Raindrops are falling on my head...

"Row row row your boat,
gently down the stream,
merrily merrily merrily merrily,
life is but a dream"

While this used to be just another nursery rhyme we learned at day school, it's now going to become the mode of transport for those in Bombay!

No kidding, just two days of rain and everything is clogged and the pace of the city is lost, 2 years ago on the 26th of July, we had this enormous amount of rainfall which literally brought life in this city to a standstill, and we're still struggling to be one up against the rain gods.

Every year, we hear promises about the new maintenance and drainage systems that are being "planned" and "implemented" but still it just isn't enough! It was raining since evening and by 8 pm all the roads will clogged and the auto rickshaws wouldn't work 'cause they couldn't wade through that water, trains were off schedule and people (like me) who were within walking distance from their homes had to wade through those waters on foot!

I'm now beginning to think that we should be re-scheduling our calendars and have two months of monsoon off instead of the summers!

And maybe i should be taking those long overdue swimming classes, it might just come in handy!

(The image is that of the waves lashing at one of the promenades)

5 Best Places to eat in Bombay!

For so many days, I've been debating about which 5 restaurants deserve to be the best in the city according to me, so for now, this is the list, (i might update it later though!!)

1) Red Box Cafe

It's a restaurant in Bandra, near Turner Rd. and it's one of my best places to eat. The ambience is fun, music is loud and peppy (like a disc, but not rock or anything, it's hip-hop, indian mix, country, and lots of things, they've actually got a d.j. who keeps changing songs and all..) The food is delicious!! Right from Sizzlers, to Pasta, to Main Courses, Burgers, Starters, Pizzas, they've got it all.. and it's all very reasonably priced.. As far as the desserts are concerned, they've got a good collection of pastries, My personal fav is the chocolate pyramid.. (just too yummy!!) The whole feel of going there, makes me want to go there again and again.. It's meant for a young crowd who don't mind the smoke or the loud music... ;)

2) Urban Tadka

This is at 4 Bungalows, Andheri. It's designed like a modern Dhaba.. Slightly expensive for the younger crowd, so preferably go with Family!! but food is typical punjabi! and very tasty.... even the Lassi is served in brass containers! they've got a cot (khat) hanging in one part of the restaurant for show as well! A must-go for the Punjabi Experience

3) Cafe Leopold

My townie friends would curse me if i didn't mention this place... It's been there for all these years and has had it's own share of publicity every now and then.. Even Gregory David Roberts (Shantaram) mentioned this place as one of the busiest places in his novel.. It's a great place just to get the feel of being in such a happening place.. and of course, it's the favorite location for the foreigners.. Somehow all of them seem to have this on their city maps! The location is good, especially the fact that the ground floor space is open on two sides! The food is nice, nothing extraordinary, but it's better if you want to have steaks or the likes..

4) Badshah Pani Puri Wala

I know i'm talking about restaurants, but if you're a chat freak like me, then you have to visit this stall at Chowpatty, Charni Rd. Go only here.. it stands out from the rest because :
- It's hygienic
- It's very tasty
- The service is great!!

5) Sardar Pav Bhaji

This is at Bombay Central, it's a very small place. No interiors or ambience of any sort.. Simple food eating place.. It's Pav Bhaji is the only reason why you should go there, for the simple reason that,
- Their Pav Bhaji has no added colour that's why it is brown
- That's all there is to it!

Well that's my list of favorite restaurants, i'll come up with an updated list maybe next month! :) Enjoy!

5 Things you might not know about the local trains

1. The dirt and garbage from the platforms which is sweeped by the workers is thrown on the tracks; thus generating more work for the rag-pickers or merely pushing the dirt under the carpet (carpet being the bed of rocks)
2. The floors of the trains are cleaned by the beggar children and the passengers willingly pay them money for their "services"
3. Surprisingly, there isn't any need for the beggars to clean the first-class compartments; either the people there don't litter or the railways ensure that the compartment is clean
4. Most of the railways stations have toilets for men only, and if you're lucky to find one for the women, check again, there might be a lock on the door!
5. There's a queue for everything :

- For the window seat there are "claims" so the moment you get one, you're flooded with requests about where you'll get down so that they get your seat, it's the most common reason for an argument as well!
- There's a claim for the "fourth" seat as well.. (There are only three seats)
- There are proper queues for exits at stations, in fast trains especially, if you are in the wrong queue you've missed your stop! literally...

This happens only in India!

BBC NEWS | South Asia | The Boeing 737 stuck in city road: For close to 5 days, this huge airplane was stuck on a road in Chembur.

Update: Funnily enough, this plane has disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared.

Namesake

The movie has just released in India and it's enjoying full houses at least in Bombay. This movie brings to life certain aspects about the culture that were so prevalent earlier and have defined many of us and our brains in more ways than one.

Beautiful characters, smooth screenplay and some great acting ensure that this movie lives up to the expectations (after having read the book) Also this movie is good from the sense that it portrays the Indianness and the feeling of alienation in a sense that's actual and also comforting in a way.

I especially loved the way each and every detail is brought to life from the book and how the editing is done, this movie is amazing not because it conveys exactly what the book did, but because it achieved the same or maybe more emotions, story and the everything in much lesser time and in a pleasing manner. There wasn't one scene that was extra in the whole movie and the whole essence of the book was well captured!

Usually i'm all for books but this time i have to admit that the movie is almost as good as the book. Obviously the book gives you more lee-way to imagine but then the movie does give a vivid and unexpected picture. the actors being mature and without pre-conceived notions help to the extent that they are able to gel in with the characters.

all in all, it's a good movie to watch and think about.. :)

Patta (Ancient Game of Dice)

The ancient game of dice (called "patta" in Marathi and Sanskrit) is a game that I have fond memories of. It's a game of sheer luck and if luck favours you, then a little bit of strategy. The best part about the game is the language associated with it, and my mom and uncle have mastered the language over so many years.

The actual board, as seen in the pic is designed and embroidered by my great-grandmom, and all the pawns and cowries (these are the small shells used in place of dice) in the game are still the originals that my great grand parents bought in Pune. That's so fascinating...just the idea that we still cherish and love playing the game associated with hot, lazy afternoons in the first half of this century.

I really owe this post to my grandmom, who's still so energetic about explaining the strategy of the game, the sneaky steps, and the art of getting the perfect "daan" on the cowries.

To continue...

Talking about Bollywood, i happened to be in Goa for a few days and the unmistakable bollywood connection follows... out of the various beaches which are frequented by many tourists, there's one beach in particular which has something to "see", i'm talking about Vagatur, and if you ask me what's "famous" about this beach.. apart from the fabulous clean waters, it's also the place of the fort which was the location for the shooting of a popular movie Dil Chahta Hair (starring Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Akshaye Khanna amongst others)

ah well, there was the sign at the entrance to the site,

'This fort was used in the Hindi movie Dil Chahta Hai' - truly this country thrives on the backs of this one industry which unites people all over..

why at a recent gliteratti event, Javed Akhtar (a popular and well acclaimed lyricist and script writer remarked that this industry is single-handedly responsible for uniting the language of the entire nation, i.e. Hindi)

so in spite of all it's faults and it's set backs, the story moves on...

Oh! Bollywood!

It’s amazing how everything in India has to have a Bollywood connection…almost as if being connected to Bollywood gives the event an air of legitimacy that no historian can possibly counter. A case in point – while taking a tour of the Janjira fort, our guide gossiped about how the heir of the king of Zanzibar is now married to Saif Ali Khan’s cousin. And then of course, the rolling of the eyes – he’s after all the chote nawab of Pataudi.

The weird part was that my mom knew the exact relation – she quickly prompted – “Oh yeah, his atye baheen (dad’s sister’s daughter) got married to Siddi’s son recently.” Now I know where I get the uncanny knack of archiving and recollecting useless gossip from!

Memories of days gone by...

A long expanse of land,
an even wider expanse of the sea,
rows of tall palm trees,
coupled with wonderful company,
mouth-watering food and divine wine,
what you've just got is the best of times!

Lots of laughter, full of crackles and giggles,
cosy night conversations,
and journeys full of singing songs,
watching ancient fort walls and wooden panes,
wondering about the way it started for them all,

A surmai fry and spicy crab curry,
wasn't all that we all ate!
oh how can I forget the sol kadhi and fish plate!

In the end, you realise that these sort of days,
are indeed very few,
and that is why we cherish them too,
what remains from all these times,
are a few photos and a couple of jokes,
but what really counts are the memories of those days gone by...

(Posted by clickable on behalf of Ayesha)

Comparisons

Better money doesn't necessarily mean a better trip. A good example of this would be my own experience with my family and my friends. I'd gone with my family to Murud-Janjira, it's a beach approximately 4 hours away from Bombay, and we'd taken a car on hire and spent 3 days over the weekend. Around 20 days later I went to the same place with my friends in two cars and we spent the same amount of time there too.

If you look at our expenses, with my friends we managed our entire trip in just about 2,500 totally for the 7 of us! For both nights, we stayed at people's houses who give one of their rooms on rent for a night.. our expenses for the first night were Rs. 1,000, and amazingly the room was very well tiled, (the taste of the tile too was pretty good) there were curtains, a nice wooden cabinet and all amenities you would find like a colour television and dvd player! I mean who would imagine, that in a village like murund, in the house of a man owns an ice cream shop you'd get all these facilities. Similarly for the second night, we found a house in another obscure village for simply Rs. 500!! and a point to note would be regarding their maintenance. people generally assume that villagers would be living in very simple (rudimentary) ways, but mind you, they've become very modern, their rooms, their toilets and in general their homes are very well taken care of, in spite of all their problems. My experience with the villagers did change my perceptions regarding their progress in today's world...

In complete contrast to my trip with my friends was my trip with my family, we stayed in the best hotel at the beach, went for long trips to the nearby areas, had a lazy time on the beach and we ate at only the best places, etc. So if i were to take an overview, with my family we ended up spending 15 times more than what i'd done with my friends!

In the end, all that i can say is that money had nothing to do with the amount i enjoyed, and the good times that we had... in the end, i guess it's just a matter of what you do, and not how much you spend on it!

Masala Mix

I had seen a cartoon a few years ago with the father sternly admonishing his daughter “No, you may not outsource your homework”. Well, as it happens, there are quite a few companies in India doing just that. The funny thing is that before completing the assignments, parents are required to submit the students’ previous work and grades so that the teachers know exactly what quality of work to produce!


In Madurai Coimbatore, women were trained to use roller-blades in factories while weaving saris and other cloth. In fact, they were so excited about using this gadget (which most had never seen), that productivity went up dramatically. Quite fascinating!


This time around, I taught my mom how to parallel-park. She thought it was absolutely miraculous how her car fit in sideways. (By the way, readers – she drives a Santro, not exactly a Hummer by any standard). She still insists on saying she “reverse parked”:) This reminds me of the way she drives in Mumbai. Once she was caught by a cop for not wearing her seat-belt. She’s actually gotten away by giving an excuse that her stomach hurts when she wears it! Another incident was when we had all gone to buy some jewelry in Dadar. As usual, she didn’t know how to parallel park, and she parked practically in the middle of the congested lane. By the time we came back, the car had been towed away.

Ruminations about mechanical banks

This is quite hilarious. I recently bought some antiques that are mechanical banks made in the early 1900’s from Colaba Causeway. When I searched for these on eBay, I was amazed to see that there is a market for pretty much anything on eBay (considering that cats’ souls and Virgin Mary faced toasts have been sold, my shopping expedition had some merit after all). So I tried looking for “mechanical banks” on eBay India. Guess what the search results came up with – question banks for mechanical engineering.

I wasn’t so much disappointed by the fact that there was no market for the mechanical banks, but found it really funny that Engineering question banks were floating around on auction sites. I remember the good ol’ days of Engineering when crash courses and copying assignments seemed like the only way to clear exams, and how not even for one moment did I wonder at my apathy and ennui in those four years.

I hate second-guessing myself, but time and again, I’ve found myself wondering how life as an architect would have been.

Thoughts

Where traffic lights are a mere suggestion…
Where it’s easier to be an observer than a 9-to-5er…
Where everyone wants to get out of the middle class rut…
Where a mere glimpse of the Arabian sea costs a million…
This is the city I once knew, this is now the city I can only reminisce about…
This is Mumbai, this is India.

India Shining

This time as I boarded a flight, I inevitably had the same nagging thoughts of whether we will ever be able to go back to our country of origin, and what kind of a lifestyle we would be able to lead there. I don’t think I have the answers yet; but I did see some very bright and shining examples of how India is changing, and how globalization has affected its step children.

“Bani”, a very talented help and executer of all ideas to my mom in her jewelry business, recently took her 12th standard exams again. She wants to do a fashion design course, and design haute fashion. When my mom suggested that she instead could do jewelry designing, her answer was “lekin woh toh mujhe aata hain” (I already do that). I so admire her guts and determination. Her younger sister and brother (who was pretty much a loser who squandered his sisters’ salaries) are both now employed at a Hindi call-center. Perhaps the biggest confidence booster is that they’ve moved a huge step up – they’re now “office-goers”, not just house helps.

Till recently, these people had absolutely no way to break out of the only life they knew. Now, there’s so much to look forward to. They’re going to take English speaking lessons so as to get into an English speaking call center (which pay much better).