Saint Nicholas. Never met him in person. Did you?

My most persistent childhood memory of Christmas is of the stuffed stockings sold in the toy stores of Crawford Market. Made of white netting and edges trimmed with a red ribbon, they used to contain a lot of junk – mostly stuff you could pick up for an anna or two from a balloon seller. Whistles and balloons and miniature packs of playing cards and folding paper tricks and party knick knacks, you know, the collective value of which was way below what the brigands charged for the whole stocking. The smallest sized one used to be priced, if memory serves, at Rs.7/-. Even that was a lot of money in those days. I remember forcing my father foolishly to buy if not the largest at least the second largest stocking for me. This set him back for a fair amount of his hard earned money. The poor dear never once complained, though. So, figuratively and literally speaking, he was Santa Claus but I never knew it. He also used to take me to the Army and Navy Stores at Kala Ghoda in either the same or the adjoining building where the Watson Hotel used to be http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/07/cinema-meets-india-india-meets-cinema.html. I remember buying a Meccano No.1 set from there apart from a chutney green clockwork road roller about which I’ve written before. http://popgoestheslop.blogspot.com/2006/06/toys-for-boys-egyptian-mummy-too.html. The other Christmas memory from childhood is on the tip of my tongue: the delicious plum and rum cakes bought probably from an Irani bakery at Dhobi Talao – within easy walking distance of Lucky Toy Mart which stocked the Christmas stockings.

Cinema meets India. India meets cinema.

By a strange twist of fate, Salon Indien happened to be the name of the venue for the very first public show of Cinématographe Lumière at one franc a head on 28 December 1895. It was a tiny hall with a sitting capacity of one hundred located in the basement of the Grand Café at 14 Boulevard des Capuchines, Paris. The first show of the Lumière Brothers’ six short films (Entry of Cinematographe, The Sea Bath, Arrival of a Train, A Demolition, Ladies & Soldiers on Wheels and Leaving the Factory) – each 17 metres long – was held on 7 July 1896, a night of thunder and lightning, in South Mumbai at the Watson Hotel opposite Kala Ghoda and the Jehangir Art Gallery, within walking distance of the Gateway of India. Seven days later, the venue was shifted to the Novelty Theatre where the show had twenty four features including A Stormy Sea and The Thames at Waterloo Bridge. The 32-day Mumbai run of the Cinématographe Lumière at both the venues, described by The Times of India as "Living Photographic Pictures in Life-Size Reproductions by Mssrs. Lumiere Brotheres" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_India ended on 15 August 1896. http://www.indiaheritage.org/perform/cinema/history/inscene.htm. But certainly not India’s tryst with cinema. Or, mine for that matter. I remember making magic lanterns and, later, even movie projectors out of shoe boxes and reels and drawing pictures on stiff tracing paper to make my childish movies. I also recall visiting most movie houses in my neighbourhood – there were at least a dozen within easy walking distance – for zanana (women and children only) shows with my sister. The ticket prices then were one rupee and five annas for stalls and two rupees and ten annas for a seat in the balcony or in a box. Those days, you could buy a garishly printed booklet containing the story of the movie in outline and the songs in their entirety for the princely sum of 4 annas or a quarter of a rupee. Or, you could buy for just 1 anna a crudely printed booklet with songs only in Hindi as well as Urdu scripts. I’m not quite sure when they stopped printing and selling these booklets. It was probably some time in the late sixties. Now they try to palm off on you lavishly produced books about the making of the movie you’re about to watch, often written by firang writers who claim to be teachers and/or researchers in a film faculty abroad but sound like publicists on the payroll of the producer.

Whose wife was she anyway?

Now comes your way a story from the Mumbai ad world circa the early sixties. I first heard it in 1965 a little after I got my first big-agency break with Clarion-McCann. Clarion was the DJ Keymer spin-off in Kolkata – where the Shantiniketan-trained and world renowned film maker Satyajit Ray had once upon a time worked as an art director. http://www.satyajitray.com/content/about/the_agency.htm. It had joined hands with McCann Erickson worldwide and come to India’s ad capital for the first time. They had a quaint but crowded office in the basement of Advent at Nariman Point. The room I worked in adjoined the privately owned Golwalla Swimming Pool now long demolished. I could hear people diving and splashing in water as I tried to think up ideas for Forhan’s Toothpaste and Poysha. At lunch time, I used to go with a couple of my new colleagues to Coffee Corner at Kala Ghoda where we ate a mean grilled mutton sandwich at Rs.9/- a pop washed down with hot freshly brewed coffee. While we ate, a senior guy would spin yarns about advertising folks. The one I’m about to relate to you is about two inebriated friends who came to blows outside The Taj Mahal Hotel, opposite the Gateway of India, one evening after an advertising meet with cocktails and dinner. One of them was the flamboyant owner of an Indian agency well known in his later life for his fine collection of antique chess sets. His friend, well known for his masterful media planning, worked for one of the two leading multi-national agencies. The argument revolved around the former’s more than friendly interest in the latter’s spouse. The cuckolded husband, as often happens, was the last to know the widely discussed open secret. My informant did not know how exactly the bout ended. A couple of years down the line, the media savvy hard drinker joined Clarion and I had the opportunity to watch him at close quarters. All I can say now is that , by then, the magic had long evaporated. More’s the pity.