WHITE MUGHALS
JE T’AIME MUMBAI…..Mansi Choksi
While most expats are busy hunting down the latest nightclub or hiding in gated communities,there are some who tell Mumbaikars about the Pathare Prabhus of Girgaum or where to find wannabe Bollywood models
JE T’AIME MUMBAI…..Mansi Choksi
While most expats are busy hunting down the latest nightclub or hiding in gated communities,there are some who tell Mumbaikars about the Pathare Prabhus of Girgaum or where to find wannabe Bollywood models
Reliefs of wheat bushels on the art deco Nagindas Mansion in Opera House commemorate the fields that stood there once and Cafe Dela Paix is named after its famous Parisian namesake.When these obscure details about Kotachiwadi’s history are shared during a heritage walk through the area,it’s easy to forget that the walk is being conducted by a French woman.Julie Van Rechem,a 30 year-old history teacher who came to Mumbai two years ago,says the walks are about we as Bombayites trying to reappropriate the city we live in.
Rechem is part of the growing number of expatriates that are refusing to see the city between tinted car rides,expensive restaurants and business deals.Whether it means coming to terms with the daily paradox of posh places with slumdwellers’babies at your feet when you step out”or ear-piercing traffic jams,Rechem says she loves the non-sense of the city that has two names and many more faces.That this tribe of resident Mumbaiphiles wears the city and its delightful absurdities on its sleeve comes at a time when Mumbai is,in a sense,mythologizing itself.It’s clear in the notion of the city as a vibrant melting point sold through books like ‘S hantaram’ and ‘M aximum City’,the economic promise of double-digit growth,the renewed interest in local cuisine or city-inspired kitsch-bags pop coloured with nimboo mirchis or Andy Warhol style Gateway of Indias-that are flying off store shelves.
It’s not as if this attraction for the city is unique to the new wave of recession migrants.For instance,when Annabel Mehta arrived here in 1966,she helped set up the two social organizations,often dodging questions from women in her social circle who would wrinkle their noses and ask how she could touch “those children”.The only difference is that these young Mumbaiphiles are finding new ways to express their love for the city they live in.Heritage walks,blogging,poetry,anthologies or starting Mumbai’s first internet news radio like 25-year-old Arthor H Danchest.
Danchest,who grew up in Montana and moved to Mumbai to work in the agriculture division of an Indian conglomerate,started Tiffin Talk,the first current events internet radio,for the local train ride to work because he couldn’t come to terms with the fact that news on the radio was the reserve only of AIR.”But now it has moved beyond a selfish remedy for commuter boredom and is becoming a movement to open up radio to the people of India,”he says.
From a chat with a volunteer at the Sanjay Gandhi National Park to an interview with Pakistani journalist,Danchest says he wants to be an active citizen of Mumbai but is constantly forced to combat perceptions of being an outsider.Danchest is presently halfway through the Alchemist in Hindi but regrets that with one look at him,Mumbaikars refuse to address him in Hindi.”This is compounded by the fact that many people want to practice their English,”he says.
That’s not a problem Bronwyn McBride faced when she moved to Varanasi from Vancouver.”I had no choice but to learn Hindi because no one spoke anything else there.I lived like a village girl,washing clothes on the rooftop and eating roti-subji with my hand.There was the daily evening Aarti and swims in the Ganga,”she says.
McBride,who now works for a charity and spends most of her time in Dharavi,blogs about everything from where to find Bollywood wannabes in Lokhandwala to drinking fresh juice and how to judge a Banarsi paan in Mumbai.”I have been turned down at the visa office,discouraged at the consulate,delayed at the airport.Every force that you have tries to drive me away from you,but still I am stubborn,and I manage to find my way to you,”McBride writes in an open love letter addressed to Mumbai.
She admits that she often finds herself shuttling from the Asia’s largest slum to Mumbai’s most expensive cafes.”I’m not sure for how long expatriates who limit themselves to gated communities or avoiding local culture can keep up,”says McBride.
(This is the first in a series on expats in Mumbai.)
* FOREIGN AFFAIRS: French citizen Julie Van Rechem conducts a heritage walk near Lohar chawl