On Sunday mornings, we take our dog to Priyadarshini Park. We leave early, while the pavement fruitsellers at Breach Candy are still stacking their display crates, polishing their apples and sorting their many-coloured ware. Plums, peaches, cherries, lichees, jamun, apart from the usual orange-mosambi-papaya - they arrange it all carefully, like a Klee painting coming alive.
Nariyals are sweetest at the Welcome Tender Coconut Stall where the signboard reads, accurately: “A Coconut a Day Keeps the Doctor Away.” My husband’s usual is a patla malai; mine is a pani. As we drink, the morning truck arrives with the day’s supply of what else but more tender coconuts.
We proceed into Nepean Sea, past old buildings - one declared dangerous for habitation - and older trees. On this sea-facing road, many of the buildings are obscured under blue plastic sheets or scaffolding: pre-monsoon repairs running predictably late. Other walls are patinaed with moss.
There is no pavement on this stretch. We’re walking on the road itself. A flower seller passes us, waving his anthuriums in a graceful Tendulkar square drive. His business is at the traffic signal. Three men sit on the ground, cleaning kurmura, while Woh Lamhe plays on FM in a remix that is delicious but incongruously frenzied for this Sunday morning.
But around us, car cleaners are already at work. Contemporary Arts is still shut; so is Sweet Bengal, unlike its cousins in Kolkata who would be offering hot jalebis and shingaras by now.
Priyadarshini Park has everything: religion, handball, laughter, the seashore. Dark striated rocks, long thin waves. Palm trees, samudraphal, and bougainvillea. Grass, tracks, stone benches, and a Eureka Forbes stall dispensing cold water. Tea, coffee, Art of Living classes, and a yoga class that reminds you to “put life in your years rather than years in your life.”
The ones who sit in the distance, silent and still are the young lovers. The rest are in movement: athletes, joggers, walkers, strollers. Celebs, metrosexuals, mirls, pretty girls. Some walk, others talk. A man with a cleavage does a stretch and promptly has a wardrobe malfunction. One group of people is learning to breathe while another group is laughing in unison. Below us, a street-dweller washes his clothes on the rocks.
Pets, handlers and friendly strays congregate in the middle of the park. It’s easy to introduce your dog at these parties. “Kaatega?” I ask about a curious Basset. “Nahin, darpok hai,” laughs the handler. “Mera bhi darpok hai,” I say, relieved, and let go of Whisky’s leash.
PDP is a community. Here, friendships are made, marriages arranged, deals struck. Stocks and sasuraals, discussed and dissed, all in the same breath. “1200 fucking crores.” “The fundamentals are good.” “Bahut acchi ladki hai.” “In-laws, out-laws, I tell you.”
An elderly gentleman bends down to pat my dog, who promptly hugs him back. “He likes humans better than dogs,” I explain, embarrassed.
“Well, I like dogs better than humans,” replies the gentleman before setting off on his solitary walk along the windswept seashore.
—–
(in the Mumbai Mirror, July 2005)
