Bilkulblogging…
(Not sure if I’ve posted this before. It’s still slow times around here, so here’s something from last year)
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Next to the Wilson College hostel, right under the Aaram Guest House and next to the Aaram Paan Shop, is Crystal, the pride of Chowpatty. Shabby décor, a couple of mirrors, and not one piece of crystal that would justify the name – but who cares? The food is hot, the kheer ice cold, and the prices have hardly moved since the early nineties.
If we go there now on this wet Saturday afternoon, just before a late-afternoon movie, it’s not for old times’ sake, nor for the prices. It is, quite simply, for the food. The paneer bhurji smells divine; the gobi parathas sizzle; the dahi is chilled and tart; slices of kaanda, neembu wedges and achaar come free, and we tuck in. And oh yes, thank you, we know to book our bowls of kheer before the safari-suits arrive.
College students, families, salesmen coming across from the nearby auto showroom: everyone’s here, and everyone’s happy. We’re upstairs, surrounded by noisy fans, dark beams, and yellow globes that spill light recklessly over all of us.
And it is a reckless mood, the kind of mood in which you’d invite that solitary person at the other table to join you at yours. Where you might have a fight with your boyfriend, and the man at the next table, who’s wearing several colourful rings on his fingers, might gallantly bend across to ask: Sister, is that man bothering you?
And even the rain outside pours down with reckless abandon. I see the slick darkness of the road, the taxis hissing by, the bus waiting in traffic, the blank face at the window.
And beyond the trees, Chowpatty’s golden sands.
The same sands on which the desperate, spectacular closing scene of Satya unfolded: rains lashing down, men wading thigh-deep into the sea, their shirts drenched with colour and rain and salt spray. Drums thundering, crowds pushing, revellers dancing, screams going unheard, and Bhau’s blood oozing into the salt water.
Chowpatty. Where the rain washes away thousands of footprints every hour, and reduces it all to a uniform flesh tone. Where couples stand on the beach, shivering in the rain, their arms wrapped around each other’s waists, watching the waves roll in and out.
When the rain stops, nanas and nanis return to sit in their garden. A small crowd forms around the bhutta woman. Bhelpuri, balloons, garam chana. Families, who have come from a long way off just for this expanse of sea and sky, toss off their chappals and sit cross-legged on the sands. A man arranges a rope of jasmine in his wife’s hair. Children dig with their small bare hands and pat the sand into fragile shapes. The pigeons whir and flap their wings on the way to Walkeshwar. A solitary egret looks for a moment’s rest. A stray dog jumps off a deck-swing and goes off to look for food. A fishing boat bobs on the grey water.
Crystal is cheap, but the best things in life are still free.
(Mumbai Mirror, July 2005)
