Disappointing because supporting India more often than not led to heartbreak and an unending litany of ‘what-if’ woes; rewarding ‘cos watching cricket telecast by Channel 9, and the sheer spectacle of seeing green fields and fast pitches, with the hook and the cut played in utter disdain of the crazy pace was an experience in itself.

Australia, to me as a young cricket fan, was the ‘final frontier’ where India would go with hopes and be completely cut down to size. Except for the 1985 World Championship of Cricket, where Shastri and Srikkanth and S Vishwanath wrote themselves into the hearts of every Indian fan, while also winning the trophy and a luxury car with an unpronounceable name. All other visits ended in complete humiliation. With or without a certain Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. Even when he was driving McDermott and Hughes and Whitney to a sublime century, at the WACA (of all places), or playing a boy-on-the-burning-deck innings in 1999, there was always an air of inevitability about the final result.

Till 2003, and Ganguly’s greatest Test innings, and a drawn series which made me and a bunch of other Indian fans believe. Come 2008, and we could do the previously unthinkable. But it ended with a whimper at Sydney, and an aborted charter flight which took the Indian team to Perth, and perhaps one of the greatest Indian test victories of all time. Hope was reborn.

2011, and it was India versus Australia time again. This was the series where everything would change. The magnificent Indian batting lineup, certainly on its last tour Down Under as a unit, against an Aussie team fighting its own battles of succession and adjusting to life without any consistent success. Surely, the stars had aligned.

As a fan of the last 25 years, I couldn’t let this chance go. Watch a test in Australia, with the seagulls and beer and fast scary bowling and bright sunshine. And with an Indian team looking to scale it’s own pinnacle of achievement. (Forget England and 4-0, that was an aberration, and Australia was always the final frontier.)

The die was cast, and I booked my tickets to Adelaide to watch the last test. Before I could board the flight, reality bit. The Indian cricket team was hammered, and might even be whitewashed atAdelaide. (I still think not, and hope for a magnificent turnaround, with Dravid playing a magical innings.) But here I am today, in Adelaide, excited to go watch the test in a few hours, and still hoping for a fighting Indian performance.

I have few expectations. I hope the team plays well, and fights hard. And I wish to see the trio of Dravid, Laxman and Tendulkar play the way the Aussie crowds remember them. They are great cricketers, each one a legend in his own special way, and a few poor innings does not make them any lesser cricketers. I, and most other fans, would still remember the many magical innings they have played. 

Just go and make yourselves proud, all over again. And sign an autograph for me. And I will come back from Adelaide a happy fan.

A week into the new year, I am trying to put 2011 in perspective. And turns out I did not do a bunch of the things I had set out to do. On the whole, a not-so-great year.

Did not complete my Spanish lessons, let the blog go to rot (yeah, this one!), took a lot of photographs but hardly printed any… The list goes on. The most galling aspect of 2011 though was the lack of work-life balance (too much work) and the one-dimensional nature of socialising (dinners, drinks, parties). The latter, especially, makes for a very boring ‘life’ in the work-life equation.

There were some high points – watched a test match in Mumbai, in which SRT almost did the unthinkable, and traveled a bit. Of the travels, the highlight was the time spent at Koh Phi Phi, reached after almost 7 hours of travel from Bangkok. Phi Phi (’Koh’ means ‘island’ in the local language) is a tranquil blue-water island in the middle of the West Andaman Sea, with great food and marine life. Good ’twas.

So much for 2011. What does the new year hold in store? Although a very hypothetical question, it is still an interesting one. As Winston Churchill said ‘The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.’.

Here are some of the things I will do in 2012.
1. Travel around India, around local and musical events. Do more travel-blogging, put up pictures more regularly. Spend 4-5 hours each week on keeping this site updated.
2. Spend more time with family and friends. In more productive ways.
3. Pay more attention to my health. Being on the other side of 30, need to start doing that.
4. Read more books. Take the 52-book challenge, and see what comes of it.
5. Be more positive. Change situations rather than complain.

There it is. Now that I have blurted it all out, will get to work on keeping these promises to myself.

I went to Khotachiwadi on a Sunday afternoon, armed with a camera and instructions on how to get there, and promptly lost my way. Eventually, after a lot of wrong turns and direction-seeking, I chanced into Khotachiwadi, and there was a sudden difference in the vibe. No car horns, no pedestrians walking hither-thither, no roadside shops hawking their wares – there was just a narrow alley, with multi-colored houses on both sides, and ending at a very brightly painted red-and-yellow two-storey house. It was heart-warming.

I walked through the colony, and it is a maze, with lanes criss-crossing with each other, which make it seem a much larger area than it really is. And every lane has something new to offer. The kaleidoscope of sights makes it even more difficult to button-hole Khotachiwadi into any one narrow niche. Ancient and well-maintained, Khotachiwadi is.

Some of the sights that I was able to frame are here, and illustrate the diversity of experiences on offer in Khotachiwadi. A shrine of Jesus, the committee chawl (see ‘17 families, 1 house‘), beautiful window arches, cast of the face of the Buddha, a wide-porched house being rennovated, wall temple of the Sai Baba, gym whose façade looked more like a nursery, pretty children, shrine of the Virgin Mary donated by the Patkars, a Maharashtrian family.
All in all, tremendous diversity on offer.

‘Wadi’ in Marathi means an orchard, and colloquially, a village. There are many Wadis in Central Bombay – Fanaswadi, Ambawadi, Sitafalwadi, Khotachiwadi being some among those. Khotachiwadi was founded in the late 1700s by a Pathare Prabhu Brahmin called Khot, who sold plots to East Indian Christian families. Today, there are a number of Christian and Brahmin families living in the village.

The architecture is distinctly Goan – quaint low-rise wooden bungalows, with large open verandahs, trellised balconies, latticed windows, bright colours and an external staircase leading to the first floor. Khotachiwadi has been marked as a heritage precinct of Bombay since some years now, and the residents have been very steadfast about not selling of their houses / plots to developers. In spite of all efforts, only 30 or so of the original 65 bungalows still remain, and it in an uphill battle to maintain those in the same way as before.

One of the high points of the Khotachiwadi visit was the house of Willy Felizardo. Seeing the camera in my hand, and taking me to be the ersatz photographer that I am, the family welcomed me in. The first look of the courtyard was mindblowing – bright colors, patterns, figurines, lanterns, stools, fishes, birds. The mind boggled! Kitschy, but very attractive. Apparently,Willy ends up buying interesting things as and when he sees them, and the result is the open courtyard with its various artifacts. The house has been featured in various travel magazines as well.

More than colours

Another high point of Khotachiwadi is an eating place called Ananthashram, where one can get the cheapest seafood, and where the food is cooked on wooden fires, and served on standalone wooden tables. But more on that in another post.

I came away from Khotachiwadi, very pleased at having been able to take a peek into a Bombay that existed years earlier. Like seeing a sepia-toned photograph of a friend’s younger days.

How to get there? From Charni Road railway station, walk east past the Central Plaza theatre, and turn right at the traffic light intersection. Another 200 meters, past a GSB (Goud Saraswat Brahmin) colony, and then turn left into the first lane. You are in Khotachiwadi.
Or just get to St. Teresa’s church, and ask for directions.

The ‘Committee Chawl’ which houses 17 families in one structure – all the 17 families are, or were, associated with the Khotachiwadi cricket club. The interior of this chawl, by the way, is a striking example of efficient usage of space and good design.

The bright colours, wooden stairs, balconies, tiled roofs and the narrow bylanes had me blink a few times. On a hot Bombay March afternoon, the air was surprisingly cool and unsurprisingly tranquil.

For the next few days, I will post some of these snapshots from the walk, and also a short essay about the walk.

The book is very allegorical in style, good read although repetitive and slow at times. But the repetitiveness is why the book stuck in my mind. Mr Murakami stresses on the one point of training and discipline, and draws the seemingly ill-fitting analogy between running a marathon and writing a book, and describes both as intensely physical activities. Writing needs immense concentration which draws as much of the body’s physical reserves as running a marathon. We are free to form our own opinions on that, and say that it is too simplistic, or it is too far-fetched but I do agree with what Mr Murakami says, in essence, at least.

Although I have neither written or run at the level that Mr Murakami has, I have done some amount of good-natured amateur dabbling in writing and various sports, and I do think that writing is as physical as any sport. The sheer strength of will needed to sit at a table for a significant amount of time needs physical strength. And once one is in the groove, the words flow for the writer like the steps flow for the runner, one word and one stride merging into the other. Gone is writer’s block or fatigue.

Leaving aside the supremely gifted writers or athletes, whose only battle is against themselves and not against such mundane everybody things like exhaustion, most of us possibly undergo the same experiences. And this is where Mr Murakami reigns – he talks about average people, and by presenting himself as one, builds a connection with the reader beyond that of the writer and reader. He makes it appear as if everyone can write a book, and everyone can run a marathon; all that is needed is training and focus. ‘It is easy, see I could do it’, he seems to say.

He was approximately 30 when he started running and writing, an age when most people are tied down to a life of expectations, and are prisoners of a past which is shorter than their futures but an age which is as good a time as any to make a fresh start. He made the new start, selling his jazz bar and settling down to a life which revolved around writing, and running as a means to stay fit.

I am in love with the book. I made this blog live after I finished reading the book because I started to believe that I could write, and write regularly. And I signed up for a Himalayan 5-day and 100-kilometre walk in November. Baby steps. And it is never too late.
Thank you, Mr Murakami.

My only expectations from the police were and still remain, politeness, respect for my loss and a seeming effort to set right the wrong for which I am seeking redressal. When I went in, the recovery of my stolen goods was not the uppermost thing in my mind as I realize that the police have numerous more important things to worry about. All I wanted was to get through the process without friction, without being asked too many inane questions and made to feel that I am being done a favor – file the FIR, take a copy of it and leave.

I was in and out in 40 minutes flat, and for people who have tried to file a FIR, they would know that is FAST. The policemen were very courteous, they understood when I said that I missed my camera which was in the suitcase, and they accorded me the basic respect that any fellow human deserves. I ended up talking with them about where they live, their kids, their schedules, the organization of the police station.

An enlightening discovery for me was that beyond the apparent lack of organisation in the police, there is an amazing amount of organisation and cohesion. There are designated officers for special tasks like court duty, warrant duty, investigation and detection, and then there are folks who do the routine patrolling. And the responsibilities and jurisdiction of the police officers are a lot. Local trains, long distance trains, misdemeanours of any kind on trains and railway stations, post-event work like investigation, and routine work like making reports, writing complaints – if someone has ever gone to a terminus station like Mumbai Central then they would know doing all of the above is a huge logistical achievement.

While I was sitting there, the dog squad came in, with their Labrador sniffer dog. They were going in for a routine check of all the long-distance trains departing from Mumbai Central in the next 2 hours. A group of 5-6 people with one dog. How much could they realistically examine and keep the trains and station safe for travellers? These folks are doing everything that is humanly possible for them but they surely need help from the government and the citizenry.

This police station is a very small one. The officers told me that there have been plans to demolish this new one and make a more modern, state of the art police station for some time now. But they are unable to demolish this building. It is an old British-era building made of granite, and very ‘tagda’, as I was told. So, the new station is yet to happen. Maybe part-urban legend but a nice story.

I finished my complaint, thanked the officers and was walking out when one of them called out to me, happiness writ on his face, and said to me ‘Achcha laga aapse baat karke’. I felt the same, and said so. His happiness made me think that nothing pleases a Bombay policeman more than being able to help someone, even with mundane things, which is when all the idealism of his youth, the one which had made him a policeman, shines through.

Khau Gallis exist in all parts of Bombay, with each having its signature dishes but also serving staple Bombay street fare (pav bhaji, vada pav, bhelpuri and panipuri). The interesting thing is that in spite of the similarity of food, each lane has a distinctive character – it could be be the one dish that marks it out of all the other similar gallis, or the kind of clientele it has, or just the way it is influenced by its immediate surroundings.

The khau galli off SNDT has a very strong Kerala flavor not just in the food which contains coconut (a staple of Kerala food) but also in the names of the shops, some of which have names of famous Russians like Lenin and Stalin. The state of Kerala is one of the two bastions of communism in India.

There is a khau galli off Mohamedally Road, near the Minara Masjid – the lane is also called the ‘Minara Masjid galli’ – which serves the most amazing non-vegetarian Muslim food. And I have not seen any other street in Mumbai where I can get the full complement of kebabs, nihaari, daal gosht, chaanp. And then straight-from-the-pan-hot jalebis.

All the khau gallis originated from a need felt by the local populace for no-hassle, cheap food joints, serving the customary cuisine of the populace. The ‘khau galli’ off Carter Road, in posh sea-facing Bandra, serves shawarmas, sandwiches and the ilk. In middle-class Ghatkopar, they serve pav bhaaji, the staple street food of Bombay – minimum fuss, and value for money.

And this is only scratching the surface. I am sure there are even more interesting facets to these gallis or lanes. Keep watching this space to know.

But is that enough to tie in with my identity to a city? If it is just about being correct then why not ‘BengaliMan’ or ‘ManinPowai’?

Fact is that I love this city, through all the monsoonal deluges, bomb blasts, disturbances, and have loved it for a long time. Not in an unconditional, perfect way – I rant against the many seeming warts of Bombay – but I can never get myself to stay away from it. The closest analogy is the love felt for Delhi by the protagonist of Khushwant Singh’s ‘Delhi’, who keeps returning to Delhi like he keeps going back to his mistress. But I do not think of Bombay as my mistress, it is rather like the adolescent love from which there is no going away, and whose very thought brings back other sepia memories of the past, and the seeming fullness of those days.

I came to Bombay for the first time when I was 18 , to join college. There was no reason for me to come to Bombay – I had no family in the city (even of the twice removed kinds), it was a 26 hour train journey from where I had grown up, and I was not even getting a good branch to study. But even then, there was an infatuation that drew me to Bombay. The lure of the ‘big city life’, the ’sone ki chidiya’ was too strong for me, having grown up with images of the city immortalized by Bollywood and cricket magazines, and photographs of relatives who had spent some years in Bombay.
(As a result, even today, I call this city ‘Bombay’. In spite of the political incorrectness. Bombay was the city I came to, and Bombay is the city I live in.)

It has been 12 years since that rainy July morning when I came here, and since then I have always come ‘back’ to Bombay. When I came back to the country after 4 years, Bombay it was again. Leading the life of the typical urban nomad (5 cities in the last 8 years, parents moving base twice in the last 4 years), this is the only place I call home, the only place I have roots in.

Bombay is where I took my first tottering steps into adulthood, fell in love for the first time, had my first heartbreak, got my first paycheck, met the woman who would later become my wife, did experiments with hairstyles, music and food, discovered the joys of alcohol, made the best of friends, and encountered despair and death for the first time. We have shared experiences of all kinds, and by those experiences, our identities have mingled together – Bombay is a part of my identity, a common thread that runs through large parts of my life, even the parts when I did not live in this city.

There is another reason. Yes, Bombay is home for me. But Bombay is also a city which is very welcoming of immigrants, of outsiders, of people who were not born here. In my admittedly limited experience, I have not seen any other city which is as welcoming of outsiders. Everyday, at railway stations, ports, airports, bus terminals, it lets in millions of people for the first time, with just one piece of advice – work hard, follow your dreams, do your ‘dhanda’ and you are welcome here. And the new initiates take that advice to heart. I am also one among them, and ply my trade here.

I call myself an ‘un-rooted’ person, everytime I grow roots someplace, it is time to up and go away. Except Bombay. Here the roots stay. In the city of immigrants.

What better name than ‘Man in Bombay’?