Amidst Heritage Buildings and Seeing Naseeruddin Shah on Stage at the NCPA

Saturday, September 29, 2018
Bombay

Amidst Heritage Buildings of South Bombay and Seeing Naseeruddin Shah on Stage at the NCPA

     Namaste from Bombay1
      I had another fabulous day! With Russel now safely ensconced at home with Dad, a semblance of routine has re-entered my life. So I awoke at 5.30 am and began reading The New York Times online. So exciting that I can now do this! And then, guess what? On Twitter, I found a special offer for international readers of The Times (of London) and The Sunday Times of which I have been a fan since the time I lived in London, ten years ago.  It was a special introductory offer of 1 pound per month for the next three months! How could I resist the offer? Of course, I went ahead and purchased the offer and presto--I had my first Weekend and Travel issues of The Times of London to browse through.  I was super excited.

Daily Constitutional at Jogger's Park:
     At 6.45 am, I stopped to wash and dress and have a cup of coffee before leaving the house at 7. 15 am to go to Joggers Park for my daily constitutional.  Today, I listened to both Engelbert Humperdinck's Greatest Hits and Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits and had the time of my life.  I am now actually wondering whether I should renew my gym membership at the Bandra Gymkhana (on October 1 when membership fees are collected for the next quarter) or simply continue with these walks in the Jogger's Park. I have enjoyed using the Park enormously
   Back home, I had a shower and my breakfast (muesli and coffee) and blogged on my doings of the day before.  I also checked email and tried to make some plans with other Fulbrighters whom I have just discovered are also Bandra-based. A host that has been assigned to me is called Monica James--she was a Fulbrighter in San Francisco where she did Media and Gender Studies and now works for Teach for India. I am looking forward to very happy times with her.
   
Off to South (or Downtown) Bombay:
     At 12.30 pm, I had an early lunch at home and then got my bag packed for an overnight stay at my friend Nafisa's place in Spence Lane, Byculla. I stopped off briefly at Dad's place to see how Russel was doing before I left and took the 220 bus to go to Bandra Station for my trip into the city. My monthly pass had expired and so I renewed it and got a Western Railway one for Rs. 490 for the month (about $7.00--such a steal!). Then I got on a Churchgate-bound train and made my way into the city.
     
Touring Downtown Bombay:
     I had an appointment to see my friend Aban and her husband Rusi at their apartment at Cuffe Parade at 5.00 pm and a theater appointment at 7.00 pm with Nafisa and her daughter Tasneem who had arrived from Singapore to spend two weeks in Bombay. That left me about 3 hours to play around with in South Bombay and I decided to go out and explore it on foot--one of my favorite things in the world to do.
   
The Fabulous Oval Maidan--Bombay's Answer to New York's Central Park:
     I relived my college days at Elphinstone College, Bombay, by crossing the Oval Maidan from Churchgate Station to the main gate of the campus of the University of Bombay.  This used to be my daily commuting route when I was an undergrad in Bombay and it brought back delightful memories for me of chatting with my commuting Bandra-based friends in those good old days as we took this way to Churchgate station.
     The Eucharistic Congress of Bombay was also held in the Oval Maidan in 1964 and crossing it on foot took me back to the era of Pope Pius VI who, when I was but five years old, had visited Bombay.  My Dad was an usher at the Congress and we had prime seats that gave us such a clear view of the Pope as he was driven down the main aisle to shouts of "Viva Il Papa" from Indians--including kids like myself--who had never spoken Italian in their lives! All these thoughts came rushing out at me as I crossed the vast lawn.

In the Library of the University of Bombay:
     At the gate of the campus of the University of Bombay from where I had taken all my primary degrees before leaving India, I was questioned by a security man who wanted to know where I was headed. I told him I wanted to see the Librarian in the Library--which was indeed my intention. And then seconds later, I was striding into the glorious building that was designed by none other than Sir George Gilbert Scott who had also designed--and what a coincidence this is!--the chapel of Exeter College, Oxford, of which I have only the most wonderful memories of Evensong when I was a grad student there.
     And as if that were not enough, the run-down decrepit building with missing window panes, pigeon-droppings, etc that I remembered so well of old when I used to have a carrel on the ground floor while I was a doctoral student at the University of Bombay, have disappeared. In their place is a gorgeously refurbished building which simply shines in its new avatar.  Not a single window pane is missing. Indeed every single one has been recreated and reconstructed in the original design. There is not a pigeon in sight. Freshly power-washed, the walls, turrets, towers, spiral staircase, wide balcony and neo-Gothic window arches are simply glowing. It was a sight for sore eyes. Someone has invested tons of money in making many signifiant Victorian-Gothic buildings of colonial Bombay new again. I thought I had died and gone to Heaven! I simply could not believe that this was the dusty, tired, faded building in which I had spent so much time scanning through old card catalogues, walking through the stacks to find the books I needed, etc.  You could have fooled me that this building was in Oxford. Sadly, I was not allowed to take any photographs of the interior--so I had to commit everything to memory.
     I made my way into the Reading Room on the ground floor and found the librarian--a lovely woman called Varsha who told me that I could get a Reader's Card for Rs. 500 after filling out a form. However, when she discovered what my field of research was, she told me that I ought to go to the library of the NCPA--I did not even know there was such a thing as a library in this complex. Naturally, as I was headed to that very place, I thought I would check it out later in the evening. However, Varsha did invite me to explore the Reading Room above and take a look at the card catalogue and see if there was anything in my bibliography that was available there.  She told me that the library today houses only the Law collection as all other collections (including English Literature) have been moved to the campus at Kalina. If I wanted to find my own bound Ph.D. Thesis dating from 1994, she said it would be in Kalina! Wow!        
      I deposited my bag, got a token and then climbed to the top floor to get to the Reading Room. Again, I regretted bitterly that I could not take any pictures as the place absolutely lent itself to architectural photography. The stone work, stained glass windows, Gothic tracery within which glass panes are set, solid stone stairs that curve gracefully upwards, were all worthy of pictures and I felt so frustrated that I could take none.
     Upstairs, I found no more than a dozen men seated at various long tables as close to the massive pedestal fans as possible as it was a very warm afternoon indeed. The superb soaring wooden hammered ceiling has recently been re-polished and varnished and it too glows. Once again, stained glass detail gave a Gothic grandeur to the space. I have researched and borrowed books from some of the world's most famous libraries--for example, the Bodleian Library at Oxford including Duke Humphrey's Library where the Harry Potter films were shot, the Radcliff Camera (both in the upper Baroque section and lower Gothic level) where I had taken pictures galore because I so wanted to immortalize my times there. And then here I was in a building that was architecturally on par with any of those! And how proud and privileged I felt that I was an alumna of this wonderful space and had graduated from it in the university's heyday!

Having a Chocolate Milk Shake at Kala Ghoda Cafe:
     It was time to make my way down the stairs, to retrieve my bag and find a place where I could get a cold drink.  I called Shahnaz for some suggestions as many of the restaurants from my time (Samovar, The Wayside Inn, etc.) have closed down. She suggested Kala Ghoda Cafe which she described as a very cute place and she directed me there. I made my way there on foot and was completely taken by the manner in which that area has changed since the time it was my youthful stomping ground--when I was an undergrad student of English at Elphinstone College that was across the road. That street is now filled with one-of-a-kind designer boutiques selling high-end clothing and restaurants galore. I needed a seat for one; but the only place available was a bar-stool at the bar--which I was quite happy to occupy. I had barely made myself comfortable when the waiter told me that a table for two had opened up in the annex on the other side.
     And that was where I had a delicious chocolate milk shake that was refreshing and filling at the same time (Rs. 230). I enjoyed the cool ambience of the air-conditioned place and after sitting for about 45 minutes, left to enter the warm humidity of a September afternoon in Bombay.

Visiting the David Sassoon Library and Reading Room:
     Right across the street was the beautiful black and white face of the David Sassoon Library and Reading Room, and of course, because I had never been in there, I decided I would make it a first time. This building too, that dates from 1870 when the Reading Room was founded, has been recently restored.  It is magical to me how wondrously these heritage buildings in Bombay are being brought back to life with tender loving care.  A big thank you to the history buffs of the city who are using the new-found wealth of its entrepreneurs to harness the grand architectural heritage of the British in India.  I am all for it.
     Once inside the glorious tiled foyer, I realized why I had never been inside--even though I studied for four full undergraduate years just next door in Elphinstone College.  It is because Only Members are allowed in.  However, I asked the watchman if I could take a look around and he told me I could provided I did not occupy a seat.  I thanked him kindly and wondered why he would say such a thing---going by the number of people in the Reading Room of the University of Bombay's Library (only a handful), I thought there would be seats going a-begging upstairs.
     I was so mistaken.  In an equally beautiful upstairs Reading Room, not a single seat was available.  Males and females alike had occupied every seat and were either reading or keeping busy on their phones.  At the entrance, all the major Indian newspapers were available for those who wished to browse.  I have rarely seen a sight that has made my heart leap up for joy more than this one did! The irony is that in the Library of the University of Bombay which is free there was hardly anyone.  In this place, where one had to buy a membership, there was not a vacant chair.
     Here too I wandered out on the broad balcony which was filled with the lovely Parsee-style "easy-chairs," India's equivalent of the chaise-longue, that had seen better days and were in need of a good varnish.  The spiral stairs, balcony railings, etc. were pristine and the tiles on the floor--gorgeous ceramic tiles from two previous centuries ago, such as I have seen in Dublin, Ireland, on the floor of the Cathedral of St. Steven, still stood as they have done since they were first laid out.  All these sights simply lifted my heart.
     From the balcony on which I ventured, I was able to take lovely pictures of Rampart Row just below me. The area is called Kala Ghoda because, in colonial times, there was an equestrian statue of the then Prince of Wales, Edward VII, son of Queen Victoria, seated on a bronze black horse (the kala ghoda --in Hindi--of the area's name). When, after Indian Independence, all such vestiges of colonialism were obliterated, the statue was removed and sent off to a sculpture graveyard somewhere. However, the name of the area remained unchanged and someone thought it prudent to replace the erstwhile sculpture with a contemporary one.  Thus, a huge black horse now stands on a traffic island on its own pedestal--but, I have to say, it absolutely lacks the heft of its colonial forebears.
     Such libraries and Reading Rooms were the brainchild of 19th century philanthropists who wished to make reading and education mainstream and not just the preserve of a privileged few.  Hence, in London in the late 1800s, Edward Passmore created a wealth of public buildings devoted to reading--they are known as Passmore Reading Rooms and can be found all over the East End of London to this day--although many of them have been recommissioned for more contemporary purposes. I spotted a few in Aldgate, Spitalfields and Hackney when I lived in London. Here in Bombay, Jewish industrialists and philanthropists put their money into such charitable ventures and the David Sassoon Reading Room, named after Jewish philanthrophist David Sassoon, came into being while Victoria still held sway over half the globe.  A beautiful marble sculpture of this generous founder stands at the main entrance just under the stairwell and adds to the old-world ambience of this place. I was simply charmed by this building and the history behind it.

Off to Cuffe Parade:
     Across  the street, right outside the Jehangir Art Gallery--another one of my familiar haunts in my undergrad days and where I was first exposed to art--I found a taxi that whisked me off to Cuffe Parade for my appointment with my friend Aban and her husband Rusi who live in a beautiful high-rise building called Casablanca right opposite the World Trade Center and the Reserve Bank of India where my father once had his office.
     My friendship with Aban goes back to my earliest years as a professor in Bombay when both she and I had taught at Jai Hind College. Aban has taught French in Bombay for nearly half a century and her knowledge and facility with the language is better than that of native speakers. Now that she has retired, she teaches full-time at the Alliance Francaise de Bombay (from where I myself got my Diploma de Langue Franciase, so many years ago) and is a translator and interpreter that is much in demand in Bombay. She is married to a Chartered Accountant called Rusi who is also now a dear friend of Llew and me.
     Visiting with them was a real joy and very useful too--as they gave me the names and contact numbers of a number of Parsees with whom I can now begin my research. Over cold coconut water and some Indian sweetmeats, we talked about my past month and Russel's state before we said goodbye and I scooted off to my next appointment.

A Taxi to the National Center for the Performing Arts:
     It took me a while to find a taxi to get to the National Center for the Performing Arts as none were free at that hour.  Still, with some patience, I managed to find one and in about fifteen minutes, I was on the steps of the Tata Theater making my way to the back, cross a lovely garden to the front entrance of the Experimental Theater.
     Nafisa and Tasneem, her daughter, met me there. Tasneem happens to be Chriselle's classmate--Nafisa and I had met on the very first day that our daughters had entered Junior Kindergarten. She had booked tickets to see The Father, a play written originally in French by Florian Zeller, and starring one of India's best-known thespians, Naseeruddin Shah. It was directed by his wife Ratna Pathak-Shah, who happened to be my classmate at Elphinstone College before she transferred to the National School of Drama in Delhi from which she graduated. The play also starred Naseer's daughter Heeba by a previous marriage.

My Review of The Father:
     The theater was intimate because seating was in an amphitheater format. It was very informal in terms of set design and costumes. I have to admit that I had a hard time trying to figure out exactly what was going on in the beginning. Centered around the advancing loss of mental faculties of the protagonist Andre (played by Naseer), the script presented his mental processes through a number of supporting characters such as his daughter Anna and her boyfriend Pierre. I found the use of mime irritating throughout. If they were going to use Suzuki techniques in the play, then all of it should have been in that vein. Sound effects that coincided with mimed action on the part of the characters was a device that did not work for me. I would much rather have had real props such as wine glasses and dinner platters to make the sets more realistic.  Nasser was good, I will say that, but I found the script rather slow-moving and repetitive and, overall, it was certainly not one of the best works I have seen.  Still, Motley Theater Group has been known to work in experimental genres and this represents exactly the kind of work they are wont to do.
             After the play, Nafisa drove us back to her place in her car. We were in Byculla in about 20 minutes and sat down straight to dinner--kheema pullao with sprouted mung raita and cut cucumbers. For dessert, there were brownies and gulab jamuns. We had a very companionable dinner at which Nafisa's husband Husefa joined us and we spent much of the time catching up in their spacious flat.
    We only called it a day at about 11. 30 pm when I brushed and flossed my teeth and changed to get to sleep.
     Until tomorrow...