In berry scents
and red candles
your hand wraps mine.
Tall twisted glasses
on the table, half filled
with Satori, my favourite red wine.
I, bathed
in creamy liquids,
anxious in the night,
and you wearing cologne.
We shine in black
through the temple light.
An odd couple
caught in a perfect time.
Away from the glare,
in an exotic room
with breath floating
in peach and strawberry air.
Love me tender,
love me sweet.
Elvis echoes my heart.
As you hold me close
and brush my lips
the night's just about to start.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Beyond you…
Since the split, life has been to say the least ‘eventful’.
Dreams—however small they might be – their fulfillment always makes us happy. The excitement that comes from longing for something is replaced by sheer joy and thrill of seeing it being fulfilled. I don’t know which one’s better though. Once you get what you dreamt about, the fulfillment becomes just a distinct, memory, etched in your mind. But it is all the time that you spent yearning for it to happen that remains with you.
It is only after you that I discovered that there was so much more I wanted from life. So much more I wanted to do, so much more I had to learn about life and myself, so much more I wanted to give myself, so much more I needed to explore, and so many little dreams I had to fulfill. I existed beyond the relationship. I knew it but never realised it. A cloud that wandered about looking for the perfect time to pour on the dry earth, never realizing that it was getting heavier by the day, denser by the moment and the moment to pour down was for the cloud to choose. And it all happened after you. And I began looking at life beyond you.
Friendship
I discovered a new role of an old friendship, the very next day of the split. A friendship I never gave a chance.
Touch
How i keep rediscovering the importance of touch! But this time it meant much more than ever before. A tender and loving hand on you makes a huge difference when you are lost or upset or sad or excited. And there is something about this touch. It makes me feel safe, secure and loved. It tells me that this world is not such a bad place after all. It’s a lovely place to be in. With it i have also discovered why every relationship can't be given a name. Some relationships are too different and too special to be given a tag.
Concert
Five days later, I witnessed the lights, music and a dream. I had been dying to attend a live rock concert and it happened. The Roger Waters concert! Everything was just perfect. Better than how I had imagined it would be.
Solapur
Within 15 days I left for my much needed break. Saw my Nani’s place after two-and-a-half years. I had been yearning to go there, the place I went every summer before I began working.
Bhaiyya chi gadi, our favourite bhelpuri wala near Maidan in Solapur. The place is our family haunt since my nana’s time. My mum and dad and uncles and aunts ate there when they were in school, and I have been eating there since I was a kid. His stuff is nothing close to the chats we get in Delhi or even Mumbai. They are unique. I have no eaten this kind of food anywhere else in world. His chutney bread, kachori, thanda pani puri (which has only onions as ad ons), chutney puri….yummmmmm. I miss bhaiyya chi gadi now! He is Solapur’s shaan I think.
And yes, can’t leave out Sudha Idli Gruha. The idli and wada’s out there are characteristic of the place. Again the taste and the style of cooking are completely different from all the other cities. They keep serving you as much chutney and as much sambhar you want for no extra charge plus they serve you nice home-made kind of butter to top your idli. And a chilli chutney that served with the food is Sudha’s best stuff. And above all else, these places are dirt cheap.
If you ever go to Solapur, which is next to impossible since the place has nothing that would draw you to it unless you have grown up there, you must eat at these two places. You’ll thank me for this.
They fed me like a pig. From chapatti sabzi, shrikhand to chips, dosas and pizzas, they fed me everything they could in a span of three days. I almost died by the time I left Solapur. I felt like a child there; felt protected being around family and my lovely little cousins.
Bangalore
Then I was on the train to Bangalore. A place I visited three years back. Reading Vikram Seth’s collected poems interspersed with listening to some Jim Morrison I reached Bangalore. There is no better way to discover a place than to go around on your own, alone. I got to do that after a long time. The last time I did that was when I had moved to Mumbai the first time.
I walked in to a pub alone, in a new city, sat at the bar and ordered a drink, chatted with the bartenders, making small conversations about newspapers and the deadlines in Bangalore. The feeling was liberating. To be able to claim your private space — as a woman — in a public place is liberating. And I enjoyed every bit of it. I did it in Bangalore which is not as cool as Mumbai is, for girls. You can hardly see any girls in pubs there on weekdays. Yes on weekends of course you can see women come in but almost always in a group with men for company.
I stayed at home watching movies I had been wanting to watch, getting out in the evenings, taking the local transport only on my 4th day in the city. Walking around and getting the essence of the city was so much fun.
Cauvery Art Emporium was my land mark for several days. If I got down from the auto here I could find my way easily. The place has some lovely stuff. Toys, book marks, show pieces, several hand made works and even a Rs 35 lakh worth sandalwood piece of artifact! Yes, it is over priced but you need to find stuff that you wouldn’t mind spending on.
Shobha took to me to India Coffee House for breakfast one day. After coffee and bread jam toast, the waiter got me two instead of one scrambled egg on toast. He urged to finish it and I did. The prices were so low at that place that I could have probably downed another two if I didn’t feel stuffed with what I had eaten. The uniforms resembled the ones worn by cooks during the British Raj.
The pubs
Legends of Rock and Le Rock are what I definitely miss in Mumbai. Spacious places, that play my favourite rock music, with big screens showing videos, cheap drinks and great ambience. I fell in love with them. I shall never forget the huge 600 ml pints served in huge glasses that looked like a tower. Shrav and I went crazy about them. Had great fun at both these places each time I went there.
We had to make a trip to B11. It was a ritual. That was the one time I missed our very own Rahul. The last time I went to Bangalore, Rahul played the perfect DJ at B11. He played all OUR songs. After all it is always great to have your friend as the DJ. But this time there was no Rahul at the DJ console and the place didn’t seem even an iota of what it was when we came there every single day of our five-day trip years ago. But the best part was I remembered every single spot I had seen so long back in Jayanagar. I was proud of myself and felt nostalgic.
Pikos—a Totos kinda place. But nowhere close to it. Yes, it is dingy, smoky, old and rusty but I can’t compare it with my favourite place in Mumbai, can I?
MG Road is a conglomeration of pubs. Loads of small and big pubs spread across and behind this street. Pikos, Guzzlers Inn, Le Rock, Sticks and several others. When I witnessed it myself I understood why the city is called a pub city. The saddest part especially if you are from Mumbai is that the pubs shut at 11.30 and autos charge you 1 ½ meter after as early as 9.30pm. You will have to bargain with Bangalore auto guys. That’s weird. It’s the law and order of Bangalore that needs to get in place not the people who want pubs to be open longer. The city is safer if the city is alive and kicking longer in to the night. I witnessed a really bad drunken driving accident in the few days of my stay. So is the 11.30 deadline of any use? Surely not!
Pondicherry
I travelled to Pondicherry with a guy I met after nine years. Another dream comes true—I go on a road trip to Pondy. The little Tamil Nadu villages, the forts and the pile- of-stones like mountains were what made my trip beautiful.
But apart from that the road was bumpy in parts and it took us nine hours to get there. Our butts were numb, we had to stand and sit down repeatedly to ease them. Legs were stiff. Getting off from the bike and getting on again was a task. When we finally reached, it was 9.30—the city shuts by 10.30— we had no place to stay. The only resort we had pinned our hopes on, ‘The Banyan Resort’, was shut for renovation that week. We somehow reached the Beach Road, it’s the mini Marine Drive, small, clean with little French architecture buildings along the stretch. I managed to spot a hotel and we finally got a room. My face was black with a layer of soot. I looked like a ghost. After a well awaited and well deserved bath, when I sat on the soft bed, I saw heaven!
Pondicherry has two parts, the French square and the Tamil Square. We had decided to explore the French Sqaure since its architecture and food places were something we had been looking forward to. First we stepped into the tourism office. When we entered the air conditioned office, a guy came up to us and asked us to take the seat. We asked for the map and he handed it over to us. He told us the places we should go to and a pamphlet of the hotels to live in. The tourism office’s booklet was too good! Informative and it served us well in the entire trip. We got out of there, walked down the beach road, which is lined up with all possible government offices of Pondy, from the Court to the Vidhan Sabha.
It was lovely walking down the tiny streets except that it was too hot! The sun burnt my skin, literally despite loads of sunscreen. The walk in the heat was followed by a relaxed brunch. We had French cuisine but don’t ask me the names. I don’t know French! The food accompanied by the beer was just right. When we walked out we decided to get into a cycle-rikshaw. The last time I sat in a cycle-rikshaw was incidentally in Pondy with my parents several years ago.
Soon we checked out from this hotel and headed for Auro beach and began hunting a new place to stay. We wanted to live in a shack on the beach but discovered that all of it was taken up by foreigners. Yes, it is here that we realised that this place was a firang magnet. There were firings all over the beach. In our bid to find a place on the beach we entered a firang-packed shack place where auro cookie, auro coffee and everything auro was being sold across the counter at the joint there. Obviously the place was full so we went back to our hunting.
Finally we found a place just behind this auro-hotel. The place had lovely trees with yellow flowers, shacks built ten-feet above the ground and a fantastic balcony. So we stayed in this bamboo house, played in the waves in the evening and took a long walk on the beach. Then we got some beer and sat down on the beach till late in the night. We spoke about a whole lot of things and finally had candle-lit dinner in our balcony. There were no sounds except for the sea waves and moving branches and no lights except for the candle in front of us. I was high and it felt peaceful.
Well, the next day was our last day there. We had our breakfast outside the shack. The little wooden tables and chairs under the shade of the tree were strewn with the yellow flowers bidding us good-bye. It was one of the most peaceful breakfast I’ve ever had. I felt relieved to have come to this place and fulfilled by the discovery of a place so removed from the world I’m so used to living in.
Before leaving for Bangalore we paid a visit to Auro Ville. A half-an-hour drive from the Auro Beach, we encountered several shops owned by foreigners. The coffee shop at Auro Ville looked fantastic, and though we were tired we made the walk to Matrimandir. It’s the golden dome being built at Auro Ville since 1974. The ten-minute walk turned out to be a half-an-hour one, but we were determined to see Matrimandir before setting out for Bangalore.
On our return our goal was set. Two hours to Maghumalai, Krishna Nagar in the next two hours and another two hours to get to Bangalore. Just three breaks this time round. It was a mission and we had to fulfill it. We reached Bangalore in six hours this time!
Dreams—however small they might be – their fulfillment always makes us happy. The excitement that comes from longing for something is replaced by sheer joy and thrill of seeing it being fulfilled. I don’t know which one’s better though. Once you get what you dreamt about, the fulfillment becomes just a distinct, memory, etched in your mind. But it is all the time that you spent yearning for it to happen that remains with you.
It is only after you that I discovered that there was so much more I wanted from life. So much more I wanted to do, so much more I had to learn about life and myself, so much more I wanted to give myself, so much more I needed to explore, and so many little dreams I had to fulfill. I existed beyond the relationship. I knew it but never realised it. A cloud that wandered about looking for the perfect time to pour on the dry earth, never realizing that it was getting heavier by the day, denser by the moment and the moment to pour down was for the cloud to choose. And it all happened after you. And I began looking at life beyond you.
Friendship
I discovered a new role of an old friendship, the very next day of the split. A friendship I never gave a chance.
Touch
How i keep rediscovering the importance of touch! But this time it meant much more than ever before. A tender and loving hand on you makes a huge difference when you are lost or upset or sad or excited. And there is something about this touch. It makes me feel safe, secure and loved. It tells me that this world is not such a bad place after all. It’s a lovely place to be in. With it i have also discovered why every relationship can't be given a name. Some relationships are too different and too special to be given a tag.
Concert
Five days later, I witnessed the lights, music and a dream. I had been dying to attend a live rock concert and it happened. The Roger Waters concert! Everything was just perfect. Better than how I had imagined it would be.
Solapur
Within 15 days I left for my much needed break. Saw my Nani’s place after two-and-a-half years. I had been yearning to go there, the place I went every summer before I began working.
Bhaiyya chi gadi, our favourite bhelpuri wala near Maidan in Solapur. The place is our family haunt since my nana’s time. My mum and dad and uncles and aunts ate there when they were in school, and I have been eating there since I was a kid. His stuff is nothing close to the chats we get in Delhi or even Mumbai. They are unique. I have no eaten this kind of food anywhere else in world. His chutney bread, kachori, thanda pani puri (which has only onions as ad ons), chutney puri….yummmmmm. I miss bhaiyya chi gadi now! He is Solapur’s shaan I think.
And yes, can’t leave out Sudha Idli Gruha. The idli and wada’s out there are characteristic of the place. Again the taste and the style of cooking are completely different from all the other cities. They keep serving you as much chutney and as much sambhar you want for no extra charge plus they serve you nice home-made kind of butter to top your idli. And a chilli chutney that served with the food is Sudha’s best stuff. And above all else, these places are dirt cheap.
If you ever go to Solapur, which is next to impossible since the place has nothing that would draw you to it unless you have grown up there, you must eat at these two places. You’ll thank me for this.
They fed me like a pig. From chapatti sabzi, shrikhand to chips, dosas and pizzas, they fed me everything they could in a span of three days. I almost died by the time I left Solapur. I felt like a child there; felt protected being around family and my lovely little cousins.
Bangalore
Then I was on the train to Bangalore. A place I visited three years back. Reading Vikram Seth’s collected poems interspersed with listening to some Jim Morrison I reached Bangalore. There is no better way to discover a place than to go around on your own, alone. I got to do that after a long time. The last time I did that was when I had moved to Mumbai the first time.
I walked in to a pub alone, in a new city, sat at the bar and ordered a drink, chatted with the bartenders, making small conversations about newspapers and the deadlines in Bangalore. The feeling was liberating. To be able to claim your private space — as a woman — in a public place is liberating. And I enjoyed every bit of it. I did it in Bangalore which is not as cool as Mumbai is, for girls. You can hardly see any girls in pubs there on weekdays. Yes on weekends of course you can see women come in but almost always in a group with men for company.
I stayed at home watching movies I had been wanting to watch, getting out in the evenings, taking the local transport only on my 4th day in the city. Walking around and getting the essence of the city was so much fun.
Cauvery Art Emporium was my land mark for several days. If I got down from the auto here I could find my way easily. The place has some lovely stuff. Toys, book marks, show pieces, several hand made works and even a Rs 35 lakh worth sandalwood piece of artifact! Yes, it is over priced but you need to find stuff that you wouldn’t mind spending on.
Shobha took to me to India Coffee House for breakfast one day. After coffee and bread jam toast, the waiter got me two instead of one scrambled egg on toast. He urged to finish it and I did. The prices were so low at that place that I could have probably downed another two if I didn’t feel stuffed with what I had eaten. The uniforms resembled the ones worn by cooks during the British Raj.
The pubs
Legends of Rock and Le Rock are what I definitely miss in Mumbai. Spacious places, that play my favourite rock music, with big screens showing videos, cheap drinks and great ambience. I fell in love with them. I shall never forget the huge 600 ml pints served in huge glasses that looked like a tower. Shrav and I went crazy about them. Had great fun at both these places each time I went there.
We had to make a trip to B11. It was a ritual. That was the one time I missed our very own Rahul. The last time I went to Bangalore, Rahul played the perfect DJ at B11. He played all OUR songs. After all it is always great to have your friend as the DJ. But this time there was no Rahul at the DJ console and the place didn’t seem even an iota of what it was when we came there every single day of our five-day trip years ago. But the best part was I remembered every single spot I had seen so long back in Jayanagar. I was proud of myself and felt nostalgic.
Pikos—a Totos kinda place. But nowhere close to it. Yes, it is dingy, smoky, old and rusty but I can’t compare it with my favourite place in Mumbai, can I?
MG Road is a conglomeration of pubs. Loads of small and big pubs spread across and behind this street. Pikos, Guzzlers Inn, Le Rock, Sticks and several others. When I witnessed it myself I understood why the city is called a pub city. The saddest part especially if you are from Mumbai is that the pubs shut at 11.30 and autos charge you 1 ½ meter after as early as 9.30pm. You will have to bargain with Bangalore auto guys. That’s weird. It’s the law and order of Bangalore that needs to get in place not the people who want pubs to be open longer. The city is safer if the city is alive and kicking longer in to the night. I witnessed a really bad drunken driving accident in the few days of my stay. So is the 11.30 deadline of any use? Surely not!
Pondicherry
I travelled to Pondicherry with a guy I met after nine years. Another dream comes true—I go on a road trip to Pondy. The little Tamil Nadu villages, the forts and the pile- of-stones like mountains were what made my trip beautiful.
But apart from that the road was bumpy in parts and it took us nine hours to get there. Our butts were numb, we had to stand and sit down repeatedly to ease them. Legs were stiff. Getting off from the bike and getting on again was a task. When we finally reached, it was 9.30—the city shuts by 10.30— we had no place to stay. The only resort we had pinned our hopes on, ‘The Banyan Resort’, was shut for renovation that week. We somehow reached the Beach Road, it’s the mini Marine Drive, small, clean with little French architecture buildings along the stretch. I managed to spot a hotel and we finally got a room. My face was black with a layer of soot. I looked like a ghost. After a well awaited and well deserved bath, when I sat on the soft bed, I saw heaven!
Pondicherry has two parts, the French square and the Tamil Square. We had decided to explore the French Sqaure since its architecture and food places were something we had been looking forward to. First we stepped into the tourism office. When we entered the air conditioned office, a guy came up to us and asked us to take the seat. We asked for the map and he handed it over to us. He told us the places we should go to and a pamphlet of the hotels to live in. The tourism office’s booklet was too good! Informative and it served us well in the entire trip. We got out of there, walked down the beach road, which is lined up with all possible government offices of Pondy, from the Court to the Vidhan Sabha.
It was lovely walking down the tiny streets except that it was too hot! The sun burnt my skin, literally despite loads of sunscreen. The walk in the heat was followed by a relaxed brunch. We had French cuisine but don’t ask me the names. I don’t know French! The food accompanied by the beer was just right. When we walked out we decided to get into a cycle-rikshaw. The last time I sat in a cycle-rikshaw was incidentally in Pondy with my parents several years ago.
Soon we checked out from this hotel and headed for Auro beach and began hunting a new place to stay. We wanted to live in a shack on the beach but discovered that all of it was taken up by foreigners. Yes, it is here that we realised that this place was a firang magnet. There were firings all over the beach. In our bid to find a place on the beach we entered a firang-packed shack place where auro cookie, auro coffee and everything auro was being sold across the counter at the joint there. Obviously the place was full so we went back to our hunting.
Finally we found a place just behind this auro-hotel. The place had lovely trees with yellow flowers, shacks built ten-feet above the ground and a fantastic balcony. So we stayed in this bamboo house, played in the waves in the evening and took a long walk on the beach. Then we got some beer and sat down on the beach till late in the night. We spoke about a whole lot of things and finally had candle-lit dinner in our balcony. There were no sounds except for the sea waves and moving branches and no lights except for the candle in front of us. I was high and it felt peaceful.
Well, the next day was our last day there. We had our breakfast outside the shack. The little wooden tables and chairs under the shade of the tree were strewn with the yellow flowers bidding us good-bye. It was one of the most peaceful breakfast I’ve ever had. I felt relieved to have come to this place and fulfilled by the discovery of a place so removed from the world I’m so used to living in.
Before leaving for Bangalore we paid a visit to Auro Ville. A half-an-hour drive from the Auro Beach, we encountered several shops owned by foreigners. The coffee shop at Auro Ville looked fantastic, and though we were tired we made the walk to Matrimandir. It’s the golden dome being built at Auro Ville since 1974. The ten-minute walk turned out to be a half-an-hour one, but we were determined to see Matrimandir before setting out for Bangalore.
On our return our goal was set. Two hours to Maghumalai, Krishna Nagar in the next two hours and another two hours to get to Bangalore. Just three breaks this time round. It was a mission and we had to fulfill it. We reached Bangalore in six hours this time!
And last but not the least I sat in a flight for the first time, got a window seat and watched the desert of clouds all the way back to Mumbai.
Life has been exciting, after all the tears and shit!
Monday, April 16, 2007
Mahim
I wasn’t aware what this small stretch of Mahim Causeway wraps within itself till I began researching for the Urs festival that takes place at Mahim Durgah every year. It is one of the cities within the city of Mumbai which has somehow got lost in a whirlwind of traffic that dresses it’s roads during peak hours day after day. It has its own little history and culture which is to say the least of significant interest.
Mahim Causeway
A plaque that stands at the Mahim Causeway records the making of the Mahim Causeway. It credits Lady Jeejeebhoy, the main donor. It was built in 1845 to connect the island of Salsette with Mahim. The swampy area between the two islands made travel dangerous and thus a need for a causeway arose. The British East India Company, who governed Bombay at that time refused to fund the project. Finally it was built at a total cost of Rs 1,57,000 donated entirely by Lady Avabai Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, wife of the first baronet Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy with a stipulation that no toll would be charged to citizens for its use by the government.
Mahim Creek
A dam built on Mithi River called Mahim Causeway is how environmentalists see the Mahim Causeway. The Mahim creek is a part of Mithi River that originates at Powai and meets the sea at the creek. Mahim bay area, where Mithi River meets Arabian sea, is a nominated bird sanctuary called Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary where migratory birds come for nesting. This part is full of mangroves and this fragile eco system requires considerations from pollution point of view, so that it is not destroyed. According to environmentalists, the depleting mangroves of Mahim creek are one of the main reasons for the floods in Mumbai. Emerald Fields now a student at Massachusetts wrote in his blog about the beauty of the Mahim Creek. “I used to live 20 feet away from sea water in Mahim creek. Five to six years back, it was great, you could hear the sea waves lashing across the stone walls, hear the fishermen’s boats leaving Mahim port at dawn. Tiny lights shifting swiftly in the dark. Suddenly there was an army of trucks all around. They began dumping mud all over to make that new sea link. So, one would see dust instead of boats and listen to noisy machines all the tim. The whole beauty of it died,” says Fields.
Creek water
While many thronged the Mahim Creek to drink the miracle water earlier this year, BMC warned the people that the water is unpotable. The National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) said that the reason for the sweetening of water could be attributed to the large quantities of groundwater draining into the sea because of the rains. The creek water is said to be highly unpotable due to low chlorine levels, dangerous levels of nitrates and alarming pollution levels. According to the report on the Mithi river water submitted to the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) by Klean Environmental Consultants, the citizens dump raw sewage, industrial waste and garbage unchecked. Besides this, illegal activities of washing of oily drums, discharge of hazardous waste are also carried out along the course of this river.
Church
Missionary activity in Bassein, Salsette and Bombay commenced from 1534 onward. The Franciscans were the sole missionaries on the island; they were in charge of St Michael Church, Mahim. The Franciscans, who first arrived in India in 1500, were the first to establish churches in Bassein, Salsette, Bombay, Karanja and Chaul. According to Father Hugh Fonseca, around 40-50,000 devotees visit the church every week. St Michael’s Church is popular for its wednesday Novenas.
Durgah
The dargah of Makhdoom Ali Mahimi, the secular Sufi saint, is popular as the Mahim dargah. Reported to be at least 350 years old, the dargah sharief has five domes, the only dargah in Mumbai to have more than one dome. According to Durgah authorities, around 60,000 poeple turn up every week. During the annual ten day Urs festival celebrated on the 13th day of Shawwal, the Muslim calendar, millions of devotees visit the dargah.
Urs
Over 30 lakh devotees are expected to participate in the 593rd birth anniversary celebrations of Baba Makhdoom Shah at Mahim Durgah this year. Every December, during Urs, lakhs of devotees travel to the the durgah to offer prayers, putting pressure on the existing traffic situation. While hundreds of police officials participate in the celebrations, over 2000 police officials and traffic police are deployed to maintain security and traffic at Mahim Causeway. The highlight of Urs is the procession of around eight thousand which begins at the Mahim Police Station, the site of the saint’s residence. Two policemen from each of the eighty four city police stations represent the police department. A representative of the Mumbai police is the first to offer the chaddar (shawl) at the tomb on the first day of the festival. Legend has it that it was a police constable who gave water to the dying saint from his cap.
Mahim Fair
Most people who visit the Durgah are said to make a stop over at the Mahim mela held during Urs at the Mahim Creek. Different contractors install different joy rides and stalls for the fair. The rides include giant wheels, merry-go-rounds, dog shows, magic shows and the well of death. This year’s festival will attract more than 30 lakh people.
Last man standing
The only Udipi restaurant on the Mahim Causeway stretch, Shri Krishna Restaurant is the last restaurant standing at the junction. A regular outlet for the nearby residents and police personnel deputed at the signal, this is the only Udipi restaurant in the area. While its dosas have been one of the much relished food items, it has witnessed the changes in the traffic situation at this signal for years. Standing right opposite the St Michaels church his restaurant does great business on Wednesdays when people come for the weekly Novena. K Ravi who sits at the cash counter overlooking the signal says that he often watches people desperately trying to cross the road. “I often watch people crossing the road. It takes them ten minutes to do so. I’m used to the constant sound of vehicles but the honking still irritates me,” says Ravi.
Ek cutting
Basant tea and cold drink house has been standing at the junction for the last 40 years. A regular halt for foreigners and taxi drivers traveling to the International airport early morning, Vishenji Shah’s Rs 3 cutting chai is the most popular in the area. “The church goers and the workers in the bamboo market have been my regular clients for the past 30 years,” says Tekchand Shah, Vishneji’s son. Way back in the 1960’s the chai which costs Rs 6 now was sold for 25 paise at the shop. Tekchand remembers how the roads were narrower and there was space for people to walk back then. “The footpath was wider and there was a lot more free space. Even during the 10-day mela at the durgah, there was no chaos,” he recollects.
Mahim fort
How many people know that there stands a fort at the edge the western coast of Mahim with a vantage view of Mahim creek? The Mahim fort which has great historic importance is now in ruins. The Mahim Fort is a relic from the British Raj. This fort is actually a fortress- a part of the larger Bombay Castle. This castle was an important base during the time of the British Empire, but now all that remains are a few ramparts scattered about the city. All one can find are encroachers and hutments in the area. The fort which was once visible from the Mahim Causeway and Bandra Reclamation is barely visible now. The Mahim Fort is a heritage structure and the BMC in its budget proposal for 2005-2006 had intended to pay special attention to Mahim Fort but nothing has been done yet. . Conservationist Sharda Dwivedi says that the Fort is in a very bad state and needs to be restored. “A glorious structure like the Bandra fort is ruins. Encroachments have been allowed to flourish for years now. The authorities don’t care about the heritage structures,” she says.
Mahim Beach
The Mahim beach can hardly be called a beach anymore. Slum dwellers excrete and take a leak freely on the sands, leaving no free space to take a peaceful walk. The beach stinks and the shore is strewn with plastic. One of the worst beaches in the city today, it has been calling for attention from the civic authorities and needs a massive clean up drive to restore this important beach.
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