May 28, Monday

I overslept and as a result was too late to catch F. online. Anyways I enjoyed my breakfast of left-over fish kachoris. I spent the morning helping Pishomoshai figure out some emailing issues and reading an excellent book. Esther David’s Book of Rachel is a lovely novel about Rachel, an elderly Jewish lady fighting to preserve an abandoned synagogue in Alibaug, a few hours north of where my parents live. It was an excellent look at the difficulties thrown up by the migration of Bene Israeli Jews from India to Israel in particular, and of migration in general. Anirudh dropped in for lunch. He’s getting ready to move to the Hague sometime later this week. He seemed quite excited about it but was restraining himself since he hadn’t quite completed all his paperwork. We had rice, vegetables, dal, mutton curry, and fish curry. For dessert I had some of the leftover tiramisu from Bubai Kaka’s hotel. We went for a nice stroll in our complex afterwards and after getting back watched a DVD. Unfortunately Mr. and Mrs. Smith turned out to be a particularly brain dead film. I went to the gym in the evening and had a pretty good workout. Later on in the evening we all went over to Sangita Aunty, and P. P. Singh uncle’s party. P. P. Singh is a close friend and former colleague of my father’s. They live in the same building, six storeys below us. Some other family friends were around as well. Sachdeva uncle, his wife Deshi aunty, and their daughter Ginnu, and also Atul uncle and his wife had come. The funny thing about this gathering was that all of us had gotten to know each other in Kolkata. Now, after a long time we were all living in the Kanjurmarg area. It’s really striking how many of by father’s college classmates now live in the Great Eastern Gardens complex alone. One of our former neighbors Siddhart ordered Chinese food for us Noodles, rice, vegetables, and two chicken preparations. We had a very nice time there especially when laughing about Pishomoshai and Pishimoni’s run ins with the local bureaucracy as they prepared to leave for Singapore. We came home really late, almost midnight.