@Bombay Chowpatty with Little A, after her great-grandma’s 90th birthday. Being down in Little India again makes me realize how much I miss living in this area! My next apartment HAS to be near here! I just wish I could teleport my current place here, complete with garden.

The funniest thing – Little A keeps getting spellbound by the big video screen on the wall above us to the point where she loses track of the Lego spaceship she’s building. I would have thought nothing short of a nuclear war could distract her from Lego and spaceships… But apparently, she has inherited my liking for Bollywood movies, at least to some extent. However, there is one significant difference:

When I first noticed her staring up at the screen in rapt fascination, I assumed it was either some crazy dance number (when we used to go to this restaurant back when I lived in the area, those were the ones that got her attention) or an action scene of some sort. I had my back to the screen, so I asked her “Is something interesting happening in the movie?” She nodded. “What’s happening?” I asked, even as I started to turn around to see.

“I think a man and a lady are going to get married!” she said, in a sort of awed tone – and sure enough, it appeared to be one of those slow romantic musical numbers with a lot of soulful glances between the leads, and melodramatic come-here-go-away anguished romance dance moves.

Somewhat surprised that this was what she was so interested in, I asked her “Do you like that?” She nodded again, never taking her eyes off the screen.

For most of the time we were there, she alternated between attention to her Lego, her mango lassi (she paid NO attention to her pakoras except to announce without even tasting them that she didn’t like pakoras any more – she used to like them so much they were pretty much a basic food group to her!), and the screen. And EVERY time that I saw her stop working on her Lego and gaze at the screen in that awestruck way, I would turn around and it would be a romance scene.

I seriously did NOT ever see this development coming… I mean, even I usually fast-forward through those scenes to get to the physics-defying motorcycle chases and epic dance numbers! But Little A seems utterly fascinated. So apparently her interests now centre on supervillain evil plans, giant robots, spaceships, and… Bollywood romance. Who knew?