There used to be
A newspaper vendor
Sitting on the pavement
On Colaba Causeway
From whom I used to buy
The Evening News of India
For my father
Making sure to finish
Busybee’s Round and About
While walking home
He disappeared for weeks, once
And on his return I quizzed him
Kahaan gaye the aap?
He said, muluk me gaya tha, baba
_Where was that?
_Uttar Pradesh ki Meerut ke paas
Ek chota sa gaon
Aur gaon ka naam?
Rampur
That was possibly
My first encounter with migrants
But when I started asking
I found that
The Kolhapuri _chappal-_maker
Near Regal cinema
Was actually from Kolhapur
The shoe-shine boys at Churchgate station
Where Fr Netto used to send us
If our faces weren’t reflected in our shoes
Were from Dhule, Amalner, Erandol. Pachore
The taxi drivers with names like Talwandi and Gill
Were from villages of those names in Punjab
The Irani pa_o-seller was
Of course from Iran
But more recently
Had come from Valsad
Where was that?
_Gujarat ma, dikra
Vegetable and Fruit sellers were from
Unheard-of villages in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh
A veritable geography lesson on the streets
The smuggled TDK and Sony cassette sellers
On the pavements of Flora Fountain
Were all from Kerala
They were the hardest bargainers of them all
But peppering their Tamil-Malayalam with
Mone this and Mone that
Would make me feel
That what I had bought
Was a steal
The Matunga-wala
Who cycled from Matunga
With particularly Tamil goodies
Arisi appalam and kaara boondi
Was of course Tamil
It seemed to me then that
Everyone in Bombay
(With the possible exception
Of Bal Thackeray)
Was a migrant
Including me