Excuse me, who am I?

The Mother. My diary. A series of events or a chaotic mix of entangled memories that refuse to follow the laws of linearity? Past few weeks. The end of a film, of swimming in deep waters searching for elusive solutions to shifting questions. Golden Age is delivered, and as director I am undergoing birth pangs. How do you let go of something that was never entirely yours?

But yet there is Cate Blanchett. And if there is Cate, then the talk of Oscars is always around the corner. Ten years ago Cate Blanchett hit a chord in Elizabeth. Walking the red carpet: I, a little bewildered, following an extremely calm Steven Spielberg. "Loved your film." He did?

Flashlights pointing at my maharajah costume, fitted the day before by a flurry of Indian designers. Ten years later it still fits, so I don't go to the gym. Vanity Fair party, squeezing through. Who's this guy in the maharajah dress? Better take his picture just in case someone pays for it. Elton John's party. Excuse me, did I step on your Prada shoes? Oops, sorry, did I spill my champagne on your dress? Where's the bathroom, please? Who am I? What's this attention all about? How did I get lucky? Seven nominations. Why did Cate not win?

Tinderbox

Ah, the peculiar pungent smell of Mumbai at night. Drying fish competing with the hot, humid smell of 15 million human beings. Home. I need to walk, to breathe, to be grounded, to squash the hype. 2am, alone on Marine Drive, fondly called the Queen's Necklace by Bombayites. By the railway bridge, families huddled, sleeping dangerously close to the tracks. Exhausted from the toils of the day's labour, or from begging. No sleeping pills needed - just hug the person lying next to you.

Sounds of laughter and singing, surprisingly haunting, and the kind of threatening voices that send a shot of adrenalin through your system. There they were, squatting in the road. Young men. Homeless. Drinking. Eating. Gambling. Laughing. A tinderbox. If ignited, knives would flash. Perhaps even country-made revolvers.

Wail of abandonment

And there she was. Beautiful and graceful in her torn sari. Even younger than some of the men. Unafraid, shouting at them, digging in the worn pot, bringing out handfuls of rice and lentils. Slopping it down on newspapers laid directly on the tarred road. Forcibly shoving handfuls into the protesting mouths of young men far preferring to drink and gamble.

One of them recognised me from the exploding news channels. Hey, you! The observer suddenly became the observed. The stranger had been stripped naked. "I know who you are. You can either stand there, or you can come and drink with us." An invitation or a threat? I sat, tasting the food. Watery. The crunch of not fully cooked lentils. But the warm, familiar comfort of rice in the mouth.

A young man arrived. So drunk he could barely walk, sparse clothes slipping off him. Drawn face, like the city had sucked life out of him. He sat down, not daring to meet the young woman's gaze. She stared directly at him. Eyes blazing. And then she attacked him ferociously. Slapping him, even as he went down, sobbing as he tried to avert her blows. They all watched impassively. Not one interfered. The young man's arms reached out to her, his wails now the sounds of loneliness and abandonment. She softened. Touched his cheek, and gently brought his head to her lap. He gave in. Still wailing as she tried to pour food in his mouth. Still chiding him, while she cradled him like a baby.

Dawn was breaking when I left, less than sober. She lived alone in a hut under the bridge by the railway tracks. Young men rebuilt it every time the slum lords took it down. They protected her. She cooked for them, was the constant nagging presence that once was home. An aeon ago for those that had migrated to the streets. No one knew where she came from. No one stayed long enough to find out.

I asked her the name of the poor young man. She did not know. She called them all her "bacchas". Her children. The young men called her "Maa" - mother. OK, Mother, I had better be going, I said as I was leaving. Come again, you are also my child, said the young woman.