A change of place and heart

Celebrating Lonvaas

Going the distance

The N.R.B. (Non-Residential Bandraite)

A Plan to make Bandra perfect

I face a problem of plenty of choice but nothing to eat. There are days when I stand outside Gold’s Gym and contemplate if I want to eat at Thai Ban, Papa Pancho, Mia Cucina or Basilico. Once I decide on a cuisine, I go in but there is no table. I hang around for a bit, but still no luck. I compromise and go into another, but there’s no tables there either. I repeat this process 3-4 times but still no luck.

This is true for Pali Naka, Hill Road, Waterfield Road, Linking Road and SV Road. Believe me, I’ve tried. Yoko, Kobe, Jai Hind, China Gate, Red Box, Moti Mahal, Great Punjab, Out of the Blue, you name it, they’ve sent me packing. Toto’s, Hawaiian Shack and Zenzi I can forget only. And frankly, ordering home means half the fun is lost.

Here’s what I recommend. Every weekend, the grounds of St. Stanislaus or St. Andrews get set up with hundreds of tables. All of Bandra’s restaurants set up kitchens there. Anybody can go get a table and order what they want. But the bar must be set up by the Bandra Gym guys, cheapest booze in all of Bandra.

No table problem, no cuisine problem, no traveling problem and we’ll get to meet everybody in one place. Then Bandra will be perfect!

– Ashish Jagtiani (Jaggu)

My Bandra is quiet a morning place

Let’s get this straight. I’m not a morning person. I’m only seen before noon if I have a blood test scheduled or if I’m stumbling home after a night out, conscious of how wonderfully dissolute I must seem.

There is just one other occasion when I have enjoyed Bandra’s early morning glory and that is after an all night chat marathon. When you’re a teenager you don’t want to squander precious talking time! It was such an occasion, when a friend and I decided to take a stroll at 5 am and found ourselves outside A1 bakery sniffing at the delicious smell of fresh bread wafting around.

We bought the token fresh bread, but the real glee was because of the hot coconut pie and chicken puffs we managed to acquire. Walking away, our booty lovingly tucked in our arms, we realized we needed something to wash it down with. So we stopped at a nearby restaurant for coffee. Unfortunately their definition of take home was a used Bisleri bottle. The coffee was so hot it was impossible to hold, let alone sip from. We made it to Carter Road with the bemused expressions of two country bumpkins (its like a whole new city after all) …cycles cruising past slowly, only the occasional car, bird sounds, cool breeze, a shell pink sky and the dull light that made everything look super pretty.

We stopped to poke fun at the Laughing Club… maybe Tim Burton got some inspiration for his Alice in Wonderland project from them?  They got the last laugh though, as we scurried away when they invited us over to laugh with, rather than at, them. Next we were accosted by some people selling natural vegetable concoctions which looked as virulent as they tasted. This did not deter my friend, who is a closet health freak, from doing a shot and forcing me to do one too. Finally, we sat down on a bench, ate our lovely breakfast and continued talking as we watched the sun’s rays creep up from behind us and wondered why we didn’t wake up early every morning.

– Sleeping Beauty

I wanted to vote Catholic

I do not see myself as prejudiced, though it is possible that others see my actions that way.

For 10 years, my apartment in Bandra has always been in Catholic buildings, in Catholic neighbourhoods that have been maintained with a discipline that is not to be found in another place in our city, except for Town. Had I lived there, I would have voted Parsi. I would do that because they have built and maintained a geography of a quality not elsewhere to be found in India.

Again, I do not see this as prejudice, because prejudice means judging without experience.

I have 30 years’ experience of other places in India; sufficient, to my mind, to judge accurately.

Who I wanted to vote for was someone who could bring order to Bandra, the sort that Catholics bring to their neighbourhoods. Order is a function of governance, of course, and not of legislation – which is what we elect Assembly members to do. But a vote is really cast in anticipation of larger change.

I know that other Bandrawallahs, the poor Muslims in Reclamation living in abysmal conditions for instance, vote for something more essential. Water to drink perhaps, a toilet, or the right to not be kicked away. I know also that it is certain that their man wil l carry  the election, because that is how  the numbers add up now in Bandra. That is fine. I wanted to tell my Catholic candidate that I understood.

At the polling booth, I got myself inked and looked down the list of candidates in the booth. This is how it read:

Candidates of Recognised National and State Parties

Ashish Shelar (BJP), Bazaar Road

(Baba) Ziauddin Siddiqui, (Congress). TPS IV, Wandre

Tejpal Singh Chadha, (BSP) Khar

Rizwan Merchant, (SP) Mahim

Independents

Rahebar (Raja) Khan, Bazaar Road. Symbol cricket bat

Ganesh Vishwanath Khaire, Khar. Symbol kite

Malati Uttamrao Bedse, Khar. Symbol slate

Sanjay Yadav, Khar-Danda. Symbol cupboard

Mohd Salim Nisar Lokre, Reclamation. Symbol tractor

Bharat Shah, Andheri. Symbol television

‘Button dabao’ the nice woman said gently, as I took my time trying to locate a community that wasn’t there.

I voted, but I wasn’t convinced I did the right thing.

– Aakar Patel

Eating around in Bandra

Ever since I was old enough to eat out, I’ve been a Bandra regular. My dependency started out small, at the Chinese guy outside National’s, but has grown rapidly – as have I – into something uncontrollable. Ask me for directions and I’ll use restaurants as landmarks, for recommendations and you’ll miss dinner, to share my dessert and I’ll ignore you.

Maybe I’m not as popular a target as the Mannat watchers, but you’ve sworn at me, too, considering the number of times I block your view of the display cart at – you name it – Candies, Andora’s, Cheron’s. And not just swearing, laughter, too, as I walk into one place only to throw away wrappers from another. (Pssst… I also significantly reduce the number of donuts available during happy hour at Andora’s). And, yes, I’ll agree, it is cafeteria food, but c’mon, you can’t resist either.

Then, at least twice a week, I take my meals here. At least one of these is at Mia Cucina and I use the other as an expedition to find its successor, which is becoming increasingly hard to settle on with restaurants shutting down every other week.

I’ve been to every incarnation of Puro and am still mourning the end of Hot Chips, Tangy Tomato, Sheesha (In Bandra message: Hot chips is on Bazaar Road now). Someday, I’d like to move here, I know I’ll have to depend on home delivery, the rate I’m going.

– Amit Dutt

Bandra: My 2 foot tall P.O.V.

I close my eyes and I know where I am. My nose in the morning breathes the sun rising in the salt of the sea and drying fish and the sweat of the sleepy walkers, church going old aunty scents of talcum powder and moth balls, the warm yeasty bread smells mixed with uncle’s first secret cigarette of the day… the smells of sleep slowly stretching itself out of the patchwork blanket of our thousands of dreams that covered us all last night. The dreams that follow the night smells of petrol fumes and grilling meats and too much perfume from courting couples and coffee and exhaustion and fear and money and last secret cigarettes of the day.

My ‘view’ of Bandra is however mostly knees and backsides unless I look up. But when I do look up I can’t keep the bottom of me still and my tail goes at a hundred miles an hour and I know I look stupid but I am so happy I looked up because you’re smiling at me and calling me (Stinky/Dusty/Brownie/Rusty/Darling/Fatso/Tiger/Sofa…) and giving me a bit of your sandwich. My heart swells with pride. I bark away the other mutts. You’re my friend and I am yours. I will walk with you a bit of the way, whichever direction you’re headed whether or not you feed me. Food I can find. But you smell of love, of a home and of a family.

I try to think of this, focus on this when the big mean dog in the sky begins to spit sparks and bark, BOOM!BOOM!BOOM! But it fills my brain and I can’t think. When the smell of his sulfur breath burns my nostrils blocking out all other smells so that I can’t smell, I can’t breathe. I don’t know where I am. I run, I run… I’m searching for you but I can’t smell, I can hear small babies crying. I need to hide. But he’s everywhere. My heart is pounding, blood rushes in my ears, my nose burns…I run, I run…

This is dedicated to all the Bandra street dogs that lose their limbs or lives running scared during the fire-crackers. Want to see something light up? Why not try whistling hello to your street’s resident dog.

– Stinky

My Day in Court

I found myself at Bandra Court one hot Wednesday afternoon, feeling somewhat anxious. The Cheese Junglee Sandwich from Candies. Definitely a bit funky.

I sat at a wooden bench on the first floor awaiting my shifty-eyed lawyer Joshi. To my right, seated at a table below a slowly rotating ceiling fan, was a Mr Dalal, stamp vendor and petition writer. True to his surroundings he was agonisingly slow, but with exactitude – he thumbed pages fluently, examined typewritten lines with a judicious finger and carefully counted and recounted currency notes. The air was dense with wafting smells – foodstuff, sickly sweet tea, sweat and urine. The courtroom doors were now being opened for the post lunch session. Peons and clerks were rushing out as attorneys and clients were rushing in. Handling their crotches.

A case listing was posted outside our courtroom. Apart from my case read with Section 138 of the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, I spotted a Section 420 case, which all good Indians will be quick to recognize.

It is the number of The Cad, The Rake, with a heart of gold, the proud, prodigal son overfed with gag-inducing amounts of mother’s milk and desi ghee. His duplicity is but camouflage for the trueness of his spirit – all for love and mother and country. I have met several such men. They are in great abundance.

No sooner had the magistrate sat down Joshi impatiently waved me forward and pointed to the witness stand. I stood with arms crossed, impatient to solemnly swear as to my good word while they confabulated silently. I felt a poke at my side. An annoyed looking cop was glaring at me. Haath neechey. I let them dangle at my sides and looked around feeling suitably ridiculous.

Someone coughed, someone else scratched his head and yet another yawned. It was all just… so very dull. What if I were to cross my arms again, let my mobile phone ring or pick my nose?  Surely I
would be overpowered, cuffed and led off in shame, damningly guilty as it were of…poor posture? The magistrate barked at me for my name. And then glowered at me. I stepped down from the witness stand.

Prepare for the hearing, Joshi said to me before leaving, it will help your case. A policeman, nodding off in his chair, seemed at risk of falling through its frame; the plastic weave was on the verge of saying – screw this, I’m done. I held my breath. Best of luck, I heard Joshi say as he pumped my hand.

WTF. I was meant to quote Dante or Bakunin, grandly denounce my enemy, the usurper, and point nor’ nor’ westerly, draw diagrams, flail my arms, pause dramatically, my voice would then quiver and…what if I were to unearth a plot so sinister, what indeed if I were to appeal to natural justice and free will? Milord. Sorry, Milaard.

Bloody rubbish my day in court, I thought to myself on the way back. Lemon iced tea at Candies should do the trick.

– Gautam Pemmaraju