on the Old Mumbai Trail and Malwani Fish...n prayers for Gayatri

Gayatri completed her masters in '89. She is a Maharashtrian. Avid Mumbaikar. Today she took me on an old mumbai trail. I just loved the choice of malvani food she opened me up to.

Surmai and mandivili. Bombil and kokam juice. For just Rs 120 we ate sumptuously.

Gayatri is forgetful on the road. She could easily be trashed in by a car. She had a brain surgery some years back. About the same time when her brother and sister now living in Americas, got her broadband connection at home.

Much like me, she used the net to download a host of music, to my delight too, a lot of hindustani classical music. Those are her constant companions. She says, she used to frequent concerts with siblings around. Now, just once in a while, you need good company, to go more frequently dont you. I agree you do.

She buys some authentic Maharashtrian sweets too. She says these are stuff you would find in a Brahmin's house in this part of the country. Maharashtrian brahmins. We come back. Me absolutely doting on the fish and her delightful company. And the fact that i had lost my wallet and she very graciously offering me to treat me to the luncheon.

Gayatri stays in the old part of mumbai. She says her building might be brought down. They might have to shift - they - she and her parents. Her forehead is blank. Knowing her, i know it should not have been. I can see the now dissappeared sindur.

We didnt broach on that subject. Further on. Except a short sentence by her somewhere. Saying that, it happens in life, when u give it your all trying to understand a person, and then feel tired and have nothing more to give ..I nod. I have smelled that giving bit. Maybe not in entirety. But still smelled it for sure.

However, Gayatri is very peculiarly unemotional. She talks of lovely things of life with a nonchalance that i cannot understand. I know though there was a passionate she that is far tucked away in history. The history which saw her perhaps giving her love to somebody. History which saw her getting in an admission in the same school as me, albeit in a different programme. Didnt she need it more than me! I wonder. How blessed i am that i can walk on and she could not. Her surgery might be same as my walks...making me forget my memories.

Gayatri is my colleague at ET. Her memories with her brain surgery might have faded into the darkness of the human mind. Their artifacts still strewn here and there, surface as her emotional nonchalance.

Today she took me on the old Mumbai trail. In understated fish eateries, i am told she loves eating and making people eat new kinds of dishes. She loves Mumbai.

And i..i just bow to her today...for her spirit of existence. The child's bow -- to the Lady on the Mumbai Trail.....

I am nobody to judge/decide but i pray that god, the unknown force, gives her peace and joy, as much as she gave me ....today.