If the gharara is here, can the Bhopali be far behind?

It's because, my style icon, Shabana Azmi, Instagrammed herself in a gorgeous farshi gharara (and put to rest all doubts about its length and width by saying, 'The authentic classic gharara! Here’s My 2 bits worth... It needs to be free flowing on the thigh NOT tight. The joint must be 4 inches above the knee where the gota is put.'). It's because of a warm memory of the bachpan ka jamuni gharara that Khan auntie stitched and recently, one that Kahkashan had worn with aplomb to our school-group lunch; Archana to a Diwali party and the girl on Diwali and on Tiya's Haldi, that I am thinking of the Bhopali.

Also, my other beti, Saman was quoted on page3.

Arre, ek Bhopali nahi leke jaogi? Ek Bhopali joda to hona chahiye! Sameena looked at my wedding trousseau with dismay and then in her dramatic style began to tell me how at a recent wedding, some celebrity was wearing one – how the six-meter dupatta must go over the left shoulder to touch the heel of the right foot and the other end rest ‘lightly’ on the right arm. 
Imagining myself swathed in gossamer chiffon and brocade, we made our way through the crowded Chowk in Sheher (city market). The shopfronts on either side of the meandering lanes were stacked with bales and bales of silks, satins, velvets, brocades and soft muls that I couldn’t take my eyes off. But Sameena marched purposefully ahead, dragging me by the arm, saying not here, not here, every time I stopped to rest my eyes on some exquisite piece.

We finally came to a stop at a shop the size of a paan-shop. Chiffon (she asked for a specific variety) dikaiye, purple mein. In two seconds, she had decided and informed me, ye lenge. Then, she asked for brocade to go with it and the shopkeeper showed a few keeping the jamuni chiffon against those. She picked one – ye dijiye. At the kinnari wala next, even before I could feast my eyes on the mind-boggling variety of gota trims – edged with sequins and folded into phool-pattis, she picked a gota kinnari with yellow thread, and she informed me, ye best hai.  
The material got, we now walked through the galis of Ginnori to arrive at an aged wooden door embedded in a vast expanse of wall. She rapped the chain bolt loudly on the door and a teenaged girl opened it to let us inside. In the vast courtyard before us, several women were busy with chores and children ran weaving their way around adults, cots, buckets full of water, tubs full of washing, a matka here and a surahi there. The entire scene before us came to a standstill for a few seconds as everyone sensed visitors; a reed chick was lifted a crack with a cane stick for someone to peek at us from a darkened room. Quickly the interruption was acknowledged and the little girl twisting a curtain into a tight rope, put her legs around it and let it go, the two scallops of her shalwar touching the floor, she was swung in a slow whirl and the entire scene came alive again. Sameena hain, a woman remarked and a few of them greeted her cheerily and asked her family’s khair.
Sameena called out to a ‘Baaji’ and a lady in the far corner lifted her eyes from her sewing to look at us. ‘Inka Bhopali banana hai, samaan iss mein hai,’ she said and handed our shopping to a young girl in a short mul kurta and churidar. They shared some pleasantries and we came out.
But measurements? I asked her, surprised. Arre, she saw you, na? Sami replied.
The entire scene still plays vividly in my mind’s eye almost three decades after I left Bhopal. Every year, during spring cleaning, I take out my Bhopali joda and marvel at each neat pleat handstitched in place, every bit of the gota tacked beautifully, the six-metre dupatta chuna-hua (crinkled) by hand…

Sugar, sugar...

Just as she’s leaving for work, the girl digs this little box out of her bag and hands it to me saying, ‘Someone gave this to me for Sankranti’ and dashes out. I open it between morning chores and confusion and find nestled in a bed of roasted channa, sesame, coconut and peanuts, this little sugar pony. 

I leave it on the dining table. When the morning madness is over and I should get to my work desk too, I sit down to look at this translucent treasure.

How badly I had wanted these as a child and those that were brightly coloured – that sold all over the bazaar in mountains taller than me and blocked the footpaths. Mummy would pull me away if I lingered before one, amazed at the colours and shapes. We never buy these, can’t you see the flies and the dust, she would say. And the coloured ones? Tauba! Zehar – poison those colours are! 

Photo from www

So we walked around all the fun shops and to the sanitized Goyal Kirana Store in New Market where she spoke in Marathi with Goyal uncle who sat behind the jars of toffees and dry fruit of which I had my eyes stuck mostly to the rainbow coloured sweet saunf and flattened disks of stringed figs. I would rise on tiptoes in my red Bata sandals so Goyal Uncle could catch my eye and smile and hand me a little toffee from one of the jars. 

Photo from www

Sometimes, mummy bought me a seeti-wali lollipop and leaving me under the watchful eye of Goyal uncle, went to the bazaar inside.  I sat sucking the lollipop that coloured my lips pink but never whistled – only a minute spray of spit came out when I blew hard but no whistle, no toot. I watched the world go by – shoppers dragging crying children who cried louder when they saw me sitting with my shiny, pink lips, banging my Bata sandals on the little hard-board seat that had been carved out in a corner of that littlest shop.    

Photo from www

So we bought batashas only from Goyal Uncle who kept them stored in gunny bags and not in mountains on the floor where shoppers walked. On Diwali we offered those sedate-looking, round and hole-filled white batashas with kheel to the gods and then distributed it along with the mithais and namkeens to neighbours, visitors and the house helps. 

But in the give and take of Diwali plates, some bright and beautiful batashas would invariably sneak into our home and while Mummy was busy making polite talk with the bringer of the plate, I who kept a watchful eye for the poppy seed dusted anarsa and the coloured (the brighter, the better) batashas – hail happiness if there was a green house or a florescent pink bird - it would be quickly hid between the gathers of my frock and stolen away to the garden where I could suck on it to my heart’s content. 

Indian sweetmeat seller. Photograph from early 20th century. Caption reads: 'A Native Confectioner making Batasha (sweet meat)'.

Contributor: Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library / Alamy Stock Photo

*Friends in small places: Amroodwala

Lights dance if you look at them with your eyes crinkled. I did that a lot. Long, straight lamppost lights would begin to run like confused pinwheels. He eyes crinkled like that when he smiled, which he did a lot - the amroodwala who came in the afternoon pushing his hand-card up the hill where we lived.

Only Mummy called him by his name, we called him ‘amroodwala’ in winter and ‘kelewala’ in summer. For the bananas we had to be sent out grudgingly but when he got the guavas, we ran out at the sound of his, ‘amdoodwalaaa’ to claim the best, the ones that were red inside. The red always reminded me of monkeys. Although our visitors were the ashen-faced, long-tailed langoors that raided the garden; jumped on the terrace and if one of us was careless to leave the terrace doors open, came down the stairs into the dining room to polish off any food left on the table.

So Amroodwala would hold one guava in his fingers like a cricket ball, half-turn it and say, yeh! this one’s red inside. His word was enough. Sometimes he was mistaken and the next day on being told so, he would promptly pick two and say, this one for yesterday and this for today. That’s so generous, I always thought.

The little secret has to be that the red amroods didn’t taste any better. It was just the thrill of discovering a red inside, a chance at luck. And luck, well, it was with the others who were allowed the red masala that he gave on paper – neatly folded into a square. Some could even have the guava ‘made’ by him. Parental warnings rang in our heads as he picked one (unwashed warning) and ran his knife (germs, rust warning) once at the centre and then across – taking care not to cut through to the bottom so the slices flowered open like the tin toy that sold on railway stations – the one which when you pressed the tiller, opened four tin petals to reveal a dancing girl inside. He then sprinkled the guava petals with the red masala (dirty hands, fly-sat masala warning) and handed it to the lucky ones while I carried mind inside to be washed in clean water. I would try and replicate his magic by trying not to cut it all the way to the bottom which I eventually always did; mixing red chill powder with salt to get his red that I never did. Tomorrow is another day, a carefree mind would say. An older one now knows that yesterday wasn’t. 

*The title 'Friends in small places' is from the Ruskin Bond collection that is 'inspired by people who have left a lasting impression on him'. 

Pictures: Shibani Mehta, Chandni Chowk, Delhi 6

*Friends in small places: Allaudin

Taak-tak, taak-tak... the afternoon sound in the quiet college lobby comes from the post office. If I step in, I will find the lanky Allaudin bent over stacks of letters, thumping the stamp in his hand first on the ink pad and then on the letters one by one. He will then proceed to toss them into the sorting frame. 

I can smell the place now – of new paper and post office glue. Later in the afternoon, Allaudin can be seen making the rounds of the campus on his old Atlas bicycle dropping off our letters from his worn canvas bag. He doesn’t drop all in the letter boxes but stops when he sees someone whose letters he knows are in his bag -  I see him tilt his bike and rest his right leg on the road to stop. 

The climb to our house is steep, he must get down and walk his cycle. I spot him and run, ‘Allaudin Uncle, hamara letter hai?’ ‘Papa ka hai’, he hands me a clutch of Inland letters, postcards, envelopes and newsletters – they come every day. I look for stamps.  I wait for the SPAN magazine to look at the glossy pictures first and then read some. Sometimes there are letters addressed to me, ‘Miss’ they say. Once as I waited to buy stamps, the men at the counters were talking of Allaudin, of his Ramzaan rozas. It was the first time I had heard of someone going without water the entire day. I craned my neck and stood on toes to look at Allaudin sitting inside. Taak-tak, taak-tak...his hands were stamping the letters.  

Today, October 9 is World Post Day.


*The title, ‘Friends in small places’ is from a Ruskin Bond collection ‘inspired by people who have left a lasting impression on him’. 

मन का रेडियो बजने दे ज़रा...

Recently, I heard C’s friend hum one of my current favorites: aaogey jab tum o saajna…but her next line made me fall off the chair laughing, ab na phool khilenge! When you come beloved, the flowers shall never bloom!! Whoa!

Funny thing is they now have a google that just swabs off your query to come up with all possible answers that you are looking or not looking for. So in a few seconds you have the lyrics nicely decorating your screen and you can play the song as many times as you like to ‘by heart’ it.

The radio gen did not have it this easy. Our big rectangular box sat on a wooden rack in a corner of the drawing room. It had two big knobs – one for volume and the other that had to be touched ever so lightly to set that frequency which blared into a loud crackle even if touched by a flying bird’s dropping feather.

All the four girls in the house were fond of singing. Now catching the lyrics on such a sound system wasn’t easy and most of us then had notebooks with our favorite songs painstakingly handwritten. My notebook was divided into filmy, non-filmy and ghazals - neat triangles of folded pages segregating the three genres I understood. So we had to stand really close to the radio and hear really intently and write very fast. The constant ‘shut up’ by this one and that trying to hear, punctuated all house chatter. I had a brilliant knack for blurting excitedly during such and ‘shut up’ meant get lost.

Small wonder then that Vandu was caught singing ‘kaho Mati Chand kidhar chale?’ for ‘tohmatey chand dil pe dhar chale’!! and ‘thandi hawa ke jhonke chalten hain halke-halke, aise mein dil na todo, baatein karo na tan ke…’ for ‘asie mein dil na todo wade karo na kal ke…’!!!

Now my  munchkins sing ‘hal ghadi badal rahi hai…jo hai samaan kal ho na ho!’ really it’s all stuff, isn’t it? Kal ho na ho! So as long as the heart sings, sing along…flowers will bloom. 

My earliest radio-memory is of the whole family joining in when ‘Badan pe sitaare lapete hue…’ played and everyone smiled at me for it was considered my song. Massi Aunty and Mummy got me a short black shift dress with silver sequins so I could imagine myself wrapped in stars. Yes C, mum wore an LBD back then :)

More on radio days, my Hindu piece on fifty years of Vividh Bharti.

एक राह तो वो होगी तुम तक जो पहुचती है...

Lately, Bhopal is in the news for all the wrong reasons. From the ban on nursery rhymes in schools, to the hullabaloo over a self-claimed artist being allowed to exhibit at the hallowed halls of Bharat Bhawan, and the media frenzy involving a small-time model chasing Dhoni! Whenever the 24x7 media starts to report some crazy antics, my heart begins to pound with apprehension as several eyes turn to me mockingly, silently accusing, ‘this must be your Bhopal’!

There was a time when people visiting Bhopal talked about its salubrious aab-o-hawa; the spectacular lakes – glass-faced on a calm day and whisking up massive, frothy waves on a windy one; the super cool autorickshaws; the great roads; the picturesque views from Shyamala Hills – a glorious sunset over the lake in the West and turning around, the mystical view of the town nestled in the valley, evening lights twinkling at its feet.

Big-town cousins could barely hold back their envy. Everyone loved going to New Market. In the late 1970’s, it was for Brijwasi’s malai lassi and later for its favorite hotspot – Top ‘n Town. TnT used to be one super cool place to hang out even twenty years back. Many ‘quickies’ and ‘doodies’ later, it retains its top slot as the original hangout. 

Madhu Ice Cream turned Top ‘n Town seamlessly eons ago. The men at the counter didn't  It’s amazing how year after year one is handed the chocolate encrusted cone, the pista-badam sundae, the chikoo milkshake by the same faces. Must’ve something to do with being surrounded by ice cream all day. Or is it the Bhopal-ki-hawa? Because none of the others seem to have changed too. The threesome right next to TnT – the cosmetics' stores - Asha, Lakme and Kashmir Emporium - have the same faces smiling and beckoning if you so much as turn your face in their direction. I think each family in Bhopal has a favorite among these three. So if we went shopping with a neighbor – she might walk into Lakme and we into our Asha. It was perfectly understandable.

Go a little past these and the bylanes open up to wondrous specialty streets – vibrant dupattas and sarees festoon one ; churi stores packed to capacity with the most amazing hues of glass bangles line another; and hundreds of minuscule shops tip out tempting trinkets for curious buyers. Bhopal ki mashoor Ameena mehndi vies for attention among silverware and subziwalas. Some of these shops seem to be propped up on supports so fragile that an over enthusiastic shopper could just topple it – but it never happens. If it does, the shopkeeper in chaste Bhopli istyle will only say, ‘koi baat nahi, aap dekhiye jo dekhna hai’. Ditto with the autowalas who will not mind sharing a bit from their lives and if you so much as take an auto from a particular place twice, the third time, he’ll come to pick you as if you were his responsibility.

Back to New Market, it’s in one of those food lanes that one can savor the morning breakfast of poha sprinkled with fresh coriander and sev; and the golden yellow spirals of succulent jalaibees. And in the evenings, the spaceship-sized bhaturas, its choley spiked with chopped onions and green chilies, the samosas and kachoris of one called Gwaliorwala that is so camouflaged by its neighbors that one never knows if you're at the one or the other. It hardly matters.

In the early '80s, closest to Fabmall/Foodworld/ Woolsworth was Anil Proteins (now, Ahuja Proteins). The long narrow shop was lined with tempting eats thus far unknown to the Bhopali palette. Birthday cakes that were baked by well-meaning aunts and neighbors till then were quickly outsourced to them. You just had to ask Ahuja Uncle for some treat you had last seen in the Dilli and he would present it from his squeezed in perch behind jars of roasted almonds and stringed apricot. 

When you are in New Market, can the ‘nadewala’ be far behind? Does it embarrass you when I use that word? Okay, the drawstring wala! (sounds like you’re holding up your drapes with it, though). I haven't seen any other city/market where so many nadewalas abound!

How much nada does a Bhopali need? Does he buy nada daily? Is it mandatory like say, the bunch of fresh coriander thrown in free every time he buys vegetables? Does the lady of the house sulk if she opens the shopping bought in on the way back from office and not find a bundle of nada? If you're in New Market for about 10 minutes, the omnipresent nadewala will be all over you – touching you, nudging you – ‘Didi, please buy some nada.’ Once I got so exasperated that I told a nadewala boy that I’d buy more nada only if I needed to hang myself with it! 

बीती हुई बतियाँ कोई दोहराए, भूले हुए नामों से कोई तो बुलाए...

Is it age? Looking back, seeking comfort in memories? Must be. When my married sisters came home they sought friends and teachers from school and college, lapping up the telephone directories and growing ecstatic when a chance meeting with some long lost classmate’s (who they never spoke with in school) parent took place in New Market. I had problems keeping my current friends. I ducked and hid if I saw a best-friend-in-school at the railway station and avoided alumni meets like chikungunya.

Now increasing, I’m looking back. Seeking friends. Sitting here I plan. This time when I go back home, I must do the following:

Meet Prof. Zamiruddin and Prof R P Saxena as I’ve planned in several past visits.

Meet Samina Ali’s parents. My college friend, she sang on my mehendi, got me a Bhopali jooda, the frock-style kurti and churidaar with a six-meter dupatta. She’s a Doordarshan newsreader and RJ.

Go past the Irani hotel with its dark mint walls and the front lined with glass jars full of rusks. The owner – a burly, bearded, handsome Pathan was my first crush :)

Then past Ms Nahid’s house, which remained the ultimate mystery of my school years. Just across the road from the Irani hotel (on Ibrahimpura road), is this huge pale yellow wall. A flight of stairs leads half way up into it and turns into a gray wooden door with a big chain latch. That’s all. Ms Nahid used to take the bus ahead of us and by the time our bus crossed her stop, she’d be at the door. In a second, she’d disappear. What lies behind that wall? I spent years in wonderment. This time I will get you a picture.

I will visit my alma mater, St Joseph’s, Idgah Hills. And perhaps show my daughter around. The stones that lined the playground where we sat eating from our tiffin boxes - the lid closed so as not to tempt the eagles that flew above and almost daily scooped someones sandwich or paratha away. The classrooms. Where Ms Burns smacked me for putting the glue on the wrong side of a craft work - a blue paper basket; Sr Antoinette read out my answers to the class as my face burned but heart glowed with pride; Ms Ghoshal taught History with the loud rhetoric, ‘yes or yes?’; Where Shilpa Agarwal threw love notes at me.  The corridors where Poonam Singh came running to eat halwa from my tiffin, the canteen that sold hot atta samosas, bhelpuri (murmura with runny imli chutney - just!) and orange candy...

Show my daughter the statue at Kamla Park. She has heard the story a thousand times. When I complained of Hari Moorty, the burly Malayali in my class who hit me regularly, Papa to soothe me would point at the statue and said, ‘I will make Hari Moorty, kali moorty (literally the green statue, black) and in ultimate childhood bliss, I imagined Hari Moorty standing there in the middle of Kamala Park with a pitcher on head, water flowing from it in the evenings. And of course, the pigeons decorating his fine form. He owns the Little Coffee House in New Market now. On my sister’s reco, I might also decide to show my daughter the spot next to the statue in Kamla Park where the Naga baba used to present himself sometimes as we shyly averted our eyes at the slighest sight of him from the school bus.

Perhaps go to Shilpa Agarwal’s beautiful, white, slanting-roofed house, which sports her kid brother’s nameplate now. Some years ago, in the darkness of night I went and sat outside looking at the first-floor window where we used to sit on the ledge and share the heartaches of growing up.

On second thoughts, I’ll give it all a miss. The fear of being confronted with change that will shatter the beautiful past I live in, is worse than any other. Places change, people change. How after meeting them will I be able to save my memories from being clouded over by the blemished present? What if the ber ka ped from which swung all the hopes and desires of my 9-year-old heart is not there? What if a stranger's face questions? Asks who?

I think I’ll visit the galis of Chowk and old Bhopal instead and buy shiny brocade, bead purses and tea-cozies (that no one has use of now).

This is Shilpa's house. I took the picture much later on another visit.