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April 23, 2007
End
of Day III
I
awoke early the next morning, around six. DJ
was still sleeping and because we knew the
apartment was going to be ready we had left all
out stuff at Kabir’s. This turned out to be a
bad bit of planning on my part. I knew DJ would
sleep for another three hours and I didn’t have
anything other than my own mind to occupy myself
with for the time – no books, no pen and
journal, no computer – nothing but an empty
apartment.
I
decided to brave the outdoors and search for a
cup of coffee.
Mumbai at 6:30 in the morning is like most
cities at 6:30 – asleep. There’s still pretty
heavy traffic though and there is still the
constant tapping of horns but on a much smaller
scale. I walked up and down the street but
failed to find any coffee. It seems most of the
shops open between 10 and noon. I snapped to a
few photos and soon the hours dwindled away. I
returned to our apartment, was smartly saluted
to by the aging security guard working the
building, and awoke DJ for the second morning in
a row. We walked back to Kabir’s and had a nice
breakfast – with good coffee.
Kabir was good for his word in regards to the
gym and DJ decided it was time for him to start
working out as well.
Kabir
took us to a nice little gym and dropped us
off. The gym he himself worked out in did not
permit day passes so it wasn’t possible for us
to go there but this place was fine. The cardio
``room`` was a bit amusing, there was enough
space for three treadmills to sit side by side
but two of them were available and the trainer
working there pointed me to the best one. This
gym catered to people who didn’t have any idea
of what they were doing and a personal trainer
accompanied you while working out. I told my
fellow I was okay just running and preferred not
to be trained today. He smiled and sat down. I
turned the machine on and commenced to running.
After about 15 minutes the trainer got out of
his chair in the corner and came over to have a
look. I thought he was going to tell me there
was a time limit on the machines but it wasn’t
so. Instead he told me if I was finding it
difficult I could slow the machine. I can’t
imagine I looked that bad. I responded by
speeding it up a notch. He seemed to find this
amusing and leaned on the machine to watch. I
had intended to run 40-50 minutes but with
someone leaning on the machine inches away from
me I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold out without
out losing it. I turned up the volume on my
Thumps and increased the speed of the
treadmill. Every five minutes after that I
increased the speed a few notches. The pace
meter on the treadmill wasn’t working but I know
I was going quicker than I wanted to. As I
approached 40 minutes I could feel all kinds of
troubles brewing. My stomach was gurgling and
my left knee was going numb. I’ve never been so
happy to see a goal time reached – even if it
was the low side of it. At 40 minutes I slowly
descended the speed and warmed down. The clock
read 45 when I finally stepped off but it felt
like I’d been running for twice that. ``You
have good stamina`` the young man said as I
towelled off the creeks of sweat that flowed
over my body. Sure didn’t feel like it but it
was nice of him to say. At any rate, I’d gotten
in my first run in India and I was glad for it.
When
DJ and I returned to Kabir’s apartment we jumped
into the elevator to take us up to the sixth and
top floor, where Kabir lived, but a middle aged
woman stopped the elevator as we passed the 3rd
floor.
First I should tell you a little about this
elevator, which I understand is like many in
Mumbai. It’s small, about twice the size of an
airplane bathroom, and the “doors” are simply
two accordion gates. One stays with the
elevator while the other stays at the floor.
You commonly see this system in freight
elevators. Both elevator doors need to be shut
or the lift won’t lift. To ensure that no one
walks away with the gates open a loud annoying
tune continuously loops until they are closed.
The offending melody can be heard throughout
building.
Now
this older woman had gotten it into her head
that DJ had left the gates open the previous day
and they had remained that way for a full half
an hour. She was furious. She said she knew it
was him because she said the super told her the
young man was tall and was wearing a black
t-shirt. DJ assured her this was the first day
he’d sported that particular T-shirt but she
simply would not listen. She was yelling and
continuously telling him he was “disgusting”
“filthy” – horrible words. I was stunned.
Through it all he was so polite. “Aunty, I am
sorry you were forced to endure this but it
wasn’t me who left the doors open.” Her
response? “You’re filthy and disgusting!” She
wouldn’t let the elevator go until some old
fellow came along and ushered her away.
I
hate to admit it but I would have liked to slap
that hag so hard she’d have heard tunes for
days. But DJ didn’t seem bothered by the
incident at all.
That
evening Naushad took us to a mall. It was a
like any mall you’d find in North America and
the food fair provided us with a really nice
meal of chicken tikka messala wrapped in doza.
Excellent stuff. I hadn’t brought enough
clothes for this trip and so I bought some
shirts and t-shirts. As we prepared to leave
Naushad realized he’d left the keys to the car
on the food tray in the eating area. Of course,
when we returned there was no sign of them
anywhere. The staff determined the keys must
have been swept into the garbage. The garbage
bin was emptied on a tarp and several young
fellows with rubber gloves were enlisted to
search the refuse. They weren’t there long
before Naushad felt it might be prudent to check
his pockets one last time. The keys were
discovered in his rear pocket, much to the
relief of those young men. Is there anything
more satisfying than finding lost keys?
When
we got back to our apartment I was stunned to
find it very nearly complete! The day before it
had looked like I’d be home a week before that
place was ready! The next day we were catching
a noon flight to the resort area of Goa.
Everywhere I went people commented on how nice
Goa was – “relaxed” was a word bantered about
often.
Many
of you are probably wondering what the hell I’m
doing here to this point. I was beginning to
wonder the same. These gentlemen had incurred
considerable cost to bring me here and to date
there had been no mention of my true purpose for
coming – which was to research and develop a
movie that could truly meld both film making
worlds “Hollywood” and “Bollywood.” Up till now
not more than 10 minutes of conversation had
been dedicated to this purpose. The men had
informed me we would be taking it up when we
arrived in Goa.
We
retired early. I was looking forward to Goa. |
