A Spark of Madness

February is my favourite month because it is my birthday month. Somehow this month makes me feel special and I actually feel a smile inside all of me every day of February.

However, this year February was different. My cheery spirit took a beating with the Pandemic ( as it must have undoubtedly affected everyone) and the mild attack of CoVid last month left me exhausted for weeks afterwards. I was lucky, I found out later, because Omicron was a silent menace leaving many victims exhausted for months!

Nonetheless, this February saw an unusually somber me, and I wanted to literally do NOTHING to celebrate this birthday.

I was actually pondering visiting a wellness spa or doing a stint at the Vipasaana Centre. Somehow the thought of total silence for 3 days was daunting. And the Wellness Spa in the middle of nowhere and accessible by a rough and bumpy track of road didn’t appeal either.

But thanks to my enterprising and enthusiastic daughters, I managed to have a delightful pre-birthday celebration.

The girls had booked a place for the three of us at an industrial kitchen that was hosting an Asian pop-up that weekend.

The adventure begins

Mumbai is a city of contrasts. There are swanky new towers cheek by jowl with old buildings, poor people living a stone’s throw away from the rich and famous and cranes buzzing with construction activity next to abandoned projects.

One thing for sure is a constant buzz, activity all hours of the day. So I was spooked out by the empty, dilapidated structures enveloped in darkness that we passed through on the wrong road to the venue. Of course this was partly due to the GPS’s ignorance of roads closed due to some activity ( upgradation of civic amenities. Construction of the Metro lines or just ‘repairing’ the road to finish off the funds before the new financial year begins in April) , and partly because of Anna Shetty’s incessant instructions to a nurse in the ICU.

We were told to arrive by 7.45, a task that was always a challenge since we left at 7.15. But we soldiered on and after the entry into the ramshackle industrial estate, I wondered what kind of an event I had let myself in for.

A Spark of madness

It truly was a spark of madness I thought as I encountered an industrial kitchen for the first time in my life .

Before I could get truly shocked we were welcomed by the chef for the evening.

To celebrate the Chinese New Year, MagSt Kitchen had invited Simran Savlani author of ‘A Spark of Madness’ to introduce us to her eclectic pan Asian fare .

Another surprise was in store for us when we discovered that the meal was entirely vegetarian! This was once again thanks to Anna Shetty who thought scallions were scallops and imagined the meal to be replete with exotic seafood!

Luckily the exquisite taste of the food and the unusual gin based cocktails not to mention the wonderful ‘strangers’ at our table made this a birthday celebration I will never forget !