Mapping The Cities

One new-found pleasure on returning has been Delhi's cinema. I'm astonished by the professionalism with which Anupam and Priya theatres are run. Wonderful seating and projection and a great place for our young people to congregate and flirt. Someone on the management must love movies. We also have two good film clubs, one at India International Centre run by Teteii Tochhawng and a new one started by Aruna Vasudev at India Habitat Centre. The presence of competing cultural wings of foreign embassies also helps. The French are particularly aggressive.

Three years ago, I'd packed my bags and shifted to Maharashtra's capital where I had spent the blissful years of my youth. I thought I was moving to vibrant, cosmopolitan Bombay. Instead, I found myself in a city called Mumbai, provincial and intolerant. They've more thugs in politics there than in any other city, with the possible exception of Patna. Bombay University was the pride of India. Mumbai University is a joke, thanks to the Marathification of academia.

But whatever its faults, Mumbai wins hands down when it comes to the treatment of women. Few women in Delhi would risk taking a taxi alone at night. In Mumbai they don't think twice. They will take nonsense from no one. And for my money, the Maharashtrian women are the prettiest in the country. Anyone having doubts on that score should take another look at Madhuri Dixit. She has even eighty-year-old men drooling. There is also Sonali Bendre. Unfortunately, the lady can't act.