Ramleela at Chowpatty

I’ve lived in Prabhadevi my entire life. Many people don’t consider this to be South Mumbai (Central Mumbaite is what I am told I should call myself). But schooling and college days have been spent in SoBo. So by that virtue, I consider myself to me a Townie.
One of the age old traditions of South Mumbai is the staging of the Ramleela at Chowpatty, Marine Drive during Navratra.
The Ramleela has been staged there for as long as I can remember, but I’ve never taken out the time to stop and have a glimpse. I guess it’s one of those things that you procrastinate about, saying you’ll go tomorrow/later (like the dentist’s appointment, going to the gym, etc., you get what I’m saying)

But this year I finally set out one evening and landed up at chowpatty to watch the Ramleela.
I had certain expectations of the place, would chowpatty be a clean area? Will there be families or only people trying to swindle you with different schemes? Would Lord Rama still be able to pull a crowd of faithful in an age where a movie has been made of his arch enemy?
But I was pleasantly surprised. Chowpatty has been cleaned up. The food stalls which would dot the beach had been shifted to one corner, thus giving an organized look to the whole area.
And it no longer looked like the seedy place where people from the underbelly of the city would come at night to carry out their shady business.
Instead, families spend quality time here savouring the delicious foods on offer while little kids are ferried about in toy jeeps blaring hit music from the latest bollywood release.
And scores of faithful still do come to watch their lord and master fell his adversary. The organizers have set up chairs for people to sit, but the crowd exceeds the number of chairs forcing people to either stand or sit on the floor. But no one is complaining.

So I watched with a smile on my face as Ravan threatens Sita to marry him, glad to see that people still revel in the simple pleasure of watching the Ramleela under a starlit night at Chowpatty.