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
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Credits
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