Preparing for Travels in Tamil Nadu and Spending Time with Cheryl

Tuesday, January 8, 2019
Bombay

Preparing for Travels in Tamil Nadu and Spending Time with Cheryl

     Namaste from Bombay!
     I spent most of the day taking it easy--a huge change for me. Awaking at 6.00am, I blogged, checked Twitter, ate my breakfast of Muesli and Coffee while watching House Hunters International in London and left for an hour-long workout at the gym. Back home, I simply set myself the task of getting all packed and ready for my trip to Chennai for which I leave tomorrow morning. It went rapidly as I now also have packing down to a fine art in my transparent cubes. This time I was also taking about 6 really heavy issues of Upper Crust (a food and wine magazine) for my cousin Blossom in whose home I shall be staying--so that makes my case a tad too heavy for my liking. Still..
    While I was about my packing, Blossom called to inform me that there was no sign of a Bandh in Chennai. Dad had called me earlier and told me the same thing--only BEST buses are off the road, he said.  His domestic staff had arrived on schedule and they use trains and rickshaws.  Much relief all around.
     I continued packing when my friend Cheryl called. She has returned to Bombay from Goa where she had spent a few days and hoped to catch me before I left for Chennai. Cheryl is visiting India from Cleveland, Ohio, and will only be here till Jan 12. If I do not see her today, I will miss her completely on her visit.  She invited me to meet her for lunch at her place but I realized that since I am leaving tomorrow, I do not want to have leftovers in my fridge. It makes sense for me to finish up all my food before I leave.  I, therefore, told her I would come to her place after I'd eaten.
     While eating, I watched Whistle and I Will Come For You--a ghost story by M.R. James (who was once Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University and retired as provost of Eton). He is one of the UK's best-known ghost story writers (but I have only just become acquainted with his work as I usually do not get into shot stories at all--too chicken!).
     Lunch done, I took a rickshaw and went to Cheryl's place and was there in ten minutes I met her husband Roy and his brothers, one a priest in India and the other a physician who also lives in Ohio. Cheryl and I spent the afternoon gabbing.  We are old friends who go back at least 35 years. She is two years younger than I am, but we spent our youth in the Youth Movement of our church, discussing our love for books and Literature (we both majored in English Literature), worried together about our futures (we had both considered careers in Copy Writing and Journalism together) and ended up getting really close to each other's families as we lived in the same building in Bandra. Thus, we have a long and very deep history.  When we get together, however, it is never about our past that we talk but always  about our future as Cheryl is always looking for the next thing ito which she should sink her teeth--writing, teaching, publishing a family history...that sort of thing.
     It was after 4.00 when I left her place to a walk to a local photocopy place to get a print out of my itinerary.  In the rickshaw I got home and had a cup of tea while continuing to watch the cinematized ghost story (it had Michael Holdern in it--an actor I know more as an older man than a young star) and then went in for a shower. I left for Dad's to spend a little while with Russel only to find that Dad wasn't going to accompany me to Mass as he had been to a funeral Mass earlier in the day. I heard Mass and returned to Dad's to spend some time with Russel.
     When I got home, I merely had my own dinner -really relieved to finish all my food although it means that I am now eating more than double my usual portions. I have decided that when I come back home to Bombay, I shall tell Valerie to send me her tiffin just twice a well--on Mondays and Thursdays.  This way I can control my portion intake and always supplement my food with a salad--of which I am eating none now whereas at home in Connecticut, I subsist on salads.
     I finished watching my ghost story, packed up the last bits and bobs of my stuff and fell asleep all set for my travels tomorrow in Tamil Nadu.
     Until tomorrow from Chennai...