Seema of Mulund

Seema, born in Matunga, brought up in Mulund and living in Mulund is a Mumbaikar ever looking round sharp corners for funspots. Speaks Kannada, Marathi, Hindi, Tamil, English. She is fun, funs, always. Hard to be consistent, but Seema is. She is the family amulet. She knows Mulund as Behram Contractor knew the City. Morning it was chatter, chatter, chatter oiled with laughter, laughter, laughter. Talks swung from Vijay Mallya, T20 World Cup to end up on food and Seema is delicious at making food. For lunch, her kitchen waited with classy keerai porichheri and pappadams; Rama and me also waited for the clock to touch 2. Food talk hovers before a touchdown on murukku, thattai, tapioca papad ....'I will take you to the best shop in Mulund,' Seema said and we went to AdiGanesh Stores; in Borivili West, there is no distinguished pottikadai offering what the Tamils and Malayalis long for more than their ancestral homes....Yogi Nagar, housing Yes Bank to Kotak Mahindra Bank, does not have a pottikadai....Rajan sells coconuts and is not sufficiently Ambanish to widen business with equity or oh, ah bank loans. The signboard has AdiGanesh Stores in English, Tamil and Marathi, keeping all politicians away. In a way like Giri & Co. in Matunga; a dark, ill-lit cave with Tamil and Malayali delicacies piled up anyway and advised upon by a team of young ladies; consumers have standing, no turning, space; the ladies stand all the hours,  brisk at work with some smiles; are they well paid?; Rama and Seema, picked up what TamBrahms are heir to --- their fates; an art lost time ago; fryums, pickles, Rajam's Thattai; the March sun was hard in the enclosed space; customers bumped into ladies in no incorrect ways and me stepped out watching the street, its men and women, more interesting than the boring faces at the do of The Indian Express for Dr. Raghuram Rajan; celebrities do  not need photographers as they cannot be clicked; and today The Indian Express has one page of mediocrity, Talk, Page 23. A part of the pavement has been taken over by AdiGanesh while others took the rest and they cannot be blamed as they are not lucky Vijay Mallyas or bankers supplying cash. Took my seat on a plastic box and watched; there was no gloom on the streets or its men and women; a bus rolled up, stopped and out came a man looking a Joyalukka gold ad, picked up a bhayya (who else); led him to the bus packed with pheriwalas for a morcha at Azad Maidan; the Joyalukka gold did not give a chance to the bhaiya to shut his vegetable stand; the bhaiya (never be born a bhaiya), perhaps more unfortunate than a Dalit in modern times, a torn, jute sack to clean one's feet, did not protest; bankers shun him; he was smiling; his friends spread jute sacks over the collection of vegetables; waited; after, five minutes, the bhaiya was back in laughs; he might or might not have paid a cut to the Joyalukka ad; a crowd collection for a pheriwalla morcha against police and municipality harassment; 'hafta dena padtha hai, nahin tho dhanda bandh', said the bhaiya without regrets, a truism Indian corporates tattoo on their new born souls. Bought bhendi for Rs.15 as Rama and Seema stepped out of AdiGanesh; Rama damage: Rs.863. Fingers crawled into a lunch of rice, keerai porichheri and papads. Thanks, Seema for the outing.