26th July 2011: The next day we were to meet Dr. Prachi patil our chief medical oncologist. Normally, I had the habit of waking up at 8am lately. We needed and early start to avoid the rush and hence an alarm was set at 7am. I awoke at the right time but felt like being in bed for a couple of hours with my head feeling pretty heavy. By 7.30am me and my mother were having tea (I switched to plain liquor tea in the past one year). Tea not one of my regular favourites, still compel me to have atleast one cup a day to keep me rejuvenated. At 9.45 am on tuesday morning I rang up to see if our doctor was already at the OPD after her early morning OT duties. I came to know that our appointment was cancelled and placed on wednesday. It was slightly saddening because I felt I could have slept till my usual hours as the previous day journey was quite a boring one with my mother being frail and shaky while walking. That day we had our quick lunch and went out for the Girgaon Chowpatti Beach. It was cloudy all along and people were few in number (very few tourists and mostly locals). The vendors were not to be seen except for some permanent stalls of panipuri and 'gola' - a local iced drink of multiple flavours of certain fruit concentrate.
After few clicks from my camera, I went towards the edge of the beach where the waves were lashing in full force. As we were nearing the edge, I saw a dark skinned lady selling maize cobs - a sight that makes my appetite stronger! My mom was a bit slow in keeping up with the pace on sand as the feet was sinking quite deep in it. It was the time for high tide already. The lady was all alone near the break water area. She seemed to know the highest extent the water may come up and she was sitting with her back to the sea. My mother chose the smaller variety as she could not savour the bigger variety and I for myself chose the largest! The maize cobs available here are of a sweeter variety in relation to the ones available in our state. It would be interesting to note that a certain variety that comes at a price of Rs.20 in the weekdays comes at double the price on weekends. Those two days are the days of full fledged business and profit making to compensate lesser sale in the weekdays. Apart from the view of seashore (not at all upto my liking) I found that it had ample scope for street photography. My mother's health did not permit me to continue on that line for long. She sat under a big shade-tree some 300 feet away from the edge of the shore. The cool breeze and the diffused light due to cloudy weather was pleasant enough to take a stroll on the wet sands. After relishing some favourite snaps on my cam, I decided it was time to move on.
At around 3 pm we reached our hotel. Since, this is the fourth visit to mumbai in the last 10 months, I have noticed considerable changes in the attitude of the hotel management. Each time they lend us their full support in all possible ways. Once they came to know about the disease that afflicted my mother their co-operation was utmost and handy in all sense of the term. The lengthy 40 mins cab drive weakened mom more and we stayed in for the rest of the day. We had an early dinner and went to sleep with the customary 7am alarm!
Prasenjit ©1997-2011
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