Leaves Of Life

In the early hours of the morning before the sky lights up over the horizon the city wakes up to urgent feet scrambling to make their rendezvous with street-side markets in Dadar, and elsewhere.

Fisherwomen hugging baskets of fish board local trains on their way to suburban fish markets along Central and Western railway lines that bisect the city into ‘West’ and ‘East’ sections. They must start early for the markets, accounting for the travel, and be in time for the first customers hurrying to impromptu stalls on the roadside where it is not uncommon to find women sitting together in groups of three or four, their baskets of fish at their feet and choppers at the ready on makeshift wooden boards. Cats, those creatures of habit, will be up and about awaiting their arrival. Like the fisherwomen they’re fixtures of city mornings.



To the south of the city, fishing boats land their catch at Sassoon Docks. Elsewhere, among several other landing points, fishing trawlers bring in their catch at the beach in Vasai, home to the Kolis, a fishing community known to be among the earliest inhabitants of Bombay and liberally portrayed to love their drink and dance in Bollywood films of yore.

In the shadow of the Vasai fort whose ruins add a surreal whisper to the sea off the coast a hundred-odd metres away, and hidden from view by the earthy homes of the Kolis, there is little evidence of the hectic activity along the coast until the narrow lanes zigzagging through the settlement deposits one on the beach.

Excepting the Cuckoo dallying from the trees in the summer months, newspaper vans split the morning silence before all others.

Large stacks of newspapers make their way across the city, offloading at street corners where groups of youths huddle around them and quickly sort them in time for the delivery boys who then fan out to building complexes and drop off newspapers on door mats in time for office goers to have a quick look at them before they take the elevator down and hail a rickshaw for the railway station to board the local train on their way to work.

The milkmen hit the roads about the same time as newspaper delivery boys.

About the same time trucks and tempos from Vashi and surrounding areas bear their load of vegetables into suburban markets where wholesalers take delivery of the produce. Fierce bargaining is not uncommon at the point of delivery. Then the wholesalers sell the produce to retailers who in turn ferry the produce to their shops or vegetable carts operating on the streets.


In the commotion of vehicles ferrying in milk, vegetables, and newspapers, and the brisk haggling at roadside fish markets, invisible are the hands that quickly pick out small green packs from their bags, flowers neatly wrapped in leaves and secured by thread, inserting the small bundle in the door handle before stepping away to the next apartment. There’s rarely a presence to be sensed until the door opens to the fragrance of Jasmine. Flowers are routinely used in early morning prayers and also in adoring the hair.


Villagers, mostly women, from far flung suburbs set out for flower markets in Dadar and elsewhere with bundles of fresh leaves foraged from the woods, supplying street-side vendors with leaves for use in wrapping short lengths of garlands among other uses.

Depending on availability, leaves of the Teak, the Palas, and the Jackfruit are commonly used for the purpose.


Before dawn breaks over Bombay’s cluttered skyline, local trains pulling into Dadar from as far as Karjat, Kasara, Assangaon, and Titwala empty of vendors who quickly get off the train with their produce.

In a single flowing motion the women hoist large bundles of leaves secured with slender lengths of tree bark onto the head and make for the exit in a single file, swaying as they glide up the incline and onto the public footbridge on their way to the phool galli (flower lane) where they will settle to the side of the lane and sort the leaves into smaller bundles for sale.


“We've come from Titwala,” the elderly woman flanked on either side by fellow vendors said as I bent to have a closer look at the leaves they were sorting out.

Titwala lies on the Central Line, 56 kilometres from Dadar. Local trains headed for Kasara, and Asangaon halt at Titwala, a little over ten kilometers from Kalyan in the direction of Nasik, the latter is served by the same line. The three elderly women sat with their bundles of leaves to the side of the path that led under the flyover.

The lady quickly reached into the bundle, and held out a neatly stacked section of the leaves for five rupees.

“How many leaves have you included in the stack?” I ask her.

She turns to look at her fellow vendors before smiling at me. “I don’t count the leaves, no need to. This much is what I sell for five rupees,” she said, drawing my attention to the stack she held in her palm between the thumb and the rest.

I quickly counted the leaves in the stack and said, “About twenty leaves for five rupees?”



Only a few days earlier I was quoted ten rupees for six leaves by a youth on the staircase that leads down to the phool galli by the flyover. He took one quick look at me and decided I knew next to nothing of the rates before quoting his price. I left him standing by his bundles of leaves lying on the steps to the side of the staircase.

She nodded and shrugged her shoulders. “Yes, about twenty leaves.”

“Larger sized leaves will cost more,” she said. “These are the Palas. The same leaves used to make patravali.”


Patravali is a leaf plate made of dried leaves tacked together by pieces of stem. The leaf plates are commonly used in villages to serve meals, and discarded after use, finding their way to garbage dumps where cows and buffaloes gather at noon time and polish them off along with the leftovers of meals.

I mistook her reply for Phanas, the Jackfruit tree.

“No, no. Not Phanas, but Palas,” she corrected me. The Palas is also known as the Flame of the Forest for its dazzling flowers that break the often bleak summer landscapes in deciduous forests of the tropics.

Leaves used in making patravali differ from region to region depending upon the availability of trees.

The Flame of the Forest is not as commonly found in Goa as the Jackfruit, so leaves of the Jackfruit are used to make patravali in the tiny state on the West Coast on India. Jackfruit leaves are not the most ideal of leaves to use in making the leaf plates but considered adequate enough for the purpose. The leaves of the Teak are used for the purpose as well, chosen more for their easy availability in Goa whose climate is conducive to Teak plantations.

Though rare, the use of lotus leaves is not unheard of either.



In North Karnataka leaves of the Muthla tree are used in making patravali. The leaves are dried in the shade until they turn brown, taking over a week or so. The shade helps keep the leaves from curling up.

On my yearly travels to the north of Karnataka during summer vacations from school, I grew accustomed to having my meals on patravalis while visiting my relatives along the route. It took me some time to eat off the leaf plate without swallowing the short stems that held the leaves together.

In time I learnt to make patravali at the home of my ancestors in the village. In the afternoons we would gather in the hall flanked by rooms on either side and sift through heaps of dried Muthla leaves and arrange them in the shape of a circular plate, overlapping the leaves to cover openings to prevent curry from seeping out and messing up the floor.


We took our meals sitting cross-legged on the floor, backs to the wall. The elderly Brahmins, clad in white dhoti held tight at the waist, took their meals bare-chested as is the custom, eating their meals off the leaf plates or patravalis. I used to call them ‘Yogic meals’.

While one of us would fashion Jowar stems into tiny pieces for use in stitching the dried Muthla leaves together, another would sift through the stack of leaves and separate even sized leaves appropriate for the size of the leaf plate.

The rest of us would then fashion the leaves into a circular shape each and stitch them together with small pieces of Jowar stems. I was still at school and oblivious to any cathartic benefits to be had from what is a uniquely rural exercise with few or no exceptions. It was just another exercise I reveled in in addition to helping my aunt milk the cows, and collect dung cakes for fuel while I was not pestering the farm hand into teaching me the art of making ropes from lengths of coir and tree bark. Eventually I learnt the craft well enough to make my own ropes.

Keshava, the farm hand at the time passed away years ago, leaving behind memories of his good natured patience while I struggled to come to grips with the rolling of lengths of raw material into ropes, turning my thighs red where the rope rubbed the skin while I rolled individual strands into rope pattern.

Making patravalis was easier, for Muthla leaves presented far fewer problems except maybe when I had to stitch them together into leaf bowls. Curry and buttermilk are served in the leaf bowls that are fixed to the leaf plate with rice. Occasionally the leaf bowls, if weakly secured with rice at the base, would topple over, spilling curry or buttermilk all over the patravali, drawing disapproving looks from the elders.

The Muthla tree is commonly found in the northern districts of the state, namely Gulbarga, Raichur, and Bidar.

Speaking with my uncle I learnt that Raichur is big on supplies of the Muthla leaves for making patravali. “Alanavar, near Belgaum, is well known for Muthla leaves as well,” my cousin added.

The small stems that tack leaves together into plates are sourced from Jowar stems after the crop is harvested and the hay kept aside for cattle fodder. In the arid regions of North Karnataka typically two crops are harvested in a year. Mungari Jowar sown in the early monsoon months of July and August, and harvested three months later, is preferred for fashioning the stems to tack the leaves, and not so much the Hingari Jowar. The stems of the latter are not known to lend themselves to easy fashioning of short, slender pieces appropriate for stitching leaves together. The Hingari crop (Rabi) is sown in September or October.

Elsewhere the Mungari crop (Kharif) is sown in the months of June-July around the time the first rains come calling, especially along the West Coast where the South-West monsoons make their first landfall. However to the north of Karnataka the first rains strengthen their patterns much later.

Typically 15 Muthla leaves went into the making of a patravali on the average. Now I’m told each patravali costs one rupee, prices having gone up in the village from years ago when I first learnt to stitch leaf plates together. Moreover it is unlikely most villagers will take the trouble now to stitch together a patravali from Muthla leaves, preferring instead to buy them off the market, a set of fifty leaf plates costing fifty rupees ($ 1.00) at one rupee per leaf plate.

Unlike steel plates, leaf plates do not need washing, instead providing fodder for cattle after meal time. They provide employment to poor villagers who set out to gather leaves in the woods while womenfolk stitch them together into leaf plates, in turn empowering women in the village. And unlike steel there is no processing cost involved, including the mining of earth for raw material, in the making of leaf plates. In the end they break down into organic elements that enrich the soil and nourish the many life forms that make the soil fertile.

When we ran out of patravalis banana leaves were brought out at meal time. It is easier to eat off a banana leaf than off a patravali stitched together. In time, like with everything else, practice makes perfect, and leaves cease to matter, receding to the background, giving way to the fragrance of the outdoors rising up from the leaf plate, indulging the appetite for the meal at hand.

Flanking the flyover opposite the Dadar railway station on the Central Line are two narrow lanes that conduct travelers out of the station. Flower vendors run small hole-in-the-wall outlets that line the two narrow lanes on either side of the flyover, crowding the passageway with customers shopping for flowers and office goers hurrying past. Through the day suppliers truck in sacks of flowers, supplying them to vendors in the lanes. The lanes are known locally as phool gallis (flower lanes).


Early mornings see hectic activity in the phool gallis with flower vendors busy stitching flowers into garlands, occasionally calling out to passing travelers to buy garlands and flowers. It is common to see children help their parents with the task at hand, pottering around while their parents stitch the flowers into garlands, using leaves to bunch the flowers together as well as display lengths of garlands for interested customers.


Garlands made of Mogra (Jasmine) flowers and priced at five rupees a length, were neatly laid out for passing travelers. Taxis honked in the narrow lane dodging early morning travelers hurrying to work.

“Will your stock of leaves last until evening,” I ask the lady, pointing to her basket overflowing with Palas leaves.

“No. There’ll be little or nothing left by evening,” she replies, turning her face to acknowledge a fellow vendor who hails her on his way past.


Small time vendors selling garlands, berries, jamuns, and sundry fruits from cane baskets settle down on the railway footbridge that passengers exiting the Dadar railway station take on their way out of the station. Often customers will stop by the vendors and buy jamuns or flowers or other produce on their way home.


The vendors use the leaves to arrange berries, often using them to pack the berries as well if the quantity is small. They source the leaves from fellow vendors. Here the vendor was selling berries bunched on leaves for rupees five a 'bunch'.



Some will line their cane baskets with the leaves, sprinkling water every now and then to keep the flowers fresh and inviting.



Others will use them to lay out flowers while they stitch them together into garlands, using the same thread to secure the flowers wrapped in a leaf before handing the 'leaf package' over to the customer.



Where there’re no Palas leaves to be had any will do, even those plucked from the tree under whose shade vendors shelter outside the Virar railway station, by platform One where trains from Virar start for Churchgate.

Vintage and Classic Cars Rally at Nariman Point

In the distance Gopilal Sharma appeared nondescript among the others, featureless in the bright white uniforms of chauffeurs waiting their turn by the vintage cars to the back of the line along the sweep of Marine Drive in South Bombay last week.

Gopilal Sharma had ridden Ajaypat Singhania’s 1956 Mercedes 300 to the rally and reveled in the attention it was drawing from curious onlookers.

Across the street the Trident rose steady in the sky. Resurrected from the Islamist terrorist strikes of November last it overlooked the Arabian Sea along the sweep that turns into a necklace of twinkling lights in the night. Stretching from Nariman Point all the way to Malabar Hill, the Queen’s Necklace is three kilometers long, and constructed from land ‘reclaimed’ from the sea it makes for a natural bay.

The Arabian Sea is mostly calm at this time of the year, a marked change from the monsoons when it rages against the terrapods heaped seaside along the wall enclosing the parapet and the spacious promenade along the road that runs six-lane for much of its length to the north of the city. Among other sights the road passes by the Taraporewala Aquarium, Islam Gymkhaha, Wilson College, and Chowpatty where lakhs of devotees descend on the beach to immerse the deity Ganpati on Anantchaturdashi, the last day of the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi when Bombay comes to a standstill. Heading north the sweep along the sea is to the left.

To the right, set back from the road, Art Deco buildings from the 1920s and the 1930s squat in easy comfort facing the sea. Built by Parsis most of the buildings still retain their original names, offering a peep into the past and the classy touch of a small community that lent the city architecture and the Arts scene its unique flavour and style, cementing the cosmopolitanism of the city with a culture that most still define as Bombay long after Shiv Sena, a local right-wing party feared for its street muscle and violence forced a change in the name to Mumbai, vandalizing establishments that did not.


The setting was apt. Watching the fleet of shiny vintage cars entered for the rally awaiting their turn to be flagged off in a district known for its mix of architectural styles evolving from the early 1900s, one could be pardoned for rewinding time to a gentler era when road rage was unheard of, and language refined to a fault, when dressing confirmed to styles, and rebel was someone you would associate with a guerilla, when people had time to stand and stare, and talk, and ruminate over the day’s events, when smiles were unaffected and came easy and there was nowhere to hurry to, and when it still mattered how others were doing with their lives and small talk cemented the local into a wider worldview.


We landed at Nariman Point opposite the Trident Hotel at half past eight just in time to see the flagging off of the annual Vintage and Classic Car Rally organized by the Vintage and Classic Car Club of India (VCCCI), marking its 90th year of existence. VCCCI teamed up with Western India Automobile Association for the event earlier this month. Last year the Vintage and Classic Car Rally rolled out from Kala Ghoda in February, this year from Nariman Point in early April. The rally is not restricted to Vintage and Classic cars alone, vintage motorcycles make their presence felt in the event as well. Unlike last year I noticed fewer vintage motorcycles this year.

I looked for Sudarshan Chemburkar among the participants gathered around their preening bikes, scanning heads for a floppy hat shielding a ruddy complexion from the heat of an Indian summer, or striding purposefully among the gathered bikers. No one answered to the description. Sudarshan wasn’t around this year. It was while I was admiring a shiny 1956 BSA Goldstar last year at the VCCCI event in Kala Ghoda that I met Sudarshan Chemburkar from Pune.

“She’s from Calcutta,” he said, looking at me from under the hat, his hand rolling over the handle. If he was pleased with the attention ‘she’ was getting he didn’t show it. “Somebody in the 1980s must have raced her lots. I bought her through a friend of mine and restored her from the brink of collapse.”

Sudarshan was getting on in years but as he spoke of the Goldstar his fondness for the bike stripped away the years quickly. We were standing in front of Stylo Tailors and Clothiers, Film Costumers from years ago, best known for the costumes they created for the 1973 Bollywood hit Bobby.


“BSA Goldstars were known for their racing prowess. In the top ten finishers in a race you could count on 5-6 to be Goldstars,” he explained. Standing among Triumphs and Nortons in the row of bikes warming in the early morning Sun I could imagine the generational shift in loyalties from the Triumphs and Nortons to the Goldstars once they began to beat the former at the races.

“They were known as the Immortal Goldies in the racing arena,” Sudarshan said.

He had started out by restoring a 1956 Suprema scooter. Soon the hobby turned into a passion after he acquired a Diploma in Automobile Engineering from St. Joseph’s in Kurla. Patting the 1956 BSA Goldstar, he said, “You feel young at all times when riding these machines. This is my fourth trip to Bombay from Pune on this bike.”

“Want to hear how she sounds?” he had thrown the question at me knowing well I was up for it.

I nodded and held my breath. The crowd behind us went silent as he bent forward on the handle and placed his foot on the kick, and BAM.

The Goldstar reverberated to life, inducing passing people into pausing in their stride to turn to look at us, and the bike. That was last year at Kala Ghoda.

And I wonder why Sudarshan Chemburkar did not ride his Immortal Goldie to the rally this year around!


Maybe he will be back the next year like A. R. Dadachanji, the elderly Parsi priest at the Vatcha Gandhi Fire Temple on Hughes Road, Bombay - 7, returned to the lineup this year with his 1948 Morris 8 after skipping the last edition in 2008.

It was at the 2007 edition of the VCCCI rally two years ago that I first saw A. R. Dadachanji. The vintage cars had returned to the finish line at Flora Fountain when I saw him by his Morris 8 warmly greeting visitors who stopped by to admire his shiny green vintage car. He stood out in the crowd in his traditional Parsi attire that set off his twinkling eyes against the flowing white beard. Watching him from the distance I was struck by his unfailingly polite demeanour in acknowledging visitors curious of his car, and the warmth with which he greeted acquaintances who stopped by the Morris 8 for a quick chat, possibly fellow Parsis regular at the Fire Temple. It was lunch time and the Sun beat down hard, rarely denting his smile in the time I was there.

Two years on little seems to have changed except the Morris 8’s colour, from deep green in 2007 to black this year. And the elderly Parsi priest has barely aged in the time.

“This car is a family member of our family,” he told me. “We went to Sri Lanka in this car in 1981.” At 70 Dadachanji is only ten years older than his 1948 Morris 8.

Two visitors passing by step up to him and wish him well with the rally. He steps forward and bows gently, clasping their hands in his before thanking them, smiling. A light breeze blowing in from the sea stirs his beard.

On the promenade behind us a passing madari (monkey handler) leading two monkeys on a leash pauses to watch the spectacle of vintage beauties. The sky and sea merge in a featureless shade of dull grey. There’re no clouds on the horizon.


Among the vintage cars on display there’ll have been few if any among them that haven’t played their part on Bombay roads, riding the breeze along the Marine Drive, gracing narrow lanes that criss-cross Fort and the heritage precinct of Kala Ghoda in the decades the city came to acquire a character distinct from the one it has been forced to acquiesce to now.

Dadachanji’s 1948 Morris 8 had the Morris family for company – Mahendra Bhagat’s 1935 Morris, Aslam Makandar’s 1937 Morris 8, Fali Patel’s 1938 Morris 12, and Kirti Anand’s 1951 Morris Minor.

However, missing from the lineup this year were several Morris Minors that had participated last year, year of make in brackets – Ajay Khakhar (1932), Sanjay Mistry (1935), Shamun A. Karachiwala (1948), Shree Kishan Joshi (1951), Kishore Shah (1952), and Umesh Rele (1955). Hopefully they’ll make it next year.

Like Dadachanji, the Pandit family is a regular at the Vintage and Classic Car Club of India’s annual event. Initially I failed to recognize them in the royal outfit the family had turned out in, riding their open-top 1930 Ford A into town.

The Pandits are Brahmins. It took me a few moments to place them at the rally for, last year, Dr. Manohar Pandit, had turned out in a Forest Ranger’s uniform though the fake mustache that later shifted in the heat by a bit reminded one more of the dreaded bandit Veerappan than a Forest officer. Dr. Manohar Pandit had espoused protecting wildlife at the rally, a placard reading ‘Save Wildlife’ prominently displayed behind them. A fake gun and an empty cartridge belt left no one in doubt about the message. He had handed out wildlife conservation pamphlets to the effect.

This year the Pandit family was turned out in traditional attire. I cannot be sure if it was royal attire or that of the brahmins from an earlier era. They were parked by the road divider across the road from the Trident Hotel, in the backdrop of flowering bougainvillea and palm trees. Their dress attracted as much attention as their car, both resplendent in the setting. Television cameras came rushing to the 1930 Ford A. First up was a Marathi language television channel. Dr. Manohar Pandit spoke in a Marathi unique to Maharashtrian Brahmins. Like the elderly Parsi priest, Dadachanji, Dr. Pandit stressed how the Ford A is a member of his family having been in their possession since the year of manufacture, 1930.

“There’s more fun to be had riding the old cars than the new,” he told the camera crew.


A cardboard cutout featuring two elephants holding up a logo Jin Ghar Jin Takt hung from the front of the car. Large letters below the two elephants read BARODA. I couldn’t quite make the connection between the two. I wondered if the cutout was the insignia of a royal family from Baroda in Gujarat, and if the attire the Pandit family had turned out in mirrored that of the royal family. I cannot be sure of either.


Elsewhere, Jackie Shroff, sporting dark shades, had joined a few others on the platform to flag off the rally, and the first off the marks was Vijay Mallya’s 1903 Humber Humberette.



The Humber is British, tracing its beginnings to the bicycle company that Thomas Humber founded in 1868, not producing the first car until 1898, a three-wheeled tricar. Though the Humberette has a single-cylinder-engine the first four-wheeled cars to roll out of Humber in 1901 were powered by 2- or 4-cylinder engines. The Humberette is powered by a 611 CC, 5 HP single-cylinder engine that helps the 650 pounds four-wheeler along at a healthy 25 mph.

The 1903 Humberette drew a large number of onlookers as it readied to lead the way out. For a car this light the two-seater took off the blocks fairly briskly, egged on by a cheering crowd. In no time it had disappeared from view.

Jackie Shroff had entered his 1930 Jaguar SS in the rally. At the flag-off he drew curious looks from the gathered crowd, many of whom had grown up on hindi films starring him in lead roles.


We walk to the back of the line of backed up cars awaiting their turn at the flag-off. Some of the cars are parked with their backs to the promenade, drawing surprised looks from joggers on their early morning run past the stretch. A middle-aged man sat in a yoga pose on the platform, facing the sea, his trainers by his side and seemingly oblivious to the rally behind him.

The promenade is popular with visitors on an evening out in the city. To the calls of vendors vending everything from peanuts, lollipops, balloons, mineral water, and potato chips to toys, books, and ice-cream, visitors loll along the promenade while joggers and brisk-walkers dodge them.


It is not uncommon to see maids or family members walk the sick and the elderly from the NCPA high-rise apartments opposite the promenade for a fill of seaside air. Every once in a while cars come to a halt by the promenade and the elderly in wheelchairs or otherwise are chaperoned by family, helped along by a firm grip under the elbow before being commandeered gently to the platform for a bit of rest and activity. Boisterous friends and courting couples from nearby colleges and beyond frequent the promenade in large numbers. Those looking for peace and quiet turn their backs to the world and face the sea, legs dangling from the platform.

With little or no regular traffic early that Sunday morning, and punctuated by a smattering of colourful holiday attires, hats and all, one might as well have been strolling around in a 1950s or 1960s Bombay. Running the names off the list heightened the feeling further – Humberette (1903), Fiat 501 (1919), Steyr II (1922), Rover (1923), Rolls Royce 20 HP (1925), Cadillac (1928), Austin Harley (1933), Packard (1934), Dodge Bros (1935), Buick (1937), Daimler (1939), and Chevrolet (1940) among others, totaling 43 cars in the Vintage Car (1900 – 1940) category.


The Classic Car category (1941 – 1960) had 49 entries, including Buicks, Packards, Bentleys, Austins, Desotos, Daimlers, Wolseleys, Lincolns, Hillmans, Fiats, Volkswagens, Rovers, and the Mercedes among others.

However the Recent Classic Car category spanning the years between 1961 and 2008 had only 14 cars making up the list.

It was a remarkable scene no less, a temporary museum by the sea.

Gopilal Sharma was busy chatting with fellow chauffeurs who had ridden their employers’ cars to the venue. While some waited for the owners to make an appearance and get behind the wheels for the rally others would be doing the honours themselves, accompanied by the owners’ relatives or friends or both. Seeing us approach the 1956 Mercedes 300 I noticed Gopilal Sharma turn his face towards us and smile under his bushy mustache before walking up to us. It was easy to see that Gopilal loved a good chat in the long tradition of genteel souls who’d seen the city’s metamorphoses from a quiet port to the hurly burly of India’s financial center. The Sharmas are Brahmins, largely from North India. Gopilal Sharma told us he’s been in the employ of the Singhanias for a long time now.

Gopilal took immense pride in his bushy mustache, twirling them to good effect when visitors stopping by the 1956 Mercedes 300 shaped up to photograph it. In the gentle light of the morning by the sea it was raining rainbows in the street.

“I drove this car down from the Maharaja of Kutch forty-five years ago,” he said. “It belongs to Ajaypat Singhania but he won’t be coming down to participate in the rally. His brother, Vijaypatji, will.” Vijaypat Singhania, Chairman Emeritus, Raymond Group, is a former Sheriff of Mumbai and a Padma Bhushan awardee.


“Take a picture while I’m twirling my mustache,” Gopilal said with a smile, readily posing in front of the Mercedes 300 and twirling his bushy mustache in the time honoured way of mustache-preening as I prepared to photograph him. I thought it interesting hearing him refer to the Mercedes 300 as his car, more for the bonding between man and machine that inspires such devotion that the issue of ownership blurs with time. In some ways I feel it is in the nature of his generation where loyalty stems in part from attachment that in turn strengthens a sense of responsibility towards one’s charges.

About then Jackie Shroff came into view, trailed by curious hangers-on. Gopilal’s eyes lit up and he walked up to Jackie Shroff with open arms suggesting he knew Jackie well. It didn’t matter in the least if Gopilal Sharma knew Jackie Shroff or not, he could make anyone feel at home anytime of the day. There was no guile about him. Jackie Shroff smiled and let Gopilal put his arms around him, playing along while Gopilal struck a pose for cameras that were following Jackie Shroff.

Sensing Shroff’s unease with the attention the impromptu photo session was beginning to draw, Gopilal was quick to seize the moment, telling the former film star, “Come this way, you must see our car.” Placing his hand around Shroff’s back Gopilal Sharma gently but firmly led Jackie Shroff to where the 1956 Mercedes 300 basked in the morning light. And the procession paused by Gopilal’s car.

From the distance I couldn’t help smiling watching the unlikely scene unfold.

It was a nice day to be out in the Sun and among aficionados who reveled in the atmosphere the vintage and classic cars had turned the day into. No one was in a hurry to get anywhere.

Gopilal’s words describing the Mercedes 300 follow me on the light breeze blowing in from the sea.

“Kings used to go out in the evenings (in these cars).” And turning his hands palm-up he continued, “Yeh bhagnewali gaadi nahin. Aram se chalao. Thandi hawa khao. No radio. No A/C.” (This is not a racing car, more for a leisurely drive, to enjoy cool breeze. No radio (to divert attention). No A/C.)

I turn around to have another look at the cars I've little or no chance of seeing until it's show time again a year from now.

Fleeting moments linger longer, always. It is the way of the world.

The Innocence of an Evening

When I look at this picture now and reflect on the fate that befell the pigeons that used to gather across the road from The Taj Mahal Hotel before the terrorists struck Mumbai the night of November 26 last year, I try not to think of whether this particular pigeon made it through the night of carnage. I like to believe she survived the night.

Early one evening several months before the terrorist strike I found myself, camera in hand, milling in crowds gathered at the Gateway of India. Families on an evening out by the sea off the Gateway crowded along the parapet that looks out to sea while vendors hawked their wares, selling peanuts, ice-creams, lollipops, and grains to feed the pigeons.

Professional photographers, cameras slung from their necks, prompted visitors into having their pictures taken in the backdrop of the Gateway of India or the magnificent Taj Mahal Hotel for a fee. Far too often they were refused.

“With mobile cameras affordable by most we have far fewer visitors needing our services now,” one photographer told me, scanning potential customers even while he spoke with me.



No visiting relatives return from Mumbai without seeing the waterfront landmarks. The Taj Mahal hotel and the Gateway are among the two major landmarks that define the city in terms of its visibility in the media and elsewhere. Couples, families, and friends among others make their way to the waterfront in the evenings, often to do nothing more than look out to sea. Sometimes crows join in.


From the platform that runs on either side of the Gateway of India, the landing area where boats ferrying tourists to the Elephanta caves dock on their return journey is a beehive of activity, with ushers shepherding passengers onto harbour cruises for a half hour spin around the harbour or boats headed for the Elephanta caves. From here the city stretches back by a bit and one can see the ‘lesser’ landmarks in the distance. Guides with spotting scopes will point out the landmarks for a fee. Most however will have their relatives and friends point them out for them.



To my left a bubble-maker wound his way among families knowing well the children would gravitate to him as he blew soap bubbles in the air. While their parents looked on, the children thrilled in the bubbles the bubble-maker blew in the air, chasing them or trying to cup them in their little palms, smiles widening as bubbles landed in their open palms. Then they chased more soap bubbles, thrilling more in their efforts to catch the bubbles than in actually managing to do so.

And the bubble-maker blew even more bubbles in the air. In a bubble or two that caught the glancing blow of the Sun it framed the Gateway of India in its convexity, encasing a moment in history in the transience of the present.

Eventually the children would run back to their parents and tug at their trousers until they bought the bubble-making kit from the bubble-maker, and then the children blew bubbles in the air. Soon there were so many bubbles that it resembled a scene from a Bollywood film set.

But in all the time that I watched the scenes unfold among smiling children, and the childhood transience they chased in the bubbles floating in the air, not once did the bubble-maker smile, not when the children were chasing the soap bubbles, and not when he sold them the bubble making kits.

In the moment a bubble breaks, a child will look forward to the next one. But rarely so an adult.


I made my way to where pigeons had gathered on the pavement at the spot where it turns onto the Apollo Bunder road. The road runs by the Taj Hotel before passing 19th century buildings on its way to the Radio Club at the other end. The parapet that looks out on fishing-boats, yachts, and Harbour Cruises in the harbour by the Gateway of India encloses the Apollo Bunder road on one side while the Taj and other old buildings enclose it on the other.

According to one story, ‘Apollo’ is said to be a derivative of the name that sable-fish found in the waters off the Gateway are known by, Palva. Koli fisherfolk used to land sable-fish in the harbour, so the name Apollo Bunder.


Known as the Victoria earlier, horse carriages on the Apollo Bunder road awaited visitors to the Gateway looking for a joy ride around town. Every once in a while a pigeon would on a carriage before flying off to a window ledge on the Taj from where it watched over the crowd below until it was time to eat grains that visitors were only to happy to feed them.

Camera at the ready I moved around, letting the bonhomie of an evening out by the sea rub on me. It was then that I noticed this young lady patiently enticing pigeons to eat out of her hand, smiling invitingly. Her friend stood behind her while she squatted, grains in her palms, hand outstretched.

I waited.

Then one pigeon responded, coming in from behind me, low and straight to the lady. Surprised at seeing the pigeon respond to her she seemed unsure of how to react except to instinctively stretch her hand out even further, and smile more.

I released the shutter.

In her joyous moment froze the innocence of an evening by the sea, and ever since then whenever I go through the pictures I wonder who she was, from whence she came, and to where she was headed.

And now about the pigeon that came flying in from behind me.


Update: Public voting in the Best Travelogue category in the ongoing Lonely Planet Travel Blog Awards 2009 has ended, and Windy Skies has placed first in the results declared a short while ago. Thank you all for the unstinting faith, support, and encouragement the last few weeks. Public voting constitutes 50% of the overall judging. Next the Lonely Planet judging panel will evaluate the blogs to account for the other 50% and combine the two for the final score.

Butterfly Morning in Mollem

If it wasn’t for the frog that I was chasing across the stream with my camera we might never have discovered the tiny sandbank hidden from view by trees along the turn the stream took before cutting through the wildlife sanctuary at Mollem, 56 kms. off Panaji and bordering Karnataka State to the east. And we wouldn’t have seen the Common Map Butterfly (Cyrestis thyodamas).


Much of the stream along the course it took in the stretch visible to us was shaded by trees lining the banks. In the few patches where sunlight streamed through canopies it lit up stones in the shallow water, a few protruding above the waterline. On one such stone a frog basking in the Sun caught my attention. Sensing my approach it quickly leapt back into the water and swam towards another stone, then yet another as it led me on a merry chase down stream. The water was cool to the skin and I moved carefully lest I slip and land the camera in the water. In the canopies that rose on the banks birdcalls sounded at steady intervals. In the silence of the jungle it is the tiniest creatures that sound the loudest.

I disappeared round the bend, leaving Philip behind scanning the trees for birds with his binoculars.

At 240 sq. kms., the Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary in the Western Ghats mountain ranges abuts the town of Mollem in Sanguem taluka in the State of Goa, and is the largest of Goa’s wildlife sanctuaries. The National Highway 4A passing through it on its way to Belgaum in Karnataka cuts the wildlife sanctuary into two and poses the most serious threat yet by facilitating transportation of manganese and iron ore from surface mining sites that ring the wildlife sanctuary.


I soon lost the frog. Turning around to retrace my steps I caught sight of the small sandbank to my left. For a moment I was startled to see a perfectly formed sandbank, an uncommon sight in the wildlife sanctuary. Water had splashed upto my knees. I was wearing light trousers and in the October heat it would take less than twenty minutes to dry once we got back on the trail in the Sun. I called out to Philip to come have a look at the sandbank.

The Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary is home to the leopard, and the bison among other mammals, and to the Cobra, the Krait, and the Vipers – the Russels, and the Saw Scaled, among other species of snakes. Birdlife in the wildlife sanctuary is said to number over 200 species of birds. I’ve logged over 90 species in the sanctuary myself on my treks over the years.

But it was butterflies I was seeking that October morning last year, and anything ‘interesting’ along the way.


As we prepared to make our way across the stream to the other side I paused to photograph shoots sprouting on the trunk of a large tree. A hint of Sun that made it through the canopy lit up the tender green of the sprouting plant in an ethereal glow as if in a halo around a divine event. Much else was hidden in deep shade, and contrasted sharply in the glow of the Sun meeting the tender shoots on the trunk. At times few sights in the jungle can match the interplay of the sun and the shadows.

It was about then that Philip caught the Sun glinting off the back of the frog sunbathing on a stone mid-stream and I went chasing it before eventually losing it downstream.

As Philip made his way to the tiny sandbank I settled down in the sand more for feeling the sand underneath than for resting. We drank water from the bottle and settled down to soak in the quietude. We had walked two hours before coming upon the stream. Our voices will have been carried downstream, alerting the jungle to our presence. Jungle eyes miss nothing, least of all human voices.


At first I didn’t notice the Common Map Butterfly among the stones, not until it shifted position, seeking a stone in a moist patch to bask on before leaving it for a patch of moist sand.

Its wings matched the pale white of the sand, camouflaging it well in its environs. Unlike some butterflies, most notably the Grass Yellow and the Pansy (Lemon, Grey, Blue, and the Peacock) among a few others, the Common Map Butterfly showed little on no inclination to lead me on fruitless chases in the Sun. It barely moved while I photographed it.

Over the years I’ve come to favour butterflies that seek damp places if for nothing else than for the fact that unlike other butterflies that make photographing them a backbreaking effort in the Sun, water-course loving butterflies wouldn’t be bothered much with human presence unless one got very close,

Common Bluebottle (Graphium sarpedon) is the other species I’ve had better luck photographing. I first came upon Common Bluebottles while we were tracking a leopard along a riverbank, following its pugmarks in the sand when we happened upon a delightful group of Common Bluebottles mud-puddling in the sand, their greenish-blue bands running prominently along the length of their wings on the outside and setting off the pale sand in a burst of colour. I went on my knees with my camera and for close to ten minutes they barely moved, engrossed in mud-puddling. The males among the butterflies are known to mud-puddle along riverbanks and are said to ingest dissolved minerals.

The Common Map Butterfly is rarely to be found away from water courses in the forest and belongs to the Nymphalidae, the butterfly family that accounts for most butterfly species found in India.

As we left the sandbank to pick up our original trail a movement in a leafy branch overhanging the path revealed a butterfly that I thought looked like the Common Indian Crow (Euploea core), among the more commonly found butterflies in the wildlife sanctuary. It looks similar to the female of the Great Eggfly (Hypolimnus bolina) and can be mistaken for one. I’ll remember the Common India Crow for a memorable sighting one summer day in the sanctuary a few years ago.

While on our way to Collem through the sanctuary, Philip and I ran into hundreds of Common Crows migrating through the forest, easily numbering over five hundred and pushing on seemingly determinedly. As they flitted across our path we stood in silence watching them move on. Neither of us had a camera on us that day, and never have I needed a camera as badly ever since!

On long trails flowers break the monotony of the landscape. Here they are not to be found in abundance in the lower reaches of the sanctuary, in marked contrast as one ascends the hills in the vicinity. However Ixora (Ixora coccinea) blooms in the sanctuary all round the year, drawing attention with its bright red petals contrasting sharply against the grey of its surroundings in the summer. Ixora belongs to the Coffee family.


When I started out I had expected to see more of Grey Pansy (Junonia atlites) and was surprised with how few there actually were on the trail. I cannot be sure if it was the time of day that was responsible for so few numbers or if it was the time of year. Whatever the case may be I was delighted to have a Grey Pansy fly over to me and settle on my trousers. Trust makes for delightful company on jungle trails, more so when trails goes quiet in the afternoons.


Teak grows aplenty in the wildlife sanctuary and so does Kindal. Silk Cotton and Flame of the Forest blaze away in early summer while Ficus trees attract birds in droves and together they feast on figs in relative peace. And they feast long. Once I spent over an hour watching a pair of Grey Hornbills oblivious to my presence while they feasted on the figs for the entire duration.


As we walked along more flowers graced our trail, a welcome sprinkling of colour and a reason to pause and take them in before moving on. The Bicolour Persian Violet (Exacum tetragonum) above lent the dry earth promise. Like many flowers in deciduous forests, the Persian Violet flowers in September-December. They were few and far between on our trail.



We dodged Common Grass Yellows (Eurema hecabe) flitting about on the narrow path in the direction of Nandran Mol. Watching pairs of Grass Yellows zig zag along the path it was easy to assume they were courting pairs, it seemed proper to do so, and having done that they acquired a renewed interest in my eyes, and in their every twist and turn I sought a pattern I could then interpret. There was none I could notice though. On occasions the Grass Yellows (Family Pieridae) would feed on flowers before taking off. They added urgency to the quiet afternoon, rarely flying higher than waist level and sticking to the open area of the jungle path. With the Sun beating down on my back one of them eventually perched on a flower long enough for me to release the shutter several times.

In a clearing the forest department had effected along the path not far from where it forks into two directions, one leading to the Vasant Bhandhara, the other up the hill to the highest point in the wildlife sanctuary, a lone male Danaid Eggfly warmed up on the embankment burnt hard by the Sun, closing and opening its wings in slow motion. I crossed over the embankment to get closer to the butterfly.


While returning I was alerted to a rustling in the plants clustered around a tree and which I had brushed on my way back. A menacing looking centipede emerged from the cluster of plants and hurried up the tree at admirable pace.

It was past noon. At a time when one would expect the rarer among the sightings to have retreated into the shade deep inside the jungle, the Grey Count (Tanaecia lepidea) surprised me by making an appearance. Not content with merely making an appearance it flew over to me and settled on my instep and I was loath to move lest it take wings. Moments like these warm the trails in ways that only acceptance by another can. To have it happen to me the second time in a little over an hour and half must mean someone was helping bring things together. I cannot recollect the last time I spotted the Grey Count. Its characteristic white band resembles an upturned mustache. The languorous flight as it took off and settled among low lying vegetation and the easy familiarity it displayed in settling on my instep redeemed the trail in no small measure.


It is never easy to identify the Common Sailor (Neptis hylas) from the Common Sergeant (Athyma perius), more so given how quickly they move about but Common Lascar (Pantoporia hordonia) was easy given their orange markings as against the white of the Sailor and the Sergeant.


Lemon Pansy (Junonia lemonias) matched the Grass Yellow in numbers. Unlike the Grey Pansy, the Lemon Pansy has striking markings on its wings. The two pairs of eye-spots display prominently on the wings. However I was baffled seeing several of the species flying around with broken wings, too many for one trail. I wonder if those eye-spots on the Lemon Pansy had attracted predators into making a grab for their wings. I'll never know.

It’s never easy to overlook a bright and cheerful butterfly with broken wings and move on, and so many!

But I had to!



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