MUMBAIJULY 2019 | NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELLER INDIA 97DINODIA PHOTO/DINODIA PHOTO LIBRARY
(HUSAIN),
JULIAN MANNING
(CHAI & DAHI PURI)
in comparison with what I’d polished
off at Olympia. But the bun maska
isn’t bad, my colleague, who’s just
finished breakfast, assures.
Before exiting I smile at the fair,
middle-aged gentleman. A fruitless
pursuit though. Hair dyed and parted
like Jitendra, both his features and
the folds on his forehead remind me of
Mehbooba Mufti; his frown lines just
won’t thaw.
Conceding defeat, I move on.
With still some time left until my
next appointment, I decide to peek
into Joy Shoes. Munna’s shoe shop
in Colaba’s Taj Mahal Palace was
redesigned by Husain—evidently. His
signed footprint, engraved in Egyptian
gold, is the second thing you’ll notice
when you enter Joy Shoes. The first
is a Husain hallmark—two galloping
horse sculptures guarding the marbled
entrance like glorified dvarapalas.
Inside, the pops of olive and orange
stand out, like they do in Sprinkling
Horses, whose sharp, cubist strokes
fetched an astronomical $1.14 million
at a Christie’s New York auction in
2011, the same year the modernist
passed, at 95, still painting.
Childlike in spirit, age was barely
a deterrent for the artist who was
driven away to Dubai by Hindu
hardliners for his nude renditions of
Hindu goddesses. Burning his effigies,
they accused Husain of hurting their
sentiments. If anything, I’d imagine,
it was the other way around; his
pining to return was palpable. It’s a
pity he couldn’t.
Yet despite Mumbai’s evolution,
Husain’s Bombay remains.
At least some of it.
Joy Shoes is also where he’d
show up at lunchtime for Munna.
They’d take off, sometimes not
farther than Golden Dragon, the fine
dining restaurant across the corridor.
“Pan-fried noodles with shredded
chicken was his standard order,” says
Sarfaraz Deshmukh, who waited
Husain’s table.
He ate, hobnobbed, and even
painted for hours at the Taj. At its
coffee shop Shamiana, Anil Baban
Chaskar remembers Husain’s fingers
deftly colouring the canvas plucked
out of his jhola, halting only to sip the
fresh lime soda he’d served him.
He had a massive soft spot for chaattoo, and for that he’d dash off to Swati Snacks in Tardeo; also
my next stop.
“I remember seeing him almost every other Sunday,”
says Asha Jhaveri, owner of the mid-sized, wildly popular
vegetarian restaurant that even non-vegetarians rave about.
“He’d come with Munna. He’d also bring his family,” Asha,
dressed in a yellow tunic and black capris, seated on a table
across, says, trying to scratch her memory for more but then
again, like she says, “It’s a story from many years ago.”
As I sit people-watching, Asha glides into the kitchen
to recreate items Husain had, for me to eat and for my
companion to photograph. Across the glass panel, I can see
her conduct the chefs, their white toques bobbing as they put
sev to puri.
A little while later two sunshine yellow plates arrive. We
try the sevand dahi-batata puris, and devour the panki.
Indigestion being a concern, Husain particularly relished
this mildly spicedrice flour preparation, wrapped and
steamed in banana leaf, peeling its yellow bits off the green
leaf, slowly and carefully.
***C
alcutta meetha. No tambaku. That’s how Husain
Sahib liked his paan,” recalls Jagat Narayan
Singh in Hindi so pure, so neta-like, I take a few
extra seconds to process.
Husain often stopped by at Volga Pan House in Fort,
sometimes thrice in a single day.
On a scorching weekday afternoon when I visit, Singh,
now a portly paanwallah probably in his 50s, is seated
on a wooden plank jutting out of his tiny paan shop, one
leg folded up, the other dangling down, inches above his
chappals. He lords over like Ganesha on an assortment of
spinach-green betel leaves, some desiccated coconut and a
mound of slacked lime, piled high in tin containers that have
seen better days.
It isn’t peak hour. He’s got time to indulge. “He mostly
came in a kaali peeli. Same, no chappal. Pop his paan and
leave after some baat cheet (a quick chat),” he recounts, voice
dripping nostalgia. What’d they talk about? “Just. Everyday
things.” When I coax for content or context, slightly miffed,
he shoots a sharp “Gharelu they, bhai (He was like family),”
response at me. I gulp down this (over) familiarisation claim
with my very own Calcutta meetha.
This isn’t my first time here, though. I usually drop in
past midnight, when people wait in parcels, scattered
outside an establishment that has for years drawn the
many characters that make Mumbai’s canvas so unique,
so colourful. Families in SUVs after full on meals; tipsy
youngsters spilling out of nearby pubs; young boys, their
gossamer-thin moustaches freshly broken, cracking their
lungs over loosely bought cigarettes.
Essentially then, for the price of a pan, you get a taste of
a city...
... a city that Husain migrated to from Indore to make
it big, a city that chased him away but has also kept his
memories alive.
Tug at the heartstrings of people the maestro
rendezvoused with and the anecdotes come to life—
bold, brisk, beautiful, like the strokes immortalised in
Husain’s paintings.Medium rare
steaks at the
shuttered Zodiac
Grill; delish dahi
puris at Swati
Snacks (bottom
right); bun-
maska (bottom
lef t) at Stadium
Restaurant; chai,
the cup always
half-filled, at
Olympia Coffee
House & Stores:
Husain hearted
good food, eaten
in the company
of good friends,
like this Eid
luncheon (top)
in Badr Baug, a
modest chawl he
once resided in.TOP STOPSOLYMPIA COFFEE
HOUSE & STORESSTADIUM RESTAURANTTAJ MAHAL PALACESWATI SNACKSVOLGA PAN HOUSE