Wednesday, December 12, 2018
Bombay
ABBA Tribute by Platinum and Afternoon Tea at the US Club Made It A Fabulous Day!
Namaste from Bombay!
Today was another extraordinary day in this extraordinary city! I was chatting with Llew and he asked me if I intended to get back at all as I am having such a good time here!
I was up at 6.00 today, I blogged, responded to work email and made plans for the day. I then had my breakfast of muesli and coffee and left for the gym where I spent an hour working out and reading Bridget Jones' Mad About the Boy--the latest novel by Helen Fielding whose work I love. But guess what (spoiler alert here!), Fielding has killed off Mark Darcy!!! This is about the worst thing that could happen since Julian Fellowes killed off Mathew Crawley in Downtown Abbey!!! How is this even possible? I am heartbroken. The book is fun all the way and as I adore Fielding's style, I am lapping it up.
Back home, I showered and got ready to work on my laptop. I made it a priority to get our Christmas letter off as I will be leaving for Orissa and Calcutta on the weekend and want to get those done before I am gone. But disaster struck when I realized that I never figured out how to transfer my Contacts from Optonline to Gmail. Since I cannot use Optonline to send anything from overseas (insufficient band width, I am told), I had to switch to using my Gmail account. And it is absolutely painful to manually transfer each Contact to one of my Christmas mailings. Plus, my Gmail account only holds the email addresses of those folks with whom I have communicated using Gmail--and as I use this email account so rarely (only when overseas), this is proving to be highly problematic for me. Many of the folks who usually get our annual Christmas greetings might not receive it this year. Oh well...it is an unusual year for The Almeidas all around.
After about an hour of sending out letters, I took a break to stretch and made a call to confirm an interview appointment for tomorrow afternoon. Then, I got back to my laptop and sent out letters for one more hour. At 12. 20, I stopped to put together a lunch plate for myself. I was going off to Dad's to have lunch with him and Russel as I knew that I had afternoon and evening plans that would prevent me from spending any time with them. And I took my own lunch with me because if I end up eating at Dad's, my own food lies in my fridge and I end up accumulating leftovers!
Dad was busy writing his own Christmas cards when I arrived at his place, ten minutes later. It was good to see piles of cards there with lists and address books, etc. as poor Dad copes with these old-fashioned tasks (of sending out Christmas cards) using old-fashioned methods (such as the mailman and the postal service--which as I have told you, really sucks). Anyway, we soon stopped to have lunch together. Russel is now able to sit at the table and eat his meals as he did earlier (before his fall) with his knee still in a leg brace to prevent the bones from dislocating again. He is also in good spirits as he looks forward to the Christmas season.
I left Dad's after lunch and got back home to take a short nap. At 2.30 pm, I was dressed and ready to leave my home for the next item on the agenda--meeting my friend Nafisa at Churchgate. She wanted to introduce me to a very special, "tucked-away" place, she said. So, as planned and on schedule, I was at the meeting point across from Eros Cinema when she swung by in her car and picked me up at 3. 30 pm.
Afternoon Tea at the United Services Club at Navy Nagar:
We had the best afternoon. The place she was taking me to was the United Services (US) Club which is at the southernmost point of the island of Bombay at the area that is known as Navy Nagar. This is a highly protected area and security here is very tight. The Indian Armed Services (Army, Navy and Air Force) stationed in Bombay have their headquarters here--this includes the various ships, such as the INS Ashvini as well as their living quarters--these range from apartments to colonial bungalows (depending on the rank of the personnel who form the armed services in India).
I remember, years and years ago, when I was little and into my early teenage years, taking long BEST bus drives with my Mum and Dad who often brought us here on the No. 3 bus from Mazagoan. We would get off at the last stop (the depot) which is right near the glorious Victorian Anglican church that is known as Afghan Church as it was built to house the mortal remains of British colonial officers who had died in the mid-nineteenth century Anglo-Afghan Wars. So as we drove through the colony, I kept thinking of my Mum and missed her so much. I feel more and more grateful, as I grow older, to my parents for the wonderful childhood they gave us and the many sights to which they introduced us when we were so little and the deep love they instilled in us for the city of our birth. They were truly enlightened parents and we were so lucky to have them. Dad, even at this age, is a daily marvel to me and I am so grateful that I have all this quality time with him at this stage in my life.
Back to Afghan Church: I have tried, in recent years, without success to get in there...but to no avail. There is some spectacular Victorian mortuary sculpture in there (similar to the kind to be found in St Thomas' Anglican Cathedral at Fort) but the church is always locked and the caretaker never around when I have visited. Now, as it turns out, there is an Evening of Festive Christmas Music there tomorrow--a free concert being given by the world-class Paranjoti Choir under its legendary conductor Coomi Wadia. My cousin Blossom is arriving from Madras for Christmas tomorrow and she and Nafisa and I will be going to the concert--so we will actually be inside the church and will get to see it! Fingers crossed!
Anyway, back to the US Club (as it is known). The place is gorgeous--just as idyllic as Nafisa described it. It is on the water's edge and since the tide was in, the mighty Arabian Sea lapped at our feet. Thickly planted with coconut palms--whose coconuts and water are sold in the coffee shop--and surrounded by manicured green lawns (many of which are golf links), it is lovely. Friends like Ian who have been on safari with us to South Africa will remember the turquoise-blue bird that our guide Dee had told us is the most photographed bird in the world--the Lilac-Breasted Roller to give it its correct name! Well, guess what, there was a Lilac-Breasted Roller right there--in Bombay, on the lawns of the US Club! And it kept flying obligingly from one pole to the other to give us a full visual treat--its spectacular wide-wing span that is a vivid blue. When stationary, it has a coral head and a lilac breast--so you can just imagine how fabulous it is. I was so thrilled to see it and I introduced Nafisa to it as we found a table and chairs under a sun umbrella and ordered our Afternoon Tea.
Since I cannot have tea (darn caffeine intolerance!), I opted for a lassi and Nafisa joined me. We also ordered Mushrooms on Toast and Grilled Chicken Sandwiches--both of which were super tasty. Sitting there in this quiet spot with hardly a few other people around was such a joy. Nafisa told me that the crowds come in after 6.00 to see the sunset and then to walk on the promenade. When I say 'crowds', I mean just the local residents of Navy Nagar--so, basically, just a sprinkling!
After a lovely long, uninterrupted natter, Nafisa and I left--the sun was low in the evening sky by this point but we could not wait to see it disappear under the horizon as that would have made us late for our next treat--ABBA. Still, I keep thinking about how lucky I am that I have all these friends who keep taking me to these private, members only, clubs at which I am enjoying the good life: With Vaman, I have been to the very posh colonial Willingdon Sports Club; with Firdaus, it is the superbly nautical Yacht Club; with Sam Kerawala, it was the old-world Wodehouse Club; with Shahnaz, it is the snazzy Otter's Club! And I, of course, have my own membership to the Bandra Gymkhana, another private club. Getting our own membership there, a few years ago, was a truly inspired idea, I think, although I did not believe that I would get to enjoy the benefits of membership so soon.
ABBA Tribute at the NCPA:
So, the next item of the evening and the one that absolutely made our day was the ABBA Tribute at the NCPA. A look-alike, sound-alike band called Platinum from London travels the world dressing like ABBA and singing and dancing exactly like the Swedish group did. I have made contact with Raell Padamsee whom I shall be interviewing soon. She was the organizer of this event through her huge production company called ACE Productions--one would expect nothing less from the daughter of the legendary Alyque and Pearl Padamsee! Anyway, she gave me tickets to the show and I invited my friends Nafisa and Marianel to go with me (Shahnaz had seen the show already last year and told me it was spectacular!).
So we met at 6. 30 pm on the steps of the NCPA and boy oh boy oh boy...did we have a blast?! You should have been there! The packed house was simply rocking. These four performers were dressed in the kind of outfits that ABBA popularized in the 70s and their music was just grand. It was so hard to believe how much like Agnetha and Anafrida (the girls from ABBA) the two female singers looked--I mean, right down to their features. It was unbelievable! The guys (Bjorn and Benny) did not look even remotely like the original ABBA male performers (I almost wrote male members there...but then I don't want any weirdos thinking this is a porn site!!!) of ABBA.
They invited the audience to sing with them and then to dance in the aisles and so many people got up and were doing just that. The three of us had such a blast as one after another they belted out ABBA songs, made many costume changes and really superb dance moves. When doing "I Have A Dream", they asked the audience to use the flashlights on their IPhones and the entire house was filled with beams of light--it was just incredible! I could have sworn I was at an ABBA concert. I kept waiting and waiting for my favorite ABBA song of all--guess which one?? And then, just when I began to despair that they would play it, they actually ended the show with it. With 'Waterloo'!!!! I was just beside myself! For an encore, they came back on stage and did 'Dancing Queen' and the entire house was on its feet. Marianel and I kept thinking of our high school days as we listened to one song after the other--and the great times we used to have singing around the piano as one of our classmates would play. Really and truly, those were the days!
The concert finished in 90 minutes (without an interval) and it was easily among the best 90 minutes I have spent since arriving in Bombay. What's more, in January, Raell is bringing an Elton John Tribute (Ian, want to come to Bombay?) and a Whitney Houston Tribute--so you can bet I will be attending those concerts too! Marianel brought me home made potted meat sandwiches and Nafisa brought me a velvet blouse--which is love. She said she thought the shades on the blouse would bring out the color of my eyes--the dominant color was a warm hazel! How very nice of them!
It was only 8.00 pm when we were done as there was a repeat performance at 8.30 pm. We wondered if we should go for dinner somewhere but then Nafisa and I were still full from our big Tea and decided against it. She dropped Marianel and me to Churchgate station from where Marianel took a cab and I took the train home.
Back home, I watched The Two Fat Ladies on the pier at Lldadno in Wales as they cooked for the keepers of a lighthouse and ate my dinner--white pumpkin, cutlets and chicken curry. By the way, I have just discovered why, despite going to the gym daily and leaving off carbs, I am still a few pounds heavier than I like. And I realize it is the daily fried food I am eating (either pan rolls, or potato chops or cutlets or potato tikkies). At home in Southport, Llew and I do not eat any fried foods at all--so this has to do with the stubborn few pounds that I cannot shift. Oh well...the convenience of having the daily tiffin delivery is something I value...so I will focus on dropping fried foods again when I get home.
At 11.00 pm, I switched the light off after another incredible day in Bombay!
Until tomorrow...
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