Juhu Sea's Love Storm

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.

JUHU SEA'S LOVE STORM

(Old Bombay Scene: Excerpt 4 from Dreams of One Country)

The surf’s never-ending wash was part of the peace of Priyasmeet. Thursdays, the band’s weekly holiday, were good for writing. After sunset he would sit on the lawn and see the birds’ last flight and watch the trees darkening till a suspicion of green in their foliage seemed a mere trick of the imagination. One Thursday morning he went late for a run. The tide was out. The beach was sheeny and wide. Decomposed pooja flowers and tar-balls marked the sea edge. He passed Nirvana Junction, where white hippies high on charas stared out at some inner universe. There were defaecators in action on the sands ahead. Norman turned back. He saw Priya waiting near Creado’s shack. She waved and ran down. Awkwardly. A sari is un-athletic gear, he thought.

‘I....was at Goregaon last night,’ she panted. ‘Aaee wanted Nalini with them. Couple of days. Some…ceremony. You like running on the beach?’   

‘Love it. But this seems the only clean part left. Ay, big clouds on the horizon.’  

‘You see that man swimming with a black dog? He’s a retired Englishman. Mr Graham. Lives alone. Dhondu calls him Garamsaib.’

‘Hot Sahb? Because he likes the Bombay heat? Bambai ka garmi.’

‘Ki garmi. Not ka. Your Bombay Hindi! It’s hopeless. Norman, I feel like swimming. I think…I’ve an old swimsuit in the wardrobe. Let me see.’ She hurried ahead.

Norman went straight to the kitchen. He pumped the primus stove’s flame into a blue gushing flower and put the kettle on for tea.

‘Is this okay?’

He turned. The one-piece suit she wore was a tight fit. He went around her. ‘Hope it doesn’t bust. Ay Priya? There’s a patch…bruise behind your shoulder. Oh, another here. Thigh. What happened?’

‘I fell. Slipped on the stairs at home.’

‘And the tinge under your eye? You don’t wear mascara. Tell me the truth.’

‘I told you.’ She walked out.

Norman placed fried eggs, bread and tea on the verandah table. Not a fall, he told himself. In minutes the day darkened. Another thought worried him. Was she aware of the monsoon undertow? He ran out and down the path. The blow was so strong he inhaled in gasps. Up the coast the coconut trees strained in the wind, fronds whipping back like frowsy women’s hair. The view before him was spectacular - a vast photographic negative with the sea and sky in blue-grey tones. Pools and rivulets glistened on the beach. The surf spread in shimmering sheets. In the water Priya’s head was a  dot. Her arms made little splashes. Soon brush strokes slanted over the horizon. Visibly, the distances pulled in. Priya started wading back. He went home.

Priya returned and called out over the rain roar: ‘Started pouring suddenly!’

He stared at her sea-beaded face. ‘Want some breakfast?’

‘Just tea,’ she said. ‘I’ll bathe first, Norman.’

After fifteen minutes he reheated the tea, then went down the passage and called her. The bathroom door opened. She was wrapped in his grey towel. ‘Lot of sand in my hair. Give me a minute to dress.’

‘Wait.’ He held her shoulders. ‘How did you get the bruises?’

‘Stop questioning me. And don’t dare touch me!’ She moved away but held on to his right hand. In the bedroom she swung into him, open-mouthed. He wrapped her in his arms and was hustled by an instinctive body rhythm.

Norman lay back. Priya’s head was pillowed in the nook of his shoulder. In half-light he saw a green flicker of window curtains. He felt tears dropping on his chest. ‘Baby, please tell me the truth,’ he pleaded.

‘Leave me alone! Go! Oh! Oh!’    

He dressed and sat in the verandah. The rain had stopped. Gutters gurgled. A bulbul fluted bubbly notes. Sunlight opened a corner of the wet lawn. She’s all twisted up, he thought. Why had her marriage gone sour? A little later he heard her car starting and ran to the path. Dhondu was pulling the gates shut. The Fiat flushed through pooled water and swung fast around the corner.

He found her address and number from the papers in a bedroom drawer. Priyasmeet had no phone. Two hours later he dialled her from the Juhu bus-stop booth.

A woman answered in good Hindi. ‘Kaun chahiyey aapko?’

‘…Mrs Priya Jha.’

‘Aap kaun? (Who are you?)’ the voice demanded.

Before he could lie, Priya said, ‘Hello?’

‘Baby, it’s me.’

‘What’s it?’

‘Wanted to know you reached safely.’ She cut him off. The Cynthia treatment?

At the Ecs next day he found an unsigned note in a sealed envelope. ‘Don’t ever call me! For God’s sake! What happened shouldn’t have happened. It’s over.’

*

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India Cinemascopic

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

JuhuBeach Monsoon Jog

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.

 JUHU BEACH MONSOON RUN
(Old Bombay Scene: Excerpt 3 from Dreams of One Country - Amazon Books.)

The dawn skyline south was obscured by windblown sea spray, layer on layer of bluish-grey. Mercury vapour lamps glimmered along the coast. It was exhilarating to run into the fierce southwest, the rain pricking his face like needles. He felt he could run forever. Crows beat their wings and stood still in the air, then tumbled over and were hurled landward. Transparent air-sacs of little physalia went plop under his feet. In the wet sand the button shells - little univalves intricately varied in colour and design - looked like jewels strewn around by a squanderer. Strangely, in the monsoon sea wind he smelt the herbal fragrance of khuskhus roots. Was that an olfactory hallucination? Between Priyasmeet and the beach was the thatched house of a Michael Creado. He belonged to Bombay’s Roman Catholic fisher community, the East Indians. Michael sat in his porch every morning, his face swollen and sore from a surfeit of alcohol. Some days he wore a T-shirt and a traditional langot (a coloured cloth triangle that left the bottoms bare), and fished in waist-deep water.

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India Cinemascopic:

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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Love Lost in Colaba Fog

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.

LOVE LOST IN COLABA FOG 

(Old Bombay Scene: Excerpt 2 - From my novel Dreams of One Country)

On the last day of her leave Norman planned to talk of his feelings. Cy crossed over at the old Taj corner, looking cuddly in a fluffy white cardigan. ‘Let’s go by cab to Colaba Camp,’ she said. India’s taxi drivers decide if and where they go. Like other meek citizens he pleaded in vain with two. Cy commandeered a taxi with disdainful authority. They got off at R.C. Church. Dense fog ahead. On Defence cinema’s huge hoarding the Tamil hero, MGR, rode a prancing horse. Norman’s soliloquy trod neutral ground as he inched towards the big moment. He paused. ‘Anything wrong, Cy? You’re so quiet.’

‘Can’t you think of anything nice to say to me?’

‘Like what?’

‘I must tell you what to tell me?’ Cy wobbled away into the fog on platform shoes. 

‘Off the road!’ he screamed. A car swept by like a shadowy monster. He ran and pulled her under a peepul. Whiteness swirled around them. The sun was a luminous white disc. As his arms went around her, he heard a fluty sound. Two birds were hopping on a low branch. ‘Look, Cy! Beautiful! Golden orioles!’

‘I’m sure you prefer an oriole to me.’

Her charming glare thrummed his chordae tendinae. ‘Never! You’re my only bird.’

‘I’m not your bird, stupid!’

‘Ma’am!’ He raised a classroom hand. ‘Whose bird are you?’

She wasn’t amused. ‘Ra phoned from London. He said he would have taken me tonight to Talk of the Town. To hear the Indian pop star from Canada. You? Will you?’ 

‘Sorry.’ Suddenly it seemed a day to quarrel. ‘Too expensive. I can’t afford it.’

‘Dammit, I’ll pay. Money is all you think of.’ Cy stamped up dust.

‘Shit! I thought you gave up the high life.’

‘I’m going home.’

Cy sulked all the way back to the Causeway. Near Shalini’s Boutique she waded in to shoo off an aimless crowd pestering a party of Uzbeki women tourists - all wearing multihued gowns and scarves, all plump and uncommunistic in their happiness. One of them asked Norman - with signs and many smiles - to snap their group against a horse gharry or victoria, a relic of old Bombay. Atop the carriage sat another gray relic wearing khaki clothes and a fez. Norman almost dropped the Russian camera: it weighed a ton. Next the Uzbeki asked him and Cy to hold hands at the group’s centre. He warned Cy it would be documentary proof that they were once comrades-in-arms. The woman clicked. (And so, somewhere in the old Socialist Republic of Uzbekistan, there exists a picture of Cy and him - in colour and resplendent company.)

When they walked on, Cynthia’s comment about ‘their birthday party dresses’ tinkled in his mind. Me, moron! At least twice she had mentioned her birthday to him.

‘Sorry I forgot!’ He wished Cy and promised her a gift by evening. ‘Cy, please…’  

Too late. She hailed a taxi to go to a restaurant lunch with her parents.

*

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1. India Cinemascopic:
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

First Date First Show

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.

FIRST DATE FIRST SHOW

Excerpted episode from Dreams of One Country - 1

 (An old Bombay Scene)

Collegians packed the Sterling’s lobby. Norman waited, suspecting more deception. When Cy ran up the steps he heard in the caverns of his mind music akin to 20^th Century Fox’s triumphant trumpets announcing the Next Attraction. At this first outing he was a rank amateur. His arm muscles twitched at the lightest touch on the armrest. Distractions surrounded them. Paper bags popping to celebrate screen clinches. Wisecracks. And the love calls of a pair of human koels - the male’s rising “ku-oo, ku-ooo, ku-ooo” in a melancholic crescendo; the female replying “keeek-keeek-keeek” and breaking into a flirtatious shriek – had the student crowd in splits. In the foyer at the Interval Norman glared at louts ogling Cy with glutinous eyes. She had three meat patties in quick time. He ordered three more. Chimes invited them in. Irma la Douce began.

‘I doubt you’re getting your money’s worth,’ said Cy. She smiled into screen glow.

He was admiring her profile. ‘I am.’

‘Of the movie, yaar.’

‘In any case,’ he reminded her, ‘you spent for the tickets.’

‘Not me. My boss. Ra (for Rakesh). He had an unexpected board meeting. So I…’

So Norman shut up. In the taxi going back, his lips itched to kiss her. They stopped at her Cuffe Parade office. In a last chance gamble he clutched her arm. Cy – not too politely - withdrew her precious limb. They stepped out into a mellow January sun.

‘Bye, Norman,’ she said. ‘I think you’re funnier than Shirley Maclaine.’

‘Cynthia, wait! Will I see you at the Ecs (the restaurant where he was a crooner in the band) soon?’

‘That depends.’ She stepped away.

‘On what?’ he called out.

‘Your imagination.’ She ran past the glass doors, out of sight.

Cynthia Lawson left him quivering. Back to Ra, he grouched. Great executive god in his carpeted shrine!

*  

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India Cinemascopic

My novel Dreams of One Country - for download on I-phone, pad or computer from Amazon.com - is a moving panorama of young dreams and ideas inspiring India's people to come together as Ek Desh (One Country) and build a truly modern nation.

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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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INDIA DISCOVERS IDEAL PASS-TIME

In a country where youngsters consider SMSing jokes to each other as a happy 'time-pass' and an elderly man meeting another often asks, 'How do you pass your time?' IPL cricket games are a sparkling innovation. Revelling crowds pack the stadia. And they get the works - music, fireworks, imported cheerleaders - to accompany games that have none of the state, country or club relevance that could raise passions. At least a quarter of the crowd comes from slums, eager for 'time-pass' even if they have to forego a day's meals for the family to buy a ticket.

Of course, the happiest of all are those raking in the big moolah - the organizers, the advertisers, the team franchisees and the TV stations which broadcast the Ideal Pass-time League games.

Incredible India? You said it!!!
For more India Realities stories see other blogs here and at www.myspace.com/india_realities (i.e. india underscore realities).

What Indians don't seem to be learning? Can they?

What Indians don't seem to be learning is that cars, mobiles, IT companies and malls don't make a successful, civilized country. More important is whether they can smile at each other, keep the streets clear of garbage and...YES!...honour queues. Will they ever learn?
(For more INDIA INSIGHT stories see other blogs here and at www.myspace.com/india_realities i.e. india underscore realities) My latest blog at Myspace is: Many GREAT WALLS divide today's India.