Back on dry land

Thanks to Duk for a gentle reminder that the blogosphere stops for nothing, not even religious holidays like Diwali and the World Series (since the White Sox won the Series last week, for example, Duk has posted roughly 1,200 times).

I got back to Bombay yesterday after four days on a cruise ship with 15 close relatives and 400 distant ones, all celebrating the Indian new year. Our ship sailed to the Lakshadweep islands and Goa, which unfortunately are two great beach spots. I say unfortunately because 90 percent of the cruise passengers were Gujarati, like me, and Gujaratis are not world-class beach people. We think the water is too cold. We don’t like when sand gets in the chutney sandwiches we have brought from home. And we tend to look uncomfortable, wearing either inappropriately skimpy swimwear or full-on aquatic club gear, complete with prescription goggles, dressing for a day at the beach as if it were the Olympic trials.

I happen to like the beach, and some of the younger members of my family were up for a day in the water too, so on Tuesday we went snorkeling in Lakshadweep. One brother-in-law bailed out after 15 minutes of struggling with the mask. The four nephews, aged 11 to 15, couldn’t find their way out of their lifejackets but were content to float near the water’s edge. One brother-in-law and I actually made it out far enough to see fish, and the ocean was shallow and clear enough there that what we saw was truly amazing.

Then I dropped my mask in the water on my way out. Who figured these things didn’t float? The too-cool beach dudes wanted to charge me $30 for the lost mask and snorkel – after we had paid $7 for the rental. Another thing about Gujaratis – we are merchants, and my brother-in-law Nishith, who works in construction, spent the next several minutes arguing the prices of plastic masks and PVC piping with the snorkel guy, offering to ship him dozens of masks and snorkels from Bombay for the price he wanted to charge me for one. Snorkel guy declined.

Nishithbhai and I went back in the water and managed to locate the snorkel but not the mask, but snorkel guy was still stuck on $30, so we finally paid – thereby feeding god knows how many people on that island for the next month.

The rest of the week was more pleasant. Onboard the ship, I mostly slept, ate and read by the pool, plowing through Maximum City, a book about modern-day Bombay by the Indian-American journalist Suketu Mehta. I picked it up for this trip, but I recommend it to anyone – the book is funny, has oversized characters and reads like a great piece of magazine journalism.