Sea Link and Beach stories

Every city has something to brag about that invites us to look beyond the marginalising stories.

For every Dharavi in Mumbai, the city of my birth, there is a SeaLink.

The Sea Link bridge has become the new icon of the Mumbai skyline. Friends and visitors, family members and travel brochures proudly post the picture wherever they can to proclaim to the world that this is Mumbai. 

But my heart knows another Mumbai, a simpler one. From Saturdays long ago, memories of which are now caught in small serrated-edged pictures in old albums, I know this.

Pictures of Amma and pappa sitting on the sand of Shivaji Park beach. The stretch of sand, long and clean. We could smell the air from a distance. I could smell the coconuts. We used to get out of the taxi and the soft sand would get between my toes. I'd stride on in anticipation of an evening of fun. We did this every weekend: Amma, Pappa and I. I was younger than 5, as that is when we went to Goa. A

The vendors used to flock to Pappa who had deep pockets and a laugh to match. He would buy kulfi served on a leaf and cut into discs by the end of an aluminium spoon. Then there would be bhel: he would always give me a puri to nibble on as I couldn't eat spicy food then. Or sukha bhel with just a little fine chopped onion and coriander: " Just to get you used to all foods and flavours" he's say. 

Afterwards there would be nariyal paani, the ubiquitous coconut water sold on beahces then: We would each choose our coconut based on the type of flesh we wanted inside. Now, years later, deccades even, I wonder at the knowledge of the coconut vendor, invariably a Malayali man, who knew just by tapping the coconut what it would be like inside. The top cut off, the flesh eaten. The flesh of the top cap was always saved for Once More who'd be waiting by the water's edge.