Celebrating Bandra
Eunice de Souza wonders.Yes of course we must celebrate Bandra. If we can get there, that is. I spent an hour and a quarter getting there to meet Nalini Jones who has just published a book of short stories based on Bandra. So when I decided to see the play “Jazz,” based on Goan jazz musicians (researched by Naresh Fernandes) I left an hour earlier, only to find the entire area had suffered a power failure. We milled around in the dark, with everyone remarkably good-natured about it all. The play could only begin an hour later than scheduled.
Traffic and power cuts are all in a day’s work. What’s surprising was to find Bandra described online, as a “small Catholic town in rural India.” (Introduction to interview with Knopf editor Carol Janeway), and “a Catholic town in India” elsewhere. And there was Amit Chaudhuri, for whom there can be no excuse, putting his foot in it again. “Nalini Jones,” he says in a review, “writes about the marginal community of Christians in Bombay and the neighbourhoods in which they live.
To the outsider, these seem to possess a fabled calm, but the insider knows they are in many ways on the brink of dissolution.” I don’t know whether Chaudhuri means Christians are on the brink of dissolution, or the neighbourhoods in which they live are.
Does Chaudhuri see himself as the insider who knows?
I spent an hour and a quarter getting there…
Eventually bandra ilva? Btw, cool name, Unix de souza.
Comment by B — December 8, 2007 @ 11:53 am
I visited Bandra more than once in the 1970s because an uncle of mine lived there. He is not Goanese but his landlord was. Bandra did seem insulated from bustling Bombay, as it was called then.
There are of course many distinguished Goanese from Mumbai but the two I particularly remember are Frank Moraes, the leading journalist and editor from decades ago, and his son Dom Moraes, who burst on the English poetic scene in the 1950s and who died a few years ago.
Comment by Candadai Tirumalai — December 8, 2007 @ 5:23 pm
Hi …. it was nice to see ur article on bandra . when I hear bandra it feels good coz its one of the hot places in bombay I love going to bandra irrespective of the fact I stay in Hiranandani Gardens Powai which is far from bandra but I love going to bandra .
Comment by Gurpreet Singh — December 21, 2007 @ 8:35 am
Christian communities in Bombay are concentrated in South and South West town areas. I trust Chaudhuri when he describes the Christian community as “marginal”. I believe Chaudhuri has used the term in a relative sense. If you compare the Christian community with other indigenous communities, it would not be untrue to say that Christians form the smaller subset of Bombay in particular, and India in general.
That apart, I have always admired the fact that Christians stay away from communal disharmony in strife-oriented-India and their “marginal” communities are safe havens when violence ensues.
Comment by Amit — December 26, 2007 @ 2:22 pm
Christian communities in Bombay are concentrated in South and South West town areas. I trust Chaudhuri when he describes the Christian community as “marginal”. I believe Chaudhuri has used the term in a relative sense. If you compare the Christian community with other indigenous communities, it would not be untrue to say that Christians form the smaller subset of Bombay in particular, and India in general.
That apart, I have always admired the fact that Christians stay away from communal disharmony in strife-oriented-India and their “marginal” communities are safe havens when violence ensues.
Comment by Amit — December 26, 2007 @ 2:22 pm
Christian communities in Bombay are concentrated in South and South West town areas. I trust Chaudhuri when he describes the Christian community as “marginal”. I believe Chaudhuri has used the term in a relative sense. If you compare the Christian community with other indigenous communities, it would not be untrue to say that Christians form the smaller subset of Bombay in particular, and India in general.
That apart, I have always admired the fact that Christians stay away from communal disharmony in strife-oriented-India and their “marginal” communities are safe havens when violence ensues.
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Comment by Sue — January 19, 2008 @ 3:54 am