THE SOFT PARADE

Monday, December 11, 2006
The flamingoes are late. I’m on the lookout for pink. The Hindustan Times says they usually arrive in Bombay mid-November and here it is nearly Christmas. There ought to be some long pink necks out there in the tidal flats of Mahim Bay beyond my window at the so-called Twin Towers, the apartment complex occupying the bayside of the Bombay Dyeing Compound, one of the many defunct mills from Bombay’s textile industry past.

I’m not saying I’m bored with the white herons standing in the mud, thousands of them like Chiclets tossed by some kid in a tantrum, or the daily Pigeons-vs.-Hawks skirmishes. I am still amused by the antic green parrots dangling upside down from window railings. And the damned crows making their constant racket are beginning to sound almost like music. Almost. It’s all quite a show. But a flamingo or two would be something.

I’d also like a cheeseburger and the other morning I could have used some aspirin. Friday night I got a call from Ben (who generously offers that as alternative to his given name which is all consonants) to say it was Jim Morrison's birthday and would I like to get together with some friends to mark the occasion properly?

Ben showed up at Twin Towers at about eight. He had his buddy Anupam with him along with a bag of cold Kingfisher beers and a stack of Doors CDs, including some rare stuff I’d never even heard. From Prabhadevi to Bandra, an hour and a half journey through the jammed Mahim carnival streets and across the slum-skirting flyovers, we slammed down Kingfisher and sang along with the late, great Lizard King. Ben’s driver, bless his soul, kept his eyes on the road and his hands upon the wheel.

A Bombay native, Ben recently moved back to his home town with his wife and teenage daughters from New Jersey after a 25-year stint in East Coast investment banking. India is "where the action is now," he says, and is putting together a fund that will fuel this country's amazing economy. But Bombay in the Sixties was his era, a time when rock was overtaking raga among the city’s hipster youth. When we got to his rather splendid apartment in Bandra, Ben’s gang from the old days was there.

“What was wonderful when I got back,” Ben says, “was that we all just picked up where we'd left off.”

Here was Nandoo Bhende, known as the Granddaddy of Indian Rock, drummer and lead singer for pioneering Bombay groups in the Sixties. He’s best known for playing Judas in the long-running India production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Also on tap was Naren, one of Bombay’s top music journalists and a consultant to Warner/EMI. And Anupam, who does something in the carpet business, but is a rock n’ roll fanatic, knows all the words to all the songs and plays most excellent air guitar.

We smoked cigarettes, drank whisky, talked music, sang along with Jim and ate superb take-out from one of Bandra’s best eateries. Ben’s daughters tip-toed through from time to time, rolling their eyes. The wife was away somewhere. It was just a guys’ rave-up and a rare night it was.

Swerving along the jagged streets after midnight in the cab back to Prabhadevi, through the acrid mist of trash fires with strange eyes peering from countless abysmal alleyways, Anupam, Naren and I intoned “Hey Mr. Tambourine Man,” and “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.” A John Lennon number was added, out of respect for the fact that Dec. 9 was not only Jim Morrison’s birthday but also the anniversary of Lennon’s death… Imagine.



Postscript: Ben and I in Bandra in 2008 hitting the hookah.