
Santa's gonna be there. Are you ?Come get that Christmassy feeling again.

Jai Jai !

We were in college . A part of a group that did things together. Or did we come together because we did the same things ? Go for movies. Exchange cassettes of the Beatles and The Blue Oyster Cult. Spend hours at the USIS [ United States Information Something…? ] Waiting in line to use one of their two VCR’s to watch grainy footage that went from Martin Luther King to Jimi Hendrix . Take home our two allowed books a week from the British Council. While we worked at whatever it is college students do Jai would keep us laughing with his bad jokes.
College finished . People went their different ways. Within the country and without. Jai went to Japan. Where he worked in graphic design. For Sony. He married. And then his eyes started failing him. Retinal disintegration. Where you start going blind and all you can do is stand by and watch. And as Jai would say you can’t even do that well because your retinas are disintegrating. Right before your very eyes. Yes . That’s a typical Jai line.
It got worse and he couldn’t live without assistance. So he had to come back to India. To live with his parents because his wife did’nt want to live with him anymore. So he came from Japan where assistance to people who are visually impaired is an art form to here where assistance to people who are visually impaired is a myth.
He moved to Bangalore where he made a career shift to training. Where he talks to people he cannot see. Where he has a computer that talks back to him. Where he has to have someone with him if he moves out of his regular orbit by even a millimeter. Steps that continue past handrails that don’t. Ramps into buildings that pop out of nowhere. Roads with pavements that suddenly morph into roads without.
The group decided to meet up. Somebody was flying in from Goa, the U.S. , Delhi, Pune.
And Bangalore. From where Jai was put onto a plane by his father. With a pick up at this end arranged in duplicate. Along he came on the arm of the prettiest Kingfisher hostess. She was laughing and he looked happy. The insane conversation where you try and catch up with twenty years of each others lives immediately. And you do. Home. Where loose furniture has to be pushed against the walls. Where the bathroom layout has to be gone thru by touch. To the reunion where we ate batawadas and drank kadak canteen chai like it was Moet et Chandon of the 1864 vintage. Where we played the Eagles reunion concert. And yes for the record we never broke up. We just took a twenty year vacation [ Thank you Don Henley ].
Back home. Where the Moet and Chandon had you sleeping like a baby
[ OK Old Monk ].
The next morning Jai told me he’d heard the planes, the trains and the automobiles. The bell of the paowalla. The dudhwalla, the paper wallah, the watchman sloshing buckets of water on the cars and himself in equal measure. All the morning sounds that slip below the pale , for us. He opened our ears to the birdsong just beyond the window. To the sweetness in the voices of the kids. To the harshness with which we sometimes spoke. And the carelessness. Before white caning his way back home.

Eid Mubarak !

“Abraham!” God called.
“Yes,” he replied. “Here I am.”
“Take your son, your only son—yes, Isaac, whom you love so much—. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering. "
The next morning Abraham got up early and took two of his servants with him, along with his son, Isaac. Abraham told the servants. “The boy and I will travel a little farther. We will worship there, and then we will come right back.”
Isaac turned to Abraham and said, “Father?”
“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
the boy said, “ where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”
“God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham answered, and they both walked on together. Past the crowds that are always there in a city. Finding themselves suddenly moving in a direction nobody else was going. While the station announcer kept instructing people to go back. Alone on the platform with only a young man ahead of them. A young man in a blue shirt and black pant. A bag on his back and a gun in his hand.
When Abraham recovered he opened his eyes. To a fallen Issac next to him. Silent.
The angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
“Yes,” Abraham replied. “Here I am!” The angel said. “Now I know that you truly fear God. You have not withheld from me even your son, your only son.”

Emails from the edge...by The BB and OMS [ unknowingly the guest writer ]

Hi Clara !
How are you? I'm so glad that the attacks were way away from where you
all are. I hope your friends and families are all safe...?
I have decided to come back to B'bay again and make sure to get my fill
of good home cooked food this time... Given the huge withdrawal pangs I had
after I got back here, I also plan to be a bit more organised for my
return on this occasion. So, with that pursuit in mind, would either of you
know where I might get hold of some good bottle masala? I don't know of an
East Indian shop anywhere, but do either of you?
I hope I bump into you again (both!) this time :-)
Love !
Joe
hi JoBoy,
Bttle masala now comes in Ziplock Bags. So it's not called bottle
masala. It's Zip lock masala or ZL for short. This makes it much
easier to pack and transport. Off course the aunties who try and pack
too much into one packet have it burst upon them. Something which was
never a problem earlier. But they live and they learn. ZL masala will
be available in plenty at the Bandra Gym Xmas bazaar. 19-20th Dec. If
you're not going to be here by then let me know and I'll get you some.
Clara
P.S. we are going to the gym for the dance. Shall I book tickets for you. If yes please email me a JPEG of your gym ID card so that you don’t have to pay guest fees.

How sweet...! Thank you Clara!
I actually don't know just yet whether I will be in B'bay on those dates, as
am planning on doing a short trip during the earlier part of my visit. So
may I *please* take you up on your offer to buy me some? How big are these
bags? I should think 2 of them would be adequate. (The other up-side is that
I will definitely get to meet you, because I'll have to collect them from
you :-)
We are on for the Gym dance. Am FEDEXing a copy of my Gym ID card to you.
Don't let my mum know I'm arriving by the way - its a surprise and I'd like
to keep it that way. Thank you :-)
Joe
P.S. Do you mind not calling me Jo Boy but just Joe. Sorry but the wife says it’s silly.
hi JO Boy,
Big problem, ZL masala has had to go underground.
you know the whole copyright issue. Champagne and the use of the name
Champagne for wines not grown in the South of France. And Basmati
rice. How the Indian govt is suing Pakistan for marketing some crappy
Pakistani rice as Basmati ? So now there is a case pending in the high court. That the original bottle masala cannot be sold as ZL. So till that is resolved the sale of ZL aka Bottle Masala is illegal.
If it is the same ingredients it has to have the same name. If they are going to change the name then they have to change the ingredients. But luckily Boon Aunty on the 16th rd. has a stock of
the original bottle masala that she is selling before the cops clamp down on her. She sells them wrapped in brown paper packets so that What you don't see is what you get. We drop the money into a basket lowered from the third floor and when the basket goes up the masala packets come down. So how many do you want ? There are 100 gm 250 gm and 500 gm.
BTW the gym show is cancelled because of the terrorist attacks. Damn Pakistanis. So we’re having a terrace show. It will go on for as long as the cops let us. BYOB. Details on FaceBook group. Little Flower 2 Terrace Show.
Love
Clara

Clara!
I'm assuming that one 500g packet and one 250g packet should be adequate. thank you so much!! Much appreciated...! Can I get you anything from here. Toblerone. I’m already getting. Let me know.
Have a good one.! See you on the 22nd
Joe

Bhajiwallah Blues by Guest writer Maria de Menezes aka Marlu.

At 9.00 am I get a call from another Bandra 40+ “auntie’. “Coming for a walk?” Off I go to the reformed Lion’s Club grounds, now known as the elite “Salsette Club” which has finally prodded the officious Bandra Gym officials to upgrade their facilities so as to continue reigning supreme. Bandra Auntie says to me “You’re the only NRI I know who wears dirty runners.” Now, those runners are my trump card for getting good deals on assorted purchases. First of all, they belong to my mother (no sensible NRI would wear their own good runners on Bombay roads in the monsoon). Secondly, the shoes you wear are the key to buying tomatoes at Rs 20 per kg as opposed to Rs 40 per kg. Which brings me to the all important accessory – the Goa bag! Walk into Bandra Bazaar with dirty shoes and a Goa bag and you may be able to get away unduped. Bhajiwallas have an uncanny eye for spotting the NRI and although the inflated prices are affordable for most of us, you DO NOT want to face the wrath of the aforementioned 80 yr old when you pay double the amount you should have. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to buy all those things? These crooks know you’re from abroad and charge any damn thing.” On that note, my visiting NRI brother refrained from buying raw mangoes before checking with Mother what he should pay. “Five rupees”, Mother declared. So back he went, the vendor stated “Thirty rupees.” A tough decision to be made – Rs30 actually sounded more reasonable than Rs 5 and brother doesn’t want to end up in a fist fight, so he pays Rs 25 and both are happy. Two days later it comes up in conversation that jalli apples cost Rs 25. “What” bellows brother. “You pay Rs 25 for apples and expect me to pay Rs 5 for mangoes, that too, not in season!”
There are two possible conclusions to be drawn from this episode
Mother has not bought mangoes for fifteen years and has erred in her estimate of the price.
Mother is a bigger crook than the Bandra bhajiwallas

Go Fish in a Curry Dish !

Some kids have playstations. Their mother has a fisherwoman.
She comes down the road with a basket on her head. Stepping right out of a Mario cartoon. She’s not fat, She’s buxom. She’s not talkative, she’s friendly. She’s not a cheat, when she sells you what maybe stale fish, she’s shrewd. She’s not a stranger. She’s family. Because you see her more often than your mother-in-law. More often than your mother. The shouted “ Kolbi pahje kay bai.” preceeds her. Still looking for a new customer on a road where nobody’s moved in or out for fifty years other than for reasons of death, birth and marriage. A round cane basket on her head. A metal plate stopping drips from her basket falling onto more gold than Fort Knox has. Keeping the glorious colours of her saree glorious. She goes around to the backdoor of the cottages. Where the memsaab of the house is getting the meal for the afternoon ready. The weather, the new parish priest and the import of Rajasthani camels into the Australian outback get equal weightage. In the icebreaker discussion. Before the catch of the day is unveiled. It varies. Bombils, shark, kardi, prawns, jowla, [ The last three being the same thing just different sizes ] , Mackerel [ ok Bangada ] an so on and so forth. The memsaab has to check for freshness. The fish come up short every time. The ancestors of the fisherwoman { Rattu } are invoked. Invoked to come and testify how just that morning the fish were playing seven tiles in the waters off Chimbai. A sorting is done. From what was largely todays catch with just a little leftover from yesterdays poor sales. The price is negotiated. All the fish are returned because the price Rattu is asking for is why sometimes people are convicted of robbery. But the diesel to run the boats has almost doubled in price. The nets tear so easily now because off strange debris in the sea. The catch is so much less because of global warming. The fish are in a no mans land. Rattu pushing them out of her basket. The Memsaab trying to push them back in. Halfheartedly.
The rice on the stove boils over. The memsaab rushes to turn it off. Rattu pushes the basket out of arms reach. Keeping the still to be paid for bombils within. The Memsaab comes back to find the bombils being cleaned. Fait accompli. For both parties. Without any loss of face. The bombils leap into the frying pan without any assistance. They’re that fresh. Other than the two laggards from yesterdays downward pointing sales graph. Rattu tells Memsaab that Jo-Boy is going to enjoy his lunch when he comes home from school in the lunch break. Because of the bombils.
Memsaab agrees. The deal has been done so not fraternizing with the enemy now has no benefit.
The Memsaab helps Rattu get her basket back up on her head. She sends a Cadbury’s éclair for Rattu’s daughter.
JoBoy gets home for lunch. Asks for thirds. And Memsaab in her night prayers thanks God for the strong healthy son he has bestowed on her, and for Rattu , and her fish that helps keep him that way.

Bang Bang Boom.

It pays to know Leela .She’s a journalist. So she gets to meet up with the rich and famous. Or did circa March 1993.Her brief for the day was to meet Ian Anderson. Sometimes mistakenly called Jethro Tull. That was the name of the band, not the man.
He was on a pre concert tour of India. Staying at the Oberoi. Right next to the Air India building. Which only a few days earlier had been bombed. RDX ripping thru the lobby. Destroying things and people. The first question that Leela asked in her allotted fifteen minutes with the legend was whether he had any apprehensions about coming to Bombay so soon after the blasts. Going to India with warnings from the British Government that said do at your own risk ? Yes he did. But he was from England. He’s gone thru the antics of the IRA. Seen the damage terrorists could do first hand. If he didn’t come to Mubai the terrorists had won. Won what they set out to do. Which was to disrupt life. To dictate what you did and when. Dictated by fear. Terrorists , terrorise. But if we stay home, they win. So here he was in the lobby of the Oberoi. Posing for a picture with his flute. Balancing on one leg against the back drop of Marine Drive and the Arabian Sea. A million miles from home. On a trip nobody would have questioned him not making.
The interview went on , to musical influences, and defining moments in life. What he ate for dinner and what the next album was going to be about. And how his daughter was not a fan of his music. She wanted to know why he didn’t play some Bon Jovi covers.
That day with him, the terrorists did not win.

Barack Obouza,Rebello House, Hill Rd., Bandra.

Arre baba how he's so dark. Lets put channa ka atta on him. He's looking like a khapri with this curly hair. Don't worry.When it's little longer we'll straighten it out. With what ? The Murphy iron. On cardboard. You think my hair was always straight ?
Thank god it's a boy. If he was a girl, the ad saying wheatish complexion in the matrimonials twenty years down the line would be science fiction. Don't take him in the sun. He wants to play outside ? Only after the sun goes down .
So little Barry went to school. In a nation that sees itself as brown, in a world that has only black or white. But he being browner than most was called black. It made him reach higher. To shut out teases and taunts. The curly hair was still curly. The channa ka atta was now used for bhajjias only.
For the Christmas play he was choosen to play the Gollywog. No need for makeup. Ha ! Thru school and college. With the girls who found him funny. And laughed at his jokes. But always said no when he asked them out.
Muhammad Ali won the world boxing championship. Maybe he'd be a boxer. No. To violent. He hated violence. And what future did boxing have in India anyway ? Maybe Music . Yes. A few of his friends called him Michael Jackson already. They thought it was praise. Barry hated it. Curly hair and a dark skin, do not a Michael Jackson make !
Maybe he'd be President of the country. One day.

What they did'nt teach you at Harvard Business school.

Case Study 1: Go to the Mcdonalds on Linking road. On any given day there is a slew of entrepreneurs mobilizing their various businesses on the pavement. While far away Laxmi Mittal is busy buying a steel plant in Romania to make steel for the US market, Rajuhad bought maps. Maps that he now offers for sale. Maps that are printed in China. That have a long shelf life. That are easy to transport. [ In their rolled up form. ] That have bright colours to help them stand out from any goods his competitors may have on sale. That have a market that goes from eager school children with not so eager parents, to eager parents with not so eager school children and every one in between. Including various visitors to Mumbai in colors ranging from the blackest black to the whitest white. His marketing division works at discounts quickly. One for Rs.50. Two for Rs.75. Three for Rs. 100. The base price is determined by what he thinks the market can support. So the one for Rs.50 might a few minutes down the line be one for Rs.60. and two for Rs.80. He's quickly gone from Good to Great. From old badly printed maps that triple folded right over the equator to roll up laminated maps. With plastic tube reinforcers at either end.
The boundaries of his SEZ keep moving. In direct relation to the muncipality van from who he tries to maintain a uniform out of sight distance. The sub prime crises is the last thing on his mind. Why ? Because of unflichingly following a COD policy. No, 90 days, no 60 days. Not even 60 seconds. So cash flow is never going to be a problem for him.
He goes right to his cutomers doorstep. As they step out from their newly accquired Maruti Swifts and Octavia Skodas. While Laxmi Mittal is slowly shifting sales out of the US and towards China because of the slowdown in the US economy. Raju moves his buisness to the other side of Linking road when the parking timing changes. 9am to 5 pm parking on the eastern side. 5pm - 9 pm parking on the western side while the east is out of bounds.
He's hedged his bets on the Map of India. Kashmir , { Pakistan occupied } it says in fine print. As far as Raju is concerned The World is Flat.
A sale he knows, is made before the customer even suspects it. His antennae is fine tuned. Not wasting a minute on someone who he knows will never feel the need for a map. While going for the jugular with someone in whom there's the littlest flicker of interest.
He does'nt want to sell his Ferrari yet. Ok . His Hero cycle with the carrier attached for localised transportation of his goods. But he will one day, when he's won enough friends and influenced enough people.
Thats when he'll get the Rolls. Ok . Hero Honda motorcycle.

The Real Waiting for Godot

Guest writer DENZIL SMITH


What happened to the Bandra tramp? The lovable, popular harmless corner fixture. Whatever happened to Manu, Mario and Vincy? Bandra has never had tramps like them since…those were the days of the glorious tramp, always clothed in shirt, jacket and boots… These 'maladjusted' people as modern politically correct parlance would call them, in good ole seventies and early eighties, ran errands, entertained, dug graves and were generally loveable people who could inevitably be found at key spots in and around Bandra.



Manu always wore a coat and loose trousers. Manus territory was the St Andrews graveyard where he sometimes dug graves for a living. Manu was harmless and never drank alcohol...he was just naturally blown …. Manu was intense and yet happy…all the boys knew him and even if they hassled him,he took it in his stride, which had some sort of chaplinesque resemblances. Manu was a fakir of sorts who seemed to have reached nirvana where nothing really mattered except a good chai or khema pau… his prize for an errand run or for just being there!



When he spotted a familiar face he would rush to ask, "Guive no one ciggie". Taking advantage of this request...one of the boys would say, "Manu, Manu want four annas or what?"...Manu would nod his head vigorously in the affirmative. "Then do jig men"…and Manu would start his routine like a wound up toy let loose….he jumped up and down while he sang in his inimitable falsetto…. "Money is the root of all evil ,money is the root of all evil, take it away take it away take it away… take it away take it away take it away." He went on and on and on. As soon as he was done with he would ask for his four annas and scoot off hurriedly to Yatch.



Then there was Mario whose eyes blinked a million times each second…Mario too wore a jacket which most often than not were two sizes larger than him, with a string holding up his three sizes bigger trousers Mario was our living, walking, talking juke box…."Mario, Mario want four annas or wat" one of the boys would scream on spotting him near the Yatch from Vasants steps on which they were perennially perched discussing the intricacies of Chimbai flavours…at which point Mario would rush up to them beaming and shaking his head from side to side saying, "Yesyesyes yesyes…." till he was out of breath. Depending on the mood for the evening ….the song was decided! (Not that there was a great repertoire to decide from) "Mario sing night fever men"…and Mario would position himself very seriously like a tenor about to set forth on an aria at a concert and yell with his finger pointing in the air Travolta style, "Night fever night feveeeer….Night fever night feveeeeeeer, Night fever night feveeeeeeeeer…" Mario never went beyond that line, it would go on and on, and on like a stuck stuck DVD …After a few protests if it went on too long he was dismissed. Armed with his four annas he would rush to have some tea or just vanish into the serene night air.

When Mario and Manu were together they were our Vladimir and Estragon.



Then there was Vincy...the slickest of them all…his haunting coloured eyes and red hair made him stand out. If ever there was a living Godot, it must have been him, for Vincy never really spoke….he silently wandered about Bandra…from St. Andrews school to Mt Carmels, always with purpose and focus but never really going anywhere. That was Bandra then!

--
Denzil L. Smith

The Golden Mile.

September brings two very disconvergent souls, together. Ganesha and Mother Mary. Mother Mary who rose from the seas of Bandstand in a fishing net. To be forever enshrined at the church at the top of the hill. Ganesha who is consigned to the waters at the seas of Bandstand till September next.
So you trudge up the hill for the novena , if you’re this side of 40 or share a rickshaw with your sodality friends if you’re not. The culmination of the novena happens on the 8th. The feast of Our lady, if you’re a saint. For every body else it happens on the Sunday following the eighth. The day that every one celebrates as Bandra feast. The day that Bandra fair begins. The day that little piggies have given up their lives for. To be re-incarnated as vindaloo and sorpotel.
The day has to start with a visit to the Mount. For mass. A half hour here or a half hour there doesn’t matter. There’s a mass every 1/2 hour. You get the homily onwards from the 7.00 a.m. mass and the stay on till the homily begins of the 7.30 mass. A bit disjointed but a full mass. If only I could have got my parents to see it this way when we were kids. I tried . They never did. Time spent in church is time spent away from the fair. Quickly you bought your candles . You went into the church. You drop your candles into the crates at the foot of the altar. You genuflect before the satue. You look warily at the crazies who have prostrated themselves flat out on the floor. At other faiths who are banging their heads on the chequered Italian marble floor. At the priest who is trying to explain the difference between prasad and communion to Hari Prasad Lohia. And why Hari isn’t getting any. At the dress of woven gold that adorns the statue of Our Lady. At the balloon wallahs who lurk just beyond the gate.
Mass done. You move to the fair. The church compound is filled with church supported stalls. St. Anthony’s home for the aged. Lucky dips. Where for a rupee you can win three embroidered handkerchiefs. Or a jar of home made pickle. Or a trio of plastic flowers. Or a set of dentures ? No. Those belong to the stall manager who’s taken them off for a break. The sisters from the convent next door have a stall with sandwiches and cold drinks. Orange juice, Kala katha, lemonade. Pre coke and pepsi days these. Sweet stalls . Chikki. Gram. Freshly roasted. Freshly shelled. None of the games yet. After an hour in church hunger overrides all else. The gas balloon guys know you want one even before you do. They tie the string onto your wrist quicker than the proton goes thru the Haltron collider. It’s a cruel parent who would make them take it off. But when they try and sell you one for each hand even kind parents turn cruel. The guys with multi colored hats make a racket with their pam-para-pas. The residents around the fair are agitating. To ban pam-par-pas. They have to put up with their flower beds doubling up as spittoons. Their compound wall being the loo. Their driveway being a sheekh kebab stall. But their sleep they hold sacred. Afternoon siesta included. And this holy space where angels fear to tread is threatened by pam-para-pas.
More food. Samosas. Chole bhature. Bhelpuri.
‘ But you just ate 4 sandwiches.”
“But I’m still hungry “
“Ok eat them but when you vomit don’t tell me.”
“ Ok.”
And then to round it off dessert. You’re spoilt for choice. Candy floss. Ice cream. Gulab jams. The candy floss wins. But a deal is made with a sibling who chooses ice-cream. So that you’ll both have the best of both worlds.
The games are popping up with more frequency between ever decreasing channa and bhelpuri stalls. And in the distance you can see the top three seats of the giant wheel as they go round and round. The call of the siren. ..
So you’re torn. Rush to the giant wheel. Or get into the Well-of –Death. On whose parapet they have a sequined clad motorcycle rider. Who revs [ what seemed like a Harley Davidson to you then] to full volume. While the loudspeaker next to him says something that even he can't hear over the noise of his machines engine. So we go up the rickety wooden ladder. And the game show starts out tamely enough. With cyclists defying gravity and going around a well that if not death, meant at least a few broken bones if they slipped and fell. And then the motorcyclist came on. A few practice rounds on the floor of the well of death and he was off. Soon just a blur of motion. Riding up to within a few inches of the railing against which we stood. At that speed and at that height the Well-of-Death could easily have been the Well-of Death. But it never was. Then came the special attraction . A woman was going to go into the Well-of –Death. Fanfare music would roll out from the tinny Ahuja speakers. A hush settles over this woden framed amphitheatre. And in a flash the said woman would be looking Yama in the face. A flash of flying hair . The jumpsuit with sequins the same as her predecessor. And when she finished her round she pull up at the bottom of the pit. And take a quick bow. Before vanishing into the little door cut into the side. And only those spectators right in front of her caught a glimpse of her Adam’s apple as she vanished.
Onwards Christian soldiers. On to the girl Snake Girl. Who had a head of a girl and the body of a snake. In badly sewn rexine. Which dangled below the table on which she lay. Rolling her large kohled eyes. Which at ten years old had seen it all and then some.
“ You want more candy floss ? You’ll get worms. I swear there must be a hole in your stomach. “
But you got more candy floss. And the worms. Well we’ll worry about that bridge when it’s time to cross it.
The laughing gallery was for fools. Who wants to pay good money to laugh at themselves ? Lots of people . So we laughed at them laughing at themselves . For free. Jo-boy , Clara, their fourth cousins from Borivli. Third cousins from Andheri. Second cousins from Santacruz and first cousins from Khar are spotted. So we stop. We kiss. Sweaty cheeks. Ours must be sweaty too. And candy flossed. We say “ Happy Feast” We promise to visit each others houses in the course of the week. Jo-boy slips some money into our pockets. Mother says “ NO.” Half heartedly. We try and give it back. Half heartedly. Jo-Boy insists.
That was a bonus.Which vanishes. When we try and toss five inch diameter rings over six inch long soaps and watches in seven inch long cases. And two inch long matchboxes. But we feel happy. Walking away with the most expensive matchboxes we’ve ever had.
There’s a table at the side of the road. Where an artist sits with his pallete of water colors. Coloring the black and white pictures that are being shot behind him. Behind sheets of black cloth. He has his work cut out for him when someone wants their whole head including their hat of many colors, colorized. So we agonise over where to pose. On the moon. A-la- Neil Armstrong. The moon is in profile. And we could stand on the bench behind it so that we crest the surface. Or the jeep. An open jeep. With a gun strapped to the front. Or the cardboard motorcycle. Hardly Davidson it says on the side. [ I made that up. But it should have ] And we finally pose in front of the Taj Mahal. The sight of whose badly plagiarized proportions would have made Mumtaz head for the family court in Bandra East and claim maintenance from Shahjehan for Aurangzeb.
Come back in 30 minutes. Coloured ? No black and white.
Into the hallowed portals of “ The September Garden “ we enter. Giant wheels and merry –go-rounds. Hot dogs and ribbon sandwiches. September Kings and Queens of the future manning games stalls. Test your hand. Trace the 1mm wire with a 3mm loop. And the minute one touches the other. Bells ring and lights flash. And the crowd watching you sighs in disappointment. They wanted you to win.
Candles on a board. Light twelve candles with one match and walk away with one Rasna bottle. Two blisters later you havent been able to light up even seven candles. Who likes Rasna anyways ! You try and kick the ball thru the hanging tyre. Now you know why you’re in the B team. You try and knock down a pyramid of empty cans. With three balls. From a million miles away.
Knock the bottom row out first.
Throw the ball really hard at the table and the cans will all fall down with the vibration.
The advice flows fast and furious. Nothing works. You aim for the table and hit the lampshade in the adjacent White Elephant stall. Thank god its plastic. You softly lob the next two balls onto the cans. But there are still more cans vertical than horizontal. You move to the hockey stall. Where you have to shoot the ball into a sideways lying 1kg Dalda dabha. You shoot twice imperiling said white elephant lampshade once again. For the third shot you close your eyes and shoot blind. And the Rasna bottle is finally yours.
Your budget is exhausted. And the family has to go to Uncle Giles’s house. Who almost lives in the fair. For lunch. Which will draw cousins from the far flung reaches of the city. From Khotachiwadi to Rathodi. Where Aunty Maries fugias make you go down on your knees and shout Alleluia. Where Uncle Giles will slip you a glass of shandy while he tells your Mom “ See crow !”
The giant wheel line reaches all the way to the niches of Mt. Carmels graveyard now. So we might as well save that for another day.
A detour from the strip is called for.A side exit past Suapri Talao. Which carries the remanants of the fair. Spread on sheets on the ground are fair worthy but not stall worthy items. Glass birds that alternately dipped and rose and dipped and rose. Ad infinitum. Filled with blue and green and red magical liquids. Motor boats that putt-putted their way interminably around a plastic basin. Powered by a little lamp. Doll house sets of furniture. In steel. In wood. In plastic. Earthen ware piggy banks. For whose contents you would have to break the bank. Posters spread out on an obliging compound wall. A wide angle shot of the grand canyon with Rhonda Byrne like quotes superimposed on the Colorado river. A younger happier Amitabh Bachan. Sacred heart of Jesus cheek by jowl with Zeenat Aman and Rekha. The resident of a building is disputing an entrepreneurs right to use said residents’ building gate as a display stand for his assortment of belts. Leather, cloth, metal and plastic. Coiled and looped obscuring the wrought iron lettering that proclaims. Av_ Mar_a Co_op Hsin_ So_y. Water filled balloons with long rubber cords attached make yo-yos. A little fragile. Assortments of plaster of paris fruits. In Gauguinesque colours. Replicas of birds. With plaster bodies and sequined eyes. But real feathers. Chains with little crosses below. Rings in brass and copper and aluminium and bronze. A stray channawalla. Who has a cane stand with all his wares contained in one basket. Makes for a quick getaway when the munciaplity descends on them. Because they’re off license. As you walk past you are implored to buy. Implored to Give. To assorted beggars. With an assortment of body parts gone wrong. The fascination for fingerless hands and legless torsos is something the adults don’t share.
“But how does he go to the toilet Mummy.”
“ Don’t ask silly questions now. Hurry up .”
Past the Supari Talao and on to Uncle Giles and Aunty Maries house. Where the noise of cousins who met each other only last month leads you to believe they are meeting after twenty five years or more. Where the cake and fugias are a pre cursor of good things to come. All the men of the family led by Giles himself are at the Mount. Where they organize communion lines and collection boxes. Priest’s vestments and visiting choirs. The women in the family keep the invading hordes at bay. With mince filled scones and patties. While news that they told each other over the phone yesterday is retold once again in person. The boys repair to the terrace to fly kites. Overtures are made to generous uncles. About how the money ran out at the September Gardens. About how at the ice cream stall there were so many flavours but so little cash.
The pillars that hold up Mount Mary's basilica are back. Tired from a duty that has had them on their feet from 5 in the morning. More wishes. More kisses. More shandy. For me. The piggie is being readied for his transfiguration. From piggie to protein. Sorry fats. Someones spectacles are borrowed to help him look cool. A lit ciggarete clamped between his jowls,helps him take his execution like a man.The pies are withdrawn from the oven. The moile and vindaloo ladled out into the serving dishes. The fugia bowl readied on the table. It follows the law of diminshing returns. Every time you return from the table, bedroom, terrace, bar, the fugias in the bowl diminsh. But Aunty Marie's largesse knows no bounds. And the fugia bowl replicates the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. So we all gather for the grace before meals. And then settle down to eat, eat and eat. After which the children ready for another foray into the fair. The parents are settling down to a siesta. One uncle is coerced into forgoing his siesta to escort the kids back to the fair. Where the line at the giant wheel, in the heat of the afternoon sun now has only the requisite mad dogs , Englishmen and us. Soon we're screaming our way in circles. Looking down at Bandra from a height we've never ever seen it from. Crammed four in a box meant for two. Getting that sinking feeling as the box plummets down to earth from a seemingly unrecoverable drop. The wheel goes faster and faster and just when you think it's going to help you become a replica of the Endeavour,it slows. Then the whole film played out backwards. And that for most of us was the high point of what was the Bandra Fair.

Goodnight you Princes, you Raja's of Bandra

There was a little room on Bazaar road. A sign outside grandiosely announced it as Raja Bar. It had no bar counter. It did’nt have waitresses in frilly mini skirts a la Vegas. It did’nt even have a resident band. What it did have was the quarter system. Which made it more popular than if it did have mini skirted waitresses. You were served your choice of poison in a quart bottle. Which was plonked on your table with as little ceremony as Phelps third gold.. The choice of chatna was short. Boiled eggs or boiled eggs. On good days the menu stretched to fried fish. The fillers were water and water. On good days it stretched to a soda. There was no TV and there was no music player. There were the regulars who had not just their favorite table but their favorite chair at the table. Because often times because of the space crunch you found yourself sharing a table with a stranger. Not really a stranger , because the stranger was someone who was there every evening. Just somebody you hadn’t had a chance to discuss the existence of God with and the political scenario that would cure all of our countries ills. A situation that remedied itself as the evening wore on. And the quarters piled up. They weren’t cleared from the table. Because when you called for your bill,the waiter tallied the empties and knew how much to bill you for.
And you did feel like a Raja in Raja bar. Occasionally the cops would drive by and shut the bar down for a while. So every one would troop out. The owner and the cops would get into a huddle. The hafta would change hands. The cop would request the owner not to re-open until they were back at the station. Enjoying a the variety of a few boiled eggs as accompaniment to their dal chawal dhabba. And the owner would say sure. And re-open the bar as soon as they had turned the corner. And back in we’d all troop. The empty quarters still in place on each respective table so that the billing did’nt get messed up.
The tables were steel. Guaranteed to stand up to glasses being banged down a million times. Easy to clean the spillage of an over emphasized point of view . You would hear the occasional shout “ Daddy “ from the doorstep. “ Mummy says come home immediately.We’re waiting to eat khanna “
And with everyone's eye on the offender he had no choice but to say
‘ Tell her I’ll be back after an hour.”
While he quickly downed what remained of his quarter and slunk away and was at his dining table in time for the grace before meals.
Raja Bar shut down . I don’t know why. Frankie's and Joe's at Chimbai are history. Little known history. But still history. Frankie's wife now takes catering orders. And Mosambi and Santra are only available at the fruit wallah. In the form they grow on trees. Not the way you got them in quarter bottles at Raja Bar. Which is the way God intended them to be.

Dirty Linen.

In the passage of our house stood many things. A shoe rack. A book rack. A clothes line suspended from the ceiling. And the dirty clothes box. 4’ high and a 2’ square in plan.The name says it all ? Not really.
There was a flip lid at the top. Which you lifted open and threw your dirty clothes into. When the box was full you opened a little door on one of the sides at the bottom of the box. Unloading the box was then a piece of cake. The sides were slatted for the upper half of the box. This stopped the clothes from getting musty. And allowed the monitoring of level of dirty clothes in the box. And allowed your mother to determine which day would be laundry day. And after the laundry was done the box was pressed into service once more. To stand on to reach the ceiling suspended clothesline and hang the recently evicted inhabitants of the box.
The box really came into it’s own when there was a game of hide and seek. Even the littlest inhabitant of the house could open the side door and crawl in.Then smother herself in the dirty clothes. So that visibility of any human form thru the slats was zero. All would be well until a larger inhabitant would decide that the dirty clothes box was the best place to hide. His chosen point of entry would be from the top flap. And the muffled screams that would emerge from the box when the new inhabitant of the box settled on the head of the old would give the game away.
When the fans had to be cleaned the box was pressed into service as a make do ladder. When the house needed painting the painters were allowed to use it. But only after the promise of it getting a new coat of polish was extracted.
The dirty clothes box was living on borrowed time though. The washing machine soon made it semi redundant. And when the washing machine came out with a built in spin dryer every day could be wash day. The washing machine triples up as dirty clothes box, washer and dryer. An aluminium ladder that folded neatly onto the loft allowed you to get the cobwebs off the fans.
The Mother does’nt have the heart to get rid of it. So it still sits in the passage. It’s used to store the Christmas tree that folds away in two parts. Boxes of packed away decorations.
The Mother notices her favourite tee shirt that says “Worlds Best Mom “
[ Sent by the now NRI ,littlest inhabitant ] missing. She used it just last week. Thieves . The maid ? The plumber who came to fix the washer in the kitchen tap last week ? The monkey that was trained to go into peoples houses and steal ?
It turned up at Christmas time.

The Twelve Steps

Mt. Carmel’s church is a gracious host. To the school kids of St. Aloysius. To her parishioners who troop in for mass. For burials and first holy communions.To the September Gardens with it's Giant Wheels and merry-go-rounds. For a meeting that happens once a week.
A meeting where each attendee introduces himself and confirms his addiction.
"My name is Tony G. and I am an addict."
Alcohol and drugs. What to most people are social pleasures. To everyone at the meeting is a Ravana. A hundred headed monster that has destroyed their lives. Fathers, sons, teachers, officers, peons. People who come from worlds that never collide. A world where they cease to function as a father , as a provider, as a husband. A world where most waking moments are given to feeding a hunger that is destroying them. And with them the people in their orbit. Where getting to the Auntie’s at Chimbai wins out over getting to the office on time. Where the sideboard your grandfather made with his own hands is sold to the jaripurana walla. The cashier at Pinky Wines and BoozeUp trades in hard cash. Not sideboards or wedding rings.
The children turn inwards . The wife to novenas . Which work. And Tony G. finds himself at Mt. Carmels basement with the will to change. Where he meets with a man called Fr. Joe P. Who gives introduces him to Ramesh C. , Imtiaz M, Gurpreet S. , Solomon E. and so on and so forth. And every day he struggles. To stay away from his Ravana. Just that one day at a time. Counting it out. Ramus been clean for 36 days. Imtiaz for 104. Guru hit a hundred days and figured one little drink would’nt hurt. If he could stay clean for a hundred days… he’d be able to stop after one drink. He was wrong. Sol’s first anniversary of being clean was coming up.
Prayers in the morning. A simple meal. House work. Sweeping and mopping this basement that was now home. Yoga. Meditation to try and exorcise the demons in him for ever. The first few days are the hardest. Shivers and chills. Someone stays with him all the time. A new kid comes in. His mother has come to drop him off. He’s never spent a night away from home.
They’ve moved from taking to giving. Of their time as they arrange the chairs in the quadrangle for Sunday mass. And clear it out so that it’s free for the kids to play the next morning. Of helping with the household accounts. With the marketing for which they would go in pairs. So that if you started to fall there was a shoulder to hold you up.
The wife and kids dropped by for a visit. He introduced them all around. They went across the road to the Irani’s for a cup of tea. The shame that had always been there but he had’nt seen, he now could. It almost made him head straight for the usual path to oblivion. Almost.
So it went. A day at a time. Till he felt he could get back home. He was back at Mt. Carmels for the meeting every week. The years moved on. At the kids weddings he toasted them with a Coco Cola. The wife did’nt insist they go into every party late and leave early anymore. { It used to cut down on his drinking time }. He did. Because he knew how fragile he was. Even now. And how fragile he will be. Right to the very end. Where his epitaph will read
"My Name was Anthony Gonsalves."



p.s. Ossie was the man who held it all together at the AA centre in Mt. Carmels.Fr. Joe's right hand. And he was ably assited by Rex. Silver haired and looking like a film star even when he was in the throes of recovery. And Smitthy and Russel who now help others from their so very different points in the universe.

Rainy Day People...

MRF always has a rain day announcement. Trying to predict the day the monsoon will descend on Bombay. They don’t usually get it right. So the next day they run an ad saying ‘we got it wrong but aren’t you glad you’re ready for the rains with your new MRF tyres. And we wait for the rains to come. Eagerly, at first and after a few weeks anxiously. Crops start dying in far away fields. Vaitarna and Vihar lakes are close to being empty. Prayers are read out in church. Novenas are made. And then on a day the weather report says will have lots of sunshine and no clouds. The rains come. Umbrellas are taken down from the top of the Godrej. Raincoats are washed clear of the powder they’ve been preserved in over the last year. Rain shoes are tried on only to find they’ve shrunk while in storage. [ No ! my feet could’nt have become fatter. ] Wipers are fitted back onto cars. Because you’ve removed them before the local junkies did. Theres a solution called Anti-Rust that goes onto all the chrome that makes it shine like gold . Theres a choice of anti-rusts. Gold or bronze. While all the anti-rust that gets left behind on your fingers only makes them black. And sticky. But it keeps the rust away.
The rains came down. And the floods come up. The gutters either drain the rain water efficiently or choke like when you had to have the bitter jaundice medicine.
. It depends on the tide. High tide , and the rain water can’t get out. Low tide, and our gutters runneth smoothly into the sea. Paper boats are dropped into one side of the sewer that runs beneath the driveway. And applauded when they emerge unscathed on the other side. The little streams that run above ground don’t have enough of a draft for our nautical masterpieces. The bit of palm leaf at the point where it joins the tree makes a perfect boat. Kon Tiki inspired . You paint it. You sandpaper it. You christen it. And then you don’t have the heart to put it into the gutter to test it’s seaworthiness. So you put it in the showcase.
If it’s raining when you go to sleep, you pray very hard. That it might continue to rain very hard. So hard that the next day will be declared a rainy day holiday. The newspaper gets delivered . Not good. If the paper could come to you then you are probably going to be able to get to school. You set off with your socks rolled up in your pocket . You’re instructed to put them on only when you are in class. You’re told not to splash in every puddle between home and school. You’re told to keep your raincoat cap on. You’re told not to forget your raincoat in school on the way back.
You try to get as close to the puddle the bus has to splash thru in before it can proceed. What are raincoats for?
You get to class. A sorry and washed out bunch. Raincoats dripping over the railing. The floor a mix of mud from the playground and the rainwater still leaking thru a not very watertight roof. Fifty raincoats. One umbrella.[ the teachers]. A few wet socks on top of the raincoats. [ Everyones mother didn’t have the foresight of yours.] Books are removed from plastic bags that are removed from schoolbags. A little smudge from where the water managed to get thru the double fold of the plastic bag. And as you settle down a notice is brought to the class. The school is shutting down because of the rain. Did you hear the cry when the Israelites trumphed over the Egyptians. Did you hear the cry when Dhoni and gang won the ODI world cup? Did you hear the cry when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon ? If you heard all these you’ve still heard nothing. Till you’ve heard the cry of 2500 boys who are informed that instead on spending the next eight hours at a desk ,they are free. Free to play football in the rain. Free to sail paper boats in overflowing gutters. Free to try and swim in the 18 “ of water that might flood St. Pauls road. Free. Free. Free.
You rush home. Past stranded cars and motorcycles. Which seem to be wheel less in the rising waters. You stay far from the edge of the road. Where the fine line that divides road from gutter is a thing of the distant past. You give the corner dustbin a wide berth. Some of it’s contents still sail pretty close to where you are. You dump bag school bag and raincoat and socks [ now soaked ] and shoes and school uniform. And set of to enjoy what the raingods have bestowed upon you.
And so it goes. Two days of rain. Three days. A week. The washing is hanging from the backs of the chairs around the dining table. The electric mains are switched off every time the water in the staircase threatens to get to know the meter box in a biblical way. The top woman .[ I love that word. Top woman . Is it because she’s on top of everything ? There’s no such thing as top work. Work is work. Is it because shes top dog in this cluster you call home. Though you’re father thinks otherwise. He does’nt think he’s top dog. He thinks it’s your Mom. ] I digress. The top woman’s house is under water. So she hasn’t shown up for work. Understandably so.
Prayers are now being said to ask God to turn it off. Novenas to mitigate flood damage.
Anthony of Anthony’s Car and Body works is happy. Even the anti rust hasn’t been able to withstand the rain gods fury. The sun comes out. The dining chairs are swiftly emptied of wet clothes. And so it goes. Till the Duckback raincoats are re-powdered and put away once more. The wipers are put back into the dickie. And the fall of rainwater trickling down your open skywards turned mouth becomes a “Was I dreaming ? “ moment in the heat of Mumbai.

The Ambassador for Peace and Goodwill.

A car is a car is a car ? Not true. A car would be either a fiat or an ambassador. Power steering . Yes. He was called Darjee the Driver. Tinted glasses ? Yes. There were little curtains strung on wires across the windows. Air conditioning ? Of course. There was a fan mounted on the dashboard. In the summer you put a khus mat on the roof. And you kept it damp. This kept the heat of summer away from the car. Bucket seats ? Only when you were on your way to the beach and the littlest sat on an upturned beach bucket between the seats. A luggage rack on the roof was a given. For suitcases . For trips out of town. For a seating platform when a little elevation was required. Like when we needed to look over the airport wall at the first ever Jumbo Jet. Or for ringside seats at the Supari Talao football game. Floor shift gears ? No way. It would get in the way of four people sitting on the front seat.
For a trip out of town a waterholding canvas bag was required. It would be strung up in front of the radiator. And halfway up the ghats on the way to Poona or Goa or Nasik, the temperature indicator would be hovering in the red zone. You stopped. You opened the bonnet.You waited for the radiator to stop its gurgling. Then with a duster in hand you took the radiator cap off. Stepping back as far and as quickly as you did when you almost ran into the principal outside the New Talkies matinee in the middle of a school day. Old Faithful had nothing on the geyser the radiator shot up. You then took the canvas bag and emptied the contents into the radiator. With the engine running. Otherwise the cold water on the hot engine would split the gasket. And everyone would be rounded up quickly including the visitors from the local Sulabh Sauchalay [ Ok Ok behind the Banyan tree. ]
before the now green temperature gauge started seeing red again.
For funerals the hoi polloi crammed into the bus if the burial was beyond walking distance from the house. The car would be commissioned for the newly commissioned widow and family because grief does’nt let you walk. For VIP visitors [ Parish priests and Mothers-in-laws ] the car would be trundled out for the short ride home. For occasional trips to the wholesale market in Dadar this chariot of the gods would be reduced to a delivery van.
Over all of this would watch a benevolent St. Christopher. The patron saint of travelers. From his magnetically held perch on the glove compartment. And over him would tower Mother Mary. Stuck to the dashboard . Araldited, so that she could watch over this car forever.

Majority Wins !

They saw each other. Their hearts fluttered. They went for the Christmas dance. They got married. They had a baby. They called him Baba. Aunty Mary came over . Mummy leaned over into the crib and asked Baba to smile for Aunty Mary, and he did.
For his sixth birthday Baba didn’t want his Godmother to come over. Because she was always correcting him. Don’t eat with your fingers. Don’t drink water from the tap. Don’t put the bottle to your mouth. Don’t come over for my birthday please Godma, he wanted to say. But he didn’t and she did.
A little sister was born into his family.He was no more Baba. He was Joe Boy. His mother wanted him to take part in the elocution competition. He did’nt , but he did. He finished school in a blaze of glory. Distinction. The only one on the whole road with a distinction.
Arts. Forget it. You’ve done so well you have to take science.
Uncle Domnics birthday tomorrow evening.
No I don’t want to come.
You have to come. What are you going to sit and do all by yourself at home ?
So he went.
Your Godmothers in hospital. Go see her.
But she’s always correcting me.
So ? She’s your godmother. Visting hours are between 4.00 and 7.00 p.m.
You want to be a musician ? Are you mad ? We are not going to be here to feed you all our lives. L&T are taking apprentices.
As soon as he finished his apprenticeship he was absorbed by the company. Who knew a good man when they saw one.
Then one day he saw her. His heart fluttered. He asked her out to the Christmas dance. She said yes. They got married. They had a little girl. Old Aunty Mary came over. Joe Boy leaned over and beamed proudly at his daughter. Who gurgled loudly and then smiled at Aunty Mary. Because her Daddy asked her to.

Bandra Talks !

Please write in with your phrases. mail me at clemde@gmail.com
will add to the list to compile the definitve list of Bandraspeak.

I'm not friendly to Savio ! Aber

Godlonose Or should it be Godlonknows? Scribbler

sweetheart give a bloddy kiss man Gavin Dsouza

mudder faader gone to dadder men
i am goin to potoogeese church
coming wot?
vaan i'll give u na you'll know
got a buck wot?
lets go to september garden men
our f@#$%r tony is playing men MagicEye


see that babe passing men! What a fatac !!
That zunt was tring to patao my sass.

I'll take him left and right. Anonymous

Cun cun men, lets go
Seven days became since she died
what you're saying
On the fan/ Off the light....
Vijay and Meera Dsouza

Your grandmudder’s aulas
One caanpat you’ll get...
I’ll call Anton / Bandy (RIP) / Tarzan(and such like) and he’ll take out full kunhaas....he’s a kadu f$%£er
Don’t try and teach your faadur (father) to f$%*
The Jolly Rodger.



1. What goes of yours men?
2. Your name is written on it or what?
3. It be's like that only.
4. Donkey-Monkey Wedding (Drizzle and sunshine together)
5. He thinks his s---t doesn't stink.
6. Come on, hurry up, wear your bushcoat.
7. The buddaman's coming...(when frightening kids)
8. I'll give you one jaap.
9. Good pasting.
10 Don't fadkao, ok?
11. Come outside and I'll show you
12. Good boy, sunna boy
13. I gave him good
14. ...and what all they said
15.Housie: All by itself...
Grandma's Age...
2 and 0...Blind 20
Rochelle Almeida 1-20 .


granny's boras
i'm going to 'maim' (for Mahim) for der novena!
[ Patrice ]

I'll tell my breader (Brother) men, he give you good Cutoos.
[Edward Murray]

Cousins, cousins, make dozens.
Small tree big fruit.
Whose father what goes !
Ball talks .

Wafers ! [ Pray for us ]
Alan [ Sam ] DeMenezes.

Two tight slaps.
Legs eleven !
Two fat ladies !
Sweet sixteen.
Lucky for some.
Top of the house . [ NO not Garavati ]
Baba ! why you're saying like that ?

Equinoxes and Solstices.

A day dawns in mid March. It’s the day of the equinox. When the day and night are both equal. If you’re Hindu it comes around Holi. If you’re Catholic it comes around Good Friday. For every day after that the days keep getting longer and the nights keep getting shorter.
While the sun spins above dictating the length of day and night, ten year old Jo-Boy heads to church. For his Saturday pretending to be Sunday mass. He’s with the building boys. They don’t sit too far in front. The aisle seat commands a premium because of the view it affords of the communion line. In front of them Aunty Mary settles herself. Her husband passed away suddenly. On the ship. Slipped and fell into the hold. DOA. So her flavour of the month is black. Black skirt. Black blouse. Black bag. She settles herself with her veil over her head. Yes black veil too. Standing up when the priest enters. Sitting down for the readings. Standing up for the gospel. Sitting for the sermon. Up for the I believe. Kneeling for the consecration. Standing for the Our father. A stray giggle from Jo Boys pew. And another. Until Mary is forced to turn around and glare at them.
Which stifles them for a few minutes. While the communion lines form she shouts at them in a whisper. “ What so funny ? ”
Nothing Aunty . Nothing. Because they can’t tell her that her clothes are following the sun and making her Sunday longer than her Monday.

The Goa Diaries. ..1

Once upon a time there were two steam ships. One called the Konkan Sevak and the other called the Konkan Shakti. One left from Goa for Bombay and the other from Bombay for Goa at 10.00 in the morning. They were a few cabins for the very very rich. There was an upper deck for the rich. And a lower deck for everybody else. You bought your ticket at ferry wharf and stood in a long line waiting for the gates to the gangplank to open.
Once they did you ran. With a clutch of bedsheets. And you tried to spread them out on the life rafts that were apread out on the deck. This staked your claim. Bedsheets on the boat deck were the equivalent of newspapers on the seat of the 7.08 Bandra Churchgate local. The ship would sound it's foghorn and the great voyage would commence. You would settle in and eye your neighbours. A half hour ago you would have run them off the gangplank drawn and quaterered if they stood in your way. Now you open your Eagle flask and invite them to share a cup of Earl Grey with you. Ok Ok Brooke Bond. And you discover that you'll are all from Bardez.
Yippe do dah.
Man those guys from Salcette are almost like Mangies.
In fact anyone South of Panjim falls below the pale. The bucket man comes around. A bucket piled high with Limcas and Thums Up. And in his many pockets he has quarts of Feni. Which he sells at Goa prices. Even though you can still see the Gateway in the distance. If Moraji Desai only knew. The bell is sounded for lunch. Where you get fish curry rice. With fish that taste so fresh, they’ve probably jumped straight out of the Arabian sea into the kitchen.
The passengers took turns to eat. You bought your coupon for a lunch service. And carried your feni to the table with you. The ship would meander along the Konkan coast meanwhile. With a sudden listing towards the side when someone spotted a dolphin. Or dolphins. The whole compliment of passengers would line the rails .
The ship would pull closer the coast. A little canoe loaded with bags of rice and chickens and Mangoes and more people than the Titanic carried would come out. Out from the protected harbours of Vijaydurg or Sindhusurgh or Jaigadh or Ratnagiri. Where they’d clamber a rope ladder up the side of the ship. Making sure their saree didn’t snag in the rungs. Chickens and mangoes would be hauled up . While the waves did their best to claim all these elements in transition as their own. Nothing and no one ever fell. A million hands would reach out to help them over the rail when they emerged over the side of the boat. And away the ship would sail.
A man would come around announcing Housie. And everyone who was tired of looking at pristine beaches, at swaying coconut trees, at the rise and swell of the sea would head for the mess. Now cleared of fish curry and rice. Tickets would be sold. The electrical engineer would be deputed to call out the numbers. A few feni glasses would make their appearance. On tables that had a raised border to keep the glasses from getting to know the floor. In the biblical sense.
And the housie would get under way. With Jaldi fives and lines and full houses helping to defray the cost of your ticket. Or add to it if the numbers didn’t turn your way.
Back onto the deck to watch the sunset. While this little world unto itself chugged on towards Goa. The bucket man had run out of Limca so now you were drinking feni with limbu pani. And after the third feni the talk turned to God and love and who made the best Goa sausages.
Dinner was announced in the now familiar as your own house dining hall cum housie room. Back to the deck post dinner. Where the rosary would commence. All five decades. The whole litany. Petitions at the end for everyone and everything. Including Fluffy ,whom the neighbours were looking after, because they did’nt allow dogs on the ship.
The life rafts that had doubled up as card tables, bar counters and diaper changing tables, were now converted into beds. And you lay your weary head to rest.
Some where in the night we’d pass the sister ship, a toot from one Captain to the other to let him know all was well with the world.
Sunrise would wake you up. Smiles to everyone around you. Including the Uncle whose snoring had kept you awake for a minute and a half longer than you wanted to be. Breakfast coupons. Hot tea. .
And you were sailing past Chapora fort. Chapora, then Anjuna. The Baga hill in the distance, with the Jesuit retreat house at its peak. On to Calangute and Candolim. Around the Fort Aguada. Up the Mandovi. Past the barges loaded with iron ore.
Telephone numbers and addtresses are exchanged. Promises to stay in touch. Best wishes for job interviews and pending land disputes.
And as we step onto the jetty at Panjim, a sign of the cross and a mumbled prayer in thanks for a safe and happy jouney.