Afterwards I went around the corner to the Jehangir art museum. Very small, but free. While I was there I found Cafe Samovar, which I had read an article about recently. It was a big art folk hang out for decades. The cafe is funny. In the sixties, a woman just took over a corridor in the museum and started selling tea and biscuits.

The J museum is trying to kick them out so they can use the space for storage. I don’t know if she has a lease or what, it is perfectly possible in this city that she could have just decided to put the cafe in and gotten an illegal water and electric hook up and started up a business that way. It seems like one not uncommon way to get land here is simply to claim it. But her position must be somewhat tenuous, since the museum might be able to make her leave. I was glad I found it.

One thing that stuck with me from the article that I read about the cafe was how, back in her youth, this woman was a card carrying communist. She and her husband were big political activists. Then her husband fell out with the party leaders. But she was still a member. When she got pregnant, the party made her get an abortion, on the grounds that she couldn’t carry the child of a traitor. It strikes me as odd that this wouldn’t suggest to someone that it may be time to change political parties. But I don’t know what else was going on, so I guess it isn’t my place to have an opinion either way.

The waiter is clearly excited for me to take his picture.