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December 26, 2005
80 batch reunion
This piece appeared in today's Mumbai Mirror.
One of the benefits of contributing to “Writer’s Bloc” is of suddenly being contactable publicly. A few weeks ago, Mohun, an old school-mate, emailed me and we touched base after almost a decade. A couple of non-committed Sundays later, he just dropped in home and along with Krishnan, who lives nearby in the same “gulli”, we gup-shupped through the morning.
Earlier this year, I went to Ashdin’s wedding, probably the last of my school friends to get married, where I ran into Cedric, who I hadn’t seen in over 20 years. Cedric now lives in Bangkok and eventually later this year, we actually landed up visiting him and having a great time.
Last week, Cedric was in town and Mohun was dying to meet up with some of the others of our Don Bosco batch of 80, who meet up every once in a while. With a minimum of fuss, around 15 of us met up last week.
Irrespective of where we initially decide to meet, eventually, we always land up at just one place, Rasna Punjab. Rasna has been around for donkeys years and serves better-than-average Punjabi food with reasonably cheap booze. Though highly under-rated compared to the other restaurants in Matunga, it gives us a lot of rope and accommodates the din we create, with all our cussing and shouting, fending off with ease, complaints from the nearby tables.
A meeting of school-friends is almost always about nostalgia. Remembering all the crazy and wild things that we had all done during school, catching up on what everyone is doing now and remembering and bitching about those who aren’t around. The school, the Matunga environs and the people concerned…all evoke extremely strong memories and sometimes, strong emotions as well, along with some baggage that you’d have thought would have been off-loaded a long time back over the last twenty-five years.
One such baggage that we have all offloaded is of being SSC students. I still remember how ICSE kids used to have this la-di-la, superior attitude even in those days, which apparently has gotten even worse. Now, looking back, I think that was actually a good thing; the hunger to “show them”, combined with the rounded-education from a top ten school, I am sure, played no small part in driving us to where we are today.
The sad part though is that, this year marks 25 years since we left school and we forgot to celebrate this anniversary. Forgot…just like that! We’ve decided to do one now, but Mehul is so pessimistic, he thinks that not more than 50 people (25 couples) will turn up for a reunion. I am overly optimistic, and am sure that at least 125 ex-students will turn up (wives extra), my argument being that even if you didn’t like the school or your friends, you would come to a reunion at least once in 10-15 years. At least out of curiosity, if nothing else, to see how everyone else was doing, how the teachers were and whether Matunga and the school environs had changed or not changed or whatever. We finally laid a bet and come Dec 16, 2006, we’ll know who wins. And I know that Mehul wouldn’t really like to win this bet.
Posted by bhavinj at 05:47 PM | Comments (2)
December 16, 2005
The next door denizen
This one appeared in today's Mumbai Mirror.
Ravi, last week emailed me asking me when Sion would be covered in Writer’s Bloc, saying, “as one of the Onida ads says, ‘Neighbors Envy Owner’s Pride’”. I had anyway included Sion as part of the greater Matunga area, but when Anita on Sunday, muscled in, I realized I would have to move fast to protect my territorial interests (grin).
Sion, like Wadala is nothing but another Matunga, with a few pockets of difference. Most of it is populated by Gujjus…and we actually have a “Jain Society”. In Dr. Kusum Doshi’s words “Housing was also not neglected by the Gujjus of this area. A few of them got together and formed a society and constructed 18 buildings on a co-operative
basis—popularly known as Jain Society. This possibly may be the first co-operative housing society formed in this area. Here every member got one building as his share”.
Even those “townies” who don’t know where Matunga is, know where Sion is. If you want to leave town to go either to Lonavla/Pune or beyond Dahisar, etc. Sion till a few years ago was the only way out and even today is still the best way out. Both the highways converge to this central suburb, the Western Express via Dharavi and the Eastern Express via Everard Nagar. In fact, there was a time when to go from Thane to Juhu, you had no alternative but to come all the way to Sion and then turn around and go to Juhu. Thankfully these days, with the many east-west link roads that have come up, these round-about trips are slowly become a thing of the past.
And yet the traffic snarls don’t stop. The first one is at the Sion Hospital signal. The second is on Sion circle (try taking a turn to CineMax when you have come from Matunga) and the third is on the opposite side when you are coming from Chembur. Last Sunday, we managed Dehu Road to Sion in about 90 minutes and then spent around 30 minutes getting from just beyond Everard Nagar to Sion circle. I am sure the guys who conceived of the Sion circle flyover did all their home-work and are and were extremely wise; but a one-way flyover only from South-North and none in the opposite direction…makes no sense whatsoever. Another traffic snarl is outside CineMax, with a combination of tourist buses, the cars coming in and going out of the theatre’s parking lot and the cars being parked by the Peninsula valets.
As kids, we used to frequent the Gurukripa building to play in their game machines and to pig out on their samosas. Once in college, with most of my friends in SIES, that place became a kind of second home. And, with almost a decade of graduate and post-graduate education in Sion, and my wife being Sionite and my in-laws still living there…I guess my claim is well-established.
Sion has interesting neighbors. To the East is Koliwada with the repair shops and the Punjabi colonies as well as the entire CGHS quarters, now populated by Malayalees. On the West, is Dharavi, and unless you go back via Dadar and Mahim, that is the only way out of Sion to the Western suburbs.
But I still can’t figure out why Sion is called “Shiv” in Marathi and Hindi. Probably because of the fort?
Posted by bhavinj at 05:40 PM | Comments (0)
December 08, 2005
Story of Khotto (and that's not Gujarati)
This is my new piece that was published in today's Mumbai Mirror.
“Ek khotto do”. Sounds really weird in Gujarati, since this translates into “give me a wrong ‘un” (and we’re not even bowling). As in “khotto sikko” – “false coin”. But, this is what we kept hearing at Idli House, the new idli place on the circle.
Funnily, we actually landed up at this place, because we had no money. One Sunday morning, after finishing a run in our favorite ground, the kids wanted to do an “idli-dosa” breakfast. We decided on Anand Bhuvan, but while walking there, when we checked the pockets of our virtually empty running shorts, we realized that we barely had a hundred rupees. We had already reached Garnish, when we saw Idli House, which as we found out later, had just started a couple of weeks back. Being suckers for that “new” eating experience, we decided to go in, but only after we had looked at the prices. When we saw that the most expensive item (the mudho) was just Rs. 12, we realized that we wouldn’t have to go back home to get more money and we went in and settled ourselves on one of the only three tables there.
My wife and daughter ordered two plain idlis, whereas I had a mudho, followed by a khotto. The mudho is an idli steamed in a kedki leaf and has to be unrolled from the leaf and then eaten, whereas the khotto is steamed in a jackfruit leaf shaped like a cup and can be spooned from the leaf itself. There was unlimited pure coconut chutney, sambhar and malgapuri to go with the idlis. The mudho was really nice, though the khotto tasted just like a regular plain idli… I guess it requires a slightly more refined palate than mine to make out the difference in taste. And finally when we finished along with two cups of coffee, the bill was still under Rs. 50. Wow!
Yet, when talking of idlis, how can we not talk about Muthuswamy’s fabulous “rice pancakes”– they are the softest idlis this side of the Vindhyas and melt like butter in your mouth – if you’ve not attended a birthday party or similar event where he has catered, you are obviously not part of the “with-it” Greater Matunga crowd. Just kidding! Unfortunately, Muthuswamy does not have a restaurant and is available only on phone, assuming of course, that he deigns to talk to you.
Yet, even his idlis don’t compare to the ones we had at the Leela Goa, around 3-4 years ago! It was an epiphanic moment, from which time our lives have been a bit miserable, since no idli from then on has tasted as divine!. Kind of like the “dahi” at the top of the Palitana shikhar, if you know what I’m talking about!
I have been using the word “South Indian” a bit too loosely and a recent email by Mrs. Hegdewar set things a bit straight. Just for the record, all the “South Indian” eateries in Matunga are in fact GSB (Gaud Saraswat Brahmans, for those who need full-forms) run, and khottos and mudhos are GSB and not Tamil or Malayalee delicacies. But what really got me thinking was this sentence of hers “Maybe we did not merit a mention from you as we are a quiet lot, seen and not heard, unlike the Gujjus.” The question is, “Are we Gujjus really all that loud?”
Posted by bhavinj at 04:40 PM | Comments (3)
