Note: This diary is for the week before I left here for the vacation.
1. One week to go for Paris and the L'Affaire du Coeur with the stranger meeting me there. Cant wait! Before this week ends, I ll be with him :)
2. Lots of work to finish before I take off. The team cant wait till I leave nor can they wait till I am back to shield them from the line of fire. Strange feeling this, but a nice one somehow!
3. The weekend will be spent partly in Mumbai, partly in the air and partly in Europe :) A well deserved break this one - after ten, long, 6-day work-weeks.
4. The trainer is not very happy about my break, considering it will interrupt my training. This is going to be one regimented vacation!
5. Wednesday was 'Raksha Bandhan' and although I didnt really celebrate, it did feel like a different day. Traffic was crazy till late at night, men walked around wearing red 'tilaks' that their sisters put on their foreheads and multi-coloured 'rakhis' on their wrists. The guys in the office wore full-shirts in honour of the long-standing joke of wearing a full sleeved shirt to work, so no one could tie them a 'rakhi' :)
The non-gym evening on Wednesday was spent with Mom and Pops, doing small everyday things, like grocery shopping, drinking naariyal-paani, watching T.V etc. My first trip to a Mumbai grocery store after a very long time revealed there is nothing you dont get there, that you get in a US grocery store. Another role reversal of sorts, since just a few months ago Mom, Pops, Amit and I were grocery shopping in New Jersey buying stuff for our apartment and here I was, with Mom and Pop, buying stuff for their home here in Mumbai.
6. Manjari (the marathoner friend from NY) was leaving to go back to the US, from her internship here, in the city.
We met up for a good-bye dinner, locally, at Aura near Rodas in Powai on Wednesday night.
Aura, is a fashion/ music/ food kind of place, with strange mannequins that peep out of its glass windows, while in one end of the space, china-town kind of lanterns hang in dozens. The music is too loud, as is the case in most places in Mumbai and the air-conditioning is set on too cold. We had pasta, which appeared to be more like 'little pasta in lots of cream sauce' instead of being the other way around. Seems like most restaurants in the city prefer to serve their pastas like this, considering most Indians do not like dry pasta. An impromptu fun mid-week dinner that worked out very well on the time-front as well, especially since both of us, live next door to each other.
7. Turns out that I ll be missing out on a lot of events on my social calendar when I am away from Mumbai. A very good friend Kunal, from architecture school in LA, is getting engaged here in Mumbai, on the Sunday. Another good friend and ex-colleague from NYC, Bharati, is also getting married in Pune next Wednesday. And there's Janmashtami - Govinda day for Mumbaikars, with all the high hung "haandi's" and the human pyramids trying to reach and break them.
8. Ganpati idols have started appearing all over the bazaars and Ganesh 'mandaps' are sprouting up all over the city. This will be my second Ganesh Chaturthi in the city, in the last 7 years, so looking forward to it. It happens the weekend, right after I get back.
2. Lots of work to finish before I take off. The team cant wait till I leave nor can they wait till I am back to shield them from the line of fire. Strange feeling this, but a nice one somehow!
3. The weekend will be spent partly in Mumbai, partly in the air and partly in Europe :) A well deserved break this one - after ten, long, 6-day work-weeks.
4. The trainer is not very happy about my break, considering it will interrupt my training. This is going to be one regimented vacation!
5. Wednesday was 'Raksha Bandhan' and although I didnt really celebrate, it did feel like a different day. Traffic was crazy till late at night, men walked around wearing red 'tilaks' that their sisters put on their foreheads and multi-coloured 'rakhis' on their wrists. The guys in the office wore full-shirts in honour of the long-standing joke of wearing a full sleeved shirt to work, so no one could tie them a 'rakhi' :)
The non-gym evening on Wednesday was spent with Mom and Pops, doing small everyday things, like grocery shopping, drinking naariyal-paani, watching T.V etc. My first trip to a Mumbai grocery store after a very long time revealed there is nothing you dont get there, that you get in a US grocery store. Another role reversal of sorts, since just a few months ago Mom, Pops, Amit and I were grocery shopping in New Jersey buying stuff for our apartment and here I was, with Mom and Pop, buying stuff for their home here in Mumbai.
6. Manjari (the marathoner friend from NY) was leaving to go back to the US, from her internship here, in the city.
We met up for a good-bye dinner, locally, at Aura near Rodas in Powai on Wednesday night.
Aura, is a fashion/ music/ food kind of place, with strange mannequins that peep out of its glass windows, while in one end of the space, china-town kind of lanterns hang in dozens. The music is too loud, as is the case in most places in Mumbai and the air-conditioning is set on too cold. We had pasta, which appeared to be more like 'little pasta in lots of cream sauce' instead of being the other way around. Seems like most restaurants in the city prefer to serve their pastas like this, considering most Indians do not like dry pasta. An impromptu fun mid-week dinner that worked out very well on the time-front as well, especially since both of us, live next door to each other.
7. Turns out that I ll be missing out on a lot of events on my social calendar when I am away from Mumbai. A very good friend Kunal, from architecture school in LA, is getting engaged here in Mumbai, on the Sunday. Another good friend and ex-colleague from NYC, Bharati, is also getting married in Pune next Wednesday. And there's Janmashtami - Govinda day for Mumbaikars, with all the high hung "haandi's" and the human pyramids trying to reach and break them.
8. Ganpati idols have started appearing all over the bazaars and Ganesh 'mandaps' are sprouting up all over the city. This will be my second Ganesh Chaturthi in the city, in the last 7 years, so looking forward to it. It happens the weekend, right after I get back.
9. Still have so many people to meet in Mumbai. Turns out I still have so many friends here in Mumbai, so seems like, I'd be lucky, if I got to meet any of them more than once.
10. Saturday was a short work day, since I decided to take off work earlier, to pack etc and actually feel like my vacation is really about to start. The boys in the team decided to order a pizza, in honour of the 'Boss' who was departing ;)
I sure do hope there will be a 'welcome pizza' when the Boss returns too. Time will tell.
11. The flight out to Brussels was at 2:20 am, so the night's dinner out was planned with the parents, at Saffron Spice, near IIT Powai. I had heard a lot about this place from my American colleagues and thought we'd give it a shot. Powai has quite a few restaurants but seems like I am soon going to run out of places, since I try very hard not to repeat any of them. Dinner was basic Indian fare and my must-order Indian dish, Butter Chicken/ Chicken Tikka Masala or some sort of spicy gravy Indian chicken dish with Roti for Pops and me and corn subzi for Mom, which was too sweet. Of course the regular accompaniments included papad, achaar and salad. All in all, this was by far my most average food experience in the city.
12. At the airport, post-security, I went click-happy on some new developments I noticed, mainly in the concessions areas. The IIFA lounge was the most commendable addition, I have noticed in the recent past and must say, a very innovative one at that.
This diary is being sent out before the week really ends, since the week ends in Paris with the husband, on our second honeymoon :)
Week 10 in pictures is here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/shweyta/MumbaiDiariesWeek1002?feat=directlink
Hopefully I can manage to catch up with some of you, when I am back in NYC, for the weekend of Aug 14th - 17th.
Until then, take care, stay hale and hearty and please come cheer Amit and me, on Aug 16th, if you can, as we run the NYC Half-Marathon, yet again!
Hopefully I can manage to catch up with some of you, when I am back in NYC, for the weekend of Aug 14th - 17th.
Until then, take care, stay hale and hearty and please come cheer Amit and me, on Aug 16th, if you can, as we run the NYC Half-Marathon, yet again!
Love,
Shweyta
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