The imposing grandeur of the BMC building gives Aaram that perfect setting.
R: You want a cigarette?
S: Yeah, I'll get the chai. Dude what do u want?
rM: well, I'm starving. will grab a bite with the tea i guess.
Sitting with the tea glass ensconced in one hand, bag balanced precariously on the lap to avoid the dirt and the vada pao in the other hand. Smoke drifts around me from both sides as S,R puff away. Cars whiz past, the people as always seem to be in a hurry.
S(To R): Are you sure, you wanna take a break after your third year in college?
R: Most definitely. 2 years minimum.
rM: (sipping his tea) work in villages and travel?
R: Yeah.
S: International relations either in JNU or some other good college. All the good international schools requite 12+4 so can't even apply. What do you wanna do?
rM: Do masters in economics, which field i still do not know but somehow get an internship with the World Bank. Try and get placed in Africa and work there, you know.
R: Its going to be so cool after 5 years, to see where each of us have gone in our lives and whether have we achieved what we have wanted to achieve. Imagine meeting each other after 5 years flying from different parts of the world.
S: Yes, i wanna achieve something in life you know. Like progress. I see so many people who after college are still leading the same kind of life and haven't moved a step up at all.
rM: That's rather true actually. (To R) We might meet at Aaram after 5 years flying from different parts of the world or catch a local from Bhayender and meet here because we might not be able to afford some place else. After all what do we have as an option to fall back on unlike lets say the engineers
R: We have a wider stream and more broad scope of thinking.
S: But still they have a safety net. We don't make it we have just withered away our lives then.
rM: DO you feel scared about your future too? All the dreams and aspirations not getting fulfilled?
S: It has me shit scared dude. Keep thinking of it all the time.
R gets on the phone with 'DQ' and N drops in for a smoke and chai as well. The conversation moves to Copenhagen Climate Summit, the risk of an alarmist agenda, risk to millions of poor across the globe, laughing at north korea to making fun of inane Bollywood potboilers giving praise where due (read Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi, Gulal).
All along 4 guys are sitting on the steps of Capitol cinema, a bygone 'lieu de réunion' of lovers of B grade sleazy Hindi movies, now its paan stained doors and perpetually shut grills signifying an era lost in sands of time . The place is surrounded by a few potted plants full of cigarette butts, a small paan shop which would have sold these butts in their original premium Marlboro casing. Next to it, is an obscure shop. A stout man wearing a tattered Blue uniform with a haircap and no gloves serves the humble offerings in this dilapidated shack. Nothing conspicuous about this place and it would be normal to miss it for the trendier Big Mac a stone throw away from this shack except for this small detail. This is "Aaram", established in 1939, it has been a source of gastronomic pleasure for generations of hungry Bombayites looking for a mouth watering, filling meal, easy on their generally thin pockets which has been under attack from perennially rising prices and general 'administrative expenses' which needs to rendered in a city like Bombay to sustain.
Today with a vada pao priced at 8 rs and a small glass of chai priced at 6 rs, many would consider it to be an expensive proposition. Even then, with relatively high prices, competition from Big brothers and clowns from across the Atlantic and not to mention the clean and corporatized Vada pao chains like 'Jumbo King' promising hygienic snack to people drinking e coli infested BMC water, breathing in filthy air with dangerously high levels of poisonous gases, it still has its takers.And if looks are anything to go by, the popularity surely doesn't seem to be taking a hit.
Maybe it has got to do with the fact that in face of all the cleanliness and corporatization of a humble snack, it has still maintained its fare as mouth smacking delicious as ever. That soft filling of steaming hot potato dumpling, just that touch of onions to garnish the snack and of course the red chili powder to fire your throat and make your eyes water is a combination which any foodie or a simpleton would find hard to resist. It is a pure delight which satiates the very soul of that gastronomic urge impelling you to dig into something delicious which would send your taste buds to ecstasy and at the same time wouldn't pinch your conscience for your profligate spending habits.
This brings me to the all important constituent of the 'Aaram expereince'. Prey, if you have not sipped on to this heavenly liquid at Aaram, really what have you been doing at Xavier's? To sip on to this dark brown hot sweet liquid with a rather strong 'tadka' of elaichi is to get elevated in a zone of bliss. A zone in which its hard to fathom whether your taste buds are regaling in joy of that moment of bliss or urging you to go on and sip more of it in an uncontrollable desire to experience the feeling of being united mind, body and soul with that feeling of extreme satisfaction which comes but rarely in the harried life of a man.
The act of unity though is not replete without the conversations to be had at those steps. The chili of the vada pao burns your throat. Hot tea over that gives it a tingling sensation as you watch people and life whiz by. Cars honking, BEST ferrying disgruntled and people lost in their thoughts across, bystanders smoking, or checking out the newspapers at the stall opposite on the pavement, others whizzing past busy on their phones, beggars accost us occasionally, at other times we are left all by ourselves.
The place offers anonymity, an anonymity that has lead to some of the best discussions being held there be it on politics, to the existing social structures, the education which often leads to derision of our principal(much to my happiness), new resolves being made in life, fears being spoken of, soft corners for people being discussed, analyzed and then dissected, random jokes being cracked on each other which by no means conform to standards of decency and would be considered pretty blasphemous in other public places. Quite literally everything has been discussed under the sun in the safe confines of anonymity, unperturbed by the clock ticking by under the imposing magnificence of the BMC headquarters flanked by the grand Gothic architecture of VT building. This sight is a marvel to behold and can make any man surrender to the feeling of living that very moment of existentialism, which is how life is meant to be lived.
Yes, Aaram and its surrounding confines is a humble abode indeed. But none other place comes to my mind when i think of a place which i will truly remember as i leave the security of four walls of this college. This would be a place which reflected our angst against the injustices which in all our glory of youth we wanted to fight. These walls would be privy to the deepest secrets of our heart which we bared. This place would be the one which mirrored our aspirations to achieve something. Above all this would be place which years down the line we would remember as the one where many a laughs were shared over vada pao and chai with an air of smoke perpetually hanging around. For all of us Aaram has ceased to be just a shop, to quote a line used in Xavier's, "its a way of life". A true proletariat connoisseurs haven which has left an impregnable mark in our lives for a long long time to come.
In respect of this institution, i bow, in gratitude...
Hot afternoons transcend into magical evenings with life in motion. A view of VT from Aaram.
