Colaba Causeway by Devanshi Mody
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Mumbai is a mad, mad mix. This is emphasized by Colaba Causeway, where apparent incompatibilities coexist. Behold the symbiosis of the elegant and the ethnic…
Emerge from the back entrance of the luxurious Taj Mahal Hotel, wander 50 metres down a quaint alleyway lined with carpet and shawl shops, each blaring “Genuine Pashmina Sold Here,” and you’re in the colourful, charming and chaotic world of Causeway.
A tapestry of chic and cher designer boutiques embellishes either side of Causeway. But the left hand pavement, from Regal cinema where Causeway begins, is arched and enclosed. Across the narrow pavement from and facing the elegant boutiques are extemporised hawkers’ stands -- a unique mishmash of genres.
I visit family in Mumbai annually and have thus sustained a long and steady romance with Causeway. Generally, I first browse around the Taj’s glamorous boutiques, just to ensure that I can’t afford anything I fancy, and promise the chap at the diamond place that I’ll be back for that necklace when I’m rich and famous.
Then I hit Colaba Causeway.
This is in an enchanted world, where the hawkers’ multifarious wares entice irresistibly and one succumbs voluntarily…Alas…
“That bead necklace is sooooooooooo beautiful, and those chunky earrings are adorable. Shall I buy red or pink? But the green ones are gorgeous too. And oh, I must have the turquoise ones…Yes, I’ll buy them all,” I exclaim excitedly, at the very first stall.
My mother suggests I restrain my enthusiasm. Too late. The hawker cashes in. Besides, he realises we aren’t from Mumbai and doesn’t fail to mention that I speak with an English accent. “Is baby from England?” he asks, (a girl shopping with her mother is called “baby”). He thereby demonstrates his discernment and tacitly conveys the rules: he can raise prices because we aren’t local. My mother whispers, “Speak in Hindi.” But my Hindi too betrays an “Angresi” accent.
Inevitably, we pay more than the locals. Ask them why the local lady got something cheaper, and they reply, convincingly and charmingly, “Quality is different.” You fall for it. Then you realise it’s the standard reply with every hawker. Each overpriced boutique owner also insists that his products are of “better quality” than his neighbours,’ even if they’re identical.
We needn’t speak for hawkers to realise we aren’t local. We dress differently. Mumbai girls don’t wear little dresses. But even wearing traditional Indian attire, hawkers detect us. Maybe we breathe differently.
But because we go to Mumbai annually, most hawkers know us personally. We’re welcomed with, “When did you get back to Mumbai? Very good to see you. Last year you bought…” A list of two million things follows -- they have extraordinary memories, these hawkers. Then they swiftly declare, “This year we will not let you go back with less.”
Establishing personal relationships with hawkers is lovely. However, it means you’re obliged to buy from your “regulars” and exclusively from them each time you visit Causeway. This might be every day, I’m ashamed to confess, as new fare constantly appears. Your regulars see you buying elsewhere, and they get very cross. Then they refuse to sell you something you actually want from them, unless you also buy twenty things you don’t want in order to pacify them and “keep good relations.” Maintaining good PR with hawkers can be a tricky business.
One generally redeems oneself by taking along one’s “firangi dost” and not suggesting that they bargain. Hawkers appreciate this complicity. One friend I took happened to be a Russian Countess. Paying more wouldn’t have crippled her financially, but would have fed the hawker for a week. So it’s justified if one’s loyalties lie with the hawkers. They work from 10 am to10 pm 365 days a year (Causeway is never closed) and depend on tourists for their livelihood.
Of course, locals shop there too. Everyone adores Causeway. Indeed, high society comes down to earth to shop on Causeway. But if you happen to run into one of the chi chi ladies on Causeway, she’ll scuttle away, embarrassed. But then, locals know an article’s exact worth, bargain ruthlessly and wouldn’t part with one paisa extra. I recall an Indian friend saying her mother would lavish Rs 100,000 on a shawl in a designer boutique, but would haggle for 50 cents with a hawker. The joys of bargaining are irresistible.
Bargaining is difficult to concentrate on when one hawker tries selling you a map, another attempts henna tattooing your arm and an ancient snake charmer distracts with a snake dance. But bargain one must -- even if things are ridiculously cheap. Indeed, dangerously so. It’s ever so easy to get carried away. An American friend kept saying, “Man, this is all so cheap.” He promptly embarked on an insane shopping spree. An hour later he wailed, “Oh man, I’ve spent $100 on junk!”
Somewhere down Causeway, past throngs of tourists, clothes, shoes, tourists, bags, jewellery, gramophones, tourists, antique furniture, tourists, kitsch art, books, trinkets, tourists, duplicate designer perfumes, tourists, tourists, tourists, the old snake charmer is re-incarnated as an urchin with a monkey showing a monkey dance. Am I dreaming? No. All is possible on this magical street.
Dream turns into nightmare as the urchin hassles me for Rs 500. Apparently, I watched his monkey dance. I protest I didn’t, I barely glanced at the monkey. He persists. I’m tenacious too. But this is time wasted. Deciding it’s easier to pay, I manage to bring the price down to Rs 50. Everything is negotiable on Causeway.
I re-enter the mesmerising world of bead chains, pearl necklaces, coloured stone bracelets, jingling bangles, exotic shoes, ethnic hair clips and…am so pleased to be a girl.
Causeway attracts girls. Therefore, it also attracts boys. My brother abhors shopping but was accompanied his Australian friend who wanted to see Colaba Causeway, which all the guidebooks recommended. The boys spent all day taking photos of pretty girls chaperoned by their mothers using the camera I had on me to take “work-related” shots.
They claimed they too were taking “work-related” shots. Having decided to set up a modelling agency, they were recruiting on Causeway, where supposedly the prettiest girls in Mumbai appeared. An afternoon of beer and “bird watching” from the legendary Leopold Café established that a pretty girl passed every 7.43 minutes.
The next time I asked if my brother wanted to come to Causeway, he was very excited. But when our mother decided to join us, he wasn’t quite so enthusiastic. Mumbai’s best sugar cane juice wallah is just off Causeway, so my brother decided to come anyway for this exquisite, thirst-quenching delicacy. Of course, one must never eat or drink on Causeway, however tempting the fruit and food may be. You only attract clinging urchins. It’s disastrous to feed them, buy their flowers or give them money. You give one money, and suddenly every urchin in Mumbai descends upon you.
An English friend was surprised when I told him not to give urchins money. He remonstrated, “D, how very ungenerous of you!” I said I knew Mumbai better than he did. He disregarded my advice and gave some kids money. Unsurprisingly, all day long, a troop of urchins pursued him à la Pied Piper, whilst they vociferously hurled at me, “Aunty very bad.”
But poverty engenders desperation. Another time, I was with a couple of English friends when someone accosted them. Suddenly, the boys were keen to pack me home. I was later told that the man sold them “intoxicants.” At least he had the decency to tell the boys, “Send the girl home first.” If peddlers of less-than-legal substances patrol Causeway, it’s because tourists flock there for cheap hostels and well, “intoxicants.”
On another occasion, when a friend and I were failing miserably to find him accommodation there, a tout materialised mysteriously and led us up dinghy, narrow staircases, which I would never have noticed, sandwiched tightly between the poshest boutiques, and took us into hostels with a view over the Gateway of India and Colaba’s splendid Colonial architecture. Once the room was chosen, the tout hovered around patiently. Ah, obviously…the tip…
But when my family heard my friend was staying on Causeway, I wasn’t allowed to meet him after 8 pm. Causeway in the sixties was a disreputable hippie haunt. It isn’t anymore. But the “stigma” sticks. They say when the shops shut, trading of another sort starts. One hears of bars where solitary women smile away at tourists. Nonsense. But it adds colour to Causeway, so people tell stories.
Nevertheless, a few years ago, when my cousin took me to a late night show at Regal Cinema and then to Leopold’s, there was scandal. We went home at 2 am. Our mothers wondered why. Nobody bought, “It was a very long film.” Even very long films don’t last from 9 pm to 2 am. We confessed.
“You went to Leopold’s??!!!” our mothers exclaimed, alarmed.
The fuss was unfathomable. Leopold’s is Causeway’s most famous “hippie era” café. It was notorious in the 60s but now is simply packed with tourists and NRIs (Non Resident Indians) listening to cheesy music and drinking overpriced, bad alcohol, which the café permits itself, being famous. Disappointingly, no legendary, dubious nocturnal activity is perceivable. Our mothers weren’t convinced.
More drama ensued with my cousin’s mum screaming that he would “never have entered Leopold’s if not for Devanshi’s Western influences!” and my mum screaming back that, “He took Devanshi to Leopold’s!” Women need something to quarrel about, and this has little connection with Leopold’s reputability or the lack of it.
By day, Leopold’s is an open-door café so packed with foreigners that you wonder if you’re still in India. But when the waiter treats your foreign friends deferentially, you know you’re in India. Hawkers do the same. They attend to tourists. You wait. Then another tourist arrives. There’s no point waiting for off-peak season. In India, all year is peak tourist season.
Fortunately, tourists buy hippie stuff. Hawkers still need customers for those dainty mirrored satins, exquisitely embroidered silks, dazzling sequined bags and shoes... I once bought so many handbags, the hawker enquired, “Baby sells them abroad?”
The more you buy, the less the discount. Hawkers realise you’ll eventually pay their price. Haggle you might, go away, return (then the prices are raised), protest but en route to the airport, you’ll go back and buy at the hawker’s price. I don’t think I’ve ever left Mumbai without dashing to Causeway for some “can’t-leave-Mumbai-without-that-saffron-scarf-style” shopping on the departure day.
Leaving Mumbai in January, I told my grandmother that I’ll return in December to see her. She replied, “I think you come to Mumbai to go to that wretched Causeway place.”
I’m ashamed to confess, there’s a little truth in this. Alas…
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