Political posters: big farce

Yesterday I was very happy to see the BMC van go along the highway and even in Samta Nagar, nearby where I live, plucking off the political posters off from the roadside. I felt good that the ruling that all such posters defacing the city may be pulled down. But I realised that the whole attempt was rather farcical. It was on the tenth day of Ganpati immersion -- which meant the posters were allowed to stay on the entire course. The whole tamasha yesterday, with police vans, etc was just hogwash then!!

Oh btw. a blog visitor later came along and sent me this email which explains why the whole farce was carried out:
Actually, they were being removed that day because the Maharashtra elections had just been announced earlier in the day and the model code of conduct, under which hoardings etc are banned, came into force. Not being pulled down because they were defacing the skyline or any such thing…

Sun birds, actually, in my balcony

(The small pile of dirty looking leaves and twigs, a perfectly camflouged nest of the sunbirds, handing from a dried money plant vine in my balcony:)

My student Sabrina pointed out that the birds nesting in my tiny balcony are not tailor birds after all. They are sun birds. Possibly called that for the dash of pale yellow on their breasts. These ones are technically called Purple rumped sunbirds. The female, as with the animal species, is duller, greyish where the male has a dark, blackish attractive overcoat. The nest, over which the two birds have been fussing, has taken over a week now. And they are still at it. My husband made a video of their effort. It was done with his mobile, which explains the quality.(Click on the line, to watch it).

The other day I saw a sparrow, which looked large compared to these tiny fellows, peck harshly on the male seated on my tiny neem tree. The male sun bird was holding a fluffy feather in his curved beak, to line the nest. The sparrow kept pecking till the poor fellow had to drop it. Only then would the sparrow fly off. What wickedness, meaningless too:) Amazing how this world goes... And I remember singing as a child "It is Love, it is love, it is love that makes the world go around.." So innocent, so foolish, then. And now!

The dried Money plant vine is what the sunbirds had chosen, deliberately flimsy and frail so that other wicked ones of the animal kingdom, more keen on things other than the pecking order, could not climb over it. I can imagine snakes, crows loving to gobble up either those eggs or the nestlings. Let's see how it goes. As of now, the female makes foolish forays against my French windows, either imaging another rival female flapping into her, or seeing foliage where none is. So much like humans:)

Oh,my visitors are tailorbirds

I thought they were humming birds. But realised they don't display the `helicopter' like ability to hang, quivering, before a flower. The mistake I made was due to the long, curved beak. However, these beaks are still are not long as humming bird beaks, which need to be really long, to reach right into a flower's breast:)
So, yes, the tailor birds are still regularly visiting my balcony. They quiver, though not as intensely as humming birds, over some of my creepers. That may be, I wonder, if they want to build a nest here...
Let me see... Have brought more flowering plants now. That could attract even humming birds. Did you know, real gardeners plant gardens to attract butterflies or humming birds:) ? So nice.
In Mumbai there are always some mad gardeners. And equal number of people who are mad at them, for ruining the building facade with drippy, muddy water. There has been intense lobbying here, in our complex, to ban plants from balconies. That is also the norm in certain European cities. However, we have managed to fight it off... I think there could be insistence on ensuring that your plants don't drip over the wall, or your neighbours balcony. Fine those who mess up, do not keep plates under pots, or water them so much that they drip over your balcony and fall over somebody else's.
But come on, a bit of green could save this urban mess... If people can feed pigeons so they become pests, and resist street dog culling so that the city has several hundred dog bites daily, what harm can a few plants cause?

Humming birds in my balcony

A pair of humming birds have been regular visitors to that strip of balcony for which we paid some neat amount(according to the civic rules the builder should not charge anything for this, so technically this belongs to the whole world! There is some nonsensical rule about balconies in Mumbai absolutely outdated about which, come to think of it, I will blog sometime this week:)
Earlier, parrots used to land here, gloriously screeching, brilliant and spanking green, a colour so brightly fresh that I always felt that they had just hatched out of eggs (that is dumb, since they were fully grown with gloriously long tails that dangled tantalisingly over my window sill) but they so looked green and fresh, untainted by this dirty, smoggy city.
But that was when we were new to this place which was rather empty, with buildings yet happening, the Dream Park had not dented the Thakur village's image,transforming it into encroachers' den (food stalls, the messiest encroachers). The parrots do not visit us anymore. Other urban dwellers do -- crows which are being fed by a stubborn old man in the opposite flat (though I have not seen him for some time now, is he dead?) and which drop some weird things on my balcony since there is a fish market in the direction they fly:) The fellow who lives below my flat is constantly seeking to fight with me... I wonder if he thinks I drop half-eated, raw chicken legs deliberately on his balcony?!! He does not know I am vegetarian.
I used to think pigeons are villains -- oh, these kabootharkhanas and their trusts mint a lot of money, did you know, in this city?? Which may explain why they keep sprouting about all over the city, messing it up so enormously despite some civic law that warns of a heft fine if you are found feeding such creatures in public places.. Abnd they are the ones who pluck out my flowering plants right out of the pot, nest on my cactus, shit on my drying clothes, and even, amazingly shit through mesh... I tell u, they fly and aim deliberately so the goo lands on my freshly cleaned window pane. Who said they are dumb?
Since pigeons are around, their enemies hawks /eagles also lurk. I have seen some heart-stoppingly large ones preening on the building opposite. But they are a common sight in this urban jungle. I remember while a wide-eyed feature writer with the Sunday Times, I had heralded the arrival of the Lemon yellow butterflies with a feature. I also wrote on these animals in the urban jungle -- cranes preening over their nests along railway tracks... All my articles, filed and bound neatly, got burnt in the fire at my home.. Time to put away some things....
Frank Moraes, the ad guru, once wrote a nice letter with a few lines, complimenting me on my choice of topics... Later when I met him, on some other assignment he, on a alcoholic high, did not remember the compliment at all..Which just goes to prove the transience of all things:)

Leaking blankets, rain and a weird dampness

I picked up these blankets at D'Mart a few months back. New and wrapped and unused, I finally unravelled them for the monsoon when I need over four-five thick blankets to keep me from the dampness and chill. However, something peculiar about these bed-sheet-cum-blanket. They are oozing moisture. First time, feeling lazy and sluggish, before going to bed, about two hours ahead I spread all the blankets the way I liked them, layered, so that when I felt like hitting the sack, I could just slide in underneath them. It felt damp that night. I did not pay much heed since I thought it was the weather. Feeling quite sick for the next day or so, I shivered through two nights till I realised that the bed also was feeling distinctly wet and not just damp. Amazingly, there were wet patches on the mattresses. Since I am not not (yet) incontinent I wondered at that, and put a yoga mat on top of it, thinking I may have inadvertently left a window open that day when the monsoon descended... But the wet patch kept spreading.And with the other bed sheets feeling damp I was distinctly uncomfortable. I put all of them on my clothes drier, to dry them out. And amazingly found dribbles of a brownish sticky water oozing from the ends of each of these blankets.
Seems something in the blanket was trapping moisture from the atmosphere. Both blankets continued to leak this way while they hung up... and left an unmistakeable trail of water on the floor. Strange. I was glad I had not kept these blankets with expensive clothes, since they could have stained them... I have now dumped both blankets ...
Anybody has any explanation to this strange behavior of my blankets? I am all ears:)

Tamil Superstar Kamalahasan in Colaba?

Unbelievably, I saw this T-shirt/Shirt in an old, still-there, still-rocking clothes shop in Colaba Causeway (where my daughter picked up satisfactorily prices dressy clothes that charmed her little girly heart:). It was hung high up on the wall. The brown and yellow ones are what I am talking of: they each have Kamalahasan in his role as Abhay. My husband, a diehard Kamal fan, (I don't much care for the actor in his recent roles) poked fun at me, saying, "See you may not think much of him, but here he is, clearly relevant to the tourists'. So there he was indeed, glaring down at us, from his perch on the wall. Who picks up those shirts, I wondered!!! Next time, I ask. This time, I just clicked, my mouth agape....

Some things I spotted in town....

• There is an old man who lives off the Carter Road promenade --nothing strange about that, but while we were doing our yoga, I remember that he would sit there for the entire hour washing a piece of clothing. He was very very busy the entire time. There would be puddles of water there, and he would wash, do his ablutions, soap himself (or did he use soap) and have a bath -- that sort of thing... I used to see that man every day we did your yoga there, over weekends, for those few crazy months when I decided to teach along the promenade:) He will be there, if you go there tomorrow, around seven am...
  
• While going towards Mira Road, heading to Gorai, at noon, I saw an youngish woman standing on top of a high rise, off the highway, looking through her binoculors. What was she looking? How did she go up (usually sensible complexes do lock the terrace)...That too when a summer sun was directly overhead!
  
• There is a bag shop that calls itself Gold coins bag. I really thought there was something there, intrigued, thinking the bags were for storing gold coins.. But it was selling prosaic old bags for us aunties:(
  
• Have u seen that Kulfi wallah? A little dhabba unit, mounted on a tricycle, selling "Maharashtra's Mashoor Kulfi"...
  

More, as I get further lost in this maze of a city:)

Smallest Gita in the world

(Pic from net, from official press release I assume)
While passing Linking road, I spotted the Tanishq shop -- I turn off there towards Organised Chaos dance studio, where I learn B-boying -- and spotted this advert that said the world's smallest Gita on a pendant! Apparently created using nano tech by Pawan Sinha from the U.S. and launched by Tanishq which is a Tata group enterprise...Tatas are sure into small things in a big way...

You know,the first instinct when you see something like that is that you want to own it too -- and wish yourself rich enough to be able to do that:) However, I realised the beauty of the Gita lies in reading it and rereading it and unravelling the layers of its meanings through various interpretations of various gurus/writers you may respect. And that would not be possible if you had to look at the lettering under a microscope!! How do you comfortably read that... So apart from the novelty value and of course, if you are religious in that sort of showy fashion, it would make sense:) Otherwise my Radhakrishnan's modest best-selling Gita, much-thumbed, is far better:)

Now, just to find out how much this costs!

Expensive simple delights

They say coconuts are not coming into Mumbai -- but I still manage to get them at Rs 18 each, so the position is not so bad this summer. But what is happening to beloved and seasonal jamun. Seems this summer may pass without me staining my tongue purple. It is costing Rs 50 a kg, that too at limited spots, like the vegetable market outside Khar station. Can u imagine... I felt looted, but I bought them any case, half kg for Rs 100, before the recession does me in... the jamuns look raw to me. I have put them away in the fridge foolishly and now have to eat half-raw jamuns costing the earth and not even get my tongue purple:(

Pumpkin seeds, whatdayacall them here?

I know pumpkin seeds are sold at supermarkets like Nature basket, Food court etc. However, one time I bought a packet at one of Chennai's marts and almost threw up (and died) when I chewed into broken pieces of glass!! It was an extremely traumatising experience for me since I am a very bad `chewer' and it was merely a fluke that at that particularly bite, some instinct kicked into me and I bit into it, to bite glass! So, in an animalistic reaction I sort of warily avoid packed pumpkin seeds. Which just shows how stupid the mind can be in its avoidance behavior --because in India, if you are talking of such careless packaging, you can bite into glass into any packed food stuff! I once found a staple pin in a dosa... You know, survival of the fittest. Or the most deliberate chewer?!!

Any case, while discovering a pumpkin seed dressing recipe (toasted seeds ground with olive oil, garlic clove, cumin seed powder, salt) I also discovered that it is highly nutritious. Protein, which I sorely need but don't bother about. Zinc, also what I need, since I do not eat meat. Magnesium, since I like its happiness quotient and muscle-powering effect. And calcium, which also I can do well with. So, having got this into my head that I MUUSST have pumpkin seeds I tried to locate it in the grocery shops around my home. And guess what, nobody stock them hereabout. I described it and was sent on wild goose chase by some well-meaning shop-keepers. Since I did not even know the name, that was sort of a difficult task, wandering about, trying to locate something that nobody had. I peered at the glass jars with dana (seeds) but found the usual suspects -- walnuts, cashew, etc. but no pumpkin seeds. Then, finally, as always happens with me, I found it at a shop close to my home (and which I had passed just then thinking he won't have it). He calls it kalingat seeds (water melon seeds). And I am having about a tablespoon of it (it also has good fats -- lack of which is puffing up my protein-fat starved eyes) daily and feeling smart...

So, if you want pumpkin seeds, you must ask for water melon seeds, in Mumbai:)

Diabetes plant? Oh wow...

Look what I found.. The DIABETES PLANT.... It has been making waves internationally, and is being rediscovered in India now... Sold at Rs 50, I found it in a corner shop selling artificial plants, real bonsai and real ferns... The lady at the counter informed me that you have to eat one leaf a day to keep your blood sugar naturally low. That is really decent of nature... But I remember the Leaf Man ( I have blogged on him in my yoga blog) telling me that nature has created plants for every known disease in the world. And that we can cure ourselves naturally. I had, I remember, been cured of corn with just the sap of a weed that grows by the roadside. ( I have blogged on that too). So now more about this diabetes plant -- ask in nurseries. If you are desperate then land up at Thakur Village, Kandivli East, and take the road off Rama's restaurant for this nursery. And don't come on Mondays which is the weekly off in this area. I will return later with the phone number of the shop soon...

The plant's botanical name is Salacia reticulata, and according to news reports (see this news report in 1997 in New Scientist) floating on the net, a Japanese team discovered the ingredient which blocks blood sugar.. And apparently this plant has been in use for over 3000 years in India (We were diabetic even then??I always assumed that it was the part of the new age syndrome -- though Dr Sharon Maolem in her extremely gripping book on mind-body links and healing in her quite iconoclastic book Survival of the Sickest suggests that diabetes is part of the body's healing mechanism to compensate for a cause from environmental triggers) ...

Any case some reports also suggest that there are over 400 known diabetes-controlling plants.. So I have no clue which one is the one I have shown here... But it is good to see that Mumbaikars can buy plants beyond money plant (the most common plant on balconies and homes, including its variants, because it is such a no-fuss, one pot plant)...