Revisiting Bombay

Around three months before I left Bombay for Hyd in Dec '01, life really started to "happen". I had found new friends who lived to "seize the day". And so in that enormous urban loneliness I finally found myself with more to do than time for it. The four of us, joined by an occasional acquaintance every now and then, indulged in a mad whirlwind of eating out almost every night followed by clubbing and more clubbing till money or strength gave out. Mostly it was the latter, as we crawled in to work next morning and passed out during our lunch breaks or in the evening begging the other three to leave us alone. By the time I left B'bay you could say that I had had my fill of her plentiful offerings. And enough golden memories to last a very long while.

Well, this weekend I revisited "Bombay" in Swansea. The problem with Swansea is that unlike Bombay there is no public transport here worth its name. And I live too far away from the city centre where all the action is, to make taxis financially feasible. Also, being a little older now, I don't have friends with either the energy or the appetite for "wild nights" in Wind (pronounced as in clock) Street.

But this weekend A had to go to Manchester for a course. And our friend E wanted to go out. So I decided to seize the opportunity and revert to "bachelorette" for a while. First I took myself off to the local Llanelli market. Checked out all the shops, tried out shoes and earrings and countless shades of lipstick till the back of my hand resembled an artist's palette. Then lunched (at 4.00 pm) in a little tea shop on chicken sandwiches and scones with clotted cream and a huge cup of tea. And topped it all with a visit to the library to pick up some Mills & Boon.

E arrived at 7.00pm for our girly night on the town. And then we were flying away in her convertible, with the top down of course, and loud music and the wind whipping our hair. E intended to drink and I still don't drive, so we got a lift into town. We ate some below-par Chinese food at a nice restaurant, and then made our way to the Old Wine Bar at the heart of Wind Street. The street is full of restaurants, pubs and clubs and overflowing with Swansea's beautiful people. After being initially dazzled by the skin and glamour, I realised that here too the young ones looked like, to borrow Jojo's phrase, they'd been churned out on assembly line. All the men wore jeans/trousers and untucked shirts and sports sneakers. And the girls were all of a type in mini skirts, strappy, spangly, sequinned tops, stilletoes and nude make up.

What surprised me was how aggressive the men were. Particularly men in their late 40s and 50s who seemed to consider it their right to push themselves in your face and try to make physical contact with whichever part of your body they felt like. And then they stuck on like sticking plaster never mind your increasingly desperate snubs. And it was even worse on the slushy dance floor of Chicago Rock, where you had to watch your back all the time to prevent sneaky slimy types from putting their hands or worse on you. At Three Flights Up they'd have been promptly evicted, but here they flourished.

But the music was popular if not new -- a mix of Queen, BeeGees, Abba and Show Me the Way to Amarillo. So we danced enthusiastically, if a little awkwardly, for a couple of hours. Then figured we had re-lived our younger days enough ...until the next time that is, and called it a most satisfactory night.