October 24, 2015.

Me weeps this morning for Amchi Mumbai; me cries for Mumbaikars. 'Kay jhala,' asked Rama in Malayali-Marathi. After consulting Dakhi me wailed in Marathi: 'Amchya Mumbaila tumhi kay karta ahat (What are you doing to me Mumbai).' O world, please get off Mumbai. Mumbai be. Mumbai belongs to Mumbaikars boarding Virar and Kasara locals, third class with quarterly passes. Reader, if there is any, may ask why this wail. Answer: Cooking on Mumbai streets illegal, ordains High Court. Court asks civic administration to take stringent action against street vendors, reports dear old The Indian Express, page 3. Perhaps me friend, a venerable Leftist, Vidyadhar Date may nod in agreement as the Order should free pavements. Make for a clean Mumbai. Me do not know if Date picks up a vada pav (a Hindu-Muslim joint venture) from Bandra's Cadell Road. Me, in soft tones, would like to bleat a query to the two judges, Justice Abhay S.Oka and Revati Mohite Dere, writing the ban (hope me am not barred in the anda cell of Arthur Road Prison): Justices have you never eaten a bhel puri at Khao gulli a few yards away from the High Court? Dont tell me not eaten as that cannot be; like Mumbai without VT and Churchgate. Daughter Dakhi autos to Yogi Nagar Road from Dahisar; a 20 year habit; she picked up her double roti (daboli) from Ram Singh and today his son Lakshman Singh; Vidya flies in from Chennai to Mumbai, drops at Yogi Nagar to have bhel and paani puri from Daya Ram, now into 70s; Ganesh has chicken tangdi off the streets; in recent times, a mousi has set up shop at Yogi for crisp, bhajiyas; when Ravi Krishnan was without Khushboo in Dadar, he would drop in at Borivili, auto to Kandivali for Raju vada, idli, sambhar; its disappointing, the gentleman is an amoral dietist; when me covered the kapada market in Kalbadevi, delighted on toasted sandwiches with bhel and other items thrown in, made on a fire over a gutter; these mornings in LIC Colony Tampi hails me with paruppu wadas...Saar, paruppu wada; am serving a temporary Rama ban; there is a style to it; the bhaiya knows the regulars; they dont order; bhaiya makes and offers; comfortable with delayed payments; bhaiya makes tastes; Sanjiv Kapoor cannot make it on Food, Food; street food is linked to street living in Mumbai; minus six hours for sleep at home, a street is home for a Mumbaikar. Street food has to be dirty, adds to ting and tenderness; the bhaiya has to be unwashed. Me has never taken an Eno after street food. The Indian Express writes: Recent surveys have shown there are at least one lakh hawkers in the city and a rough estimate shows at least five lakh people depend on hawking as a source of income. Ban and they drop below poverty lines, measured anyway by Deaton or Mint. Starve. With that Mumbaikar starves. Taj, Oberoi and home food do not a Mumbaikar make. Honourable High Court: Me case ends. It has no law; a bit of harmless, lawlessness.