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Malavika’s Mumbaistan: The City In Four Acts-2

Hindustan Times | ByMalavika Sangghvi
Feb 19, 2020 01:36 AM IST

Come, let us acquaint ourselves with one of Mumbai’s greatest traditions: its photo walls

Smile, you’re on camera

Come, let us acquaint ourselves with one of Mumbai’s greatest traditions: its photo walls. A photo wall, for the uninitiated, is not a wall full of photographs, but a tiny, invisible, designated spot, at the entrance of a venue, where guests have to stand and allow themselves to be subjugated to all manner of heckling, rude remarks, directions, commands and instructions ( as in “Ay, left dekho, right dekho!! Ay, idhar dekho!!” etc) shouted at them by a gaggle of photographers, before they are allowed entry to the function /event/ premiere/ fashion show/wedding or children’s birthday party that they have shown up for.

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Mumbai’s celebrities treat the photo wall with unwavering respect. No matter how tired they are, how weary, or how out of sorts, they put a true-blue Mumbai celebrity in front of a photo wall and watch them blossom. Couples willingly stay back without their partners to get a few more seconds of undivided attention and camera-time at the photo wall. Wives sweetly request inconvenient husbands to step aside, so they can pose alone. Yummy Mummies have been known to happily hand over their toddlers to passing strangers, so they can strike better poses...

More celebrated than the Great Wall of China and more famous than President Trump’s wall is the Mumbai photo wall.

So popular have they become that some ingenious hosts have been known to plant their kitchen staff with dummy cameras at the entrances to their venues, so that their guests can preen before their photo walls…

Tribal bustiers and brocade boxers

The hall is full, but you don’t recognise the people? The lights are low, but the show is delayed? The drinks are free, but the queues are long?

Worry not, you have landed at one of Mumbai’s fashion weeks. A time of giddy activity and frantic networking, when designers, big and small, meet their clients; retailers meet wholesalers and a tribe of impossibly long-limbed and sultry size 0 ‘maudlins’, walk down the ramp, demonstrating just why the clothes they wear would never look good on the people who could actually afford them.

Yes! It’s fashion weak (sic). The greatest show in town – all the way from BKC to Lower Parel. Fashionistas, fashion writers, fashion wearers by the truckloads! And film stars! More than you will find at a KJo party or a YRF audition, as show stoppers, show starters, or gracing the front row, grabbing all the attention and the camera time.

And the clothes: the rustle of raw silk palazzos and emerald ball gowns; leather headgears and Rexene pant suits; tribal bustiers and brocade boxers – and that’s just for the men… Wait till you see what the women are wearing…

Food, glorious food

Ah, you have won the very Holy Grail of the City of Dreams: an invitation to a foodie dinner. The venue: a five-star hotel or a stand-alone eatery that needs the footfall. Your host: an upwardly mobile, middle-aged, warm and thrusting self-appointed foodie, who exists for the last free junket/meal that she has predicated her long and fruitful career on. Your fellow diners: the city’s leading gourmand hunters and gatherers.

Think: chargrilled monkfish fillets and venison polentas; or Tuscan mushrooms and black truffle parfaits with crispy artichokes and Ho Fun duck raviolis. Or how about parched langoustines with pigs ears? And that’s just the first course! And wine! Of course there will be wine: a Domaine Leflaive Montrachet Grand Cru, followed by a Domaine Georges & Christophe Roumier Musigny Grand Cru, followed by a Domaine de la Romanee-Conti Montrachet…

Too bad you will spend the rest of the evening in bed, clutching your aching belly, as the ceiling spins around you; too bad you will not recall the name, let alone the flavour of anything you imbibed the previous night. This is just the beginning: Mumbai foodie dinners are a dime a dozen, if you know where to look. And yes, remember to keep some space for the Chantilly ice cream parfait with peach liqueur, the next time…

Literary Chutney

Shall we sign up for a literary fest? They sprout around the city like exotic flowers. Some long standing, that last for a couple of days, some short and sweet, over in an evening’s worth of conversations. But all very worthy of your attendance. And why not?

Firstly, there is the venue: they are always held in pleasant, airy, air-conditioned halls, with good access to refreshments and loos. Besides, the F&B is usually well thought out: tea in earthen pots, a variety of accompanying snacks, often even wine and spirits (depending on the largesse of the event’s sponsor, or the persuasive abilities of the organiser).

And best of all: you will be assured of meeting many lovely, interesting people. The artist whose most creative bursts are when he’s composing his missives to international museums to promote his career; the ball-bearings tycoon, who fancies himself as a weekend poet; the hostess with delusions of running a literary salon, who picks her victims from events just like these; the capitalist who hides behind a fig leaf of socialistic patronage; the poet who comes for the chutney sandwiches… not to forget the many others who are there for the warmth of human contact.

Er, books? Literature? Intellectual discussions and discourse? Yes!! Sometimes, you might get a bit of that too…

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