Mumbai, Before Sunrise

Our travels through Colaba; Mumbai's oldest Parsi Bakery and the Elefanta Caves

Sunrise around the Art Deco Flora Fountain in Mumbai

Everything started merging into the crisp air of the Church gate station. Was it the Mumbai that I had known all along?

Our single-minded devotion to eat fresh bun maska at Yazdani bakery, one of the oldest Parsi bakery in Mumbai, had led us to an uncanny space in Bombay.

Yazdani Bakery, one of Mumbai's Oldest Parsi Bakery

We took off at 6 am in the morning for a modest bun maska. The commute was going to be long, and if we got a little late in catching the local from Dahisar, then god knows what could have happened to us snobby Delhiites who were used to the comfort of the Metro.

Thankfully, we did catch the train on time and it was rather empty, much to our relief. We came out of the Church Gate station around seven a.m but we could not believe our eyes.

Although I had been to Mumbai a couple of times before, but this was the first time I was seeing this part of the city. All this time, I had no idea that we always brushed past this piece of history every time we made a pilgrimage to the Gateway of India.

The glorious Art Deco buildings against the morning sun with practically empty roads, sans traffic and people, transported us someplace else. A place where time became historical, a time like in the movie "Before Sunrise". Limitless, floating. Past, Present. Starting, Ending. All simultaneous with each other.

Neither of us knew how to understand this out-of-place place that reminded one of the Alexandrian bridge under charming Parisian skies.

I wonder if there is any merit in standing in front of these relics and then think what could have been or what could still be if only we did something else? It reminds me of Plath’s figs, how each one of them is a different life but if not succoured, then they are in the danger of falling and putrefying.

Is that something that happened to desires as well or do they just keep looking over your day to day, and find little spaces to come out the moment you breathe in a corner, standing in front of history supported by bamboo beams and some eyes that long for it to be standing straight up through time—are we all desires thus?

The very name of Mumbai or anyone talking about living or having lived in Mumbai evokes in me something instinctual, something I desire but it is perhaps only the idea of being there that gets me through—what would happen if at least one of the desires were fulfilled and one day, sitting on its crowded shores, I sang “Yeh hai mumbai meri jaan”

I was nauseating by the time I made all these connections, all the while heading to the bakery as the sun let itself out over this shifting city with a sea of people so quiet that it did something to my heart.

Boat Ride to Elefanta Caves

I have collected so many ticket stubs over the years, but I always did so without reason I think; at least the reason was never, it’s going to end. These were souvenirs, of the places I have been, places I have seen, things I have felt and things I don’t remember having felt. A souvenir—memory in French. But just a look at the sepia ticket reminds me that I was there. Not that it is old now, gone, time lapsed, but just a moment that was perfect in its own entirely.

Ticket handed to us outside the Gateway of India for Elefanta Caves

The tickets to the caves weren’t brought by us, rather they were shoved in our hand at the ever-bustling Gateway of India at a speed that made us question if we won’t be trafficked across the Arabian Sea. It was funny, scary and I called up people, sent them a photo on WhatsApp to ask if the ticket was authentic because I had no idea.

It was authentic alright, and so were the caves where the guide kept soliloquising to himself long after he had told us that : “Elephanta caves were made by Chalukya, ruined by Portugal in 1534 with gun shots still embedded in the carvings and the length and breath of the caves were 170 by 30 metres”.

I remember it all, what he said, not the history, but what I don’t remember is if I still have the ticket to remind me of this place years later when my memory uses photographs to remember now that it is certain more than ever that this may never be— I have become reluctant to save the stubs.

Back in the City: Exploring Colaba

Skewed between time and timeless architecture of Mumbai

That day then we walked, walked almost 13 kilometres because we wanted to flow through every vein of the city, wanted to consume every Gothic building, every bit of archetectural history that existed in around the Harry Potter-like quarters of the Bombay High Court with spiral staircases leading to the old-world charm of wood-laid offices, gargoyles on the corridor pillars that stood still in time, at least for us.

We couldn’t have felt more like tourists, yet home, so close to home. I wonder why the question of home always comes?

A writer once said that you are home where you write.

The next morning, when I woke, I remembered the BEST bus running through Sevilla, another city where I wrote.