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Last week, I made a trip to Mumbai, the financial and the entertainment capital of India. As I was not on any luxurious vacation, so sipping coconut water while sitting on the shores of Arabian Sea was not in my agenda. Having said that, even if I was on a holiday, I still would not have indulged in any of these two. Why? Firstly, the blood reports say that my potassium content is slightly on the higher side. Therefore, according to my middle aged physician, coconut water is a strict NO for me (I have relished this mother nature’s delight right from my childhood though).
Secondly, my tanned skin reflects the vacations I have taken this year. Kilos of chickpeas flour, yoghurt, lemon juice and anything that has even the slightest reputation in bringing back skin’s original texture is on my good books these days. Long story short, given a choice, I would not prefer to increase my kitchen’s budget by roaming on a beach. I have already exhausted 2018’s quota in this category.
Then what was Mumbai doing in my itinerary? Father-in-law, who is also a heart patient and a diabetic, was due for a gall stone removal operation there. And we flew to Mumbai so that his son could give him the pre and post-operative support he deserved at that moment. Whereas the job description of daughter-in-law was not clear.
The only task I found myself useful in was to enquire him about his health status even though I already had updates from the in-laws. Nonetheless, no daughter-in-law wants to be a good-for-nothing bum who can only read fiction, gulp crime series in TV, give lectures on dos and don’ts for a healthy lifestyle, daydream and blog few words (only if the over-worked mind is left with any energy at the end of the day).
Surgery went well and the head of Paul family was discharged from the hospital two days later. Household was gradually coming back to it’s normal pace. Younger generation decided to utilise the opportunity by doing a little bit of Mumbai darshan. Marine drive to be precise. We drove there with me expecting an empty and silent street. I came out of my false notion as soon as we started searching for a parking zone.
At 12:00 am, Marine drive, lovingly called as the Queen’s Necklace, was giving an impression as if the evening has just begun. Young couples oblivious of the surroundings, old couples giving them what-will-happen-to-this-generation look from the corner of their eyes, groups opening a cake ordered to celebrate that special friend’s birthday, kid riding his tricycle with full enthusiasm followed by his parents, someone reading a book while someone was simply sitting quietly and enjoying the Arabian Sea’s breeze. Balloons, fried lentils and peanuts ! Phew! This was almost a midnight fair. When do they go to sleep?
View this post on InstagramQueen's Necklace 😊 #marinedrive #mumbai #nightlife #instamood
Few days back, Mumbai observed the 10th anniversary of the infamous 26th November aka 26/11 terror attack. An attack that killed many, crippled the city for a couple of days, however couldn’t dampen the spirit of the nation, let alone Mumbaikars.
Anyway, keeping aside the national problems, there was a small problem at home front too. Mother-in-law, who is barely an year and a half old in handling smartphones, was facing difficulty to keep her phone’s storage capacity in check. Her little but significant knowledge about technology made her realise that she was left with only 670 MB of her precious disk space. She ran to me for rescue. The daughter-in-law who was otherwise sitting idle took this responsibility with elan.
After a minute’s detailed inspection, I suggested to delete those GIFs and videos from her phone. For Gods singing in WhatsApp’s forwarded messages had never done any good to mankind till date apart from eating up the phone’s storage. However, Candy Crush too was also a reason of limited available space. But mother-in-law denied to take such a serious allegation upon her. The blame ultimately went on my 9 years old niece, who was by that time busy in a jungle excursion with a bear in Pogo channel.
To save the smartphones of Paul family from Candy Crush and give a break to the bears, a visit to the Crossword bookstore looked like an apt choice. Tintin’s Explorers On The Moon and The Tales From Ramayana contributed to a tremendous extent in diverting the youngest mind in the family to something new and more exciting than cartoon channels. My only prayer is that her annual exam papers should not reflect Snowy, Captain Haddock or Shri Rama’s adventures. However, Crossword gave this ever hungry and good-for-nothing mind too an excuse to add few more yet-to-read masterpieces in my book shelf, such as Crazy Rich Asians (yes, I haven’t read the book yet which kind of explains why I haven’t seen the movie).
A whole week in Mumbai went well with some shopping(and window shopping) in Malad with my sister-in-law. In weekend, my husband’s very close friend came for a luncheon. If you ask me what are the two questions that I dread to face in life at present? My answer would be two. The first is when will you give the good news? The second is how do you kill time in Singapore?
The friend mentioned above touched one of my sensitive nerves. No, he didn’t ask me when I was giving a good news. That’s because this curiosity doesn’t suit a guy who is single and in search of a bride. That leaves him with the second one. I mentioned everything I do throughout the day except blogging. There have been several instances where I have claimed myself as a blogger to relatives and confronted a snort or another question how much do you earn by blogging? My past experiences advised me to keep mum on this matter.
My enthusiastic husband, on the other hand, revealed about my super secretive occupation. He tagged it as a marketing strategy for my blog. I had a great urge to hold his tongue at that great moment, but obviously couldn’t do it. Still men would sing wives are controlling for ages to come.
However, the friend takes a keen interest in photography apart from his banking job. He even clicked a couple of photos on my wedding day. But he is surprisingly immune to the social media marketing fever and prefers storing the photographs in his local disk. I mean that makes him one of a kind. Who does that in this age of Facebook pages and Instagram? But then I realised, he is so passionate about photography. Appreciation through few mere likes and comments doesn’t matter for him. He clicks just to enjoy the craft. How many amongst us can do that? I can’t at least. Can you?
Very interesting read.
Thanks Jyotirmoy 😊