Good bye Mumbai

Well it's my last week in Mumbai. I already had my last day of work. I have learned alot this year about people, my new profession, and patience.

The food critic's tales of cuisines' histories and establishments as he sits like a late-life Buddha dispensing aryuvedic medicine.

hindi lessons--let's just say words worse than "bevacoof" and offensive as any perverse act involving another's sister or mother

watching hindi movies in the old-school movie halls

"Dead" coke
chitty-chitty-bang-bang terms of endearment
moonlit drives
lightening in monsoon
police checks
dancing with "babies"
Stars in the morning
HRC for good ol' mac-n-cheese
flirting with Faith
"So you wanna talk about it?"
dire straits , bryan adams, and floyd 'til my ears fall off

well, that's some of the most memorable...love, love, many kisses, and thank for the laughs...off we go to another beginning!

Mirza

I saw Shazia Mirza perform november 7 . Her show was a mixed bag. some jokes were writhing on the floor gasping for a breathe of comedic air. Some jokes were spot-on. I particularly like that she talked about positive discrimination. that was new. most comedians who are banking on their "outsider" status don't talk about this face of discrimination. it was fun until she started getting frustrated and began explaining the jokes to the people sitting up front who were looking at her blankly when she said, "clearly the staff at buckingham palace is all gay considering they walked around with trays of champagne and poppers." a woman up front smiled sweetly as she let the joke go over her head. but ms. mirza, sweating and cranky from the mumbai heat and "indian" disorganisation, didnt let it go. she turned to the woman and said, "do you know what poppers are? it's a_____ nitrate --pill gay men take before they have anal sex." the recovery flopped because the frustration in her tone overrode the sarcy-banter-with-the-crowd quality she attempted to maintain. she also had notes that she kept referring too and she clearly memorised her routine but once too often she would lose her train of thought or her flow and repeat a line she had just said, which made it v.clear that she was trying to recall how the next secion of her act goes.

A roll of the dice

It’s already time to move on again. I leave Mumbai at the end of the month. I decided to quit this job and move because my family will be in India until the middle of January also rituals after the ceremony will take about two weeks to wind down. After that k and I plan to live in bangalore for some months to be closer to our families in the south and we plan to head home around the beginning of summer.

I’m pretty excited and terrified. Today, instead of working on an employment application or packing some boxes to be shipped, I watched My Girl on television. That movie always makes me break down sobbing. When the little girl’s best friend dies, I just lose it. They’re about 11 years old. That’s a confusing time ( at least for me it was) when a best friend is invaluable and you just imagine walking with that friend into the possibility of a beautiful life ahead even if the one you are dealing with is messy and not so rosy. The job thing is really weighing on my mind because I have so many options or none at all. Anyway, I’m waiting for my anxiety to subside a little so I can concentrate.

This month I have planned to do anything I meant to do here but did not get around to doing. So that means catching some shows, going to a few restaurants, checking out a few boutiques, and trolling through some neighbourhoods. I’ll miss the people I have met here. If it wasn’t for the guidance, humour, and help of some of the friends I have made here I would’ve packed my bags many months ago.