DAWN on PARSEE GULLI

For many years, I used to live half-way up Mumbai near Apna Street, but on the smart side of the city, on Bhulabhai Desai Road, facing the Arabian Sea. Every morning at dawn I would set off for a morning walk up a lane - called Parsee Gulli - to collect my newspaper and buy fruit.

One morning, I stopped to drink chai or Indian milk tea with Madan Lal, Chandabehn and Haridas, three adults who live on the street in Parsee Gulli,

“Sister! Get him some chai, please! Big glass for him please!” bellows Madanlal

It's almost a quarter to seven in the morning. The passage from darkness to dawn here in Mumbai. But the little group who live here on the pavement outside Gate #1 at the Parsee Hospital are already up and about. Madanlal's just finished washing his face from a plastic bucket that Chandabehn fills every night from a water-pipe in the road.

Their dog tears off up the lane, then in hot pursuit of an early truck, saunters back and nuzzles himself against my leg.

This is a lovely, gentle time, no more than a quarter of an hour long,
A time of crows and parrots and some small birds I've never learnt the name of.
A small, still moment, even here on the pavement. Where Haridas, Chandabehn her mother Ganga and her sister Nanoobehn have made their home. Madanlal explains: “They're two sisters and one brother here. They built this tiny hut against the hospital wall almost fifty years ago.”

Ganga claims to have been born one hundred years ago. She built the hut before India gained independence from Britain in 1947. Chanda was born soon afterwards.

There was nothing, just the pavement. No cars, no trucks, just bikes
I observe it's still fairly peaceful.. “I'll go up and get the paper.”

I love my early morning walk. Up past Green Lawns primary school. With its old battered school buses that get a new paint job- and not much else - every six months.
Green Lawns should be prosecuted under The Trades Descriptions Act. There's not so much as a blade of grass anywhere on the premises. It's all - every inch of it - concrete. And, of course, painted green!

Then up past the Municipal garbage dumpster, and the flock of crows that scavenge it every morning.

A sarangi and tablke duet sings sings happily from an early-morning radio up in the Parsee Old Folks Home. A magnificent stone palace, from another age. Overshadowed by new twenty story apartment buildings. I continue along a pavement that's always cracked, never repaired - to get my paper.From a man called Ravi.

“Good morning!”:
Ravi sits in a little kiosk the other side of the road. He always anticipates my arrival a half-step before I actually greet him. Hands me my paper with a wonderfully broad smile. It's a very special smile. It says that for Ravi, and for this one moment, I am the most important person in the whole of Mumbai.

Back across the road, dodging in between the first rush-hour buses and cars, Up to Kemps Corner. Past the beggar families from Andra Pradesh - always the same families, always there.

Next to them a man in undershirt and lungi is trimming the stems of today's roses. They're gorgeous to behold in their freshness. By this evening they'll be faded memories.

Turn the corner, up Peddar Road. A gaze up the hill, at one of the few remaining old-style bungalows that used to be the glory of this part of the city before real-estate madness took over.

And then, the old white-haired man in kurtar and dhoti.

For months I walked pass this man as he stood outside his apartment. Obviously waiting for someone, or something. Pacing up and down with mincing little steps, in tennis sneakers.
Every morning he would stare me straight in the eye. Who the hell are you? And why are you walking past my home?

Of course, we never actually said a word to each other. Just stared each other down and went on our ways.

And then one day, I was early. He wasn’t there.

I continued down Sophia College Lane. And there he was, coming up the lane, on the other side of the road. He saw me. I saw him. He smiled at me, mouthed Good morning. It was the most wonderful smile anyone's ever given me. Like the sun suddenly coming out on a grey morning. I smiled back. And we both continued on our ways without ever breaking stride.
The whole exchange can't have lasted more than half a minute. But the ice had been broken.

Yet we’ve still never exchanged even a word. Sometimes, he even turns his back as I pass by, as though the excitement, the tension of wondering who would break the ice first was itself half the pleasure. And now that we’ve exchanged smiles, there's no more Mystery.
During the rainy season, this final stretch of road's like a wind tunnel. One summer I lost a brand-new umbrella within a minute of opening it. Just walking up to this corner can be a bit like sailing Cape Horn in a gale. Chhanda and Haridas’ place is the proverbial port in the storm, where I can cast anchor, assess the day ahead, and drink hot chai!

But I’ll still hear the sarangi and tabla, through all the fumes of and noise. And I know they’ll be there tomorrow morning, waiting for me.

Essay
Episodes 1 - 4
Episodes 5 - 8
Episodes 9 - 12
Episodes 13 - 16
Episodes 17 - 20
Episodes 21 - 24
Episodes 25 - 28
Episodes 29 - 32
Episodes 33 - 35

Main Episode List
Cast of Characters
Credits
MP 3

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