Andheri W

The only language newspaper that I feel is missing is Punjabi. I can actually stock them but they arrive two days late

Jeevan (70), newspaper stall owner

Before the internet and the multiple city editions of popular newspapers from other cities came to Mumbai, the newspaper stands outside railway stations were a treat for information junkies. The best newspaper stands were in Churchgate station, the vendor outside where Perin Nariman Street meets the main road near CST or VT as it was called then, Magazine Galli, and other major stations. Even if it was a day late, we could get the newspapers from other cities, smell and hold the newspapers with paper, print and touch-feel of a place far away, usually the home people left behind.

Jeevan’s who is 70 now and inherited the stall from his father has a large stall outside Andheri station (west). It is one of the few newspaper stands that survive in the city that stock newspapers in several languages. Most are now local editions of newspapers in different languages but he also has a few sourced from elsewhere.

JP Road +Versova beach

Encountered in Mumbai: Ajay Kamalakaran, Author and Journalist.

I first encountered Ajay online on Twitter. Later I happened to buy and read a book he wrote called Globetrotting for Love and Other Stories from Shakalin Island.



 I bought it because I was always fascinated by Shakalin Island. It must have been images that I saw of that remote place and the accounts that I read but don't remember where about the original inhabitants of the Shalakin and some news stories about the relations between the Russians and the Japanese with relation to that Island. There was a famous book by Chekov called Shakalin Island too that opened the eyes of the world to that remote Island.

I picked up the book to know why a man with an Indian sounding name and who lived in Mumbai was writing about a place like Shakalin Island.

The stories in the book are fascinating and is window into how life was during the short lived oil boom there. Some of the stories there could be from Bangalore, Gurgaon, or Shenzen too.  To know more, you will have to read the book.

To cut the long story short, Ajay was born in Vile Parle. He did his schooling in India and the US (because his father was transferred there on a job band then moved back). From what I could hear and whathe told me, he has a super power. He is very good with languages and can speak 10 of them fluently, including Russian. Thanks to his Russian, he works for half the year in Russia and the remaining here in Mumbai where he lives with his mother. He writes for a living.



FB Live with Ajay. 

Ajay interviews people from Mumbai and broadcasts them to his friends worldwide using FB Live. i was his guest on Saturday, 6th May, 2018 and that was how I met him. After he spoke to me about this blog, we went for a walk to Versova village and the beach. These images are from there.

SGNP

Encountered in Mumbai: Dinesh the Warli Artist. 

Dinesh is a friend of Aslam, a photographer and bleeding heart activist of all causes affecting the weak who is also on a mission to document the rivers of Mumbai. Dinesh is someone who lives on a tribal settlement on the banks of the Dahisar river inside the Sanjay Gandhi National Park. He is the first graduate from the tribal community who call the forests that stretch north from Salsette Island all the way to Palghar and beyond until Nagar and Dadra Haveli.  The tribal who are the original inhabitants of the this part of India.

Warli is their art form and Dinesh is a custodian of the art.

As the first graduate in the community, he seems to be a major influence on the easy going people people in his pada or settlement and youngsters from the other padas close by. There were two high school boys who were hanging around with him, learning to paint, when we reached his home on a very hot Sunday afternoon.

Even though he was a graduate with a Bachelor of Arts from an institution called Ruia College, he is more at home with his traditional art. He seems unsure about using his education to seek a livelihood in the big city that is hidden from his home but within earshot. However, his art is taking him places, slowly. He gets enough work from a women from the city who find buyers for his work, an example of which you can see in the above picture.

Dinesh took us for a walk to the river and the woods next to his settlement. He stopped and picked up a yellow flower and told us that he uses it to make a colour used to make his art. As he spoke, Aslam shot a few images of him with the flower and so did I.

The Dahisar river is bone dry, this time of the year and among the rocks polished by water, yellow flowers were sprouting and smiling brightly in the sun.

Dinesh's home is a little zoo. It is home to any animal that needs shelter. Chicken, ducks, geese, pigeons and other birds live with him and around his house. This is his bed, with a net above it to stop pigeon droppings and fathers that fall down. The home has natural ventilation because of the wall of reeds (?) plastered with clay and cow dung.

Most homes in the pada no longer have these traditional walls. They are being replaced by metal sheets that are easy to maintain and cow dung is not easy to find anymore. The cons of using metal sheets is that ventilation is bad.

The settlement he loves in called Naupada or new settlement (?). He is the fresh breeze of modernity that resides in the village. 

Aslam and Dinesh

A bend in the river
inside a forest
meters before it enters the city

The bend in the river
an aborted U turn
where it caught the scent
stench of the urban

Clear water
sometimes muddy
kissed by the lips of deers
and leopards alike
before it turns blue

A bend in the river
strewn with rocks
marks of nails of men
in the sand they are stealing

A bend in the river
inside a forest
fearing the city
it will enter
and die

Azad Maidan + Oval Maidan + Shivaji Park

Fence-sitters. 

There are no ropes on the boundary line for Mumbai’s playgrounds stopping anyone. Any fence that exists, if any, is porous. Across the city, cricket and other boundaries merge like venn diagrams. At intersections, inside and outside these circles, squares and paratha shaped fields, life goes on. More than a handful of people make or try to make a living at these intersections.


The Bombay street sports economy is not as large as the one that feeds on IPL but there are several that I have encountered around our playgrounds. I will keep an eye open for more such people.

Encountered: The man who repairs bats.

Uday works under a tree in the western corner of Azad Maidan. He is one of the people who make a living repairing bats for the players. Cricketers come to Azad Maidan from all over Mumbai to play for the many clubs that are allowed to use the playground and for the different teams and enthusiasts who come to play there. From replacing the grips on the handlebars to giving a second life to old bats, he does them all.


I had gone to him for a different reason. My boss at the advertising agency I work for also makes furniture from discarded things, including cricket bats. He has designed an arm chair that looks like a Parsi Fornicator that is made for armchair cricketers and he has difficulty getting hold of old bats. I was hoping that Uday would tell me where I could get some old bats. Unfortunately, old bats are thrown away by individuals and there is no one person who collects or recycles old ones. If you have an old bat lying around, the place to go is Azad Maidan, I guess. There should be others, in other playgrounds and I shall keep an eye open for them.

The other bat repairer.

Pom Pom Idli Wallahs. 

Idlis and vadas smothered in sambhar and chutney have captured the street breakfast market in Mumbai. Every morning (and other times of the day), they radiate from the chawls and slums where they are made to the streets all over Mumbai. Playgrounds will have the most hungry customers and that is where you will find quite a few of the idliwallahs with their signature pomp om call sign.

Drink break. 

The air is Mumbai is a heavy with moisture the whole year round and it is not satisfied unless it has sucked out the little water that we have in our bodies. If you plan to spend the day on the playground, you are a walking, running water oozing machine and if you want to live, you have to make sure that you are 'hydrated' and we have people who will do that for you, for a price.

Pepsi

Simple super food for champions.

Fashion and food tastes come and go. The idli could be replaced by pasta or the vada pav may stage a come back but the humble egg or a banana is just as popular on the maidan.

Ground Staff. 
The people who maintain the cricket pitches at Azad Maidan before the day's play.

Hawking zones.

In the even