Lunch with Connecticut Friend, Book Launch at Taj Mahal Hotel, Elton John-Whitney Houston Tribute at NCPA

Saturday, January 19, 2019
Bombay

Lunch with Connecticut Friend, Book Launch at Taj Mahal Hotel, Elton John-Whitney Houston Tribute at NCPA

     Namaste from Bombay!
     What a fabulous Day I had--well, almost (the fridge catastrophe almost spoiled it)! Truly, on days like this, I fully re-live each day I had spent in London when I had lived fully in the moment and made use of every precious second!
     Awaking at 5.30 am, I began blogging and reading through my Twitter feed, email and whatsapp messages. Then, I fell asleep again for about 20 minutes and was awoken by the bicycle bell of the bread man whom I fully expected to come to my studio. But when he didn't, I was deeply disappointed. The man seems to function quite well in life with just half a brain! Oh well! Now that I will soon by leaving for Goa, I don't want to confuse him any further. He claims he cannot remember to come to my house and that he can't keep track of my order (only every other day!--how hard is that, for Pete's sake???)
     So I fixed my own predictable brekkie (muesli and coffee, of course!) and watched Unnatural Causes based on the novel by P.D. James and starring her detective Adam Dalgleish--this time played not by my favorite Martin Shaw but by Roy Marsden. It stars the extremely underrated Mel Martin whom I have seen off and on on TV for so many years that I actually mistook someone else for her at Bill's restaurant in Essex a few years ago when I was there with my friend Rosa. Anyway, it has been developed in many parts and I am not sure I will finish seeing them all before I have to live.
     I thought I had to go to Dad's so that we could go back to the Telephone Exchange office, but when I called him to confirm, he told me that he would go at his leisure and that I should just get on with my To-Do List. And mine was long! So I set off to attack it right away.
     First of all, I began preparing for my Travel Writing Workshop at Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies whichI have been invited to conduct by my friend Prof. Celia Rodrigues who teaches there herself. This involves a great deal of thought and a lot of hard work as I have never undertaken anything like this before. The session goes on for two long hours (eeeek!) and involves the dissection of student writing samples for a group of...get this...90 students! I told her that workshops can never occur with more than 12 students...but she is adamant. This is India!!! How on earth one can conduct a workshop for 90 students is quite beyond my 30 plus years of university teaching experience! Still, I will do what I can do...
     That done, I stopped to begin packing for Goa. I gave it about an hour and I was almost entirely done by then. In fact, I would have been done completely had disaster not struck quite unexpectedly! You see, I have never in my life owned a fridge that needs manual de-frosting. It appears that I have such a one installed in my studio (provided by my landlord). Having no idea how to defrost it, I have been perplexed at the buildup of ice in my freezer. I asked my niece Menaka when I was in Chennai what I was supposed to do to handle the situation and she told me that I ought to press a button that would begin the process. She told me that there is usually a tray at the back of the fridge that would fill up with water which I would later need to toss.
     So there I went: I had pressed the defrost button before I went to bed last night and this morning, I found that water had pooled all around my fridge.  Turns out the pipe that ought to have taken the water away was missing and water was flowing through my fridge and on to the floor! Needless to say, I spent the next backbreaking half hour drying it all up, calling Menaka in desperation to find out what had gone wrong. She told me to place a bowl under the water outlet as the pipe that would take the water away was obviously missing! Good Lord! I had to move all my computer paraphernalia out of the way as much of it was very close to the pool of ice-cold water. Anyway, I got a grip on the situation in about half an hour as I tried desperately to stay cool, calm and collected through it all. Fortunately, all of this happened fairly early in the morning and I did not need to switch my afternoon plans around and I had a really full one.

Lunch with a Connecticut Friend:
     When my little place was all sorted again (thank heavens for small spaces!), I went in for a shower and then left to meet my friend Lynn who had arrived from Norwalk, Connecticut, a week ago. She had carried two of our church calendars with her and I had picked them up from her place, two days ago. At that time, I had only two minutes with her but had told her that I would like to visit longer with her. Lunch at the Bandra Gym was the best deal (as she too is a member). So I invited her to join me and when I got there at 1.00 pm, she was there already.
     We spent the next one and a half hour yakking about everyone we know back home in Connecticut (which made me feel very homesick!) and in Bandra as Lynn and her husband Ralph have lived here most of their lives. The food, as usual, was outstanding: we had Chicken Alfredo with Penne and a Tandoori Chicken Salad (which was quite an interesting concoction) and drinks: she had a mojito while I had a Choco Delight--not so great. Too watery, mine was. Not like the lovely creamy drink I'd had two days ago. I am going down the Mocktails list on the menu, that's for sure!
     But soon we had to leave and off Lynn went. I returned home to drop off the doggie bag of food as we had not managed to finish it all even though we'd shared it. And then I was off again on the bus and then the train and a taxi to get to the Taj Mahal Hotel in the city.

Launch of Coastline Book by Paul Fernandes:
     I had been invited to the launch of this new book by Gerson da Cunha whom I had interviewed, a few weeks ago. Paul Fernandes, the author, is his friend. He is the artist who is responsible for this incredibly well-produced coffee table edition called Coastline which provides a visual feast based entirely on his drawings and paintings as it takes one down the West Coast of South India from Bombay into Susegad Goa, then on to Mangalore and Kerala. When I got there at 4.00 pm exactly (as the invitation had said 4-6 pm), there was merely a sprinkling of people--although to his credit, I must say that Paul and his entourage were already there. I met him, his wife Renu and a publisher from India book House--which has nothing to do with the book as Paul informed me that it is self-published. That was it. 4.00 pm and about six people were present.  It is this aspect about Indianness that infuriates me. Where is the respect for people's time!!??
     Anyway, I had the chance to browse quite thoroughly through the wonderful book (which reminded me very much of the books that the late Goan cartoonist Mario Miranda had autographed and presented to me many moons ago) as well as through the many paintings that were propped up all around. I had an orange squash because, at that time, only tea and coffee with biscuits were being offered (the invitation said High Tea--a true misnomer. What they meant was Afternoon Tea as any blue-blooded Anglophile would know!) The Afternoon Tea was concealed at that time under enticing silver domes!
     At 4.30 pm, Gerson walked into the room by which time the sprinkling of people has swollen to a couple of dozen! The show only got under way at 4.50 pm--God, give me strength! after some remarks were made that Modi would not be coming. It turns out that PM Modi was in Bombay and, as a result, the police were out thicker than flies! Gerson was supposed to be launching the book but the chief guest was politician Milind Deora who only showed up at 5.15 pm. Thankfully, he did apologize profusely and several times--he said that the PM was in town...which, I suppose, was considered valid reason for his delay--but which made no logical sense to me. Lynn had been grumbling to me during lunch that one of the worst things about returning to india was how unaware of promptness the folks are here. Well, Deora joined the folks on the dais and entered smoothy into the conversation that was conducted by Naresh Fernandes.
     I failed to understand why the launch of a book should have sparked a whole discussion about the woes of the the city of Bombay but there are a lot of things that make no sense to me and I suppose I need to put it all down to cultural illiteracy on my part. I still have to get accustomed to the crazy cultural quirks of life in Bombay. The questions asked seemed quite irrelevant to the book and poor Paul, who ought to have been the subject of our admiration and attention, was left out in the cold while other people took up the tenor of the discussion--why there should have been such a discussion during a book launch is still quite beyond my understanding! I have certainly never seen anything like this at book launches in the US!
     At exactly 6.00 pm, while they were still pontificating, I got up to leave  The invitation said 4-6pm. I was there at 4.00 pm on the dot and I left at 6.00 pm on the dot.  This meant that the lovely tea which lay attractively open by this point was just a tad beyond my reach! Still, I had Marianel to meet at 6.10 at the NCPA for my 6.30 pm show and I could not afford to be late. So leave I did.

Elton John-Whitney Houston Tribute at the NCPA:
     I jumped into a taxi (which I  was fortunate to find at Apollo Bunder) and was at the NCPA by 6.15. At the Guest Relations desk, I picked up my complimentary tickets (courtesy of producer Raell Padamsee whom I will be interviewing next week) and waited on the steps for Marianel who simply did not show! At 6.27, I went inside leaving her ticket with the folks outside. I thought that she might have been caught up in the PM's traffic jams, but it turns out that she took a nap and simply did not wake up until 8.30 pm!!!! What a waste of a ticket!
     Anyhoo... the show was spectacular. Four of Bombay's best-known singers gave us performances that were simply stunning: Lisa Rodrigues and Sarosh Nanavaty belted out the Houston numbers and Shahriyar Atai and Siddharth Meghani played The Rocket Man! Directed by Carla Singh with choreography by Chirag Agarwal's dancers, it was an aural and visual treat that reminded me quite a bit of the ABBA Tribute Show I had seen last month. I enjoyed every minute of it and missed Llew and Chriselle very much as I am sure they'd have adored the entire spectacle of light, sound and movement. The auditorium was also house full, the audience ranged widely in age from baby boomers to kids, applause and participation were tremendous. At the end of the show, Raell came up on stage and thanked the crew.
       Carla Singh has taken the production of rock musicals to new heights in Bombay and as Raell put it, one feels so proud of the talent that Bombay is throwing up in Western Performing Arts.  Siddharth Meghani, who is the son of my photographer friend Madhu, whom my family has known for ages, was a true revelation to me.  The kid is a phenomenon! He took on all the slow Elton numbers and did them so admirably. As for Sarosh Nanavty, well...what can I say? She truly made my hair stand as she hit the highest notes. Whitney will be sitting up in her grave and taking notice, that's for certain!
     During the intermission, my complimentary tickets entitled me to a bevy of snacks and drinks which I enjoyed as I was starving by that point--having been deprived of the promised Tea at the Taj!!! I had occasion to met the dancer-actor-choreographer Shiamak Davar who is something of a celebrity in performance circles.  Everyone wanted a picture with him and he was quick to oblige as he "Darling-ed" all and sundry! Sheer fun to watch him in action I found a cab (luckily!) to take me back home at the end of the show which, because I was alone, reminded me of the many theatrical shows I have been to alone in London! On the train home, I spoke to Marianel to find out more about the debacle of the Sleeping Beauty then hopped on the bus to get home just a little after 1.00 pm. when I had dinner made out of the last bits and bobs in my fridge. I also finished a few more items of packing that had to go into my case.  I continued watching Unnatural Causes before going to bed at a little past midnight with the realization that it is Sunday tomorrow and I ought to go for the 9.15 am Mass.
     Until tomorrow...