Saturday, August 3, 2019
Bombay
Having a Good Clear-Out As The Rain Drums On
I still have to get accustomed to the novelty of waking
up in the room and on the bed where I had spent a good part of my early years.
Funnily enough, when I am here, I tend to sleep all the way up to 7.00 and that
was what happened today. Dad and Russel begin their day by saying their morning
prayers on their beds—so I leave my room and join them once I hear that the
prayers have begun. While waiting for breakfast, I did a quick blog summary of
yesterday as somehow I do not have any time that I can call my own. For
breakfast, I had a chapatti with my friend Marianel’s mango jam and coffee.
That done, I set out to do something I had been waiting to do for a while.
Luckily, Dad has no objection—indeed he has been urging me to help him. Have a
good clear-out, I mean. Russel, on the other hand, is not as co-operative and
he tends to feel pretty agitated when things are leaving the house—especially things
that he considers his!
So I began by clearing out a lot of books that I had
carried with me over the years to India to read on the flight and when I am in
Bombay. Mostly paperbacks, they had accumulated over the years, and having kept
them for so long, I figured the time had come to pass them on. They were in a
cabinet in the spare bedroom. My friend Nafisa has told me repeatedly that if I
am getting rid of any books, she would love to read them and then pass them on
to the local convent. I ended up finding books that had sentimental value—my mother’s
accounts books, my grandmother’s address books, my maternal Uncle Henry’s books,
the books I received as prizes for English when I was in the third and fourth
grades. Needless to say, I held on to those but I did get rid of a lot of books
that had no more meaning or value for me. That done, I got into the shelf in
the cupboard that Dad usually clears for me so that I can have at least one
shelf on which to keep my things. I had been stockpiling things in there and
felt that the time had come to take a look and see what I had retained.
Bringing some order to the chaos was very satisfying. We ended up with many
bags of things that were useless clutter that needed disposing.
At lunch time, we enjoyed one of Valerie’s meals—of chicken
curry, beans, a mince-filled pattie. All
that clearing and dusting made me feel sleepy. I had a short nap and then went
into the living room to begin clearing off really old books in the living room
cabinet.
I
feel handicapped without the internet or wifi at home and so I have to make
this daily pilgrimage to Jay at the cyber cafe so that I can get things printed
out. Dad wanted a KYC form filed out but then so many other things took priority
that we had to set it aside. I looked for coach fare from London to Oxford and
back and did not find any of the great deals of the years gone by. I ended up
paying 7 pounds each way—well, in the end, not too bad a deal.
That was when the heavy incessant rain
began. It poured and poured with brief spells of dryness. My friend Jeevan
called to say that he was swinging through Bandra with his wife Liz and daughter
Akanksha and he wondered if I had the time to meet her over a cuppa. As she is
a Professor of English at the University of Brighton, I was very glad to get to
know her. And so, when there was a lull in the rain, I got a rick and sped off
to the Café Coffee Day near Carmel Convent where they were due to arrive at
5.30 pm.
Sadly, this happened to be the very day
after the entrepreneur V.G. Siddharth who had started the Indian chain of
coffee shops, Café Coffee Day, was found drowned after having committed
suicide. He was apparently being hounded by the tax division and had found it
hard to keep up with his debts. I had only been to this place once before, but
suddenly, it seemed good to go to a place that was not a Starbucks!
Akanksha arrived very shortly and we ended up having a
lovely conversation over a Belgian Cold Chocolate for me and a masala chai for
her. We found out that we knew quite a few people in common in the Western
Performing Arts field that I have discovered in Bombay. She was a flautist and
used to play with the Bombay Chamber Orchestra. Our meeting, however, was
brief, as her parents arrived about an hour later to pick her up—I was sorry
not to have the time to spend with them too. I hopped into a rick and was home
in time to go to the 7.00 pm Mass with Dad. I did have my dinner with Dad and
Russel but I had to rush through it as I had evening plans with my new friend
Jackie to go for coffee and dessert. In the end, because I was running very
late, she came over to Dad’s place and picked me up.
We ended up going to Chocolateria San
Churros which is a very snazzy desserts place on Waterfield Road. They do have
chocolate and churros and chocolate fondue, but since I’d just eaten dinner,
all I could manage was one of their sundaes and it was very good indeed. It is
very nice to know that there are so many places in Bandra which specialize in
different types of foods—a place for salads, another for crepes, a third for
churros, a fourth for South Indian breakfasts…it is a foodie’s paradise. Jackie
and I enjoyed our overloaded sundaes and the interesting chinwag and she ended
up inviting me to come to her place to meet her kids. I was keen to do so as
she seems to have two lovely girls—she is a single parent.
But alas…all good sundaes must come to an end…and I was starting
to feel a wee bit winded when we took a few pictures and decided to leave. We
parted company in two different ricks so that it was close to midnight when I
reached home.
Until tomorrow…
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