Joy of Living: Abundance among Scarcity

 There is a verse in the Isa Upanishad the first verse which talks rejoicing in renunciation. This almost seems like an anachronism in this day and age when there is a need to rejoice only in acquisition. The world of my childhood the sixties and seventies seems like a horror story. Imagine a world without Air conditioning,, a leaking roof on a cottage like house with an asbestos roof, no phones, no cars, irregular erratic water supply, primus kerosene stoves, no fancy toys. That tin asbestos house became an oven in summer and waterfall in the rainy season and on a rainy day sounded like staccato machine gunfire. As a small boy I have vivid memories of our house in Parel and even remember it was a one room, but large room and kitchen house. The house had a three step entrance to a porch covered with an asbestos roof supported by wooden columns with grey peeled off paint and supporting horizontal beams. The right side had an old but elegant pomegranate tree and some other greenery too. A strong double Katha Rassi (made of old fashioned jute from Calcutta) tied at a width served as a makeshift children's swing. To cushion our skin and bones from its harsh hardness an old blanket served as a swing seat. An old second hand sofa abutting the back of an old but majestic Godrej cupboard or maybe one more wooden one which became a wall cum partition storage for the family constituted a living room. Traditional marriage chairs of mum and dad became the sitting to accommodate maybe two persons. Dark or grey Kota stone was the rough but everlasting flooring the type which today would not even pass off as a base on which flooring is laid. 

My parents had given up a life of luxury, opulence and comfort to live in the old Bombay which even in those days was a land where opportunity beckons. The city was far less congested but we lived in Parel in a house which was part of a cluster of old cottages made as kind of practical no frills utilitarian houses for Parsis. My dad who was a district judge with a fair amount of intelligence who knew Bombay as a law student, was clever but lacked the urban upbringing and his vernacular background and lack of sophistication created an uncertain future for him. Allamai Mistry mother of Pallonjee Mistry the scion and owner of the then rich Shapoorjee Pallonji company, gave my dad and mom a roof house to stay. It was meant to be the window of opportunity which gave them a chance to give us an education and make my sister a Chartered Accountant and me a surgeon. The Parel area of that time had cloth mills and migrants living in chawls mostly men who had left their villages. To this day the Shirodkar Road and SS Rao road exist but in those days it was called chor gully was deserted and dangerous. Murphy Radio office was situated opposite our house.The village farmer came to the city with a dream of a life conjured by the bollywood films of the time like Guide, Padosan, Mughal-E-Azam, Woh Kaun thi?, Upkar and the movies of romantic Rajesh Khanna Aradhana, Do Raaste etc. The movies were of a romantic genre, clean comedies or patriotic movies of Mr. Bharat (Manoj Kumar). The country was yet  willing to believe in the dream of a happy and prosperous India despite poverty and despair. At the end of the Nehruvian era India was a country whose people still had a sense of patriotic values. But the scarcity and poverty were creating a foment of discontent among the masses. Even as it was affecting the poor, the loss of face in the war against China was being neutralised by Lal Bahadur Shastri. The people were un complaining. 

I remember the times we had an old Phillips Radio for entertainment, borrowed books, rare trips to movie theaters, I don't even remember eating out often. The rare treat was an unlimited thali from Jyoti Restaurant was a treat to remember and option of rice at the end and dal or kadhi with fried Poories hot and completed inflated with the air were our ideas of gastronomic pleasure. A gulab jamun was bliss. Jyoti restaurant still exists and one relic of the past which remains is coconut filling savoury patti samosa,. Our clothes and dress style were reflecting the filmstars, Devanand puff, Sadhana fringe, Sharmila dimples and Rajesh Khanna polo necks, Shammi Kapoor's shirts and Raj Kapoor the tramp. So many memories. The old BEST bus Ashok Leyland Double deckers, Trailer buses, Tram ways on tramlines all point to a bygone era of pleasures. Our roads had Fiats, Ambassadors with Lal Batti a symbol of importance and power. Also by then the Electric trains had already become the lifeline of Mumbai but we as kids were not really ready for travel on the same but we often used the same later in the seventies. Our games were cricket with tennis ball and improvised bats. We went to school and played with marbles and tops. Football was fun and table tennis was something I took on and enjoyed. No one coached us but we played for fun with a sense of healthy competition rather than flashy showmanship. Games like Hitty Kitty, Nargolio (7 stones), Kho kho and Kabaddi requiring minimal equipment were popular.

My schooling days in St. Mary's SSC school was among the Spanish priests Father Aranha and Father Pedro. Even in those days we were aware that some of the priests were flirting with our class teachers. Our roadside eating Pyalis (dish of Ragda with sweet and spicy chutney, scooped stuff potato, Buddhi ka Bal (candy floss) and cut raw mangoes etc were more satisfying than the present day stuff. Ultimate treat were canteen Burger or the Sylvana chicken roll. We loved our teachers and made friends with people from diverse backgrounds, Muslims, hindus, parsis, sindhis, catholics and maharashtrians all mixed in a delightful bhel puri and lots of fun. The church and Bible and our priestly principles did cast an influence on us but no direct attempt was made to convert us, but Bibles were distributed free and Jesus on the cross adorned the classes and corridors. 

The images of old green Indian Tobacco company, Murphy Radio Office, Advani Oerlekon Company, MD college and SPCA Petit Hospital and Mahatma Gandhi ESIS Hospital are part of my childhood memories. I really cannot get these images but I have vivid memories of the same. 

As far trade and commerce was concerned Mumbai was evren then the financial capital of India. The city acted as a magnet for the people of rural India, particularly the states UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where abject poverty led to migration. The native Maharashtrians were not used to hard work and soon the North Indians became the taxi drivers, fruit and vegetable sellers and safai workers. Their rise and gradual prosperity and taking over of the food and hotel industry by the South Indian and North Indian migrants gave rise to the son of soil campaign and created the ShivSena party.Even though politics was playing out some degree of opportunism and the cartoonist Balasaheb Thackeray played his Marathi manoos card to garner support and used the regional sentiments to garner support he took a long time to get mainstream relevance and the image of goonda violence became synonymous with him. Cadre based following without a clear ideological glue made the local guys misuse this new found power. However, mainstream parties played the game and let the genie out of the bottle. We are still paying the price for this folly. 

The open spaces in Mumbai, gardens and the old gothic buildings, the art deco buildings, the monuments museums, zoo and Aquarium would definitely not be like modern ones but I don’t remember getting bored and as children we learnt and re learned in these multiple encounters with these iconic places. The old shoe and Hanging Gardens were places where kids played without being concerned with overcrowding or fearing injuries, allergies or infections as we fear today. No mobile phones and no TV meant books and encyclopedias which were sources of edutainment rather than pure entertainment. Newspapers had Headlines and New and were interspersed with a few relevant advertisements which became part of the paper. Today the Times of India has no content and lots of advertisements and all news is paid media. A Laxman Cartoon spoke louder than words. We also devoured books and fiction dominated the scene Enid Blyton, Noddy.Hardy boys and the classics like Charles Dickens, Ruskin Bond were part of our reading menu. I also loved stories and the history of Shivaji, Mughals captivated me. Akbar Birbal, Panchtantra tales, Ramayana, Mahabharata made for great edutainment and spiritual growth. The single screen movie theaters with a mix of South Bombay theaters like New Empire, New Excelsior which had the famous mayonnaise laden chicken roll, Sterling and Strand where we saw classic movies like Mackennas Gold, Guns of Navarone, Roman Holiday, Sound of Music etc. And the Indian movie theaters like Chitra in Dadar, Novelty, Apsara , Minerva and Opera House where we saw Hindi cinema. 

I know I have rambled in this blog and the structure is random, I think I have evoked lots of memories about a life which by today's standard is a life of scarcity if not sure poverty. Yet we were rich in our feelings and the texture of life was slow and rich. We were looking and observing people with direct eye contact and listened to hear rather than respond before hearing which is the hallmark of today's interactions. We had very few things but were blessed with abundance of positive feelings and genuine few friend we could count on our fingers. 

Vispi Jokhi