There’s something special about travelling as a twosome. Lone rangers harp on about doing it alone and merging with the crowd – they have the group selfies – but who do they compare notes with when they get back, their pet parrot? I’ve had my times of lonesome travel in out of the way places and yes, it can be invigorating, but on balance I choose the shared experience, in situ and for after the event: it adds cream to the cake.
Back at home, I lay on my bed, without fail every day, to do those exercises that will (perhaps in an after-life!) fix my broken knee: 1-2-3-4-5, 2-2-3-4-5, 3-2-3-4-5, I murmur to myself. Every time I lay there and look at the ceiling, I think of that tiny ground-floor shop in a little back street of Mumbai, where I would arrive every morning by auto rickshaw, to get my physio-fix. My assigned therapist was a four-feet-something ball of instruction: beautiful in her daily diet of multi-coloured clothing and with a beguiling smile that gradually relaxed as time went by.
“Now do this!” … she would snap, whilst miming the action. The instructions came with a bit of a bite at first (either to tell me who was boss in spite of her diminutive figure, or through exasperation at my slow speed of uptake). But the bark slowly turned to a much more soothing voice as the visits continued, so that by our last meeting, the day before my flight home, I was beginning to feel some sort of amorous attraction. In hindsight it was a total illusion; the lady was all business!
Each morning after the knee-mending sessions I’d rescue my sandals from the pile of shoes outside the physio’s door, before clambering onto the back bench of another passing auto, then proceeding, spluttering and weaving (the auto, not me) to meet my daughter at our favorite fast food place, set on a corner, towards the far end of the same lengthy back street. On our first visit there my choice of the day was Cheese Masala Dosa and just by chance I managed to capture a sequence of stills which showed exactly how this delectable Indian snack is made. I was proud of the achievement and WhatsApped the results far and wide, with daughter, Alice, beaming at the end- product laid in front of her. The somewhat bemused staff looked on with faint smiles, as if perhaps expecting their call up to star in the next Bollywood blockbuster!
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Piter Bowman
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