It's Sunday Again--Last One of the Long Diwali Weekend

Sunday, November 11, 2018
Bombay

It's Sunday Again--Last One of the Long Diwali Weekend

     Namaste from Bombay!
     Waking up later has its disadvantages. Today, my 6.30 am wake-up meant that I only had time to blog, read the weekend headlines in The Times of London, have a coffee with a couple of biscuits and dress for Mass.

First Lector Assignment in Church:
      It was an important day for me as I had my first official lector assignment in church. I arrived a bit early and went into the sacristy to go over my Reading. While there, I got to know the semi-retired priest, one Fr. Lancy D'Souza, who is helping our priests deal with their work load.  He has been saying the 9.15 am Mass on Sundays at St. Anne's. I discovered that he comes to us from Sydney, Australia, where he has served in ministry for over 20 years.  A sweet priest, he cracks jokes as part of his sermon and his congregation is slowly learning to take such tactics in their stride. I noticed that some of them actually cracked a smile!
     I also noticed that the church was half-empty.  I have started going to the 9.15 am Mass as I found it the liveliest of the lot. I like its choir, I like its general energy.  Well, as it happened to be the last day of the long Diwali weekend, when the city was still in slumber and with so many people still away on resort travel, the choir was absent and the congregation was sparse.  It was a good setting in which to quell the butterflies in my tummy--the sort I always experience when I am doing something for the first time.  That said, I used to be a Lector in this church 30 years before I left for the US. I had started to read the Word at this church when I was about 19 years ago--so, in this respect too, I am coming full circle.
     The reading went off well and I was happy with the end result. The best part of being at this Mass is that I get to interact with so many familiar faces after it during the Meet and Greet session outside--I reconnected with Oliver and Jennifer Pinto (Jennifer and I used to be fellow-faculty members at Jai Hind College) and with Darryl and Suzie (just back from the States where they attended a wedding). I picked up a vada pau for Russel and then dropped it off briefly at Dad's before I returned home to change and get out of my more formal church clothing.
     Back home, I could have spent some time cleaning, but I forgot that this is part of my Sunday routine!  Instead, I lazed around, read The Times on my iPad, watched some TV as I ate my breakfast of muesli and coffee and then prepared for the week ahead of me.  Tomorrow, the world will return to normal with the long Diwali holiday weekend done and I will return to a full compendium of work.

Lunch and Paper Work at Dad's:
     I rejoined Dad and Russel for lunch by carrying all the leftovers from my fridge--and I had tons. I told Dad not to order lunch in today and we ended up with a smorgasbord of all sorts of food that formed a very hearty lunch indeed. Russel, Dad and I ate together in his room so that we could all be part of a happy conversation.
     After lunch, Dad and I sat down to get some work done.  He had drafted a letter and I typed it up for him on my computer and saved it on my flash drive with the idea of printing it out for him so that he can send it off--it had to do with some of his financial investments. We moved on to checks that had to be cut for his gas and electricity bills.  Dad laments the fact that his poor eyesight is a huge handicap to him and that despite using a magnifying glass he takes ages to decipher things. I help as much as I can, but there are some things he prefers to do entirely by himself.
     I left when our work was done and returned home to take a nap myself. I had also taken a load of laundry to Dad's as I changed my towels.  I have an assigned laundry bag that I carry back and forth between my home and Dad's where my laundry gets done. It is an arrangement that is working out well.

Fixing Dinner for Dad and Russel:
        By the early evening, I got an invitation from my friends Anil and Ninaz to join them at their place for early dinner--Anil had a business flight to take at 5.00 am. They had a friend visiting from Santa Barbara, California, and wanted me to meet her. I told them that I would only have a drink with them as I needed to return to Dad's to fix dinner for them.
     I had suggested penne pasta--based on a packet that I had received as a free sample when I had purchased a bottle of ketchup! I picked up green peppers en route to Dad's place and then spent about twenty minutes chopping the peppers and rustling up dinner--Dad had been presented a can of corned tuna (first time I saw such a thing but I think it is a product of Australia) and adding that to the penne, I made them a nice one-pot meal.
      I stayed with Dad until the cricket match transmission began at 7.00pm at which time I said Bye to them and left. I walked to The Bagel Shop from where I picked up bagels and pesto cream cheese for Anil and Ninaz and then I hopped into a rickshaw and arrived at their place about ten minutes later.

Dinner with Friends:
     As always, we had a grand time together. Pat turned out to be staying with them for a week before she leaves for Malaysia and returns to Bombay. She and Anil were once colleagues at the Taj Hotel. Anil fixed me a gin and tonic as we nibbled on Theo Broma's chicken patties (awesome) and spiced cashew nuts. We had much to debate--from Catholic theology to their recent holiday in Goa (they had spent the Diwali vacation there) and then it was time to order in.  They chose China Gate from whose menu we feasted on Noodles, Coriander Fish and Crispy Chicken--all superb (as only the food from China Gate can be) before we ended with Naturals ice-cream--tender coconut and custard apple.
   It was only five minutes before I got up to leave that I discovered that I knew Pat's husband really well! We did our Masters together at Bombay University many moons ago and had participated in some cultural festival or the other when we were post-graduate students together--he majored in Geography and I did English.  Val Noronha, her husband, also happens to be the brother of a very close friend of ours--Vivian! Val, who did his Ph.D. in Geography from Harvard, went on to patent all sorts of tracking devices that are part and parcel of the GPS systems we all use today. He opened his own outfit, a couple of decades ago (after starting his career in academia) and based it in the dream location of Santa Barbara! It is just amazing to me that we spent a couple of hours together before I made this discovery. When I told Pat about Llew and my connections with her family, she was simply amazed too! Indeed it is a tiny world!
    Anil and Ninaz dropped me home in a rickshaw and I was ready to crash by 11.00 pm. after another terrific evening with them.
     I am relieved that the holiday weekend has finally come to an end and that I can return to the routine that I have established.  Tomorrow is my late Mum's birthday and I will be companying Dad to her niche at St. Andrew's cemetery early in the morning after which I intend to return to the gym.
     Until tomorrow...