Days 3-6: Back in Bandra

First thing I do after checking into the hotel, is take a bath. A nice long, hot bath. Long, mainly because I fell asleep in it. Failing to drown myself, I awoke when the water cooled off. I moved to a drier sleeping environment, the bed, and continued for another few hours.

I should have tried to stay awake ‘til bedtime, because when I rose in the evening, I knew it would be that much harder to get myself on local time. I was right. Since this day, I’ve been stuck on a sleep schedule that puts me out in the afternoon for a few hours, keeps me up most of the night, then finally gives me a couple more hours sleep before once again awaking with the sane people. It’s a two-shift sleep system. This is a new one for me.

The two-day Times (of India) Education Boutique is brutal. First, because there are so many Indian students avidly seeking answers to the question “What next?” and second, because half of them think the answer is Fashion. Therefore, my already jet-lag bedraggled brain cells must further burden themselves as I pretend I enjoy this loathsome subject. Just throw me to the tigers and crocodiles, now.

But I make it through. Thank God and the Devil it is only a two-day fair. On the third day I rest, kind of. I move my encampment to another Taj hotel, this time the President, which is in South Mumbai, the Colaba district. This is close to where I will be holding appointments with students this week, at the offices of the school’s agents here in town.