Essay: Hugging the Shore 

Cherian Philipose shares an essay about his hometown, Mumbai and specifically about the three coastal suburbs that have had a profound emotional impact on him. 

I started life in a second-floor flat in Mahim. It was a typical Bombay flat, with a drawing room, two bedrooms, one kitchen, a toilet and a balcony. The furniture was plain and functional; it was our middle-class Indian way. Our building had four floors, and people from all over India lived in these flats. There were Maharasthtrians, Gujaratis, Malayalis, Punjabis and Goans. Bombay, as its residents never fail to remind you, is cosmopolitan and liberal, and Mahim, with its different communities living together, was our city in microcosm. 

Mahim Market was where many of us shopped. The fish market was the most memorable section. My mother used to take me there as a child. It was very crowded, dirty, and the smell was overpowering. Koli women sat there, on their haunches, selling fish. They wore gold earrings and jasmine in their hair with their bright, patterned saris tucked between their legs, Maharashtrian style. They displayed pomfret and mackerel in front of them. With knives, they parted the gills of the fish to show you how fresh the fish were. ‘Taaza aahe’ they would say with a smile. What was more important to me about Mahim, however, was not the lively market but the school. After I finished kindergarten, my parents enrolled me in The Bombay Scottish School on Mahim Bay. It was a fine location, and the breeze from the Arabian Sea provided some relief from the heat.