Thursday, December 08, 2005

Party Animal

I'm not having too much luck with birthdays on this trip. One would imagine that crossing the quarter century mark would be a rather momentous occasion, but instead the day has been rather subdued, but interesting nonetheless. Some time was spent at the Prince of Wales museum (now, of course, called the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya), but mostly I just wandered around among the many booksellers that throng the pavements around the university and High Court. Although normally I'm no fan of shopping and fail to see how it can be viewed as a leisure activity (for me it's a necessary evil: I know what I want, go in, grab it, buy it, and leave as quickly as possible) I make an exception when it comes to books. By the end of the day I managed to successfully encumber myself with far too many tomes which I shall have to send back home at some point.

As for tonight? well, I'm going to have myself a little fiesta on the night train to Aurangabad (8 hours NE of Bombay). I did know a few people here in town, but they left last night for Goa; probably because they didn't want to fork out to get me birthday presents (only joking). But I suppose it's good training spending a birthday on my own, so that I'll be more used to it when I become an old, eccentric bachelor surrounded by stacks of bric-a-brac.

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