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Nimki and I at 2 am last night. Candid click by K

I realised the puns in my recent headlines might fall flat as the context might not be apparent. ‘A Farewell to Blogging’ was a play on ‘A Farewell to Arms’ by Earnest Hemingway. ‘A Brave New Week’ is a play on Aldous Huxley’s ‘A Brave New World.’

A quick confession: I finally read A Farewell to Arms a few weeks back, but I have not read A Brave New World. I am not as erudite as I pretend to be!

My recent resolve to wake up earlier than before has worked so far. I was at Juhu by 9 am yesterday as I volunteered for an activity of our Buddhist organisation. I had to report at 9.45 am. I took the opportunity to try out Banana Leaf, a South Indian restaurant on Juhu Tara Road. It was barely open. Only one table was occupied. I had a tough time finding someone to take my order. I felt impatient. Then I realised that no one in Bandra would go to a cafe at 9 am for Sunday breakfast. Juhu was no different.

Benne dosa at Banana Leaf Juhu

Among the food I ate there, the benne sada dosa and the filter kaapi were the best, as was the Kanchipuram idli. I am a big fan of the benne (butter) dosas of Bangalore. I rued the fact that one would not get these in Mumbai. That has changed now, all thanks to a small place Benne Bandra. It has snaking queues to go in. Some have asked me whether the place is overrated. I am yet to go there. I cannot comment on the product, but they have made every South Indian restaurant in Mumbai run and find out what a benne dosa is and put it on their menu. That counts for something!

Kanchipuram idli is the yellow idli on the left. The rice idli and mini podi weren’t bad.

K and I went for a relaxing spa session at the Taj Land’s End last evening. We had coupons from the Taj Epicurean membership that we had taken.

Last night Nimki sat on my lap and fell asleep. I fell asleep too. K was amused and took a pic.

We tried to take Nimki to the vet’s on Saturday but he was traumatised and fought till I said let him be. We called the vet home last time for vax. She was traumatised as Nimki fought like a tiger.

Nimki snug in my arms on Saturday night. We tried to take him to the vet earlier for a routine check up, but the poor baby was traumatised.

I fed Nimki and Loaf when Nimki woke me at 6.30 am today. I thought of getting up but went back to bed and was up by 8.30 am. Not bad by my standards. I showered, chanted, made breakfast, and here I am. Fresher than I used to be when I slept in. I have some work planned but I thought I will log this in first.

Oh wait, there was something else. I drove our car alone yesterday for the first time! It is almost two years old. I know how to drive. Our earlier cars had manual gears. The new one is automatic. I needed a bit of practise. I tried driving it with our driver by my side. He got hyper and kept instructing me on what to do. K and I joked that he would go to get an ECG done each time I finished driving with him.

I enlisted the services of a driving teacher but that too was supervised though he was far more stoic than our driver.

I took the car out yesterday as it was Sunday, an off day for our driver and roads were empty. I drove past the ‘old’ Boojee (there was a snaking queue to get in), I drove past Candies, took the Sea Link, went to Worli and turned back. I took the Lucky Restaurant exit to Bandra as there would be more (!) traffic. It felt really good. I got my mojo back. I sung Hindi films songs from the 80s and 90s as I drove.

I just need to figure out how to park when I get back as our parking slot is a bit tricky to reach.

Filter kaapi at Banana Leaf on Sunday

Hopefully I will go to the gym and my shared work space office this week. I missed last week as I had a bad cough. I am tip top now.

I am ready to start the week.

Have a brave new week folks.

Espresso at my desk today

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