Re: Mumbai Us Zamaney Ka

["HOMI KAIKOBAD" <>]

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Tip of the day:  Smile!
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MUMBAI US ZAMANEY KA

I came upon Mumbai in 1942 when I was 7. We came in from Karachi on regular
visit and it was still one country. You would travel by train and it took 3
nights and 2 days but it felt like 6 and by the end of the journey everyone
knew everyone else in the rail ka dabba and either liked it or regretted it.
There was always as fixture on any trip the helpful guy, and one who slept
and encroached on your seat, one who watched the women slyly while praying,
one who snored and coughed all night and one who seemed like he was far away
somewhere else, you never knew where he got on from, and sure enough would
disappear when you lost track for a station or two.

We would start from Karachi City station and go through places in Sind and
reach Hyderabad, change from North Western Railways NWR to BB & CI, Bombay
Baroda and Central India Railways. In the middle of the night you reached
Marwar and changed engines for the final time, while the rabri walas and
kids with impossible trays with unbaked clay kodias filled with tea
challanged laws of gravity to give you a cup for an takka, 2 paisa of the
British rupaiyya.

We lived in Bandra when it was little more than an absent minded town with
villas and the bandstand and Mount Mary where you could trade a wax ear for
a real one which was attached to someone you cared for. Doe rupye ka kaan,
char ka pair, sara sharir thok ke bhav. And you watched the padri with a
stoop and an odd gait pop them into the agni and get consumed in lethal
smoke and amidst prayers you got the flesh and blood article for the wax
one, kind of like playing a fast one on Karma.

Some 42 years later I visited the same church to find incredibly the same
padre doing the same service, except he was now bent and faded. I introduced
myself and gave some sort of update and asked the question somehow he knew I
would ask, Father, do you pop wax limbs for yourself?. And he said no, he
got buy on good wishes of folks like me! Mara!

Trains ran just as they did now but there were a lot less people and somehow
they never thought of being enemies, which they would soon be in another few
years. Except for the annual riots when every ran amuck and killed whatever
moved and come evening call it a day and go home unless they landed in JJ,
every one was reasonably civil to others. The city had clear characteristics
depending upon where you were and it did not matter if all existed together.

I remember going to JJ hospital where my elders had a relative doing
medicine. I found the man's stethoscope on the khunti in the hostel room and
thought it a good idea to suck at one of the earpieces  and duly felt sick
for a whole afternoon. The man graduated and went to UK to become an
orthopedist and marry a Scottish mem. I, because of this encounter with
medicine, also became a physician at the Dow Medical in Karachi, postgrad
and went saat samader paar.

Parsi ka Kuwa was a real treat and I used to watch completely sane folks
stand at the well near the cricket club and pray with topi and sway forwards
and backwards. Then they would with a straight face toss a good 8 anna piece
into the well and feel secure that whatever was to happen would not happen,
or the other way around. I thought this was a genuine waste because the coin
could easily be diverted to channa and bhel and the like, there was no
pau-bhaji in those days as far as I know. One day I managed to get some
foothold and climb over the parapet to see if anyone was there and yelled
into the well to confirm. All I got was a earful from some bavaji and his
fierce lady, and my belated echo.

Much later I traveled there as an adult with my little family and took them
to the Kuwa and it seemed the same folks were still at it, they looked and
prayed and tossed coins the same, this time as naye paisey, and boy, was
somebody taking their time to answer prayers!

Even then it was a very crowded city where everyone had decided to dalo a
dera, but charkha chalta raheta aur samaye dhalte rehata. One day I had an
interesting encounter with the darker side of life. I was in a double decker
and the bus stalled near the masan I believe. I leaned out of the window and
saw full face the funeral procession of a lady where she was being carted on
a khatiya sort of structure all decked with flowers, more than she ever got
in life, and a bunch of morose folk walking preoccupied alongside. At 8 that
was an intereting perspective and it stayed with me all life.

I was to travel all over and watch agni-da in it's many swaroops in many
places, but the first impression was a lasting one. Nowadays in the US I
sometimes wonder kaunsey dabbe mei jamm kar kounsi agni mei marna.

Cities are the people who live in them, and people take root from the soil.
If one cares for the mitti it will shelter and give shade, nahi to things
fall apart.

Sabh jann juda dekhey, juda ho kar rahe
Sabh jeev ek kari rakhe, nadiya paar bahe.

With good wishes to nukkar ke basiyon

Arya.




































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