Made in India key chains

See what I found ..a key chain with a happy little  Indian girl ..was very excited ..usually u get a blonde curvy woman (read Barbie ) who is being denounced as unnatural even in the country of her origin  ..and for some reason this Miss Hotness is  always wearing pink. I like this little girl..her little cheerfully printed skirt. .her long hair ..ha ha ha we school kids had to do that style in Tamil Nadu. .used to hate oiling my hair, ribboning it up;)  And guess how much I paid for this key chain..Rs 15!  Must be it is Made in China;) Found it at the Rose Store at Pali  Naka.  A good place to browse for such cute things..3 -D  key chain, craft stuff.#Bandralove #Mumbaimerijaan #ILoveMumbai # Bandrainfo

Off the railway station, Bandra

You will find this same pic in my yoga blog. But here I want to write about something else ...

My car disgorges me at this spot. It is 5. am.  I tell the driver to park the car, alongside a few feet off. You don't feel strange here, being the lone woman -- the men are busy and incurious. They know I am not a pick-up and understand that I have come for pamphlet distribution. Mumbai is that sort of city. I am directed clinically to the youth handling the pamphlet distribution. He is a Maharashtrian and I am relieved. They are the sweetest men, generally, and very chivalrous... I find that the Maharashtrian men have the best respect for women in the whole world. I had written earlier: when I distributed the pamphlets the first time, I remember the vendor, a Maharashtrian, actually told me to keep ten bucks (that I had to pay him). It was his way of saying, I respect that you, a woman, are doing this on your own... It felt so lovely. I kept that ten bucks for long, because it is that sort of thing about this city that makes you love it... and it comes from the locals. Even my driver, a Maharashtrian, when I give him some small extra cash if some such mission (pamphlet distribution, or early morning workshop) went off well -- he will brush it aside with affectionate brusqueness.. That is also so nice... Tell me where else in India -- I mean in a city --  u will find that attitude?

Well, everybody says this of Mumbai -- that it is the outsiders who make it what it is (I am an `outsider' in that sense too). But actually, it is this Mahashtrian ethos that allows you to be who you are (an enterprising woman) without disturbing that enterprise you bring to your task with useless labels -- woman, alone, rich, poor, jeans-clad, saree-clad, old, young --  whatever else that the rest of India (try this in Delhi, for instance, and you know what I am talking of) assigns to a person and tries to suppress you from there -- that is not there in Mumbai. And that comes from the Maharashtrians. A staunch cleanliness of behavior. Whatever else the debate may be -- on who makes this city and the rest of the blah -- there is no doubt we can  reach where we want -- reach right to the stars -- because the original locals have no quarrel with you doing that..  We must salute that laissez faire ...It is the soul of this city...

Muddy water, media collapse

The muddy concoction u see is of water from my tap. Yes, BMC water. It is fantastic is this not? The media, most of whose offices are located a breath away from where the crisis seems to be manifesting, are not reporting on this. Look at that water!!! Brown, seemingly full of some defecation, moss and mud particles.
Today I threw out the entire set of chappatis my cook made from this water. I simply could not bring myself to eat it. Have bought a 20-liter Bisleri bottle (more like a tub) for Rs 220, of which a large proportion would be given back once I return the bottle. The way things are looking, I will be living off such bottled water. Reminds me of Chennai, where my sister manages with green or red coloured water when the bottled water supply does not happen.

Some of my students sent me this genuine excuse for not coming: water scarcity...

The most annoying thing is that journalists are not reporting about this: which leads me to following conclusions:

• they don't take bath
  
• they have a direct connection from bmc.
  
• they are blind.
  
• they are living off five-star freebies and do not cook at home.
  
• they are using five-star toilets and are not going back home to dry taps and unflushed toilets.
• they are not journalists anymore!!
  

Arrghh!! Not a single report on the front page for the last two days when the entire city seems to be reeling. And nobody knows when the next brown muddy drop is going to come. The tankers, my property manager's office, says are not delivering any more since there is no water to supply.
This is a mega crisis and nobody is bothered!!! The media, the government --no statements. Put your head into the mud: it is called the ostrich syndrome. Pretend there is no problem, and the problem goes away?... the city has been running on that logic for so long...

An epidemic is about to happen --

I will start stocking on Readymade thandai, badam kheer, apple juice etc next. Just like the royalty suggested in France to the starving folk: eat cake!

Muddy water, drink thandai!!

Visiting Leopold Cafe

(A painting by Indian artists on the terrorist attack, on one of the walls of Leopold cafe where terrorists had killed several)

We were back at Colaba. It is always my favorite haunt. Everybody here minds their own business largely and the terrorist attack has not dented that Mumbai-spirit that this particular part of town sports so proudly.

We were at Leopold Cafe this Sunday afternoon. Those of you not from this city may not remember, but the terrorists had shot down many here on that terrible night...

After the terrorist attack
We had, my husband and I, hardcore Mumbaikars who love this city with the passion of migrants for whom Mumbai has meant freedom from so many things -- we had been at Colaba the Sunday after the terrible attack too. Journalists who were not from the city (both Sai and I started our journalistic career on the streets of Mumbai) made silly sounds about terrorism tourism and stuff like that about those of us who went out. We went out to tell those who listened to such things and those who don't, loud and clear, that we as a city will not be cowed down... And that Sunday it seemed as if the whole city was there -- saying the same thing ...
Leopold cafe still has the bullet marks -- big ones. Overwhelmed tourists come. Waiters understand and appreciate their interest and point out the marks. One hidden under a picture is also shown from where it is not visible. Around the bullet marks, huge and gaping, are age old smoke-dust tinted posters from the 60s : posters of a grinning Elvis and others from his Era, punctuated by Parsi symbols. That Sunday after the attack when the owners announced that they were reopening it, there was a virtual stampede, with media and onlookers creating a tremendous crush. We looked at that from a distance, deeply moved at how this city will never cow down to anything...

Cafes and their souvenirs:
Like Cafe Mondegar which has its T-shirts (hey, you have not done Mumbai if you have not been to either of these joints -- both have been tourist draw for generations of tourists with Mondegar having Mario Miranda cartoons on the walls and a juke box ) as souvenirs (had blogged on it earlier), Leopold has its own souvenir T-shirt. Unlike Mondegar's which has famous cartoonist Mario Miranda's tippling Salaam Mumbai cartoon (see the sidebar for a frame) and other one-liners that will go straight to a tippler's heart, this one proudly black just says `Leopold ...

Food here:
At Mondegar's we had some divine onion rings and fluffy cheesy garlic bread. At Leopold we just sat and nibbled some finger food and guzzled some beer. But what is about Indian omlettes, even double omelettes, that they come so flat and stringy and rubbery...
But then, who cares, it is the spirit that counts:)

I am in love with this peanut wallah:)

I am in love with this guy who sells peanuts on the highway. I really am. He is nice, clean-looking. He is there walking amidst the crush of highway jam, honking cars and trucks and autos and motorbikes and not so affected by all that, almost a yogi, cool! His hands hold those paper cones with just a handful of peanuts, each cone costing Rs 2. On days I manage to catch him (he is always running off towards other cars, just like in the movies:) I feel a great sense of achievement and love the feel of warm peanuts all the more (Oh, there are other guys too selling it, but there is something about this fellow, so earnest, so hardworking). Btw. how they manage to keep the nuts so warm? I have tried to click him several times and always failed. One time he was there, with our windows rolled down (on all sides) and my husband managed to buy a set of five cones from him, but as I lifted my mobile camera (with my five thumbs, all with no cognitive ability) he shied off from the frame, standing just so behind so that I could not click him (for this blog)..And I felt very bad, at having offended his sense of privacy and decided against attempting such shots later... We Indians, so rude!!

But I love him because he embodies what this city stands for...hard, clean work... Oh, there are also the beggars here. But more than them, we cannot fail to see those clean, hardworking folks, walking sometimes in the hot sun (selling ice-chilled bisleri bottles) or these peanuts. I remember this right from when I came to Mumbai over 20 years ago. and still they are here, these hardworking souls from around the country, making a tough living, in the cleanest way they know how... My soul feels touched and I love this city, its muck nothwithstanding. The `timepass peanuts' they were called those days. I remember also how as soon as my train from Chennai pulled in, the urchins will leap into the train to collect the newspapers (so they can earn their money by selling it at the raddiwallah:) .. That too, that stunt of running into the monster of the train, would amaze me. I also loved the enterprise which the city represented. The coolies in Mumbai would not cheat or argue or irritate you as they did, definitely in Chennai (the worst of the lot those days)... I used to love that also about the city.
I still love those boys who sell those books in the heat of the city -- most of them are pirated books, but I don't love them for that reason. But that they are choosing to work over begging or stealing. I love that, I really do! And the magazines off the city's signals... them too. And those strawberry wallahs, those flowerwallahs, and those mangowallahs off the signals. They are not encroaching but doing something in the best way they can... Clean, hard work....
If ever all that changes too much, I will leave this city. As will most others. And those of you looting it, you would have lost your golden goose... and there will be no more golden eggs, lo!