tuesday

Woke up to what looked to be a sunny day. (Relief!)


We decided to visit the South Indian canteen down the street for lunch, a scrum of business-shirt attitred men yelling out orders for dosas and thalis and chaat at rock bottom prices. There's no seating of course, and everyone stands around munching and arguing, downing endless fruit juices. Aneesa and I shared a masala dosa, a kind of spicy rice flour pancake filled with tumeric-flavored mashed potato and onion. I also got to try some of the thali, which for a mere 20 rupees provided tons of food, including a delicious okra curry, spicy papadums, sambar, pickles, and some tart yogurt. Excellent.

It was fun to watch the guys in the kitchen throw together food, feverishly turning out dosas from a hot grill, spooning out curries and sambar, yelling at each other but one way or another getting it all together. It's admirable.

Adam began to succumb to one of those unfortunate Indian digestive episodes, so I accompanied him back on the rickshaw. I can only imagine that riding in a rickshaw when you really want to barf is not among life's best experiences. (it was also thinking about raining, which indicates that the universe was not feeling so friendly at that juncture.)

It was raining, no one else was around, and Adam of necessity needed to go lie down in the dark and try not to die, so I spent the evening watching TV and drawing weird cartoons.

This went on until Aneesa returned. We went to the Breeze for dinner - an over buttery vegetable curry and a nice spicy lamb curry dish - and talked. She's going to Mumbai in a week and I'm having such a good time that I want to stay on. I may change my flights and go down to Mumbai instead of returning home. I've always dreamed of seeing Mumbai - land of Bollywood and endless, blissful phel puri vendors by the ocean - and this would be a perfect opportunity to do so. (I also remember how Salman Rushdie portrayed Bombay in Midnight's Children - a decadent, bizarre metropolis with weirdness apparently coming out of the dysfunctional sewer system itself - and I want to see if it lives up to even a portion of that.) We shall see.

Claire, Pipa, Lorraine and Jimmy reappeared after Aneesa went to bed bearing beer from the profoundly skanky Night Boozer bar down Thippasandra road, and we stayed up for a while, drinking crap whiskey and laughing about things, listening to the rain come on down.