Mad in Mumbai- Memoir ’

I remember the early morning bus to Mumbai. Landing up in mist and seeing the sea for the first time. It was such a shame to finally arrive in Mumbai at 25years of age. But it was magic too. I didn’t know what awaited me, but I was in love and felt quite blind. So I parked myself in a city where nothing blew off in alarm when I looked at it absentmindedly. They didn’t know what the alert and same me was. So they wouldnt question me during that zonked period .I would stay here till this sudden blind spot that filled me with wooziness lasted. Till the static of 5000 gongs buzzing in my head died down. Or at least settled itself!

I imagined that’s how elephants fell in love. Madly. Truly. Deeply. There were other ways of falling in love too. Slightly, romantically, flirtatiously, moderately, sexually but none of those options were available to me. I dived into it straight like an elephant would jump into swimming pool. Clumsily. The whole of me at one go, without keeping any other eggs in any other basket. In retrospect it looks like a suicide mission for whatever could go wrong did go wrong. But at that time the earnestness kept me afloat. It was the first time my mind had been pulverised by anything other than mathematics. And it felt GOOD and made me feel blind. As blind as driving a car with front mirror covered in mixed fruit jam would make you feel.

The big authoritative voices that kept shouting at me all my life suddenly became well wishing whispers that would just creep out of mouse holes and whisper and disappear. Career Careeer Career? Where is it going where is it going? Money Money Money. This money will run out run out run out. As soon as I turned to look at them they would freeze like they were hollow echoes’ and had nothing important to say. Anyways listening to them all my life hadn’t made me any smarter or richer. So now I could tell them ‘Fuck you’ at least let me try for happiness.

Suddenly I felt like pretty girl who walked like a drunken elephant on the streets of Mumbai with friends who only thought she was lost because she had no job!I had proposed a man finally after all these years and he had agreed to ‘give it a shot’. I had for the first time in my life walked across a city wearing a blood red skirt with a sleeveless blouse and not felt conscious about it. I had for the first time smelled the vast sea at Versova and breathed the creamy texture of the freedom sitting around the little barista at seaside.


It was another world into which I had unknowingly arrived. What freedom it was from the days of reporting everyday to my mom on the phone truthfully. Every little detail of what was happening. Who I went out with and why I got late and how I got safely dropped back home.Why for the first time in my life I could walk out on the road at 1pm to look for chai and sit beside the sea and then come back home without having to look at any disapproving faces! I could even not come back home for the whole night and next day find that approval from friends who were growing impatient with my oh so platonic notions of freedom! It was the first time I encountered pregnancy kits in the bathroom and it gave me a strange wicked pleasure. Someday I would use these too. I thought boldly.


Then one morning I felt all washed up and cleaned and rebirthed on the 16th floor of a building. I was wearing my electric blue lycra jeans which had a skull on its butt pocket and my Faiz Ahmed Faiz people’s tree Tshirt. It read my favourite poem ‘ aur bhi hain gum zamane main mohabbat ke siva’ But I wasn’t thinking of escaping sorrow! I lay there wanting to just be able to see clearly what was I doing with my life really? I knew it wasnt anything bad, evil or immoral or anything. Just that this wasnt the pace at which I had lived and I had to go back to the old mirror to see the new face.


Too much had happened in a month’s time. I had run away from home. My uncle had died of paralysis. I had hopped on a train reached Belgaun to visit an aunt I hadn’t seen in eight years.

There were pigeons outside and the January morning reminded me of playing with shadows in my childhood home veranda. This wasn’t the city of verandas and I had to rush to office but just getting up that morning it looked like I had gathered all the small playful shards of sunlight to last me entire life to play with. That morning that clarity hasn’t come to me again. But every time I open the little purse in my heart all the little shards start dancing again. I wonder if the will last me till I am old and ugly.
Who knows they just might.

An Achkan for Achkan Mirza

For a minute I didn’t believe that he had called me for this! He wanted an Achkan for a wedding he had to attend!

Long back I had teased him sarcastically about being like ‘Achkan Mirza’ the character from my 5th standard CBSC Hindi reader. An elderly misanthrope who was completely adorable for his suspicion that the whole world conspired against him to take away his Achkan. The Achkan to Achkan Mirza was all that he had earned in his life. Choosing not to have wife and kids but only integrity and honesty and character. As he grew older and became delusional he started believing people would steal away his Achkan because it was so precious. To the world it was an old piece of cloth that was too dusty and bobbled to be welcomed inside their houses.

So everyone teased the old man and started calling him Achkan mirza. The man mad about his coat.

‘He’ was a lot like Achkan Mirza. But I was really shocked when he actually declared that he would wear an Achkan to that wedding he had to go to. He wanted me to find an Achkan for him. From a piece of literature it became a practical commodity that had to be shopped. I became nervous about finding an Achkan. After all what was an Achkan? No one knew for sure. Google had no answers and my entire knowledge system collapsed.

Surely someone in Jamia would know. (With all the Urdu they had flaunted and used like a weight against me to keep me down in the elitist divide) I started with Javed. So Mr Javed with all his love for Javed Akhtar’s Urdu poetry still did not know what an Achkan was and where to find it. My asking however aroused his curiosity to infinity about why would I bother about an ‘Achkan’. Was it some kind of Islamic chicken that Punjabis exported to Canada? Was it some kind of a sex toy used by the fast girls who wore torn pants?

I rushed off swearing not to ask anyone else in my office about ‘Achkan’ come to think of it. It did sound like a bawdy chicken!

Running against the deadline I called ‘him’. Although I dreaded it. What would he think? I didn’t even know what an Achkan was! How would he trust me about buying him the best one in town?
Tring Tring

Me-‘’ aa. Err . Listen I know what an Achkan is but do you mind telling me what exactly do you mean when you say it. I don’t want to get you the wrong kind you know!’’

Him- Smirk. Ok it’s a gents garment, the kind Ustad Bismillah Khan wears.

Me – Stunned Silence

Him- Hello! Hello!

Me- Umm errr BBB

Him- Listen Do you even know Bismillah Khan? Were you born while he was alive?

Me- What do you mean! Off course I know who he is! Ok Bye!

Secretly I  was thinking- But what did he wear? They never showed us his long shot. All everyone ever watched was the Shehnai in his mouth. Maybe he did those 1hour shows on DD when I was young. I only remembered the Nehru Topi.

So I went to the market absolutely clueless. Just hoping that it wasn’t some flashy kind of Arabic Thong that men wore over their trousers superman style.

I thought surely Jamia Nagar was my best bet to find an Achkan. Some old elite Urdu stylist/store would surely have a vintage collection in that magical Aladdin market. So I sat on a rickshaw and felt like an old duchess. For wasn’t I going out to shop for antiquity so antique that half the ignorant world dint even know what was I talking about.

Within 5 minutes of the bumpy rickshaw ride my insides were levelled. I asked the first man who looked to be living above poverty line about where I would find an Achkan. He looked right back at me and asked ‘a what?’ A chicken I gulped! ‘ yahan nahin milega madam’ He looked at me angrily and went away!

I didn’t mind an unpleasant stranger but more and more came. And no one told me what an Achkan was. Maybe it was a chastity belt that was tied around men. Maybe it was a diamond studded coat. Who knew? It was like that Hanuman underwear that bachelors wore.

Finally I found a man. I mean I found a man who assured me that He knew what I wanted. (Although I didn’t know it myself) So he pointed to this skin coloured garment with garish orange embroidery and then said. This is the closest thing I have. It’s called OUTER. I have this last piece. Buying that was out of question. Bismillah Khan was surely not to be found dead in Bappi Da style of stuff!

I struggled more. Found a shop which said they had it. But it was in their workshop and it would take those 6 hours to get it. I was almost tempted to invest so much time. After all I would have finally seen that male garment which in all my 27 years had never seen on a man. What’s more I could have seen ‘him’ wear that male garment.

This was becoming exciting I thought. Almost in the way the Native American tribal EVES must be hunting for a tiger and then making underwear out of its skin. To gift it to the alpha male But I knew I was stretching it. With so little know about the garment most probably only arcane nawabs felt alpha wearing that thing called Achkan. And Bismillah Khan was dead too (God bless his soul)

The next day I and he were back the regulars. We went to Chun Mun Garments and got him a super cool Burberry coat.

But the thoughts of looking for an Achkan for him have stayed with me. Maybe it’s just a stupid idea that was passed on to my head by him. But I often dream of haunting the streets looking for that perfect Achkan.


PS- My guess is they stopped making Achkan when the old world gallantry of being a gentleman died.