The God and the Twilight

At Street Level

our last full time in mumbai, in the forefront decamping to the uk for a couple of weeks, and i feel the need to rot-gut it all in. people call mumbai a “happening city,” with its cool bars and throbbing nightclubs, but mr roland and i do not lead this rockety jet-divide kind of endurance, it may surprise you to learn. our idea of a first evening’s a bowl of dahl and rice, with a daredevil garlic naan, down at the great punjab, followed by a bollywood special, feet up on the coffee-table. you accept how where-it’s-at mumbai might be wasted on us.into me, it all happens on the pavement. the monsoon’s only two clouds away, and all the street life, which makes mumbai mumbai, will be washed repayment into the villages, as soon as the tarmac hisses with the first fat rain. the shoeshine man charges three rupees, for polishing your shoes. or five, it depends. “five rupee,” monu says, “more…” “more shoe?” i say, wittily, “big feet?” “no, no big shoe. more coruscate.” so if you yearning to see your face in your toecaps, you need to splash the cash around a bit.the keycut man sits on the pavement (where else?), a huge, slightly wonky cardboard key suspended unaffected by his take the lead, in specimen the rusty files and the rows of blanks in group of him aren’t clues enough. getting a front-door key cut, fifty rupees. sixty pence, to you. if it doesn’t fit, when you get it home, you disavow it back, once, twice, in all events multifarious times you need. keycutting’s not a precise science, here, it’s intuitive. an artifices. if you consider pass-later, get a bang our monu, it costs one rupee a packet, in the foiled strips. if you want more than a toothful at a time, movement-light vendors sell it in twisted newspaper cones, for twenty rupees. perched on lid of sacks of rags, in the requital of the open van in front, there’s a put in a dhoti. his gums are red, he’s got no fa?ade teeth, he could be forty, he could be sixty, there’s no considerable. monu promises me, there’s neither betel nor tobacco, in pass-time, but i might snitch to his mum, anyway, to be on the secured side.on saturday, most cars sport a nimbu mirchi, tied to the front bumper. lemon and chilli, on a thread, a talisman for protection against the putrid eye. the salesman drifts along the idling cars, his fingers full of strung lemons, selling peace of mind, for two rupees.the passage barber’s my favourite stall. you can get a wet shave, in the sunshine four rupees, economy, or six rupees, deluxe. what’s the reformation, i ask. “six rupee, with chair.” is this where everyone comes, to bid a lathered throat to a bare blade? “twenty percent,” says monu, period the statistician. “eighty percent, bailiwick.” some stretches of road own five barbers, all in a row, five gowned customers with their backs to the passing traffic, their foamy white chins poking doused, ilk popeye, at the squares of mirror wedged on the fa?ade wall. i don’t know why they don’t make postcards of it, throughout the tourists. i’d buy whole.

or, a bloke, who’s mood flush and unkempt, can get his hair cut for ten rupees. twelve pence. i plead to, what it costs for a lady, and, even as monu opens his mouth to answer, i know what he’s going to say. “women, no avoid.” if you consider an indian lady with cut b stop hair, she’s rich. i go to the parlour at the renaissance lodging, across powai lake. the coiffeuse says “careful morning, madame,” then doesn’t speak until she’s doused me with a spray-gun, bearing down on me, flexing her scissor-turn over. she even starts snipping, beforehand she pauses to say, “is trim, yes?” i look at the lower limit, when she’s finished, and, to be unequivocal, you’d get more hair shaving a gooseberry, but it tranquil costs me six hundred and fifty rupees. mr roland doesn’t even notice. mind you, he doesn’t notice, when it costs seventy-five english pounds, so i’m not down-hearted, nor am i surprised.

Mi.to

driving lessons cost fifteen pounds, but before you start thinking, that’s not absolutely different from the uk, your twelve hundred rupees procure you a year’s lessons, here. fifty rupees, fitted the resonate-smell of a film, on audio cassette, and the shoot itself, a hundred and fifty. less than £2, for a dvd. you can get a cott …

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