Sunday, March 8

Morning cuppa chai at the hotel. Our window goes out to the back - not the prettiest of views, but it's quiet.
Ritesh looking all spiffy on his way to his first day at the conference

which is this:

Yours truly meanwhile spent a lovely, slow and quiet morning buried in the local Sunday papers and the ultimate Mumbai book, Maximum City. It's Women's Day today, hence the headlines.

Hmm.....

post-26/11 concerns still dominate

And here's Maximum City, a Pulitzer-nominated 560 page tome on the First City of India - so gripping I pretty much spent the day with it. I did at some point move to the Barista (kind of like an Indian Starbucks) around the corner and splurged on an almond iced-coffee w/ vanilla ice cream and ground almonds, but really, skipping lunch in favor of this just to keep reading was not such a great idea.

In the afternoon after the conference, we met up w/ Ritesh's cousin who took us for a spin, first to get some tasty snacks that I forgot to photograph (other food pix to come soon, though), then up to Malabar Hills, a fancy neighborhood with great views of the city

such as this one: Chowpatty beach and the Queen's Necklace from the other side of the bay

First Impressions

Live yoga on TV at 7am - love it!
Running errands - Ritesh at the local Xerox place, getting photocopies of our passports, which you need to buy a cell phone/SIM card

The Mumbai Port Trust Garden in Colaba, a nice little stroll from our hotel

An old phone in one of the cell phone stores we checked out

A real cow (after the painted ones yesterday) right on Cuffe Parade, the main drag in Colaba

Passport pictures we got done because you also need them to be able to buy a cell phone/SIM card, due to increased security after 26/11.
Lunch with Ritesh's cousin's husband, who ended up lending us a cell phone: This is the Tandoori Chicken sandwich at the Churchill Cafe

and a spicy prawn curry, at the Churchill Cafe

dessert at the Trident Hotel courtesy of Ritesh's cousin - a very lovely cheesecake with figs and rosemary. Also got some great fresh squeezed pineapple juice. Thanks, Pinky!

Ready to board the train at Churchgate Station, to head towards Ritesh's cousin's house

On the rooftop w/ Ritesh's cousin and family

Snacks with masala chai - the sandwich on the right is the classic Bombay Vadapav

Cutie little great-cousin

And the train ride back down south from Andheri: 10pm and still kinda crowded.

Ankunft in Mumbai

waiting for our ride at the airport

Looking for a place to get some lunch after dropping off our bags at the hotel, we stumbled over the Leopold Cafe, right down the street on Colaba Causeway. The Leopold is a very popular watering hole around here and was one of the targets of the Mumbai attacks - 26/11 as they refer to it here.

I remember seeing something on CNN earlier this year about how the Leopold was coping in the aftermath of the attack, and about how they decided to not cover up the bullet holes in the walls - and indeed, there was a big one right there, above the painting between the windows. The place is tiny, and it's just terrifying to imagine what it must have been like, two guys showing up with machine guns at the door and opening fire. There's really nowhere to hide, unless you're in the kitchen or on the balcony upstairs.

fresh lime soda and a Bombay Masala sandwich, filled with spicy potatoes, at the Leopold Cafe

After lunch, the mission was to not give in to jetlag and to not fall asleep before night time. Mumbai is 13h ahead of Los Angeles at this time of year, so this was about 4am for us. We figured the best way to stay awake was to move around and started walking to explore the area. These are kids playing cricket on the Oval Maidan by the University of Mumbai.

A painted cow on the way to the Tea Centre in search of a caffeine fix

The tea centre is an endearingly old-fashioned place run by the Tea Board of India (eminently civilised is our guide book's turn of phrase for it), showcasing India's finest teas. We opted for a Nilgiri and a Kashmiri green tea with cinnamon, cardamon and ground almonds and pistachios.

plus some very tasty dahi puri

we continued our walk down Marine Drive towards the National Centre of Performing Arts, the conference location where Ritesh will be presenting. This is the view of the so-called Queen's Necklace from Marine Drive near the Oberoi Hotel. It's really not as hot as we expected, and there's a very nice breeze coming in from the water.

Ritesh on Marine Drive. The Oberoi is the green building on the left. The yellow one next to it is the Trident, where Ritesh's cousin works. We'll see her tomorrow.

finally - we made it to bedtime! cab ride back to the hotel at 8pm.

Virgin Atlantic Safety Video

Virgin's safety video is a cartoon, and a lot of fun...

this is about keeping your selt belt on and visible while you sleep

Cecy - does the guy look like Roland or what? Cracked me up...

more Roland - finally figured out how to rid of the reflection of the overhead lights - in this light, the woman almost looks like Amanda :)

Los Angeles to London to Mumbai

Departing (late) from Los Angeles on Virgin Atlantic, Wednesday night (March 4)

a farewell loop over the Pacific - this looks like it was Long Beach?

starting our descent into Heathrow the next morning (Thursday afternoon local time)

fluffy skies over England

Windsor and a piece of Windsor Castle (bottom left corner)

and back in the air Thursday night - this is the sunrise over Syria the next morning (Friday, March 6). The flight would have been shorter if we could have flown in a straight line, across Iraq, but I guess that's still not possible.and the first view of Mumbai from the air: skyscrapers and slums, right next to each other

Mumbai

Oh my. I guess we are really off to Mumbai tomorrow after all. With everything that's been going on, I didn't believe we would, and I am scandalously underprepared. How did this happen? Where did my time go? I'm trying to reconstruct last weekend, which is when I should have been doing laundry and packing and shopping and getting everything ready, and all I can come up with is 7 hours in the car driving back and forth between Los Angeles, Anaheim, the mom's house and the hospital, and 8 hours in the ICU with the pops, which is crazy, in a way. Why can't I whiz in and out in 20 minutes like other people do? I've been so stressed and sleep-deprived that I ended up with a meltdown-inducing triple whammy of three different infections, heart palpitations so bad they woke me up at night (thus contributing to the sleep deprivation), and horrible cramps aggravated by not making time for pain-management (acupuncture, nutrition etc.). And to round things off, work is relentless as always, so I'm dangling from a tight rope here as is. And now a 28 hour flight to Mumbai (well, including a 5 hour layover in London)? And then all kinds of activities with Ritesh's boss and mentors and fellow researchers, the sort of people in whose company you kind of have to behave, and be somewhat presentable, not a frazzled, exhausted mess?

Well, what am I complaining about. The pops is incrementally getting better every day, that's the most important thing. Hopefully we'll be able to enjoy Mumbai, once we've caught up on some sleep...

The New Hospital

The snow-covered San Bernardino Mountains behind the hospital

the 8-story hospital building, seen from a bench outside on this very hot first day of Marchpretty flowers by the parking area

and LOTS of positive reinforcement

the path from the parking lot to the main lobby

and an inside stairwell

Smile already!

Family rolling in

Uncle No.1 arrived last night, after driving for two days straight all the way from Beaumont, Texas. Uncles 2 -4 plus wives (well, 3 uncles, 2 wives) are flying in on Monday from Canada, Calgary and Toronto. Plenty of moral and practical support for the mom, hopefully, while pops slowly slowly seems to be getting a little better. He's still in critical condition, of course, and doesn't respond to the doctors or nurses, but he does seem to respond to family every now and then, and that gives us hope.

Blood Pressure History

The pops kept a log of his blood pressure measurements, and looking over it last night was a sobering experience. A month before the heart attack, the systolic was still averaging around 130. Over the next weeks, it went up to 140, 150, even 161 one day, then it went down again. But the week before the heart attack, it rose relentlessly, culminating in a staggering 184 the day before it happened. His handwriting seems to reflect his deteriorating condition, changing from very clear and precise to wobbly and trailing. God only knows what went through his head when he wrote down the number 184, and why he didn't tell anyone or take himself to the doctor right away. It made us all very sad.