Sur-Sandhya

Well, it has nothing to do with a musical evening .

Lest anyone think this is a highly culture specific musical post , let me hasten to add that this is really a play on the words which are the names of the two bloggers who met for the first time together for a lunch. "Sur " is probably a misnomer short form, for someone who moves more like a Wilambit Alaap (kind of slow moving tired tune), and anyone playing word association is not likely to say my name with alacrity when you mention "Sur".

And the blogger friend who I met for lunch was Sandhya . From Bengaluru. I know Sandhya means "evening".

And we met at noon. But it's OK.

I just thought it was a great blog post title. ( As Shobha De would say, "Khair"....)....

We must have reached within 10 minutes of each other from opposite areas of Mumbai. I still have to figure out whether we radiate halos or our fingers look different from all the typing we do, or we have weird eye shapes from squinting at the screen, but we immediately recognised each other. Her little one accompanied her, and after many many years, I saw someone in two tight pigtails, like we had in our time, in school.

There was this place in the hugely spread out Nirmal Lifestyle Mall, that advertised Aamras Puri, along with assorted types of food with a southern touch, and we all went in. We must have been very early, because we had a choice of seating, and thanks to my limited knowledge of south Indian food beyond Idlies, Dosas, Uthhappams , Sandhya did the honors. Chettinad curry, neer dosas , set dosas, while somebody's eyes twinkled at the sight of a huge bowl of aamras on one side.

There was something to twinkle about. The logic behind this was not clear to me, but the white bowl in which the aamras came had a skewed surface. It was plainly a crooked bowl, where they ran out of clay while on the wheel. (I beg your pardon, maybe it's modern design).....Depending on where you viewed it from, you thought the bowl was really full, or that someone was trying to fool you . Makes it a bit dicey for those who like to view things as half full or half empty.

I also learnt how some folks get the totally erroneous impression that I do art. (!), while I go berserk doing anatomically out-of-proportion figures in Warli art, and show them doing modern things like sitting with laptops, and clicking photos.



Sandhya had brought two wonderful books
for me on Calligraphy and Designing Covers ! Aksharakruti by Achyut Palav and Think Visual by Shantaram Pawar ! A real treasure trove!

Thank you, Sandhya !


Lots of talk, indulging in whims of the little one, who was being pretty creative herself, making holes in tops of purees and dropping aamras through it, like in pani puris; though we never reached the stage of trying to eat a massive one that would collapse under its own weight of aamras.

I heard about some common bloggers from Bengaluru we both know, all beginning with S of course, who Sandhya is friends with. (Some non blogger friends on Facebook, commented with names like Shilpa Shetty, Sheila Dixit, and Sridevi , when they were trying to guess the S name (that I was lunching with); and it's clear that these page 3 entities are not a patch on all my S friends . #Just saying ...)

Like always, there was no dearth of stuff to talk about. I have spent part of my life in the area where her folks live, and , as it happens, it turned out that she went to college with someone I know.

It was time to get out of the fancy AC environs and do some Mumbai stuff . There was a fellow doing Ice Golas with Gloves . And you could get lip smacking flavors to go with it. A cousin had landed up to meet the little one, and their enjoyment of these ice golas, and the thin line of "lipstick" lining their lips after slurping the last of the syrupy stuff reminded me of the time we would eat paan as children and refuse to brush teeth afterwards because the lips looked like you had applied lipstick (and makeup was a big no-no in school then)....

I was having an Ice Gola after ages. It seems Sandhya had been here a few days earlier and this guy had her stamp of approval.

And so we slurped, and sipped, and talked , and like all ladies who cannot resist big signs saying "Today Only", we decided to do a round of the supermarket place behind us, after the kids had left to go elsewhere.

Lots of things like Pairi Mangoes, Collocassia leaves , fruits with competitive prices, freshly baked garlic bread and stuff, was purchased, as the two blogger ladies trundled around with their carts.

It was time to leave. Again in opposite directions.

I am totally impressed with Bengaluru blogger folk. Sandhya insisted on carrying my abnormally large carry bag till we were able to find a cart to put it in. One could use the cart all the way to the road outside, and this would make things easy for me, since for sometime now, I havent been on talking terms with the lumbar vertebrae.....

As it happens , always, (but always), we stood around , leaning on carts, talking away about our interests, and as it happens, always, (but always), we had to bid a goodbye. I needed to reach home before the Mumbai traffic started its madness, and she needed to do a couple of family visits before returning home.

Sandhya was in Mumbai visiting her folks. Married daughters coming home in their kids' summer holidays to visit their maternal homes is a BIG thing , particularly when they live some distance away like this.

The maternal home or maika , is "maher" in Marathi, and married girls, returning so, on such an annual visit are called "mahervasheeNs" in my language.

Being of a kind of ideal age right now (mother of a daughter of marriageable age and so on), I thought this was an excellent opportunity to welcome a blogging mahervasheeN.....

Welcome home, Sandhya !