An Uneventful Relaxing Sunday

Sunday, October 14, 2018
Bombay

An Uneventful Relaxing Sunday:

     Namaste from Bombay!
     I took a day off, as it were today, before returning to the swing of routine work tomorrow. That said, I still managed to get some work done.
     I awoke at 5.30 am and began reading--I have decided to spend at least half an hour reading my novels as there is not much other time available to carve out for reading. Then, I spent half an hour reading the headlines and any news items that caught my attention in The Times of London and The New York Times. Today, I did not linger long as I had to go to 8.00 am Mass.  However, I had a long chat with Chriselle, first thing in the morning, which cut into a lot of my Morning Brain time.
     I then had half a bagel with cream cheese and a cup of coffee, dressed and left for the 8.00 am Mass at my church. Fortunately, today, no stray dogs followed me as three of them had done, terrifyingly, last week. It is lovely to be out and about on a Sunday morning while the rest of Bandra has a lazy weekend lie-in. Mass was said my Fr. Colman Carlos and was followed by Meet and Greet outside the church over coffee and vada pau.  I took one of them home for Russel as I headed straight to Dad's for breakfast.
   
South Indian Brekkie at Dad's:
     I had told Dad that I would treat them all to a South Indian brekkie of idlis and masala dosas with sambhar and coconut chutney.  Accordingly, Dad called Sukh Sagar, the local South Indian eatery, to place the order. By the time I got home from Mass, we only had to wait another ten minutes before the order was delivered. The breakfast, with coffee that we brewed at home, was just delicious and made a welcome change from the eggs they usually eat and the muesli I usually enjoy. I am hoping that when I join them for breakfast on Sunday, we will make it something different each time--last week was bagels with cream cheese from The Bagel Shop; today it was idlis and dosas. A fry-up with sausages and bacon may not be a bad idea next week!
     Our friend Romanee dropped in to see Dad and Russel right after we'd finished breakfast and we had a nice tete a tete with her until she left, a half hour later. It is always fun to see a friend in this manner somewhat unexpectedly.

Varied Work on my Computer:
     I left soon after and returned home. The heat is mounting and the air is completely still. This makes the city feel like a furnace. I switched on my AC as soon as I got home, changed and began work on my computer. I am trying now to fix appointments for interviews--which is proving to be far more challenging than I thought as people travel, are out of town, are not always free when you hope they will be, etc. Still, I refuse to be daunted.
     I also received the first of the emailed questionnaires I had sent out to members of the Paranjyoti Choir. Collating them and keeping my work organized, took time. I also looked at the First Year B.A. (FYBA), Second Year B.A. (SYBA) and Third Year B.A. (TYBA) Syllabi in English of St. Xavier's College that were emailed to me by Pearl Pastakia, my new colleague at St. Xavier's. The principal of the college has requested me to offer input in the re-designing of a new Post-Graduate Syllabi in English for the College and a first draft is expected in mid-November. On looking over the existing syllabus, I discovered that there is no way I can take on the re-designing of twelve papers (four courses over four semesters). I decided then that I could take on the curriculum planning of three of them--all of which would play to my areas of expertise: Indian Writing in English; Post-Colonial Literature from the Indian Sub-Continent; and Anglophone World Literatures. I emailed Pearl and told her that I think we ought to call a meeting of English faculty at the college and assign the twelve courses among the rest of the group so that each person takes on three courses. We could then meet again with our individual offerings and fine-tune them before submitting the first draft. I am waiting to hear back from her. I am excited about this new project but I am well aware that it will cut hugely into my available research time. I will, therefore, have to juggle my commitments carefully.
 
Lunch at Dad's:
     At Dad's suggestion, I returned to his pace at 12. 30 to tuck into the East Indian delicacies that I had bought yesterday from the East Indian Bazaar that I had attended with my friend Marisa. This would form our lunch today as neither Dad nor I receive a tiffin on Sundays. We sat together and ate Goa Sausage Potato Chops (which were just fab), Pork Sorpotel (which was OK), Tongue Moile (which Russel and I enjoyed but which Dad did not even taste as he says he does not care for tongue), Chitaps and Fugias. We washed it down with cold Thums Up as it is really too hot now to drink anything except ice-cold liquids from the fridge.
     I did not stay long after lunch but made my way back to my own studio.

A Very Relaxing Afternoon and Tea-Time:
     That's when I gave myself up entirely to the pleasure of a lazy Sunday afternoon, First of all, in order to cool off, I had a very relaxing shower. Once out, I turned the AC on as I read my novel (My Oxford Year by Julia Whelan), riffled through The Magazine section of the London Times and generally relaxed completely. I continued enjoying the same pleasures over a cup of tea and the last of the Chocolate Nougat Cake I had picked up from the pastry counter at Bandra Gym last night. I continued reading, surfing through the web (Twitter, my email) and I wrote long email messages to friends in the UK.
     My friend Nafisa called and we tweaked our travel plans for December when she and her husband Hosefa will be accompanying me on a week-long trip to Orissa before we arrive in Calcutta where I am scheduled to give a paper at a conference on Anglo-Indians.  We will have enough time to just pass through the capital city of Bhubaneswar before really seeing Lake Chilka, Puri, Konark and Raghuraj (a tribal village). One of Chriselle's classmates in India, Renuka, with whom Nafisa has stayed in touch (as Nafisa's daughter Tasneem, Chriselle and Renuka were best friends in primary school in Bombay's Auxilium Convent) married a hotel owner who has a nice establishment on the beach front at Puri. We will be staying in their hotel. I will return home from Calcutta for Christmas but Nafisa and Hosefa will carry on to the tea gardens of Darjeeling. With our plan in place, Nafisa will now look at transport bookings.
    I was delighted next to receive a WhatsApp phone call from my American friend Leslie in Connecticut whom I will be seeing soon as she travels to Bombay with her sister Beverly before hopping off to the North's Golden Triangle. She has invited me to dinner with her Indian Sindhi mother-in-law in Kemp's Corner and I have offered to give Leslie and Bev a walking tour of the downtown colonial heart of Bombay on the same day. It is absolutely fabulous to be able to stay in touch with my close friends through free WhatsApp calls. The reception is so good that they might as well be in the same room with me chatting, as we often did in Connecticut, over a cheering cuppa.
     I also spoke on the phone to Llew who spent most of the weekend in New Jersey visiting our friend Ian who recently had major surgery. He spent the night with other friends, Imraan and Ghazala, and we did a group call so that I could chat with a whole bunch of our friends.
     At this point, my Elphinstone College WhatsApp Chat Group became very active with the news of the tragic and sudden death of Kishore Tawade who was about three years senior to me in college. It appears that he died of a massive heart attack. Although I did not know him, I sent out a condolence message which joined dozens that poured in steadily. It seems that he had been very enthusiastic about the Reunion in January and was really looking forward to it.
    Apart from the sad bit of news that rocked my afternoon,  I was absolutely delighted with the full relaxation that I permitted myself.

Dinner at Dad's:
     At 7.25 pm, I left my studio and walked to Dad's for dinner. They usually eat at 7.30 but today they happened to be waiting for Bernie who brings Holy Communion at home to Russel. He was late and only showed up at 8.00pm, so that it was about 8.15 when we finally sat down to have dinner--we finished up our East Indian offerings.
     I left soon after I returned home to eat fig ice-cream as I watched Dead Wind. Tomorrow, will be the start of another work week. I intend to get down to brass tacks with a vengeance.
     Until tomorrow...