Goodbye Bombay! Hello Madras!

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Bombay-Chennai

Goodbye Bombay! Hello Madras!

Namaste from Madras! 

        As usually happens when I have to fly off in the morning, I had a restless night with several unnecessary wake-ups until it was 5.45 am and I was ready to get out of bed. I did manage to find enough time to draft a hasty blog post, then wash, dress and actually have breakfast of a cup of coffee and two slices of toast with salmon cream cheese and peanut butter. I put in the last-minute things into my case and, bang on schedule, at 7.10 am went downstairs to find myself a rickshaw to get to the airport. I told the driver that I wished to get to Sahar Airport but that we needed to get to my building first so that I could pick up my suitcase.  He was most obliging and off we went at 7.15.

     I reached the airport ahead of my target time of 8.15 am for my 9.40 am flight and was checked in quite painlessly as I also checked in my case. I had enough time to browse around in the airport and pick up a long tunic for my cousin Blossom as a gift from Marks and Spencer at the airport before I made my way to the gate for my Jet Airways flights that was also on schedule. 

    It was a very short flight—just two hours. I was very comfy in my window seat with its lovely views of the very tip of the island of Bombay that gave me great views of Malabar Hill, the Queen Necklace, Colaba, Cuffe Parade and Nariman Point with its many skyscrapers. I have never seen Bombay from the air and from this perspective before and I was really very excited as I clicked a number of pictures.  However, the city was covered by heavy smog, so I am not at all sure how the pictures have turned out. For the rest of the journey, we skimmed over what seemed like endless folds of mountains (the Western Ghats stretching down to Goa and Mangalore) before we flew across the southern peninsula of the Indian sub-continent and arrived along the East coast where the city of Chennai (formerly Madras) is located.  I was very pleased that the captain actually pointed out the grand complex of the famous Hindu temple of Tirupati perched up on a mountain as we flew directly above it.  Again, I took some pictures, but I have yet to see how they came out.  Truly, few things excite me as much as seeing he world from over 25,000 feet above mean sea level. I simply adore it.

     We touched down quite smoothly at Chennai airport and, following instructions from Blossom, I made my way to the Uber stand where I ordered a cab that took me to her home for just a little over Rs. 200 (a real steal as Ola was charging me Rs. 365 and the pre-paid airport taxi service was changing me Rs. 500!). 

     In about 40 minutes, I was at her place in Thiruvanmiyur, where she was waiting for me at the entrance of her building. As I was visiting Blossom’s place for the very first time, I was pretty excited. I was quite delighted by her flat which turned out to be a spacious three-bedroom (plus study) affair with really large rooms and three ensuite bathrooms. She also has a very airy, bright and large kitchen—all this space seems particularly wide-spread to me now that I live in such a tiny studio space.

     As it was lunch time, Blossom laid out a very simple vegetarian lunch for us of rice, dal with white pumpkin, yogurt and a flat vegetable called papdi (I do not know the English equivalent). I handed her the gifts I had taken for her—the tunic, a set of jewelery (necklace and a pair of ear-rings), a bar of dark chocolate and about 6 issues of Upper Crust magazine which she was very happy to have as they are hard to come by. In turn, she gave me a necklace made with white and black crystal beads and an amethyst crystal bead necklace for Chriselle. 

     We continued to chat (will we ever run out of conversation?), until tea-time when we had mugs of hot lemony tea and Marie biscuits as well as a savory mix called Madras mix. Some more talk (a lot more talk later!), it was dinner time. During the conversation, we also chalked out our plans for tomorrow—we are taking a day trip to the former French colony of Pondicherry and to the accompanying ‘universal’ town of Auroville and made arrangements with Ola to hire a car for the day (15 hours) to get us there and back.

I also contacted my friend Christie who is the partner of my friend Roz who lives in London, to find out if he would be free to meet me and I need he is—we shall be meeting for lunch on Saturday. Meanwhile, I contacted my friend Naresh and I shall be seeing him on Friday for lunch just before my conference. So, indeed, there was a lot accomplished in the course of our chinwag.

     Dinner was a repeat of lunch after which I learned how to use the geyser for a hot shower which was most refreshing as I settled down for the night, wrote this blog post and prepared for bed as we have an early rising tomorrow as the journey by road to Pondicherry will take us exactly three hours.

Until tomorrow...