Zainab Bawa’s Blog

22 ^nd April 2005

Today I have an interview with Manoj Kumar, a hawker at Marine Drive / Nariman Point. We have fixed the time for 7 PM . It is still broad daylight. I start to feel uncertain about being noticeable with a hawker in broad daylight amidst the large holiday crowds. My own hypocrisies start to surface. I am sitting right before Hilton Hotel and facing me is one of the groups of elderly people which regularly gathers at the promenade. There is an old Parsi woman, her husband and another woman. The old Parsi woman is discussing the rape at Marine Drive . She is shocked and upset about this and is constantly saying. “How can this happen?” There is constant analysis and reproduction of the rape incident.

Sitting on my left is a couple. Yet, once again, this is a couple where the girl has fought and the guy is trying to make amends. “Don’t touch me I said! Don’t touch me!” she says to the guy who is trying hard to win over his gal. Suddenly a family of four comes and sits next to me. There is papa, mummy, elder sister and younger brother. The little girl stands on top of the promenade wall and says, “I feel so scared here. Papa, do you know that this whole Marine Drive is called the Queen’s Necklace?” Her little brother jumps up on the wall and exclaims loudly, “Whoa!!!!!!!! But, who is the queen?”

While all of this is happening, I see Manoj Kumar walking a bit desperately and as he comes closer towards me, he suddenly turns back and I wonder whether he has read the shame in my mind. And he turns back, not to return for the rest of the evening. And I am relieved!

In the meanwhile, the elderly persons’ group has grown large enough as one of the members comes in his car and the driver bring out about six easy chairs from the boot. Members are pouring in – exactly eleven in number today. And apparently, there is going to be a party today as two members have brought food packets with them which they are distributing to the rest of the group. The group occupies a certain amount of space on the promenade and is an in-group in itself. Their fanfare does not appear to arouse any kind of feelings of exclusion among the walkers. Neither are the walkers concerned with the group dynamics. To each, his/her own. I watch the group with some amount of envy, as if wanting to be included among them. Then, as I go back to VT Station later in the night, I find that there is a certain amount of group dynamics that operates among the home guards as well and there will be exclusivity for me, as an outsider because you cannot be completely included in every group (yet, what is complete inclusion???).

Sudeep: Since many days now, I see a young man who jogs regularly on the promenade. Both of us know that we have been in college together; it is simply a matter of making the first approach. This evening, as I wait in despair (after the first few moments of relief) after forty-five minutes for Manoj Kumar, I notice that Sudeep slows down to relax and tie his shoe laces and I approach him to talk to him. We recognize each other; the only confusion is about who was senior to the other in college. I ask Sudeep to take some time out to talk to me on a day about his conception and imagination of the promenade and the space of Marine Drive / Nariman Point. We start to walk slowly with each other, remembering old times of college, activities, professors, etc. “What kind of questions will you ask me? I want to know so that I can be prepared,” Sudeep says to me. I respond by saying that these will be general questions about his memory of the promenade space, the transformations he has seen around the promenade, when he suddenly starts to say, “There are no more pretty girls here on the promenade. That’s because the roads are spoilt. And when the roads are made up, the pretty girls will be gone forever.” I am amused but Sudeep appears serious about this. He adds, “Also, lots of UP walas (migrants from Uttar Pradesh) are at the promenade.” Then, he slowly articulates, “This place has become boring now.” I pick on the word boring, and for a moment I start to mull over it myself – what makes a space ‘boring’ after a point? How do I understand boredom in the context of the city where ‘new’ is the mantra for the economy and subsequently, for people?

Sudeep and I talk for a while and then we depart on the promise of meeting soon.

I start to search for Manoj Kumar, at least to inform him that I am here and that we should meet up some other day. Perhaps some other day, I will be able to confront myself and go beyond the shame that I experienced today – transcending feelings! As I walk up and down, some people greet me and I know that now I am a regular face in this public space and I will invariably be noticed. Would this noticing then bring in pretension? Does anonymity enable me to be myself?

Satishji: I am unable to find Manoj Kumar and I believe it is the insincerity of my intentions that I am unable to meet with him. I walk back towards Churchgate. Just as I am about to cross at the large crossing, somebody whistles and shouts, “Oh, oh!” This is Satishji, a gram seller i.e. sing-chana wala at the promenade. He is sitting with two other sing-chana walas . I had met Satishji earlier last week when I asked him to give me some chana and he had said to me, “Is today some special day? Upwas ka din hai kya? (Is this a day for observing some religious fast?) Everybody is buying only chana . Nobody is taking peanuts.” Satishji had then gone on to tell me briefly about his history and the present circumstances under which he was operating i.e. the situation of precarity, constantly dodging with the police! Then, on another day, when I was purchasing chana from him, he was upset that day because the police had tried to get hold of him and in the process of escaping, some of his goods had fallen on the road and had gotten mixed up.

Today Satishji asks me, “Should I give you peanuts?” He wonders why I don’t eat peanuts and gun for chana only. “Now it’s dinner time. But okay, give me chana worth two rupees.” I realize I don’t have change money. “No problem, give me the money some other day. I see you here everyday. Do you live here?” I tell him that I don’t live in the area. And I also insist on paying him today. Satishji thinks I am a journalist. “I met one lady today. She jogs here regularly and she gave me her card. Seems like big party (i.e. wealthy). She has offered me a job. Has asked me to come on Monday. You see, I earn about two to three hundred rupees everyday and manage to save about four to five thousand at the end of every month. I am satisfied. There are lots of people from the Tata Building (i.e. the NCPA Apartments) who come on the promenade and offer us jobs as servants in their home or car washing men, etc. But we have always refused. We feel satisfied with our lives this way. We come to the promenade in the evening by four and retire by about twelve. In the daytime we are free.” Satishji removes the card and shows it to me. I start to think about freedom and cultures/lifestyles which exist in the city. Are the residents of the area invariably trying to enslave freedom? And this remark is not to demean the residents; I believe it is a human trend to look at freedom as a lived lifestyle to mean waste of productive time. In our culture, we have come to view freedom typically as financial freedom, freedom in terms of material comforts. And as Theodere Zeldin puts it in his fantastic book, “We human beings always seem to have a problem about what to do with our freedom!?!?!” Wow!

Satishji introduces me to two of his other companions who are sitting with him. “These are my cousins. We are all from Azamgarh in UP. All the hawkers who operate here are from Azamgarh. We work here and sleep behind the Express Towers .” Satishji articulates contentment as he speaks to me about his lifestyle. I ask him when the hawkers in this area came under such severe police scrutiny. “About five to six months ago.” One of his cousins interrupts and says to me, “No, no, it has been twelve to fifteen months now. The story goes like this. A senior police official took up residence in the Tata Building on a temporary basis because his house was being repaired. One evening he came for a walk on the promenade. He wanted to buy a bottle of mineral water. He approached a stall fellow here, on the promenade. Unfortunately that day, this particular water and cold-drinks’ seller had not even made a single sale. When the officer told him that he did not have change and would give him the money some other day, the stall fellow said to him, ‘No saab , today I have not even made boni (the first sale). So you leave the money with me and take the change when you come here next time.’ The officer had not revealed his identity. And that day, he resolved that he is going to move all the hawkers from the promenade and he did this. Subsequently, all the beautification drive which is happening here. Soon, you will see us no more. The footpath ahead has been paved properly a year ago. Now they are putting tetrapods in the sea. All of this is being done to remove us from here.”

His cousin went on to tell me, “People in the Tata building offer us jobs in their house. One of our gaonwalas (fellow villagers) is here. He washes seventy cars in Tata Building and charges three hundred rupees per car. But he is Pandit (Brahmin caste). He has been offering us to assist him. But we have a life of freedom.”

There is silence between us for a while. Then Satishji takes out a handful of chana from his basket and puts it in the paper packet in my hands. “Here, take some more. Eat on your way to the station.” I am touched by his gesture. And I also realize that I have the confidence of his group. Here is when sensitive issues of representation come in, but more on that some other day … For now, I am convinced that I live on the generosity of people who are not materially well off, but who have a heart which is open to giving and loving. Perhaps that is what makes this city special, until now at least – that there are spaces for people to exist the way they want to, though these spaces are also fast shrinking!

I say bye to Satishji and proceed to VT Station to go back home. At the station, I meet the home guards and sit with them as they finish eating dinner. Back on the platforms, Vijaya meets me. I board the train to get back home and she gets in till the train is about to depart. I tell her if she has read about the rape at Marine Drive . “Yes, yes. I read about it. As I was passing by today, I saw there was less crowd at the promenade …” saying she jumps off the train as the train picks speed!

zainab xanga