Cougar Night

“Cha-ha-aild!” crooned the unsupportable singer. “Wooo!!” cheered 15 of her friends, family and neighbors. I made sheep eyes at the pretty, curly-haired supporting vocals and violin. T was enchanted. “This is just a jive short of a Bandra catholic gathering!” she said, misty eyed with nostalgia. P sipped her exotic cardamom-flavored-litchi-swirl-strongly-laced-with-vodka and smiled tolerantly at all and sundry.

Such was Friday night at Blue Frog, the “revolutionary integrated music project in India.” Actually, I like the place. It’s eclectic, interesting and informal—I’ve attended a poetry recital program and a screening of award winning shorts from around the world there. I even won a branded mug during a promo of a movie whose name you may not have heard of, there. 

I probably shouldn’t be hard on up-and-coming talent, but see that’s the problem. I didn’t see the “up” side. Her “li-hi-ve withooooutjuuuuu!” made us all reach for the fries simultaneously and fight over the blue cheese and mayonnaise dips.  (Let me tell you—Blue Frog has the most generous, bottomless serving of fries I’ve seen in recent times.)  Her “Ohhhh—woh—ho!” made us want to gnaw each other’s limbs.

But the muscle-bound bouncers (quite incongruous—I fail to see anybody getting boisterous over badly sung covers) had told us it was free entry for ladies.  So we hung on, wanting to find out whether it was really a compliment.

At 10:30, the DJ came out and set up his stuff on the stage. What looked like Sobo crowd started trickling in, all done up in various modes of high fashion. There was every style around us—from the studied “scamp’ look to the sultry seductress in red to the dark vixen in glossy black.

The young DJ set up a high-octane techno crazy frog type of music. T rolled her eyes. “I am really too old to consider this music,” she remarked and stayed glued to her bar stool. P on the other hand, was a revelation. The music spoke to her and she started swaying to it, sensuously and gracefully. It inspired me to jump in with some moves of my own.

You know, I think I might have been unkind to the genre. The pulsating, monotonous rhythm and sound are actually quite enjoyable for some brisk aerobic calisthenics.  And if you close your eyes, it's quite--spiritual. We moved and swayed and ignored the convulsions of others on the dance floor.

T looked bored. She yawned. She fiddled with her phone. She even took a call. Visited the ladies room. At last, by 11:30, P and I took the hint and we left the place for a “spin” around Marine Drive. You see, P was driving.

We got into the car and followed other cars out of Mathurdas Mills Compound, fairly certain of the way to downtown from Tulsi Pipe road.  The problem was, we exited not on TP road, but some place we couldn’t recognize.

The following account is for the edification for those who haven’t witnessed three women trying to navigate their way out of an unfamiliar place late at night.

“Left, left!” said I vigorously as we came out. “Oh! But that flyover doesn’t look like the one on Tulsi Pipe road…” I added almost immediately.

“Now what? How do I go?” P asked.

“Hmm—we must be on a parallel road to TP,” I mused.

“I agree,” T said.

“So you know how to go to downtown from here?” P asked, now slowing to a crawl.

“I know how to go from TP road,” I replied cheerfully.

“I’m sure it is in this general direction,” T corroborated, waving ahead of us.

“So let’s ask someone,” P tried to be sensible after driving in that "general direction". All we had were a couple of men at an ice cream cart.  One man, half swallowing his ice cream said in a tone that didn’t inspire confidence, “Straight, after two signals, right.”

“Did you get that?” P asked.

“No, I was worried that his ice cream shouldn’t fall from his mouth on to me,” T said maddeningly.

“Hey I see India Bulls,” I cried, pointing to crown of the largest building in the neighborhood.

“So?” P asked, bravely jumping a signal on an empty back road.

“That’s on TP road,” I said joyfully.

“Yes, when we reach it, we will reorient our car, and then we will be on our way without trouble,” T confirmed.

“But I can’t see the building now!” P panicked, as we drove on in what seemed to be a maze of back alleys.

‘Don’t worry, P—India Bulls is like God, it is there even if you can’t see it presently,” I consoled her piously.

“Let’s ask someone!” P said, stressed out.

“Oh I’m sure there’s no need. Just keep in that direction,” T said, continuing in her pioneering spirit.

We eventually came on to TP road, but for those who are familiar with the area, you must know that India Bulls building is almost a kilometer away from Mathurdas Mills compound and in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go. We don’t know how we ended up so far away.

“I blame it on a mysterious time warp which spun us around,” T stoutly maintained.

After we “reoriented” our car, we were on our merry way to Marine Drive, well in control. We reached there with mixed feelings. P felt that we two were the worst navigators in the world. I felt quite proud of leading us on to safe shores, with minimal mishaps.

We parked our car at Nariman Point and strolled down Marine Drive. Stroll, did I say? What we did was weave our ways through squealing children, sprawled adults, sundry street dogs, a small child running after a balloon twice his size, a teenage boy with a performing monkey on a string, walkers, hawkers and generally, half of humanity.

It was a still, warm night, but Queen’s Necklace twinkled like a glittering jewel. We scrambled up the parapet and sat there, discussing desultorily about our dreams.

Then, the harsh reality of cougardom intervened. I needed to pee. We made our way to the Trident across the road to use the facilities but were enamored by its lofty and mammoth coffee shop. We sat there, enjoying soup, brownies and ice cream, into the wee hours of the morning.

I highly recommend Trident coffee shop for such late night nibbles. Not only the place is beautiful, but there is this one waiter who is nice to a fault. He makes you feel right at home, not at all like being in a major 5 star hotel.

It was quite late when we got out, and immediately, our senses were assaulted by the stink of Mumbai.

“Mumbai smells of shit, rotten vegetables, rotten meat—“ T paused dramatically. “And desperation!” she finished with aplomb and we halted briefly to applaud her, when our eyes caught sight of the most exotic sex worker I have ever seen.

She was wearing a glittering gold cabaret attire—twinkling spaghetti strapped tank top with many tassles and a gold short skirt. She was sauntering Marine Drive, accompanied by her pimp, stopping here and there, wherever they were a bunch of men. She put Kareena from Talaash strongly in our minds.

We shook our heads, got into our car, and drove back. My instruction to P on the way back was simple: “Follow the small cars on the road—they clearly belong to the suburbs and are headed there!”

I was right.