PAREL, 6th Nov’11: This time the Mumbai trip was planned well in advance. It
was to be from 1st Nov to 7th Nov. I am writing
this down as a testament to the fact that, we would perhaps return to our
hometown a week later from today. It is 4.45pm now in Parel that I have started
to jot down my recollections of the past 5 days. Our flight landed in Mumbai at
9pm instead of 7pm. This was not in our time schedule and thus we fell short of
our plans for the evening in Mumbai. We reached an organisation named “Rekha
Foundation” where we were supposed to stay for the next one week. This NGO is
run by a Bengali named Prithwish Dostidar who works as a CEO in a company in
Dubai. It is managed by a lady named Mitali Sarkar, whose Bengali seems more
like a mumbaikar than a Bengali from Bengal. This
establishment housed in a building aptly named ‘Jayanti Ashram’ can at a time
accommodate 8 families. After coming here I came to understand the meaning of
the phrase, ‘A home away from home’. My mother is somewhat conservative
in her food habits, especially after her surgery earlier this year. I on the
other hand being a Bengali though grew up among non-bengali friends right
throughout my school and college days. We had the habit of sharing our lunch in
the recess period. Doing so year after year made me quite habituated with the
food habits prevalent outside West Bengal. Here though common homemade items
are available prepared by Bengali cook from our home state!
Contd...P/2
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