The "Usual" and the "Unusual"

It's around 2:00 p.m as I walk in to my "usual" restaurant, in Chembur, for lunch. One of those "Udipi" type, pure veg restaurants that serve good food at affordable prices and fast. Today the place is overflowing, customers standing in a queue, hoping to get a vacant table. Now THIS is unusual, not that the place does not do good business, but just that usually, while most tables are occupied, one can always hope to find at least one vacant table. Not today.

There seems to be a crowd of wedding goers - or, more accurately, wedding returnees. Unusual. One would have thought that guests who attended a wedding would have had lunch at the wedding hall itself, no? Even more unusual, I even see the bride and the groom having lunch here. She, sitting demurely, draped in a rather stiff green silk saree. He, clearly hot and sweating, looking not very gruntled. Both of them, sitting side by side, not talking to each other but volubly talking all the same, to surrounding friends, well wishers, family. The groom's friends seem to be the quieter lot, the bride's group seem to be having all the fun, cracking jokes and laughing loudly, mouths covered behind folded fists and handkerchiefs.

A table gets partly vacant - which suits me just fine. An elderly gentleman, rather unkempt, unshaved and scruffy looking is the lone occupant. I ask him whether I can sit at the table. He is busy having his lunch, does not even bother to look up, let alone reply. So I sit down, anyway, and wait for the waiter. Meanwhile, the e.g across the table is tucking away into his meal, idli-vada-sambhar, eating rather sloppily. I can't bear to see this, so look around. The bride & groom are still not (yet) talking to each other, each busily ignoring the other while speaking to their respective groups. The "party" is almost over, several tables all getting cleared at once. 

At another table is a sight, unusual. A young mother, perhaps 26, with a baby girl, perhaps just over 1 year. No one else. Now, that's unusual. Where's the dad, I wonder? Perhaps he's gone to wash his hands? But no, I see no sign of the man. The baby is sitting atop the table, the mother looks lost in some private thoughts as she ignores the playing child. A waiter, standing behind the mother is making funny faces at the baby who is happily gurgling away at him. Amid the hustle-bustle of the mad rush hour, a moment of joy, an island of innocence. I smile, inwardly, feeling that wee bit happier than before.

My waiter has arrived and I am about to order, when the gent at my table jumps in with his order - "Ek plate gajar halwa" he says, brusquely, spittle spraying through his dentures. I order mine. The waiter goes. I look around again.

Another table, a fairly common sight - usual - in Mumbai. A young couple, looking like college going kids, sitting side by side, sharing an ice cream, two spoons. He is feeding her, she is (also) feeding herself. Lost in whispered conversations. She looks pre-occupied, he is giggling, nervously. Love, Mumbai style, I guess - or, perhaps, I should rephrase that, "Love, Harbour line style"? (C'mon, Western liners, go swagger!)

My waiter is back, with my order and the gajar halwa - I take my time, while the g.h is swallowed in three quick gulps. The old man reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wad of notes (no wallet) and pays the waiter. By some odd coincidence, his bill worked out to an exact Rs.100/- I see, so a hundred he pays. The waiter collects the cash and goes off. The old man, who, I expected would have got up and gone, keeps the wad of notes back in his trouser pocket, reaches into the other trouser pocket, takes out a rather gaudy coloured kerchief, loudly honks into it clearing his nose unabashedly and places the dirty rag back into the pocket. I'm quite "Yuck"ed by all this and am waiting to see the last of him.

His hand now comes out, minus that offensive kerchief, but holding another wad of notes, small denominations - he painstakingly sorts them out, unfolding them one by one, searches for and finds a fiver, places that on the small platter of saunf, reaches again into his shirt pocket, takes out some coins, and places a Rs.2 coin, collects his tattered brief case, and has - finally - gone. Leaving behind a tip of seven rupees. I am actually surprised - but, a few seconds later, when the waiter came, I could see that he was even more surprised than I. The look on his face gave him away, seeing a tip where he apparently expected none. 

Mumbai still does that, even to the most jaded of cynics. Hits you, right between the eyes, with little stories of optimism. Islands of dreams inside a sea of bleakness.