My interest in Marathi theatre stopeed just when it should have grown more... i.e., with my job I started regularly coming to Bombay and could have watched more plays than I did in Dombivli, but somehow, about the same time, CHHABILDAS movement stopped and the commercial plays took over! "All the Best", the so-called "record-maker" play and its likes flooded the theatre market. One reason for these "Populist" plays was also the increase in audience for Marathi theatre; but by now, after chhabildas, the parellel-theatre or Experimental theatre movement has failed to reconcile itself with the changing times.I have missed many-many good experimental plays just because either the place or the time was inconvenient for me. But frankly, I was not "Bitten by the theatre bug"!

from a history of colonialism to a hysteria of consumerism, from Sashtee (the historical name of the main island of Bombay) and Bombaim (Portugese pronounciation) to Mumbai, the city has survived every change.
Ironically, most of the pics of Mumbai, found on the web, come from Euro-american travellers and not by Bombayites. This irony leads to a "typecast" of Bombay with buildings like the indo-saracenic Gateway of India, the victorian-gothic Victoria Terminus (now Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus), or the moderene buildings in Nariman point... Then there are strrets with sellers, beggars, and charmers, devotees and priests; all exotic!
Beyond this exotica, Bombay lives.

To be continued...

--- ALL the next posts are going to be as crazy as I am!
Further turns may come when I meet like-minded people in already existing groups like PUKAR in Mumbai, or SARAI in Delhi.