It is a beautiful day...

Getting over with exams gives this hazy feeling of elation. Hazy ‘coz you have not slept properly for a couple of nights in the row and are incapable of thinking or even feeling clearly. Now if you wonder about the expression of ‘feeling clearly’….well that is a straight validation of the previous statement.

It was 10.10 a.m. on a cool Sunday morning when I was set free of Trimester IV (Subject to my clearing Marketing Research paper).

Still dizzy, I mechanically asked a few people about their paper, cursed a few people, smiled at some others and headed back to my cozy room no. 607. Made a futile attempt of catching some sleep and finally got up, took a shower, had a bite. Meanwhile, I was told that I am going for “Pyar ke side effects”. Mind you, I was aware of only “Exams ke side effects” till then. (Here, I talk of status messages on Gtalk and Orkut….quite a war of the words there, will cover that in some post sometime. Now FYI, I am a skeptical consumer of modern Hindi cinema, keeping my eyes and ears closed to new releases till critical acclaim rises to a loudspeaker level)

So, I and Jellicle Cat picked up Pink Panther. Primarily because he had the tickets! I got some dirty looks for getting the two of them late for the movie but when a lioness has to get ready, she has to get ready.

Finally zig zagging through the choked Erla market, S.V. Road (On the butt of a bus, an ad for cold relief tablets read ‘Is your nose choked like S.V.Road? Try Coldie Gonnie’) and the flyover we reached SunCity, a ‘not worth 90 bucks multiplex at Vile Parle, East’. The rest of the gang was awaiting the arrival of lioness and the pack.

I would not get into reviewing the movie ‘coz it is simply not worth it. What it is worth, is to go with a gang, have a few laughs in the hall and come back. No more, no less. Only noteworthy point is the way Mumbaikar Delhite nonk jhonk has been captured. That struck a chord immediately. Now, did I mention the presence of dimpled ageing hunk of the name Jas Arora. I am sure, I must have!

From there the hungry girl gang decided to find a ‘sasta, uttam and tikau’ restaurant. After shooting down Brio (aha, what garlic bread, what butter croissant…), Subway and Pizza Hut; we agreed to ubiquitous Shiv Sagar. (sigh)

45 minutes later, post Palak Dosa, I reminded Jellicle Cat, Powerpuff girl and Bins that we are 20 pastries (10 steps X 2) away from Spar, the chic supermarket. (Being in Juhu, you get to bump into Vivek Oberoi and likes at Spar) Once there, it took me no time to take my pick of the day, but rest of the women seemed to be on eternal diet.

The next important question was the attire for Dandiya Night, scheduled to start at 7.30 p.m. I am sure, at this point the male readers will form this 5 letter word in their minds…‘women’.

Back to the cozy, inviting room which lulled me to a two hour of sound sleep. Alarms. Phone calls. Intercom. Damn. Exams are over for god sake!!!

Dandiya was as big a disaster as I expected it to be. Since there are hardly any Gujaratis in my batch, most of us were clueless on what to do with those sticks. Here my dear friend Woolly Mammoth would differ for sure. After all, you could poke some insects in the eye with those sticks. By the time the party ended, Dandiya Night had seamlessly transformed into a jam session.
In fact some of the French chicks…err, the exchange program students, learnt dandiya steps much faster than I could. So we can safely say that it was such a disaster.

Back in the room, armed with my laptop and a Ruskin Bond, I had some “Maggi Atta Dal Noodles – Sambar Style’ which was not bad at all. Especially, if you consider from a hostler’s point of view. At 2.30 a.m. though, my book and laptop were precariously perched on my 2.5 foot bed which now had me wanting to stretch. Off they went, to their respective places (Which means, laptop topped with the book, on study table- struggling to get a foothold in a territory firmly occupied by miscellaneous urchins. Mumbai surely has grown on me.)

Woke up at 2. 30 p.m. to the music of rain pattering on the tin roof of slum, close to my balcony. That moment, I knew it was a perfect day to go to Bandstand. It was Happy Dusshera, Shubho Bijoya, and a dry day (Oct. 2). And it was raining!

So, after feasting on some delicious delhi-like alu parathas from Kanteen, we got our rain gear out (Read: black shirts). And by the way, “What ARE umbrellas?” :-)

Flooded S.V. Road evoked a few curses. Almost soaked, we reached Bandra Fort. Now I was confused, was it not supposed to be a sea side ruin of a ‘Fort’? The building seemed more like Bandra Court. Yea, yea…my mistake, I should have asked autowalah to take me to ‘Quila’ not a Fort.

By the time we reached Quila, it was a twilight zone and I found Taj staring at us. It was quite humbling a sight and it seemed like a wise decision to a more plebian (and better lit) band stand. Only if I had not asked an autorickshaw driver to take us to Bandstand!! It was right behind the autowalah!!! But it was night already and everything looks strange at night. It does. It does.

A relaxed stroll with a dear friend, on the rocky shore with waves crashing against rocks, cool breeze and drizzle caressing the skin….how does that sound! It was as beautiful as it could get.

As we munched on hot, spicy buttered green chana, which incidentally was quite good, the need for a hot cup of cappuccino was evident. We recalled seeing a Barista and CCD on that road and as we kept walking towards the now non-existential Barista, J Cat noticed a shady character following us. She remembered seeing him at different spots during last 20 minutes. It was an instant Delhi panic. We suddenly realized that road was almost empty, there were almost no women and a lot of urchins were loitering about.

It took us around 60 seconds to find and board an auto to Linking Road. Found refuge in a Barista. With AC chilling the spine and coffee warming the innards, a feeling of relief spread over me and I almost ignored the fact that coffee was not that hot, tissue papers were not given to us and that there was no trace of caramel in my caramel coffee. I say almost because at the end of it, we filled up the suggestion/ complaint form.

Since we were at linking road and the gawdy display of bags was attractive enough, it was our duty to do some window shopping. After buying a pair of pretty earrings from Shoppers’ Stop we realized we were too hungry to continue.

Since we had exhausted our resources for location of Hersche’s earlier in the evening, we decided to go to one of my favourites – Kailash Parbat, Andheri.
(Rum Tum Tugger’s Review of Hersche's: It is a GREAT place for pastries and snacks and is GREAT V4M too. Now even if discount that statement by usual measure of 66.6% and add Woolly Mammoth’s objective review to it, it is supposedly a great joint)

Koftas with rich gravy of cashew and raisins and masala cheese naan. And piping hot gulab jamuns as a grand finale. Heaven. Where else do you get piping hot gulab jamuns in Mumbai without especially requesting to warm them up!

At 10.50 p.m., began our race to meet an extremely stupid deadline. And that we did with panache. And that’s where two great days ended. ~smile of satisfaction~