Bombay in 1969 - 2

Continued from the earlier post...

We entered the building and took the elevator to Mr. Ramachandra's flat and pressed on the bell. No one seemed to respond.  We tried again. Yet no response. After two or three trials we began to get worried. What if he is not in town? Where would we stay? We later rang the doorbell of the adjacent flat and presently a young woman of about 28 years opened the door. We told her that we were students from Bangalore and that we were looking for Mr. Ramachandra.

"He has been admitted to The Bombay Hospital with an attack of typhoid" she told us and our hearts sank. Mr. Ramachandra lived alone in Bombay and perhaps was not married. We had our luggage with us and didn't quite know what to do. We were students travelling with barely 200 Rs. in our pockets and we just couldn't afford a hotel room!

As the lady watched Kumar and I discussed among ourselves in Kannada and told him about my cousins in Chembur but that I didn't have the address of the house. I said that I had a feeble picture in my mind's eye of the house as I had visited it when I was four years old and that I had a vague picture of the approach to the house from the Chembur Station, as I was involved in an escapade with it at age four. Since we had no other alternative, I suggested that we leave our luggage with the lady and try our luck at Chembur.

We asked the lady if we could leave our luggage with her as we intended to try locating our cousins' house at Chembur and if we were successful we would retrieve the luggage. Fortunately the kind lady agreed and we left her with our baggage as we headed towards Chembur.

We walked to the Victoria Terminus (V.T. as it was called then) and bought train tickets for Chembur. Upon reaching Chembur, in a somewhat instinctive way, I took the appropriate exit and walked along a road anxiously looking around. At the right crossroad I hesitantly took a right turn consulting my mental images of as a four year boy and proceeded a few steps and looked into a house...

My cousin who was standing at his door saw me and called "Baa,... Baa...!"  (Come... Come...)

Kumar and I heaved a sigh of relief. We entered and told my cousin the entire story and said that we would be staying with them until the rest of our student party arrived at Bombay. Later we fetched our luggage from Colaba and had a comfortable stay at Chembur.

The next few days were sheer enjoyment. We roamed around Bombay avidly devouring every landscape. I specifically wanted to savour the city in all its essence and we toured all the important sights. One evening we got on to the flyover somewhere near Marine Drive (I think it was a relatively new feature in Bombay) and watched the cars whizzing past below us. We walked past the roads around Fort several times hungrily looking at smuggled goods like watches and cameras. We barely had any money with us and the two of us put together may have had around 250 to 275 rupees. So it was the right time for one of our pockets to be picked and Kumar lost his purse to a pickpocket as we were avidly looking at smuggled wares near Fort.

I had heard about the sleaze in Bombay and the red light areas around Grant Road and was curious how the hell they looked and asked my cousin about it.

"Why the hell do you want to see Grant Road Man," he cautioned, "They'll knock off your underwears without knocking off your pants."

And we went up the Malabar Hills of which we had heard so much. The Boot House. Then we walked around the roads in Malabar hills and saw a pair of twelve storied buildings strategically located at one of the highest points of Malabar Hills. Twelve stories barely looks tall these days, but back in 1969 and to us from a smaller place like Bangalore it seemed considerable. We decided to explore further. We entered one of the buildings and saw that there was an elevator. We entered the elevator and pressed the switch to the highest floor (12th). On exiting the elevator we saw a nameplate KAMBHATTAS. We were two undersized seventeen-year-olds, thin and scrawny, and I wonder what impression we would be making in those high places. I was barely five feet two inches  (as I hadn't yet attained my full growth) and though Kumar was a few inches taller, both of us scarcely would have looked threatening. In any case I decided to press the door-bell of the Kambhattas.

Presently a well-dressed, fashionable middle aged lady opened the door partially and queried "Yes...???"

"Excuse me Madam, we two are students from Bangalore and touring Bombay," I said plainly, "and we thought we would enjoy a good view of Bombay from your balcony if you'd let us in..."

When I now consider the whole thing it looks so ridiculous that we could do such a thing! I can barely surmise what she felt but there was a twinkle in her eye as she let us in saying "Sure! Do come in and have a look!!!"

Totally un-selfconsciously we entered and stood quite a while on her balcony looking out into vast distances of Bombay, gesticulating with our hands and pointing to various landmarks, and discussing with ourselves.

After we had our eye-full, I said to her "Thanks, Ma'am for your courtesy" and left her behind wondering what this was all about.

When many years later I spoke to a friend about it, he remarked "If you were to do it now they would shoot you in the leg and call the police!!". True, those days there were no security, no collapsible gates, no checks, nothing.

                                        xxx