Night out in Mumbai
Trip Start
Sep 05, 2008
1
21
68
Trip End
Ongoing
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Mumbai (Bombay),
India
Sunday, September 28, 2008
We walked down the shore for about 2.5km, then went inland. We went to a restaurant called Kyhber, an excellent meal and drinks came to 2300rupees, around £27.50. Then we walked down to the Gateway to India area and entered a bar by the name of Henry Thams. It was modern, well done out and the service was fantastic. Catherine's mojito cost 500 rupees (£8.00), I had a beer. We sat at the bar and chatted. As we got to the end of our drinks Catherine nipped off to the loo, and I said I'd collect the bill. A Sikh man of about 60 years came in and stood next to me at the bar. He spoke to the bar staff in excellent English, with only a hint of an Indian accent. It was obvious that he was very familiar with them. He told them he was only there to get some plastic glasses; they asked if he wanted a whisky and coke and he agreed.
Chowpatty Beach
He kept teasing them, vaguely insulting the time they took to do anything, or the way they did everything. I found his demeanour amusing, and nodded to him when he looked over at me, sitting next to him."What brings you to this neck of the woods?" he asked. I explained that we were travelling around India. "Is that an Ozzy accent I hear?" he asked. I told him it was an English accent. "Good man!" he said, sitting himself down on Catherine's stool and beginning to chat. Catherine returned, and he took her hand and kissed it, introducing himself as Jaspal Dugal.
We chatted for a while, and it was clear that he was a man of some wealth. He insisted that he gave us a guided tour of the bar, which is owned by a good friend of his. He walked us around the dining area upstairs and into the "private dining room". The staff, standing at every corner, nodded and greeted him and didn't stop him from wandering where he liked. There wasn't a great deal to see there, it was just walking around a restaurant really.
He explained that he was "slumming it" later that evening, that he was going to meet some friends, and together they would head to the Muslim district of Mumbai. It was Ramadam, and the streets were packed every night during the feast. They were going to eat "street food", and Jaspal and his friends wanted some plastic cups to take with them so they didn't have to drink out of the cups provided. This is why he came to Henry Thams.
He bought us some drinks and we continued to chat.
Out in the Muslim District at 1am
His friends were waiting for him across the road, in the Royal Bombay Yacht Club. He drank up, and insisted we accompany him to meet them.The Royal Bombay Yacht Club is a bit of an institution in Mumbai. A throwback to the empire, it's an large colonial building, and a members-only establishment. We knew that it was literally across the road from the bar we were in, so agreed to join him. It's not a place that tourists get to see from the inside.
Dark wood panelling covered every wall, the long corridors were paved with marble, and numerous maritime relics scattered around the place. Unfortunately photography is forbidden. Considering the size of the building the bar was a small room, about 20 metres by 10, with portholes for windows. We were keen to see inside it, but mortified with embarrassment when it came to meeting Jaspal's friends.
He introduced us one at a time to them, and they were all surprisingly welcoming. Farrid Currim was a slightly portly man of about 40, with a pencil moustache. There was a small Indian lady, about five feet tall, whose name we didn't catch, and a man in his fifties, of Indian origin, with quite pale skin and hair to his shoulders, dressed in jeans and a flower print shirt, with the top three or four buttons undone and a medallion on a gold chain. His clothing stood out as we hadn't seen anyone dressed like that, in an 80's western style, since we'd been in India. In fact, I don't think we'd seen anyone dressed like that full stop, at least not for 20 or so years.
Sitting down for a feed
His improbably un-Indian name was Gary Lawyer. We'd never seen a picture of him nor heard of him, but as Catherine said afterwards, he looked famous. There was also a 30 year old white American guy from Chicago, called David Wright.Everyone was incredibly pleasant, and we felt at ease in their company. They bought us drinks, and chatted at length about what they did, what we did, different places we'd each travelled to, and so on. It turned out that Farrid Currim was a Bollywood actor, and Gary Lawyer is a big, big name in the Indian music scene. We've googled them since, and they're not lying.
Drinking up time came, and they asked and asked us again if we'd join them in the Muslim quarter for their evening's eating. We'd had a meal not long before, but we were having great fun and they painted the whole thing as a real experience, so we agreed.
Jaspal's driver pulled up in a Toyota people-carrier and we all piled in. Jaspal announced that he had to go to his club to sort something out first. Wow. We got to "his club" in the middle of Mumbai, through gates, up a long tree-line driveway and surrounded by gardens and tennis courts. It was also built in a Colonial style and went on for miles. He showed us around the place briefly then disappeared for a few minutes. We chatted with the others.
Back in the people carrier and to the Muslim area. It was packed. People everywhere. The narrow lanes were divided into two streams of people, each going opposite directions.
Unhealthy dessert
We got to the restaurant we were headed to and all sat down on the only table outside. We "feasted" on the "delicacies" of goat liver, goat kidney and, I'm afraid to say, goat brain. Oh, and a bit of the old goat testicle. Each dish was prepared with different sauces and each one, sad to say, tasted great. The crowd we were with had brought alcohol hand sprays to disinfect themselves before and after they ate everything. They were serious about not trusting the hygiene of the place.After that we went to the next restaurant where we ate dessert. It was really just a thick pancake, deep fried. It was so oily that you got a twinge of chest pain on swallowing. I'd say definitely the least healthy thing we've ever eaten. We were already full to the neck, but they were so keen that we tried the foods they wanted to show us that we felt we had to force some down. A few of the waiters came over looking shy and embarrassed, and asked if they could meet Gary Lawyer.
Afterwards we went to a club, Polly Esthers, getting there for about 1.30am. Again, Jaspal greeted the bouncers and we all walked in, no need to pay the 750 rupees entrance fee. It was full of young Indian couples and groups of lads. Everyone was having a great time, and there didn't seem to be any of the posing and flossing that we'd expected to see. After a while the DJ announced that it was time to end the night, and threw on, of all songs, "Summer of '69" by Bryan Adams! The place went mental! Everyone in there, everyone, was singing every word out loud. Couples sang it to each other, and groups of lads stood in a circle all looking at each other, singing out loud. It was weird, but very funny.
We eventually left the club and got a lift back with Jaspal's driver to the CST area where we were staying. There were rats the size of small cats every three or four metres. A man was asleep on a stool outside the door of the hotel. He woke when we approached, and unlocked the door to the hotel. Inside, four young lads slept crammed together on the floor of the tiny reception area, all wearing the hotel uniform. They awoke immediately, and one of them jumped into the lift to take us to our floor. They wouldn't hear our apologies for waking them
Comments
Very Jammy
jammy my hons very jammy,. how cool was that, sounds like the kind of thing Joseph would do. i am very impressed with you guys for going with jasper, i think i would have been too worried he was mob or somting! xx
Agreed
Reading a book at the mo about the Mumbai mafia, which didn't help. Thought several times that he might well have been a crime overlord, but what would he want with us? Went with it, it all turned out well.