I came out of lunch at the Phoenix mills mall area a little while ago, and this dude was outside the gate accosting people with his wares. And his smile was blinding enough that people might have been depleting his reserves to protect themselves from it 😉
Two takes later, his smile had sort of faded on me, but the bravado hadn’t. I just adored his attitude. He was totally cool with my taking tourist-style photos of his, erm, 13, pairs of sunglasses.
The monsoon is nearly over and at least one soul in Mumbai is very sad about it. (hint: me!) Today we had a brief burst of rain and it made me happy. The last few days have been disgustingly bright. Here’s a photo from the terrace after the rain, of our wrought-iron garden furniture against the ixora. I love how the drops of water look blue as they swell to unsustainable girth, then plop and shatter, regaining their transparency. I could watch these for hours. Preferably while it’s still raining 🙂 (And I’m singing “Brishti Pore tapur tupur” in my head) (nope, can’t find an mp3 or a video from the movie I’m thinking of.)
It’s Janmashtmi today. And if you don’t know what that is, look it up. I had to 😀 I mean, I know it’s Krishna’s birthday but having been away from Mumbai for the last 16 Janmashtmis, I had lost sight of both scale, and, urm, commercialization. So, I was educated today (and I confess I called the cops on some enthusiastic dhol beaters at 1am.) By 8 a.m., the loud disco bhajans and cheering crowd told me something was up. Across the house and also behind it, we had what are called Dahi Matkas. To mimic Krishna’s penchant for stealing ghee, they hang this clay pot pretty high and then acrobatic men make a human pyramid to claim it. Then I saw in the papers that the Andheri matka was worth the most money (Rs. 25,000!) I reached Worli and passed several youth in trucks, wearing team shirts, going from locality to locality to win the pot of ‘ghee’ ($$?) The cab driver told me the matkas near my house are “small and not worthwhile.” And then when I got near Banyan Tree, I spotted a team in action.
I later heard that the “small” matka near my house was eventually lowered a bit because all the teams that tried failed to reach it. I don’t know who won but they’re still making a racket!
I spent Independence Day weekend in Pune, away from the madding crowd. Friends and I drove up to Sinhgadh on one day and the next was spent mostly wandering around Old Pune resisting all the tempting street food (damn, no matter how hard I try, food always comes up. And I was making a special effort to focus on our motherland’s natural beauty for this post-Independence Day post!)
I took the train back to Mumbai the next day (avec drama, of course), and though I had work to do, I resisted pulling out my laptop until the last tunnel was crossed and the crepuscular light made phone photos impossible. I’m amazed my little Nokia got such a clear shot of the waterfalls, less grand, admittedly in 2 megapixels, but still – not bad through the grimy glass of the Koena Koyna Express!
It’s a different thing to have “don’t walk on the grass” signs on lawns, but this one – Please do not spit on plants – is posted in the lobby of one of the poshest, best known office buildings in Nariman Point, Mumbai’s financial district. The sheer necessity of having to post such a sign is what’s boggling my mind. How many people actually spat on the plants before the management put this up!??
So there are people out there who claim to be Gujarati and never heard of dabeli – also given the nomenclature of “fun in a bun” by my foodie friend Sheetal. Dabeli is the past participle of ‘press’ – so, in a word: pressed!
Forget vada-pav, that’s done with. Dabeli is a potato thing with raw onions (crunchy), peanuts and pomegranate kernels. And right before serving it, the vendor will sprinkle sev on it… Hot, spicy, sweet, crunchy, chewy — good stuff! At a street corner near you, but only in the evenings. And the best one ever is around the corner from my house! Yay 😀
This is my favorite corner in Mumbai. I marvel at it every time I pass it. This beautiful corner – Sayani Road and … something else Road – boasts not one but eight (count ’em 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8!) barbershops. These three are adjacent to each other. Then there’s the corner and a mattress/cushion stuffing storefront and then, five more – cheek to jowl! And they have differences certainly, including differently colored chairs, but I can’t help wondering – how on earth does the general public choose one over another??
Mumbai’s local trains are awesome. Not just because of their celerity, but also because they’re a microcosm unto themselves. The people, the smells, the sounds, and definitely the literature – I love it all.
Anyway, I quite liked this offering. Unfortunately, the phone number was missing, but 600 Rupees (~$15) for 40 types of chocolate, including “Ferrero Racher” (sic) – now, that’s a steal!
I’ve lived in many cities now and one reason Delhi didn’t work for me was that it’s too landlocked. Boston, Bombay, New York…give me water! When I feel restless, here in Mumbai, I can’t jump on a bike and go off for a ride (there are no sidewalks to even walk or run on) so these days I slip off towards the sea. And then I can see the sweep of the bay – punctuated by fairy lights and the vast futility of man wrestling with nature. Or something like that 😉
I hadn’t been to Juhu Chowpatty (or Jubeach as we called it when we were little) in perhaps two decades – until we were super early for a film a few weeks ago. We decided to kill some time and eat some junk food at the beach. On the way in, I could see small things dotting the skyline – and to my horror found they were not kites, but balloon alien monkeys. They remind me of a movie, but I can’t recall which. Flying monkeys … The Wizard of Oz?
(p.s. did you know chowpatty simply means ‘beach’ in Marathi?)
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