my kingdom for a scented handkerchief

I came home from the office late tonight (around 9:30pm), and the driver had very clearly been outside for the twelve hours that I had been in the office. As we were driving back to the apartments, I felt like I could have very happily been one of those ridiculous, fastidious, foppish Englishmen on a Grand Tour of Europe, holding a scented handkerchief to my nose to mask the scent of the unwashed masses. Alas, I had no scented handkerchief, so I just tried to breathe through my mouth as much as possible. I'm also not on a Grand Tour, so I didn't go gambling or brothel-hopping after work; instead, I called my mother and then had a late dinner in the apartment above mine. The chef, Ranjit, and the assistant chef (?), Suraj, are very entertaining and make fantastic food as part of the bargain. Ranjit often refers to his former boss, 'the Swedish madam', who taught him how to make many of the things that he cooks for us; I'm working under the assumption that she isn't a madam in the prostitution sense, but who knows? That seems like an indelicate question to ask him, since he clearly adored her despite the fact that she tried to convince him to eat beef and did convince him to eat other meats despite his previous vegetarianism. Tonight he made some excellent almost-macaroni; it was too gourmet to satisfy my Kraft mac-n-cheese tastes, but it was delicious in a different way and so acceptable. I think he's going to make mashed potatoes for me at some point this week; I don't get to plan out my meals like this unless I'm home and my mother is trying to pack as many of my favorite foods into as short a time as possible. I wonder if Ranjit can make a decent casserole? I'm betting that casseroles were not part of the Swedish madam's repertoire.

And yet despite all the wonderful things that are happening to me in India, I still feel that I have fallen into a deep, nameless chasm. Actually, I can name the chasm--it's the chasm in which one ends up watching Rob Thomas music videos. I have VH1 playing in the background, and I'm 'rocking out' to Rob Thomas, which is low even for me and my plebian tastes. Oh, good...now it's U2's 'Vertigo'. Uno, dos, tres, catorce, time for bed!