I had my first haircut today, after almost 3 months. My head feels much lighter even though I don’t have as much hair as I used to in my younger days. The Devonshire Management is slowly opening sections of the community and this was one facility which many residents were waiting for. You would be surprised how many women have lined up for getting their hair cut and, more than that, dyed to hide the grey.
Manju has just come back after her visit to The Salon and is delighted with the change.
The fitness center has also opened through it will require appointments and only 4 residents are allowed at any one time to conform to Social Distancing. I have got the first opening time of 07:30 every day, because of my excellent rapport with the Gym Instructor. She is absolutely wonderful and very helpful.
Devonshire’s food has also improved somewhat and the selection is better. Even then, Manju is still cooking and yesterday, we had Gobi and Aloo Parathas. What a treat!!.
Eating the parathas reminded me of the time when we conducted a market study of the Punjab, Himachal and Haryana for traffic to the U.K. I had deputed Nusli Petit to join Randhir Singh for this project. When Nusli came back from the 7 or 10 day trip (I forget the actual number of days), he had put on quite a bit of weight.
I asked him - how come and his answer was that he could not resist the excellent parathas, well greased with freshly churned butter and the sweet lassi that he had for breakfast every day. Plus, of course, the Makhni daal and sarson ka saag, again garnished with butter followed by kheer at the roadside Dhabas in the villages that he and Randhir visited.
Even the very thought of all these dishes makes my mouth water and yearn for the Spring days when we could eat such food in Delhi and places nearby. Delicacies such as sarson ka saag are only a memory, never to be tasted again.
The Croquet court in Devonshire has also opened and I am back playing this game which I enjoy very much. Once the summer truly sets in and the overhead sun gets stronger, I shall quit because I feel light-headed. I will resume playing in late October when the heat is more bearable.
Golf is starting next week and I am hoping to join my group. It is going to be different in that there will be no valet service and no bag boys to put your golf bag on a cart. Locker rooms are closed. In addition, we will have individual carts and the interval between each group will increase from 8 minutes to 12 minutes.
Since early March, we have not been allowed to step out of the community except for emergency medical reasons. These restrictions have been relaxed somewhat and Manju and I took advantage and went to Trader Joe, our favorite grocery store. We picked up our items and when we went to the Check out counter, the lady greeted us as long lost clients. She told me that she had missed my weekly visits and then proceeded to give a bouquet of flowers to Manju. How thoughtful of her; Manju was delighted.
Our children and grand children are up north in NYC and NJ and we miss seeing them. This was the time of our semi-annual visit to the north when we spent a week with each of them. It was also the time when Aanya, our older granddaughter had her annual piano concert at Carnegie Hall, an event which we eagerly looked to attend. Sad, how times have changed; I wonder when, if at all, we can go back to leading normal lives.
I have spent a considerable amount of time describing our lives here at Devonshire and would love to hear from my friends in India how they are faring. Please share your experiences.
Our “esteemed” President continues to act like the moron and idiot that he is and our only hope is that he will be ousted at the next election scheduled for November this year. Politics in this country is now a bad word in every sense and the two parties are so polarized that the country is completely divided. Add to that the recent protests on racial issues and we have a real mess.
And now that maniac in the Oval Office wants to start his election rallies where thousands of people will not be wearing masks nor keep social distance and thus be exposed to the coronavirus. Yesterday, his party announced that all participants will have no legal recourse if they catch the virus.
When he went to India earlier this year, the locals welcomed him with great enthusiasm. Is it possible for us to export him to India - keep him there permanently.
The very thought of playing golf again brings to mind our first group(s) when I started to play the game. Our initial foursome was Ashok Vaish, Saroj Datta and Amar Singh in addition to myself. Amar was the President of Wyeth (India), a pharmaceutical company and had a big Chevy Impala which could easily take four golf sets in the dickey.
Since both Saroj and I traveled considerably on AI business, there were always others willing to fill in the gaps. There were our own Ferdoas Nagarvala and Madal Lal who was then the Sales Manager - WI. Ram Talcherkar (Neila Talcherkar’s husband), Uttara Parikh’s husband and David Lowe, BA’s Manager, Bombay.
Both Amar and David liked to have a couple of drinks after the game and I was concerned about driving back from Chembur on crowded roads and as such, they accepted my suggestion to repair to our apartment on Pedder Road for the martinis which was then the favorite drink.
Of course, one thing led to another and on one occasion, both Amar and David decided to see how high they could jump over the sofa in the living room. It so happened that Manju walked in and saw the spectacle of Amar’s shorts fall to below his knees after his attempt. That was the end of our martini get togethers.
The final foursome was Amar, Saroj, Narpat Singh and myself and we were nick-named the awesome foursome by the other golfers at Chamber. I believe I have written about this foursome in an earlier Post. On one of our stays at the Taj Mahal Hotel sometime in the late 90s, Narpat and Maya visited us and joined us for a cup of tea and reminiscing. On their departure, he whispered “remember the awesome foursome”.
It was the last time that we met. The saddest part is that all of my colleagues of the original and final foursome (Amar, Ashok, Saroj and Narpat) are no longer with us on this earth. I miss every one of them.
