Sounds like…

Memories come in all shapes and sizes. Some are sights. Some are smells. Others are sounds. One of my most distinct aural memory is the almost unearthly “uulfeemalaay” cry of the kulfi vendor who went down the Khetwadi Main Road on his nightly round around nine o’clock. His creamy kulfi used to come in little aluminum cones the mouth of which was sealed with a seal made out of dough. A little later, a fakir would go on his alms collection round. Strangely enough, I could hear him approaching and retreating but never stopping to receive alms. He must have been a Sufi or a Kabirpanthi, judging from the fact that he used to sing a doha (hymn) of Kabir, the weaver saint who lived between 1398 and 1518. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabir. (I knew it was Kabir’s poetry because I grew up listening to my father singing it.) Then there was the sound of a hack Victoria clop-clop-clopping along our road in the dead of the night. If it was coming from the Charni Road and going eastwards, I would start hearing it in my bed as soon as it approached the Girgaum Police Court. Then as it took the right turn at the corner, the pitch of the clop-clop would rise, reach a crescendo as it passed our house – the third house on the right – and then start receding as it drew away out of my aural range. Sometimes, I would wake up suddenly around midnight just when the 9-30 film show at the Krishna Talkies (later renamed Dreamland soon after 15 August 1947) got over. There would be a lot of approaching sounds – people talking and laughing raucously, hack victorias clopping along, stragglers waiting at the corner for the last tramcar that would arrive soon and clatter along the Charni Road on its last journey of the day – all of which eventually would die down. Then all I could hear no matter how much I strained my ears was the deafening sound of silence.

Moniker makeover. Just what Mumbai needs.

I’m surprised nobody had this brainwave so far. Especially those forward-looking, forward-thinking municipal corporators of Brihan Mumbai! After all, they need every photo op they can grab. So here it is – offered gratis. This means ‘free of charge’ – in case you’re allergic to phoren words, particularly those with Latin (i.e., Eye-talian) roots just like some people we love to hate. So let’s replace the old imperial (imperious?) sounding names of the stations of the Western Railway (suburban line). What Mumbai needs is dynamic new monikers mirroring the spirit of our glorious present and even more glorious future. In so far as Church Gate is the terminus – and it is a terminal condition of the Progressive Mumbaikar state of mind that there is only one personage deserving enough to lend his name to all termini, airports, possibly docks, the new name would naturally be CST (Paschim). Marine Lines will metamorphose into Dr C Moraes Chowk – that being the closest landmark. Charni Road will be rechristened SK Patil Udyan again after the nearest landmark. Or, if you’re not in a mood to overglorify old Congress honchos, let’s call it Maharshi Karve Marg after the friendly parallel road. The Indian sounding Nana Chowk will displace the ‘Angrezon ke jamane ke jailor’ Grant Sahib in the station currently named after the road named after him. Et cetera, et cetera and so forth – as The King of Siam (Oscar winner Yul Brynner) kept repeating to a simpering Anna (Deborah Kerr) in the 1956 CinemaScope movie I saw way, way back at the New Empire Cinema. http://www.vidkraft.com/ffvp/1999/anna_and_the_king.htm. By the way, this cinema hall happens to be near the original CST – the reincarnation of VT (Victoria Terminus). For enlightenment on moniker makeovers, amble over to http://www.famousnamechanges.com/. (Would you rather meet ‘Demetria Guyness’, ‘Reginald Dwight’ and ‘Sofia Scicolone’ than ‘Demi Moore’, ‘Elton John’ and ‘Sophia Loren’?) Question: Should parents and family not consult spin doctors before handicapping offsprings with names that are born non-starters?