Monday, 4 June 2007

The highlight of the day was my friend Anirudh’s ‘goodbye dinner.’ Anirudh is one of my closest friends. I had known him since middle school. Although quite brilliant as a school student and an outstanding swimmer of national repute, Anirudh had struggled throughout college, and beyond. Now however he was leaving for Holland. He had had a successful stint with Shell as a consultant, and was now moving to the Hague to continue working for them. He had called all his close friends for dinner at a restaurant, China Garden, in Bandra. The funny thing about this get together was that although each of Anirudh’s friends was very close to him, none really knew the other all that well. I myself knew Devatanu well because of our friendship in school but no one besides him. It took a bit to figure out the logistics for the evening since Bandra’s a good forty five minutes away from where my parents live now. We finally figured that I would get Milind to drive me there, after he had driven Mum back from her school, and before he would have to pick up Baba from his office in Worli. Since the dinner was scheduled at nine, and both Anirudh and Devatanu would not be at home till at least six, I decided to kill time with my cousin Reshmi at her place, in Pali Hill, Bandra. I got to their apartment at five, Reshmi’s brother Deep had to take off for a football match but her mother Tultul, who I call Tultul Mashi, was at home. Tultul Mashi teaches history at Bombay’s prestigious Cathedral High School. The three of us, Reshmi, Tultul Mashi, and I had a great time lounging around in Reshmi’s bedroom gossiping over crackers and tuna. Around seven I took off for Anirudh’s place promising to call Reshmi to try and meet up with her and her friends in a bar called Zenzi. I walked over to Anirudh’s apartment, I got to meet his mother, a film maker and distributor, and his father, a pilot for Royal Thai Air, and also, after a very long time, his sister Devshree who works as a copywriter. Anirudh and I hung around for a bit at his apartment before taking off in his father’s Peugot 309 for China Gate.
Anirudh, it appeared, had a very eclectic collection of close friends. Jimit was a photographer, Shruti was a medical student headed for Chicago for her residency, Lavanya was a math major in college but I was a little unsure if she did anything at all, Devatanu was of course into management, and I am a historian. We had a three hour dinner session. For drinks I had Kingfisher beer, for starters we had steamed wontons, I also had tom yum soup, as entrees we had hakka noodles, chicken fried rice, lamb, and a chicken dish, and for dessert we had ice cream with fried noodles. Since it was past midnight I decided not to call Reshmi. That, of course, did not mean that the night was over for me. Anirudh and I went over to Jimit’s place to hang out. He lives in Santa Cruz, a suburb north of Bandra. We went to his office and I got some rum and coke. Jimit has obviously been doing well as a freelance photographer, his office looked quite cushy. Quite incredibly we talked, and youtubed the whole night away. By the time we got back to Anirudh’s apartment it was five forty five. I had decided to spend the night there, but since it was morning already I decided to take off and beat the office rush. I caught an auto rickshaw and went home catching a glimpse of the rising sun while speeding up the Eastern Express Highway.