This year began without resolutions. Except for the Shivsena boys from the slums below blaring a mix of incongruent music into the wee hours of the morning, there were no sings on anything different. The house was dark and the sea outside the window was silvery and still, like aluminum foil paper.
I walked out quietly lest I should wake up the sleeping. Having been sick and slept through the night, I was wide awake. Outside St. Andrew's church, brightly clad women were assembling and buying flowers for what I assumed was the Marathi service. I had been inside the church two days ago, to visit the pauper's graves in the back. There were fresh burials with flowers covering them. They used to rest peacefully with the sea breeze blowing on them even just a few years ago. Now, they have been walled in by ash-crypts and what is called "regularized" slums.
Bandstand has a proper walking path now by the sea. It begins across from Salman Khan's house and extend all the way to Father Agnel compound. Things are clean and except for an occasional health-conscious Bandra housewife or a businessman is severely tight shorts, the park is empty.
The haunted mansion in front of Rekha's building is still around, even though not for much long. Its windows are blasted off and the plaster has peeled off. The coconut trees the cover the compound are just about the only things that look alive. This is perhaps the most expensive piece of free real estate in India, I am sure some builder is salivating at the thought of another twenty-story building comping up in this location. Except for Shah Rukh Khan's house, hidden from public view by a compound wall, none of these old Parsi mansions will survive. They will fall to decay and greed. Shah Rukh maintains his house well. I see a night-watchman standing on the roof of his house. Behind his house, a new building is coming up.
During high tide, when water levels rise quickly, you see dozens of lovers in various levels of undress jump up from behind these rocky outcrops running for cover. This is lover's point. Along with the sexual revolution, the moral policing has also intensified. Now even couples sitting side by side in romantic solitude are not spared of their scorn let alone the ones who are not engaged in "obscene positions" as the signpost warns. But this is the morning, there are no couples, just me. And the cool breeze. And the muted waves of the sea.
In the 80s, this place used to look very different. it was more run down and there were no real walkways. Today, a Barista stands where there was once a low-market grocery store. Right next to the Barista, there is a Cafe Coffee Day. This is where they come, the young rich, in the evenings, to talk to each other and be seen in the early evening after they have had their little stroll.
I walk into the ruins of the Bandra fort. For those of you, who have grown up watching badly made 80s action thrillers, this is where the villain used to bring hero's mother in an attempt to get valuables from him. From behind each rock, a goon would rise menacingly and of course the hero would single-handedly thrash up the whole gang and rescue his mother. The ruins have been cleaned. They look much better maintained than ever before.
This is the site of Castilla Aguada, the fort the Portuguese built. I sit right at the edge and watch sandpipers play in the spray. Across from me, the silhouette of the Bandra-Worli sealink bridge stands in fog like an apparition of urbanization. From the top, I look at the new amphitheatre that has been built. There are coconut trees and signs warning the presence of snakes. Below me, a busload of devotees of some guru gathers by a park bench as one of them begins to speak to the crowd.
Bombay without crowds, without car horns. Bombay without the amoral frenzy. All those who partied last night have gone back to their dens and are fat asleep, their new year resolutions already forgotten.
I am so lost in this place. if there was one moment in my brief India trip that made me feel like I was back in India this was it. This and of course the trip to Sewree. I will write about it next.
On the way back, I stop at Barista. A young man in a Skoda honks his horn at the waitstaff impatiently, he is too self-important and lazy to get out of his car. I drink a machiato and nibbles at a veg. sandwich.
I am coughing and using a box of tissues to blow my nose incessantly. The dust is getting the better of me.
But I am not complaining. 2007 has just begun. I hope I can find peace and contentment, even without resolutions.
Even if that means lowering expectations. Isn't aging all about re-defining expectations?
I walked out quietly lest I should wake up the sleeping. Having been sick and slept through the night, I was wide awake. Outside St. Andrew's church, brightly clad women were assembling and buying flowers for what I assumed was the Marathi service. I had been inside the church two days ago, to visit the pauper's graves in the back. There were fresh burials with flowers covering them. They used to rest peacefully with the sea breeze blowing on them even just a few years ago. Now, they have been walled in by ash-crypts and what is called "regularized" slums.
Bandstand has a proper walking path now by the sea. It begins across from Salman Khan's house and extend all the way to Father Agnel compound. Things are clean and except for an occasional health-conscious Bandra housewife or a businessman is severely tight shorts, the park is empty.
The haunted mansion in front of Rekha's building is still around, even though not for much long. Its windows are blasted off and the plaster has peeled off. The coconut trees the cover the compound are just about the only things that look alive. This is perhaps the most expensive piece of free real estate in India, I am sure some builder is salivating at the thought of another twenty-story building comping up in this location. Except for Shah Rukh Khan's house, hidden from public view by a compound wall, none of these old Parsi mansions will survive. They will fall to decay and greed. Shah Rukh maintains his house well. I see a night-watchman standing on the roof of his house. Behind his house, a new building is coming up.
During high tide, when water levels rise quickly, you see dozens of lovers in various levels of undress jump up from behind these rocky outcrops running for cover. This is lover's point. Along with the sexual revolution, the moral policing has also intensified. Now even couples sitting side by side in romantic solitude are not spared of their scorn let alone the ones who are not engaged in "obscene positions" as the signpost warns. But this is the morning, there are no couples, just me. And the cool breeze. And the muted waves of the sea.
In the 80s, this place used to look very different. it was more run down and there were no real walkways. Today, a Barista stands where there was once a low-market grocery store. Right next to the Barista, there is a Cafe Coffee Day. This is where they come, the young rich, in the evenings, to talk to each other and be seen in the early evening after they have had their little stroll.
I walk into the ruins of the Bandra fort. For those of you, who have grown up watching badly made 80s action thrillers, this is where the villain used to bring hero's mother in an attempt to get valuables from him. From behind each rock, a goon would rise menacingly and of course the hero would single-handedly thrash up the whole gang and rescue his mother. The ruins have been cleaned. They look much better maintained than ever before.
This is the site of Castilla Aguada, the fort the Portuguese built. I sit right at the edge and watch sandpipers play in the spray. Across from me, the silhouette of the Bandra-Worli sealink bridge stands in fog like an apparition of urbanization. From the top, I look at the new amphitheatre that has been built. There are coconut trees and signs warning the presence of snakes. Below me, a busload of devotees of some guru gathers by a park bench as one of them begins to speak to the crowd.
Bombay without crowds, without car horns. Bombay without the amoral frenzy. All those who partied last night have gone back to their dens and are fat asleep, their new year resolutions already forgotten.
I am so lost in this place. if there was one moment in my brief India trip that made me feel like I was back in India this was it. This and of course the trip to Sewree. I will write about it next.
On the way back, I stop at Barista. A young man in a Skoda honks his horn at the waitstaff impatiently, he is too self-important and lazy to get out of his car. I drink a machiato and nibbles at a veg. sandwich.
I am coughing and using a box of tissues to blow my nose incessantly. The dust is getting the better of me.
But I am not complaining. 2007 has just begun. I hope I can find peace and contentment, even without resolutions.
Even if that means lowering expectations. Isn't aging all about re-defining expectations?
