In Search Of Immortality

Bougainvillea Bliss

2009-11-12T22:16:00.000-08:00

Chapter 7

Intruders!

Although it seemed like the perfect house at first, it was of course not without its problems. After all, it was a holiday home in the middle of village lands and uncultivated areas. One couldn’t expect the odd creature that frequented the civilized areas ever so often to disappear altogether. There was little that could be said about my life back home so I refuse to dwell upon it. There were the occasional memories that I would like to share, that I will add in here for good measure. Apart from which there weren’t too many things necessary to put in about Mumbai.

It was more or less the same that it had always been in the city. The floods were at a minimum this year, but one could hardly praise the good drainage for that. It was more or less due to the lack of rain than it was the betterment of the roads. The papers were all of a sudden filled with subtle news of a contagious virus that was slowly spreading through the city and had managed to bring down half of my building.

I was lucky to remain clear of the disease for a few weeks, finally succumbing to it however and having to postpone a number of my flights because of the silly thing. There was very little to be said about the virus itself. It was of course hardly necessary to share the details of body aches, colds, coughing fits and shivering bouts of fever that ravaged my petite frame for a little more than a week, at the end of which I was too frail to think of anything but my recovery.

The little house in the village where hardly anyone spoke English was forgotten, all plans of new garden flowers and four poster beds forgotten as I began to try and get myself back up and running before I missed too many opportunities to earn myself anymore money by bailing out of too many flights.

I survived on hot soups and minimal solids for the first three days after I was well enough to digest anything, after which I managed to slowly get back onto my regular diet of junk food and whatever else I wanted to push into my system. I was so relieved that I could work again that I forgot completely about my plans to recuperate in my holiday home, and instead took up as many flights as I could possibly manage without driving myself completely insane.

Because of all the flights I was so determined to take and all the events that I was suddenly so willing to partake in, it seemed as though the little house ceased to exist, if only for a while. I managed to get all my senses back well in time for my next visit in between the busy flights I had managed to pile up on myself

I began to see these visits as a relief of sorts from everything that seemed to be going on in my ever so chaotic life. It became my escape, just like I had predicted it would. As the months passed the visits were more frequent than ever and soon the rains were over and done with and the air was still and calm with the ever so occasional autumn breeze that the October winds brought with them.

October was a hot month; sometimes it could get even warmer than the summer months did in the city. It was probably because of the fact that the winds that had brought the rain with them were receding, and the atmosphere became humid and almost unbearable at times. Towards the start of November however the air got cooler and my trips became ever so slightly shorter because of the abundance of flights in this season. I was more or less prepared for the entire ‘all work and no play’ winter when I finally found a weekend in between to visit my holiday home.

It hadn’t become a burden just as yet, it was far from becoming the normal ‘oh of course I have a house in Lonavala’ thing. It was still fresh, new, exciting. I felt like a grown up with my own home. This was a funny thing to think of considering I had been living alone since I turned twenty three. And since I was now twenty eight (two years short of the big ‘three O’) the idea of me being my own boss should have settled in already.

Apparently it hadn’t however. Being in Lonavala in different seasons was an experience in itself. In the summer there were the brown mountains to look upon, no hint of a stream or a rivulet down the valley, but an abundance of ever so brightly coloured flowers and birds of all kind merrily chirping away. In the rains, the scenery was green and glorious and the stream was full and flowing. The flowers however seemed to retreat behind the green leaves waiting for their season to arrive again. Except of course the captivating Flame of the Forest trees that lent their fiery reds as colour in the midst of all that green. Autumn was similar to summer when it came to heat and wind. There were though instead of the flowers, a lot of falling leaves and bare branches to look at that were beautiful in their own way.

Winters however I had never experienced here. There was no beautiful snow or winter wonderland of sorts. In many ways it was more or less the same as it had always been in Mumbai. Except it was a hundred times cooler, and a million times more beautiful than it was in the city.

The trees were still bare and the mountains just about turning brown again but everything was cool and windy, the breeze was beautiful and the weather glorious. I was having the best weekend I’d ever had, enjoying the peacefulness that was only interrupted by the pleasant sound of the roaring winds.

When I retired upstairs for the night I made sure everything was locked and all the grills were shut, curtains drawn tight. I settled onto my mattress (I still hadn’t acquired my four poster bed) and drew the covers up to my chin, aware of the fact that I could never have been so comfortable under covers if it hadn’t been this pleasant and cool.

I was just drifting off into a peaceful slumber, dreaming about new curtains and beautiful flowers blooming in the garden come summer, when I heard a thud that seemed to be coming from inside the house instead of outside. It startled me into consciousness and I groggily reached for the lights. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes and tying my dressing gown sash tight around my waist I made for the door of the room. I was almost walking down the stairs thinking something had fallen and I should probably pick it up when I heard a series of thuds and clanks that sounded nothing like falling items.

Scared into submission, I came to the horrifying conclusion that someone was trying to break into my little home. I wondered who would want to break into a holiday home that held nothing of any value and then told myself one does not reason with criminal minds. If anything, one runs far away from them. I put the lights in my room off and groped around for a flashlight, wondering whether to stay upstairs and pretend I never heard anything, call someone and scream for help or walk down and bravely face whoever it was that dared enter my home.

Every time my footsteps made the slightest sound the noise stopped and I thought I could go back to bed. Of course with the silence, the noise began again. With time I managed to peer over the landing, my petrified heart beating against my chest (so loudly I was sure the night watchman could hear it) and I pondered upon the sensibility of calling someone to tell them what I thought was happening. I couldn’t move from my position however. Me feet seemed to be frozen and although my head told me to move and do something about the noise or what could be happening I simply couldn’t muster up the courage to move back into the bedroom and make any more noise than was completely necessary.

I did however finally summon up the courage to go inside and pick up my phone, flipping open the flap and dialing the number of the only person I knew here, the contractor with whom I had only just yesterday discussed changing the grills on the windows.

He didn’t pick up immediately, and in a state of panic I decided I was unfortunately but most certainly destined to handle this by myself. So I clutched the flashlight almost like a weapon, tiptoeing down the stairs. Every time I stopped the noise began, every time I lightly stepped down one step and then the other the noises stopped almost completely. This made me even more certain of their being an intruder who was not only extremely interested in the contents of my kitchen but was also aware of my presence upstairs, something that scared me more than just a little bit.

It didn’t occur to me until much later of course that had there been armed and dangerous robbers in my kitchen, my little flashlight and the scariest face I had (which wasn’t really that scary at all) would hardly frighten them into submission. At the time however I was most certain that I was doing what I had to do.

So down I went, ever so confident all of a sudden about everything. When I creaked the kitchen door open, trying to make little or no noise at all, I found it empty, with no signs of a break in or that anyone had been in there at all. I was so confused. When I turned away however I could hear the sounds again, and the minute I swung around the noises stopped. I continued to turn around and around hearing the noises stop and start over and over.

I didn’t know what was happening. Was I imagining the noises? Were they in fact not in my house but in the one next door? I was at a loss, I had absolutely no idea what to do. I was just about to give up and go back to sleep (knowing I couldn’t sleep with all the rustling and scampering sounds).

There was little I could do however and I was all about to give up altogether when I saw a tiny movement near the sink. Something small darted past me ever so quickly. I looked as closely as I could without having to go too close and saw that the marble slab that covered the drain had been moved aside. As I stood there, motionless, hardly daring to breathe, I saw another tiny thing darting across the floor.

Then I noticed the plastic bag on the floor, the fallen vessel. Everything seemed to fall into place as it never had through the entire ordeal. Even before I saw the next couple of scampering creatures I knew at last what was happening. To me however this was more terrifying than robbers.

I saw it scamper, more clearly than before and let out a loud, shrill shriek of terror. Rats! Little grey things scampering around my kitchen, wrecking havoc, dropping things, playing with plastic bags and claiming the little room as their own.

I retreated from the kitchen as fast as I could, locking it and standing with my hand against the wall to steady myself for a second before I walked back upstairs. The clever little intruders had managed to push the heavy marble slab aside, crawl into my kitchen and scare me half to death.

I didn’t know whether to be relieved there were no robbers or petrified because there were rats under my roof. I knew there were bound to be rats in the backyard and even in the garden. I wasn’t completely ignorant, this was after all Lonavala. I didn’t however think they would ever be inside my house.

I made a personal note in my head to get rid of them the minute I could call my maid the next morning. I went back to bed, shuddering at the thought of those devilish little home wreckers (A bit of an exaggeration I agree….I was however extremely petrified of them) and trying as hard as I could to catch the slightest wink of sleep before dawn broke.

All that tension, worry and trouble and they were just rats. Of all the things they could have been….rats!

Chapter 8

Garden Woes

On one particularly eventful trip to this home that was taking up so many chapters of my life in all its ups and downs, I decided to take a walk around the society. This was of course after the horrible rat incident, I had finally gotten rid of them and they hadn’t dared to come back since. Not when I was there atleast, which was good enough for me.

I was walking around the society, up and down the slopes, in and out of the lanes, past well done cottages and small, hardly even painted ones. And it was then that I noticed the one cottage that would put any other to shame. It was beautiful in almost every aspect (and I say almost because the gate wasn’t particularly attractive and almost too black, it didn’t fit with the palatial, old English style of the cottage itself) and I found myself drawn to peer over the walls in order to catch a better glimpse.

And for the first time I was looking not at the brilliant white paint or the skillfully designed windows, not even at the archaic carved benches outside the door. The garden was what caught my eye more than anything there. It was almost summer again (the seasons did tend to move quicker now that I had a place to escape to every now and again) and the flowers were coming up quicker and brighter than they ever had.

The grass seemed greener than anywhere in Lonavala, soft green garden grass, much unlike the coarse thick grass that covered my little garden. The flower beds were full and blooming, unlike my own sparsely filled ones, there was not a bare branch or an untended patch in this entire garden.

I stood looking at it, spellbound into silence; it looked almost fairytale like in its perfection. I wondered how anyone could possibly tend to it often enough for it to look so healthy and wonderful. The water shortage had apparently had not in anyway affected this little wonderland. It seemed almost too perfect to actually be real and I had to rub my eyes twice over in order to know for sure that this was indeed not a dream.

Roses lined the walk up to the house, little pebbles strewn ever so beautifully between them so there was a perfectly lined walk from the gate to the patio in front of the house. Reds and whites, alternating in an almost frighteningly wonderful arrangement. Bougainvillea blossoms threw themselves over the fence on both sides so you couldn’t see the fence at all, just the peaches, yellows and whites infusing with one another to form the perfect wall around the house. There was (surprisingly) none of the common pink bougainvillea, which made it seem as though it had been planned down to the last T.

Little wild orchids sprung up here and there in the midst of the planning, and they made it all seem even more beautiful, giving it more of a rustic look than had been intended by the owner. I watched astounded as yellow tulip like flowers swayed in the breeze and white blossoms sprung up in pots around the patio.

I stared at that wonderful garden for so long, all the while an intense longing for something of the sort for myself growing and growing inside me. I began to make plans in my head for something of the sort for myself as well, and I decided to run back home (well okay, not run!) as fast as I could and make plans for the same for myself.

My garden however, was a lot smaller, so any plans that I might have had for the exquisite English garden in my mind had to be scaled down by atleast half. I called everyone who would know where I could start, how I could start. Not having a particularly fabulous knowledge of gardens and such, I needed all the help I could get.

The very next day I was up and about, driving down to the little Nursery and selecting all the seeds that caught my eye (which as I think about it now wasn’t the most sensible thing to do) picking up manure and grass seeds, driving back to my little cottage all prepared to absorb myself completely in bettering my little garden.

I had for the moment let the backyard and the rock garden at the side remain the same for the moment. I was however immediately struck down with the problems that I should have anticipated in the very beginning. I was however not really accustomed to planning too carefully and did most things on a whim, which wasn’t a particularly correct manner to do up a garden.

I was told by more experienced people that unless I planned to visit and mow the lawn every weekend the soft, beautiful green grass I wanted wasn’t the most sensible of all. It grew too fast they said, it was too difficult to maintain and I either had to hire a gardener to tend to it full time, even when I wasn’t here, or scrap the idea and stick with the thick, coarse green grass that hardly grew and was easier to maintain. I was, initially all for the softer grass, arguing that even if it did grow wild I could cut it when I was here couldn’t I?

Apparently that wasn’t a sensible thing to say at all. I was told, amongst wild eyed expressions and shock that I was all that illiterate about the entire thing that I would, by the time I was back, not only have unmanageable grass, but more than a few grass snakes to keep me company as well.

I was appalled at the thought of living with snakes, especially after the rats…..so I decided sticking with the manageable unattractive grass was a better option. I convinced myself that it didn’t look as bad, that I was only unhappy with it because I had set my heart on the other. The rest was hardly smooth sailing though. Setting up the perfect garden was turning out to be more of a hassle and less attainable as time went by.

I planted the other seeds, but they saw no progress even after months. The bougainvillea seemed to be the only thing that flourished in my garden. I realized that hibiscus flowers grew well, and managed to acquire some pink and red ones, planting them near the division between my garden and the one belonging to my neighbor. They grew well enough for me to be satisfied with them, forming a wonderful natural arch that looked lovely even from my bedroom window. Little yellow flowers (I didn’t know what they were called) seemed to grow well near the driveway.

The success of the roses however left me quite disappointed. They didn’t flourish very well, and apparently needed a lot more maintenance than I had time to give them. Occasionally one or two would bloom and I would happily watch the buds become beautiful little flowers. But those occasions were few and far between the time that they remained buds, or didn’t even become buds to begin with.

Little bushes of purple and orange flowers in the flower bed near the patio bloomed well enough for my satisfaction, but it wasn’t my perfect garden. I began to wish I was rich enough to hire a full time gardener. Or free enough to visit often enough to tend to the garden myself. My neighbours successful vegetable patch and blooming roses filled me with jealousy. There were times I felt like climbing over and stealing some for my own garden. They were just thoughts however. I wasn’t even daring enough to ask them for tips. Not that they would help me really (the tips, not the neighbours. They were fantastically friendly people) seeing as I had neither the resources nor the time to put what they said to good use.

I was all about to give up when the following year, visiting my little home I saw three completely bloomed roses welcoming me as I walked up the little stairs to the patio. I figured I could do with what I had. For the moment at least. It wasn’t as though the perfect garden could NEVER be acquired. Maybe not right now, maybe in the distant (very distant) future even. But I couldn’t give up completely. Not when I watched those roses happily look up at me as I stood over them, their dew filled petals opening up to meet the smiling day.

I remember calling for new manure ever so often in the times that I visited, waiting for those precious few roses to bloom, watching the bougainvillea flourish and the hibiscus grow more beautiful with each passing season.

I may not have known a lot about gardens, or gardening or flowers, but I was happy enough with my little garden. It was a lot more trouble than I realized it would be though. There were months when I let it lie as it was, succumbing to the fact that I could do no more than I already had. And then there were the months when I wanted to try everything I possibly could to make it more beautiful than it already seemed in my eyes.

Ever so often during my early morning walks (and considering I was definitely not a morning person it was surprising I managed to stick to them everytime I visited) I would pass by the cottage that I was so jealous of, with the garden I wanted so terribly. I would peep over the fence and wish it was mine, observing every little detail. I had even taken to painting it on my little canvas everytime I decided to paint, and people would look at it and ask me with incredulous looks in their eyes “Is that your garden?”

I tired of telling them over and over that it really wasn’t, so with time I stopped painting it altogether. I often had the urge to peep over the fence with my camera and take a dozen pictures. But then I thought of what I would think of people peeping over my fence and taking pictures all of a sudden, so I discarded the thought.

My sister came to visit again, and she was happier with the outcome of the garden than I had ever been. It was of course because she hadn’t seen the ‘garden of my dreams’ as I had begun to call it. I decided not to let her see it at all (yes, I did things like that) so I smiled and took praise when it was delivered, not once mentioning that it was hardly a beauty, that in my mind it could be so much more than it was at the moment.

Now that I think about it, it really was a lovely little garden. As my mother often told me, atleast I HAD a garden to tend to and worry about. I stopped worrying about it after a while, and began to relish its imperfections.

It may not have been my perfect little English garden but it had a wonderfully rustic feel about it, a wild splendor almost. The one thing (humerously enough) that grew perfectly was the Cactus plant in the rock garden. I may not have been in the desert, but the hot and humid climate and the lack of water that was so common in Lonavala seemed to make it happier than it already seemed to be. It flourished in the conditions that my roses withered, and I began to see it as a wild, untamable object rather than just a ‘cactus’.

Over time I grew accustomed to everything that flourished and didn’t flourish in my little garden, and was happy enough with it to call it my own. I never stopped wishing for the perfect little English one of course. But then I couldn’t possibly have everything I wanted could I? I saw it as other people did, stopped comparing it with the one I had seen and loved so much. And soon (however slowly) it became my little pride and joy.

Chapter 9

Curtains and Termites

On one particular visit to Hill Road with my sister, I decided it was time to start on those magnificient curtains I wanted for my house in Lonavala. She had dragged me (I was most unwilling but she almost always got her way with me) all the way from my little abode in Andheri to Bandra on a crowd filled Saturday evening to shop for material for her own sofa and curtains in her home. Since she lived in Bandra, it was easier for her to call me an hour before she wanted to meet and say “Let’s go to Hill Road”. I did manage to get there eventually, even through the terrible traffic, an hour later than she had decided to be there, something that I couldn’t have done anything about but didn’t make her very happy.

We were looking through blue floral prints and pretty yellow cottons when I decided I could pick something up for Lonavala. So I left her to her ‘sofa cover’ problems and picked up the most vibrant colours I could find. I decided to let the idea of beautiful lace curtains lie dormant until I had acquired my dream four poster bed, and I was happy enough with the materials I had managed to pick up.

I finished a long time before my sister did of course, and I had to stand next to her refusing to let her buy any browns, or creams, willing her to pick the delicious midnight blue that I knew would look lovely in her large hall. Not being accustomed to bright colours or daring decisions she resisted at first, but I wouldn’t let her pick any other and she finally succumbed, agreeing that it would in fact bring some much needed colour into the room.

I then helped her pick astoundingly pretty little lace cushion covers in white and some runners for the back that looked so lovely I almost picked some up for myself. I didn’t however because I already had some in my little apartment in Mumbai, and there wasn’t a pretty enough sofa to put them on in Lonavala.

I knew I had bought too much as usual, the windows in my rooms could definitely not be as large as the sizes I had picked. But I didn’t bother about the specifics, as long as it wasn’t too little it didn’t matter to me. After all I could fashion a number of things for the house with the rest of the material couldn’t I?

I went home and called my maid in Lonavala, ordering her to measure every window in the house, and she did so quite eagerly. She was probably as tired of the house being bare as I was. I spent the entire night before I was supposed to leave for Lonavala hemming up the bottoms and putting in the little curtain hooks I had bought along with the materials. In my mind I had chosen the pretty blue floral print as the christening curtains, thinking how pretty they would look with their sprawling blue roses and green vines against the stark white of the walls in my room.

When I reached Lonavala I didn’t bother to even lug my suitcase up the stairs, immediately hurrying upstairs to fix up the curtains in my bedroom, and in the other, and then back downstairs to put the same in the hall as well. I had two leftover that I thought would look quite lovely in the kitchen, even though they were probably too short. It was a kitchen after all, imperfections could be overlooked there.

I unlocked the door, curtains in hand, ready to put them up on the rods, but as soon as I entered my kitchen, the curtains were the last thing on my mind. The minute I entered the kitchen I knew something was amiss, it didn’t seem the same. It took some time for me to realize why. It was only when I turned to place the curtains on the top of one of the cabinets that I realized what was wrong, seeing as the cupboards seemed to have disappeared completely. I would have once more put it down to ‘intruders’ of some sort (it seemed to be the first thing that popped up in my head whenever anything went wrong) but I happened to look down and see the powder like debris of what had once been my kitchen cabinets.

There was still one left, half I suppose you could say. I was just about trying to sum up the problem, (had they worn out and fallen to pieces, had they been of such bad quality that they couldn’t withhold all the pots and pans I had dumped in them?) when my maid walked into the kitchen exclaiming loudly in Marathi, gesturing wildly at the debris of the cabinets. I started nodding my head because I thought she was saying something like “Oh my god look at your kitchen cabinets!” which echoed exactly what I was feeling.

She was apparently saying something else however, because she continued to exclaim and gesture and I continued to look on in silent confusion. She must have realized I didn’t understand a word she was saying and since we didn’t have anyone with us to interpret what either one was saying to the other we both fell silent, wondering how to tell the other what we meant.

To my relief she wasn’t completely ignorant of Hindi so when I pointed to the cabinets and said “How?” she finally understood because her eyes grew wide with childlike excitement and nodded frantically pointing and blurting out a word that I didn’t understand either. She knew I didn’t know what she was saying by the expression on my face and she frustratedly clutched the end of the dupatta on her sari, bringing it up and wiping her forehead with it.

She must have thought I was incredibly stupid really. She wracked her brains for the English word as I racked mine trying to figure out the Hindi word. She tried to describe it saying in Hindi “Very small” and then put her hands onto the counter and began to run along it with her fingers like an insect. Insect! Insects! I turned to her to verify this and again she nodded frantically. “Insect!” she repeated using her fingers to claw at the wood on the one cabinet that hadn’t quite given way yet.

What insect could possibly have done such a thing? I watched her fingers claw away at the wood and then it came to me. Suddenly, like an epiphany almost. Termites! I had termites? First there were rats crawling up from beneath the ground and now termites eating up my cabinets? How could this be happening? “Termites!” I exclaimed aloud mimicking her hand movements along the wood with my own.

She heaved a sigh of relief nodding with excitement she could hardly hold inside. I asked her slowly how I was supposed to get rid of them. She shoved me aside impatiently and began to heave the half crumbling cabinet out the door. By the time it was outside it was more or less in pieces as well, all the pots and pans falling to the floor.

I watched, (she wouldn’t let me help) as she and her daughter (whom she had managed to shout out to) dusted the termites of everything, threw out the crumbling cabinets, swept up the debris and cleaned my kitchen out so thoroughly it looked as though I had only just bought it.

I spent almost all of the next day talking to the contractor, getting ready to put in new cabinets. He suggested melamine and aluminum this time, something termites couldn’t very easily get at, or at all really considering there was to be no wood anywhere around. I was lucky; he said that there wasn’t much else in the house made of wood. He was right. This maintenance thing was a lot more trouble than I had anticipated it to be.

One would expect me at this point to be slightly put off with the entire house and its components. I wasn’t however, telling myself this is what I signed up for, this is what it was to own a house in a little holiday hotspot with too many people on three day weekends, shortage of water and power cuts ever so often.

I lunched out for the first time in a long time since I had been frequenting the place. I chose to eat at Ramakrishna, silently munching on my masala dosa, so caught up in my own thoughts I was oblivious to mostly everything around me.

A baby bawling at the table opposite mine shook me out of my pensiveness and I glanced over watching as the father tried unsuccessfully to contain the little child to his seat, taking to shouting at the mother because he couldn’t manage. The poor woman looked quite confused and embarrassed, looking over and catching me watching throwing me an embarrassed smile that made me feel quite silly for not turning away sooner.

Everytime the father shouted louder, the child began to cry louder, and no one had any idea what the mother was saying, she was too soft spoken to be heard over all the crying and the shouting. Ever so often the child would fall into tiny hiccups of a cry, and then the father would begin to shout again, and that only made the child cry louder. There didn’t seem to be any hope of this successive shouting and crying stopping, and I watched like everyone in the restaurant was watching, as the poor mother stood scandalized, not sure whether to join in this ridiculous noise or stay away from it altogether.

I was ever so slightly amused with the entire situation, but I refrained from letting it show on my face lest I appear rude and crass. Even the waiters simply stood there, as though they were waiting for the situation to ease out and control itself. Finally however, possessed with some sort of firmness that she didn’t look like she was used to possessing, the mother grabbed the child’s arm and stormed out of the place, pacifying him in a calm but firm voice, leaving her shocked and still ranting husband to pay the bill and follow after her.

I shook my head, going back to finishing my dosa, and in a while the pandemonium was forgotten and the restaurant continued to function as though nothing had ever happened. I spent the rest of my lunch wondering what had happened when the three of them were together again. Would the husband still be shouting, would the mother still be silent or had she simply not wished to create a scene in a restaurant? Would the child finally stop crying? Why had he been crying in the first place?

I told myself to forget about it, it wasn’t as important as finalizing the details of my new kitchen cabinets, and it definitely wasn’t as important as putting up the remaining curtains and making more plans to make the little house look the best that it could. It had been a year since I bought it, and apart from the rats, the termites and the fact that I wanted so much more out of my garden than it could possibly give me I was quite happy with the way everything turned out.

So it was that every time my fellow airhostesses discussed holiday homes and planning and decorating I could now be an active part of the conversations instead of simply standing at the side and listening to what they had to say all the while wishing I had a little home of my own.

Of course it was a lot more work than I had expected it to be, the termites only proved that more than ever. Every time I went I first had to make sure the house was up and running fine, that there was enough water in my tank so I didn’t run out halfway through washing my dishes or having a bath. I had to tend to the garden so the plants didn’t wither away with neglect, and make sure everything was in the cupboards, locked away safe before I left.

Having a holiday home was almost like having a child (not that I knew anything about that of course) I had to nurture it and love it. Even the slightest neglect could set it off on a spiraling path downwards towards things I would definitely want to avoid. And when the work was done and I finally was happy with the way everything was, I could sit and enjoy owning it. Enjoy knowing I could come anytime I wanted to, leave whenever I wished to, that I didn’t have to answer to anyone here. This was my little escape.

I loved it really, with the termites and the rats and everything! So as night beckoned I stopped worrying about whether they would come back, drew my lovely new curtains with the sprawling blue roses on them together, and settled in for the night.

Chapter 10

Visiting The Market

Visits to the market in Lonavala were always quite eventful. There wasn’t anything special about them really. There were no fancy shops and everything was close and huddled together. It was however a lot more interesting than one would expect a visit to the market to be. So much more interesting that indeed I must devote an entire chapter to describing it.

There were very purposeful reasons that anyone would make a trip to the market really, and most of them (if not all) involved buying necessity items that one needed in order to survive a week in Lonavala. Milk, eggs, butter, tea, coffee, sugar….the list could go on and on really.

Visits to the market were mostly always made in the morning. Any other time would be silly for various reasons unless it was completely necessary. The hot sun interrupted any proper shopping that could possibly be done in a market in the afternoons. Besides that, the people themselves tended to make full use of the time they had to proceed with their little afternoon siestas. Lonavala was an incredibly laid back place in the afternoons, everything and everyone was more or less so involved in resting and doing their own things that it was more or less difficult to do anything productive at the time.

Evenings in the market were extremely busy, that was when everyone came out to do something or the other, visit the lake, buy themselves snacks of sorts….it was bustling with people of all shapes and sizes.

Mornings however were the beginning of the day. If you managed to get there by eleven you could miss most of the early morning rush and also avoid the hot twelve thirty sun. I was getting used to visiting the market so much so that I no longer made the mistake of taking my car all the way inside and risking the unavailability of parking. I passed numerous signs that said ‘No Parking No Haulting’, with ‘halting’ so cleverly spelt out.

As I walked through bustling streets filled with all sorts of vendors shouting out their wares to anyone who passed them by, I glanced at the long list in my hand, wondering if I had skipped anything out or forgotten to put anything in. I normally made the mistake of writing these ‘lists’ of mine at the very last minute so that when I finally got back home from my ‘successful’ shopping trip I realized more often than not that I had forgotten to put in something that was more necessary than ‘Grape juice’.

I made my way to one of the many ladies selling vegetables on little wooden platforms. She sat with her legs crossed one over the other, her brightly coloured cotton sari tucked neatly beneath her as she shouted out prices in her shrill high pitched tone. A hand rested on her thigh, the other fidgeting with the dupatta wrapped over her salt- and- pepper grey hair that was braided and coiled into a neat bun at the nape of her neck.

She began shoving cucumbers and bitter gourd at me faster than I could refuse them, so that by the end of it all I found myself paying for a lot of vegetables that I hadn’t written on my list and might not eventually even use. If I could repeat and recreate the shrill screams telling me how good and cheap each vegetable and fruit was I would. Unfortunately I cannot find it in me to try and remember the words she used in her conversation with me; even while I stood there I struggled to comprehend. I retreated from the scene, with her still waving some leafy green celery in my face, struggling to hold onto all the thin plastic bags carefully enough so they wouldn’t tear apart and spill their contents onto the gravel filled roads.

I had to walk back to my car and dump the vegetables and fruits in the back before I continued my ‘shopping’.

Next I made my way to Warden Bakery to get myself some of their deliciously fresh ‘Brun Paav’ or ‘Gutli Paav’. The tops were brilliantly crisp and the insides almost still warm if you ate them within a short while of buying them. While there, I couldn’t resist the wine-cake biscuits and I figured a few ‘mawa cakes’ couldn’t really do all that much damage either.

After that was the little shop opposite where I had parked my car, to pick up sugar for my coffee and tea and toothpaste. The man at the shop recognized me now, and had begun to talk to me in Gujarati instead of Hindi or Marathi. I couldn’t boast about my skills of that language either (having a long time ago come to the conclusion that my language skills were completely atrocious apart from English) but atleast I could hold a conversation when I was talking in Gujarati. It was however, almost a completely different language from the one that actual Gujarati’s spoke. Perhaps living in a Parsi colony had something to do with it.

The man was thin, decently tall, angular and had a tired look about him that told me he had probably spent long hours behind that counter attending to the many people that breezed through Lonavala. He had short, almost black hair, a long nose and big black eyes that had a slight hint of the sparkle that had probably been present in his prime. The corners of his thin mouth turned down ever so slightly, the tired lines on his face wrinkling in a hint of a smile when he saw me come in.

I told him what I wanted, and he quickly shouted out the same to the men behind him, who proceeded to quickly scuttle about packing everything in little brown paper packages, and dumping them in another of those thin plastic bags before handing it over to me. It was the quickest of all the shopping I did in the market. I think it had more to do with the fact that I did it last and was too tired to browse around like I normally did, than their obvious efficiency.

I was walking across the road towards my car past some menacing looking buffaloes (well in truth I was probably the only person in the world that mistook their lazy gazes as menacing) when I remembered I had forgotten to pick up some essentials from the hardware store. Unfortunately, it was completely out of the way. I realized it should have been the first place I went to, but I wasn’t a very practical person and I hardly thought much before I did anything so my forgetting even though it was at the top of my list was perfectly natural – for me.

Now the hardware store wasn’t one of my favourite places in the entire world….it wasn’t as though I was completely hopeless at the entire process etcetera. I just didn’t particularly enjoy dealing with the men at the hardware store. They seemed to think that a woman alone at the hardware store was the most unlikely thing in the world. And they often tried to cheat me, I was lucky often enough not to be taken in with all the nonsense they threw at me. But I had to be on my guard, and for the most it was a pretty harrowing experience. So anyway that I could avoid it I would. Unfortunately this was one of those unavoidable things you had to do even if it made you extremely uncomfortable.

As soon as I walked into the shop I could feel all the men’s eyes on me. It was as though time stood still of a sudden behind the dirty little counter, and they all looked up, staring transfixed, grimy hands mid air as I stood there. It seemed almost as though seeing a girl or a woman at the hardware store was a sight to be recorded and put down to one of the rarest possible occurrences in the history of man. It was amusing at times. Today it was simply annoying.

I picked up whatever I needed and hurried away from there as fast as I could. The old man at the counter took so long to get me some of the things I wanted it seemed like he didn’t want to give them to me at all.

When at last I was done I drove back home, relieved to have missed the evening rush and also tired with the amount of walking to and fro I had to do because of my indecisive and incredibly forgetful mind.

Bougainvillea Bliss

2009-11-12T22:11:00.000-08:00

My Dream Home

I found it at last of course, the beautiful little cottage overlooking the picturesque mountains that reflected the rising and setting sun. It wasn’t the biggest cottage in the world, it wasn’t the most spectacular, but to me it was home the minute I set my eyes on it.

It stood between two other, slightly bigger cottages but still looked to me as though it was the prettiest, even in its currently untendered state of slight abandon. The other gardens were well tended, this one wild and in need of several changes. The terrace roof was ready to crumble and the windows rusting at the edges. But it still wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

The fact that I didn’t exactly see any creepy crawly creatures definitely made the house seem even more appealing than it actually was because of the relief that I felt when I realized atleast I wasn’t walking into a house crawling with insects. Green vines wound their way around the sides of the house right to the top, the green stone wall matching perfectly. The little patio outside the door was filled with pink speckled tiles, the little row of bushes separating it from the expanse of mud and rock where the little marble picnic table stood. The driveway was too small for my car so I parked it outside and stood for a minute while I surveyed the house and its surroundings, then creaked open the rusty white gate and walked inside.

I walked towards the back, to observe the state of affairs there. There wasn’t a lot of grass there, a situation I thought I should rectify as soon as I possibly could. I was standing above a water tank, and I could hear the gurgling of water beneath my feet. A mulberry tree stood tall above my head, and I could see the stains on the water tank, leaves from the banana tree next to it swaying gently in the breeze as they seemed almost to fuse with those of the chikoo and guava trees besides it.

There was no fruit as yet, maybe there had never been any, but I was still enamored by everything there as I stood alone, singing ‘Time of My Life’ softly to myself. It seemed almost apt, the music in my head as I watched the green lemons of the lemon tree sway precariously from their branches, hoping they would eventually turn to a big, ripe yellow so I could pluck them off and use them in the cooking I was so sure I would do on my forthcoming vacations here. It wasn’t mine yet, but it would be, this little house, the fruit trees and the tea leaves sprouting around me, the wind blowing gently through my hair.

The high stone wall, ending in a strong wired fence, seemed to separate the uncultivated from the cultivated as I watched cows lazily grazing on the wild green monsoon grass in the field behind the house. Even the occasional buffalo did nothing to perturb me, my serenity intact, and all fears of them suddenly running wild and jumping over the wire into my little abode vanishing with every calming billow of wind.

I decided it was time to walk inside the house, so I took out the key, hoping it would fit this time, before anyone else walked out to surprise me and tell me I was once again at the wrong door. Nothing of the sort happened however and the door swung open easily.(After I had of course, spent close to fifteen minutes trying to push back the tight grills that seemed to protect it)

I stepped inside cautiously, the musty smell and dampness hitting me with a force, but only because I wasn’t expecting it. I should have actually, because it was common knowledge that a house in the country was bound to get musty and dampness was more than common in Lonavala. There was however nothing else surprising to greet me as I walked in, which was really a delight, no cobwebs of any sort, and yes, once more I felt the need to emphasize on the lack of the insects that Mr. Mistry had spoken about. I cautioned myself however because this was after all just the first day, not even the first day, more so within the first hour that I had been there. And the surprises might just be waiting for me somewhere.

The house was small inside, not as small as half the flats in my colony back in the city, but small nonetheless. I should say comfy really, because I was hardly looking for something big and fancy and this matched my expectations perfectly. Three sofas lined the walls, not brilliant ones, they were worn out, the material peeling off and the legs quite precariously placed on the floor. I was scared to sit down lest they fall over but I decided I wasn’t heavy enough for anything to fall if I sat on it.

There was a small little coffee table with enamel plating that had a weird design that seemed to be running around on it with its shades of yellow, blue and brown. It wasn’t quite my taste but I let it lie, I didn’t want to think of too many changes because I definitely couldn’t afford everything that I wanted to put in that little hall. The clock on the wall read a quarter to six, which it wasn’t even by a long shot, drawing me to the correct conclusion of course that it wasn’t working. I found out later that no clocks worked on that particular wall, Sam said it was something to do with the dampness or moisture or something of the sort.

I walked into the little kitchen across the little bathroom. It was well stocked enough for a holiday home, a small stove, refrigerator that worked, pots, pans, cutlery and enough dinner plates and bowls for six. Which for me was more than necessary seeing as so far I was just one person.

I imagined myself cooking for a little group of friends, walking out and serving them on the little picnic table that definitely couldn’t seat more than three (or four if they really squeezed in). I found a barbeque in perfectly good shape that I decided I could really put to good use when the time came. If the terrace was in good condition I could have little parties there, cook for people and….well…I WAS getting slightly ahead of myself there wasn’t I.

I peeked into the little bathroom that was in desperate need of redecorating; and then looked up at the winding staircase with the pink speckled stairs that matched the tiles of the patio outside. I made my way up them, one by one ever so slowly until I had almost reached the top and could put my arm on the white banister that swayed precariously and would most certainly have toppled over, taking me with it had I put my entire weight on it.

Two rooms stood at the top of the stairs, a bathroom to one corner. I entered the room across the stairs and found that the bed was too old to use, but the mattresses in perfect condition. A tall steel ‘Godrej’ cupboard stood to one corner, a wooden one across in the other corner. Through the glass I could see numerous old books, carom coins, mosquito coils and old records and keys of all sorts that were probably for other parts of the house. A dressing table stood close to the door, covering the switches so I had to put my hand behind the long mirror in between the dressers to put on the lights and the fan.

The windows were slightly rusted, but otherwise in almost perfect condition with grills that I didn’t particularly like, another thing I would have to rectify when I began the entire redecorating process. There wasn’t all that much that needed to be done apart from improvements to my own taste and I was happy with the entire place overall.

The other room was similar, with no cupboards and an old bed pushed to one side of the room. A little door at the far end of the room was the entry to the balcony, closed and locked by a big Yale lock and a grill pushed shut. I had more than a little trouble getting the grill open, and even more trouble pushing aside the big padlock on the door. When I finally did manage to push the door open I walked out onto the little balcony with the shingled roof that I hoped wasn’t asbestos (after the amount of Environmental Education I had in school I was more than a little scared of the cancer causing material) and surveyed the beauty that surrounded the little valley the cottage was placed in, looking out at the green mountains.

I could hear the stream across the road gurgling excitedly with the tremendous force of its waters as it journeyed down the mountains, forming waterfalls as it fell down the sides and formed a raging current of waters. The icy blue sky above my head seemed to be such a widen expanse of heaven it almost hurt my eyes to look up at it, it was just that brilliant.

I walked back down and out to my car, popping open the back to take out my bags and lug them slowly up the patio step to the house, and then drag them further up the winding stairs towards the bedrooms, choosing the one with the dresser and the black sofa’s near the windows to dump all of my bags into. I rummaged through one of them, finding my shorts and strappy blouse, changing quickly and walking down to make myself a cup of morning tea.

I had neglected to bring with me anything but some ham sandwiches splattered with oodles of mustard and the delicious onion pickle that I picked up from one of the many supermarkets in Switzerland so I made that my breakfast (an extremely unhealthy one I could say) and dragged the comfiest folding chair I could find out onto the patio.

nd there I sat, staring out at the mountains, sipping my Earl Grey delicately from one of the tea cups I had found, munching hungrily on my unhealthy ham sandwiches and looking out at the greenery that I was surrounded by.

As I sipped delicately and munched hungrily I was pleasantly surprised by several pretty birds, flying around above my head, in the most varied colours. Blues and greens, the occasional sparrow perching itself gently on the branches that hung over the fence of my house from the neighbouring cottage.

Lonavala seemed to me (at least this little valley) to be a melting pot of all sorts of brilliant creatures and the best that nature could offer. I had hardly been out in the midst of nature so this was more than just a pleasant morning for me.

The rest of the day was more or less the same for me. Walking around poking my nose into every little corner I could find, surveying the surroundings, watching the milky waterfalls jump off the sides of the mountains and picturing the possible changes I could make when it was finally legally mine.

I lunched on some simple Spanish rice that I managed to cook up in the little kitchen and had a big cup of coffee with some more ham sandwiches for tea (ironically my tea time was morning) and then decided to venture out for dinner.

I landed up at Kumar’s, eating tandoori chicken that wasn’t necessarily the best. But I couldn’t complain. I had finally found the holiday home I had always longed for. It was alright that the food here wasn’t spectacular and the water a bit sparse. It didn’t even matter that there were buffaloes and cows in abundant numbers. All that mattered really was that I was happy with the house and with its surroundings.

I was well on my way to acquiring more or less everything I had always wanted. And that was definitely the icing on the cake for me.

Back Home

The weekend came to a close sooner than I had expected or would have liked it to and I found myself driving back home reluctantly. The fact that I was scheduled to fly out to London the very night after I had reached didn’t serve as any solace whatsoever.

I stopped over to meet Mr. Mistry before I went home to prepare for the flight, to give him back his key and emphasize on the fact that I really, most definitely, desperately in fact, wanted the house. He smiled and nodded, persuading me to wait until I returned from my trip (of sorts) to sign the papers etcetera. I agreed, it was quite a relief really because I normally made horrid decisions when I was overly excited about anything.

So I made my way back home, getting dressed and packing in a hurry, leaving in a hurry and running to catch my flight. I spent the entire flight wondering when I would have my first vacation there, thinking about the splendid things I could do to make it look more like my own. I normally spent my flights thinking about the things that interested me more than the people or the job that I was supposed to do.

I served passengers and tended to their needs almost unfeelingly, I couldn’t quite concentrate on anything more than the excitement that promised to lie ahead for me. Amanda wasn’t on this flight, which was almost a tad bit of a relief really seeing as I wasn’t quite ready to discuss the house before I had bought it and could finally say it was really mine.

When I was finally done with the flight and was back home at last I invited my sister and her husband as well as my parents for dinner. I thought it was sensible to discuss it with them before I signed the papers and proceeded any further seeing as my business sense wasn’t quite as sharp as I would have liked it to be. I showed them the pictures and told them about the price, the area, its surroundings, everything that I thought was relevant for them to know in order for them to give me the much needed advice.

“Did you find it as easily as you should have?” my father asked me as he exchanged a smile with the rest of the family and I grinned, knowing what they would say if they heard of my wrong turns and inability to speak perfect Hindi even though I had learnt it all my school life.

So I refrained from telling them about it, answering simply “It was easy enough”, ignoring the surprised glances from that they seemed to give each other and my sisters raised eyebrows.

I had told her about it all, and she opened her mouth beginning “But you said…” and I cut her off quickly saying “Sam’s map was a big help”, kicking her discreetly under the table. So she grinned and let it lie at that, cornering me of course in the kitchen while I pretended to be extremely busy with the dishes.

“You’re not going to tell them are you?”

“Not if I can help it!” I grinned back and she shook her head.

“It’s a funny story” she insisted.

I shook my head back at her replying “Something that will be repeated at all the family occasions and Christmas and Navroze and all sorts of other occasions you mean”

“More or less!” she grinned, giving me a mischievous smile.

“I’d rather keep it to myself thank you very much”

“Are you sure? I could tell them if you think that would make it easier”

She couldn’t stop grinning from ear to ear. I smiled and flung the dish towel at her.

“Shut up and wipe the dishes will you?” I said and she opened her mouth to give me another smart reply when my mother walked in. So she bit her tongue and stayed silent as I quickly moved on to another topic before my disastrous sense of direction came to the forefront of the conversation again.

When we were finally sitting on my plush sink in sofa drinking our cups of coffee and eating chocolate mousse that I had made from scratch, I turned to my father and Sam and began to discuss the legal aspects of everything (that needless to point out are far too boring to write down or even recall) while my mother and sister sat together in a little corner, staying away from the conversations that were definite to drive them crazy with boredom.

I sat in front of Sam and my father, trying really hard not to fall asleep while they spoke of all the things that bored me tremendously, thinking of how nice it would feel to finally have the house and not have to worry about all these little specifications that seemed to be flying over my head, muddling my mind and confusing me so greatly that I had a hard time trying to concentrate on it all after a while.

This made it a longer conversation than I had hoped it would be because I had to keep asking them to repeat everything that they said atleast three times. It was difficult for me to understand everything as soon as they had said it so instead of racking my brain and driving myself completely crazy I requested Sam to come with me and meet Mr. Mistry instead. He agreed, to my relief and I got up, extremely satisfied with the way things were turning out.

I suppose one must expect some sort of problem to arise at this stage to make my story slightly more interesting, to spice things up a little one could say, but I can’t possibly cook up anything. In reality, the story is as it is.

We met Mr. Mistry the next day, Sam and I, at his little house in Lokhandwalla that he was also planning to sell. It was funny in a way to be at an old Parsi man’s house that for once wasn’t in a Parsi colony. We sat down with him, had a cup of tea and some boiled egg and mustard sandwiches that he had his old and faithful servant bring out to us on the most adorable little wooden platter.

I was busy looking around his little house, standing at the window and staring out at the view that was so different from my glorious Cama Park view of trees and greenery. Here there were only other buildings to survey, tall ones and short ones, some towering over the others in their twenty five story splendor, others shrinking in their old simple glory. The house itself was lovely, almost as small as the one I had, well decorated and brilliantly maintained, but I wouldn’t want to live here, even if there were all those lovely malls so close by and everything was so accessible.

There was no greenery, too many buildings, and way too much pollution for it to be the perfect abode. I refrained from talking to the men as they discussed the practicalities, only moving towards them when they beckoned, telling me what I was supposed to sign and where I was supposed to write my name. It was all done soon enough, sooner than I had expected really.

I was back home sooner than I had expected, sitting alone at home, eating my little dinner all by myself. It was funny really how I was always so perfectly fine on my own. Most people I knew needed company mostly all of the time, needed someone for company, and were unable to spend even half a day by themselves. For me, the best part of my day was the time I got to sit at my little table by myself and have a quiet meal. There was no need for me to have any sort of extra dinner conversation, or any other sort for that matter, my television was more than enough.

That didn’t however mean that I was a complete introvert of sorts, I enjoyed the weekly family dinner and more than looked forward to the days that I had the opportunity to go out and have myself a good time at clubs and restaurants with a big group of friends, laughing, joking, going home in the wee hours of the morning.

But that still didn’t mean that I needed anyone to maintain my level of sanity. I was perfectly fine being by myself, more than happy when I could sit with just my thoughts to keep me company. My sister on the other hand was the complete opposite. She needed company more than I needed my morning cup of tea. Sitting alone anywhere was a nightmare for her, and she often called me a complete ‘nut job’ (in her exact and most unflattering terms of course) and didn’t quite understand how I could possibly need no company at all when I went anywhere.

When she heard I was going to Lonavala all by myself, she thought I was completely crazy and she kept trying to convince me to let someone come along with me.

“Call SOMEONE” she kept saying every time I called her for anything.

“I’m fine going on my own”

“But how can you go alone. All alone!”

I had stopped trying to explain to her that I was fine on my own a long time ago. Even when we were in school and I had to go somewhere she had always insisted on coming along. The fact that she was younger than I was made no difference to her whatsoever, she still wouldn’t let me go anywhere unless I was accompanied by someone or the other. So I stopped trying to explain it to her, stopped trying to make her understand that I could be on my own.

And when I went to Lonavala that weekend it was Sam who had convinced her to stop hounding me and let me go on my own. For that at least I was glad because I could never imagine someone coming with me all the way to see the house. At least until it was mine that is.

The house was mine now, and I was happy at last that I didn’t have to go through anymore stress and worry about where I would spend the weekends that I wanted to get out of the city. I finally had a holiday home.

It wasn’t as large as the one in my dreams (not that I could ever of course afford anything that I dreamt about) and it didn’t have large French windows or four floors etcetera. But it was a holiday home that was close to perfect for me, a holiday home that I could decorate myself and design to my liking, a home away from home. A place outside the city that I could run away to when I felt as though the city was getting a bit too hectic for me.

I was finally satisfied, and could look forward to the rains just like everyone else who had a home in Lonavala could. I could look forward to being in the midst of green valleys and surrounded by green mountains, with the rain pouring down and nothing to do but sit and look outside with no responsibilities or anything of the sort wearing me down.

I was happy at last, and prayed for the rain so I could begin to frequent the home I had wanted for so many years and finally managed to acquire, all by myself. With a little help of course, from my ever supportive family!

Water, Water Everywhere…

I watched as the black clouds floated above the sky, threatening to pour down heavily. I strained my ears to hear the rolls of thunder that were drawing closer and closer, watched as the skies grew darker and peals of thunder, accompanied by flashes of lightening began to streak across the heavens. They were finally here, the rains. I had waited and waited, struggling to concentrate on the flights I had, waiting for the day that I could once again pack my bags and go to Lonavala, this time to my home.

I would no longer be a guest there; I would finally be the owner. It was exciting to think of how I could go there and delegate the way things would be run, the only problem being that as much as I wanted to visit in the rains, no changes could be made till well after. That’s just how things worked here. There was no work done during the rains, not even a slight discussion of any sort, the contractor would simply look you up and down, and say “After the rains” without even bothering to discuss what I could possibly want done then. It seemed as though the rains were a long sought after vacation for contractors and laborers alike.

The sky was a dark inky blue the morning I decided to leave for Lonavala once again, this time with my sister and Sam in tow. She was more than enthusiastic about the whole experience; she seemed more excited than I was. We were going for more than just a weekend this time. An entire week that I had managed to free of all the duties and responsibilities in the city. Even Sam had a week off, and since Roxanne was a housewife, it was easy enough for her to go away for an entire weekend.

It was more fun driving down this time than it had been before, mostly because I had company this time, and also because I didn’t have to drive all the way. I let Sam drive through all the traffic out of the city and then took to the wheel at the turning before the Expressway. If I had to drive around for hours and even days, I would definitely do it only on a road like this. Empty, with no signals or traffic jams of any sort. Roxanne was fast asleep by the time we reached Khandala, so I spoke to Sam instead.

The fact that I was more talkative than anyone in my family (which contrasted quite ironically with my ability to be completely alone) made it easy for me to have a conversation even with the silent and stolid Sam, who spoke only when necessary because I didn’t often leave much room in the conversation for anyone else to say anything.

When we finally rolled to a halt next to the house the rain was coming down heavier than it had been on the entire journey, the heavens letting loose tremendously large droplets so they thudded down onto the car like bricks.

We decided to leave the luggage in for the moment, and grabbing what we needed and scampering in away from the rain as quick as we could possibly manage to. Everything seemed greener than I remembered it, and I could hear the force of the stream gurgling at the bottom of the valley even through the screaming rain and shrieking winds.

There was little we could do until the rain stopped, so I busied myself with menial things about the house that hardly even mattered really, scampering up and down the stairs and into the bedrooms, pottering about the kitchen….

Mr. Mistry’s maid had very kindly agreed to stay on as my own, and she was there quite promptly, ten minutes in fact after we called her. I was relieved that Sam was with me, and while Roxanne continued to nap on the sofa below, he translated my broken Hindi and wild hand gestures into the most perfect Marathi I had ever heard from a family member. On the whole we were all quite useless at the language.

I watched as she swept behind the cupboards and dusted down the mattresses, showing me where the bedcovers and blankets were (last time I had brought my own little sleeping bag and hadn’t bothered much about cleanliness because I had only been there a night). She also cleaned the rest of the house and made us both (Roxanne was fast asleep) the most delicious cup of tea, boiled water, filled the bottles and asked if I needed any help preparing the lunch.

It seemed to me almost as though she had been an angel brought down to save me from committing all sorts of mistakes when it came to taking care of the house, not that I was bad at it. An angel that I couldn’t converse with of course, keeping in mind the large language barrier between us. I wondered what I would do when I had to come by myself again, without Sam to translate things for us. I supposed we would be okay and pretty much left it at that.

As beautiful as the rain looking when I glanced out the window and as lovely as it sounded, it wasn’t the most convenient thing really, because we could hardly step out, the garden filled up and the back was too mucky to even look at. Besides the obvious and not so important troubles I also noticed while standing on the terrace that there were a series of tiny, hardly noticeable and yet completely troublesome holes in the roof.

I was standing near the grills, watching the rain fall upon the mountains whilst Sam attempted to wake his wife up, and began to feel tiny droplets of water on my head. I thought it was the wind blowing the rain in from the terrace so I moved in a bit so that I didn’t completely ruin my newly washed hair.

The droplets continued to hit my scalp though, and as the rain got heavier they began to come down harder and I looked around in confusion. I had absolutely no idea what was happening and I must have been an extremely comic spectacle up on that terrace. I could just imagine what anyone standing down below would have thought, seeing someone put her hand to her head and then turn round and round so many times.

I did finally manage to figure out where the drops were coming from, but only after I had looked up and gotten a good any droplets straight in my eyes. The picture of me bending down trying to open my burning eyes hoping my lenses were still in there must had been even more hilarious really, but at least I had finally figured out where the water was coming from.

Knowing it would be more than impossible to get someone to fix the roof in such weather I began to resign to the fact that the terrace would be unfit for use in this season. My sister was up by then, and immediately came to my rescue, suggesting we put some sort of plastic up to cover our heads while we sat and watched the beauty around us.

Sam was in charge of all the handiwork, and although we couldn’t find any plastic on the first day, we did manage to acquire some from the maid the day after. So atleast for the rest of the week we could sit outside, even if it was with a horrendous looking green sheet above out heads all the while.

There seemed to be no dearth of the water, if anything, it seemed to be coming down harder than ever after the occasional break in between that seemed to be for Sam to put the green sheet up without getting drenched in the process of it all. We stopped watching the rains and the mountains and all those other wonderful things that people came to Lonavala to see in order to have a quick lunch. Since Sam and Roxanne were with me this time, I dragged out the little table and some chairs, proceeding to serve lunch outside itself.

I managed to cook up a decent enough lunch with the things I had brought along with me and we settled down comfortably on the patio, eating fried chicken and sticky rice. In the evening we sat outside again, drinking our tea and munching on some Onion Rings that we had picked up from this fabulous little shop called ‘Hot Chips’ which we found in the market while we were picking up the milk and eggs for breakfast the next day.

We also picked up a packet of ‘Karela Wafers’ which were little strips of bitter gourd that were dipped and coated in some assortment of spices, and then deep fried. We thought we’d try them out, and when the onion rings were over and we decided to try them we realized they were so delicious we should have picked up a dozen packets more. We decided to go back the next morning and pick up some more.

After an early dinner (we were three very hungry people most of the time) we decided to play a game of Uno, something that Roxanne and I had been playing since we were little. I won the first two games and then proceeded to lose the rest quite shamefully, but we continued to play throughout the night, trying to get Sam to stop cheating. We were acting like little children, and when it was well past two am the night watchman started whistling frantically everytime he passed the house, as though telling us to put the lights out and go to sleep.

When we finally turned in for the night I stayed up even longer, reading one of the Wordsworth collections that Mr. Mistry had left in the house along with a number of old records (that could probably be worth a lot in the future), and other numerous collections of poetry and prose.

There was also a leather bound collection of Shakespeare’s plays that I packed into my suitcase to take back to Mumbai with me. I finally put the lights out and settled in for a comfortable night, telling myself I had an early morning the next day.

The rest of the week passed more or less the same, with Roxanne pottering about the house with me discussing the possible changes while Sam read the paper and drank his coffee and all those other things that men tend to do in order to stay away from a never ending discussion about four poster beds and pretty lace curtains.

The day before we were to leave, we made our final trip to the market to pick up some of Lonavala’s famous fudge and chikki. I had gathered all the information possible about the best chikki shops, and we made our way to National and picked up too much chikki to eat. By the time we made our way outside and towards the car we had in our bags crushed peanut chikki, whole peanut chikki, and numerous other boxes that I could hardly remember the names of.

Then we made our way to ever so famous Coopers for their famed fudge (that didn’t taste as delicious as I had remembered from when I was little) and picked up an entire kilo of plain chocolate fudge, as well as a quarter kilo of chocolate walnut fudge for Roxanne. She was the only one in the entire family that could stand nuts in any dessert. The rest of us liked the two separate, our desserts as a separate entity and then the nuts as completely separate things altogether.

The week was finally done. The trips were starting to resemble good wine. They were always delectable, no matter which season you went it. And they definitely seemed to get a whole lot better with as time went by.

Bougainvillea Bliss

2009-11-12T22:08:00.000-08:00

Driving Down

So there I was, in my little (or not so little) Palio, driving towards Lonavala. Well to be honest I hadn’t reached much farther than the Highway. Still, it was a start. My inability to wake up early had me caught in the office hour, on the Highway, in traffic. Typical me, just typical! I resisted the urge to hit my head against the wheel repeatedly and resorted to shaking it in tune with the music I had blaring out from the little car stereo.

When I was finally out of Mumbai, I and had assured myself that the trip would not be entirely disaster filled I settled back comfortably as I neared the Expressway, pretty much ready for a beautiful, scenic drive down to Lonavala.

Around ninety six to a hundred kilometers; that’s how far away it would be to drive down. In retrospect it really wasn’t all that far, one and a half to two hours from where I lived, depending on traffic. That particular day however, everything depended on how soon I found the house. It wasn’t as though I had never been to Lonavala at all, I had visited, stayed at Fariya’s (just once), been to The Kumar Resort, but that was about it.

I remember driving down when I was a child, the car rolling slowly up the Western Ghats, trucks barring the way, sun glaring in through the windows, it could take three and a half to four hours even; and that was just to reach the Lonavala Highway.

Now however, it was so well connected to the rest of the state (especially Mumbai) by these exceptional, extensive roads. It was probably because it lay on the Mumbai – Pune highway, whatever the reason; the change was highly appreciated by everyone who frequented both Lonavala as well as Pune.

So there I was, on my way towards the ‘Jewel of The Sahyadri’s’, the serene little place atop a mountain, just above Khandala, close to Pune……..the list could go on and on in my mind had I been any good at Geography at all. Considering I was not, I let the thought swim around in my head for a while and then disappear altogether while I turned onto the expressway singing along to Iron Maiden’s ‘Run To The Hills’ the best I could in my often nasal and slightly high pitched voice, letting all the screaming parts fade into the mountains as they appeared in front of me (I didn’t even want to attempt copying those lest I scare off all the other drivers on the road, even through the closed windows)

To say that it was simply a ‘picturesque’ drive or a ‘scenic’ drive would be quite a horrible thing to say. It was a lot more than a beautiful ride. It was heavenly, all exaggerations and undue praise aside, simply heavenly. I almost felt as though I should roll my windows down to breathe in the seemingly fresh, unsullied air until I realized I wasn’t walking around on a mountain, I was driving, just like the other fifty odd people were on various parts of the same road. Which meant the air was a far cry from fresh and unsullied.

I caught glimpses of green on the moist brown hills, saw tiny rivulets drizzle their way down them as I drove past, waiting, just like I had been; for the rains to arrive so they could bounce of the sides of the mountains with wild abandon. I knew I was coming up to the tunnels, I could see one far ahead.

Looking up as I approached it I saw the resident beehives that always hung on the entrance, which had captivated me so very much when I had first seen them so many years ago. Considering I was terrified of bees, my own interest in those hives surprised me more than anyone else. I passed through the state of the art, newly modified tunnel and thought about the days when tunnels were (or seemed to be at least) simply holes in mountains to get you to the other side. Pitch black, the sound of water dripping around, and that tiny little dot of light that signaled there was a way out.

These new tunnels were something I still had to get used to. They were so bright and new. They didn’t seem like tunnels at all; just some sort of sheltered pass from one side to another. Not that it was a bad thing. They were probably one of the most sensible things to renovate as they had, thus ensuring there were less accidents, more safety on the road…that sort of thing. I still missed the pitch dark ones though. Just a tiny bit.

I remembered reading an article someone had written about the sort of people who went to Lonavala. The list included trekkers, honeymooners and rock climbers. I wasn’t any of those certainly! It was time for me to switch CD’s, and I couldn’t decide which one to put in next. So I looked around me and I saw mountains, streaks of blue where the water struggled to flow, a brilliantly blue sky speckled with white clouds and a sign that pointed straight and said ‘Lonavala ___ KM’, the amount of kilometers being hidden by a little bush by the side of the road. So I put in the country music. Just for good measure.

It wasn’t my favourite sort of music at all but I still managed to sing along to most of it. Halfway through one of the few songs I actually loved I realized I had already passed through the second tunnel and was nearing Khandala already. This meant I wasn’t very far away from Lonavala. I continued to sing however, and while the lyrics to ‘Strawberry Wine’ burst forth from my lips, I began to wonder in my mind how easy or difficult it was going to be to find ‘Panoramic Valley’.

Maybe, if I asked someone it would be easier to find. Or maybe I should have stopped obsessing and gotten passed Khandala first. Either way it didn’t really matter because I did get there eventually. On my own; well, almost.

By the time I was passing ‘Kamat’s Hotel’, (a place that had been a little restaurant on the way and was now a big fancy one with non vegetarian food and everything!) I was more confident than I had been because I actually still managed to recognize it.

I wondered whether I should continue driving or give my hungry stomach some of its fried idli’s or masala dosa’s. I resisted however, telling myself it was best to get there before I started thinking of food. Thinking of food was more or less a dangerous thing for me to do. It was hard to stop once I had already begun, and then I was unsatisfied with most things because I wanted too much of everything.

Even though I was alone, this seemed like the quickest trip I had ever made. I put it down to the new and speedy expressway and stopped at the side of the Lonavala Highway and took out the piece of paper that Sam had given me the scribbled directions and the map. It looked simple, almost too simple.

According to the map, I was supposed to take one of the first left turns into a little lane, then a right turn at the division in the road, then another left down a slope, one more at the bottom, and then there it was. House number fifteen.

I didn’t however get the turn right, so I ended up in a remote little lane behind a little row of houses that I supposed would be the same ones Mr. Mistry had been talking about. So I parked the car on one side and walked towards the houses, asking for house number fifteen. Someone very kindly pointed it out to me and I walked towards it. It seemed different from what I had imagined it to be but it was still charming enough in its own way.

Imagine my surprise then when I was busy standing on the porch, looking in my oversized purse for the keys that I had been given when someone opened the door and stared out at me, her expression probably mirroring the surprise on my face.

“May I help you?” she asked me ever so kindly in Hindi.

I was glad she had said it to me in Hindi. If she had said something in Marathi I would have smiled and nodded, because I didn’t understand a word of it. And seeing as most people in Lonavala spoke in Marathi I figured she couldn’t be anyone who lived here.

She wore a red salwar kameez; the dupatta was missing because she probably didn’t wear it inside the house. Her lips were painted bright, her eyebrows knitted together in a quizzical fashion, her dark eyes peering at me as she swung her tightly plaited hair impatiently over her shoulders.

“Uhm….I don’t know. Is this house number fifteen?” I asked very slowly in broken Hindi.

She must have realized that having a conversation with me in Hindi would have taken several hours, and lucky for me, she seemed to have quite a good command of English. Better than my Hindi in any case.

She said this was indeed house number fifteen but probably in the wrong society. This house had no previous owner called Mr. Mistry. Besides, this was an all vegetarian society. I wondered about the possibility of my new prospective home being in an all vegetarian society; but only for a fraction of a second. Then the image of Mr. Mistry biting hungrily into a mutton burger when we had met (which I’m sure had to be awful for his health!) made me draw out a large, audible sigh of relief that the young lady didn’t quite understand at all.

So I showed her my little paper with my map and my directions and she smiled and nodded, telling me to wait ‘just one moment only please’. She came back out with someone who I assumed was her husband because of the little child that had followed them and now stood at his feet staring up at me with enormously wide brown eyes filled with curiosity as she chewed on her fingernails and hopped on one leg first and then the other.

When the young woman’s husband finally gave me directions I hastily thanked them the best I could, quickly placed my sunglasses over my eyes, clutched my oversized purse ever so tightly and hurried towards my car, head down to avoid any further embarrassment.

I practiced Hindi sentences in my head while I started my car, just in case I encountered another Hindi speaking couple (the thought that this time they might not speak English at all scaring me ever so slightly) or try and put my key through another wrong keyhole.

I took the turns I had been told to take and finally I knew I was in the right place. It had been exactly how Mr. Mistry had described it, the sprigs of bougainvillea falling over the fences of every house as the car rolled gently down the hill towards a row of small, almost petite looking little cottages. Pinks, yellows, reds, even whites and peach….the amount of bougainvillea there surprised me ever so much.

I looked around for a hint of a rose but there were none. It wasn’t the season. Apparently bougainvilleas need no season to shine. They simply shine!

Over the fences surrounding cottages, wound up near the roofs of so many, blossoming in the flower beds, complimenting the equally abundant spread of hibiscus flowers. It was all so lovely. Bougainvillea Bliss. In all aspects of the term, indeed. I made my way slowly through the little lane, searching for the house that I was almost completely certain now would be mine.

Bougainvillea Bliss

2009-11-12T22:07:00.000-08:00

Meeting Mr. Mistry

When I finally did get in touch with the gentleman (whose name I finally found out was Mr. Mistry) he agreed very affably to meet me, and I wondered if I would have to make an exceptionally large offer or anything vaguely troublesome of the sort. I wasn’t made for these deals and decisions. I was more of a ‘pick it off the shelf’ sort of person, not a particularly favourable characteristic since I lived in the one city where if you didn’t bargain for most things, there was a pretty good chance you were getting ripped off by atleast half.

We met on a gloomy day, the clouds threatening to bring the rain down on my newly washed hair. It had been the worst day in the entire week to wash my hair. It didn’t rain however, and I was soon safely seated in the restaurant, waiting for Mr. Mistry to arrive. I looked around at all the people walking in, wondering which of the ‘over fifty’ categories he fit into.

Was he the simply dressed old man sauntering in slowly with the air of one much younger, hair slicked back by oil, shirt tucked in neatly and trousers pulled up high over his waist? Or was he the other man across the room who was walking in silently in the Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts, hair streaked with white?

He finally did come, walking over to my table. He was only slightly taller than I was (which quite frankly meant he was ever so slightly short) and he had an air of pride about him that could very well have been quite deserving, it wasn’t haughty, or smug in any way. His white hair was peppered with black in places, the tired wrinkles under his eyes quietly explaining his need for retirement.

He sat down next to me, and began to talk (quite eagerly) about the little cottage he so desperately wanted to sell. Merely out of curiosity I asked him why he wanted to sell, even though I could have predicted the answer almost as immediately as I had asked it.

“I’m moving to Pune. I don’t need a holiday home that’s half an hour away. Besides, my children have another little holiday home that I could frequent if I wanted to” I asked him then where it was, how I could get there and in what condition it was, all questions I thought were absolutely essential to ask while one was thinking of buying a house all of a sudden.

He assured me that it was of course in “perfect condition”, telling me I could drive down and look at it any time I wanted to, it would be fine with him. I decided that was probably a good idea, and started making plans in my head even before he had finished the sentence. There were so many things I had thought of asking him before he had arrived, questions I thought would make me feel and seem more intelligent and knowledgeable about the entire issue than I actually was. I forgot most of them the minute he began talking about the house though.

He had this way of conversing with you that made you actually WANT to buy the house almost instantly, to trust whatever he was saying without even thinking of it as something that he could have been saying simply to attract your attention towards the house. I found myself growing attached to a house I had never seen in my life, watching myself potter about fixing and re designing, gardening and doing all sorts of the menial little jobs here and there to spruce the place up.

He hadn’t been very good at keeping the garden up to date, he mentioned the shortage of water in the little valley where his home was and also mentioned the abundance of cockroaches and lizards running around quite freely in all the houses. It did nothing however to put me off (although it should have, my aversion to anything tiny and creepy was extremely strong) and I still continued to make plans in my head about what I was going to do and how I was going to get there.

He explained to me that I could drive down whenever I was free, and I asked if that meant this week or next year because my timings were more or less that unpredictable. He didn’t seem to be too perturbed about that, telling me to take my time, he was in no hurry to sell it to anyone else seeing as I had been one of the first people to ask about it, the other being a rude young man that he wasn’t likely to sell it to “even if he offered me all the money in the world”

I asked him why that was and he looked at me for a minute and then said, quite simply and almost without any emotion at all “I don’t think I want someone like that in my home”. I accepted his explanation and feeling extremely satisfied about it all, sat back with what I am sure was a look of extreme content on my face.

When we were finally done talking and I had seen the pictures etcetera, I asked for directions so that I could actually (and not just in my head) plan my trip down to my ‘future holiday home’ as I had already begun to call it. I looked at the little piece of paper that I had scribbled everything on. “Tungarli – Panoramic Valley – Behind Fariya’s Hotel” I read out the words scribbled in between all my doodles wondering if I would even be able to find it. I would have to take someone along. Just for good measure. Or maybe not, I couldn’t decide; so I let the idea mull over in my brain. And then conveniently forgot all about it.

I decided to drive down. Trains definitely weren’t for me, and I did recognize the advantage of owning a car in a place where I’d probably have to stop a hundred times for directions, I didn’t want to be sitting in a rickshaw trying to cover the short distance between the station and Tungarli village. I knew for a fact that with my luck, the rickshaw driver would probably take me riding all over the small tiny little region until I had covered most of Lonavala, and then act as though he never knew that the place I was looking for had actually been ten minutes away from the point we started off at.

Such things happened to me. They happened to a lot of people really, but more so to me. I think it had something to do with how directionless I actually was, and how extremely easily I could believe a place was farther away than it actually was.

So I decided taking my car and driving down would probably be the best bet. That way even if I did get lost, at least…….well, I couldn’t think of anything to justify the decision. I just made it and that was that. I tried hard all week to determine what weekends I would have free so that I could call Mr. Mistry to tell him I would be driving down, but not only was that near impossible to do, I couldn’t quite concentrate on anything because of it.

Amanda asked me on our next flight together whether I had called the number she gave me. So I buckled in comfortably as the aircraft took off (somehow we seemed to get all our conversations in at take off and landing…) and told her the little story about my discussion with Mr. Mistry and my plans to drive down there. She seemed vaguely impressed with the descriptions and mildly interested in my plans but there it stopped. There wasn’t (and couldn’t have been of course) any of the enthusiasm that I felt. No one felt the same. Well, no one I knew anyway, they all already had their holiday destinations down to the T. They didn’t know what it felt like to finally get one of my own!

The rest of the week back home was hot and sunny, with the occasional darkened cloud looming over the horizon, and no rain. Not a single drop. All of June we had been waiting and it was slowly nearing the close of the month. If we didn’t see some good old fashioned monsoon showers soon, there would be a lot more to worry about than just the sun or the heat that I had begun to complain about almost every single day.

I could hardly sleep that entire week. Mostly because I finally knew I could drive to Lonavala on Saturday, but also because of the tremendous heat that just didn’t seem to want to go away. My air conditioner finally stopped working on Tuesday evening. So from Wednesday I began to sleep even less than usual and complain a whole lot more.

I couldn’t wait to get out of the city. To pack my bags and simply drive off into the sunset. Sunrise rather. I was leaving in the morning! Thinking back upon the entire episode now though, it probably was a rather trivial thing to get so extremely excited about. To me however it was more or less everything I had been waiting for; for so long in fact that I could hardly contain my excitement about it. I forgot about the heat (until I lay down in bed and began to sweat excessively) and the horrible traffic jams (until I drove out of my comfy little colony and made my way towards the ever so crowded ‘Juhu Gully’ of course) and the lecherous men that leered at every passing woman (until I passed them near Andheri station for the umpteenth time) and the world seemed to be so incredibly perfect all of a sudden (barring the heat, traffic jams and lecherous men – which I wasn’t thinking of off course!) because I was finally going to be the proud owner of…..wait, I think I was beginning to get a little bit ahead of myself wasn’t I?

I hadn’t even seen this ‘perfect’ house. For all I knew it might be crumbling to pieces, or in some deserted little lane behind a little village filled with buffaloes that ran wild (I was terrified of buffaloes running wild) or maybe it was across wild, untendered lands filled with snakes and other disgustingly creepy creatures.

But even that thought couldn’t put a damper on my spirits. So there I was, packing and folding and pushing and shoving as much as I possibly could, forgetting that two days was hardly enough time for me to wear three pairs of shoes, four pairs of shorts, five blouses, and three skirts. Oh and a pair of jeans as well. Just for good measure….it was too hot to wear them surely!

I asked people for directions in advance, called my parents to tell them the ‘exciting news’ and drove my sister’s husband mad by asking him several times whether he had ever been to ‘Panoramic Valley’ and if indeed such a place existed. When finally I was assured of its existence and the comforting information of it being more well known and heard of than I had thought, I was finally ready to make the one and a half to two hour journey (courtesy the speedy new expressway I had heard so much about) to Lonavala.

Knowing my sense of direction I’d probably reach on Sunday morning with a good many tales to tell of my mishaps and misadventures, or end up in the complete opposite direction. Sam (my sisters husband) drew me a map of how to get there (he was so patient with me, the poor, dear man) so I was slightly more confident than I normally would have been as I readied myself for the journey.

I didn’t know how long I’d take to get there. So I also took along six CD’s. Yes, six. Packing more than necessary was one of my many fabulous skills. So there I was, with my collection of classic rock, jazz, country and even some ridiculous pop (in case I felt like singing to the mountains or scaring other drivers) – a CD for every mood I could possibly be in. I did wonder later how a silly little drive to a little hilly region two hours away from the city could have been such a big deal to me.

I wondered how I could have let something so trivial excite me so very much. I had no answers. What could I say, I was easily excited I suppose.

Bougainvillea Bliss

2009-11-12T22:04:00.000-08:00

Holiday Home Hopelessness

The sun shone brightly….no, scratch that. I can’t possibly start my story with a lie now, can I? Truth be told, the sun wasn’t shining brilliantly at all, and it wasn’t a very pleasant day to be quite frank and openly honest about it all. The sun may have been shining, but there was nothing picturesque about it, nothing beautiful. It was just a normal day with the normal sun (it seemed to be shining just a slight bit harsher than usual) and too much humidity and heat.

I just happened to be there when the discussion took place. Just standing there without any particular work to do or anything important to say to any of the people that stood around me, talking comfortably about their vacation homes in different areas of the country.

It felt almost strange to have to tell them that I didn’t exactly have one. In fact, I didn’t have one at all. It seems strange to sit and write about how terrible it was that I didn’t have a holiday home, how depressing it seemed not to have some place to run away to, in order to escape the terrible city life that I seemed to have become so used to. Considering I had lived here all my life that wasn’t the most shocking part of anything.

To understand my silence and dejection at the thought of having no such ‘Holiday Home’ you must of course begin to understand the way people in the city functioned. There were of course a number of poor souls just like me, craving for an escape and having to rely on friends and distant relatives for any sort of freedom from the rush and pollution of the city. But then there was an abundant (shockingly large I should say) amount of people who in fact couldn’t care less about the trials and tribulations of the city because they knew there was always the cottage in Goa or the little apartment in Pune, the family farmhouse in Panchgani or the old ancestral home in Gujarat to run off to when it got too much to handle in Mumbai.

Perhaps it was different in the rest of the country. But in Mumbai it was more common to hear “I’m off to Pune this weekend” than hear anyone say anything else. It seemed almost as though it had become a way of life, this vacationing almost every week, this running off to a different place for a change of atmosphere every once in a while. There were of course the few that couldn’t afford their own little homes, and didn’t have any friends to follow to and from the little dwellings outside the city.

But even they found little ways to escape ever so often, staying at the newly affordable resorts and retreats, taking due advantage of the two days in the week that they had nothing so important to do that they couldn’t jump in a car with two other families, all sitting on each others laps with their bags squeezed into the back and their heads pressed against the glass as they watched other cars just like theirs speeding towards the same place, over little roads and big commercialized expressways and highways, as they stopped at toll stations and rolled through state of the art tunnels.

I wondered if there was a possibility I could ever own my own holiday home. Working as an airhostess; a single airhostess, gave me almost enough freedom to buy myself one. Or so I thought until property rates in all the vacation hotspots began to rise and I watched inflation hit the economy and my standard of living decrease to a level my luxurious tastes didn’t take to very well. So I waited, and watched, desperately waiting for someone to get a promotion of some sort and move to a bigger, better vacation home and sell me theirs with a big juicy discount thrown in for good measure.

Those seemed to be simply the dreams of someone who wanted to live with a higher sense of luxury than she could afford at the moment. So I let the thought lie and continued to rush so I wasn’t late for the flights I was working, tried to smile and attend to people who didn’t necessarily need attending to and simply wanted to annoy me, all the while growing more than a little bit tired of the terrible pollution and summer heat raging through the city every time I landed back there and made my way home.

It was mid June and the rains hadn’t fallen upon us just as yet. They seemed to be waiting for some sort of sign, because there would be the occasional drizzle or two and then the clouds seemed to close up while still lingering above us all, waiting for us to tell them it was okay for them to cry their biggest tears, that we were ready. Not that we were of course. If there was ever a city more unprepared for the monsoons this was it.

Every year there were promises of better drainage and safer rains. It never really came to that. It was more that the people found their own ways of handling it, that they developed their own level of comfort with the abundance of water lying everywhere when the rains actually did start. There were still ditches and potholes, unfinished roads under construction and horrendous drainage. But as long as the skies were good to us and the storms stayed at bay there was nothing to worry about. This year in fact we were craving for the rain.

The humidity had reached some sort of spectacular high. Maybe it had something to do with global warming. Maybe the atmosphere derived some sort of sick pleasure from witnessing all the sweat and exhaustion. Forget us; I really began to feel for the poor village farmers on the outskirts and in other little parts of the State. It was about time for the rain to come to them atleast. They really needed it.

I began to sit at my window willing the drops to fall harder so the air could get cooler and the wind could start blowing around the city even just a little bit. It didn’t however and often I was soon forced into an early retirement from my staring and pondering by the harsh glare of the sun and the incessant heat that threatened to ruin me altogether.

It had reached a point where you could almost say I was on the brink of insanity, my head spinning with the heat, my mind muddled with all the chaos. News channels blared out from all corners, even if the television was off in my house I could hear the echo of a news reporter from my neighbour’s loud and blaring television. And then of course I had to put mine on for it was much more sensible to do than strain my ears to hear what was going on next door. The sound of traffic and commotion greeted me every time I stepped out of the comforts of my little Parsi colony ‘way up on the hill’ as people would often call it. Somehow saying ‘Cama Park’ seemed too hard for them. It struck me as somewhat strange because there really wasn’t anything so special about the name. I could remember it! It’s probably a silly thing to say since I lived there but I was surprisingly horrid at remembering names of any sort.

Surrounded by more greenery than mostly anyone in the city I should have thanked my lucky stars instead of complaining about the ‘small house’ and the hot sun. The people who lived on the main roads instead of in the serene calm of little colonies had it much worse than I did with the sounds of traffic constantly blaring in their ears and the terrible pollution sweeping in at the windows that had to be constantly shut so that no one got terribly sick with all the dirt that was flying around.

Being stuck in a traffic jam is an awful feeling. The cars seem to be at a standstill next to you with the exception of the fumes from the exhaust slowly creeping their way up into your nose so you cough and splutter. Then the rickshaw jerks and you move forward at snails pace, all the while wishing you could simply fly over the heads of everyone, whizzing from destination to destination in the wink of an eye. The people in those buildings on the roads probably feel as though they’re stuck in a traffic jam all day, every day.

Those people probably needed holiday homes much more desperately than I did. But still, I couldn’t think of how much they needed them and not want it anymore. I still did. I still held out hope that someone would one day give me the opportunity to possess my very own little holiday home, far away from the pandemonium of life in Mumbai.

Time passed and stopped at the day mentioned at the beginning of this book. The day when the sun wasn’t shining brilliantly enough to write a long description about it, when there was nothing exceptional to write about at all and I was simply standing besides the group of chattering airhostesses, waiting for the seatbelt sign to come on again so I could rest my weary feet.

Amanda Carson was one of the airhostesses on the flight who was the typically chatty sort. She couldn’t stop talking, and even if she could, I don’t think she ever would have. She had all the latest gossip about in flight relationships and troublesome passengers, and often told the most exciting stories about what it was like living in a house filled with five brothers and a grumpy aunt, in her little Yorkshire cottage. Her stories to me however often seemed contrived, as though she had picked them right out of the first few chapters of an entertaining little British novel and thrown it at us as her own. I couldn’t really tell though so I didn’t bother to judge. For the most part of the flight she was good company so it didn’t matter to me.

She was taller than I was, which wasn’t too much of a shock considering I was typically small built, petite and tiny (well, not tiny per se) at five feet two inches, whereas she stood at a towering six feet, which was in fact quite tall, even for an Englishwoman with five brothers. When she smiled her cheeks were fair and rosy, her brows mostly always raised to a good level above her sparkling blue eyes, her face framed by a mass of black wavy hair that seemed almost unnatural suddenly. It was pulled back neatly when she was on the job though you still see a wisp of a magnificent wave peeping out from under the tight coil ever so often; until she hastily swept it back inside. You almost expected her bright blue eyes to be softened by a mass of typically blonde, or at least light brown hair, the black seemed to surprise you so her eyes seemed to pop out in anticipation even more as she widened them in the midst of her clever little stories.

She seemed to know everything that was going on everywhere around her, even the unspoken things never seemed to fail to catch her attention. So it seemed quite a shock to me when she looked over her shoulder as she put her seatbelt on and mentioned to me ever so casually before we took off that I would probably be able to afford my dream holiday home in the next couple of weeks.

For the rest of the flight she remained ever so busy and I remained ever much the Curious George as I repeatedly searched for an answer to the little hint of an interesting conversation that she had so cleverly thrown my way. So it was that when we finally stood side by side near the end of the flight that I turned to her and (it seemed more as though I was begging her really) asked her to please tell me what she meant.

So she did. A senior flight attendant was retiring to Pune, which made him see fit cause to sell his little vacation home in Lonavala, often called the ‘Jewel of the Sahyadri’s’, an hour away from Pune and an extremely popular vacation spot for a dozen ‘Mumbaikers’ almost every day. It pleased me so much to hear the quoted cost (I wondered how a woman who lived halfway across the globe would know so much more than I did living in the same city as the said senior attendant) that I almost jumped for joy, determined to take advantage of my present ability to buy it and the minute the flight hit the ground almost ran home to sort it all out and get in touch with the man who had so willingly put such a juicy little cottage up for sale at the most perfect time in the world.

The Inauguration

2009-11-12T21:58:00.001-08:00

Finally - a space for my writing.

I've had and failed and updating and keeping to blogs. I'm an erratic person.

So the random thought that occurred to me of a sudden -

'Why not put my EXISTING writing up, and continue my erratic scribling whenever and wherever and add it to the blog in question later?'

- made sense !

So here goes , I might as well start with my extremely unedited, raw and unpolished story of sorts.

It's about life, people, and Lonavala....!