The Fourth Seat

The best kind of experiences are unplanned. Today evening, as I made my way to Poinsur, I called up my friend Melvin - an original resident of this quaint east Indian village to check if he was around. Mel works in Human Resources but is an adventurer at heart. Every other weekend, you might find him wandering around the hills of Khandala quenching his thirst for adventure. He is a prolific blogger and inspite of living about 400 meters away from his gaothan (urban village) I had never met him before until Karen, our common friend introduced us. We met in the winter of 2016, a day after I wrote the TISSNET - the all Indian entrance exam for postgraduate programs at TISS where incidentally I study - human resources and labour relations. It also turned out that my guess about him being related to my teacher, the late Ms. Yvonne D'souza was correct. He was her son. It was a great evening. Ever since we try to meet now and then.  On his blog, aptly titled Away From The Crowds , y...

"Where do you live in Chembur?" "Panjrapole" "Err, where is that?"  "You know, where the Freeway begins?"  "Ah that. I never knew" (Excerpt from many conversations I have had with friends who are residents of Chembur) Last year in June, I took up admission for an MA program at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Deonar. It made sense to move into a house closer to college. So I chose to live on Din Quarry Road, in Panjrapole, a seven minute walk to the old campus. But I live at the foothills, and I take a detour while the road continues to climb right to the top, going all the way above the tunnel of the Freeway. Last evening, I skipped my detour and walked up the slope, as high as the road would take me.  Panjrapole, which loosely translated means an enclosed yard, typically built to care for cattle, birds, and other small animals can be found all over India. The Bombay Panjrapole at Bhuleshwar was established in 19...

A little while ago, I found myself on the SV Road stretch near Santacruz. It was rush hour and I didn't want to negotiate my way through the vendors, shoppers and commuters thronging on all the approach roads to the station. So on a whim, I turned right into a quiet lane that seemed going towards the station. One of the address boards of a shop read - Chapel Lane. Fifty meters later, I knew why it was called so. A small cross encased in glass stood high in one corner. Below, I noticed a marble plaque. This site was significant. After all this is what lent the entire neighbourhood its name. Here's what the plaque read This site is sacred & historic to the suburb of Santa Cruz.  The words Santa Cruz translate as Holy Cross in Portuguese. Legend has it that the East Indian natives of the village Khulbowree erected a crudely made cross on a hillock which became a landmark because it could be sighted for miles amidst vast paddy fields. The original inhabitants, who w...

Early January of 2015. It had been a good day. A meeting with a friend had helped clear out a lot of things in my head. The way forward from there on, seemed a bit clearer to me. The Starbucks where we had met was a new one, located not very far the chowk. I wandered back to the bus stop to catch the 266 back to the station. But the sun had not set and it had been a while since I had visited the lake. The lake, for most, simply cannot exist. For Lokhandwala can't have a lake. A lake in Lokhandwala? Lol. Just too many cross roads and shopping streets they say. But walk down on the Backroad as it is known, towards the jogger's park but don't enter it. Keep walking straight and within a few meters, look to your right. A small clearing opens up into what looks like a small pond but a healthy one. The Lokhandwala lake has over 70 species of birds, 50 % of which are winter migrants. It was a late January evening and I was very happy to see many ducks, a few raptors and ...

कॉल्ड्प्ले केम टू बॉम्बे टू शुट थेइर लेटेस्ट विडीयो. थे टूक अ कॅब अंड वेंट टो प्ले होळी इन वरळी अन्द सेंट सोनम कपूर टू वसई फोर्ट. बेयोन्से बेकेम अ हिंदी मूवी आयटम गर्ल कॉलअड राणी. व्हाट ईस व्रोंग विथ इत? I saw the video only to see if I could spot the locations. Yes, there is Bassein Fort (How did they get the white peacock there! CGI like Beyonce climbing the stairs of the fort?) shot in the monsoon months with the foliage glorious and overtaking the ruins of the past, there are bylanes of Worli, the fort and the small harbour, Banganga, random streets and yes of course, the Gateway. But there are some great visuals and some really made up ones. Sadhus doing yoga, kaleidoscope man, outdated tv sets but hey, this is a music video not a documentary on India on Discovery Channel. All I am thinking is how much fun those b-boying boys must have had and how proud their parents must be. I hope someone tracks down the group and does a story on them. Then of course, there ar...

There is no better test of my concentration than the loud music blasting from loudspeakers as tall as the average Indian male. Sound waves bounce off the walls of the tiny room, cutting through thin one layered brick walls, reverberating nerve cells making them dance. But I plod on with my work. With my task. Under the dim glow of this table lamp procured from the subway leading to Churchgate station. Bargained for a princely sum of 100 bucks from Mohan the guy from Moradabad who runs a successful enterprise of electronics made in China. His lamps and other wares stop hurrying commuters in their tracks. They take a moment to stand and stare, daring to miss their 734 BO Fast. They avoid the puddles formed by the leaky roof (deep potholes?) as they look in awe at the lamps and also at the toys for adults on display. What is this task, you may wonder, that keeps me from joining the thin crowd outside my window gyrating to the sounds of Koli music. Of course, in the land of Bollywoo...

From where I sat, I had an unobstructed view of the playground. It wasn’t a huge maidan where people assembled for rallies but a small open space in the otherwise congested Nehru Nagar where housewives walked in sports-shoes and boys from the nearby slums and small three storeyed buildings assembled to play every evening. It reminded me of Delhi where every Kaloni (colony) has a park of its own. Lush green spaces with a walking track, playing area, shrubs and flowering trees and many birds. (Oh the birds of Delhi!) But this playground was just an open space, but a welcome respite from the standard view of a Bombay property - living rooms of other people. It was a lazy evening, work seemed boring so I called up a friend. Even as we spoke, I was looking out of the window. The playground was beginning to come to life but what caught my eye was a small boy, standing not taller than three and a half feet, dressed in old faded jeans and a purple shirt. He wore glasses and was playing c...

There seemed to have been a sliver of hope when the last train pulled into the platform. But apart from a few drunk passengers and an old Marwadi merchant, nobody seemed to have got off from the train. The lights of the train went off and the ghost train moved out of the platform to be deposited in the yard that lay a few hundred meters away to the south. The RPF Havaldar finally called it a day and dozed off with his rifle on his helpdesk. The food stalls had long shut down and the autorickshaw drivers outside slept off, crouched on the seat meant for three-passengers-only( four if you paid extra). The slightest hope was extinguished as the rumble of the train became distant. Manjula, 38, mother of three stood looking at the taillight of the train as it made its journey back to the yard. She felt disappointed, dejected, standing under the whirring fan of platform number 1. It had been a bad week. Every evening since May, young girls were appearing outside the station. Inexperien...