Bombay Diaries

[Ok, so I have as usual rambled on for pages and pages over the course of the week, so go into this when you are totally vella and have the time and desire to read something that meanders here and there. I don't honestly know why anyone would read this anyway, but chalo...]


[4 Oct 2010]
So, our tickets aren't confirmed and we're sitting on one lower berth and Shanno's taking pictures. We're all in the same weird Delhi aunty mood and saying things like "dekhiyo!" to each other and looking at Vogue. Pictures of people and things we can't have.
Wildchild with the 2 fountain ponytails squeaks every few minutes and troubles her mum. Silent black dude next to us uses a hand exerciser and looks forlorn.
The henna bearded in the berths before us are doing their evening namaz all cramped up in a line. I open my new copy of Devdutt Pattanaik's illustrated retelling of the Mahabharata called Jaya (Mythology geek approves! And I love his line drawings too), put on Gal Mitthi Mitthi Bol - I always carry my Delhi with me, as I carry the brightest star and find it there every time. Even when I'm tripping out, or bumming myself out, smoking at 1 am on the chatt alone after the rain, sometimes he eludes me in a cover of cloud.Once, as a child I asked my then-college going and ever so wise brother if the moon goes away when we close our eyes. He gave me some oblique answer you give to shut up curious children when they ask precocious "metaphysical" questions. I'm not sure my now college going and ever so wise self has an answer to that question, but I do have a story. Once, when we were in lying on the terrace of my house in Naukuchiatal and drunk on cheap gin, Shanno asked me where all the stars had gone. I said that they were behind the clouds and she said, with childlike awe "Oh V, you're so wise!". I still hold on to that statement.
Bright star is still here, though, walking with me as we rush past waterlogged fields and molasses towns. Bright Star is a poem by Keats, also a movie about him starring Ben Whishaw, who is rather delicately beautiful and the only person I can imagine as Lord Sebastian Flyte, who is btw THE original Queer Fish
We were listening to Sham and getting full on senti. Had a little private party behind the curtain in our lower berth (oh yeah! *wink wink*) I love how people can make the tiniest spaces their own. I have to go sleep among some family of strangers. We don't have reading lights so I'll procrastinate.
Teddy Boy Kill are telling me to leave the city behind and go Travelin' with them, leave the river behind. The loops of bass and digital beeps are racing with our train. It feels like we're running wayfuckingfast. My favourite song of theirs called Tonic is now playing. It's like you're dancing in fast forward while everything else is in slow motion. You've got to be on it. I love being the only person awake.

[5 October]
Shanno - "The best way to get to know a city is to get drunk in it."
We're lying bhand on the couch after getting a bit lost. I got a new matchbox for my collection (Sunflower). We're still getting used to the fact that autos are cheap and people don't honk indiscriminately. We're finding familiar categories for everyone - potential Dance India Dance contestant, gym instructor, lots and lots of bros. *gasp* people are accommodating each other in traffic *shock* they're smiling!

[6 October]
Morning. 3 kids are wayfuckedup on diluter downstairs, spinning around, laughing, their bodies are fluid and they're jumping on each other, lifting each other up, falling over. They put away their paraphernalia and make their way to college.
Helicopters again. The kabadiwallah looks up at me while I have my morning smoke. The man in the red chair, lying cradled as if in a hammock and chatting with his friend, that's all I've ever seen him do morning to evening, once he reluctantly offered the chair to an old woman. A lift taking cement up to a building site. Last night we went to Firangi Paani (Sid's recommendation) which was dim, had only a few tables of corporate uncles having a post work drink and a table of Australian women (so we were thankfully completely irrelevant). They were playing Richard Marx type senti shit which obviously reminded us of some places back home, but we decided it wasn't 'intimate and noisy' enough for us, so we drank our beer and GTFOed from there. Decided to go to Bandstand and walk around because we wanted to see the sea. Shanno was getting progressively more excited with every gym and Mango showroom she saw and every house was allegedly SRK's house. For a while we wandered, sat and stared. Then returned to this killer apartment and watch TV and made elaborate plans and listened to music. Looking out of the window and shouting to 'bros' who didn't exist. Anyone with their light on at 1am on Tuesday night was automatically our bro.
Now I'm in the good for nothing husband who sits at home and smokes and writes absolute bollocks and watches TV while the women go and buy sabzi and work for a living. I even sleep in the living room.
I had hiccups so I decided to smoke and sing Down in A Hole with intense passion to get rid of them. My handwriting is sofuckingbad right now that I'm actually ashamed. It seems like Tochi Raina is the only person that inspires me to write these days. Today we walked around Colaba and bought useless shit. I bought lots of multicoloured cheap plasticky shit and payals including a marwari kada which I've wanted since I was a kid and went to Rajasthan with this aunty from our Assam days who knitted baby booties for me till I was 9 years old. She had a parrot called Mitthu who lived to be 20 years old. I don't even know why I'm writing right now.
Maitreyi was comparing Delhi-Bombay prices just for the fuck of it and we were eating at places way beyond our aukaat. Aukaat or Ox is something that everyone is constantly aware of, it's intrinsic, but you try to deny it to yourself sometimes and end up ordering that one glass of fancy Chardonnay. Indigo Deli was prettyfuckingawesome, but hamein toh loot liya mil ke husn walon ne. Also spotted at Indigo Deli, awesomely dressed man in grey suit, v necked white tshirt, grey scarf, carrying a slim leather briefcase and walking out looking totally busy with the air of Marc from Ugly Betty.
We headed over to Mondegar for drinks with Sid. Sentiness and 'secrets' people tried to leave behind in other cities were shared. A girl Sid was checking out liked my peacock feather earrings, I'm a total dhokhebaaz wingman. Lots of beer and more white wine. I loved that Mondegar had Mario Miranda's art on its walls.
Blurred memory of Marine Drive, I'm in awe of how our dear friend, our favourite whipping boy has settled into a normal, independent existence here. It's something I doubt I'd be able to do (anytime soon, atleast). My affliction is my myopia, in all aspects of life. I'm near sighted, I live in the present, future is blurred and irrelevant. Now seen through sadakchaap wayfareres which I wear over my prescription glasses that are an inseperable part of me despite what my mother may wish (My doppelganger Daria knows what I'm talking about)
It's fun to look at bright lights with my glasses off because they all look like multicoloured orbs floating around me. I don't know if you could understand, my blurred vision of the present, things that are inches from my face, like how I'm writing right now, justforthefuckofit, because I have nothing concrete to say and no one to say it to.
When I take of the glasses everything else ceases to be relevant other than what's right under my nose. Another way of blocking things out. And with them on, you're all reduced in size from what you really are.

My wives wanted to go shopping yesterday so we went to Linking Road and Pali naka and Bandra and Waterfield road. I DIED. S looked for shops that didn't seem to exist, M found everything inferior to Sarojini Nagar. The two argued about directions, friends in other states were consulted. Thai Ban aroused my desire for Chinese/Thai food and then totally KLPDed us by being shut. So we had to settle for a place called Stomach because that was all we could see and Maitreyi warned us that Stomach would fuck us, but we didn't listen. The dragon chicken was deep fried...and chicken, so good in that respect. But my chilly garlic noodle ki pyaas was still adhoori. KLPD#2
After much searching, many cigarette breaks for me, many phonecalls and inquiries we found God Made Me Funky or god made me fabulous or thank god its funky (according to M). I was spacing out in a corner, wearing Shanno's shades, my feet battlescarred from walking in fresh kolhapuris (Rob Halford would abandon his leather fetish if subjected to this), trying to stay out of the way of sale frenzied women. Two new college entrants were deciding what to wear to a party. "OMG That is totally calling out to me but I'm too fat". I looked like some bechari who was lying lawaris in a corner. Card swipe and we leave. KLPD#3 is that M doesn't want to go for the Indus Creed gig at Hard Rock, she's feeling sick&tired and wants to stay in. So S and I leave after much failed emotional blackmail at 1020 when the gig was supposed to be at 10, going from Andheri to Lower Parel, fucked basically. Little did we know that the cosmic pisstakes didn't stop there. Auto-taxi-being a bit lost-reach to find buggering, bollocking gig sold out. KLPD#4. Dude, this never happens in Delhi ok? Screw you enthu cutlets in Bombay and your actual interest in watching bands play. Basically, we got there, saw a huge pre gig drunk/excited crowd including Sidd Coutto who we love and we have to leave because this isn't Delhi and we don't know wtf is happening and we can't just call some random so and so and try to get in somehow. So we get back into a cab dejected and depressed. Everyone else is dancing randomly in pockets of late night neon lit Navratri celebrations. We decided to head to Pop Tates for a quick drink, marvelling at the fact that we can actually do this at 12 in this city, alone. Lots of brospotting is happening. Bros (pronounced browse and with a rapid silly tone of calling a dog) are of 2 varieties. Lame bros and cool bros, we love them both equally and assume everyone we see who fits the description is like us only. Pop Tates is full of lechy dudes at 1 table, journalist bros at one table, Punjabi gang + a guy who we swear we're seen on reality TV and 2 older bros who S & I are going to grow up to be like. They are either secretly on a date or they're getting away from their wives. Our waiter was called Amardeep so obviously we love him. Everyone in this city is very indulgent of your fuck ups. Specially auto/taxi drivers who don't automatically start fighting with us if we don't know the way and get lost. But they're a little too indulgent with bad driving. A bus nearly took my hand off because our autowallah was chipkoing to it, people cut across randomly and no one even honks, a guy starts reversing in the middle of a crowded road and people just wait - all situations that would have warranted a lynch mob back home, here it's all cool bro, we'll wait.
When we return home a bro asks us for a light, another gym bro returns home with his sports kit. We are unsatisfactorily buzzed but had to leave because Pops turned off the lights and told us to haul ass. But our spirits were lifted by 80s music and the company of lots of noisy, somewhat familiar strangers.
Today we were at Panvel meeting a senior from school and reminiscing about the moronic things that seemed all important in school. However we are now at home and have just realized it's a dry day. KLPD#5

[Oct 9]
Today we went clubbing. We came back limping, broke and minus a phone. Pre gaming at Gokul after an innocent day of lunch at Basillico (overrated) and sunset at Juhu near Prithvi side.
Gokul is my favourite place in Bombay by far. No pretenses. Just all sorts of people sitting on each others heads and getting drunk. Everything is loud and noisy and chaotic and dim and smoky but it's brilliant. Of course, the booze is still as expensive as our usual Khan Market places, but whatever. If you break a glass everyone goes apeshit and starts cheering, if it's your birthday, you're fucked because everyone will sing and ask for drinks on you.
Go to Poly Esther's for some absolutely random celeb spotting. Akshay Kumar is the "DJ" for like 5 minutes after an hour of waiting and listening to crap music and false alarms and getting stampeded by the media folk, but we're all a bit tipsy and dancing to old chep songs seems like a good enough idea. As soon as he leaves, we can too and we go to Oba across the street. We're with some club hustlas, the kind who have their names on guest lists and herd people into clubs in pairs. We drink, we dance, we go back to Gokul for more booze. After some rums, some hurridly mixed concoctions of leftovers in coke bottles, we get back to fancy place, steal wine. Some of us are lost in back alleys and abandoned amidst lover's quarrels. We locate our friends, more booze is stolen.
The one thing with "stoners" that I hate is that there are always the "performers", the ones who tell the usual stories about their supposed mastery over all intoxicants while sharing absolutelyfuckinguseless ganja with you, who've done more acid in a night than Timothy Leary in a whole lifetime, who are down with the Russian mob in Goa and have hustled people in Kasol/Tosh etc etc. They all come off as normal and sweet 20 somethings in the beginning but how the fuck do they expect us to deal with this bullshit?
So much dancing and drunken "I LOVE YOU GUYS! I'M SO GLAD YOU'RE HERE!" later, we decide it's a good idea to climb over a counter. Except at the first go, I'm the only one who successfully manages to get over the counter. So after a while of being a stupid fucking lush, I realize that no one has hoisted themselves on the counter and I decide to get off but somehow I fuck my foot on the dismount and I can barely see anything for a while because it hurts so bad. I manage to stumble to a seat in time. A friend of my friend joins me because her heels are killing her and we bitch about people we see including lechy dude looking for some action in return for giving her a smoke. I decide that it's an awesome time for assuming a fake identity. I'm Zafani Hammadi, a tshirt designer. Facebook me?
We're all tired, some of our friends are lost and we're sitting on the footpath, buying shiny magic wands from some lady and this couple approaches us.
Chick is 31 years old and a mother of a 3 year old daughter, carrying a Styrofoam glass of Jagermeister, in a tube dress and stilettos. Dude is not the husband, husband is somewhere, with the daughter I'm hoping. She tells us of how her back is killing her after partying in her heels and how she's had a lot of crazy times and "dadada" at our age. She's telling us about how arranged marriages are fucked up because you have to be all fake and do namaste to someone chosen by mummy-daddy though she adds that she's married someone she dated for 5 years and he still doesn't know her, but at least he lets her do what she wants. She invites us for an after party at least 5 times, each time with a refilled glass in her hand and gives us her friend's number and tells us to call her if we're coming to her party. She speaks with some accent, invented or not, and has a Sex and the City sort of fleeting funny quality but even in our drunken laughter we can see that it's all sort of fucked up. Her friends and us have a minor debate when they try to deny their Delhi origins "Delhi? *middle finger* I've been here for 4 years and I hate Delhi". Yeah, well we don't exactly cherish you either, chut. Delhi ne gaand mari hogi, isliye accent le kar aa gaya naye sheher mein. Mini yells to us from a car to call her.
We search for our trashed, lost and strungout friend and find him in semi consciousness at the steps of Mondys. We say our goodbyes and return home, the sea link looks deserted now that the lights in all the apartment buildings are off (5am).


[Oct 10]
I'm lying alone listening to Ghetto Love and wondering why the fuck I seem to be impervious to painkillers. My brother Herr Doktor called from Liverpool and prescribed me Brufen+paracetemol, god bless his soul. But nothing seems to work on me. The girls have gone to Prithvi. I had such a hard time limping to and from the bathroom and squirming trying to change my clothes that I decided ultimately to stay in. Now the house owner, B is smoking near the balcony, I can smell it. I wish she would go out for some errand so I could do the same. I think I have accumulated bad karma by making fun of the heels girls in their time of pain and happily skipping around in my chappals. I still don't know WTF I was doing on that counter and how I managed to fuck my foot. But I do vividly remember the fading-fast, NEED to get to a seat, snorricam vision wading through the sea of people walk to the couch. I couldn't really see anything because I kinda blanked out. Everyone was pink, black and green. Now I'm wincing and laughing miserably every time I turn sides and I think it's time to pop one more of those useless pink pills that've done fuck all for me in the past 2 hours.

[Oct 11]
Rotlu looking man next to us keeps giving annoyed looks to his phone whenever it rings. He has a carpet business and is trying to look busy but is actually playing games on his laptop. He's also desperate for gutka and keeps begging the railway catering guy for some. The guy says "maine toh do saal se chodh diya. Daant toot gaye the mere" Rotlu says, "mujhe dara raha hai? Kya karoon, meri adat buri hai".
My foot is much better now. I decided to forsake the pillz and go for beer to Pops with my ladies S&M. Pops is our 2nd favourite place in Bombay. We do brospotting again. The tall manager type hustla standing outside is very kind to me and offers me a chair and lights my cigarette right away. We get a seat upstairs at the non smoking section which is obviously not as much fun as the smoking section, but they shift us outside later. There's mad looking footballer who's out for a post game drink with his wife. He looks like someone who'd play the role of a drummer in a Bengali movie. I think he's awesome. There's also a chick from Get Gorgeous, sitting with two notsogorgeous blokes. We're checking out swimmers on TV, giving expert criticism. The Brit swimmer with the Olympic rings tattoo is hot, and what a nice idea fora tattoo, to remind him of his ultimate goal and all that. Wah wah. As we leave for home, Serj Tankian dude sitting alone laughs madly and says happy birthday to us. We smile back at him because he looks a little insane and kind of cool.
I'm still wondering whether Rotlu is on the verge of tears or whether that's just his face. He's being ignored by all the girls he is calling. A singer in the berth in front of us is giving a little performance to his fellow passengers who wah wah and say "yeh toh god gift hai ji". Singer says, "har ghar mein singer ho sakta hai sir, bas riyaz ki zaroorat hoti hai" and later expounds of the sham of reality shows.
The old man sitting next to them reminisces of his days of watching Dev Anand films first day first show. "India mein do koh-i-noor hai - ek Lata Mangeshkar aur ek Sachin Tendulkar". They're from sector 22. They have a Lata-Asha debate. Give me Asha+RD anyfuckingday.
Rotlu has got off and bought the entire damn pan shop. And offers us some chocolate, trying to bribe us to get the middle berth, I think, but we don't give in. I start and finish reading Vishwajyoti Ghosh's Delhi Calm (totally intense, brilliant artwork and urgent, compelling narrative) and started reading Dilip Simeon's Revolution Highway (which is also set in a slightly earlier period, but is about students in the 60s and 70s specially their involvement with Naxalbari etc) in the light from the aisle, but am tired of killing my neck at that weird angle. I can't sleep all night and I listen to Adam and the Fish Eyed Poets (who I'm totally obsessed with now thanks to Shanno).