First visit to an event like the KGAF, I prefer not to go attend an event. Instead, I like to simply wander through, getting a feel of place and time and people. (Well, in that third case, not literally a feel, you understand).
And so here’s a feel of what I got a feel of, Saturday opening day evening.
Somebody sold us a lemon tart. (Food wasn’t quite the first priority on my mind as I strolled through, but close enough). Usually, I like lemon tarts: the taste, the texture, the colour. This specimen wasn’t bad, but failed on all three of those counts.
- Instead of a healthy bilious yellow, this one was a pale yellowish-grey.
- Instead of smooth and velvety, this one was grainy, almost crunchy. And that’s before I got to the crust.
- Instead of a pleasant blend of sour and sweet, this one was lip-puckeringly limey, with an intriguing aftertaste of ghee. Lots of ghee.
I immediately ordered another.
Wife yanked me away.
***
One of the art installations is a set of Tibetan prayer wheels, painted in exotic patterns. From visiting previous such sets of wheels (Gangtok, McLeodganj, elsewhere), my impression is that devotees must negotiate them clockwise. Here, the milling crowds are traipsing every which way.
Oh wait, they aren’t prayer wheels. They are those charming dabbas, painted and mounted so they can be whirled around. Fast enough, and their handles smash into each other to produce what my son describes, with a mischievous smile, as “music”.
***
Long line to buy coupons for watermelon juice. I’m nearly falling asleep on my feet by the time the two mothers immediately in front of me get to the counter. But I’m startled into wakefulness when one of them suddenly cringes and shrinks backward bumping into me, brushes her arm furiously and complains loudly to the man taking her money.
I haven’t caught whatever occasioned this, probably because I was close to sleep, but the cashier’s reaction is intriguing. Without batting an eyelid, without even turning his head, and while gesturing to me to ask what I want, he addresses the watchman to his left with what I can only describe as a laconic, bored smile: “Kya watchman, apna kaam kar. Faltu log ko bhagana chahiye.” (”What watchman, do your job. Drive away the good-for-nothings.”)
I have no idea who he means.
***
Lots to satisfy my long-time hobby: what’s on T-shirts. Plenty of intriguing messages. One young lady has on her garment a large Swiss Army knife with all its various implements opened out. As she gets closer, I note that they are not “various implements”.
No, every single one is a corkscrew.
***
Cellphone-conversations-overheard-department:
1. Young man at one of the NGO stalls yells all this in succession, above the hullaballoo:
“Kala Ghoda is near Regal!”
“Colaba!”
“There is a festival!”
[Voice drops to a whisper] “I’m with my parents.”
[Voice resumes yelling] “You get a lot of handicrafts.”
“It’s good timepass.”
2. Woman waltzes past outside Jehangir Art Gallery. She tells her cellphone, loud enough to turn heads:
“Only mighty-flighty, arty-farty Bombayites come here, OK?”
***
At the Ponds Miracle Bouquet (or something like it) booth, a US-accented voice barrels through a spiel in which I catch these phrases, some more than twice: “youthful glow”, “blends with light”, “noticeable difference”, “more radiance”, “romance” and “age miracle”.
***
And finally, I dropped into a chair in front of a wiry man in a white Nehru cap. He asked my name, looked at my hand, and — in Hindi and far too fast and low-voiced for me to catch everything — rattled off a series of observations about my life. A sample of what I did catch, or thought I caught, below.
- I will live into my 80s.
- I’ll have a few health issues, but they are not serious.
- My kids will do well.
- People have sometimes, only sometimes, not helped me.
- But I haven’t needed help.
- My wife sometimes fights with me.
- I have some mounds on my palm.
- I have some lines on my palm.
Thus reassured about my life, I headed for home. I’m already looking forward to Days 2 and on. Those mounds will do me proud. Wife hasn’t stopped arguing with me about writing these lines.
