A Day Spent Meeting Old Friends and New Ones!

Wednesday, January 2, 2019
Bombay

A Day Spent Meeting Old Friends and New Ones!

     Namaste from Bombay!

Accompanying Dad to the RBI Dispensary:
     My year is getting off to a great start as today I had the happy anticipation of meeting an old friend and getting to know a new one.  Up at 6.30 am, I drafted part of a blog post really quickly and then, as planned, washed, dressed and left my house by 7.25 to reach my Dad's at 7.30am. I had made plans to accompany him on his three-monthly trip to the Reserve Bank Quarters at Santa Cruz where the Bank's Medical Officer renews prescriptions for his and Russel's daily medication. As former employees of the RBI, both of them are entitled to their medication for free--a huge monthly savings for which we are all very grateful as medications in India have sky-rocketed in price. I had accompanied Dad on at least three occasions before, but I keep going with him in order to learn the system that operates here. After we pick up a bunch of medicines from the dispensing compounder at the RBI Colony's clinic, we take a rick and go over to a neighboring chemist from where the rest of the medications are dispensed to us with what is called 'credit slips'. This way Dad does not need to shell out any money.  After three months, he will go through this ritual again. It is quick and painless and not too inconvenient as these places are very close by and rickshaws make transport very easy and comfortable.
     However, by the time we were done and I returned home, I was starving as all I had managed to down was half a cup of coffee before leaving. I thought I would hold out until 10.00 am when I would be meeting a friend but I was simply unable to stay hungry that long. So I made my birschermuesli with apples and figs and watched some more of Death in Holy Orders on You Tube as I munched. This is based on a P.D. James' novel of the same name and stars one of my favorite British actors, Martin Shaw.  I have watched this before, several years ago, with Llew.  But the beauty of these British murder mysteries, is that I never remember whodunit--so the end is always a revelation for me.

Meeting an Old Friend at Bandra Gymkhana:
     It was not long before I left my place to walk to Bandra Gymkhana where I had plans to meet an old friend, Louella Matthias, who is visiting Bombay from Vancouver with her husband Kevin. As their time in Bombay is only limited, Louella is staying with her mother in Powai while Kevin is staying with his parents in Bandra! This will give each of them quality time with their respective parents! I have no idea what Kevin was doing this morning, but Louella and I made plans to meet at 10.00 am and she arrived about ten minutes after I got there.  It was a great joy to see her again. We had last met in Vancouver when Llew and I had traveled there to attend her son Ryan's wedding--which had been a wonderful occasion that brought many of our US East Coast friends together.
     Louella looked lovely as always--fully relaxed after a wonderful Christmas and New Year with close family members in Bombay and on taking the decision to retire. Both she and Kevin are now free to travel around the world and they intend to do a lot of it.  We spent about an hour and a half just shooting the breeze--catching up on everything that has been going on in our lives since the last time we met. Although she had a bunch of things to do before she leaves tomorrow, she was determined to make the time to meet me as she simply did not know when we would meet again.  It is a standing joke among our circle of friends that Louella is either related or is known to almost everyone in the world! As it turned out, she is related to some well-known Bombay classical singers (Celia Lobo and Patricia Rozario) and dancers--Ashley Lobo of Danceworks is her first cousin. She has promised to put me on to them as I continue with my work. We had a simply splendid time and have absolutely no idea where it flew. Since she had eaten breakfast too, we nursed coffee through the morning and I then saw her off to Kevin's parents' place on St. Leo's Road before I strolled back home.
     Back home, I got down to spellchecking the manuscript of my memoir and reviewing the chapter links as I got it ready for the two agents (so far) who have requested the entire manuscript. I am hoping something positive will come out of this. While I was at that task, I got an email--my first rejection!- which came directly from a publisher. I was sorry to see that, but I have learned, as I said, to roll with the punches and take the good news with the disappointing bits. The publisher was kind enough to comment that my chapters were hilarious but he regretted that they are not looking to commission a travel-based memoir at the moment. I realize that this is very frequently the case.  It is not that a manuscript is unworthy of publication. Oftentimes it is simply a matter of timing. You must hit the publisher at the right time when they are looking for particular genres of writing. If you are lucky enough to make that happen, you have hit the jackpot!

Lunch with Nafisa at Dad's:
     I was not completely done with my proof-reading task when I had a call from my friend Nafisa to tell me that she had finished her work in Bandra early and had decided to spend the extra time visiting Russel and my Dad at their place.  She wondered if I would be free to join her there. Not only was I hard at work and did not wish to be interrupted, but I also wanted Nafisa to have uninterrupted time with Dad and Russel whom she would be seeing after a considerable amount of time. I, therefore, told her that I would be there for lunch at 12.30. I also invited her to join us for lunch.
     Long story short, I continued working and then made my way to Dad's. Nafisa, Dad and Russel had a great visit and about a half hour later, we all sat down to have lunch--it was basically leftovers from our New Year's luncheon; but Nafisa was more than happy to partake of them.
     In the midst of our chatter, I remembered that I had to call my meal delivery service (which will be resuming in my studio tomorrow), to inform them that with the New Year, I had decided not to eat the deep fried foods (potato chops, cutlets, pan rolls) that are part of my tiffin. I have requested Valerie to drop those items from my tiffin and to send me a second vegetable or some dal, pulses or legumes instead. She said that she would be more than happy to work with me.  This way I hope I will shake off the 2-3 extra pounds that I am carrying despite working out at the gym, barely eating carbs and walking all over Bandra!
      We had a very companionable lunch before she and I both left together. She was headed back home and I needed to get something photocopied from Jai, my photocopy man. We walked together to the shop where we parted company.
     My photocopying done, I went back home and continued working on my spellcheck and then, with a prayer on my lips, sent the complete manuscript on its way to the two publishers who have requested it. I am delighted that my hard work on the query letters seems to have worked. Thus far, I feel fulfilled. Let us hope that one of them will like my writing enough to consider taking me on as a client and finding me a publisher. Fingers and all other extremities crossed.
     When I started to feel drowsy, I took a nap and when I awoke, I had a cup of tea with a slice of cake. I did not want to eat too much as I had a dinner meeting and wanted to leave room. But, with some more email and other items attended to on my laptop, I was ready to go in for a shower and to get dressed for dinner.

Dinner with a New Friend at the Taj Land's End Hotel:
     I have just made friends with Anil Shrikhande, a fellow Elphinstonian, through the group Whatsapp chat that has been set up in light of our Grand Reunion on January 4. Anil got the sense, from my chat, that I am a foodie and asked if I knew someplace in Bandra where he could get a good Mutton Xacuti. I recommended the Bandra Gymkhana! And that was where our faceless friendship began.
     Anil, who graduated three years before me, lives part of the year in Seattle and part of the year in Scottsdale, Arizona. He combined a visit to his father in India with attendance at the Reunion and had made accommodation bookings at the Taj Land's End Hotel which was not at all far from my studio.  I took a rick there for our 7.00 pm appointment.  As I knew my other Elphinstonian friend Vaman Apte and Anil were friends in college, I asked Vaman if he was free to join us. And he was! But he could only join us at about 9.00 pm.
     So, at the appointed hour, I met Anil in the hotel lobby as planned. A few of the restaurants were taken over for private wedding functions--this left us the lobby bar for a drink and we settled ourselves down to get to know each other as he ordered a beer and I ordered a gin and tonic. Anil turned out to be a fascinating person who, after his BA in Economics at Ephie, went on to Notre-Dame for his MBA. He met his American wife, Holly, there and together they went on to have a family of two grown-up daughters. Anil represented both Boeing and Rolls-Royce in India--a matter than led him to have several meetings with royalty (Prince Andrew) and heads of state (George W. Bush) and he told me about those occasions with the ease of an engaging raconteur but without a shred of boastfulness. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to him. Now semi-retired but still remaining the CEO of a start-up company in the US, he only comes to India now to see his father who is 101 years old!
     While we were chatting in this vein, Vaman joined us. After he had a beer and we had a second drink, we adjourned for dinner to Ming Yang, the Chinese restaurant one floor above the lobby. The hotel lobby, by the way, is simply beautiful and looked very festive with its stunning glass Christmas Tree as its focal point.
     Dinner was delicious. We kept it simple, thankfully. No starters or soup or anything--just Hakka Vegetable Noodles, Chicken with Sichwan Sauce and Fish (Pomfret) with Garlic Sauce. The meal was another opportunity for the two of us to rib Vaman who is on the Organizing Committee of our Reunion and who has arranged the venue--the Willingdon Sports Club. We are all getting so excited about this affair at which about 350 Elphinstonians from around the world will be present. There will be about a dozen friends from my own class and I am sure we will have so much to talk about.  I have also been invited by the Batch of 1975 to join them on their day-long excursion to Alibagh, a beach resort reached by ferry from the Gateway of India, on the day after the Reunion. So I have one day (tomorrow) to get ready for this bash and then it will be D-Day! I simply cannot wait.
     Vaman dropped me home at about 12.00 midnight by which point I was ready to hit the sack after a fab day spent in the company of some of the people I have known for decades of my life, some more recently and some I met only today! What a great second day of the year!
     Until tomorrow...