Earlier this month, I paid a visit to a friend who had a baby at 47 years old. Rather, his new wife did. He poured me a drink and we sat on the balcony where we spoke in low tones, certain that his wife was eavesdropping (not the first time).
When it got tiresome to censor our conversation, he got permission (he denies this) and we walked to his local pub, some five minutes away on Brookside Grove.
I was surprised to find a bar on a road I'd driven past numerous times. It was a typical old maisonette converted into a pub. We walked through an empty living room, past a wall adorned with vintage Polaroid photos of Safari Rally cars, to the back which opened into a bar area.
It was full of Indians. In fact, it was so full of Indians I blurted out, "Whoa! Little India!" We sat down. Apart from the waiters and a gentleman seated at the bar counter with his lady companion, we were the only black Kenyans around.
A sore thumb comes to mind. And she was the only woman in sight. Nobody paid us any attention.
It was a Saturday, around 5 pm, and everybody seemed to have been drinking since December. Indian bhangra music fused with Afro beats played from a VJ screen. A young, cool waiter wearing loop earrings brought our whiskies.
The mood was quite celebratory. Groups of men sat hunched around tables drinking, talking animatedly, or standing with their beers. A dutiful guy who I figured was Mohinder, or Mohinder's son, moved between the kitchen and the bar. He came over and said, "Welcome gents, you guys okay?" The food is their greatest strength, going by their vibrant online presence.
I hesitate to write this cliche, but the aroma of curry and spices wafted from the kitchen.
My friend confessed that sometimes he escapes from the chaos of new parenthood to hide at the bar. He's made friends with some regulars. "Petrol-heads," he called them. I suspect that everybody at Mohinder's was a car in their past lives.
