Thursday, July 05, 2007

Tai Chi and Cats - An Evening at Marine Drive

I was filming for an offbeat travel show on Mumbai, and we wanted some footage of Marine Drive.

A mutual friend introduced me to Rohini, whose family owns one of the buildings along the drive. And Rohini very kindly said, 'Of course you're welcome to use my terrace!'


What's a Mumbai blog without at least one photo of this view?

So we landed up, camera crew and I, and we were greeted by all of Rohini's 20 cats (OK, I may be exaggerating a bit). As the crew went to work, Rohini came up to the terrace, to see if we were doing ok.

We got chatting, and I discovered that Rohini does all sorts of mystic stuff, she works with crystals, does tarot reading, is a mandala therapist...I don't even know enough to list everything she does! But I was fascinated (Hey - all I knew about 'mystic' women was from Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost. I'd never met a honest-to-goodness real-life person before!).

Anyway, she was lovely, relaxed, unassuming and charming. A couple of her friends dropped in as well, so the four of us hung around on the terrace, watching the sun go down over the Arabian Sea.


I had just started learning yoga, and the three of them were practising Tai-Chi, so we traded notes and tried some funny poses.

I totally enjoyed it!

First of all, there was the whole setting. Sunset, breeze in my hair, birds flying, lots of talking and laughing, with a bunch of intriguing women...And then, there was the incongruity of it all. Have you ever tried waving your arms and legs in strange moves on an open terrace in front of complete strangers? It's liberating
, to say the least!

6 comments:

Kunal Bhatia said...

rohini from oceana bldg? thats where the short travel flicks fest was held..

CanisLupus said...

oi, that's a terrible pic of Marine Drive. you need to get to a taller building and use a tripod for the camera!

Deepa said...

Ah but on a taller builder, there would be no tai-chi and no cats!

Deepa said...

Taller building, not builder. What was I thinking!

Jai said...

hey deepa, what is it exactly that you do? are you a film maker? if so, that's amazingly cool and I'd love to see some of your work if possible?

Mukesh Pathak said...

you must be thinking about a handsome tall builder you have meet recently...you were in trans lolz