Notes from When I'm on the move

13th Nov 2009

On the highway heading to town to attend the wedding of someone who is a stranger to me. With Nancy Ajrams sweet voice in my ears making me miss home I passed by:

-the road to the airport,

-a seven star hotel,

-a line of government Chawls which had the exact same paper star n spangle lanterns- stale leftovers from diwali, hanging in every section of every floor of every building.

-A family of 4 with identical looking boys wearing the same thick glasses on a scooter, whose personality differences were already evident somehow.

-A line of stranded-by-the-roadside foreigners with their luggage sitting on the pavement, something that I’ve never done in all these years of living here (don’t they know how dirty it is?).

-A neighbourhood of 3 and 4 story slums that looked way bigger than our tiny 1 BHK apartment.

-Someone who had passed away being carried through the streets of the land of the living one last time in a flower shroud by loved ones on their shoulders,

-a sign just a few meters away from this procession, on a barbed wire fence above a large cement wall that said-Jesus Never Fails,

-the road to Pune that I wish I was on instead of the one I was already hurtling over in my air conditioned car.

-A run down motorbike with flashing neon blue wheels,

-Political posters everywhere of false practiced smiles that tried to look benevolent but failed when your mind and imagination could sense the sinister intent lurking behind them.

-Tiled government Shauchalays and permit bars with inappropriate names of gods and goddesses.

-Billboards that made lofty declarations and amusing diversions dotting the night sky line.

-An Apna Country Bar next to an Apna Bazaar Co-op that looked smaller than my neighbourhood grocery store as well as its next door neighbour that had a store front display of identical glass bottles filled with alcohol in all sorts of colours to attract a thirsty passer by.

-Permit bars and resto bars of all shaped and sizes, some with fancy glass and metal exteriors with doormen to let you in, while others just making do with raggedy curtains fluttering to reveal glimpses of their dimly lit interiors.

-A stall selling ‘funeral materials’ called Aatma Shanti (literally translated Aatma means soul and Shanti is peace)

-A man in an orange shirt with an empty handcart after a day of trade making 4 roads of traffic come to a standstill while he slowly pushed at his own speed, shaking his hips without a care in the world while motorists and taxis honked impatiently to hurry up.

The world is an interesting place really; you don’t have to leave your city to realize that. You just have to look a little harder to pick out all the interesting details your mind blanks out over the years. And the wedding wasn’t that bad either.

Street photography-Diwali markets

I finally worked up the nerve to go for my very first walk around to take photographs last night. Since it was the night before Diwali I knew I'd get some colourful shots of the local marketplace.
I almost chickened out though. Its one thing to take a few stray photos when you see something interesting. They are quick and you're just passing by so before anyone can figure out what you're doing, you're gone.

But when your camera is constantly in your hand, navigating your way around an EXTREMELY crowded market, dodging cars, people, dogs, and the glares of certain vendors in a place that does not cater to any tourists, a simple thing like taking (a lot of) photographs turns in to a daunting task.

Especially when you've never done proper street photography before. And even worse, when you're doing it with the help of a standard digital compact camera, which requires standing still for a some very long, painful seconds to avoid a blurry mess. Which is what the first few photos looked like-A blurry mess. But after about 10 minutes i stopped feeling self conscious and made it a point to aim, and stand perfectly still till i got the shot, no matter who was staring/glaring.

Here are a few of the decent ones...



Paper Lanterns and Paper stars with a light bulb in the center, along with fairy lights are used to decorate windows.












I love this one of this man with an armful of gold plated chains breaking his big notes with an ice cream vendor for change.









One of the fruit vendors even asked me if i worked for a (news)paper.





Most of these flowers have strong, heady fragrances, used either for Puja, decorating your door, the petals maybe seperated to make rangoolis, and to decorate your hair. When my Mom was a kid she'd sometimes tie a jasmine garland (known as a gajra) to her hair before she went to sleep and by morning her hair would smell heavenly.










Firecrackers...fortunately( or unfortunately, depending on how old you are) the amount of cracker bursting this year has been next to nothing. Usually the fireworks start a week before Diwali, but this time, even during the actual diwali day, all you can hear is a stray rocket, if anything.




The quality of 99% of my pics was substandard. But i was flying high from this whole experience by the time i ran out of batteries.

I headed home with a kilo of oranges, a garland of flowers, a box of fuljhadis(sparklers), and over a 100 digital photographs, that might not all be good enough to save, but they made me so happy:)

I can't wait to buy myself a good DSLR next year.

Gateway of India at Nariman Point.



Ferries to the Elephanta Caves, Alibaugh, or just a simple joyride in the sea start from here.


The day i took these pics was the day i was playing the tourist with a friend who was staying in mumbai for 2-3 months for her college project.

We were walking around Colaba Causeway(tourist hub,home of the famous-amongst non-mumbaikars-Cafe Leopold, and great junk jewellery shopping) and i asked if she wanted to see the Gateway cause it was just 5 minutes away, and she agreed.

So we reach Nariman Point and a lot of it was blocked because of repair work on and around Gateway. And i point in the direction of the (very prominent) Gateway of India, turn to my friend and say-"Its supposed to be here , maybe its behind this thing,"(and here i'm actually pointing at the gateway).

My friend gives me this strange 'are you ok' look and starts laughing. And only after 5 minutes did my mistake sink in.

Very embarasing...

Note: My brain may have altered what exactly happened cause i remember feeling very stupid afterwards because of my hand waving and self important air-of-tourist-guide declaration of "I'm sure the Gateway is around here somewhere," like it had gone for an evening walk or something.

Has this ever happened to anyone else, where you feel like you ought to know more about the places that are well known in your city, but which neither you nor anyone else you know who lives there actually visits?

so i finally managed to work up the nerve to tweak my blogger template. Now i can add pictures that wont be the annoying tiny click-on-this-for-a-better-view ones.

You can only expect people to go through that much trouble if your pics are any good, and the ones i post here are..not.Well anyway Yay for that..

But the problem is my blog header(banner?) which looked fine before looks strange and lost floating around by itself in the middle of nowhere.

I'll fix it as soon as i can figure out what to replace it with. Sorry bout the eyesore. That is if anyone other than me is reading this ofcourse lol...

Otherwise this post will be the online equivalent of me talking to the ceiling fan..

to have your cake and eat it all

There are certain things in life that are sometimes, just not in your control. Bad things (and the occasional good ones) just happen and there’s nothing you can do to stop them.

Sitting at home for your exams for a prolonged period of time can have disastrous consequences for your weight. Despite my best efforts to watch what I eat, avoiding unhealthy snacking, looking away with determination from the cookies and chips when I go grocery shopping, saying no to extra butter and cheese, sometimes all my good intentions just fly out the window.

In this instance, a chocolate cake fell into my lap (my hands). Its not everyday that something like this occurs. So when Mom offered to give away atleast half of it, I declined without feeling any guilt, and I did what any self-respecting cake lover would, I kept the whole thing; and then, I single handedly demolished that half kg chocolate cake…in two days!

Its not something I'm proud of. Really it isn’t.

The funny thing is I’m not even that fond of chocolate. But it was cake! And it was good! And it was there, sitting in the fridge, waiting for me to EAT IT!! What else was I supposed to do right?

Mumbai-Pune Expressway

BEST Sandwich

The BEST in a BEST bus stands for Bombay (well actually its Brihanmumbai now) Electricity Supply and Transport. It is more commonly referred to as b.s.t bus... People tend to drop the 'E'. They are usually red and white in colour and they are single decker buses although certain routes have double decker ones as well(my personal favourite). The routes cover the whole of Mumbai city, with bus stops convieniently located in virtually every road friendly area, and since the bus is a state owned enterprise, the tickets are heavily subsidised and therefore, extremely cheap.

If you want a list of all the bus routes there are many places where cheap little books with everyday information like this along with maps, important numbers etc are easily available at Railway Station (for local trains) book sellers and other places as well.

For more info on BEST buses you can go here