All you need to do is get in a car or cab, go down to Andheri Link Road, turn left after the Infiniti mall, go straight ahead, turn right, and there you are.
In He-Man Land.
Also known as Lokhandwalla Complex, but then it's so much more correct to call it He-Man Land. Every street corner has a gym, almost every street intersection has got a huge hoarding with bronzed ab muscles advertising one or the other of those gyms, and every third guy you look at is He-Man minus his loin cloth and mighty sword, and clad in tight tees and jeans instead. Aa, well, he might still have his 'mighty sword' tucked away, but then SnowWhite's Stepmother, Vivian and I were too polite to ask. We weren't too polite not to stare, though. :)
It was after a yummy dinner at a Bengali restaurant tucked away in the outer corners of He-Man Land that SS said he'd take us to a 'magical land where we would love to be', and so, curiosity at peak and all, we pile into his car. A few quick turns, and we find ourselves at a street intersection with a Barista on one end and a Cafe Coffee Day on the other. And Men. He-Men. Everywhere.
Vivian declares that he must walk to the nearest ATM to withdraw cash, and I decided to accompany him, while SS finds us a table with the best vantage point. Soon enough, V and I are ogling at men in rippled tshirts, and shirts unbuttoned to their navels, and utterly tight jeans, and gorgeous dimpled smiles that probably hide a nonexistent brain behind them - but then I'm being utterly parochial here, so I'll stop that - until we get inside the Citibank ATM. And let loose our girly cackles and giggles at the delight of having stepped into Candycane Land.
Vivian: "OMG, did you see the guy with the tilak there sitting at Barista?"
CT, nods: "O, yes, yummy-mummy, but he did have a tilak after all, na? Tacky. *sigh* What about the guy in the tight pink T sitting with him, though? And those guys at that corner table of the Lebanese joint outside are utterly de-lish as well, na?!"
For those not in the know, Lokhandwalla Complex is the Mecca of not-so-welldressed but very buff hot young men. They come in droves here, from all over India and some from the Middle East, all to try their hand at the great ole jackpot of Bollywood. Gyms have sprung up here, reasonably affordable housing is a thing of the past here, and steroids as common as your next caffeine fix. This is what you call the 'model crowd' of Bombay. The yuppie crowd of gay Bombay. Mostly brainless, but very beautiful. Drool-worthy, like you wouldn't imagine. And the best part is, if they're gay, they're very interchangeable. So, the hunky buff guy who seems like a pucca 'top' in his snaps is very keen to bend over if you tell him forcefully enough - or, more likely, with the promise of an introduction to Karan Johar.
When I first moved to Bombay, I stayed in Lokhandwalla at a friend's place for about two months, so this place does hold some nostalgia for me. I used to walk down in the evenings for my walk around the circle, and sometimes duck into the Naturals ice cream store for a treat, before heading back home. I remember all the not-so cheap shoe shops and the designer knock-off shops and the restaurants selling Tandoori chicken, catering to the largely Punjabi residents here. As SS once remarked, Lokhandwalla is like Mini Delhi in Bombay - Karol Bagh, dahling, not Greater Kailash. :)
But for us that night, Lokhandwalla was He-Man Land. A Saturday gay-boys night out, and here we were, ogling pretty young things, and slurping on ice cream. Not too bad really, even though we didn't make it to the GB party.
No comments:
Post a Comment