Reclamation – Day 3 of 10 – the vada pav story

First off, no bike ride today… And I, despite promising myself last night not to wake early, could manage to be asleep only until 6…. argh !
Headed downstairs, picked up a nice strong coffee, took a nice 3k walk downstairs, trying to plan what to do for the day.. 

Next was a saloon hunt, turned out to be close by, took a rickshaw.. everything is so cheap in Mumbai.. transport, food, haircut(!!!), you name it .. except of course the real estate here. 

Walked back from the saloon after my infamous ‘near-bald chop chop’ – and added another 2k to my walk kitty. Played with the sniffer dog (golden retriever named Pepsi !) at the gate for sometime and then headed for breakfast. All was healthy so far, we were looking forward to eating like never been fed before.

Meanwhile, I made some calls to the places I’m scheduled to stay next, surprises again.. one of them said no sorry, you are the only camper so the hosts of the property may not travel down, so had to change that plan.. next days schedule is a similar problem (sorry we do not let solo bikers camp here.. ftw !!)

Made immediate plan changes for the next two days, and let’s see what next after that..

Lunch time – what junk do we eat next ? Headed to prithvi theatre (the play theater type, not a movie theatre) which attaches a cafe to it, awesome food, but no place to sit; so we kind of squeezed in to a seating platform below one of their in-restaurant trees – and nobody cares here anyhow, so it was good. Picked up some fancy stuff including their special Irish coffee ( not so Irish, but wasn’t bad), and headed back. Found a big crowd on one of the roads and it turns out, that’s where Amitabh bachhan stays. A whole crowd gathers there to see him every single day… Now that’s a following. He owns a couple of (whole) blocks there.. full of huge bungalow real estate.. emmmm well.. good for him ! Sour grapes et al 😉 

Once back tol it was again planning for dinner. Now I have no idea if I’ll start getting withdrawal symptoms for this food when I get back, or I’ll just be happy not eating street food anymore.. Mumbai does that to you – and I mean that in the nicest possible way. 

Watched some TV at the hotel, and headed out again.. this time in search for the best vada Pav’s in town. Found a place – conveniently forgetting the name now, ate giant vada Pav’s and carried a couple of them (just in case hunger strikes at night.. lol) .. no we didn’t come back after that, we went to the food street in Bandra again and hogged on kababs, chicken Momo’s, and then the famous ‘oh fudge’ ice cream – all this while carrying along the ‘just in case’ vada Pav’s lol !

As I write this, I give up on Vada pav, I cannot eat anymore, I cannot even think of food anymore as of this moment. We had to finally give away that ‘saved for a rainy day/time vada Pav’ because our gluttonous vada Pav greed got the better of us. But hey – tomorrow is a brand new day – which means all these bitter thoughts will go away once again, and as I sleep now, I hope I can start with the love of eating all over again, so with all my conciousness, guilt, no mental pressure and many other feelings I solemnly hope for forgiveness and withdraw my said statements about the food that is the Vada Pav, God’s gift to the human race -AMEN