While waiting for Padma to finish her shopping, I sat on a bench on Ulladulla's teeming thoroughfare and started dipping into my latest acquisition, "Ustinov at Large", a friendly little book of short essays by my favourite Renaissance man, Peter Ustinov.
Looking up in between chapters, I saw this old codger sitting on the footpath across from me. He was staring right back at me and I was about to wave when I noticed something familiar about him: it was my own reflection in a shopfront.
Not the mental image I carry around in my head which is slim and agile with a full head of hair and a full set of teeth, but a later version which has put on weight and finds it difficult to bend down to tie the shoe-laces. As for the full head of hair and full set of teeth, let's just say I now get a discount at the barber's and dentists start checking out the latest catalogue of BMWs when they see me coming ☺
