Like migrating birds they come in December and many stay till January and you immediately remember what George Mikes said so many years ago in his essay, ‘How to Avoid Travelling’: if your purpose of travelling is meeting friends, stay home in London in the summer because the world will come calling.Bombay sure feels that way in December. All the Indians around the world come calling and to judge from the latest tourism figures, so do a growing tribe of India lovers. And if you are a India lover how can you not come to Bombay? And they want to do all the things we used to do which we were in school or college; go to restaurants that have now fallen off the map, eat dosas on the road outside school and damn the consequences, meet friends from school or college for all night talk sessions — which inevitably start with beer and end with coffee and brandy — crib about the state of the roads, the increase in pollution, the increased noise level and always end the sentence by saying but of course I love home. Then you ask, a little surprised: After 20 years in the hurly-burly of New York, you still call Bombay home?They say home is home. Home is where the heart is. They want to invariably eat pani puri and Bombay bhel and when you tell them that eating at Swati may be safer; they come with you and they of course talk about the big, big advantage of living in India.You can ring the bell of anyone you know and you will get treated at least to a cup of tea, possibly a meal. We have no social life in America, they whine. We are working all the time and we spend our weekends recovering from the week’s excesses. Here it is so informal. Everyone is willing to spend an hour with you in India when you call, and break bread with you even if it is only a pizza. But do you think Preity Zinta will call me over for a meal if I call? And not wanting to disappoint him, you say that I dunno may be she will call you, but as far as I go there is no real possibility. But just in case she is not free this evening, let us go and see Salaam Namaste tonight at INOX for the 1 am show and I suspect that it’s better than the real thing.When you walk out of the theatre at three in the morning, having thoroughly enjoyed the film and tell your friend let’s walk home, it’s not too far — he is amazed. Wow, walking on the roads at three at night — not a worry in the world! Salaam, Bombay!
