Monday, April 24, 2006

Going and staying

After much fun and very little frolic, a busy fortnight has ended. We returned from Mauritius this morning to a quiet home, and immediately craved noise and laughter. The country was green and smelt fresh, the supermarkets made you want a better life, and the stars above did not twinkle but glow.

People of possibly Bihari descent spoke in buttery french, women swooning at their "bonjour"s and slick ways. Roads were smoother than the men - at 80kmph the car did not even whisper. But the rough ways of home were always missed because here, in Mumbai, you feel you are in the midst of history, that in this chaos are stories constantly written, while most of Mauritius' stories have already been written.

One good thing - among many good things - that came of this trip was the number of half-decent story ideas. More on these later. And through the stories, more on the trip later.