VERVEMAGAZINE.IN 95rahanar’ (‘If we don’t pick up the trash, one Parsi will call,
then another, and they will keep calling’). So, bawas often
run to the F North ward of the BMC because some road
has a crack or some tree has fallen. It gets the work done.
When we have sweepers come here every morning,
someone will shout, ‘Oh boss, woh patta uthao, woh
kachra uthao’ (‘...pick up that leaf, pick up that trash’). For
us it’s been like, ‘Oh god, Freni is shouting again about
the kachra’. But now, I have come to be Freni’s age, and
I understand why she has been shouting all this time. So,
over the last few years, WhatsApp has been able to bridge
that gap between generations and it has given us a way to
reach out to the municipality,” she says pragmatically.
“The local municipal corporator for the area is a Don
Bosco boy who grew up in DPC, so he knows what it is
like to sit at Rustom Tirandaz Garden and what it means
when a Parsi calls up and says, ‘These boys from Wadala
are sitting and chugging bottles, shoo them away’. On
the days I need to get my work done at the A ward
municipal corporation office, I put on my Shivaji T-shirt
and walk in and say, ‘Namaskar sahib, sarva chan (all
well)?’ and then he’ll say, ‘Arré, kashi aahe (how are you),
namaskar Engineer madam.’”
She’s wearing an elegant, sleeveless dress with her
hair pinned up neatly and is full of vigour about things like
art, architecture and the meaning of life. “I was brought
FROM LEFT: KAYOMI AND ZAREEN ENGINEER