Goodbye Geoffreys

So finally I shall no longer visit South Bombay as I used to. The office has finally decided to let go of the legacies of the past and move to a swankier new building in the famous environs of Andheri. The Great Chakala is the place now where the fate of Soaps, shampoos and soups and their sellers will be decided. And of course toothbrushes. Sibs is in the building beside me.

The last one week was therefore painful. Apart from the fact that I realized I have more things on my desk than I have space for in the new office, it was also a time to let go off things I had become accustomed to. The late lunches at Oxford Cha Bar, the tea seller who used to sell tea to the tea sellers, the sandwich man, the peanut guy, Eros night show, Colaba dinners, calling people and cancelling get togethers as I was “still in town”. No longer staring at the Queen’s Necklace when you are upset with the office. No longer calling up A and asking him to meet me at Marine Drive whether or not he has made a few million pounds in the day’s trading, No longer sitting at the last stone facing TIFR and wishing to be alone amongst the crowd.

It was a nice farewell to the place that has been my home for close to two years now. But the hardest part was saying Goodbye to Geoffreys. Set bang in the heart of Nariman Point, Geoffreys was the piece of England in the heart of Bombay and as much as I love to be an Indian, years of studying Shakespeare has left a little bit of anglophile within me who loved the quaint British pub feel. And the music, the music was always beautiful. It always played the music I grew up on. G and I had made it a custom almost to visit it every fortnight when I would order my Cloud 9 and he is Virgin Mary and as we drank our poisons and chewed on the tortilla chips, which got refilled regularly, we would talk about where life was leading us.

The last day at Geoffrreys was therefore special. And we walked out of a relationship, happy and content. We will of course go back to the place as this will always remain my favourite pub in Bombay but then it will not be the place where I call up G or A and say, “enough work. Let’s go” and they would know where I want to go.