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Monday 13 October 2008

Diary

Matthew d'Ancona describes his time in India

To Chandri Villa, once a home to the Gandhian movement in Bombay, now scheduled for demolition. One of its occupants, the Hindustani singer and poet Anand Thakore, recites a beautiful poem about the villa. ‘And the very stillness of these trees carries me past an April,’ he intones. ‘Long dead, newly strewn with banyan-leaves.’ We are silent and thoughtful: the ghosts of the past swirl in the room. Then one of our mobiles fizzes into life with a text: Liverpool 3, Middlesbrough 2! Game over for the poetry, I’m afraid.

Supper at Leopold’s on Colaba Causeway, where I eat the best fish curry I have ever tasted. This is the old gangster hang-out made famous by Gregory Roberts in his autobiographical novel Shantaram, and it hovers now, in the true spirit of Mumbai, between edgy authenticity and the make-believe of a film set. Splendidly, there is a tiny corner of the café set aside with the scornful sign: ‘This is for non-smokers’. Then it’s back to the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, which is the loveliest hotel I have ever stayed in. Late coffee by the pool with Adrian Gill and Nicola Formby, who explain the wonders and hazards of street food. I had not realised that Adrian is the model for the scary restaurant critic, Anton Ego, in Ratatouille. Excellent: this will give me Pixar cred with my young sons.

I do my bit on Sunday, in a session moderated by star broadcaster Nikki Bedi (nicknamed the ‘glocal girl’ because of her Anglo-Indian heritage). There’s a high level of political knowledge in the audience. Thatcher, Blair, Brown: these are names that resonate in the world’s largest democracy. So too, I’m delighted to discover, does the masthead of The Spectator, and it is a privilege to meet several long-term subscribers to the magazine, Mumbaikers who want to know more about Taki, Rod Liddle and Tamzin Lightwater. Before the session Nikki threatens to invite all the contributors to sum up their lives in six words. Luckily, we run out of time before she gets to ask me. (I was going to suggest as my six-word summation: ‘Can You Repeat the Question, Please?’)

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