Bombay
A Super Sunday! Upper Crust Food Festival, Mousetrap at the NCPA
Namaste from Bombay!
A day of rest turned out, in some ways, to be most productive for me. Awake at 5.00 am today, I did not try to go back to sleep as I kept thinking how much I had to do before the weekend ended!
After blogging really quickly and checking Twitter, I got dressed and left for the Bandra Gym as I hoped to pick up a South Indian breakfast of idlis, dosas, sambhar and chutney for Dad, Russel and myself. When I got to Bandra Gym at 8.30 as I had been instructed, two disappointments awaited me: nothing was ready and would not be until 9.30 am as I had been misinformed by one of the waiters earlier). Also the South Indian buffet breakfast has been scraped. They would have puri bhaji, pakoras, bhajias and Punjabi samosas but none of these would be ready until 9.30 anyway--and my Mass was at 9.15.
Damage control resulted as I marched to Blue Tokkai to pick up croissants and other baked goods--only to discover that they do not get their fresh supplies until 11.00 am. The attendant told me I could pick up yesterday's goods but, of course, they were stale and were not offered at any discount! I was stunned! Can you believe it? They tell you their goods are stale and then they do not offer them at a discount!!! What sort of establishment does that? You can be sure that I shall be tweeting about it and shall write a letter to the manager of the place to complain.
Left with no choice and feeling pretty desperate, I picked up a butter croissant, two bagels and 2 Mushroom Danishes--they cost me a pretty penny, let me tell you and they were, as expected, really stale! Still, when I dropped them off at Dad's, you should have seen how patiently (and hungrily!) Russel was waiting for breakfast. Of course, he was disappointed there were no idlis (which would have cost me one-third of the money I spent!) but when I explained what happened, everyone understood.
I rushed off to church and left them to eat their disappointing brekkie. After Mass, I dropped off Russel's vada pau, read him and Dad the church notices for the week and left to eat my own breakfast (one of the bagels) at home. I discovered that my microwave can easily function as a toaster--all I have to do is keep the baked goods there for a while and keep turning them around every few seconds. The inside burns quickly while the outside still looks fine--the secret is to find out exactly how long it takes to get the toasted crunch and flavor without completely ruining the item by burning it. I am sure I will soon get the hang of it.
After brekkie, I began cleaning my house. I am doing it quite adeptly now and I realized, it does not take me more than an hour. Sunday morning is really the best time to do it. I next relaxed with my novel and actually started to feel sleepy. I ordered lunch on the phone at Bandra Gym--as it is the last day of their Seafood Festival and as Russel was keen to eat fried Bombay ducks (a native fish found in the Bombay seas), I ordered two plates of Bombay ducks for him, plus Chicken Shahi Korma (which was delicious) and Vegetable Kolhapuri (which was much too spicy) with a Paratha and a naan each for them. I carried all this food to Dad's place and there we sat and ate it together until Russel left the table to have his nap. It is great to see him walking around the house now with his walker and having attained mobility, he now watches the cricket on the telly with Dad and his attendant while in the living room. Dad and I sat chatting until 2.00 pm when I left and went home.
I had a short nap, then woke up to take a shower and get dressed as I was headed into the city on the train.
Visiting the Upper Crust Food and Wine Festival:
First all, I stopped at the World Trade Center in Cuffe Parade for the annual Food and Wine Festival held by Upper Crust magazine, India's only culinary magazine. The editor is my friend and school classmate Farzana Contractor to whom I have occasionally submitted articles that have been published. I was delighted to run into her just after she had finished judging a culinary contest. Meanwhile, I called my friend Aban who lives in Casablanca building across the street. Aban came there to meet me. But she had pulled a muscle in the back of her leg and was dealing with severe pain. So although we walked around the stalls that were selling food to see what was on offer, we did it quickly.
Next, we went off to the first floor where there were a large number of kiosks and vendors either introducing their food and wine wares or offering them at discounts. Aban and I had a whole load of nibbles--we tasted jams, marmalades, chocolate cake with orange marmalade, cheeses (Amul now makes Gouda, Emmenthal and Cheddar), spreads (all sorts from guacamole and mustard to salad dressings like balsamic and onion to green goddess and thousands island), drinks and wines (I had to forego all the samples of teas and coffees as no one provides decaff which, they told me, does not sell at all in India--don't people in India have caffeine intolerance???), loads of muesli and granola and soups. Anyway, by the time I was done visiting all the stalls (and it was a maze, let me tell you), I was so stuffed! This, although I ate only a tiny morsel of the food on offer. Aban's leg had been bothering her too much, so she excused herself and left while I continued browsing.
I was absolutely thrilled that I attended the festival as it gave me such a good idea of all of the kinds of exotic foods that are available now in India. As I do not do any grocery shopping here and do not cook, I have no idea what is available. It was a real eye-opener for me. Yes, you can go to a fancy supermarket like Nature's Basket (organic offerings) and pay through your nose for imported foods or you can buy the Indian version of all these foods (and truly they had everything). It was a most heartening experience.
I then nipped off to Aban's place and spent abut twenty minutes with her. Rusi, her husband, was taking his Sunday afternoon siesta--so Aban and I sat chatting for a while. At 6.20, I left her place to take a taxi to Nariman Point for my next appointment at the Jamshed Bhabha Theater to see The Mousetrap.
Seeing The Mousetrap at the NCPA:
I have been traveling back and forth to London for at least 30 years and yet I have never seen The Mousetrap which has been playing there since 1957 (before I was born!). In fact, it was only two years ago, for the first time, that on one of my walks in London's Theater District, I happened to come upon St. Martin's Theater where the show is staged. It is in such a tucked-away corner off Seven Dials, that if one were not actually looking for the theater, one would never find it. I had been sorely tempted, on a couple of occasions, to buy tickets (Ten at Ten, i.e. 10 pounds tickets at 10.00 am on the morning of the show); but somehow I always kept saying, Oh it will still be here when I come next time! And so, I have never seen it.
I suppose it was fated that I see it when it came to Bombay--they are probably doing some renovations to the theater in London...who knows? But, for the moment, the current cast of the show (and it changes every year), is on a global tour and they have a few shows scheduled in Bombay. The cost of tickets are sky high (ranging from Rs. 1,200 to Rs. 8,000!) I have never paid such prices even for the best shows on Broadway or the West End. So when Shahnaz and I happened to be at the NCPA on the day the tickets went on sale, we bought the cheapest tickets in the last row (Rs 1,200). I was sure that with my field-glasses, they would be terrific.
- And I was right. With field glasses, the show was fabulous as the acoustics are brilliant. The Jamshed Bhabha Theater foyer was jam packed when I arrived to find Shahnaz waiting for me. We took our seats and settled down for curtain rise. The acting was superb (as all British plays are) and the plot was wonderful. Now, when you look back on it, it is a bit dated but the twist at the end was quite unexpected. As is traditional and as the cast have been doing for 63 years, they requested the audience at Curtain Call time not to reveal the end of the whodunit to anybody. I found that the cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway had done the same thing--they begged the audience to "Keep the Secret"!
We enjoyed the play immensely and as Shahnaz had driven in, we went by car back home to Bandra where I reached at 10.30 pm. It was a lovely evening at the theater and worth every penny of the low price we had paid for our tickets. Shahnaz and I remembered the 5 pounds and 10 pounds we had paid for plays in London when we were there together, two years ago, and the terrific first-row seats we had snagged for that money! We talked about returning to London again to do nothing else but theater, museums and art galleries--because we so thrive on that kind of thing!
I tried to get to sleep right after I reached home, but instead I looked at our Christmas letter once again and made a few more changes before emailing it off for Llew to tweak it any way he chose.
Until tomorrow...
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