Soliloquy

The vastness of Bombay often surpassed the glories it hid in its well-anointed coat. If I were to take a step towards the gigantic flyover creeping out to my left, I would have ended quite comfortably in Bandra – in the arms of Shah Rukh Khan – instead of Prithvi Theatre, whose all-embracing capes I seek. Juhu is not a ways off from Santacruz, and I rely comfortably on the anonymity that the auto-rickshaw, driven by a Bihari migrant who hails from Sitamarhi, offers me on this winter morning.

I reach too early; the theatre has only just started selling bun maskas, and I am compelled to make a beeline for the beach only a few hundred metres – but a world apart, it would seem – away, bedecked by oil tankers carefully drifting towards the shore as a teenager would to sports period in school. Juhu’s Chowpatty, memorialised by countless shows and films, is shorn of the glamour that I associate with it this morning; a year ago, at the same spot, I had been cheated out of my way for an unvarnished Pav Bhaji. This time around, I am careful not to enter into negotiations and look for options at the theatre instead.

By the time I come back, the theatre is almost filled to the brim by those who seem capable of making it in south Bombay but seem bereft of that special touch that our French friends have so aptly titled touche spéciale. The wait for a table goes on – in true Bombaiyya style, an app on my cell phone – and by the time I am called for, I am famished and devour two plates of pav bhaji without thinking twice. A cup of chai that the streets of Bombay so pride themselves in brewing comes next, and fills my heart.

Unfortunately, the only plays taking place at the theatre are slotted in for the evening; I would be safely ensconced inside the Bombay Football Arena in Andheri by then. The bookstore at the theatre is good company, nonetheless, and I am delighted to be joined by the presence of Will Durant and Suketu Mehta. I have been waiting to acquaint myself with the latter for quite some time now, and his book on this maya nagari, or city of illusions, will hold me in good stead when I go home to Hyderabad tonight.

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