A cultural czarina on growing up as a free spirit in a free Bombay

My earliest memories of growing up in Mumbai are about splashing in the rain and playing hide-and-seek with the children of the neighbourhood and the street urchins. Mumbai was Bombay then. And when I would travel with my parents to less developed places in India, I felt very important because I lived in this beautiful, clean and gracious city. Even when I went to New York to study I felt proud to say that I was from Bombay. As I do even today. But my heart is heavy today because so much of what I cherished about Bombay is being abandoned by Mumbai.

I grew up in a very conservative Muslim home but my parents encouraged us to study, read books, understand the world and respect human life and dignity. My father was deeply committed to secularism and our home was a hub for the intellectuals of the day. But I wore long braids and churidar kurtas till I went to college and rebelled against these traditions-only to recover them years later, when I lived in America and grew nostalgic for home and country.

I studied Fine Arts at the Sir JJ School of Art and hung out at the St Xavier’s College canteen with friends. As students, we were deeply interested in theatre, poetry readings, musical concerts and movies. We never thought of ourselves as Hindu or Muslim or Christian though, of course, we were aware of each other’s identity. We were just friends.

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