Mumbai diaries: Some discomfort in life is good

Dear friends,

I am sorely jet lagged from my 34-hour trip back to the US from India, but still wide awake to an epiphany that hit me inside the most unlikely of places in Mumbai—a minuscule 4 X 6 square foot shower-stall-of-a-dressing room of my tailor, Vijaybhai (bhai being brother in Hindi).

That morning—just last Saturday, hard to believe—I stopped by to pick up the first batch of sari blouses from Vijaybhai at his Stitch in Time boutique.  Note, the name Stitch in Time, while clever and fancy, was a modest, and one would say even a bit run down crowded space of 200 square feet that incidentally also doubled as the home of Vijaybhai and his brother, Jagadishbhai and his family. It included one 100 square feet space of a tailoring room as soon as you entered it, its marble floors doubling as a dining table where the tailors would sit and eat a simple meal of dal and rice out of sparkling steel plates; another adjacent tailoring room smaller in size at maybe 75 square feet; and a tiny alley kitchen tucked horizontally at the end of the living space. To top it off, a little parapet jutting outside the front of the boutique featured a plush black revolving leather chair for their black and white cat, Ms. Peggy. This type of residence in India is commonly known as a “chawl”, a communal dwelling of buildings facing a common courtyard wherein each family—often featuring 2 or 3 brothers living together in the tight space as in the case of Vijaybhai—had their own very modestly sized home, but shared a bathroom located outside the house with a few other families.

In short, whatever had to happen in life, happened in that 200 square foot of living space available to them.

The front of Stitch in Time featuring the plush revolving chair on which Ms. Peggy the cat (not present at the time) sat inviting customers.

That morning, I told Vijaybhai that I’d take the blouses he had stitched back home and try them on before handing him a few additional ones as I needed to see first if they fit well. To which he responded, “Don’t worry, why don’t you try them on here itself?”

He was a new tailor; I typically went to the one next door, who had unexpectedly left temporarily to his native village in Gujarat, I believe. Jagdishbhai’s wife, who in this instance, unknown to him, doubled as his smart marketing staff, spotted the confusion in my eyes at seeing the store next door shut, from her perch at the front of Stitch in Time with Ms. Peggy, and invited me in a voice as soft as a cat’s purr, to get my clothes stitched with her husband, Jagadishbhai and his brother Vijaybhai instead, saying, “Do not worry, we can stitch you some good sari blouses and anything else you want.”

It’s always the survival of the fittest in Mumbai, I wanted them in a hurry, and I was sold to the idea.

Vijaybhai at his workstation. Note the interior room where two additional assistant tailors sat cutting cloth and stitching blouses and dresses with adept hands. The locked green door led to the galley kitchen at the back of the house and the “dressing” or washroom was tucked to the right of the room.

When Vijaybhai quickly invited me to use his dressing room and try on the new blouses there itself, I was a tad puzzled. Where in the world was this dressing room located? I eyeballed the tiny rooms. It’d be impossible to squeeze in anyone else much less a room in here, I thought.

However, I was so hot in the sweltering Mumbai humidity and the thought of going back home, trying on the blouses, and coming back to the tailor to get more stiched triggered more beads of sweat. Moreover, this was nitty gritty Mumbai, where life is hard, and solutions are typically super creative and customer centric. So, I fell into trust with Vijaybhai and agreed in good faith.

Vijaybhai gestured me towards a door hidden at the right of the inner tailoring room, and I gingerly opened it to find myself in the tiniest of a shower stall with a mirror attached to the back of the door. The ground was wet; it was clearly the room that the family used to shower/wash themselves as I even saw clothes soaking in buckets waiting to be laundered, some soap, and other toiletries like a toothbrushes and toothpaste. It was spick and span, and smelled of bath.

It felt odd to be in there, just as it felt oddly comforting to resolve a situation in the oddest and most creative of ways, a trademark of Mumbai. Nothing comes easy in this city meant for the rough and tough, and yet, there’s always something surely that comes to resolve the situation.  That was uniformly my experience growing up and my bet is that it’s the same today.

Anyway, as I used the minuscule space chez Vijaybhai effectively to marvel at the dexterity of his sartorial skills (the blouses were beautifully cut!), it hit me that these were the very imperfections of life I miss about India, living in America. True, the space was small, hot, and stuffy—not to mention a bit awkward with two male tailors sitting right outside—and the supposed dressing room had buckets with underwear soaked in them (no washing machines in sight!), but the job got done. I was able to try on a couple of blouses, making sure I perched my existing clothing effectively onto the hooks on the wall so as to not have them slump to the floor and join the other soaked comrades in buckets of water. Yet, the struggle to make sure nothing fell to the wet ground, to fit into tight spaces, and sweat out the humidity was part of the charm of reaching a happy destination. It’s way more comfortable and a lot more spacious and cooler at a Nordstrom, but this non-Nordstrom made you sweat the small stuff for your prized clothing catch. And the struggle felt oddly gratifying, like you earned a much coveted prize at the end.

These imperfect struggles of arriving at a perfect end that morning made me appreciate life’s opportunities, my upbringing, and more. There was an agreeable solution even if it was a bit inconvenient, and I was happy. And overall, I paid a modest sum for specially tailored clothes even after offering Vijaybhai a little extra for his expedited stitching of my clothes.

As I left, Ms. Peggy seemed smitten with my Birkenstocks as she stroked her whiskers vigorously against them, and I was just as smitten with ditching comfort that one morning to appreciate the discomfort of an awkward and simple solution. I wished my son could experience such discomforts more living in America. It’s nice to make kids (literally) sweat the small things more to make them more appreciative of life. What do you think?

Meaningfully yours,

Anu Prabhala