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.” ...