This post is an excerpt from my journal (kept in shorthand) and is dated Sept. 28, 2012.
September is boiling into the tropical October heat; regular school days are effervescing and, tough exam days will take their place. Sociology is first in line (on the fourth) and the papers will run throughout the month till the 22nd. I’m not very confident about my first semester but promise to work hard for the finals.
Papa returned from Hong Kong on the night of the 26th, severely jet-lagged. Poor thing, he slept almost the entire day of the 27th. But he managed to bring us a few presents, at least: few DVDs for me, a T shirt, a watch which I feel is quite funky actually, cookies, some chocolate and for mother, green tea and a top. But my favorite was the whole third season of the American sitcom Glee which he got me after my persistent nagging. So today, I sat down to watch the first two episodes- I think the Glee club is super and Rachel has a really good voice and Kurt’s acting is incredible! My homophobic mother was disgusted when she saw Kurt sing and flirt with his boyfriend, Blaine.
Today happens to be the last day of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival and thus Ma had a whimsical aspiration to visit some celebrity Ganesh idols of the town-side after dinner, so though Papa was tired after office, he had to give in and we hired a driver for the evening. Damini, my close friend joined us and we landed up in Colaba for dinner.
We chose ‘Leopold Cafe’, a large and popular restaurant and bar located across from the Colaba police station. Now the specialty of this outlet is that, started back in 1871 by the Iranis and one of the first sites attacked during the November 2007 terror attacks in Mumbai, today it attracts an eclectic clientele ranging from foreign tourists and international bureaucrats to native artistes and writers to the local bourgeois. The cafe was also mentioned extensively, so my father and Wikipedia say, in the bestseller novel Shantaram by Gregory Roberts.
There were many goras to be seen around when we got ourselves a table and I noticed many more things at a first glance- the cute Leopold tees being sold at the counter, the front window desserts display, the photos hanging on the wall, the Parsi feel of the furnishings, the beer tumblers everywhere . . . I clicked many pictures.
Then we ordered: two cold coffees, beer for father, gin tonic for mother, potato wedges, cottage cheese barbeques, beef starters. A meager order but very filling. Damini was keen on listening to Papa’s dinner table anecdotes, I discovered my mother once knew German, and we laughed and talked a lot. On our way out from the cafe, I noticed that the bullet marks from the 2007 shoutout, in some of the walls and glass panes had been preserved in spite of renovation.
Then we sauntered till the Gateway of India and walked on the promenade beside the sea, gesturing excitedly at Victoria horses (which by the way are subjected to great cruelty and malnourishment as I recently read in the Times, PETA is not happy!), the Taj Hotel, the chic clothes outlets and number of people still outdoors at one a.m. in the night. Papa bought us kulfis and candy sticks and then we drove back home. The evening had been splendid.
P.S. I shall attach some photos clicked that evening with this post when I figure out how to upload them from my camera to my computer.
And for those who are interested in the cafe I talked about:
Shahid Bhagat Singh Road, opp Colaba police station, Azad Nagar, Colaba, Mumbai, MH 400039
| Telephone no. 022 2202 0131 |
Source:
http://hopediaries.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/glee-leopold-cafe-and-photography/