My initial reaction was to grumble and sermonize. But you see, that would all be wasted. The sermon will have been heard noiselessly. But the one I will have had to listen to the next day would have been longer than the usual two-minute rambling about respect, prim and proper behaviour, and moral values. So, I did the next best thing: I swallowed the sermon and took charge of the travails. I hailed a rickshaw and told the driver exactly where we wanted him to take us. The driver seemed rather stupid to solve a simple Mathematical equation, but he knew where Executive Enclave - the hotel the communion party was to be hosted in - was. So, I pardoned his stupid look, got into the rickshaw after Her Majesty and His Royal Highness, and sealed my trap yet again.
Executive Enclave sits atop Pali Hill and positions itself on one of those roads that run right next to the LIC building - that also sits on Pali Hill. The name sounds exotic - Pali Hill that is - but make no mistake about the fact that it's an absolute antithesis to the hyped exotica. The market waylays half the road and consequently, you have every sort of garbage lining the lanes. And then of course, there is the ever-growing swarm of vehicles down and up that road: courtesy the residents of that area. All along that road lie high-rises or high-rises in construction that attract people with huge pockets and large money chests. And since this tribe is rather clueless about what to do with all the change in the pockets and the chests, they end up pouring them down these residences. Even after that, some stuff is still left. These leftovers find their way into car showrooms - annually or, at times, quarterly.
And so, Pali Hill is choc-a-bloc with the latest from the automobile industry - never mind the fact that half the earlier latest has not even been used beyond repair.
To make matters even better for chaos to reign here, plush restaurants have decided to spring up around the aforementioned high-rises. So, anybody who is somebody has to take a rickshaw at some point in time from Bandra or Khar or somewhere closer and make it to Barbecue Nation or Candies or Gostana or God knows what else. As a result, rickshaws have staked their claim to whatever is left of the road and so, there's never any decent amount of space to walk about.
Amidst this chaos, our rickshaw wound its way up and towards the entrance of Executive Enclave. My anger had subsided by now and was showing no signs of a relapse. Father Dearest and Mother Dearest were on their best behaviour too and with this disguise, we stepped into the lobby.
... To be continued
... To be continued
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