I wake up to a dull, throbbing realization. I’m in Mumbai. Leaned against a large window frame, faced before a sprawl of slum dwellings, buildings and a creek but staring at nothing in particular, it occurs to me that I might be Marty Sheen from Apocalypse Now. Mumbai, shit; I’m still only in Mumbai. Another year has passed and yet again, I have turned up for the monsoon in Mumbai. As I reach for my toothbrush, it begins to pour. From the thirteenth floor, the downpour is a sheet of haze, obscuring everything but the most basic lines supplied by memory. Finding that the complaints and cursing are on the verge of return, I remind myself not to get caught up in the realities of life here. On the way to Chunabhatti Railway Station, it occurs to me that the best way I can let Mumbai warm its way into my heart is through the locals, having been a lifelong train enthusiast.
You will often hear it said that they are a great metaphor for the city itself. Amen. Watching commuters board a local at peak hours is to know a second way of meeting Mumbai head on. I’d not been entirely right about the city requiring soaring ambition and confidence. Here was a certain form of ‘a space in the local is my right, and I shall have it’ brashness that is easily the city in a nutshell. Just as the commuter takes to every approaching local, the migrant takes to Mumbai. Often, it isn’t confidence engendered from within but a blind belief that the city has accommodated scores before and will continue to do so.
Understandably, the rhythms of an MRTS train anywhere in India are different from those of an express. Even to the first time traveler on either, this is immediately apparent. Express trains are operas or westerns: a setting is revealed and along with it, a mood, a thought and an idea. On longer journeys, when the setting changes, there is a new ensemble to go with it. Locals operate differently. To the attentive newbie, they suggest a soap opera or intrusive videography with teeming life on display at very close quarters along the tracks everywhere in Mumbai. The viewer can fashion a narrative out of mere glimpses. To the seasoned commuter, I believe the locals may not register beyond the most basic sensory levels. In that sense, they become the stage for soliloquys.
This breakthrough becomes an obsession soon. I pore over the Suburban Railway Network over the next few days, intent on learning it. With this comes understanding of Mumbai’s network topology and a start at dealing with its massive size. I am not overawed into submission any more. Furthermore, the happy realization that Vikram and Sonal live just a couple of locals away in Powai and a spate of visits endears Mumbai further to me. And yet there’s a feeling that something’s got to give. The missing piece, as it turns out, is South Bombay beginning with Mumbai CST.
That the name is a misnomer unlike any other is apparent only when one exits the place and takes in the most impressive piece of Victorian architecture in India. Even to the uninitiated, it screams Gothic (it is supposedly a celebration of Gothic Revival) with towering obelisks, turrets, grotesques, pointed arches and spires. The figurine on top of the central dome (called Progress) is the most noticeable feature of the structure. Gothic was intended to make man kneel before God. Here, I couldn’t help but feel that it wouldn’t be amiss to kneel irrespective of one’s religious views.
It is a hallmark of this stretch that while the CST/VT is easily the Bellagio amongst all the structures there, it is not the only one that catches the eye. Not in the slightest. In fact, the area may be unparalleled in India for the sheer value it offers to architecture enthusiasts. The BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation building may well be an institution dispensing justice. Its towering columns are designed to correspond to the highest human ideals. The Times of India is housed in a building whose fortune it is to be stared at more than the CST itself for more people peer at it vapidly while waiting for locals within the CST! And this is only the beginning. Further to the left of the CST as one exits are more and more impressive buildings that have been cornered by banks of every denomination in India. It really must’ve been a fad to own or rent real estate in this prime locality. Such fads exist elsewhere too. Marine Drive inexplicably has offices of airlines like Iran Air, South African Airways etc!
Further down is Flora Fountain, a beautiful piece of sculpture if one can find the time to stand and admire. It is very nearly an incongruous structure in the concrete jungle that is Mumbai, even on this hallowed stretch. On a Sunday afternoon though, when the circle has an epidemic-induced emptiness, the structure might speak to you. Or perhaps, no words beyond those of Niranjan Bhagat (on display in the plaque below) are necessary. Right on cue, I swerve behind to spot a footpath hosting a vestige of olden times fast disappearing today – the old bookstall. Browsing with care can unearth rarities like Eric Newby’s A Short Walk in the Hindukush or Bruce Chatwin’s Blue Highways. My current predilection for travel means that I invariably look for titles of this sort.
Thirsty from a long walk and sightseeing, I'm encouraged by my friends to stop over at the now infamous Leopold's Cafe. They reveal no desire to have anything but I'm informed that the Blueberry Cheesecake is a knockout. The first thing one notices about Leopold's is its oddball colonial character. I imagine one would find cafes of this kind at ports of call everywhere in the world. Despite the presence of memorabilia from ages since and the cliched Elvis stamp, there is enough to kindle the senses into believing that this was once a cafe where naval officers, merchants, traders, peddlers and others whose calling called for frequenting Bombay met, had drinks or coffee over conversation. A long poster drawing across the breadth of the room, while confirming what has prompted Ketan to remark that Leopold's would have attracted every manner of clientele, is also the singular attraction here. It packs various stocks of people into its considerable canvas and yet retains a sense of space amidst the bedlam scenes it depicts. I amuse myself at the lengths the artist has gone to impart varying countenances. When the cheesecake comes, my first morsel confirms the legend. It literally melts in my mouth and in the wake of a food orgasm, I finally notice that we have chosen a table right next to the bullet hole from 26/11. In a fit of whimsical impropriety, I see it as one more piece of memorabilia at Leopold's. In making room for the insignia of violence and death, the cafe is only reaffirming its presence in a city where there's always room.
I now see an experience trail from the locals to VT to Flora to Leopold's. A familiar pattern has reinforced itself. Open-mindedness, lending oneself to experience, drinking out of a charming history, being repulsed and intrigued by the city's culture - all of these have led me to this realization: I am taken with Mumbai. It is like no other place in India. It couldn't be. History and commerce alone have ensured that. What I don't realize at this juncture that the final piece isn't this evening in South Bombay. Of all things possible, it is a museum in Byculla. That however, is the subject of another write-up.
Thirsty from a long walk and sightseeing, I'm encouraged by my friends to stop over at the now infamous Leopold's Cafe. They reveal no desire to have anything but I'm informed that the Blueberry Cheesecake is a knockout. The first thing one notices about Leopold's is its oddball colonial character. I imagine one would find cafes of this kind at ports of call everywhere in the world. Despite the presence of memorabilia from ages since and the cliched Elvis stamp, there is enough to kindle the senses into believing that this was once a cafe where naval officers, merchants, traders, peddlers and others whose calling called for frequenting Bombay met, had drinks or coffee over conversation. A long poster drawing across the breadth of the room, while confirming what has prompted Ketan to remark that Leopold's would have attracted every manner of clientele, is also the singular attraction here. It packs various stocks of people into its considerable canvas and yet retains a sense of space amidst the bedlam scenes it depicts. I amuse myself at the lengths the artist has gone to impart varying countenances. When the cheesecake comes, my first morsel confirms the legend. It literally melts in my mouth and in the wake of a food orgasm, I finally notice that we have chosen a table right next to the bullet hole from 26/11. In a fit of whimsical impropriety, I see it as one more piece of memorabilia at Leopold's. In making room for the insignia of violence and death, the cafe is only reaffirming its presence in a city where there's always room.
I now see an experience trail from the locals to VT to Flora to Leopold's. A familiar pattern has reinforced itself. Open-mindedness, lending oneself to experience, drinking out of a charming history, being repulsed and intrigued by the city's culture - all of these have led me to this realization: I am taken with Mumbai. It is like no other place in India. It couldn't be. History and commerce alone have ensured that. What I don't realize at this juncture that the final piece isn't this evening in South Bombay. Of all things possible, it is a museum in Byculla. That however, is the subject of another write-up.
