Memories of Juhu Beach: Old Bombay

Memories of Juhu Beach: Old Bombay

'If ever there were a people who have everything needed to succeed, it's us. If ever there were a people who need to be saved from themselves, it's us.'

From Priya Jha's speech in the Spellbinding India Novel, Dreams of One Country (Amazon - Books)  Love lights up an audacious young woman's united youth campaign for Humane Values, inspiring India's real modernization ...to Singapore's Heights!
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When we lived in Juhu near the beach I would go there at dawn for a run, come rain or sun. I would reach the main beach, then run back to where I could see Versova. There are descriptions of the beach in Dreams of One Country - like one on the exhilaration of running against the strong monsoon wind when the rain felt as sharp as needles on my face  One beach memory was an annual pre-monsoon event, a phenomenon no one understood. One morning all kinds of sea creatures - including sharks, eels and small whales - would be thrown up on the beach and would lie there flopping, scattered all over. No one understood why. And no one would pick any of the fish to eat. They felt they could be unhealthy. So the sea creatures would lie there and rot on the beach and the beach would stink for days.

Another memory of Juhu beach is the Air India plane crash in the latter 70's - after taking off from Sahar Airport about six miles away. It crashed into the Arabian Sea just off the coast. The plane had gone to the sea-bed. All passengers and crew had died. The plane had then floated up, and it could be seen from the beach on the horizon. Crowds of spectators came every day to see it...till it was removed for investigations into the cause of the disaster.

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India's Flying Draincovers!

India's Flying Draincovers!

Where my son lives in the US five 2-storey houses make a circle. And there's a common circular driveway. A drain manhole there has a heavy cast iron cover which says Made in India.

How did India-made draincovers fly West? What spurred exports? Well, it's a curious story. A Mystery. As well as History.
Under British rule the police were under English officers. Every city had cast iron covers over the manholes of drains. Then came Independence. British rule ended and the English left the country. The dawn of freedom. Soon the iron draincovers started vanishing, leaving gaping holes. When replaced they vanished again in a day or two. Slum-dwellers and other poor carried them away and sold them. People died stumbling into the holes in the dark or in rains.

A strange fact is that though Indians differ in language, clothes and  customs, the basic attitudes are similar across the country. So in city after city the draincovers vanished. And state after state decided to give up iron draincovers and use concrete covers instead.
The result was that the iron-cover manufacturers were hard-hit. Their manufacturing facilities fell silent. With no hope of getting business, they realized there was only one way to survive. They would have to explore and find an export market.

So...we must be ever-thankful to the draincover thieves for spurring unforeseen exports for the country.

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Old Bombay Whizz Tour

 A Blog begun years ago as a stroll on the Funny Side of Serious Street, highlighting India's problems. Revived by adding memories of old Bombay, including excerpts from Dreams of One Country.


                                               
Old Bombay Whizz Tour

This homecoming to Funny Lines returns to the past. So many memories of old Bombay – like the cinemascope scenes of thousands of commuters crisscrossing the city in any contraption that moved on wheels to defy the All-India Railway Strike and the Ganpati spectacle on Chowpatty beach – are part of Dreams of One Country. As in life, my novel is funny in parts, sad in parts.

The story is purposeful. Taking off from a heart-hugging love story set in years-ago Bombay, it tracks the only way India can lift herself from 135th out of 185 countries in HDI (Human Development Index) rating and rise to join the world’s most developed led by Denmark, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore and the U.S. Denmark has never launched a space probe. Quietly, this north European country pursues her objective of using every resource to enhance the people’s quality of life. Denmark is one of the few countries that offer free quality healthcare and education (school and university) to all citizens.

1. India Illuminiscopic:
Check out Dreams of One Country on Amazon.com. If the novel's Revolutionary Theme - the March to a NewIndia - appeals to you, you can download it on any device: I phones, pads or computers. In the 21st Century story youth lead India's people to unite as Ek Desh (One Country), to strive together and build an enlightened and truly modern nation

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