The Hindu Business Line : Mumbai, Sachin & Big B...

NEW Year parties this year could go on and on. New Year eve falls on Saturday, New Year 2006 is on Sunday and for the Mumbaikar it could be a long, long Happy New Year. For hours, he will linger on his favourite drink and have more hours on Sunday to wear it off. The ordinary Mumbaikar does not expect much. None has ever checked out the Mumbaikar on his wants and the Mumbaikar is not loud enough to open the complaints box.

When a Marathi manoos meets a Marathi manoos he speaks in Marathi; a Gujarati chats up another Gujarati in Gujarati; a Keralite from God's Own Country loudly converses with another from the same Country in Malayalam. When they all meet, Bombaiya Hindi is born. The Marathi manoos and the Mumbaikar become one whole. Friendships are formed, work gets done.

For this writer, it will be 36 years of living in Bombay, and then in Mumbai, starting one morning in late 1969 at Kalyan station when one stepped out of Calcutta Mail to take up a job as a journalist trainee in the Times of India.

From Kalyan, one performed the primeval ritual of boarding a local to drop off at Dombivili. At the request of my dear old aunt, Radha, who is no more, one visited the temple of Lord Ganesh, before entering the offices of the Times of India at 9.30 a.m.

One is most familiar with suburban Mumbai stretching from Dadar and beyond where, in many ways, an entire India lives. The view is distinctly different from Malabar Hills inhabited by the decision-makers of Mumbai, familiar with Shanghai and New York.

For one writer it did not matter and that was Behram Contractor. He is the city's best chronicler. In the piece Temples of Desire, Behram (from the collection Bombay, meri jaan) writes: "Excelsior may be old, very old, but the first movie house I remember having visited is Regal. In those days, the ushers used to wear black coats and looked like advocates at the Esplanade Court. These days they wear white jackets and look like waiters at Ambassador. ... I think I saw The Mighty Chang at the old Excelsior that is being pulled down today. ... And now Excelsior is being pulled down and it may not be as regrettable as the pulling down of half the Tata Palace, but some things will be missed. Things like the scotch broth and Kobe steaks and a little place where you can sit in the afternoon and watch all the pretty girls in paper dresses."

With Dakhi married to a Maharashtrian and a joyous, eight-month-old grand-daughter Shreya coming along, this writer could be termed a Marathi manoos.

When Shreya grows up she will talk to me in Bombaiya Hindi and one is waiting for confirmation. Lord Ganesh, cricket (Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar) and Hindi films (Amitabh Bachchan) are the unique, obsessive concerns of the Marathi manoos and the city he lives in. For him, they are his living breath.

Every Tuesday, a visit to the nearby Lord Ganesh temple is a must for the Mumbaikar irrespective of his origins. Perhaps, a Tuesday morning visit to a Lord Ganesh temple offers a peep into the style and pace of this city.

Men and women stand in orderly queues and wait sometimes for hours to have the Lord's darshan; those who do not have time to wait, are granted the option of having a distant look-in.

The Elephant God logs in the many demands from his disciples for onward processing at a BPO. Every demand may not be met but is stored for future reference as someday everyone has to be made happy. That's the promise, which gets back the crowds every Tuesday and makes the Lord wanted.

Then for an entire week, the Mumbaikar shuffles along with the job on hand, sometimes with a smile, sometimes with an abuse.

In between the fellow keeps a tab on Sachin and Amitabh, touched by old age and its pains. This writer has seen Sachin play at Wankhede Stadium and that was the only time I saw him play. One cover drive with the head and feet perfectly in place in a score of about 30 runs compensated for the early dismissal.

Sachin defines Mumbaikar best and this writer fears the day when he decides to quit cricket as cricket has been best played by Sachin alone. One small wish remains and that is to have a quiet private talk with my God before his last walk to the pavilion.

One heard a Sachin story long ago. Late night Sachin was driving in a tinted car down Bandra when he broke a signal and a policemen stepped in. Sachin promptly stepped out to pay the fine when the policeman realised it was Sachin.

He took out a slip of paper and requested for Sachin's autograph forgetting the fine. Any Mumbaikar in the policeman's place would have done the same. That's Sachin for us of this city.

When the TV channels flashed the news of surgery on Amitabh, men and women turned uneasy. From Anand (with Rajesh Khanna, the baboo moshai) and Zanjeer to Sarkar, the Mumbaikar has bought tickets in the black market to swoon over Amitabh. Mumbai made Amitabh and Sachin and every Mumbaikar is sure one day he will be like them with the blessings of the Lord Ganesh. That's why none quits Mumbai.

P. Devarajan

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