It takes a Superman to do nothing, and that’s what I did last Friday.
Bear with me and read the rest of this story before you accuse me of hubris. My definition of doing nothing is doing nothing that you are ‘supposed’ to do. And not feel guilty about this.
K and I found ourselves with a short window of nothingness on Friday afternoon, between work and other things. We went to the Jio World Drive Mall at BKC for a quick bite before she left for a meeting. I planned to head home after lunch, catch up on a long-pending sub-editing job that has been hanging over my head like Damocles’ sword, go to the gym, and so on. Then I remembered that a new Superman movie is running in theatres. I decided to go to the PVR outlet on the top floor to check if it was playing there. It was, and I bought a ticket for the 3.50 pm show.
K and I went to CouCou for lunch. It is a bistro run by the Oberoi Hotels group. I told K that I would eat something ‘light,’ and then I ordered a spaghetti carbonara, which is arguably the heaviest pasta one can have. I am a fan of the one made by Chef Prateek of CouCou. I had eaten light for the past couple of days as I had a bad stomach and sought some indulgent, bancony, cheesy, carby, succour. The carbonara was top notch as always. The spaghetti was cooked al dente, and yet the sauce was nice and thick; it draped the spaghetti without flooding it. There were some crunchy bits of bacon strewn on top to accompany the softer hearted bits inside—a heady affair.
K had an egg white omelette done ‘French’ with sourdough. She said that it was just what we wanted. Chef Prateek got us a ragi chocolate gluten-free cookie to try. The cookie was so moist that you wouldn’t think it was gluten-free. The addition of lots of butter to the dough helped. I liked the fact that he had used local millets instead of almond flour.
K left for her meeting after lunch. I went up to the theatre and bought a ticket. I waited to get my copy of a ticket. They said that I would receive it on my phone. It’s amazing how things have changed. I had watched Superman 3 in Calcutta in 1984. Back then, you had to buy tickets in ‘black’ from clandestine ticket sellers. The tickets were made with the flimsiest of papers and would become grubby when held in sweaty palms. You paid in currency notes or coins, not through a UPI on a mobile phone.
You showed the ticket to the ticket checker at the entrance, who would rip off the counterfoil and let you in. You would have to identify the usher in the dark. An usher would come to you and flash his torch on the ticket, expertly identifying the seat number, which was printed in faded ink on the flimsy, coloured paper, and then direct you to your seat. The colours of the paper indicated the class of the ticket – stall, balcony, not auditorium. Why not? Because there was only one auditorium. The concept of multiple screens did not exist at the time.
I went to The White Crow bookshop as I had some time to kill before the movie began. K and I go there when we come to Jio World Drive. It is a well-stocked and welcoming bookshop. We love to browse through books there while sipping coffee. They use Nandan beans, and the coffee is really good. I picked up the latest Murakami for K and Al Pacino’s autobiography for me this time. Both were hardcovers. I later realised that I could have saved 500 Rs, about 25%, if I had bought these on Amazon. It’s ok. Bookshops should be encouraged, even though Reliance runs this one, apparently and not a small business enterprise.
WhatsApp and emails drifted in. Primarily for restaurant ‘review’ invites. They call them reviews, but in reality, it’s a call for unpaid brand promotion. I decided to let the messages collect and answer them all at once the next day. The day was about doing nothing.
I went into the theatre. It had seats that were like a semi-reclining airline business-class seat. One could extend the footrest and put one’s feet up. There was a soft blanket to cover yourself with. I was watching a movie alone after ages. I fell asleep a bit before the interval as I tend to do. This time, there was no K sitting beside me to tell me what I had missed. I saw a canoodling couple in the last row, corner seats. I smiled. Some things don’t change.
I had not watched any of the Superman movies after Superman III. I don’t want to give away the plot of this one. Let’s say that if I wanted to see a film where the hero has a bruised and bloodied face throughout, then I would watch a Rocky flick, not Superman. Most of the movie went into different people, including Louis Lane, saving the man who usually saves the world. The trend now is to humanise superheroes or heroes; even James Bond has to deal with mental angst instead of just knocking down villains and making women swoon. Why? Let our heroes be.
I headed home after the movie. I did not do anything that I ‘should’ have that day.
A bit like Superman in the film!
Wikipedia:
Susegad is a concept associated with the culture from the state of Goa, India. Derived from the Portuguese word sossegado (‘quiet’), it is often viewed as the relaxed, laid-back attitude towards life that is said to have existed historically in the former Portuguese territory. Footprint Travel Guides describes it as “a relaxed attitude and enjoyment of life to the fullest”.[1]
I am Bengali and not Goan. We have a similar concept. It is called lyadh.
