Salaam Bombay - Five things I'll miss.

It's my last night in Bombay and these are the five things that I will miss most about this great city:

1. The Parsis

I've found the Parsis fascinating as a people ever since one of my junior school textbooks informed me that Dadabhai Naoroji, the Grand Old Man of India, was a Parsi and all subsequent interactions have only reinforced my fascination. They laid the foundations of the city and continue to be the vortex around which the city revolves; somehow, I believe it is the presence of the Parsis that makes Bombay so different from any other in India - in terms of safety, culture (they turn up in all full force and of all ages at all events at the NCPA) and of course, the urban space that is South Bombay.

The Grand Old Man of India at Flora Fountain

2. King's Circle

Located ten minutes from my flat and on my route back from work, King's Circle provided me with all my necessities - an ATM, a grocery shop, a cobbler, a florist, a miscellaneous items shop, an ice-cream parlour, the chemist and most importantly, a second-hand book spread and Mysore Cafe.

Mumbai does not have very many good, or even just very many book shops. However, one does find the most beautiful second hand books. While King's Circle has many booksellers selling pirated and second hand copies, my favourite book-spread was to the left of Mysore Cafe from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. and  a most eclectic collection it is . The book-seller is knowledgeable, very helpful and never over-charges. Never having needed to bargain, I have usually ended up buying more books than I ought have but as I mentioned before, some of my favorite buys have been from there, including:

• Two Historic Trials in Red Fort - an account of the INA Trial and the Trial of Bahadur Shah Zafar complete with all documents including statements, exhibits, opening statements, arguments et al. 
• The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan
• Hard cover copies of selections of stories by Mark Twain, O. Henry and Guy de Maupassant
• The Collected DC Comics Absolute Justice
• Verse by Soviet Poets who laid down their lives in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945
• A Ramayana in Sindhi written in a variant of the Arabic scrip and a Persian Primer

My book-buying was usually proceeded by dinner at Mysore Cafe, one of the many numerous Udipi cafes dotting this area - I grew to prefer it over its rivals for its rasam-vada, its proximity to the books, their providing me with an individual table even if I went alone, their letting me sit for many hours without ordering and for remembering my usual and specific orders.

Cafe Mysore, King's Circle

 Covered from the rain - the book-seller's spot, King's Circle

3. The Taxi Drivers

I have taken the ubiquitous yellow-black cab off the roads of Bombay at all times of the night and day during my stay here and (with a certain amount of luck, of course), I have never faced any problems. In the insane traffic of this city, I have carried on extended conversations with the taxi-drivers and exchanged notes on our experiences in the city and its politics and the state of the country and everything else.  And I have often slept soundly on my way to work on certain days in the confident knowledge the taxi would wind its way to its destination. And though it is almost a daily battle to find a taxi home, I have had, on the whole, a most interesting time with the taxi drivers of Bombay and they will be sorely missed.

I am yet to reach Delhi and I have already been warned time and again against beginning any polite conversations with the taxi- and auto- drivers in Delhi.

4. The Freedom of Movement

No poky neighbours, no judging stares in public spaces and no self-imposed time limits for being out and about town. No other city in India to give that kind of freedom.

5. South Bombay

Everything about it! Marine Drive, Causeway, Mondegar's, Gateway, the Taj, Kala Ghoda, Fountain, VT, Prince of Wales Museum, the Reading Room, Brittania and tree-lined roads to walk along.

Marine Drive

The best place to hang-out late into the night, Marine Drive

Tree-lined avenues, Ballard Estate

The 24-hour open study centre

Boy reading a book, near Cafe Universal, Fort

King's Circle buys - Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes

King's Circle, Mumbai, has provided me with some of my most random, most fun and most precious buys, one of which is this classic - "Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes" that introduced me to the rhyme of Harry Graham.

Warning: The content is "cheerfully cruel".

I give you a few particularly pleasing ones:

The Stern Parent
Father heard his children scream
So he threw them in the stream

Saying, as he drowned the third,
"Children should be seen, not heard!"


Self-Sacrifice

FATHER, chancing to chastise
His indignant daughter Sue,
Said, "I hope you realize
That this hurts me more than you."

Susan straightway ceased to roar.

"If that's really true," said she,
"I can stand a good deal more;
Pray go on, and don't mind me."

Tender-Heartedness
BILLY, in one of his nice new sashes,
Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes;
Now, although the room grows chilly,
I haven't the heart to poke poor Billy.

The poet does warn in his preface that the book is not meant for kids under seventeen:

Harry Graham with niece - I guess he didn't really hate children. 

WITH guilty, conscience-stricken tears
I offer up these rhymes of mine
To children of maturer years
(From Seventeen to Ninety-nine).
A special solace may they be
In days of second infancy...

And

...Fond parent, you whose children are
Of tender age (from two to eight),
Pray keep this little volume far
From reach of such, and relegate
My verses to an upper shelf,--
Where you may study them yourself.

The Times editorial described his writing as that “enchanted world where there are no values, nor standards of conduct or feeling and where the plainest sense is the plainest nonsense” and The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography compares his verse with that of W. S. Gilbert and suggests that his prose was an early influence on P. G. Wodehouse. (Source: Wikipedia). The eggs and b. author may certainly have picked up his habit of abbreviating a word or two from Mr. Graham:

Poetical Economy

What hours I spent of precious time,
What pints of ink I used to waste,
Attempting to secure a rhyme
To suit the public taste,
Until I found a simple plan
Which makes the lamest lyric scan!

When I’ve a syllable de trop,
I cut it off without apol.
This verbal sacrifice, I know,
May irritate the schol.
But all must praise my dev’lish cunn.
Who realize that time is mon.

My sense remains as clear as cryst.,
My style as pure as any duch.
Who does not boast a bar sinist.
Upon her fam. escutch.,
And I can treat with scornful pit.
The sneers of ev’ry captious crit.

I gladly publish to the pop.
A scheme of which I make no myst.,
And beg my fellow scribes to cop.
This labor-saving syst.
I offer it to the consid.
Of ev’ry thoughtful individ.

The author, working like a beav.,
His readers’ pleasure could redoub.,
Did he but now and then abbrev.
The works he gives his pub.,
Did Upton Sinc. or Edith Whart.
Curtail their output by a quart.

If Mr. Caine rewrote “The Scape.”,
And Miss Corell. condensed “Barabb.”,
What could they save in foolscap pape.
Did they but cultivate the hab.
Which teaches people to suppress
All syllables that are unnec.!

If playwrights would but thus dimin.
The length of time each drama takes
(“The Second Mrs. Tanq.” by Pin.
Or even “Ham.” by Shakes.),
We could maintain a wakeful att.
When at a mat. on Wed. or Sat.

Foll. my examp., O Maurice Hewl.
When next you cater for the mill.;
You, too, immortal Mr. Dool.
And Ella Wheeler Wil.;
And share with me the grave respons.
Of writing this amazing nons.!

– Harry Graham, in Life, December 1909