Mumbai reloaded

Continuing from my last post on Mumbai.

I had made a date with one of my ex-colleagues from SIA. That's a story by itself. I first met Ninaz almost 14 years ago, when I was signing up to my scholarship bond at the Singapore Airlines office in Mumbai. She was the witness to the contract when my dad and I signed it, together with the then GM of SIA India. We didn't keep in touch (had no reason to really), but for some reason, the name stuck in my head. I reconnected with her a few years after I joined the airline. At that time I was working on a project to re-vamp the entire IT infrastructure of the airline outside Singapore. Ninaz was my designated contact at Mumbai and over a year, I worked with her off and on, and spoke to her perhaps a hundred times over the phone.

We finally met again (after 14 years!) this time I was in Mumbai, when I walked into her office and introduced myself. We had a great time chatting for over an hour and catching up. She offered to help me with my shopping for the bhel puri, and we made this appointment.

So we had some coffee and some chaat at the hotel, and she took me around the back streets of Colaba to one of her favourite snack shops, where I picked up the dry bhel and some chaklis for snacking. We chatted some more, and then she left for home. I walked back to the hotel, stopping briefly to pick up a shimmery party top for Sa. Clothes are expensive in India these days.

Then back to the hotel, packed up, and left for the airport and its dingy executive lounge. It was back to Singapore for me, and for once, apart from the fact that my wife was there, I didn't feel like returning.