Sunday morning, Kadambari comes to Tarun’s apartment to chat a little and say goodbye while I’m packing, she is going to the gym then, she is the first person I’ve met here who does sport and doesn’t smoke, everyone (and I mean all of them) else who I’ve met in Bombay smokes, it’s impressing, even more when you know that since last year you can’t smoke any more in public places. As Tariq said he can’t drive me to the airport tonight, Shams will be taking me, in a rickshaw. I’m supposed to have lunch at 2pm with Akriti but she is sick in bed and I eat some leftovers instead before I go to Shams. We are supposed to go to Versova beach to take lots of pictures of each other but he takes an eternity to get ready and then still wants to iron his clothes, by the time we are ready to go the sun is down and it’s dinner time so the pictures project is abandoned. We have dinner in a Chinese-Indian restaurant then I go back to Tarun’s to shower, get changed and finish packing. Manish is there and we chat a little and say goodbye before Shams comes to pick me up. In the rickshaw, he makes me promise we have to stay in touch everyday (I wonder how long this everyday can last…). We arrive near the airport early so we stop the rickshaw and chat for half an hour before he drops me, these last 30 minutes are very hard. At the airport, I have about 2.5 hours to kill after I check in, Tariq calls me and we spend about 40 minutes on the phone, I also get to read my book. Shams had asked me what I was looking forward to coming home and I couldn’t think of anything, when the bus arrived by the plane I thought I was looking forward to watch the 2 Bollywood movies planned on the flight. Oh well, they forgot to install the Bollywood videos for this flight and I got bored instead. I land on Monday morning in Zurich then Geneva.

Saturday morning, I wake up at Shams, it’s really hot, the power is gone again and the fan doesn’t give us any air any more. At 10.30, Tarun calls wondering where I had been all night, he finally didn’t sleep at Rasika’s and also managed to miss his early morning flight to Dehli; as he was supposed to have left I had not even tried to ring the door bell last night. I call Kadambari too as I was supposed to go with her to her Indian dancing lesson this afternoon and it seems our plans won’t work today. Around noon, I try to get in touch with Kinix who should have Tarun’s key but he doesn’t answer the phone, he calls back later to let me know that Manish has the key now. So I call Manish and there’s no answer, I text him explaining the situation, he replies he is at work and can’t come before 7.30pm tonight (which in India might mean 9pm), so I beg him and he calls back at 3pm to say he’ll be there in 10 minutes and I better be there too as he won’t wait. Fortunately Shams apartment is only 5 minutes away from Tarun’s. I quickly get dressed and meet Manish at Tarun’s. Finally I can get in the shower and get changed, that feels so good. I get a phone call from a scout agent about a Bollywood voice dubbing job for tonight, the location is to be confirmed. A bit later I meet Akriti at the coffee shop and we talk for hours again, meanwhile the job’s location is confirmed, then moved, then the job itself gets postponed to the next evening and supposed to finish at 10pm, so I have to say no even though I would have loved to do it I have to be at the airport at 10.30pm tomorrow. Akriti then takes me to some shopping streets she knows, I can’t find any Kurtas with sleeves but still get 2 sleeveless and the 2 other books written by that Indian author, I really like reading the 1st book from him I bought. Akriti has to attend a dinner at her parents so we decide to have lunch on Sunday and I go to Bandra where I’m invited to a party at one of Rasika’s friend.

Friday morning, Tarun has spent the night at the movie theatre to make sure everything is ready for the big 1st movie screening of MySpace India, Slumdog Millionaire, and I’m invited :) I tried to invite Akriti to come with me but she doesn’t feel well. The movie is excellent. Kadambari is there, we watch it together, have our picture taken and go back to Karan’s complex together as well. She is very sweet. Later I am meeting Akriti for a coffee at 3pm and we chat for almost 4 hours, when I told Sham’s I’d have lunch with him… Akriti and I get along very well, we have the same way of thinking and I can see myself again in her 10 years earlier. I meet Shams then, we watch another movie and order food. There is an power cut and we eat in the dark. Shams changes his mind at least 10 times about going out tonight as we had planned, finally he says he won’t come finding all kinds of excuses, Tariq should pick us up at 10pm. I go get changed and say goodbye to Tarun who is leaving to Dehli for the weekend. He really likes the books I gave him, it’s great. When Tariq arrives, Shams is in the car, we go to the Hawaiian Shack in Bandra… dancing :) Tariq is drunk when we leave and leaves Shams and me go back in a rickshaw. When we arrive at Tarun’s I realize I forgot the key in my bag so I have to sleep at Shams for tonight. At least Tarun’s friends have keys of his apartment so even if Tarun is not there I can get in tomorrow.