Going Home, to Santacruz, Bombay

Lathika George, the writer of today’s evocative story about losing, finding and reminiscing about the place you call home, left hers the same year I was born. Home for her was Santacruz, then a quaint English-style suburb of the city known as Bombay, where strains of jazz, Beatles, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones drifted out of open cottages and bungalows in a tight-knit community of mostly migrant residents from Portuguese Goa. Houses with names like Felstead, Felicity Park, Norman Haven, and Henleen, George’s own house. 

 

The city she describes - now called Mumbai - seems magical. One where serendipitous and unique experiences still seemed possible. Like bumping into an M.F. Hussain or a Mario Miranda at a cafe. Or visits to famous restaurants or jazz performances still had the power (and rarity?) to imprint themselves in our memories.

 

Nostalgic writing is hard. Because it's easy to slip into the sappy wistfulness of the "golden days”. A cognitive bias that comes with many names. “Rosy retrospection”. “Good old days”. “Reminiscence bump”. 

 

But George masterfully weaves in and out of Santacruz through the decades. From the air-raid sirens in 1971 during India’s war with Pakistan; to shady men with black briefcases filled with cash and “win-win” offers; to Koli wedding processions next to quaint Portuguese-style cottages with gables and porticos; and to the last of the bakeries to still home deliver a "chicken roll and a mutton puff with cake for dessert for Rs 100.”

 

George’s writing almost made me nostalgic about Delhi, the city I grew up in. 

 

This is part 1 of our series running through December Sundays. 

 

And it’s free. 

 

https://the-ken.com/story/lathika-george-santacruz-girl/