Working from Home and Interviewing Celeste

Monday, October 22, 2018
Bombay

Working from Home and Interviewing Celeste
 
     Namaste from Bombay!
     Having finally figured out how to use the remote for my air-conditioner, I was able to raise the setting so that it is not like an ice-box in my studio each time I switch it on. Hence, for the first time, I had my AC on all night and actually slept the sleep of the dead! I awoke at 6.15 am (which is a very long lie-in for me) and immediately set to work writing my blog. That done, I downloaded The Times with the aim of reading it at the gym. Everything was set back as a result of my late rising, but I did manage to wash, dress, gulp down my Morning Joe and get to the gym where I worked out for an hour. Feeling virtuous, I returned home for a shower and shampoo (since 'Me Monday' has rolled around again) and then sat to eat my breakfast of Muesli while watching Samin Nosrat on TV. It turns out that Heat did not refer to spice or India but to the application of Heat, i..e Fire to cooking. This meant that she took us to Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, (that had been founded by the legendary Alice Waters) where her culinary training had begun to learn how to grill steaks. As I said, her show is fun but for her insane laughter at points where it is absolutely unwarranted such as when someone clicks a glass with hers and says "Cheers!"
     By the time I finished my breakfast, it was already 11.00 am (if you can believe it!). I sat down to work right after that. I transcribed my interview with Aida, I emailed Nafisa and Hosefa about using my credit card to pay for our hotel in Puri in Orissa in December, I scoured the net for a room at the Fairlawns Hotel in Calcutta which is my favorite place to stay when I am in the city as it appeals to the Anglophile in me. I managed to snag a room and then had to deal with credit card payment. I sent out a bunch of email messages requesting interviews and was delighted to receive responses quite promptly--this means that I have an interview lined up for each day this week.  I will be going to the library at the NCPA every other day to continue my research so that I use the days in-between to work from home as I transcribe my interviews and stay on top of them. That way, my field-work will remain organized. I also made phone calls to set up interviews on Saturday with two Christian violinists from Bandra, Mark and Francis, both of whom play with the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI) attached to the NCPA.
     By the time I had finished all these items on my extensive To-Do List, it was 2.00 pm. Although I wasn't really hungry, I stopped for lunch: a whole bunch of leftovers--Chicken Curry, Kheema Mattar, Subzi Thakda (from Bandra Gym), beans. I ate a whole guava for dessert while watching about an hour of Midsomer Murders.  I then went back to my reading and took a 30 minute power nap.
     With about a half hour on my hands, I had a pedicure--it is, after all, Me Monday!
     I was just getting dressed and ready for my 5.00 pm interview with Celeste, a musician from Bandra who runs a vocal Western music school of sorts, when she texted to ask if I could postpone it as she was running late. Just at that time, my friend Ian called me from New Jersey and we had a lovely phone chat as we caught up.  I left him to walk to Celeste's place which I reached in ten minutes. For the next one and a half hour, we talked about her musical background, her training under her mother Ivy (whom I shall also be delighted to interview), the vocal music classes she initiated years ago that have mushroomed into a major outlet for Bandra's kids and that have now spread to Dahisar-Borivli where she runs a similar class with her daughter Dawn who trained in Boston and then returned to Bombay to help her mother run the classes. I shall be attending this class on Wednesday evening at St. Joseph's School where they are conducted. It was an extremely enlightening interview conducted on the fifth floor glass-enclosed terrace of the building they own which made it appear as if we were in a tree house as it is completely surrounded by tropical trees.
     I was too late to make it to Mass--so I walked up Pali Hill to get to Dad's as I wanted to see how he was doing and how his bad cold was treating him. I stopped to buy some pears and a papaya along the way for them. Dad had seen the doctor and had received a course of tablets for five days--he said he was already feeling a bit better having spent the entire day lying down. His weakness continues and he still looked poorly, but Russel was in good spirits and seems to be thriving.
     I stayed with them until their dinner time which I helped organize in order to give Dad some relief. I then left, returned to my studio, caught up with email, had a phone call from Chriselle when we caught up on everything that's happening in her life and laughed a whole lot. I then sat down to dinner--a repetition of my lunch really, as I continued watching that episode of Midsomer Murders to the very end.
     It had been a very productive day and I feel really pleased that my work is marching on.
     Until tomorrow...