Jay Prakash Road

The long-anticipated renovation of Khar station (west) is finally complete and it's still a shithole. The approach to the ticket office as well as the long walk to the foot-over bridge remain pocked and rutted, and after a drizzle navigable only by hanging onto neighboring fences and trees. None of this deters, of couse, the many families of plaster-pourers from turning out scores of Ganpatis or Durga Matas (season depending) amid their far-flung domestic detritus.

Khar station (east), on the other hand, is in bloom.

But, you may protest, there's no such thing. Not at the end of platform no. 4, anyway. Only if you take the pedestrian path over the tracks will you land in a zone alternately described as Naupada, Nirmal Nagar, or, as it's home to my school, Kherwadi. I'll be sure to consult Mr. and Mrs. Kher on the precise designation.

Opposite the staircase down is a Chinese fast food stand ("specializing in fish") and the first Rs. 2 cane juice stands. The kids who run it are affable but quiet. Slightly further up the road and across is the second stand, more like a table. This guy is more of a hawker: "thanda-meetha!" he cries at passers-by into your ear. His claims notwithstanding, the juice is both less cold and less sweet than the other guy's, if a touch creamier. He knocks excess foam off with his finger. Next to him a couple squat on a platform piled with printed sheets. Next to them is the pièce de résistance, also meetha but decidedly on the garam side.

Jalebi-making resembles cooking less than legerdemain. Observe: an innocent-looking bag of dough. I wave my hands and, poof, we have these circular enigmae bubbling in the cauldron below. They are every bit the color of crispy dough. Flip them – here it's less rabbits from hats than card tricks – and, presto change-o, they disappear under the fry-basket but in a separate tub, a mystery liquid. Hold that newspaper out in front of you, young man, and voilà, three perfect specimens, glowing orange like glass.

Some part of us knows this confection unmistakably to be candy.

In fact the wala ladled the jalebis onto his scale to confirm I'd be getting my 100 grams' (Rs. 5) worth. But like all good magicians he knew in advance. They were hot. They were sweet. And unlike the spiral jalebis you often see idling on counters, insectoid in their fragility, these were braided into a perfect balance of density and delicacy.

I desperately wanted him to repeat the trick but with the story from Maximum City lodged firmly in my head – you know, the one about the sweetmeat interrogation procedure – I resolved to take it slow. Perhaps next time he will let slip his secret. Or perhaps the confectioner, like a conjurer, has already disappeared into the station night.

Tulsi Pipe Road

Under the over, as it were. Those fortunate enough to be endowed with four wheels are cruising past Phoenix High Street and a seemingly endless succession of Times Now advertisements. The media franchises have all pissed on their respective trees close to where they stash their employees. The building names are all laughably recherché: Marathon Innova, Peninsula, and the Times' own Brady Glady's Plaza.

One flight down, the Chinese fast food stall has no name at all, just a couple of numbers and a "CONTACT: MILIND" advisory. "Sri Ganesh Prasanna," inside double shloka-sticks, tops the menu – but mistaking that for a name would be like calling a store "Pull" because it's written on the door. Though there's a Sanmica bench and table set up on the raised pavement, and something like a diner counter projecting from the wall, I follow standard procedure, pull up a plastic stool, and start eyeing the ingredients.

The ad agencies and lad mags have spawned a sort of printing ghetto down here in the former Sun Industrial Estate. That's what dragged me down here, as well as the peons (when will this word go the way of "coolies"?) swarming street level with finished color photocopy jobs. Perhaps in the rosy flush of 1000-rupee notes, the free time, the glorious reemergent sun they feel they can blow 13 bucks on a half-order of hakka noodles or 16 on (the oxymoronic) Schezwan hakka noodles.

A lot of carrot and cabbage, not a lot of scallion, and a splotch of hot sauce. The chicken cubes had been deep-fried earlier and tossed on top like croutons. It was hot, and a plateful was more than I could eat – I ate it anyway – and I walked back to Lower Parel station so giddy that I almost got on the wrong platform. Hmm... K. Rustom's, anybody?