SPIRIT OF MUMBAI

                                                                        " It was the famous Konkan monsoon, Nature's Fury .... pouring heavily and making people sick. She had become reed thin as she was recovering from a chronic fever, She had hardly eaten anything since a week. My  mother asked her to join us children, having our Shravani lunch. She declined, majorly out of modesty and mostly cause she had lost appetite. My mother sensed her two pronged reluctance and served her freshly cooked, Varan-Bhaat ( plain Dal without any spice - Rice ) and Lemon pickle on a dewy fresh Banana leaf. The sight and aroma of wafting Varan-Bhaat accompanied by sweet-sour-spicy Lemon pickle was enticing in that splashing cold, rainy atmosphere. She took first morsel timidly, chewed it hesitantly and looked ...

               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...