BOMBAYWALLA

Deeply sorry to hear of Piyush Pandey’s passing. I knew him long before he became a celebrated adman, when I was almost the worst and he almost the best member of our college cricket team. Piyush was a superb wicket-keeper-batsman, who, even then, had a wonderful way with words.

Girgaon is calling—will you answer? 🚶🏽‍♂️ Walk its winding lanes. 🎨 Sketch its timeless charm. 📖 Uncover its hidden stories. Join #ZainabTambawalla & @BombaywallaBlog for a morning of history, storytelling & live sketching. 🔗 Head to avidlearning.in for more details!

"Many music lovers today may not be aware of the context in which his father established himself as an important tabla player in Bombay after the 1950s." @aneesh indianexpress.com/article/opinio…

This should be taught across social science + architecture disciplines worldover as a case study of memoricide-through-renovation. The simplicity of the original setting was itself a historical artefact. It memorialised the pain. The makeover has disrupted that continuity.

M F Husain took to walking without shoes in the funeral procession & gave up wearing shoes for the rest of his life from thereon. indianexpress.com/article/opinio…

@AmbarishSatwik @Indian_Accent Maybe the missing comma wasn't an 'accedent'.

A tirade. Against @Indian_Accent, Delhi’s much-lauded temple of gastronomy, where the well-heeled and the well-fed go to stroke their palates with innovation. A couple of days back, they were found peddling a culinary sleight of hand.   The offending dish, an offering on the tasting menu, promised morel, water chestnut, and asparagus, hidden beneath a ‘paper roast dosai’ (Exhibit A). One is always excited at the prospect of encountering a well-sourced morel, the truffle of the East—that decadent jewel from from the forests of J & K that costs more than an Indian family’s grocery bill for half a month. What arrived under the dosa cone, was not the morel, but a drab cluster of the most ordinary button mushrooms, the kind one might expect in a roadside stir-fry, the fungal equivalent of a counterfeit handbag. If you’re going to list morels on the menu, then there better be morels on the plate, not the fungal detritus scraped from the bottom of a vegetable box (Exhibit B).   This wasn’t an error. It was a deliberate act of chicanery. A calculated decision. Someone in the kitchen, or perhaps in the higher echelons of the restaurant, took it upon themselves to substitute the expensive morel with a far cheaper imposter, fully believing that these particular patrons, who probably didn’t look like the sort to have tasted morel before, wouldn’t know the difference.   When summoned, the chef performed the customary song-and-dance of apology, claiming he would ‘fix it in under two minutes.’ And he did. Miraculously. Brought in a new plate, flush with morels. Which begs the question—how is a fine dining restaurant able to replace a dish in less time than it takes me to open a bottle of cheap plonk? Pre-prepared, perhaps? If this kitchen is churning out dishes with all the haste of an airport lounge buffet, then what exactly are the patrons paying for? The pomp? The pretense? At this price point, we are not paying for mere food, but for integrity, for the understanding that what is stated on the menu is what will arrive on the plate. When a fine dining restaurant offers morel and serves common mushrooms, they are engaging in outright theft. Ordinarily, I’d let such an infraction slide. If it were some second-rate restaurant peddling Instagram-friendly fusion fare, I’d roll my eyes and quietly consign it to the bin of forgettable meals. But this is the restaurant that Condé Nast Traveller, in a flight of wild, hyperventilating praise, swears is the very best in all of India. It’s nestled comfortably on Asia's 50 Best Restaurants list, ranked #26—an achievement it brandishes like a Michelin star. Time Magazine calls it one of the 'World's 100 Greatest Places' The question that naturally arises from this regrettable sleight of hand is: who, precisely, stands to benefit from this deception? Who profits from swapping out the Rolls-Royce of fungi for the rusted banger of button mushrooms? Certainly not the kitchen staff, who, I imagine, are too busy executing their preordained choreography to engage in such duplicity. Nor, I suspect, the serving staff, who would have to nervously deliver these imposters to tables, hoping against hope that no discerning palate calls foul. The chefs? Perhaps, but not in any way that bolsters their culinary pride. They’re not stashing a wad of cash in their aprons or taking home the saved morels. My sense is that their hands are tied by those behind the curtain. To call this ‘cheap and petty’ would be charitable.

"In an era when Gujarat produced very few historians of note..." scroll.in/article/107295…

This is how small and where the Siddhivinayak Temple (Dadar, Mumbai) was originally. #GaneshChaturthi #Ganpati

Discover Rudi’s Bombay — three decades of a German Jewish émigré traversing the city’s creative landscape and steering it along the way. Register here avidlearning.in/event-details/…

The Light of Asia Restaurant opposite the GPO. An Irani Cafe with a possible inspiration from a 1925 movie by Franz Osten and Himanshu Rai. The next image is an ad from 1935. The building was gutted in a fire recently which had this light extinguished for good. @mumbaiheritage

Meet our youngest and oldest guests! #ArchitectsAndFirms #Exhibition #ArtDecoMumbai @BombaywallaBlog

Patel, known by most as Miss Bombaywalla, is recording the ever-changing cityscape of Mumbai before it is lost to defacement in the name of development trib.al/Qnorawa

@_itsmetejas Doubt it

@BombaywallaBlog Will madhavashram open again in future?

In the course of a year, Famous Physical Culture Home lost 2 of its neighbours. Dreamland Cinema, formerly Krishna Theatre, whose rear facade formed the backdrop of the gymnasium & Madhavashram, the lodging house on the same street that was demolished after it completed a century

My father's office, Mahindra & Mahindra, was at Cecil Court, Colaba. One floor above was Radio Ceylon, where Ameen Sayani came to work every day. My father — like millions of others — was such a fan that he'd often time his entry to Sayani Saab's. That's how I met him at age 10.

For nearly a century, students of the Famous Physical Culture Home have been making likenesses of Shivaji. In 1929, when Y. R. Pedamkar had no money for the fees, Kashinath Phelwan, the founder asked "What can you give our gymnasium?" The student sketched this portrait of Shivaji

The Lucky Restaurant at Bandra West is a landmark. Many swear that it's biryani and butter chicken is among the best in #Mumbai. Apparently, the place was named 'Lucky' after a #Catholic priest when it opened in 1938. Then, #BandraWest was a largely Roman Catholic enclave populated by #Goan and #EastIndian #Christians. #Food #MumbaiFood #eatingout #diningout #khauguri #khawayya #history #heritage #Bandra

Menu from the Light of Asia Restaurant. Mumbai, India in 1935.

It's Armistice Day today. My grandmother died on this day, 92 years ago. My father was a boy; he came home from school, wearing a remembrance poppy in honour of the war dead in his lapel, and was gently told that his mother had passed away. For the rest of his long life, he would grow silent and withdrawn on 11th November. Drawing on his childhood memories - and on family photographs - I wrote this poem when I was in my early twenties: poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems…

"You can say what you like about my poems, Anand, but when it comes to painting you simply don’t know enough!” #GievePatel scroll.in/article/105868…