Chapter Fifteen
The City of my Dreams
I arrived in Bombay dressed in my new ‘saree’. As we travelled from the city centre where we had disembarked, to the suburbs where Vallyettan lived, I can’t say that I was very impressed. My first feel of the suburb Borivali was that it was hardly developed and looked as rustic as the place I had left. There were no buses or motorized vehicles, just a plethora of horse carriages. We took a ride on one of these to New Colony where Vallyettan lived in a house rented from a private company.
The house, or O1 as we later started to call it, was small. The main door opened inwards on to a large balcony, separated from the garden by wire mesh which connected the waist-high wall to the ceiling. This was used as a sitting area or a hall and it diverged into a bedroom and a kitchen. Both these rooms opened out into a narrow verandah at the back of the house where the bathroom and the toilet were located. The house had a small backyard with a few trees.
At that time there was a cluster of small, independent houses in New Colony, mud paths between them amid lots of vegetation. Adjoining this colony were acres of mango orchards extending into the distance. The New India Assurance company originally owned the colony and the lands, but these were taken over by the newly formed Life Insurance Corporation of India or the LIC in 1956. Within a few years this colony developed into what is today known as Jeevan Bima Nagar. Many years later, in 1968 the local municipality built the Bhagwati hospital and development got a major fillip. It was Morarji Desai, then a Minister who would go on to become India’s Prime Minister one day, who laid the foundation stone of this hospital.
I reached Bombay in December 1956 and brought in the new year here. I was a few months short of turning 20. Being in a hurry to get a job, I enrolled in a local typing institute to practise my typing, while I simultaneously registered my name in the government employment exchange. The employee who registered me was a Malayalee woman called Thankamma who turned out to be a Godsend. Thanks to Thankamma’s evident sense of loyalty to fellow Malayalees, I knew my name would be recommended, if there was a vacancy announced in a government office. At the time, it felt good to know someone with any kind of influence.
Around the same time, a relative referred me to a job in Nagri Mining Company, a private firm where I was offered a handsome salary of Rs 80/- per month. Since I had a place to stay and food to eat, I could easily send Amma Rs 30/- from my salary. After I got my second month’s salary, I insisted on sending this amount to Amma. Vallyettan tried to dissuade me, pointing out that there was no hurry and that Kochettan was anyway sending money home. However, I wanted to savour the pleasure of knowing that I was contributing to the family’s income; that my money would make Amma feel more secure and bring her joy. I knew that I could experience this pleasure only when Amma actually physically held the money that I had sent and so I persisted till Vallyettan conceded to my request.
My early days in Bombay followed a set routine. Every morning, I would leave home in the one saree that I had and head out on foot towards Borivali station. I was always excited to board the train. The train had a ladies’ compartment and I would rush in to take a seat facing the direction the train was moving in. Of course, it was the window seat that I was after. The journey to work always felt like I was going on a picnic. No more than 20 ladies boarded the train at Borivali and soon we got to know each other well. At subsequent stations, others would rush to where I was seated, knowing that I would have saved them some space to sit. I loved the fact that I could find people to converse with in Malayalam because I was still scared to make mistakes when speaking in English or Hindi. I was extremely naive back then and had no emotional or social guards in place. With time and experience I learnt to be more prudent in sharing information with others. It seemed to me like I could easily draw people to me, but I never really needed company. I knew that even if there was no one to talk to, I would have been content to look out of the window and hum to myself. The journeys were fun and my destination Churchgate, which was the last station, always seemed to arrive too soon.
At the office, I would type quickly and turn my work in without any delay. There were no well-meaning colleagues back then to prevent me from setting the bar too high at the work place. Later, I would go on to meet co-workers who would tell me that my working too hard could set unnecessarily high expectations from all of them. For me this was simply a huge opportunity to better my typing speed. I had a typing speed of 50 wpm or words per minute. At my typing classes, all we would get was a thirty-minute slot at the typewriter and that was all the practice I could get. At work however, I had the luxury of having a typewriter solely for my use and seeing this as an opportunity to hone my typing skills, I was always happy to do any work that came my way.
Most women in my office came dressed in a ‘saree’, the traditional Indian attire for women except for two ladies, an Anglo-Indian and a Parsi who would wear frocks or other western wear. They were both extroverts and fun-loving. My Parsi colleague would often creep up on me and try to tickle my exposed midriff. She was much older than me and was trying to get me, the timid newcomer, to loosen up. My reticence was largely due to my reluctance to converse in languages other than Malayalam and so I would stay glued to my seat as much as I could. Nevertheless, I tried to be pleasant, friendly and would smile and politely reply in whichever language I was addressed. I never complained about anything and took great care to ensure that I should never be the cause for complaint either as I greatly valued the eighty rupees that this job paid. Of course, I had to work long hours and travel a long distance.
Office hours were from ten to six, and I reached home very late after work. A fifteen-minute walk from the workplace to Churchgate station meant that I caught the six-thirty train which reached Borivali at eight o’clock. By the time I got home after a twenty-minute walk from the station, Vallyettan and Chettathi would have fed Jaya, eaten their meals and retired to their room. Washing up the kitchen would be left for me. I would serve myself dinner and eat alone. I didn’t like this situation, but it could not mar the happiness of earning money and sending it home. I would wash the vessels, clean up, spread my mat and settle down for the night in the kitchen itself. Except for this cloud in my sky, my life seemed perfect. Travelling by train was fun, work was fun, and sending money to Amma home was the most gratifying part of it all.