929, 928, 927

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There was a trip to Bombay. In the pouring rain, through crowded roads, and ghats so misty that one imagined the rolling hills to have done some heavy breathing. My school friend, who I had reconnected with a while ago, had made sheer khurma for me for Eid. She'd frozen it and I had been dreaming of this all year. I am not joking. There is sheer khurma and there is the sevaii kheer. Most people make the latter and call it the former. But they are different. When I was growing up, my neighbors would make sheer khurma with very little vermicelli. It was light and frothed really well with dryfruits. It was rich and flavourful but also liquidy and light. I haven't eaten that sort of sheer khurma in a long while. As one can imagine, the build up was really strong. But my friend's dish was sublime. It really was. It was so brilliant that I maybe heard music and saw dazzling streams of stars or something.

Also visited another close friend at Goregaon West. Now, maybe it's because I visit Bombay and not live there, everything about the city feels so easy. Hailing a rickshaw, handing over a hundred-rupee note and getting change back,  having the auto-rickshaw fellow not make a fuss about taking a U-turn. I soften when I have that experience. Somewhere I know that is not always so. It wasn't like that for me all the time either. But in that downpour, I traveled from Sion to Jogeshwari, from Jogeshwari to Goregaon, from Goregaon to Juhu, and then from Juhu to Vashi without feeling hugely inconvenienced. I wonder if I am just able to do a whole lot more there.

Anyway, good days. August has begun really, really well.

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