Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Bombay
A Packed Day--An Interview Plus Lunch, Tea and Dinner with Friends
Namaste from Bombay!
Whew! Once in a way I have the kind of day that literally leaves me breathless. This was such a one.
Up to blog, read Twitter and catch up with my email messages, I did not waste much time. I had a fairly big breakfast--muesli packed with a larger apple and two figs--plus coffee--as I knew that I'd be having a late-ish lunch. Right after breakfast, my friend Delyse called from Connecticut--we had a lovely long chat and catch up. She told me that she had been reading my blog posts and that her sister Carol had once been a private secretary to theater actor Roger Pereira whom I had interviewed--apparently she worked for Roger when he was at Shilpi Advertising Agency. I told her that I keep running into Roger and I would ask if he remembered Carol! I also used Google maps to find the location of the place I had to go to, for my first appointment--an interview with the stage thespian Sabira Merchant at her home at Mount Pleasant Road. It is a part of the city with which I am not familiar--hence the need to find directions.
I had a shower, dressed and left my place by about 11.00 am for my 12.30 appointment with her. On the bus, I got to the station where I needed to buy my monthly first class pass--as I have not used the train for a long time. That done, I hoped into the ladies first class compartment of the suburban train and got off at Bombay Central from where I hopped into a cab. The driver was extremely surly and did not want to take me to my destination for some reason. Everything changed when he realized that my destination was right across the street from Varsha--the residence of Maharashtra's Chief Minister, Fadnavis! Then his attitude became sweetness itself!
An Interview with Sabira Merchant:
I was amazed and delighted to discover that Sabira Merchant remembered me from my having interviewed her more than 30 years ago for one of my magazine columns!!!! As soon as I walked into her gorgeous, two-storied, palatial duplex home, decorated as in a magazine, she greeted me and said, "Have we not met sometime earlier?" She said that I reminded her of a private secretary she had once had--Wilma Rego. And I told her that it was Wilma who had organized my interview with her, thirty years ago! Honestly, I am amazed by the many different connections I have been encountering in Bombay.
It was delightful to speak with Sabira who has acted on the Bombay stage since 1961 and is still at it. I remember her playing Blanche duBois in A Streetcar Named Desire--the play in which she so nailed the role that I really did not wish to see anyone else in that play again (until I saw Gillian Anderson, two years ago, in a National Theater, London, production in which she simply floored me). Anyway, Sabira talked about her entry into theater at a time when Muslim women would never have dreamed of being on stage, about asking and getting approval not just from her husband plus her mother-in-law, about taking on major roles with zero acting training, about learning on the job from some of the finest stage directors Bombay had produced (Pearl Padamsee, Alyque Padamsee, Adi Marzban), etc. She talked about the Golden Age of English language theater which has passed as the thespians that made it so are fast disappearing--Hosi Vasunia, Alyque Padamsee, Burjor Patel, Pesi Khandalawala. She was eloquent and very patient with me and gave me a ton of very valuable information that was factual as well as anecdotal. I stayed with her for about two hours and then took my leave.
Lunch with a Fulbright Colleague:
My next port of call was the library of the University of Bombay where I had a luncheon appointment with Abigail McGowan who has just arrived in Bombay to take on her Fulbright assignment. Abby is a professor at the University of New Hampshire and an old hand at carrying out research in India which she absolutely adores and where she has been making trips for the past 25 years. She first arrived in India as an undergrad student to study at Ferguson College in Pune and since she works on Indian crafts, crafts production, especially textiles, she is working with one of India's oldest interior design companies called Kamdar which is based in Churchgate for her Fulbright project.
As it turns out, Abby has found an apartment on Pali Hill, not far from me at all. She has arrived in Bombay with her husband, 5-year old son and her 15-year old nephew who are both studying at the American School at the Bandra-Kurla complex. I found her a very stimulating companion and good fun too as we ate lunch at The Pantry Cafe at Kala Ghoda as my favorite soup and salad buffet place at Copper Chimney had a 50 minute wait today! It seems everyone has discovered my gastronomic secret! I ordered an absolutely gorgeous salad made with baby arugula leaves (my favorite!), dried figs, goat cheese and blue cheese, toasted almonds and a fabulous vinaigrette served with a toast point--really the most perfect salad you can imagine. It cost me Rs. 400 but it was worth every paise! Abby had a rice and quinoa bowl with lentils and some chicken which was also good (as I had a small taste). I did not want to eat too much because less than an hour later, I had an appointment to meet my friend Margaret for Tea!
It was while I was finishing lunch with Abby that I got a call from a friend called Narain telling me that my missing business cards (sent for me by Llew through my friend Leslie) had been found! They had been sent by mistake to someone called Ravi who had found these strange items and wondered what to do with them! Narain asked if I could pick them up from his office and since his office building was right across the Oval Maidan, only ten minutes away, I told him I would walk across and pick them up before I set out to see Margaret.
A Wild Goose Chase:
But in the end, my expedition turned out to be a wild goose chase because those business cards were not mine--but belonged to someone else! Somewhere my business cards have been lost in transit--Leslie can't find them at home in Westport, Connecticut, and no one in Bombay seems to know where they are. Oh well...I need them pretty urgently as I have been giving them out like peanuts, thanks to the many meetings and official conferences and readings that I have been attending. We'll now have to find some other way to get them across unless I simply print out more cards locally.
Off to See Margaret at Kailash Parbat:
I had wanted to take a cab to the end of Colaba Causeway where my appointment with Margaret was scheduled. As it turned out, Narain was leaving the office and heading in the same direction and gave me a ride to the exact spot--Kailash Parbat--the famous chaat restaurant, where Margaret was clearly interested in eating bhel puri! She is from Vancouver, Canada, and is visiting Bombay briefly as part of her vast travels in India and Australia over two months. I had met her a couple of weeks ago in Chennai where she too had attended the International Anglo-Indian Reunion and had told me that she was headed for Bombay where she hoped we could meet again.
Margaret was already inside when I got there at 4.00 pm and we proceeded to order her desired bhel puri and dahi batata puri for me--which I had with a sweet lassi. I still had a dinner party to attend--so I hoped to stay light. Margaret had dessert (malai rabri) which I avoided as I was simply too full. It was grand to see her again and have quiet private time together. We have tons in common--apart from being an Anglo-Indian who is familiar with my own research work, she is also a freelance travel writer and makes a retired living publishing travel articles in various global periodicals. Margaret is a brilliant writer and an even better editor and has edited a couple of volumes for our mutual friend Blair Williams' series of CTR publications. She is single, in her late 70s and travels all over the world alone--a true inspiration to me!
We strolled down at leisure through Colaba Causeway where, like me, she passed often to take pictures with a proper camera (like me!), not an I-Phone! I pointed out Kulsum Terrace where theater history has been made and she pointed out the many gorgeous homes in the area in which she lived as her father was a very senior officer in the Indian Railways. We both took pictures of Cafe Leopold where I told her about my personal family history! She loved the story! At Regal Cinema, we paused to take a selfie together and then we parted.
Margaret intended to get to the Victorian Terminus to shoot a few pictures of its beautifully illuminated facade. I needed to cross the Oval Maidan again for my dinner appointment. But I had about an hour to kill. She suggested I go to the Jehangir Art Gallery as some of the current exhibitions are very good, she said. So I hopped into her cab and got off about 200 meters ahead.
Surveying the Exhibitions at the Jehangir Art Gallery:
Although I have passed the Jehangir Art Gallery several times since my arrival in Bombay, I have not gone inside so far. So, I was happy to survey its offerings. What first caught my eye was an exhibition of color photographs by Sanjeev Bhagwat called Prague and Beyond. It was fabulous as it took me back to my own travels in Eastern Europe with Llew and Chriselle at least 15 years ago. Using his lens, Sanjeev has captured some of the most beloved corners of the city--from the Karlovy Most (Charles Bridge) to St. Vitus Cathedral, from the banks of the Vltava River that I remember so well to the arched entrances of Old Town with the wonderful facades of the Art Deco buildings thrown in for good measure. It was a grand exhibition. In addition, he had pictures taken in Berlin (several of the Berliner Dom--the Cathedral) which I have also combed--so overall, it was a show that filled me with nostalgia. I also had a chance to speak with the photographer who is an architect in Bombay by profession (which explains why so many of his shots were architectural--something with which I, with my great love for architecture, could fully identify!). Such a lovely show indeed!
Later, with dusk falling around me, I took some great shots of Elpinstone College, across the road. This gallery used to be my stomping ground when I was an undergrad student across the road and it was where my art education began. How much I owe to this space!
Just before I left for my last appointment of the day, I nipped across the street into Westside Department Store where I browsed to kill time and used the facilities.
Dinner at the Residence of Gerson da Cunha:
Finally, I had arrived at the last item on my day's agenda: A dinner party at the home of retired advertising man and theater thespian Gerson da Cunha whom I'd had the pleasure of interviewing a few weeks ago. Gerson and I hit it off so well and discovered so many connections! His great-uncle Jose Gerson da Cunha (after whom he was named) was a prolific 19th century writer and historian while being a full-fledged physician and linguist--he spoke Portuguese, Konkani, Marathi and English and wrote in all those languages. My colleague and friend from the University of Lisbon, Portugal, Filipa Vincente, has been working on Jose's writing and presented me with a chapter on his work for my book on Goa. I met Filipa, for the first time, in Goa, last week, when she had told me that she was looking forward to giving a talk on Jose at the Bombay Museum--to which Gerson had also invited me, several weeks ago. Following the talk, the next day, Gerson was hosting a dinner at his home for Filipa and her family (husband Diogo and 13-year old daughter Magdalena who had accompanied her to India). Sadly, yesterday, I had to skip the talk (to which I had been looking forward for a long time) as I had the funeral of Lieut-Gen. Francis Dias to attend. I was glad to catch Filipa again at the dinner party.
And what a lovely dinner party it was! For one thing, the setting was glorious: Gerson and Uma da Cunha's sprawling Churchgate flat overlooking the Oval Maidan is filled tastefully with the most wonderful Indian and international antiques, paintings, prints, artifacts, etc. Secondly, the company was most interesting. There was Fr. Myron Pereira, a Jesuit priest, who once headed the Xavier Institute of Communications and who now, after retirement, had taken to writing Fiction--last year, he published two novels and a collection of short stories that he told me he had been writing for years! There was also the renowned pianist Carmen Miranda (who is also on my list of people to interview!) whose husband Francis is related to Gerson. Next, a very old friend of mine arrived: retired Prof. Marguerita Colaco who has been associated with the English Department at Sophia College for 52 years! After retiring from the English Department, she went on to found the School of Communication Studies where she still teaches as an adjunct. She came with her sister Fatima who retired from Air-India. Also present was Monica Correa, wife of the late architect Charles Correa who acquired international renown for his work including a building that is part of the Ismaeli Museum in Toronto, Canada, that I had visited with Llew and our friends Sylvia and Tony Pinto when it had just opened. I told Monica how proud I was to find the work of her husband, a fellow-Indian, in Canada, and she told me that the building was actually his last work. However, he is also renowned for a hospital that he designed and built in Belem, just outside of Lisbon, on the banks of the Tagus River for which every Portuguese person knows him! And finally, in walked Roger Pereira! The same Roger Pereira about whom my friend Delyse had talked to me only that morning! Roger lives only a couple of buildings away and has been Gerson's colleague in advertising and in theater for over half a century. Naturally, I asked Roger about Carol, Delyse's sister and he remembered her warmly.
So, you can just imagine what a grand evening of stimulating conversation it was with some of the most notable Bombayites seated around the room with some of us from overseas being brought into the conversation in the most natural of ways. There was a Man Friday who took care of all our needs: I had beer with lovely nibbles--pita chips with hummus, little cheese and spinach tarts, lamb kebabs. We talked and talked and talked and never ran out of topics as the room was filled with artists and intellectuals who were all connected in one way or the other. I apologized that I missed Filipa's talk but, of course, she completely understood that I could not attend it. I presented Gerson with a copy of my book on Goa which carried Filipa's chapter on his great-uncle and which he said he would always treasure!
Dinner was simply splendid. I had tried to save room at lunch and tea but could not do justice to the vast array of food on the table--I have still to get used to the fact that a dinner party in India will have at least 12 items on the table! There was a vegetarian and a non-vegetarian side. I took a small helping of the famous Lamb Berry Pullao that was delivered to the da Cunha residence from Britannia Restaurant at Ballard Estate where it had acquired iconic status--it was fabulous! I also had Goa Sausages with Potatoes that Monica had picked up last week from Mapuca Market in Goa! Delish! How could I resist the salad of grated carrots, mint and pomegranate? Lovely! And I had mini dahi wadas that floated in creamy yoghurt. So good! I could not even taste the chicken curry and the dal that were also on the table as I was so stuffed and could barely have the chopped strawberries macerated in balsamic vinegar and served with cream for dessert! And just when I thought I could have nothing more, a tray of liqueurs was brought to the table and I found that I could not resist a shot of Drambuie! Truly, it was a dinner party to write home about.
But while most of the other guests were local, I had to get back to Bandra and when Fr. Myron got up to leave, so did I. He gallantly walked me to Churchgate station, two minutes away, where I hopped into a train (I took the ladies second class as I knew that the first class compartment would be empty--this was practically empty too but there was an armed sentry in the car--a new addition that the railways have introduced to fight crime against women!). At Bandra Station, I jumped into a rickshaw and got home in ten minutes.
Whew! What a day I'd had! Good job I have nothing on my calendar tomorrow except a dental appointment--I can catch up with so much!
Until tomorrow!
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