Except for the fact that I often findmyself at the receiving end of it, I wouldn’t waste my time with the wholeBombay-versus-Delhi argument.
Nude Elly has the publishers, a Gulab Jamun says sweetly. Yes, but Bumbay hasall the poets, a Vada-Pau retorts. William Dalrymple suggested that Delhi mightbe the City of Djinns (not to mention tonics); Bombay was the MaximumCity, Suketu Mehta returned. Bombay, courtesy Vikram Chandra, got Loveand Longing; Delhi, courtesy Nayantara Sahgal’s acute eye for its drawingroom politics, merely had a Situation in it.
Any suggestion that Delhi might have a sprinkling of talented writers ispromptly scotched by references to the Great Bombay Novel, written by everyonefrom Salman Rushdie to Vikram Chandra, Mistrys Rohinton and Cyrus, KiranNagarkar, even Ashok Banker and Jaideep Verma. Delhi, despite one-off attempts (KhushwantSingh, Sahgal, Krishna Sobti), still has some catching up to do. The Bombaynovel has been thoroughly explored; the Delhi navel only cursorily gazed at.
So, in Bombay for the Hutch Cross-word awards, I would genuflect beforeBombay’s writers, listen respectfully to Bombay conversations, relearnBombay’s streets courtesy Saleem Sinai and Gustad Noble and Ravan andEddie.
At first it went according to plan. I revisited bookshops that a Bombay writer,Jerry Pinto, had spent an entire day taking me round many years ago. KiranNagarkar and Naresh Fernandes demonstrated, at a concert of Algerian music, thattough guys do dance. Then Suketu Mehta took a bunch of us to the Janata Bar. Hehad just won the first Crossword non-fiction prize for Maximum City and wantedto celebrate at the small permit room in Bandra with its warren of rooms thatwas emblematic of all the bars and bar girls who had starred in a key section ofthe book.
As Suketu and his entourage left the awards dinner, there was a slight sense ofdéja vu. The writers we were saying our farewells to included Krishna Sobti,Ira Pande, Mishi Saran—Delhi imports; the gorgeous young thing whom the boyswere trying to persuade to join us was a Delhi import, and half the authorpopulation at the Bar were Delhi imports. I gave up on trying to do the Bombayscene—what was the point when it was so Delhi?
But there is one way to get Bombay and Delhi to bury their differences. On asimilar evening at a bar in Delhi, we came up with the perfect marketing planfor Indian Writers Inc. There, before us, was the surrealist of the keyboard,musical and computer, the Stones-meets-Bangla-rock vocalist, thegravel-and-cigarette voiced streetfighting man whose prose was as syncopated ashis sense of rhythm, the moody poet of the bass guitar. Add Uncle Salman, whomust have picked up something from his friends U2, and Nagarkar, with maybeSuketu on the maracas, and we’ve got a Bombay-Delhi combo that would rock anyjoint in town. Call them the Backspace Boys, organise a bunch of groupies (wouldthe Booker Hookers be too extreme?) and step back from the mike.
This article originally appeared in Delhi City Limits, April 15, 2006
