The Hindu Business Line : Life's best moments

Thursday in Mumbai was shubha murat (auspicious moment) and seemingly every young male in the city was busy marrying a young female, including my good friend, 43-year-old Vivek Bendre to Sadhana. For over a month, Vivek has been on an exciting high and on Thursday it was his life's best moment. One felt happy seeing a smiling Vivek hold Sadhana's hands on the stage.

Ramnath, Paul, Nandu and this writer made it in Ramnath's car to Dombivili, some 60 km away from Churchgate, in over two hours, just as the marriage got over and the guests were getting ready for lunch. At the hall, Kurup joined us, wisely making it to Dombivili by train. When we made it back to our office, Lyla, the feminist, asked for details about Sadhana. "I think she will not allow Vivek to continue in his wild ways. She will lock up Vivek," one told her. "Serves Vivek well," said a beaming Lyla and yet another man in this wide and beautiful world has willingly and forever traded love for a lock and a key.

In Mumbai, like in all other cities, marriages come in two forms: arranged wedlock which is something similar to the licence regime still in place for setting up an enterprise and love marriage (a hurting irony, if there was one), akin to the automatic route (not needing a licence) for setting up a project. Vivek's marriage was arranged with his relatives doing the trapping job. A few friends have asked me whether one ever fell in the love-pit before marriage. My reply has always been: "For me, it was an arranged marriage as no lady ever was interested."

While we were relaxing in the hall, Kurup went up to a well-dressed lady, thinking she was Sadhana, and congratulated her. He quickly realised the blunder when Vivek and Sadhana walked on to the stage. But then Kurup has always been true to form. It is now about 14 years since one got to know Vivek with the first meeting taking place in the offices of Indian Express at Express Towers.

When in the mood, he is a fine photographer and more importantly a rock climber who has crawled up every important rock face in Maharashtra and has co-authored a book on the subject. The going to and returning from Dombivili was tough and it was particularly hard on Ramnath who had to do the driving.

One started from home at 8.30 in the morning with the crowd in the local sucking me in at Borivili and spitting me out at Dadar, where one met up with Paul and Nandu. We walked to the popular Mani's Lunch Home in the Hindu Colony area to have wadas, masala dosas and top class filtered coffee. The geography of the stretch from Hindu Colony to Matunga has not changed though most of the south Indians have migrated to Dombivili or Kerala. But Mani's Lunch Home remains unchanged, except for the grim, young owner, who thinks a smile is a sin. Most of the green cover remains and one spotted a bungalow nearby with a stone plaque displaying the name of the owner with a Rao Bahadur, OBE, added on. Come to think of it, the place is similar to Fort in the city with its south Indian eateries.

Over the years, new faces walk in and out of the Anand Bhuvans and the aged Coffee House near Bombay House. The Coffee House is, perhaps, the one outfit today, serving quality filter coffee. In the 70s and 80s, it was the haunt of admen and journalists born and brought up in Trichur and Palghat. You could see crowds of them during lunch hour talking and laughing loudly as only they can. For the coffee, this writer sometimes visits the place in the afternoon. Last week, for no particular reason, one was walking down Bombay House when an old friend from the PR world hailed one from across the road. "Ennada, romba naal achhu, kanome (Long time, no see)," he said in Tamil.

For a moment, one could not place him as he was dressed in a khadi jibba and pants. "Dei, Coffee House polama (Let's go to Coffee House)," he asked and we went to the partly empty place and ordered two cups of strong filtered coffee with sugar "alag (separate)."

Sambasivan never dumps press notes on journalists nor cares much for journalists. His attitude suits me as there is nothing superior about journalists. "I say, what do you journalists think of yourselves. It's a bad scene. They do everything which they advise the world not to do," Sambasivan said and added, "I know I can be blunt with you."

One deftly switched to the Doha Asian Games and Indian cricket. It was bad tactics as Sambasivan cried at the way sports journalists were describing Sania a tennis wizard when she could not even bag the gold medal at Doha. "Did you folks write as much about P.T. Usha, the greatest Indian woman athlete. And then the dirty fight between Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupati. Could the two not wait till they touched India," he asked and the sparse crowd at Coffee House clapped in agreement. "Saab, aap such bol rahe hain (Boss, you are saying the truth)," said a retired share broker in Hindi.

We had finished three cups of coffee each and Sambasivan went for a last round. We then broke up and one thought of S. Shanti who won a silver in the 800-m sprint at Doha.

The lady thought of giving up athletics to support her coolie parents, three sisters and a brother. She is a resident of Kathakurichi village near Pudukottai district, Tamil Nadu. Is Indian journalism worth it?