Experiences

…talks a lot. And it is a good thing. A few months ago, my nephew, the budding film maker, made me walk through the streets of old Madurai city, as part of recci for his script. We randomly rambled around one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, feeling a little awed by its imposing history and complex cultural subtext. Then suddenly, we arrived at the site of some personal history. It was the street where his parents were married 31 years ago. Never before have I felt the weight of three decades as heavily as I did that day, because I wasn’t able to locate the wedding hall. There were a couple of them, neither carrying the name that is on my sister’s wedding card. We asked the guards and they scratched their heads. I called my mom, who also was not able to recall which end of the street the hall was. 31 years were long enough to change things around even in a forgotten little street in a city where changes happen very slowly.   31 yea...

15 years ago, I met a boy from South Bombay. He was quite ridiculously intelligent and creative. He was funny and crazy to boot. I was a neophyte in Mumbai, all wide eyed and wondering, with the metaphorical small-town-South-Indian-coconut-oil still on my hair. For all our cultural differences, we could’ve well been from two different planets. No this is not a love story. Definitely not one with a happy ending. This is the story of the fast vanishing Art of Conversation a.k.a. “talking shit.” We talked miles and miles of deserted streets in Fort, Church Gate, Nariman Point, Colaba and Marine Drive. We talked hours and hours of Roxy, Metro, Sterling, and Eros theatres. We talked years of All Stir Fry , Under the Over (alas, not there anymore), Churchill and Crystal. We talked shit man. From “leading a life of quiet desperation” to Douglas Adams, Martin Scorsese, Incubus and Succubus, Warm Water under a RedBridge , sizzling brownies and the “greater creative question.” ...