SPIRIT OF MUMBAI

               My favorite author is Jaywant Dalvi. He was one of the most handsome Marathi-author. He used to work in USIS, that might be the reason , he was always well groomed , Gillette -shaven. His short stories compilation ' Kashasathi ...Potasathi ' is a caricaturist comedy-par excellence. In one of the stories, a bearded, pseudo-social worker makes a dramatic entry into the native village of author. What follows next is best to be read in Mr. Dalvi's own tongue-in-cheek humored words.               The story starts with the arrival of a White-washed i.e. White-clothed , White-bearded, middle-aged, pseudo social worker Sokaji in a sleepy village of Maharashtra ( Konkan coast ).    He blows his own trumpet "I am Akhand Brahmachari ( celibate ), all ladies are like mothers to me."  Maharashtra is well known for social activism, social movements , social empower...

                "Aey you, Ponytail , get out. No more ponytails in my school."- bellowed Mr. Zuralh .  Mr. Zuralh was our P.T. Sir / Instructor. He spent most of the P.T. time in searching for the girls with ponytails, shouting and sending them home. We hardly got any time to play or exercise on the school-playground.              We, the girls hated Mr. Zuralh so much , that we forgot his real name and referred him by the nickname Zuralh . Zuralh means cockroach in Marathi. He had wild, bushy mustache, which was always frizzy. Whenever he spotted a pony-tailed girl his mustache-antennae would bristle. He transformed into a Wolfe, ready to pounce.               Many of us, who had short hair, tried to braid it but alas , it was impossible. We dreaded going to school , whenever we had a P.T. period. Our heads would ache , our legs would sprain, our shoulders ...