Here I am walking the streets of Bombay once again, after a lapse of two years. This will be my longest trip home in the 33 years and more that I have lived abroad. I am looking forward to the seven weeks I still have ahead of me. My earlier visits were hectic and rather unfulfilled: two-week sojourns to my city of birth that left no time for surging memories to run their course: the long flight home was often moody and disgruntled.
This time, I have promised myself, I will relive a part of my growing days visiting old haunts and meeting faces I had known.
I almost wish I hadn't: I go up to casual associates of the past who struggle in vain to remember but are polite enough to say "hello" (some of them do pause, think back and remember. Like Jimmy Vajifdar, just yesterday, eyes lighting up at a memory) and the old haunts are bustling with newer energies and face lifts. In short, the Bombay I knew is fast disappearing.
The essence, however, remains and if anything, the city is more vibrant.....A newer generation of young 'mumbaikars' (please, can we go back to being Bombayites? 'Mumbaikars' sounds so parochial!) shows no qualm in walking hand-in-hand and is more eloquent than we were in exhibiting mutual affection, "gay pride" is much in evidence and the upstarts in the city's film industry (I refuse to use the 'B' word!) make showbiz brazen like it has never been before.
Today, my eyes fall upon a paanshop at the corner where Bora Bazar meets Gunbow Street, in South Bombay, now bearing a newer, longer name. I pause for a moment taking in the new look of this small landmark-of-the-mind, missing the old-world quaintness of the earlier shop. I stare at it from a short distance away and remember that late-evening hour in 1971 when I became friends with the paunched paanwallah without uttering a word: a fated moment in time, mine and his.....
My way home from the newspaper in what was then known as Ballard Estate lay along Gunbow Street and it being a bustling area with traditional old Parsee and Gujarati homes that spoke of where they came from (and still holding change at bay, as only they can) and mithaiwallahs and speakeasies and the fire brigade just off, there was always music afoot in the area: in Bombay, there is always music in the air. I paused as the strains of a Madan Mohan composition fell upon my ears: I had not heard this one in a long while. I sidled closer to the shop after a quick glance at my wristwatch: sure, I would miss the 10:40 local but there was always the 10:55!
It is not difficult to get lost in a Madan Mohan composition and the next three minutes or so were spent in eloquent silence. The paaanwallah himself was rapt, going about his business, as we listened to Lata croon Rajendra Krishan's fine lyric, चैन नहीं आये, from 'Samunder'. In between, we exchanged looks appreciative of the song and as it neared its end he was still building a 'paan'. As the last groove worked itself out I paused long enough to thank him for allowing me to stand by, before heading to Churchgate and my train. But it was he who thanked me....by holding out that last 'paan' he had built. I could not deny him that and walked to the station and my local savouring my first ever 'paan'.
* * *
I am in two minds whether or not to visit the local Metro for a showing of the coloured, cinemascope re-release of Nav Ketan's 'Hum Dono'. I have never seen it on the big screen: not that I care much for the colourisation of the classics, even those initiated by their own producers (in this case Dev Anand). However, watching Sahir Ludhianvi's great lyrics unfold on the big screen to Jaidev-ji's "cerebral eloquence" in music, should make for interesting cinema viewing. Lata and Rafi and Asha are superb in their rendering of the songs in this film (1962). I have wondered why Jaidev-ji, lost Filmfare's Best Music Director Award to Ravi for Gharana in that year. Tell me people, should I?
Signing off....
This time, I have promised myself, I will relive a part of my growing days visiting old haunts and meeting faces I had known.
I almost wish I hadn't: I go up to casual associates of the past who struggle in vain to remember but are polite enough to say "hello" (some of them do pause, think back and remember. Like Jimmy Vajifdar, just yesterday, eyes lighting up at a memory) and the old haunts are bustling with newer energies and face lifts. In short, the Bombay I knew is fast disappearing.
The essence, however, remains and if anything, the city is more vibrant.....A newer generation of young 'mumbaikars' (please, can we go back to being Bombayites? 'Mumbaikars' sounds so parochial!) shows no qualm in walking hand-in-hand and is more eloquent than we were in exhibiting mutual affection, "gay pride" is much in evidence and the upstarts in the city's film industry (I refuse to use the 'B' word!) make showbiz brazen like it has never been before.
Today, my eyes fall upon a paanshop at the corner where Bora Bazar meets Gunbow Street, in South Bombay, now bearing a newer, longer name. I pause for a moment taking in the new look of this small landmark-of-the-mind, missing the old-world quaintness of the earlier shop. I stare at it from a short distance away and remember that late-evening hour in 1971 when I became friends with the paunched paanwallah without uttering a word: a fated moment in time, mine and his.....
My way home from the newspaper in what was then known as Ballard Estate lay along Gunbow Street and it being a bustling area with traditional old Parsee and Gujarati homes that spoke of where they came from (and still holding change at bay, as only they can) and mithaiwallahs and speakeasies and the fire brigade just off, there was always music afoot in the area: in Bombay, there is always music in the air. I paused as the strains of a Madan Mohan composition fell upon my ears: I had not heard this one in a long while. I sidled closer to the shop after a quick glance at my wristwatch: sure, I would miss the 10:40 local but there was always the 10:55!
It is not difficult to get lost in a Madan Mohan composition and the next three minutes or so were spent in eloquent silence. The paaanwallah himself was rapt, going about his business, as we listened to Lata croon Rajendra Krishan's fine lyric, चैन नहीं आये, from 'Samunder'. In between, we exchanged looks appreciative of the song and as it neared its end he was still building a 'paan'. As the last groove worked itself out I paused long enough to thank him for allowing me to stand by, before heading to Churchgate and my train. But it was he who thanked me....by holding out that last 'paan' he had built. I could not deny him that and walked to the station and my local savouring my first ever 'paan'.
* * *
I am in two minds whether or not to visit the local Metro for a showing of the coloured, cinemascope re-release of Nav Ketan's 'Hum Dono'. I have never seen it on the big screen: not that I care much for the colourisation of the classics, even those initiated by their own producers (in this case Dev Anand). However, watching Sahir Ludhianvi's great lyrics unfold on the big screen to Jaidev-ji's "cerebral eloquence" in music, should make for interesting cinema viewing. Lata and Rafi and Asha are superb in their rendering of the songs in this film (1962). I have wondered why Jaidev-ji, lost Filmfare's Best Music Director Award to Ravi for Gharana in that year. Tell me people, should I?
Signing off....
great article kersi uncle..
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