BENGALURU: I have always been a very light sleeper. Even as a child, a messy bed with crinkled sheets would keep me awake. It used to exasperate my mother but my indulgent father used to laugh it off by calling it the ‘pea-under-the princess’ -mattress syndrome’!
As I have grown older, my insomnia has become a full-blown problem where sometimes, I wake up tired because of the lack of sleep. So when a friend invited me to meet Ayurveda practitioner and author of How to Sleep Better, Deepa Kanan (who outlined a 10 step protocol for sleep), wild horses couldn’t hold me back.
It was an insightful discussion, what with the ladies present sharing their sleep-deprivation problems. The atmosphere was both educational as well as mirthful. I don’t know if my sleep problems were solved but no harm in a little R&R, me thinks!
I was looking forward to our monthly Chaîne-des-Rôtisseurs India Chapter dinner. The venue was at the Sheraton Grand where we converged at the newly opened Zarf, an Indian speciality restaurant headed by the talented chef JP Singh.
Membership of the Chaîne-des-Rôtisseurs is by personal invitation. Belonging to a truly international community brings a wealth of opportunities for their members to participate in exciting events worldwide. The Indian chapter boasts of the ‘who’s who’ on their discerning membership rolls.
So, proudly displaying by membership insignia, I travelled over hill and dale just to be amongst friends and to titillate my taste-buds to what promised to be truly ‘A Passage to India’ fare. Usually their sit-down dinners are formal affairs, but this time we had an opportunity to mingle and mix and happily ended up meeting a host of newer faces with whom we built an instant rapport!
It is there that I impetuously decided that the long Easter weekend had to be spent in Goa! Of course there were things to do, people to meet and places to go before we jetted off. A Holi party at the Leela Palace at the invitation of my very talented friend, ‘Dikra’ Behram Siganporia, was on the cards and we landed up en-masse to hear him sing. This effervescent wonder-boy has the crowd eating out of his hand, while the young and (not so) young let down their hair and grooved to his beat.
As soon we landed, the first call went out to my friend Neha Chhabra from Bengaluru who has just shifted to take over the reins of JW Marriott in Goa. She invited us to reconnaissance the ‘uber- fab’ Peruvian restaurant, Heliconia. Heliconiine, the beautiful Peruvian flower blooms effortlessly in Goa too and the restaurant is set in an exquisite garden surrounded by them. Peruvian chef Arturo Castro Salazar helms the creative kitchen and was happy to talk us through on how Nikkei cooking (fusion dishes of the micro-diaspora between Japan and Peru), which began in the late 19th century, came to be one of the trendiest cuisines to cook up globally. We were more than happy to jump right into a selection of his signature ceviche, including classic Hamachi, and wash them down with excellent Pisco Sours.
After a much-needed break, I have learned that it isn’t the load that breaks you down, but it’s how you carry it!
(The writer’s views are personal)