Blogs and Old Friends - Writing Again is Tough

I wish I could truthfully say that I was really busy and that's what kept me away from blogging. That is true - and explains maybe a month or so of my absence. But it goes beyond that. Updating an irregular blog is like irregular corespondence with an old friend. Unless you were really really close friends, knew each other inside out and liked each other so much that you don't really have to explain or give excuses, it is tough to start writing to each other again. And so it is that I found myself procrastinating.

I had plenty to write. Or I thought I did - until now ;-)

B'bay.

I rarely called it Mumbai. And never ever wrote mumbai if I could get away with b'bay. I love that city. And to think that I once hated it! Like the irrepressible D. said "To really love b'bay, you shouldn't just know her. You should DO her!" I guess I did.

What do I miss the most? Is it the sheer accessibility of good places to hang out? The wonderful people I made friends with over the last year? Wait - wasn't I there for 2 years! Oh yeah - I spent year 1 hating the place and trying my best to get away. Damn. Now that's a wasted year if any. Oh what wouldn't I do to have that year back - and have met M. then! Would have made a lot of things easier. Getting back to what I miss the most, I wonder if it is the sheer energy of the city. I think that I miss the whole spirit of the city. It is a real city - unlike the provincial pretenders that other cities of India are. Before the Delhiites come after me with shotguns, let me add that I exclude Delhi from that list. Delhi is not provincial - it is haughty and pretentious. Maybe she is a super sophist. And I mean it disparagingly. But knowing Delhi and its inhabitants, they'd probably be very pleased that I chose that term to describe their beloved city. After all, isn't that what they are trying their best to be!

I think that the whole exercise of trying to pin down one single thing that I miss the most is an exercise in futility - and probably more than a little unfair to the eclectic mix of delights that b'bay is. So here goes - another one of my lists!

1. The wonderful restaurants that make some of the best drinks that I've had. Most other cities in India have few places that allow you to have a great meal and pair it with a couple of good drinks. There is no dearth of watering holes anywhere in India - except if you have the misfortune to be in gujarat. Hmm...maybe that is part of my prejudice against gujaratis. Or because of their extreme parochialism. How can people in a group jabber away in a language which they fully know is greek to some others in their group! And worse - how can you do it during business meetings. Remind me to write sometime about sleeping during an office meeting because everyone started speaking hindi/gujarati. As usual, I am allowing myself to get sidetracked. This is not meant to be a rant against my old colleagues. Nor is it a rant against Gujaratis. It is meant to be an ode to b'bay. Oh - and coming back to restaurants, there is a wonderful atmosphere of sophistication and charm. Surrounded by beautiful people, and loosened up with a couple of supersized margaritas, I could smoke. Yeah - almost every single place that I went to in b'bay had tables where you could smoke. And what's more - people did smoke. And that leads me to what I miss next - the attitude of people in b'bay
2. The wonderfully sophisticated people of b'bay! The only city I know in India where people are not sanctimonious. Where people know how to have fun - and are not total hypocrites. To people who can slum it with style. Sometimes even literally. Maybe it comes from being a city which has Indian equivalents of both Wall Street and Hollywood - the glamor from both rubbing into even the dark corners of the city and lending its peopkle a certain joie de vivre. Hope, after all, is what makes all of us fun people to be around. Show me someone who worries constantly and try tell me that he's still fun!
3. The wonderful attitude to women - though my confidence in this was a little shaken by accounts of one particular incident. But my friends have been able to take a cab/rick home alone at 2 or 3 in the night which would have been unimaginable anywhere else in India.
4. The buzz around marine drive that seems to capture the whole spirit of the city. The spirit that lends a sense of urgency to everyone - making all of us hurry just that bit more, push ourselves just that much more - and to live life a little more generously.
5. The eclectic fare that the city dishes out - I could watch plays at NCPA and Prithvi, go for trips around b'bay, hop over to Goa for a weekend (though I can't really count that as one of the charms of B'bay I still want to - because Goa is not as close from any other Indian city), hang out at the Tea Center or Moshe's reading a book while I wait for a friend, sit out at Marine drive watching the sunset. I know I've mentioned restaurants before in this list, but really! Mentioning it just once doesn't seem like justice is being served ;-) I have to rave about Seijo, Olive and Zensi - all of which was a 5 minute walk or a ten minute drive at any time from my flat. Damn. How I miss Seijo - with its wonderful music and its experiments with fusion music of all sorts. One of my best times there was when I listened to Woody (a New Zealander disciple of Hariprasad Chaurasia) do a jam session with the DJ with him playing the flute and the sax both!
6. Tapas, Reena and Debashis. I miss you guys!
7. My flat with 3 lounges/pubs (5 counting two which we don't go to), about 8 restaurants and a superb gym nearby. Oh and 2 wonderful liquor stores where you could get anything from beer to tequila or wine and were just 2 minutes away. Sigh. That was the good life.

There are many many more reasons why I miss b'bay. But I think that these should do for now.

ubergeek, the

P.S: I also miss doing all the things that M. and I wanted to do together in b'bay. Wonder when we'll get a chance to do it.