Rosalyn D'mello: Falling in love with Mumbai again

There are so many tastes and sounds I'm so keen to reacquaint myself with. I'll start with a chai and bun maska at Yazdani

There was a time when I yearned to travel. The desire was so intense, I named my blog wanderlustingfeet, because I ached for the strangeness of lands I had yet to discover, terrain that was unchartered in my imagination. Cut to today, where my feet literally ache from over exposure, my muscles all knotted up from excessive sprinting to catch flights and disembark swiftly to avoid rush hour, my left shoulder strained from lifting luggage off baggage claim. I was still savouring the limbo I found myself in after returning from Melbourne and re-experiencing the chaos of Delhi when I had to get on a plane to Bombay - a city I had called home for all of my girlhood. For the first time in my life, what I'm longing for is the security of staying put in one place, without the threat of having to leave too soon.

Ever since I abandoned Bombay to lay roots in Delhi, almost a decade ago, I've had a conflicted relationship with this city by the sea. At first, when I still hadn't taken to the aggressiveness of the Capital, I thought of it in the same vein as one might consider a husband, the subject of an arranged marriage of convenience. Bombay was the secret lover, the one that just ‘got me' without my having to explain myself.

But one evening Delhi seduced me. It was a distinct moment that I have recorded often enough, but which still astounds me with the poignancy of its synchronicity. I had found myself at the mouth of Khan Market, waiting for a friend to get a drink. Without knowing it, I found myself gravitating towards the scent of meat being cooked in a tandoor. The epicurean in me simply followed the trail until I landed at the erstwhile location of Khan Chachas. I ordered either a mutton seekh roll or a chicken tikka roll, I can't quite remember, but just as I sunk my teeth into its smoky flesh, a choir standing right there, who had just finished devouring their own rolls, broke into song. It could have been any random piece, but they sang, a capella, Seal's Kissed by a Rose. I gulped, the coincidence of the song's title conflated with the abridged version of my name not lost on me.

Soon, the relationship between cities got inverted. Bombay became the ex - the lover I felt embarassed about having once loved, and Delhi became the new beau, the one I knew so little about that every facet that was revealed to me was met with utter fascination.

Oddly enough, the process of writing this weekly column has reinvigorated my relationship with Bombay. I have been compelled to revisit these multiple intrigues that cement my association with its people, my people. One immediate consequence has been a previously unacknowledged affection for Kurla - a place I otherwise describe as ‘the land god forgot about'. It is odd to have landed in the city and to not yet have gone ‘home', to be suspended in Colaba, at the house of a dear friend, someone who moved from Delhi to Mumbai; to not have inadvertently made the sign of the cross as I passed by the grotto, where today, for sure, there would have been a garland strung across the statue of Our Lady of Fatima, given it's the feast of Mary's birth, and the feast of Our Lady of Vailankanni, which is unofficially the biggest celebration in Kurla. It's the culmination of the historic novena, where for the preceeding nine days, a flag bearing the image of Mary is hoisted every evening at 5 pm.

I'm missing stepping into the block of my building and remembering the soul of Aunty Milli, who died a few years ago, having crossed the 100-year mark, and who always prayed for me. And my next door neighbours, the Anchans, who have always looked after me and cared for me in ways I have never been able to quantify. I've so many commitments on my plate that a trip from Colaba to Kurla feels like a luxury of time I cannot yet afford.

What gives me sweet pleasure, though, is to see the city through the eyes of both an insider and a visitor. I smile each time a bunch of men walk by and strains of Marathi reach my ears.

Yesterday, I found myself delighting in the crunch of a fabulously made sev puri. There are so many tastes and sounds I'm so keen to reacquaint myself with. I'll start with a Saturday morning chai and bun maska at Yazdani, where I expect to stumble upon the ghost of one of my past selves, sitting aimlessly, eating apple pie, and dreaming of a world beyond Bombay.

Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D'Mello is a reputed art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx. Send your feedback to mailbag@mid-day.com