Catching Up with Laptop Work and East Indian Bazaar with Marisa

Saturday, October 13, 2018
Bombay

Catching Up With Laptop Work and East Indian Bazaar with Marisa

      Namaste from Bombay!
      I am slowly catching up with routine--hard to believe that my routine is now tied up with living in Bombay! I awoke at 5.30 am and began blogging (as usual). I also downloaded the Magazine section of the The Times of London and the main newspaper and feasted my eyes on the pictures of the newly-married Princess Eugenie and her husband Jack Brooksbank. Another royal wedding! What a huge strain on the British tax payer. No wonder some of them are Republicans!
      It is very warm in Bombay now. We are dealing with the heat and humidity of what is usually referred to as the Second Summer. I have my air-conditioning on, not just at night, but also during the day. It enables me to enjoy a level of comfort that I do not take for granted.
     In a bid to stay cool, I had a shower and then got on with my work for the day. There was a lot of email on which I had to catch up. Being away in Hyderabad, with no connectivity, was a real pain in the you-know-where. I made a long To-Do List and then one after the other ticked items off it. I also sent off a few questionnaires to Parsee members of the Paranjyoti Choir so as to get their responses emailed back to me. Slowly but surely I am adding to my list of contacts and people that I should be calling as I schedule interviews and get my ethnographic field work done.
     I stopped for lunch at 1.15 pm and then took a very short nap before I got back to my laptop again. I have also begun reading a delightful novel called My Oxford Year (the title says it all--this is my sort of book to be sure) by Julia Whelan and it is going really quickly.
     A little later, my friend Marisa called me to ask if I wanted to accompany her to an East Indian Bazaar at St. Andrew's College Cafeteria. Apparently, this is held once a month. It involves the sale of typical East Indian delicacies such as Potato Chops and Sorpotel, Tongue Moile and Cold Roast Tongue, Chitaps (lacy hand breads) and Fugias (fried dough balls), Pan Rolls and Lethri (a coconut sweet). I told her I would be happy to accompany her. I then called my Dad and told him that I would not be accompanying him to Mass but I would help him out with a letter he needed me to type (that he had already drafted) and needed me to email for him. I told him I would be at his place by 5.00 pm.
     Accordingly, I replenished all my supplies (medication, Metamucil) and cosmetics (lip gloss, Olay Face Wash) etc. that I have carried for the whole year and had a quick manicure as my nails were in a bad state (thanks again to being away in Hyderabad).
     I was just about to leave for my Dad's place when my techie called to say that he would be coming to my home to complete the work on the installation of the fiber optic cable for my internet. He took about twenty minutes to complete the work and left. Hopefully now, I will have high speed connectivity and will be able to watch the HD Shows on Netflix with an astounding clarity. I am now only waiting for another techie to bring me the adaptor for my Mac Air book that will allow me to watch programs from my laptop on to my TV screen.  Things move slowly and in a million stages in Bombay--that's for sure. However, as in every situation, you too learn go with the flow.
     At 5.00 pm, as scheduled, I went off to Dad's and found him and Russel in the midst of their rosary. I joined them and then sat down to help Dad with his letter. About an hour later, I returned home and then left immediately for my 6. 30 appointment with Marisa.
     The East Indian Bazaar was wonderful but, sadly, very poorly attended. I called Russel from there to find out if I should pick up food for our Sunday lunch from there (instead of ordering from a restaurant as our tiffin service does not supply on Sundays). He said that would be a good idea. And that's what I did. I bought Chitaps and Fugias, Pork Sorpotel, Cold Roast Tongue (fabulous in sandwiches) and Tongue Moile (Sautéed, Like a Chillie Fry) and Goa Sausage Potato Chops. We will be feasting tomorrow at lunch!
     Marisa and I were meeting after a long time and could not wait to catch up. We. therefore, decided to go the Bandra Gymkhana (as both of us are members) and to find a cool corner somewhere to sit and gab. The restaurant upstairs was the best spot for the purpose. We found a quiet corner in the air-conditioned confines and, with no one else there, we ordered lovely chilled lemonades. We nursed those for at least a couple of hours as we talked about everything under the sun.  It was a lot of fun. We discovered that we have so many interests in common and since Marisa is single and lives alone, she told me she would be up for any sort of cultural event in the city for which I would need company.  A corporate trainer for Human Resources, Communication Skills, Promotions and Fast-Track motivation, she works as a freelancer  on her own business as she caters to the needs of corporations in the Bombay area--with occasional work in other cities.  We have known each other for about 40 years (having grown up together as teenagers) and are close friends. I am delighted to renew contact with Marisa and to be able to do a few interesting events in the city with her. On my way out, I could not resist buying a slice of Chocolate Nougat Cake--I have been very virtuous thus far and have only eaten fruit for dessert: I was ready to indulge my chocolate cake craving.
     We both returned home to our respective houses for dinner: I had food in my fridge that I needed to finish before my new fresh tiffin comes in on Monday. So I ate the last of my stewed eggplant, Goan Shrimp Curry and Potato Chops and had my Chocolate Cake for dessert--disappointingly, it was not as great as I had imagined. I had half of it and left the other half for tomorrow--it's all about portion control, right?
     While eating I watched Dead Wind on Netflix (a Finnish show set in Helsinki that has a female detective--all these Scandinavian countries seem to specialize in police dramas and crime or detective shows. My favorite in this genre from Scandinavia--Sweden--is Beck to which I had first become introduced while living in London two years ago). It was about 10. 45pm when I felt sleepy enough to switch my light off and get to sleep in a very cool and comfortable room.
     Until tomorrow...