BANDRA (1) : MAC ACCENTS , BOTTLE MASALA AND DEAD OLD AUNTIES

Im just a regular ‘Bandra Boy’ from dere only wanting to give back a
little something to my favourite suburb. Someone (may have been me) once said ‘ You can take a person out of Bandra, but you can never take Bandra out of him’. And surprisingly, knowing how no one falls for ‘profound’ lines like dat anymore (my favourite one being - I would if I could, but I cant so I wont), its quite true, because no matter where you are in the world, maybe even in a mall in Frankfurt and you suddenly happen to overhear ‘Aaayee Gracie ...See this dress men....’ Get the picture!!

Which brings me to the sweet, melodic and ungrammatical feature of Bandra and my ultimate favourite spice of Bandra - The Bandra Mac Accent (with no reference to a certain fast food chain organisation)
No matter how much RJ’s, VJ’s, TV presenters or stand up comedians try to impersonate it, they can never get exactly right because you have got to live in it to, to get it totally accurate, it has to come from the (h)eart … (Bit like the Scottish accent).

So let me give you a few basic ground rules so that the next time you
are shopping in Bandra you can blend in perfectly..
· Always use ‘D’ for Th.
· Never use ‘H’ anywhere, they are always silent
· Using ‘What’ even if there’s no question asked.
· Using a Hindi Verb with an English ending
· Using words twice to emphasise your point.
· Just like the Americans use ‘man’ in their slang, only we use ‘men’.
· Just like the Americans use ‘like’ in their slang, we use ‘no’

Giving you ‘masterpieces’ like

· ‘Ow you men Larry?
(Situation: Meeting Larry on Saturday morning in the bazaar)

· ‘She was giving me dis dis small pomflits (while showing the size of
her palm) for bledy 50 rupees men’
(Situation: Larry’s wife explaining her adventures in the bazaar,
later that day)

· “Aarre, Dat bledy Sandy no, yesterday he lagao-ed solid whisky for
the communion party”
(Situation: The retired men from the village talking at the local Irani
joint during the Sunday morning mass sermon)

· ‘You don’t have any sense what riding the cycal so fast’
(Situation: Spinster aunty yelling to a schoolboy on Chapel Road)

· Cun, Men Savio, Put tru men, put tru
(Situation: Classic line heard at Supari talao during a football match, asking Savio to bend the ball like Beckham)

· “Aarre see dere men, dere, arre left men, see dere men, arre big
bugger men dere’
(Situation: Boys stealing mangoes in the afternoon in May)

· Aaaye, what men basket, why you are saying anyting aboud my
mudder and fadder, I call boys now...’
(Situation: Often heard after a Saturday nite binge)

· (H)ail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou ...
..Norma, just see whether the back door is latched ...... amongst
women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus .......it’s closed
?.... ok ..... Holy Mary......
(Situation: Family rosary at the Pereiras)

· You know, Theresa, dat day I took little ginger garlic, little onion, so
much so much masala dat I ground, put chicken and the curry
came good men...’
(Situation: Swapping recipes while standing and gossiping at the
junction with the black bag of groceries at their feet)

· Dat day no, solid rain came no so I made nice hot hot soup and we
had with the khadk gutli which Peter brought...
(Situation: Housewives talking at the Cross Feast party)

One of the most common ways of gossiping among the older
generation is done in a very six degrees of separation - ish kind of
way, in which a person maybe linked up with anyone from the owner
of Johnny’s Cold Storage at Pork Market Junction to the Cardinal.
Ok here goes... another example of conversation...
- Do you know Joe’s son Eric is getting married to Diana?
- Who, Die-na, men?
- Aaree, Diana men, Alfie’s and Maggie’s daughter...
- Who, Alfie men?
- Alfie men from dere, Remember, when they were small they used to
stay near Brian’s house on Chapel road, near the bakery men...He
married that girl Maggie from Shirley village.
- Who Maggie, Mary’s daughter?
- No. Annie’s sister, Joannie’s daughter. You know Annie no, her son
Clyde was married to Hazel and they were living for donkeys years in
the Gulf, then after Clyde had his stroke, he retired and they settled
down here. Their son is dat Leslie he was an engineer very very smart
boy now all dat drinking has ruined him.
- Yes, yes I know he was married to that nice girl Corina from Chimbai,
but then after she had her miscarriage, all his drinking and all started
... and they got divorced...
...and in this way it keeps on going on and on , talking about everyone
they know and not going back to poor ol’ Joe.
(This account has been purely fictional, any resemblance to any
person living or dead is purely coincidental) ...you’d never know...

Another amusing but true fact in Bandra is the one and only ‘secret’
bottle masala. The Goans have their Xacuti, and the East Indians
have their ‘Bottle’ Masala, why? Because it’s stored in old beer bottles,
that’s why and there’s so many ingredients in it that no one can even
think up of a name for it. Its just simple logic.
Every family claims their family recipe is the best and that there is
more colour in theirs or that there are 5 or 6 more cloves in theirs than
the next-door neighbours. Everyone knows how to make it and what
goes in it but the family secrets stays within that family and no one can
get it out unless married into that family or in extreme cases when
there is no heir, on the deathbed.
The first rule of Bottle Masala is, you don’t talk about Bottle Masala,
The second rule of Bottle Masala is, you don’t talk about Bottle
Masala. (Just use it quietly)
The third rule about Bottle Masala is you don’t ask questions about Bottle Masala.

As a kid there were many weird, corny but somehow nostalgic experiences that are etched in the back of my head about Bandra, which don’t come back to me till I am outside Bandra and then the memories come floating back. Here are some of my favourites; you may notice a lot of reference to food in them (as I am also a big fan of Bottle Masala).

· First communion parties on the building terraces in Bandra with the mutli coloured fairy lights against the white sheets tied to the bamboo’s, with some 20yr old pop hit music blasting out of a 2 big monitor speakers, the smell of wedding rice pulao and Devil chicken curry in air....

· Walking through any village in Bandra on a Sunday afternoon and seeing the men sitting out in their balconies with their whisky or gin, country music playing from his music system which he brought down from the Gulf enjoying a quiet weekend before the hectic Monday and after a hectic party on Saturday night. You can hear the pressure cookers steaming with their pea pulao and smell the
tinge of Lonvas curry floating though the air while the mixture of coconut milk and bottle masala bubbles violently under the aluminium lids of the vessels.

· The watery orange concentrate drinks in a plastic cup and the hot steaming boiled chick peas given to you after the rosary at the local village cross while the aunties ask mothers what their son is doing in life and discuss their children’s lives.

· The rush of crowd at the cold storage and the bakery closest to the church after Sunday morning mass.

· The rush of men to the Irani restaurant closest to the church as soon the Sunday mass sermon begins for a chai and a smoke.

. The husbands in short pants, a striped T-shirt, cap and sunglasses
on their scooters with their wives on the backseat also in short pants and a old blouse going to do their weekly shopping in the bazaar on a Saturday morning often stopping in the middle of the lane to have a quick chat with other couples on their scooter going the other way.

Sometimes when you are asleep in the wee hours of the morning just after a late night binge with the boys, the phone starts to ring at 6:30 in the morning, you pick it up and there is an old lady on the other side of the line telling you ‘ Son, just tell your Grandma, that Aunty Mathilda passed away’, so in your best hangover voice you sweetly say goodbye and go on the pass on the message to your grandmother who is already up and saying the rosary for world peace and then you realise, that your grandmother doesn’t even know who Bloody Aunty Mathilda (may her soul rest in peace) is....
So you made that brutal effort to get out off bed for nothing, then
your mother comes in and your grandmother asks her , ‘Who is Mathilda’ .... and she says... ‘Aarree you don’t know Mathilda .....Anthony’s sister in law..?’.....
Oh Jeez ... here we go ... again!!