How the pomfret lost its groove

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I am fortunate to have lived in Bombay.
Yes there was a city by that name not too long ago. 
It boasted of wide streets which had not-expensive restaurants where you could sit almost sidewalk-Parisienne style drinking cold beer and eating fried fish and chips a la Anglo-India and  these louvered french windows were cast open for the world to see you and you to see them , or you could walk,not drive nor run, to Irani cafes with high ceilings and slowly revolving fans where the fabled buns with their hidden red raisins would splash a little sweetness  in your mouth when you had them with hot chai served in tiny glasses, or you could visit lending libraries where you unashamedly hired dozens of action comics which was then the possibly more intelligent substitute for television and then got yourself to a cafe which served you cold beer with a stunning view overlooking the entire bay as you munched on slightly oily peanuts while you read  of the exploits of superman ,  or  you wandered in the by lanes of Girgaum and walked by an old billiard  hall  ( note: not a pool parlor)towards a place that made limited quantities of fresh hot local sea food served on small marble topped tables for one,or you could climb worn and wide steps to the first floor of an already rickety building in a lane just behind a church next to a shop making and selling giant,large, medium and small votary candles which in turn sat besides a shop featuring bridal dresses all white and frilly with no colourful options for those who had not remained vestal, to  a dining hall  which served you the rich and possibly not very healthy but oh so tasty Parsi Sali boti, a mutton dish floating in gravy topped with ultra thin fried potato slivers, and you got to this place by walking from a road which on late nights had this ‘chain’  of hand carts owned by a Bengali man who was always immaculately dressed in white muslin kurtas,  and these hand carts served you that quintessential Bombay dish called pau baji, local small square loaves of bread called pau, because apocryphally their dough was rumored to have been kneaded by feet, and to hell with what those feet looked like, the bread tasted delicious when it was covered with salty butter and mildly toasted on this giant griddle pan which had just seen potatoes and  vegetables mashed together with onions and chillies  and tomatoes into a sort of well, mash(!), which you squeezed a little lime onto  and then ate with the bread,while you stood and between bites had a critical discussion  having just watched a late movie show in this extra large movie hall which had amazing art deco balustrades and doors and  windows, or in dusty daylight you could meander into what was the heart of the city towards the temple of the mouthless Goddess who apparently was the patron deity of this city  and enroute to the gold and silver and textile markets busier and maybe bigger than Wall street in the time of Empire, you would discover  a club, not the cigars and port and gentlemen variety  but a restaurant dedicated to the pursuit of eating and solely eating, its signature dish being Aam Ras, or pulped puree of sweet Alfonso ‘king-of-fruit’ mango served with puffed up soft topped  and crisp based fried ‘puri’s’ and where no one talked because mouth and heart and soul were too full for conversation or  you could  catch a taxi where four passengers could squeeze in companionable discomfort and hie thee there to, what seemed at that time, a distant suburb where Sikhs had economically conquered an original fishing village locality and they owned these line of roadside diners where they served you the eponymous Koliwada chicken or even more attractive for us Koliwada fish, both of these reddened by the special tandoori paste and then barbecued/ roasted/ baked/ spit cooked ( there is no exact equivalence for a tandoor), or if you were energized by drink and/or youth or if your appetence moved you to travel 30 miles or so, kilometers still fighting for recognition in that recently anointed metric era, you could find yourself in what was a truck stop village with a couple of small factories thrown in for industrial measure and there sitting on wooden benches you could ,  obviously with very hungry fingers, dig into a biriyani redolent with spices and oil, and  burping you could wend your way home Ulysses- like to where you came from or on the morning after you could wander into the side roads of little Madras, not that it was called that then or now, Madras itself having disappeared as nomenclature except for  a form of textile and  there you would be assailed by the smells of temple flowers, powdered chilis and pickles and wafting in from either side the aromas of pungent and delicious Tamilian and Udipi cooking invited and beguiled you with visions of repast.
The breathlessness of this abundance needs a pause.
You would have  more options if you were post this cornucopian extravagance still bereft for choice. What a curmudgeon thou must be!
The (then) white sand beaches in the south and in the north of the city beckoned with delicious ,no-you-would -not -have -Bombay -belly- the -next -day- snacks put together faster than light by armies of smiling people from the north of India and you stood and ate and dribbled the salty cumin seed flavored soupy water on your fingers as you crunched the pani puri or the tamarind flavored sauce on the ‘chaats’ made your taste buds hop with delight.And in season you would find yourself mingling with the faithful as they broke fast in the early evenings at the time of Ramadan or Ramzan  and in the very narrow and crowded lanes of the predominantly Muslim area that bordered the end of the British cantonment area on the one side and the other ended where the heart of Hindu-Dom began, you would, led partly by nose and partly by following the followers, come to a  street corner where lit by blue street lights the big cauldrons brewed the ultimate love potions of mutton marrow curry in which you dipped the crisp flat bread and sighed deeply with contentment and you  watched the sons and daughters of Allah give gratitude for the bounty lavished on them.
And much much more: the railway restaurant near no railway tracks but where the ‘bearers’ ( not waiters mind you) wore these time battered uniform with funny cloth red caps and brought you oily vegetable cutlets which you had with pumpkin sauce instead of tomato sauce and it was  a consummation; the open only on working days , only for lunch seemed-like-it had – been -there- from-victoria’s times family owned and run place with the live pet rooster sitting near the till where a pulao made with berries that grew only in Iran made you go back many a lunch hour; the only place you got breakfast outside a 5 star hotel  and hot keema mutter at 430 am in a cafe overlooking empty roads ; or just slightly later when the city was beginning to stir you could have hot creamy milk and sweet sweet Jalebis brought out of the frying pans , all so hot that you could scald your mouth if you were not careful. Lest one forgets there was the amazing “Baida  rotis” of Bade’ Mian and for a few cognoscenti there was Chote’ Mian too (,alongside the lovely church near the Colaba post office,) which served as the  eatery for the country liqour bar opposite. 
 And you and your palate would find treasure in oh, so many places in the city of gold and dreams.
Of course you could also, just in passing by the numerous fishing villages which nestle between high rise buildings, be brutally assaulted by the smell of frying of Bombil, otherwise called Bombay Duck.  It is not an amphibious avian, but a  lizardfish available in plenty ;  it is a delicious fish when fresh and freshly cooked, but unbelievably malodorous when sun dried and stored and then fried and eaten. 
This brings us to the Pomplet, the original name and still the  local pronunciation of the fish called the Pomfret. A white fish generally, it is also found in a black form, the Kala Pomplet, which purists claim to be tastier.The fish meat itself is fleshy but flaky, has a mild flavor and works well in curry but notably best in a batter fried form. Which is how in Bombay it was served as “pisndsips”,  a perfect way in conjoined words to signify the inextricability of fish and chips. It was also bread crumb covered and fried.It was an upmarket fish, possibly harking back to the time of the British who may have used it as a homesick substitute for cod.As  it has a convenient central bone, it is maybe easier to fillet as well. 
Either way this was the fish that you had often in various forms, in various restaurants and you were asked whether the fish you wanted fried was rawas ( Indian salmon), surmai (lady fish), bangra(mackerel) or pomplet (pomfret). This was the only fish that retained its original Portuguese name roots.
And it was available everywhere.
If ever there had been a piscine standard for Bombay, I would have voted for the Pomfret to flutter proudly on the  prows of the boats and ships of this harbour and island city.

But Bombay does not exist anymore.
It is now officially called Mumbai, and you are not by law and by procrustean bullying, allowed to refer to it as Bombay. The logic is impeccable: it was always referred to as Mumbai in the local tongue, the name apparently derived from Mumbadevi, the goddess we approached near the Aam Ras place. It was said that Bombay was a corruption of the English who couldn’t say Mumbai; others of course said it meant Good Bay as in the Portuguese Bom. All this of course existed before parochialism held sway. But you always had the option: when you spoke in English or Tamil or Gujrathi you said Bombay. To the Marathi you said Mumbai. No one seemed offended if  you switched back and forth. To the western world it was Bombay, somewhat mysterious and exotic.At that time the pomfret and the pomplet coexisted too. You heard the Pomplet and smiled inwardly at what you thought was the quaint   endearing mispronunciation, little realizing that the original was in fact Pomplet and not the other way around.in fact they still coexist as  names.
But as the city grew, mutated  almost like a creature that grows to dinosaur like proportions in a sewer and having been subjected to radioactivity emerges into the daylight misshapen , warted and carbuncled to terrorise the populace: this was a science fiction type nightmare. The only problem was that this monster that terrorized the populace was the populace itself.As in all great stories the monster itself isn’t evil, existing in a sort of malevolent indifference . The true monsters are villains who use this for their own, chortling-and-twirling-their-moustaches-while-they-do-it, evil ends.And the villains emerged: politicians who allowed the city to grow rampant, fostered division, reduced ethics, morality and even common sense to the lowest denominator of crassness and crudity, and whilst pandering to hate, fed and almost lovingly nurtured the monster.
The wide streets have all but disappeared along with Bombay. The side walk cafes have vanished, prey to unreal and manipulated real estate costs.  The Irani restaurants themselves have gone possibly with the decline in numbers of the Parsees. The lovely cafe on the hill was not allowed to renew its lease: even though in most countries it would have been preserved a s a cultural landmark. The handcarts have gone; whether to mistakenly applied laws or just less attendance in the movie halls, one will never know. The dining hall doesn’t exist.  The Sea food place near the billiard room has shut its doors.The koliwada diners are memory. One knows very few people who have visited the briyani place in the far away industrial suburb.With the burgeoening population came dirt and grime and disease. No longer would anything less than titanium lined stomachs be able to wolf down the snacks on the beaches. And  you would be chary of visiting the once fanstastic eateries in the Muslim quarter.
A few remnants persist:evolutionary survivors like the crocodile. The Pau baji itself lives on. The hot jalebis are still available and still delicious. And in season the aam ras asks you to partake, and wont take no for an answer.
And while there are great local restaurnats dedicated to fish and things that swim in the seas, and you will find Pomfret, it now is being substituted by Basa.  If you asked a traditional fisherman what this was he would not know. It’s originally from Vietnam, it’s a form of catfish, and in the UK it’s called river cobbler. It’s an import. But now apparently locally available because it’s farmed in fresh water fish farms. It is a post modern industrial fish!
But where has the Pomfret gone? Two restaurants said that good quality pomfret is hard to get these days. 
And maybe to the new wannabe Mumbaite, Basa sounds more fashionable to order?
But the truth is simpler. And much sadder .
We have overfished the pomfret. And unlike the Atlantic cod which suffered a similar fate some years ago but which under a voluntary fishing embargo was allowed to repopulate itself, the voracious appetite of Mumbai has no mercy.
Along with so much that has vanished, the city of gourmets is becoming a wasteland of gluttons.
The pomfret is gasping for breath on these arid shores.
Bombay has died.