[nukkad] Fw: nukkad - a very old parsi bungalow

[Harshal Chhaya <>]

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Inflammatory speech rarely convinces anyone, and will usually just
cause them to shut you out. 
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[This was sent to a wrong address by mistake. Am forwarding
it to 'nukkad' on Arya's behalf. - Harshal]



hussain:
[... the other, a very old Parsi bungalow on Bandstand,
Bandra. Coincidentally, both are places, where i studied,
for some periods of time..  and are very close to my heart].

i used to pass by the place around late '40s when a small kid. it was
called kuka villa, i heard people call it that, i could not read.

bandstand was a wild windy place. we used to live in the bhabha sanatorium
on a 3 month renewable lease because my people
were tossing between moving to hind or staying back in karachi.

up the hill there was mount mary's church where i remember you could buy a
wax body part for 2 annas and toss it into the flames for
consumption and remote healing. i saw as a kid a long string of arms legs
torso ears and had a vivid memory of thinking there was some connection with
a whole human being thrown to flames if there was enough reason for the
padre to do so.

during the day the area extending from bandstand to a wild stretch along the
seaface to the center of the city had some semblance of traffic and human
kind. come evening and everything alive would go inside homes and the place
was left to seagulls and far off boats and the noisy breakers on the huge
dark rocks and myself.

i often wandered onto the shore and waded into the eddies caught in rocks
when the sea receded, with bunches of mackerel and an occasional larger fish
and unpleasant man 'o wars, unceremoniously called blue bottles, with a
memorable sting.

evening brought out an actual lamplighter to light lamps along the promenade
in the sanatorium, which was a euphemism for a midway house.

during the dislocated evenings i would while away my time on the desolate
shore few feet from the huge waves, lost in my small form amongst the water
and the darkness. i could do this with impunity because even if i was
carried away by an errant wave it would be noon next day before i was
missed.

sometimes i used to walk the barren road and stand before this bungalow you
speak of and read the plaque without knowing what the letters meant. far
into the distance inside the long driveway at the building there were people
who never noticed me, and the first waves of a life long sense of desolation
would assail me, which were to remain companion for long years.

a kind soul had informed me that a ghost lived in one of the rooms on the
first floor who was partial to eating little boys. all the rooms faced the
sea
and the kitchen the rear hill, with a dark long corridor dividing the two.
it was here that the spirit was prone to appear.

in the night hours i would wander up the gigantic staircase which had as
sentinels statues of white marbel of the lady and sir bhabha and with heart
racing peer into the dimly lit corridor, sometimes imagining the apparition,
sometimes maybe actually seeing it.

in all my time there i never saw one living soul in the band stand, except
gulls and stray dogs. of the many ghostly lonely places there this was the
most scary. i used to circle the structure maybe expecting the spirit of a
long gone bag piper from the King's Own Regiment of the Fourth Hussars to
strut forth with the shrill music trilling away. aware of the norms of the
departed i never set foot on the floor, always skirting it from outside the
balustrade. ghostland has as many do's and don'ts as the world of the living
and it is healthy to know these.

unlike you hussains bhau all my memories are sadly and wasted. i am grateful
that you have happy ones associated with the location.

woh bhi ek zamana tha, yeh bhi ek zamana hai
tabh bhi koi lawaris tha, abh bhi koi begana hai

rabb rakha.

arya.

ps. if the pen agrees, i will tell a story we should title "Milk puffs at
Dawn" which enacted around the place and it is guaranteed to never lose it's
presence in your mind. it is of course a real tale.


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