Writing from memory at dawn on 18 December 2015
Friday, 11 December 2015
I am a witness for my father in a
court case, and I was supposed to spend the morning at the lawyers’ offices. The
plan was to thereafter visit the Elephanta Caves, and see some of old Bombay. However,
the morning extended into the evening, and I returned home only at about 18:30.
I was afraid that JF&T would be bored, and annoyed with me. But it seemed
they were quite happy to have found the time to relax, and recover from the
fatigue.
It was no longer possible to go to
the caves, but we did drive around some of the touristic parts of the city. Marine
Drive is one of the more popular destinations in Bombay to hang around at
night. However, its southernmost tip – Nariman Point – is special, and that is
where we spent a few hours.
There are several tetrapods between
the ocean and the embankment, so as to prevent the waves, which turn violent in
the monsoons, from causing much damage. Sitting on one of the terapods was one
of my favourite things to do as a law student. This place is at the cusp of the
urban buzz of a mega polis, and the solitude that an ocean affords. Look one
way, and you see the busy city lights darting about, and a glowing sky; look
another, and one sees an almost pitch dark ocean and the sky covering it, with
only a few stars and ship-lights twinkling away in the distance. The salty
ocean breeze is all you smell and feel, and the gentle waves are all you hear.
Oftentimes, Vishesh, my best friend from law school, and I used to sit there
for hours and talk about the law, life, and ladies. Sometimes I went there
alone to contemplate.
Tim joined me on one of the
tetrapods, while Joline observed things from the embankment itself, while Fabian
spent most of his time toying with my binoculars, squealing with joy each time he
saw a star or a ship through them. It was wonderful to be back there after all
these years, and to share it with JF&T. We stayed there till midnight, when
the police asked us to leave.
---
Besides the evening, though, the day
seems lost to me. The worst part is that I must still go to the lawyers’ office
tomorrow to sort the final details. I must figure a way to get the work done,
and not lose another day for the others.
---
Saturday 12 December 2015
Having slept over the lawyer issue,
I discussed a solution with JF&T. The meeting with the lawyers should not
take much long, given that I only need to vet the final draft of the affidavit.
The guys can come with me to the lawyer’s offices and once I am through with
the work, we can proceed to the Elephanta caves. This plan was unanimously
agreed to. But we suffered a case of Indian Stretchable Time yet again. The
meeting with the lawyer took so much longer than expected – I could leave their
offices only by 13:30, instead of 10:30, and then return at around 16:00 to
collect some documents. So the Elephanta plans were shelved for a second
consecutive day.
Instead I asked JF&T to visit
the Prince of Wales Museum, while I worked with the lawyer. As soon as I was
done, I joined them at the museum. They all seemed to have enjoyed the museum, but
it was way too large for them to have seen everything. “Did you see the natural
history section”, I asked when we met at 14:00. “What natural history section”,
asked Fabian, who thought he had seen the entire museum. They were all
interested and we spent over an hour there. It is incredible that the museum
has exactly the same specimens, some partially deformed at least for the last
25 years – I remember seeing them as a child, when this natural history section
was the only one I was interested in. I think it is still my favourite section!
No comments:
Post a Comment