Breaking Bread : Nostalgia and The City

Breaking

Bread

To all appearances it was an idyllic dinner.

A secret supper, hidden away in an old dilapidated bakery in Bandra, covered with graffiti. Properly tagged, properly dingy.

All the stereotypes of the underground dining scene were in place. An East Indian Meal, 13 courses on the table, and a twisted steel chandelier hanging ominously above us.

We were six on the table.

We’d just gotten to know each other through our professional tags and that ONE extra descriptor that usually gets assigned to people you know for sure you will never meet again.

To my left was Talkative Architect, currently mopping up some Guava curry with his pao, spurting parts of it while expounding the virtues of Bandra’s stained glass windows.

Interjection Banker from across the Sea-Link sat opposite, her furtive glances taking in the precise quantity of Sorpotel, trying to gauge exactly when it would be polite to dart her tiny arms out again to take a quick refill. “But how can you be sure?”, she interjected to Architect guy, masterfully using his short in-breath to dart out when everyone turned towards him.

Celebrity Chef sat next to me, stopping to “hmmmmm” erotically every few bites down, as one must when eating a “home-style” meal that celebrates someone’s grandmother’s lost recipes. However close it may taste to the packet of two-week-old supermarket curry you reheated yesterday in the microwave.

Intermittent Fasting news anchor lady sat across the table, and introduced everyone to the logic of “I.F.” for the sixth time.

Smoker Salvador brought up the 6th, but to be honest, we just saw him every alternate course since he believed that each course required a smoke to cleanse his palette.

We had devoured most of the meal, an elaborate table-full of goodness, with swirling robust flavours of pork, potato and onion gravies, pungent beef fry chock full of chili, a mustard laden smoked Bombay Duck gravy, paired with a bunch of fluffed rotis and some simple rice plates to soak up all the leftovers.

A bottle of Cashew Feni was circulating, and on a night like this where everyone has their adventurous hat on, it was already half empty. Salvador had just returned from his smoke, and we grunted, shifting around in our seats to make space for what we hoped was the final course.

Now, Secret Suppers are highly volatile, unpredictable affairs.

The nights are unforgettable for all the wrong reasons.

They are also killing fields for writers like myself.

With a fat meal in your belly, a lifetime worth of small talk literally pushed out of your gullet by the food, lubricated along the way with some nice Port, there’s no telling what people won’t say.

Mostly because the onslaught of food is relentless, people have passing thoughts that stay back as fragments. By the end of the meal, half-comatose, they only remember the emotion attached to that thought, like waking up after an Erotic dream.

It’s the equivalent of morning wood, with absolutely no recollection of whom to credit it with. They are then dying to link some words with that emotion, and with a little prompting, disjointed stories come by the dozen, and form the portrait that is my takeaway of the night.

My own personalized Doggie-bag, so to speak.

Talkative Architect was in a pensive mood, looking out at a tiny lit window in the cottage across the street.

Something was on his mind, but he hadn’t formulated the right 13 letter words to say it.

I nodded at him absentmindedly, and he began.

“You know, something that’s always bugged me. It's when people who live in old homes take away the authenticity. Or retain just the shadow of the architectural features. Like the beautiful balconies are always grilled over. Why do they do that? It just takes away from the experience of it all. Beautiful old mouldings, covered with bathroom tiles. Old planters with hanging AC Units. I just wish people were more sensitized”.

Celebrity Chef had begun nodding heavily.

“You know, authenticity is at the heart of it. An authentic experience is life changing, you know (pointing at all the empty plates) THIS. I mean this food touched my soul, it’s just, the flavours, the process, the simplicity, you know, authentic. It’s all from here, from Bandra, from Bombay, from a kitchen garden close by. You can almost smell the soil.”

Interjection Banker, not to be outdone by the sudden outpour of Bandra love, passionately jumped in.

“It’s the same in Colaba you know. The roads used to be such a pleasure to walk on. Large open arcades, so much greenery. Now it’s all just dug up, you’re always seeing, hearing, smelling, sometimes even tasting a Bombay you never really signed up for. It’s really disgusting, I don’t know when it will stop. Its all become so crowded and polluted.

You know, a couple of years ago at the Kala Ghoda Festival, we couldn’t even see the Ghoda! Bombay is just destroyed by the number of people on the streets. It could be a world class city if we could just go back to the way things were”.

Smoker Salvador let out a deep nicotine heavy breath.

Everyone looked satisfied.

It’s always where the conversation peters out, exactly timed with the arrival of dessert.

We can all comfortably take our preconceptions and judgements back on our individual journeys home, with nothing, absolutely nothing , new to feel.

Even if there’s something deep about our nature there to be discovered.

The pleasantries become the whole evening.

It wasn’t my first time at one of these dinners.

It wasn’t the first-time I’d heard these platitudes.

Most times, I’d be happy to leave it be. Maybe today was strange for me more because I had slowly started seeing connections. Those loose ends were there to be explored, but everyone on these tables refused their lure. Maybe it didn’t make for good dinner conversation. Maybe it wasn’t good table manners.

Tonight, I gave it a stab.

“What did you find authentic about the food?”

I addressed the Chef.

He was a bit surprised, and shocked out of his post-coital stupor. He labored, “Everything, you know. The vessels it was cooked in, where the ingredients are sourced from, the art , or rigour, of putting it all together. Authentic”.

He was finding his groove, and a well-practiced passion fit for a Netflix show. “My grandmother made that guava curry almost exactly the same way, and the flavours just took me back to childhood. Guava is such a Bandra flavour. Those onions and potatoes, and the Cashew Feni, it’s all just here, bro. Here and Now. And Then.”

He hastily added.

Warm.

Architect guy caught on, and jumped right in, desperate to sum up.

“Like I was saying buddy, the local character. It’s so Bandra. So intimate, the scale is so human. I just want to wish these buildings away, look at the village we’re in. It’s so local, you know. The materials, the decoration, the motifs, the culture, it’s all an inseparable entity. I just wish it stayed that way. But change is so rapid. Assholes are digging up the whole city, and all our memories with it. It’s our identity you know?”

Warmer.

The Banker swooped in.

“You know, it may be an unpopular opinion, but let me just lay it out here, we’re all friends. Bombay really should be for the Bombayites. I don’t think the others have any respect for the city. Do you see us spitting paan or defacing our city? It’s all outsiders. The key to reclaiming our city is the population. We need to move people out, the city, it’s bursting! How can we retain any sense of identity if the city is everything for everyone?

Hot.

Our lady with the news.

“I totally think so. Historically it’s always been people from outside who’ve taken and plundered. Civic sense and responsibility are really low on the priority list. I think drawing strong boundaries is the key to keeping experiences like these untouched.

Everything we value will become part of some homogenous mush if we allow it to. Bombay is just going to become another part of this massive mess that our country already is.”

Toast.

Nods all around the Table.

Salvador drew in a deep breath. He looked at me.

“You’ve been awfully quiet bro. What’s up?”.

EJECT.

I moved a sticky piece of Bombil around my palette as I wondered how best to broach the fragile construct of things I was holding in my head.

“Well”, I began tentatively. “What is Bandra to you?

What is Bandra if not a set of preconceptions? It's a set of loose ideas, a vibe, a music, a taste, a sound and a flavour.”

“Tonight, we all felt part of that “idea” of Bandra loosely tied together by a meal, but the IDEA of Bandra, and in that sense Bombay - is completely individualistic, completely plural, and is constantly in motion.

The city is a river, a treadmill even. It can’t be defined or pinned down to geography, architecture, time or a worse still, a people.

We’re fooled into thinking about Bombay as a romantic, fixed construct that we have experienced collectively once, many years ago and we’re all now longing for.”

This Nostalgia is a Dirty Liar.

Did you know, Nostalgia was once thought to be a disease?

It was understood to be a near fatal condition that completely demolished a soldier’s will to live. People have been Hospitalised for Nostalgia! I don’t think the truth is too far from there.

Nostalgia can be a springboard, but it can also be a crutch.

This very Nostalgia makes us political puppets, we’re so involved with “Making America Great Again”, or in our case “Bombay Great again”, that we’re literally living in the past.

This longing for “the way things were” is insane!

Forget about the lie that buildings tell us, that cities tell us.

Lies of permanence, of stability, of defined locality.

Anyone who’s been in an earthquake will tell you how short-lived, how ephemeral all of this is.

By drawing boundaries in brick and mortar we are drawing boundaries on a city that only exists in this shape and form in THIS instant!

This Nostalgia reeks of Xenophobia.

I remember, growing up, peoples’ names started to mean so much. Right from College, I found myself analysing surnames constantly. Everyone was categorised instantly in my mind.

Maybe it’s just part of growing up, we tend to flatten identities, put people in their place. I drew elaborate images from these names, where they lived, where they came from, how they might behave.

I just jumped to conclusions: Such a Vernac! bah! Valsad? dismissed! Where the fuck is Bharuch? Which village - (gargles) pur? Chembur Chodu. Oh Andheri! Oh Delhi, that’s why! Ah, you’ve recently moved, why? North Indians! South Indians! Gujaratis! Bhaiya! Bihari!

Hindu! Muslim! Easy categories.

Flat and easy. So much rubbish.

We’re at dinner, lets talk about Food.

This bread maybe from Parsi bakery, your morning mince roll from a Muslim bakery, your Chicken Biryani from a Catholic caterer, your mutton from a Muslim butchery, your fish from a Koli village street, your cold-cuts from a Catholic cold storage, your wines from a Punjabi shop owner, your sweets from a Bengali, your fried fish from a Sardar.

All Bombayites.

All attending New Year’s Mass each year irrespective of their religious affiliations, because its something larger than their individual identities.

What’s local about this meal?

These “local” onions originated in Iran. These “local” potatoes originated in Peru. This Guava is from fucking Mexico for god’s sake. That Feni we’ve been chugging is made from “local” cashews that originated from Brazil!

Food, ingredients, flavours, people, all follow the same flow, the same fluid pattern.

Any and every affiliation is tragically fleeting.

Who’s a Bombayite?

Bombay has been settled by tribes since the Stone Age. Authenticity is a slider that we can set anywhere from now to 5000 years ago.

Where we put the “authentic, local, or nostalgic” tag says more about our own prejudices and biases than any actual reality that is coded into the world around us.

Lets just stop making pseudo intellectual conversation, and maybe educate ourselves a little. Because there is no black horse statue in Kala Ghoda anymore madam. It was relocated to the Byculla Zoo in 1965.

So, the reason you didn’t see it wasn’t the crowd on the streets. It was the empty lanes of your mind.

Exhale.

I turned to Salvador and said, “Nothing much bro, just thinking�.

I didn’t need to say much more because an authentic cheesecake appeared, made from local ingredients, seeped in Nostalgia.