3 am and all's well

Or is it? No wailing sirens, no honking taxicabs, no loud voices arguing. The silence is surreal. Must be the hominy talking. No, it's not a state of mind, it's a starch, and googling it would cause a delicate shiver to run up your spine. But, under a generous sqeeze of lime at the Cookshop, it reminds you of shivering on Marine drive with exhilaration, wet and cold and the waves crashing into the stones, hair plastered to your face under the ineffectual roof of a defenseless umbrella. Bhutta with a good rub of masala and lashings of neebu, the warmth both comforting and evocative. Ok, so it's needs imagination with a great deal of poetic license, but in succint Mimispeak, it was like eating Uncle Chipps papri chaat flavoured chips. You can't stop reaching for them as you deliberate over weighty issues like happiness, money, family... an unexpected memory evoked amidst sophisticated yuppiedom (they do a cauliflower soup for God's sake). Lightness and freedom. That is till they sink like soggy polenta cement pellets in your stomach. Well, it was good while it lasted, and so much more au fait with high heels.