Namma ooru is suddenly buzzing! Everyone is racing against time (this little month has only 28 days, remember?) and throwing back-to-back parties and events. Everywhere there are POTS (pretty old things) and PYTS (their younger counterparts) waiting to be noticed. A drink in hand and their ‘tummy-tuckers’ firmly in place the new/old brigade is partying with a vengeance.
Ever since the planets re-aligned themselves in some awesome conjunction, people are fed up with their dark and dour lives. There has been illness, death and other than plague and pestilence, just about every other viral or bacterial infection has plagued us. I too decided to give a firm shake-off to my present dark state of mind and tentatively step out with family and friends. My first tentative stop was at Comal, the New Mexican Cantina everyone is raving about. One the partners/ chef is the very talented Varun Pereira, who has made this cosy (barely) 30-seater restaurant into the talk of the town. Of course we gorged on tacos and the pulled meats and feasted on the most awesome Guacamole or ‘guac’ as the young-‘uns’ call it. My son and my fave niece laughed and ate as if there was no tomorrow as we met up with friends (hers and mine) and it was wonderful to meet with Varun again after a long time. As singer Stuart James crooned; ‘Life ain’t that bad.’
Zoya, the exquisite diamond boutique, is unfortunately located two buildings away from where I stay! I have passed that ‘glittering-siren’ many times as I regularly zoom up that road. This time I was cordially invited to ‘look ‘not necessarily buy. I determinedly took my BFF, Alka Dev with me to ward off all temptations. But alas! She turned out to be more of an enabler than a deterrent.
Under her keen gaze with a knack of pulling out really pretty pieces, she steered me toward a lovely piece of jewellery which looked like the step-wells of Gujarat. What do you expect? Of course I bought it! Not only that, we decided to traipse into ITC Gardenia’s superb niche restaurant, Cajsa, which serves world cuisine. It’s wonderful and truly a blessing to spend your evening with your bestie, and wear one piece of perfection around your neck and partake on a truly perfect dinner. Yes! ‘Life ain’t that bad.’
My friend Nikhil Agarwal, the hot shot conceptualiser of ‘All things Nice’ the premiere wine and spirits consulting and market agency was in namma ooru again this week. This time he invited us to a tasting of fine Australian wines over a selection of specially-curated appetisers at Lupa. Chef Manu Chandra never fails to impress! And I’m certainly not saying this because he is a good friend. Manu is a master in the kitchen. He is meticulous and focussed and even as he was chatting with me in his impeccably clean and organised kitchen, I spied with my beady lil eye that everyone knew what they were supposed to do, and there was no chaos. Lovely!
We all seem to have faced travesties in the last year. I see us all limping back to a semblance of normalcy. It’s our expectations that hurt not others actions… ‘Life ain’t that bad’!