A Day Well Spent

We had wanted to go to town for some time. Finally we decided on today. Kathy and me both reached VT at 11.30am the preset time, called Maxi to find out where he was, not surprisingly he was still at home. After partying the whole night he had reached home in the morning and getting sermons from his mom for wanting to go out again. So it was going to be only Kathy and me. We started walking towards Flora Fountain the vendors had just started setting shop. Kathy wanted to buy 4 copies of the book “The world is Flat” after checking out many stalls, finally one guy agreed to sell each copy for Rs. 80 but Kathy was adamant he wanted them at 70 each in Chennai he would get it for much cheaper. We walked some more and bargained with some more book sellers finally I managed to convince him that 80 bucks was a good bargain and going to Chennai just for the books would be too expensive. So we went back and bought the 4 copies.
I had a list of books to buy but couldn’t find a single one. Around that time Maxi called and said he would join us in an hour meanwhile we should check out the book sale at Kala Ghoda Art Festival. This was one pathetic Art Festival, nothing happening really just a trade fair on a minute scale, only thing good was the book sale but I did not find any of the books I was looking for.
On the footpath near the Jehangir Art Gallery one finds some paintings displayed some street artists working and displaying their skills there is a section dedicated to Bollywood too, here my attention was drawn by a beautiful painting a lone temple in the midst of trees and some people going about their business. We were whiling away time there when Maxi joined us. We decided to have lunch and then continue with the window-shopping at that moment I noticed the board, advertising palm and face reading. I was to try it out and my prophecy was interesting then Kathy and Maxi would follow my suit. After some general prediction the guy said I could ask him a question. The question was what to ask? I said I will ask if I will get a desired job. Kathy and Maxi were completely against it they wanted me to ask when I will get married. Now how would he know that? Anyways after much discussion finally it was to be the marriage question. The answer to which was,”Jab sahi samay aayega tab shaadi hogi”. This answer was the deciding factor for the duo, they did not want to get their face read. What was the whole point if he couldn’t tell when they would get married. I paid the swami for enlightening me. The next thing on our agenda was to enlighten our starving bellies.
We went to Royal Café opposite Regal Cinema, for a minute I thought we were at the wrong place, once upon a time this restaurant was small and served Indian food. Now it is huge and swank and the cuisine has been changed to Italian. Two of Maxi’s friends joined us for lunch; one of them just kept talking to Maxi in particular. I tried to join in but after some attempts decided to follow Kathy’s example and kept quiet. During the course of the lunch Maxi revealed that the plan was to watch a movie, the new Jim Carrey flick, the talkative friend had an opinion on that too. Kathy and I said we didn’t want to watch the movie as we still had to browse through the streets of Colaba, we reminded him that was the reason we were here. Maxi was crushed, how could we have not known that he had plans to watch a movie. That’s Maxi something’s on his mind and he thinks the entire world knows about it. And on top of that he has to commit to thousand things at the same time.
After lunch Maxi was in a turmoil, we told him its alright he can go and watch the movie we will continue to scout for some more books while he was thinking about it I managed to strike a great bargain and bought a three quarters pant for 80 bucks after which we parted ways.
Though we were specifically looking for books, it is impossible not to get distracted by all the accessory stalls at Colaba. Fortunately for Kathy I don’t take much time to decide I just have to glance at the stuff and know that I don’t like anything and move on to the next shop. After much glancing about I bought 2 glass bangles, an anklet and one necklace all for 95 bucks, great bargain this too. We walked the whole of causeway and still did not find any of the books I was looking for. So we decided to go back to Kala Ghoda, there Kathy brainwashed me to buy ‘The Complete Sherlock Holmes’ which was for just 159 bucks. Then we went to Magna bookstore, a lovely shop which has a balcony where you can sit on the cane chairs and sip on tea or coffee while reading the books. I found one of the books I was looking for “Madame Bovary” by Gustave Flaubert. Got a discount on the book too. Than Kathy and me ordered coffee and were relaxing on the balcony when Maxi called and said he would join us there. After Maxi came we spent some more time there and then left for Gateway Of India, on the way we saw Central Cottage Industries Emporium went in just to check out stuff and ended up buying some nice stuff. From there went to Gateway only to find it crowded, so decided to call it a day and headed back to VT.
Our Maxi had left his sunglasses with his friend so we had to wait outside McDonalds to meet her. There was this small shop selling dude and Macho kind of accessories, Maxi has a fetish for finger rings, he started looking through them. Liked one and was going to pay 80 bucks for it, I grabbed the hundred rupee note from him and told him to relax. Kathy and me started bargaining we said we would not pay anything more than 50. We told him not interested and stood there looking the other way. Maxi’s friend came and returned the sunglasses. We started to make a move when the ringwala called and said we can get the ring for 70 bucks nothing less than that. We stood our ground, he said 60, we wouldn’t budge, I told Maxi don’t give him hundred bucks I got a fifty rupee note. When I gave the shopkeeper money he almost wanted to grab a ten-rupee note from my wallet. Maxi couldn’t believe it he wanted to do some more shopping with us. We told him that could have been possible if he had not gone for the movie. A day that started and ended with a good bargain.