Beach, Bookshop and Banters!
Sunday is the one free day we have from classes so it was a day for outings and seeing friends.
Started the morning with going for a long walk to the Bandstand Promenade which I surprisingly discovered was only 30 minutes from my hotel. Great 8km walk with beautiful seafront views. That’s it-my new walking route has been fixed to enable me to get some fresh sea air. Beautiful view of the Sea Llink bridge too!
I was later informed that Shah Rukh Khan’s house Mannat and Salman Khan’s apartment were at this promenade. So better keep my eyes peeled for them ha ha.
Then it was time to come back, shower and get ready for the day! Had been invited for lunch and dinner at friends’ houses in various parts of Mumbai so it was going to be quite an adventure of exploring different Mumbai suburbs.
First stop of course was to Juhu to see the Granth Bookshop. It had repeatedly come up in recommendations on a good bookshop in Mumbai. Realised that this was right next to the beach and the holiday goers were coming in for their beach day too.
Though not as big as KL’s Kinokuniya, this bookshop on 2 levels had quite a good collection as do most bookshops in India. Picked up some books and they quickly arranged for a courier service for 70 rupees to send the books back to my hotel so that I would not have to lug them around for the rest of the day. Talk about customer service.
It was then time to head out to my lunch destination-the home of the Gulatis in Goregaon which is about 10 kms away. Took me almost an hour to get there (did I tell you all that Mumbai is super spread out and it has notorious traffic).
I was here to meet up with the mothers of some of my son Harish’s friends from his university in Melaka. Lovely to meet the mothers in person and they had kindly brought dishes along.
Lunch was basically a lovely home cooked meal of typical Mumbai food comprising of Chaats (savory snacks). Was glad for that as my Chaat index was quite low for someone who has been in Mumbai for 3 weeks already!
We started with Paneer and Red Pepper grilled skewers with a yummy mint chutney. Then it was Fruit Chaat, Ragda (Sauce made with White peas) with Aloo Tikki and Dahi Vada. Another friend had brought Dhokla and there was also Makki ki Roti (Bread made with Maize flour) and Sarson Ka Saag (a classical Punjabi dish made with Mustard leaves). So many different flavours and all delicious!
Lunch was yummy-though it appeared small in quantity, it was super filling. We had Gajar Halwa and Ice Cream for dessert.
Time flew with interesting conversations and it was then time to say goodbye with promises to meet again in January.
I then headed out to Powai, another suburb of Mumbai to visit family friends.
We had a typical South Indian dinner comprising Salad, Curd Rice, a Mung Dhall gravy (Kotsu) anchored by a traditional South Indian staple-Uppuma Kozhakatai. Uppuma Kozhakatai is made of Semolina and like a Upma that is made into eggshaped balls and steamed. Delicious dinner and good catchup with friends last seen in 2019!
With that Sunday came to an end and it was back to getting ready for class on Monday!