You fast, I’ll feast

My friend Rodrigo, like many expats in another country, probably knows more about it than most people who were born here. He loves to explore Bombay, and can dig out for you the most obscure facts, if you’re the kind of person who likes to know things about a city apart from the trendy nightlife, that is.

 

Anyway, so Rodrigo (who has kindly allowed me to use his picture)   (also, not his real name)  has been going to Mohammed Ali Road for the end of Ramzan iftar for the last couple of years now. And since he’s been going on about it so much and because I love meat so much, I decided to go along this year to basically stuff my face and explore a part of the city that I had never seen before.

 

We began at 10.30 with those seekh kebabs you see above. I looooooooooooooove seekh kebabs. You can keep your chicken tikka or your reshmis. For me a kebab isn’t  a kebab until it’s seekh.

 

Everyone there knew Rodrigo (I really don’t know why I’m persisting in using his pseudonym, but old habits, I guess), and they were all very friendly and stopped and chatted with us. This man started putting the seekhs on instantly. They came with this really nice green chutney, which I’m afraid I ate a little too much of, and consequently, paid the price this morning.

 

Then we went for a stroll and got a tangdi and botis with a deep fried paratha apiece. My rule on a big eating night out is to skimp on the carbs, so there’ll be more space. Rotis fill you up, so I ate only a little of mine, and attacked the tangdi with gusto.

 

  The botis, were, err, a little off. I left mine after a couple, because they seemed a bit tough, but poor Rodrigo had one that tasted terrible, he told me. I offered him some Coke to wash it down with, but he’s abstaining from that particular beverage.

 

Then we went for a really long walk, to help our stomachs along. We were right next to Kamatipura, Bombay’s famous red light district and I was dying for a peek inside. Rodrigo told me normally women were turned away at the entrance by the (lucky) cop posted on duty there because “What will people say?” Now I don’t know about you, but whenever someone tells me I CAN’T do something, I instantly want to do it. Either very suffragette or very only child of me, take your pick. So we meandered through the lane, finding no cop, walked through a cloth market and allowed ourselves to get lost in the inner lanes of Kamatipura.

 

You may not know this (I didn’t till recently) but during Ramzan time any sort of of sexual activity is forbidden. I wonder if business goes down? Hmmm.

 

Also, I realise I’m too shy to ever be a good photographer. I passed the PERFECT picture, four men around a carrom board, lit up and everything, but I couldn’t bring myself to take it. I don’t know whether it’s an invasion of privacy thing or just a don’t want to interfere thing. I’m perfectly happy asking questions. As I did of the owner of this sign.

 

Do you see the sign for ‘American Paratha’? Rodrigo and I stared at it for a while and then I said, “Fuck this, I’m going to go find out what it is.” We went, the proprieter pointed to a soft fluffy nan. “That’s it?” I asked. He nodded. “Why American?” He shrugged. Well, at least we got a good photo out of it. “Maybe because it was soft,” chortled Rodrigo as we exited. I think we were a little food-drunk. Did you know that was possible? I didn’t.

 

We also saw this sign, but since it was in a burkha shop, we refrained from asking what exactly it was.

 

I imagine a ‘ninja’ to be a mask with holes in it. Damn, should’ve bought one!

 

We did pass through some of the red light district and some of the ladies of the night, but before we knew it, we were completely and thoroughly lost. We had walked and walked and walked till we finished an entire circle. The biryani was calling, so we hopped into a taxi (I know, I know, completely cheating) and got to Noor Mohammed. WHICH HAS AN ORIGINAL HUSSAIN SKETCH RIGHT BY THE STAIRS. In a dusty glass frame with no attention being drawn to it at all. I would’ve walked right by, if Rodrigo hadn’t pointed it out.

 

Here we had the famous white biryani (chicken in white rice, amazingly unoily and really good, not as bland as it sounds) and some nalli nihari (which is basically like, er, a hank of meat, and marrow in a sort of stew). Both were so good, I am kicking myself now for being too full to eat much. The wall also had a recipe by Sanjay Dutt called ‘Chicken Sanju Baba’. It didn’t look very good though.

 

And then we half walked half staggered to get some phirni. By this time it was one in the morning (I totally broke my no-food-after-ten rule) and we had been eating and walking for about three hours. Well, I thought, if I can dance till two, I can definitely walk till one. The market was still pretty crowded for that time, people everywhere, shopping and eating, and Rodrigo and I shared a phirni and looked at the world around us.

 

Here is a link to  a map drawn by a *ahem* certain someone which details all the places you can stop and eat. I’d do it if I were you, NOW, and not wait till next year. Your stomach will thank you.

 

Ain’t that mister mister

Here I am, on an absolutely gorgeous monsoon afternoon, back in my spotlessly clean flat (my maid, I think, only gets down to “proper” cleaning when I’m out of town). It is a lovely day for being indoors with a cup of coffee, thinking about absolutely nothing, your new favourite song on repeat. It’s a funny thing about new favourite songs, you never know what trigger they press in your brain, but all of a sudden you’re obsessed, you can’t stop humming it, or thinking about it, or playing it or singing it.

 

It was quite a whirlwind of socialising for me over the last ten days, and coming back has been nice, but you know end of holiday feelings. My friends are all in the same city at the same time, so I had some people over last night, we drank a bottle of wine, ordered Masala Craft and duly caught up. It’s funny how many things can happen in ten days, and how little.

 

I DID go shopping after all, Sarojini was not as plentiful as it usually is, but I did manage to come away with what will now become my new favourite outfit—the Gothic ball dress. It’s got a top made of jersey, the bottom is lots of flouncy black ruffles, and it reaches all the way till my ankles. I’m planning to team them with my new four inch high heels from Zara (marked down, down, down, gotta love the recession for some things, eh?) and feel like a giantess. It’s a lengthening sort of dress, which maxi dresses usually aren’t on short people, but this adds a WAIST and HEIGHT and makes you look like some kind of skinny Amazon. My designer friend informs me that this style is actually called the “parachute” dress, but I find my description a lot more, well, descriptive.

 

Bombay, besides being full of people I really like at the moment, has also decided to ease up on the Bandra Nazi-ing and bring back one of my old favourite haunts—Bonobo. (A quick recap for people who don’t actually live in or around Bandra: So, recently a bunch of old people with sticks up their asses decided to shut down EVERY SINGLE fun place in Bandra. Zenzi’s gone, Escobar is gone, Bonobo was gone and they were planning on targetting the others. They claimed sound pollution or drunk driving, and I thought that was STUPID. Drunk driving can be fixed simply by adding a couple of police checkpoints on the road outside the bar and COME ON. If you live off Linking Road, THERE WILL ALWAYS BE SOUND. It’s a noisy city. I am kept awake by traffic every single night, even though there’s no nightclub near me, just by kids vrooming past, blasting music so loud it vibrates through my walls and startles the cat. Luckily, the bar owners are keeping their chins up and trying to work around it, and they have my full support.) Anyway, the good news is I don’t have to go back to Elbo Room each time I want something trendy to do in Bandra, because Bonobo is MUCH cooler.

 

Oh, Hyderabad! You never told me how much fun your nightlife was! I was on a mission this time to find something else to do in that city that didn’t involve just eating large meals and sitting around talking about people I barely know. So, when a blog reader and her ADORABLE baby and husband came up to me after the launch, I begged them to take me far, far away. (Er, this is also the bit where I eat my words about the things I might have said earlier about babies in bars. Because we tried to go to Dublin and weren’t allowed in because of the little person and I was all, “But he’s quiet! And cute! And fun! And he won’t even drink!” But no go.) So we trundled on over to a place called Coco’s, a three floored place, with, I believe, a different thing to do on each floor. Rio, the club, was right under our feet and began to throb with music around 9.30. But we were at Shikar, the terrace place, where parents and I chatted and baby had a good time playing with my scrunchie, a cocktail stirrer and the stones on the ground.

 

And then, when he got fussy and they had to take him home, my super cool cousin and his friend (who is also my friend’s sister) came to get me. “Where shall we go?” I asked. “How about Syn?” he asked. “Sin sounds shady,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “It’s not! It’s Syn! With a ‘Y’!” (Note to self: Ys add trendiness.) But first we went to 'N. What is N, you ask? It’s short for Nagarjuna. And this made me both crack up and expect a B-list Tollywood background for the whole place. But it was actually quite nice (if a little crowded) and the only B-list Tollywood background were some actors who milled around.

 

Sadly, the next day, being the anniversary of our independence was a dry day. (Which just bugs me, because instead of it being an historic occasion, it turns into a bunch of people unable to celebrate a long weekend and just bitching about the lack of alcohol. I think people would be a lot more likely to feel patriotic or whatever if you let them do what they wanted and not shove a passing, puritan message down their throats.) Svennyway, we didn’t get to go to the famous Syn-With-A-Y, and I was taken home.

 

All in all, I think it was a trip about seeing new things in old places. A nice little bar/coffee shop called Indian Accent in a new boutique hotel in Delhi, Defence Colony getting quite a cool new bar (Red Monkey), chilling in one of Saket’s many new malls, getting a cup of coffee and a snack at Latitude in Khan Market. Same faces, different stomping grounds, I guess. Life goes on.

Right back where we started from

Ah, back to my favourite city in the whole wide world. This may be surprising to people, but sorry Bombay, sorry London, you didn’t take me into your hearts when I was three weeks old and continue loving me ever since. See, Delhi is more my city than it is of the aggressive men, of the scared women, of the crimes. It’s my city because I love it, and it loves me, and when I am here a huge part of me just feels comfortable and relaxed and, and, home. It is of hot afternoons with the AC on and old books read, curled up in bed. It is of the incredibly stylish women, matched down to their shoes, it is of old haunts revisited and new ones discovered. It is walking into a Sunday brunch at a restaurant and being able to table hop, people looking up and smiling and saying, “Oh, eM, it’s so nice to see you again.”

 

I realise though, speaking of stylish women, that my own personal style has evolved far more than I had imagined. Now, I bum around the city in summer dresses and my silver calf length gladiators, very “Bombay”, as someone described them to me the other day. I didn’t really think a shoe could be one city or another, but as I look at them now, I see what he meant. Bombay loves OTT styles, the bandana, the bright belt, the quirky accessories, Delhi is equally stylish, but in a more put together way, cotton is worn in the daytime, jersey or lycra in the evenings, earrings are small, feet are in pumps or strappy sandals. This particular pair of shoes just beg for attention though, even in Bombay, they are not the norm, but while in Bombay, someone might say, “Nice shoes!” over here, they are given the eyebrow, maybe a subtle cough, but mostly ignored. If you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all, eh? Sadly, my beloved wedge heels, SO comfortable and SO “normal” have finally given up, and eroded, thanks to me wearing them and splashing around in puddles. I need a new pair of shoes—affordable but nice, comfortable but with heels. Where can I go?

 

Oh, but. I’m off to my favourite shopping place EVER—Sarojini Nagar—tomorrow, where I shall shop and shop and shop and come back resplendent with new things.I even brought a half empty suitcase for just that purpose. I hope the clothes are nice though, it’s purely a luck thing, some days you get brilliant stuff and on others, it’s quite boring. Also, since I am DONE with the empire waistline, but shopkeepers don’t know that yet, I’m hoping to see a lot more A-line and fitted things.

 

I managed to get a few of the much beloved Delhi houseparties done as well. I hold them up as a standard of living to people in Bombay, when I sigh and go on about how much I miss the house party, not just fifty people crammed into a tiny apartment, but one with loads of space and (sometimes, if you’re very lucky) waiters and a bartender and loads of food and interesting people. I went to two this Saturday (one of them actually with the fanciness I mentioned earlier) and I think I spent about half an hour at each place going, “Wow. You have so much space. Wow.”

 

I’ve been lazy about taking pictures, but starting today, I’m going on a photography spree. I basically called up everyone a couple of days before I left, with my planner in one hand and a pen in another, and I made plans for the entire week. I thought that was very organised of me, because mostly I get here, and I send a text and then, you know, people are busy, time is limited, etc etc. Now, I get to see everyone I wanted to AND it’s all written down neatly and managed in advance. Except for the daytime. Then I’m completely free, which on a day like today, when I’m sort of tired, is cool, but I want to get the most of this trip, so tomorrow I’m just going to take myself into South Delhi and sit at a coffee shop with a book if need be. On Friday, I’m off to Hyderabad, to see family and launch my book, so if you’re in that city, come to the Landmark bookstore in Somajiguda on August 14th at 6.30 pm.

Off now, to laze some more. I sense a lot more blogging (especially after I get all my new clothes tomorrow!) so watch this space.

Where’s your picket fence, love?

 

Hello, old friend.

 

You and I don’t exist in the same world anymore. The most we get is colliding our boundaries on a social networking site, and even then, your life is so distant, so far removed from mine that it’s hard to believe that once we were in the same book, on the same page, even. You and I were last five calls on each others phones, and now for whatever reasons, I don’t even think I have your number anymore.

 

Even though you have fallen to the wayside, in the television show of my life, you are no longer “featured guest”, but you might pop up on imdb as one of the extras, I still have occasion to look at what you’re doing and where you’re going. Sometimes, I marvel at the smallness and insularity of our worlds, how someone I just met, like completely randomly, is also on your friends list. Someone might mention your name to me, in passing, and I pause for a second, just to think about life the way it used to be. We give a lot of thought to lovers—ex and present—but we don’t think that much about friends, especially the ones that used to be.

 

For the most part, the death of our friendship seemed inevitable. Perhaps it was the wrong choices, perhaps it was just geography, but you, who used to be part of the fibre of my everyday life, have been patched over. Sometimes when I hear a song you used to love, or tell a story that you were a part of, I feel a pang of longing. Not longing for who you are now, in much the same way that I don’t think you give a thought to who I am now, but for who we were then. It’s hard to exist for 28 years without making an equal share of friends and enemies, and while I do think I am blessed in my friendships, having had some for over ten years, I know that it’s not possible to be friends with everyone, all the time.

 

Sometimes, you might have wronged me, at least in my head. That’s when I feel an absurd sense of proving to you how much better off I am. Look, look at me, look at my photos, look at my cheery status updates, look at my life, I don’t miss you, not one teeny tiny bit.

 

But the fact of the matter is, we’re getting older, old friend. I’m edging towards my thirties (and sometimes, so are you). Did you ever imagine that we could be thirty? Did you ever imagine that we’d be here and not with each other? And so I realise, that like most things in life, I have to let you go. It’s a small, small world, and we might bump into each other someday—either at your local coffee shop or at mine. But let’s not play the nothing happened charade. Let’s acknowledge each other, either with a nod or a smile, and let’s live our lives, knowing that the other person existed, and that we were, at one point, richer for it.

 

With fondness,

eM