First morning in Navsari, much quieter than Mumbai! Surprisingly it was cool and very comfortable. Early morning horns in our street, it was rubbish collection time!!, quickly down to the kitchen in a mad rush to get rubbish sorted in a bag and out in the front balcony – just made the rubbish collection run. Rubbish is collected here daily, with pickup round 7-7:30 am.

Not much planned for the day, Nita wanted to meet her Aaji, and her Vinod kaka. Time to hit the road, girls were still in bed, let them sleep in, me and Nita headed out – experience Navsari after 6 years!

The place was still the same, narrow streets, cows lazing around, dogs running the streets, cars/autos/trucks all squeezing by leaving limited walking space and all along you are avoiding stepping into fresh dog and cow poo and also avoid getting run down by these vehicles!

First stop Vinod Kaka’s place, was good to catch-up with Kaka, Kaki & Parimal. It was only a few minutes, then Jayesh, Priya and their kids came by – coincidence, we meet again. Was good for all to catch-up there, Kaka brought out drinks, always a good time for that . Were there for a bit, then it was time to head to Nita’s aaji’s place, which was opposite their place – great not too much walking.

Nita walked straight through, her Aaji was super happy to see her, she still has the same smile we saw 6 years back. Lots of catching up for them, and lots of memories re-visited. We were there for almost an hour.

It was already close to 1pm, when we left Aaji’s place, heading back to our home, – time to sort out lunch. Was glad girls had showered. For lunch decided to head to Ramanand.

Quick half a min walk down from our place to the main road, grabbed an Auto and squeezed in 4 of us in the back, the ride to Ramanand was only about 5 minutes or less. At Ramanand, headed to the upstairs eating area, and ordered some chaat, cheese dosa for Pooja, Pav Bhaji and a Pizza. Food was great and cheap.

Back at home, nothing else to do but RELAX!! Stretched on the sofa watching TV and nodding off, aaahhh this was the life. I can see why my dads generation love this place.

Dinner had been pre-organised, Nita had asked Veena(a local who cooks non-veg to order) for gosht curry. Nita and I had gone to the markets later in the afternoon, and walking back had located Veena’s place to pickup up our dinner ( the curry and rotis).

Back home, there was a problem, the toilets and taps had no water!! Our water tank was empty! Rang our builder – Sanjay to see what could be done, apparently the solution is to order water via the Fire Brigade – called “bombors” locally. He was trying to organise that now.

Time to eat whilst waiting for the water crisis to be solved. The curry was amazing, Neha and Pooja loved it, eating our traditional style cooked food felt soo good.

Post dinner Sanjay called and advised nothing would be available till the morning , we had a sink full of dirty dishes and even worse, the toilets were not flushing! Well nothing much could be done, time to head down to the local grocery store to order more bottled water – went to Vasant’s store to order these, and whilst there I told him our problem. Vasant was like, “why did you not tell me before, I will get this sorted now”, apparently he had connections at the fire station, it was around 9pm the fire truck came by!!!

Since our water tank is at the back of the house, the fireman, ran the fire hoses through the house to the back and started filling up the tank, at the same time, I turned on the pumps to fill the tank on the roof, around 10 minutes and both tanks were full! YAY. All this for 400 INR – $8 AUD!, the normal delivery charge is 200 INR but since this was a night call it was extra, I had no regrets we were sorted and finally the toilets were flushing again . The fireman whilst filling the tanks also noticed the inlet to the lower tank was not functioning correctly – which was apparently the reason we ran out of water. He made a temporary fix to allow water to come through the mains without blockage.

A fun start to my stay here in Navsari! Something we do not see nor experience back home in Oz. Learning’s from today, on a daily basis check the water levels on the lower tanks and top up the overhead water tank without fail.