Princess Street

The day-long stumble from Crawford Market to Zhaveri Bazaar spat us onto the Marine Lines downslope. B. and I were both thirsty, and my first thought was: a beer with Rashid Irani. Little did I realize I had missed the end of an era.

I'd been introduced to the Braebourne by Santosh, an aspiring filmmaker who saw Rashid as his muse and Princess Street as his museum. The way the narrow slice of morning light casts onto the stacked wooden balconies. The sheer density of aspiration crammed into the weekly rented rooms by emigrants from Bihar, Arunachal, or, as in his case, Orissa.

Did I notice, he asked, that the mirrors were positioned so that the man behind the cashbox could see every table? Did I see the various injunctions posted on the wall, always in incongruous pairs (No spitting/Treat your wife nicely)?

Such was the basic grammar of the Irani hotel, to which the food (kheema pav, khari biscuit) was just a reassuring adornment. In this case, beer was sold from a pavement-fronting counter over which presided a slightly crumpled man with three teeth and an encyclopedic knowledge of world cinema.

"Rashid's gone for dry cleaning," said the owner. The place, all old wood and San Miguel murals, is being transformed into a bakery. Good luck to them.

We slid into Pathakwadi where another winking proprietor beckoned. Taj Wines, "the little location with the big reputation," according to its Goan neighbor. Fully stocked with eagle decals and Zarathurstra portraits, the shelves ran the gamut from desi daru to your finer domestic scotches. Those Parsis are a tenacious bunch — don't count them out just yet.

Thanks and kudos to parsikhabar.net for outranking DNA on Google.