Saturday, November 25, 2006

Dinner at 1:15…

I don’t know how many cities in this country would allow you that luxury, or callousness, if you will. To be at a party till at least 1 and then figure out that you had been sitting and talking without enough food to take you through the night. To be confident enough that no matter where you are, some decent joint would be open to welcome and feed you.

Tonight, it was Papillon, in Juhu, which did the honors. And it wasn't just us, a bunch of young kids (though "young" is doubtful to describe us, but "kid" probably still holds true) who were contributing to Papillon's post-midnight revenues, but entire families who seemed to have deliberately missed out on their suppers.

Pav Bhaji at 1:15 can actually be an exhilarating experience. The few occasions when you somehow end up appreciating Mumbai for what it is. For not sleeping. For being happily, blissfully awake (albeit in that dreamy, zonked out way). For being powerful enough to disturb the circadian rhythms of all its inhabitants who then gloat in their ability to live without the essentials. To make super humans out of humans. Where insomnia becomes a strength of character, and not something that you go to the neurologist for (although you probably end up going there eventually, but by then it’s too late…)

It’s perhaps these abnormal things that we remember more than our dinner at 9, isn’t it?

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