Attending Alyque Padamsee's Funeral, the Sultan Padamsee Playwrighting Prize and 'Literary Parodies'

Sunday, November 17, 2018
Bombay

Attending Alyque Padamsee's Funeral, the Sultan Padamsee Playwrighting Prize and 'Literary Parodies' 

     Namaste from Bombay!
     I must warn you at the outset that this is going to be a lengthy post--I have so much to write because ever so much happened today! Also, when I do write the book that I am currently researching, this blog will serve as 'notes' at a time when my memory will have dimmed.

Sunday Morning Rituals:
     First of all, I could not clean my studio this morning (part of my Sunday morning routine) as I had to race for the early (8.00 am) Mass.  I merely blogged, read Twitter and downed a cup of coffee.  Then I dressed for Mass but my clothing had to be appropriate to attending an Indian cremation as well.  Thankfully, I have watched enough Indian cremation and funeral services on TV in India to know that it is customary to wear white or off-white--never black or dark colors (Christians wear dark colors at a funeral--never other Indians!) Alyque Padamsee, whose funeral, I was heading to attend, was neither Hindu nor Muslim nor Christian nor Jew--he was a non-believer (to the best of my knowledge) but his wonderful secularism was played out in the many exciting ventures with which he had filled his life (his production of Jesus Christ Superstar was the best I have ever seen), he worked hard for tribals, minority rights and against communal fascism in India in his campaigns with the lawyer-activist Teesta Setalvad and in various 'Bombay Bachao' campaigns. He graduated from Cathedral and John Connon School (Anglican) and St Xavier's College (Catholic) and always had the highest words of praise and admiration for Christian education in India. He chose a cremation (as opposed to the Muslim burial that would have been expected, given that he came from a Muslim family). But I digress...
     I chose white jeans and a white shirt from my very minimalist wardrobe. I knotted a colorful scarf around my neck to wear for church and the rest of the day (after the funeral). This I would tuck into my bag during the funeral.
     Mass at 8.00 am was so sleepy that even the lovely priest, visiting from Australia, Fr. Lancy D'Souza, commented on the fact that the atmosphere in the church was like a balloon from which the air had long escaped---fffzz! he said! That is why I go to the 9.15 am Mass--today I could not. Had I done so, I'd have been late for the funeral. I did not know what the exact protocol was--but I did want to be on time and the funeral of Alyque Padamsee was at 11.00 am. I picked up a vada pau for Russel and one for myself (it would be my breakfast and I intended to eat it on the bus to the Worli Crematorium where the funeral would be held). I dropped off Russel's vada pau at Dad's, visited with them briefly, glanced at the obituary feature that was carried in The Times of India--so full of factual inaccuracies that this single piece has made me realize how shoddy Indian journalism has become, how little journalists check their facts and how badly misguided we can be by the garbage in Indian newspapers--that is why I get all my news from The Times of London and The New York Times. For example, Alyque was 87 (not 90), had married twice (not three times: Pearl Padamsee and Sharon Prabhakar were his wives; he never married Dolly Thakore although she bore him a son) and the painter Akbar Padamsee was his first cousin (not his brother).

Getting to the Worli Crematorium:
     Leaving Dad's, I hopped into a 220 bus, connected to an 84 Limited bus (that actually sailed along in less than five minutes) and flew through the Bombay roads (that were devoid of traffic early on a Sunday morning). I used Google maps to find the Crematorium in Worli as I had no idea where it was.  People kept telling me it was near the Four Seasons Hotel--but I had no idea where that was as such buildings came up long after I left India. Still, a sweet girl on the bus told me where to get off and someone else on the street directed me to the venue.
     I have only ever been to one cremation before in Bombay--my Mum's (according to her wishes she was cremated, not buried). But that was at Shivaji Park. This was at Worli. It was far more impressive than I thought--a vast space with a beautiful Prayer Hall. I was one of the earliest to arrive at 10.30 am. It was going to be a very interesting morning.

The Funeral of Alyque Padamsee:
     Alyque was placed on a wooden stretcher that was on a stand. His body was covered with a white sheet that had been scattered with white flowers and white petals. His fair (nearly white) skin and his greyed goatee beard (his signature look for decades) looked serene in repose. I paid my respects to his body and then took a seat in the second row right behind his sister Candie who lives in Stamford, Connecticut. Dolly had told me, a few days ago, that she is married to one Anand (Andy) Bhatia who was (retired) Regional Manager of Air-India in London.  She is his last remaining sibling now--they were a family of 8 children (each of whom made a mark in public life in some meaningful way). I could not help thinking of the line: "From those to whom much is given, much is expected." Could not have been more true in Alyque's case. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth (his father owned many buildings in Colaba, prime real estate in Bombay, that he had purchased in the 1940s, plus Alyque had been gifted with phenomenal talent--yes, he was one to whom much had been given). At the side of the pier, stood stands with baskets of white flowers and a giant photographic portrait of Alyque that presented him as he looked 30 years ago--which is how I remembered him: as a dynamo of theatrical energy that gave the city some of its finest dramatic productions--truly "as good as London, better than New York" as had been the frequent refrain.
     I found myself seated near a young woman with whom I struck up a conversation. How coincidental was it that two women, both of whom were writers currently in the midst of research on Alyque, should find themselves seated together? She was Vandana Saxena-Poria, a British writer now settled in Poona, who had been working with Alyque for three years on what they had hoped would be a collaborative book on his ideas for a better India and a better world. She told me that she had valuable information and was at the last stages of her research with him when he took ill. She was probably the same person to whom Viraf Pocha had referred, during my interview with him at the Prithvi Theater the other day, when he talked about a lady to whom Alyque had been dictating about 300 pages of foolscap material that had been in Viraf's possession while he had worked on the archival website.
     Within a short time, my friend Kamal appeared with her son Sohrab. She told me that he does not stir out of his room on a Sunday until mid-day but had told her, when she conveyed the news to him last night, that he would accompany her for the funeral! She marveled at the connection that he had with the deceased although he had never been in drama himself (both Kamal and her ex-husband Homi Mulla had acted on the Bombay stage under the direction of Alyque in the 1970s). Kamal became my 'guide' as she pointed out to me the more recognizable people as they came through. Having been away for 30 years, I look at people and find them vaguely familiar. In many cases, I can no longer recognize them--they have changed too much. In other cases, I find them familiar but cannot place them. Some I do recognize and marvel at how little they have changed.
     The funeral became a gathering spot for everyone who was anyone in Alyque's dual life--in advertising and in the theater. Among the folks I did recognize and, in some cases, did chat with were Dolly Thakore (who greeted attendees and told me that she was really sorry my interview with Alyque did not occur--"It was not meant to be," I said, and she agreed) and Farzana Contractor (she was my classmate at school and is the Editor of a food magazine called Upper Crust to which I sometimes contribute articles). Sabira Merchant (looking her age--now almost 80, star of some of Alyque's best-known productions such as A Streetcar Named Desire in which she played a spectacular Blanche duBois) was there. Other actors were Sharon Prabhakar (who played Evita, was married to Alyque and had a daughter Shahzan, also an actor, with him), Dalip Tahil (who played Che Guevara in Evita--I would never have recognized him), Brian Tellis (who took over as Che after Dalip moved to film commitments), Roger Pereira (who came with the Jesuit priest and former Principal of St. Xavier's College, Fr. Fraser Mascarenhas), Farokh Mehta who came with his wife, the legend Vijaya Mehta and their daughter Anahita (also an actress), Jinx Akerkar (who played Martha to Alqyue's George in Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) with her daughter, also Anahita also an actress (I just saw her play Avan opposite Naseeruddin Shah in The Truth), Farrid Currim (who has been in a gazillion plays with a variety of Bombay directors from Adi Marzban to Alyque), Suneeta Rao (she had a role in Evita and went on to become a Bombay singing sensation), Devika Rajbans-Bhojwani (she played Mary in Jesus Christ Superstar, a role that Alyque created for her as it does not exist in the original version) and her husband Suresh Bhojwani (who used to sing on the Bombay stage with her), and Devika's sister, Malvika (who was my classmate at Elphinstone College where we both majored in English--she became a well-known Bombay journalist), Viraf Pocha (who did the lighting for a gazillion Bombay plays including several for Alyque), Quasar Padamsee-Thakore (Alyque's son with Dolly), Raell Padamsee (Alyque's daughter with his first wife, the one and only deceased Pearl).
     As the morning wore on and the place became more crowded, the front seats were occupied by the elderly colleagues that had been Alyque's collaborators in the theater for decades--Gerson da Cunha (Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar among other productions) who needs assistance walking and Amin Sayani (giant of All-India Radio's Hindi broadcasts--the first of the great DJs, a role he held long before we had a name for such a position). Together with his brother Hamid Sayani (who had done the English broadcasts) and who married Jerry, Alyque's sister, they ruled All-India Radio and all of us grew up to the sound of their voices in our homes, long before TV took over! Gerson was the only person I saw who was actually in tears as he gazed on the body of his long-time friend and fond collaborator.
     My friend Josie Paul (who had worked closely with Alyque in Lintas) was there--we grew up together as both our fathers worked for the Reserve Bank of India and were friends. I spotted Nisha da Cunha, retired Professor of English at St. Xavier's College who is married to Sylvester (known as Sylvie) da Cunha, Gerson's brother, also a doyen in the theater world in Bombay. I understand that Sylvie is physically incapacitated and cannot move out of his home. Their son Rahul, who is a theater producer now, was also present. Nisha, who is the daughter of former Member of Parliament H.M. Patel, once interviewed me when I was 21 years old, for the Cambridge-Nehru Scholarship--when I had hoped to get to the University of Cambridge to do my doctorate! (I did not get it). She is also a published short story writer whose work I used for my book on Grief-Management. She is now a close friend of my friend Firdaus and I hope to interview her soon. The thought occurred to me that I might not have been awarded the Cambridge-Nehru Scholarship, but I now have the Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship!!! What this teaches is that through life, you must compete for everything--you win some, you lose some...you just keep trying! That, in fact, had always been my mother' advice to me.
     Kamal pointed out to me Kailash Surendranath, an advertising film maker and Zafar Hai, one of India's best-known commercial film-makers (he is married to the utterly gorgeous Colleen Hai, once Air-India's Chief Hostess and its favorite model--also a good friend of my brother Roger).
     In a short time, I found myself seated next to Yohaan Jefferies, Alyque's nephew--his late mother Bee was Alyque's sister. She married Dereck Jefferies who did production and stage management for Alyque for decades before he passed away. Yohaan just happened to be visiting Bombay with his son Jeremy who is a student at the University of Connecticut. Yohaan happens to live not too far away from me in Wilton, Connecticut, where he runs his own business. I have an interview with him on Tuesday and I am hoping to learn a lot from him about the behind-the-scenes parts of English theater as he remembers it from working as an apprentice under his father.
     Yohaan also pointed out his cousin, Amanda (Mandy) Padamsee, to me--daughter of Alyque's late brother who was known as Chottu and who had moved to London where he married an Englishwoman called Margaret and had Amanda and Alexandra. It was grand to see these Padamsee cousins all gathered together from around the world on the occasion of the passing away of "Uncle Al". I also met Annie, Alyque's secretary, with whom I have been talking on the phone and who had scheduled my interview with Alyque last week (which was cancelled because he was admitted to hospital) and my interview with him next week! She was distributing mortuary cards to all attendees. The front carried his picture--the back said, "Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once" (Shakespeare).
      I was very appropriately dressed as everyone as in white or off-white. (I had taken off my scarf on the bus, as planned). Even the men were in white--Gerson in an off-white kurta, Roger in a white linen shirt, Fr. Fraser in a white kurta. Most of the women wore white or off-white salwar kameez suits. I saw Sabira Merchant cross herself at the pyre and asked Kamal to explain--I had always thought she was a Muslim (an Ismaeli). Indeed, she had been, confirmed Kamal.  However, after the Hindu-Musim riots of 1993 (following the razing of the Babri Masjid), she had become so paranoid about the safely of Muslims in Bombay that she joined a shop-front 'church' founded by a man called Gul Kripalani in Bombay and 'converted' to Christianity. Ever the shrewd scholar-reporter, I kept my eyes open throughout and observed carefully, learning at every point, something more about the man and the people with whom he had surrounded himself throughout his life.  It was a truly edifying experience, in more ways than one.
     At about 11. 45 am, when I wondered whether there would be anything beyond the offering of respects to the deceased and condolences to the next-of-kin, Quasar, Alyque's son with Dolly, made an announcement thanking the many people present for coming. He did not read any prayers but instead chose a few lines from Othello, Alyque's favorite play, from his favorite playwright--Shakespeare. They go like this:

     Soft you, a word or two before you go.
     I have done the state some service, and they know 't.
     No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
     When you these unlucky deeds relate,
     Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate...
 
I could not think of more appropriate lines. Quasar also said "Dad would have been very pleased to know that all of you showed up. He would also have hated this...too chaotic for his liking. He would have been shouting, 'Viraf...bring some order here..'" That got a laugh and then that was it.  Then he announced that they would be "taking Dad to the next venue so anyone wanting to pay last respects should do so now." The body was then moved to the crematorium next-door.  People waited for just a few minutes after it was assigned to the flames.
       And with that the life of a true giant among men ceased to exist on this earth. I was deeply moved and very glad that I attended. I shall conduct my interview with Alyque in our next life together.

Off to Downtown Bombay:
     I spent a while chatting with Jinx Akerkar whom I shall be interviewing this coming week and to her daughter Anahita. Then I left and was on the lookout for a bus stop to take me downtown as I had a 4. 30 pm date--the Sultan Padamsee Playwrighting Awards (named after Alyque's elder brother Sultan--who was known as Bobby--was at the NCPA in the evening as part of the Tata Literature Festival) and Farid Currim, whom I shall interview next week, had recommended that I attend as he was one of the organizers. Roger Pereira passed by in his car and asked if I needed a lift to Bandra. I thanked him for his kindness but told him I was going downtown.
     I found a bus and hopped into it. I am doing in Bombay what I do in London. I get on any bus going in the direction I want. I then tell the conductor where I actually want to go and ask him where I should get off before I can hop into another connecting bus going forward from the same bus stop towards my destination. This is working like magic! So I hopped off at the Nehru Planetarium. From there I took another bus and got off at Jaslok Hospital. From there I jumped into a bus going to Flora Fountain. As long as I was heading towards downtown, I was fine!
     If you think I am doing weird things to get around Bombay by public transport, wait till I tell you whom I met next and what she told me.

Meeting my Hero, Meher Heroyce Moos, on the Bus:
    So, in an empty bus, where I sat on the front single seat, I noticed in a little while, that a little old lady had got on and sat right behind me. In no time at all, she started a conversation with me (See? All adventurous travelers start conversations with strangers!) She asked me where I was headed. I told her I intended to reach Nariman Point but would get off at the last stop at Flora Fountain. She told me that she was headed to Cuffe Parade for lunch. She then asked me my name and told me her's. You could have knocked me down with a feather--she was Meher Heroyce Moos! A name with which I had grown up in my mother's women' magazines like Eve's Weekly and Femina. I could not recognize her, of course, as the years have taken their toll on her--she is now white-haired and deeply wrinkled. However, the physical energy may have gone out of her, but the mental verve and the intellectual vigor is still very much there.  (Please God, if I live up to her age, could you let me be like her?) She used to be featured frequently in women's magazines as a traveller par excellence who had been alone to some of the most remote parts of the globe including Antartica.
     I told her that it was thanks to reading all about her global travel adventures that I became a travel writer. She had worked for Air-India (in its office) for 40 years until she retired and in the process had travelled to over 200 countries.  I told her that I had not yet visited Easter Island (about which she had written about 35 years ago), but I said it was still on my bucket list! I told her that I had recently been to Machu Pichu and the Galapagos Islands. She patted me on the back--what fab kudos from my teenage idol! I was just thrilled.  The bus sped on and we kept chatting. We also exchanged cards. It turned out that she was also at Alyque's funeral ("he was a friend for about 60 years," she said, "But after the funeral, I went home and changed."). At Flora Fountain, last stop on the bus, we both alighted. She descended from the high step with difficulty and with a hand from me. (My God! One day I will have to stop taking BEST buses--it is a thought that does not bear thinking because I love them too much).
     At the bus stop, I said that I would take a cab to Nariman Point (where I intended to get some lunch as I was hungry). She asked if she could ride with me to Regal Cinema on Colaba Causeway. I told her it would be my honor. I asked her what she would do going forward as she had a lunch appointment further down the Causeway. She told me, get this, that she goes around Bombay (if not by bus) then by hitching a ride from guys on two-wheelers. I was aghast. She said that she has done this in every country in which she has traveled! Boy oh boy! Compared to her, I am a woos...I will do no such thing.
     And she was right.  When she hopped off at Regal, I saw her go up to a helmeted guy on a two-wheeler and ask him to take her along on the back of his bike--and, he refused!!!!! Hah hah hah...it was not her hesitating to take a ride, it was him hesitating to give one to what he probably thought was a crazy old lady!! I almost peed with suppressed laughter!
     Well, anyway, I intend to reach out to her and, hopefully, she will give me some contacts because, as she put it, "I know everyone..."
     What a strange and unexpected encounter! Another marvelous Fulbright experience for me to write home about...

Lunch at Nariman Point:
     I still had a lot of time to kill before my 4.30 event and since I was starving, I told the cab to take me to the INOX Theater where I have discovered the wonderful Food Court. There I chose a Masala Dosa which was very good indeed and made a really filling lunch. I then had a sundae at a place called Koldplay but it was far from great. I really do miss my Dairy Queen blizzards, I can tell you that...
     I then walked across the road and arrived at the NCPA where I picked up my delegate badge--I had registered online a few days ago. I had an hour to kill...so I stepped into the Little Theater to listen to a Swiss chap called Daniel Metzgar carry out a 'performance' of his own play that put me straight to sleep. In all fairness, this was probably because I needed the physical rest. But I saw tons of people walk out of the auditorium through various stages of it. So, it could not have been very appealing--it was called Land Speilen. 

The Sultan Padamsee Playwrighting Awards:
     I had enough time to get to the restroom before I went to the Godrej Theater to attend the Sultan Padamsee Playwriting Awards. Named after Sultan, the brother of Alyque, who had founded not just the St. Xavier's Dramatic Club but also Theater Group, it is an annual playwriting competition that was instituted years ago. It died somewhere along the way--probably following the allegations that were made by the novelist-playwright Cyrus Mistry that after winning the award for his play Doongaji House, he was asked to cough up five lakhs to pay for its production (according to Cyrus, production of the play was part of the prize!) Be that as it may, the Award was revived, through Alyque's efforts, a few years ago.  It is now run by his son, Quasar. Entries are invited from around the world and a panel of judges picks the best writers.
     The crowd (most of whom had been at the funeral in the morning) were welcomed by Quasar Padamsee who told us that last night, as part of the Prithvi Theater Festival, which was taking place at many venues around the city, every performance had been dedicated to Alyque.  He said that Alyque would probably be very pleased to know that. Anil Dharker, main organizer of the Tata Lit Fest, then stepped to the mike to offer a tribute to Alyque. He spoke beautifully about his long association with Alyque "from Tughlaq to the present...", about his association with Alyque as a social activist and about his personal connection with Alyque--his daughter Ayesha Dharkar who is an actress based in London, had started her career being directed by Alyque in The Final Solution. He said that it is customary to observe a minute's silence upon the death of a person--but with Alyque, he said, one does not do anything customary.  He, therefore, invited the crowd to raise a cheer to Alyque and he said, "Hip Hip" and the crowd roared "Hooray" three times. Way to go!!!
     The 'program' then began. What was presented were 'readings' from excerpts of four plays that had been singled out as the best entries received this year. First off, Sabira Merchant and an actor, whose name I did not catch, did a reading from Watching You by Bettina Gracias. It was beautifully 'acted' as only a thespian like Sabira can manage. The writing was crisp, the play wildly humorous about an elderly widow who is scouring the internet looking for dating sites so that she had have wild sex with a pervert because she was married to man with whom she had none!--much to the consternation of her grown-up scandalized son who has been thrown out of his home by his wife and has come back to live with his mother! You can just imagine the laughs that ensued! Super funny and super fun!
     Next was Hello Farmaish by Sneh Sapru which is a very avant-garde play based on villagers in a small village in Haryana from where the real-life US astronaut Kalpana Chawla hailed, watching TV and following her launch into space. It tried to be funny but did not really work for me although the idea was quite striking indeed.
     The play that followed was my favorite--it was an except from A Fistful of Rupees by Shiv Tandon and was enacted by Cyrus Broacha (whom I recognized from You Tube skits) and someone else whose name I did not catch (but who was just fantastic in the role he played). It was about a young film producer at the start of his career in Bombay being coached by a cynical, seasoned old hand who is educating him on what to expect as he goes forward in his profession.  Wildly funny, extremely true to life and beautifully enacted. The playwright is an Indian who was born and grew up in Singapore and returned to live in Bombay three years ago where he works as an engineer but writes plays for fun!
     Finally, there was Parts of Parts. And Stitches by Riti Sachdeva which was enacted by Alyque's niece Amanda and nephew Yohaan assisted by Anahita Mehta and another gal whose name I did not catch.  This was a very serious play about the carnage that followed the Independence of India and the Partition of the sub-continent and it was about a woman who goes out in search of the body parts of the fiance she has lost in the bloodbath. Two characters played a 'chorus' in the background and their commentary was very well enacted--almost with the melancholy of a Greek chorus while also injecting vicious laughter and mockery into their tone.
     I cannot even tell you how thrilled I was that I made the effort to go to this event although it meant being away from home for almost the entire day. I saw some of Bombay's finest actors on the stage--veteran ones and contemporary ones who have made waves and continue to do so. It was a simply enlightening experience and right up my current alley.
     People were then invited to enter the Experimental Theater for the actual award-giving ceremony. I did not stay as I wanted to return to Bandra to catch a performance by a British writer-performer called Craig Brown who was presenting a show called "Literary Parodies". And I was so glad I did!

Back to Bandra:
     I got into a 108 bus from Nariman Point that took me to Churchgate.  I had received a call from my cousin Blossom while I was in the auditorium--so I returned her call as I walked to the station.  We caught up on a whole lot plus made plans for my visit and stay at her place in Chennai in January. Then I got into a train that took me to Bandra station from where I took the 220 bus to Waterfield Road. My destination was St. Paul's Media Center where some events of the NCPA Literary Fest are being held simultaneously with the ones in downtown Bombay.  Sadly, because of my packed program of the morning, I missed seeing my friend Firdaus who had traveled to Bandra from Colaba to catch some of the programs and my friend Celia who had arrived from Kurla with her husband Eddie--but both of them left before I arrived as they had put in long days attending varied (really good events, they said) and were exhausted.

'Literary Parodies' by Craig Brown:
     Craig Brown is a British satirist and humorist and parodist who had been hailed by none other than Stephen Fry (whom I adore) as "Britain's wittiest man". What he was doing was reading extracts from his book entitled Literary Parodies by performing them as monologues. Each of them was a parody of the kind of writing that has been produced through the ages by philosophers, poets, politicians, etc. The banner touted the fact that he would be parodying Naipaul, Hardy, Trump and many others.
     The auditorium was large and the performance was scarcely attended--far fewer people were there than in the main bookshop downstairs where crowds had assembled to listen to internationally-renowned journalist Aroon Shourie discuss the alarming state of the Indian judiciary. I was torn between attending the two sessions and, in the end, decided to go to Craig's show as I felt I'd be able to identify far better with it.
     And that was what I did. Craig Brown arrived looking like a taller version of Dickens' Mr. Pickwick. He had a smooth bald pate for a head, wore a mint green jacket over a jazzy black and white printed shirt and had round John Lennon-shaped granny glasses in a mint green frame to complete his outfit.
     It was when he began reading that I realized how clever, witty and talented he is. He told us that his efforts at parodying began at boarding school when he was about 8 years old and the Principal and teachers made easy targets.  And he has never stopped. He read extracts from his book that covered the medieval philosophers Wittgenstein and Alain de Bottom and Max Beerbohm, novelist Jane Austen, President Donald Trump (he targeted his tweets which he said are getting very difficult to parody as they are already growing more daft by the day!) and various British contemporary authors that are not known to me. I kept waiting and waiting for him to parody Hardy who is one of my favorite authors. But I'm afraid he did not.
     When the show ended, a little over an hour later, I told him that it was wonderful and I loved it but was disappointed not to hear his parody of Hardy for whom I kept waiting.  And then to my enormous surprise, what do you think he did? He ran off to his podium, picked up a copy of his own book (the one from which he was reading and in which he had made personal notes!) and gifted it to me! I was so taken aback. I asked him if he was sure he wanted to give it to me. He said it would be his pleasure! What a nice man! I requested him to sign it for me and inside he wrote, "To Rochelle...Here's Hardy! Craig Brown". Oh my goodness! I shall certainly treasure it--not so much  for its value as a signed book but for the lovely back story that accompanies it.

Long-distance Prep for Thanksgiving:
     It was about 9.00 pm when everything ended and I made my way on foot back home--about ten minutes away. I'd had a day and a half! I could not wait to get back home to get something to eat. I threw myself on my bed but then I remembered that I had told Llew I would call him today. He needed guidance in prepping for Thanksgiving as he is playing host (alone!) to 12 guests. He needed to go over the Menu and recipes with me and find out where the table linen, dishes and serving platters are kept in our kitchen and basement as these items are usually my department and he has no clue. We videoed our way through his preparations as I walked him to the closets and the cabinets and told him where to find things.  We went over everything from tablecloths to center pieces as well as food offerings.  Our guests are helping by bringing in some items, but he will still be cooking (and I suggested buying) the bulk of the menu. Way to go, Llew!!! I am so proud of my husband but I am afraid that I will soon be declared redundant in the Almeida Household!
     It took about three phone calls, made while I heated and ate my dinner, for him to find everything. But he did a splendid job as he wanted to lay the table and get all serving platters organized tonight as he will be working for the rest of the week and will need to do things in stages.
     I went to bed at 11.30 pm after watching Come Dine With Me. Having had so many really hectic days that have involved doctors, clinics, hospitals, funerals and such a huge variety of cultural events and programing in the last few days, I have decided to do nothing tomorrow but vegetate.  I think I really do deserve it...don't you?
     I apologize for the length of this blog post but, as you can see, I am doing this as a form of Note-taking as I am pretty sure I can use a lot of this material in a proposed book...  
     Until tomorrow...