An encounter with irreverence......

A trip to the theater is a social event. It’s best enjoyed in the company of your loved ones. The definition of terms ‘loved ones’ being flexible depending on the contents of the film.

Movies are a great reference point for life and even in the movies, I’ve never seen anyone ever go for a movie - alone. It is an axiom of adult coolness that going alone for a movie is downright weird and looserish. It will instantly make you a loner and perhaps even socially challenged. It will make your friends believe you’re deranged, and make your parents instantly suspect that you’re battling demons of a break up from a relationship you never disclosed to them in the first place!

There are some acts which give you a feeling. They leave you with an after taste. The kind of after taste you get when you down the last morsel of your first self-cooked meal. You face apprehensions, you battle perceptions, and finally you accomplish what you never thought could be the possible outcome.  

There’s something so muffled about the way we experience things. It is as if we’re trying to slip through life without challenging some of the rules someone else has carved out in stone as benchmarks of generally acceptable social behaviour!

Well let me not sound all Martin Lutherish to have challenged the social norms, but in all practicalities I tried to gather ‘company’ for this one movie I've been wanting to watch for some time now. However, the hazards of a 6 day working life with a respectable private company today require a pre-ordained miracle to unfold whereby the universe conspires to make a movie outing with friends possible for you in lieu of you good karma from your last avatar. Date, time, location, ticket availability, interests and budgets of the diverse species called your friends have to all conspire to come together seamlessly for you to successfully accomplish a movie outing.

Come to think of it and rewind your last few movie outings with your friends. I’m sure it would've involved some for form of ‘adjustment’ (You would've blamed me for being too harsh had I used ‘compromise’) from someone.

In reverence of my new-found love for enthusiastic plunging, I attempted to put together something that was perhaps socially unacceptable. Finally this Sunday morning...........  :D

PS: It really felt nice, the 'Me' time was indeed welcome!!! Besides, it going to be the last week for 'The Wolf of Wall Street' at the movie halls, didn't wanna miss this one!!!

And to my great surprise 3 others sitting next to me were all stags (Me ~ The jhola lady ~ Marathoner dude ~ Firang Fab India Uncle) in that order Row I - 10, 11, 12, 13..... :)

When the old ends...

Who gets to determine when the old ends and the new begins? It’s not a day on a calendar, not a birthday, not a new year. It’s an event. Big or small. Something that changes us. Ideally, it gives us hope. A new way of living and looking at the world. Letting go of old habits, old memories.

My Sunday opened with reading news of closures. Two heartbreaking ones. Yes, the 100 year old B Merwan & Co, more affectionately referred to as Merwan’s - the bakery & restaurant in Grant Road will shut shop come 31st March, 2014. Much before Mumbai found it fashionable to be up early for a jog thanks to the Mumbai Marathon, Merwan’s used to wake Mumbaikars up and line them up outside its store as early as 5-5:30 AM for the freshest batch of Mawa Cakes. It is common to return disappointed if you were to reach by 7 AM. The owners & bakers themselves used to be at the shop at 3 AM daily. There was clearly more to this enterprise than money, it was love!

The Brun Maska, omelettes and the custard have been companions to those intimate conversations or just plain jovial banter. The chairs made in Czechoslovakian wood or the Italian marble topped tables were the ambience which catered to a Bombay, yes Bombay and not Mumbai, which was home to the most cosmopolitan Indians truly secular in their approach. A mill worker, an old Parsi Bawaji or be it the budding college couples bunking lectures to catch the matinee at Minerva closeby, it served wholesome honesty and love to everyone, equally.

The glass ‘Barni’ which kept your ‘Khari / Bun Pao’ safe or the ‘Jam Puff’ which used to be the eternal reward, will perhaps now realise, that it is not just entrusted with the khaaris but is also a custodian of a million moments of nostalgic timeless experiences which many would now call memories.

The other closure refers to the report of the ever dwindling number of Udupi restaurants in the city. Once they dotted the street corners of Bombay with the same humility that personified the people of this city. They were so closely interwoven with the social fabric of this city through the late 50’s till date that reading reports of more than 90 Udupis shutting shop in the last 2 years feels akin the gradual but disturbingly familiar disappearance of the sparrows from our windows. 

Their beauty lied in their honesty and simplicity. Their menus didn’t run into endless pages, neither did they resemble designer catalogues. The food was not tiny morsels dished out in choicest of porcelain, the waiter was not the suave gentleman, but your friendly lungi clad ‘Thambi’ – They were our first tryst with amazingly refreshing filter coffee, minus the intimidation of the decision making one goes through while ordering a coffee nowadays (Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, hot, iced, blended etc...). Yes, the place did not boast of anything it wasn’t but still managed to not only nourish your hunger pangs but satiate your soul. Some of its wall sported matter of factly – “This place is not for meeting – only for eating” – That’s perhaps the refreshing honesty we fail to appreciate today.

What’s important is that we never stop believing we can have a new beginning. But it’s also important to remember that amid all the crap are a few things really worth holding on to. Who gets to determine when the old ends and the new begins?

PS: The piece was loosely inspired by reading 2 disturbing news reports in Today’s Sunday Times & A conversation with a certain vagabondish friend! ;)