Smiling Happy Skull

No, this is not an oblique reference to an REM song that had left me speechless with horror the first time i saw the video on tv.
I'm talking about the picture below, seen at the side of one of those tanker trucks that carry flammable liquid.
Dont you think it looks friendly as hell while trying to show you what you'll look like if you ram into said truck? I do..

I found this really amusing. Does this company actually/still exist? Last i checked India gained her independence in 1947. And Madras is now called Chennai and Bombay is Mumbai. For the record, I for one have never seen this product in India.

Window inside an old building in Colaba. This window actually faces a tiny inner courtyard. Not something thats usually seen in Mumbai. I hope the green on the other side isn't moss.

Seen outside a lane just before the start of Colaba Causeway

Excess Baggage

Photographs are my favourite kind of souvenir…for all those memorable places, memories, and moments that we inevitably forget about. I take pictures every chance I get…which kind of tends to annoy/embarrass the people I’m with at times…but I only subject the people I know and love to my special brand of torture. So if you're one of those people…I’m sorry…but you know I’m really not :-)

I’m suffering from bloggers block at the moment. Not writers block mind you. I still manage to churn out lots of not-so-pretty poems to vent out my frustration, anger and irritation. My brains have been on slow boil for the past few months. I’ve been studying non stop for my lousy exams (please don’t ask me what I’m studying I’d rather not talk about that here. This is my exam and mountains-of-books-free-zone)

So ya, bloggers block. So now instead of writing about traveling I’m going to put up all the pictures I’ve been collecting/clicking over the years. They’ve been jostling for space on my hard-drive long enough and I’ve decided to set them free on the www.

I’m going to try to put up all the pictures that I think are weird, interesting, unusual and also all the everyday things that we tend to look through cause they blend into the background as part of what we pass by all the time, on our way to college, work, the mall…whatever. Sometimes we’re so intent on getting from point x to point z that we miss all the y in between…if that makes any sense to you. Nevermind…

This is my excess baggage.

PS: I have to say this-God bless who ever invented digital cameras. Cause as much as I love the idea of old school photography aka using films, the cost of processing them can burn serious holes in your pocket, not to mention the fact that you have to restrict the number of random pictures you click. And I can no longer imagine a world without random pics. I <3 random pics. A good random pic that makes me think about a new view point or idea or one that just makes me smile

or feel good can make my day.

Close to 46 hours and still counting. Its unbelievable how the situation is still not under control yet. Its unbelievable how there are swarms of people so close to Nariman Building where the operation was still underway until a short while ago. Why don't people have the sense to stay away and keep their distance so as not to make things harder for the police and the army?

One of the places where the shootouts had occurred-Cafe Leopold, is an institution in itself for any Non-Mumbaikar, much like the Taj Palace Hotel. People living in Mumbai may know about it, but may never really take the time to step inside. Over the years my friends and I have passed by it many times while shopping in Colaba Causeway, but we never went in.

I happened to go there just a few short weeks ago...with a friend who is interning in Mumbai at the moment. I loved the place, the ambience, the crowd, the posters and photographs on the walls. This was when a few days had passed post Diwali. At one point some idiot outside who must've still been in holiday mode decided to burst some really loud crackers. EVERYONE in my line of vision literally jumped of their seats for a second, with panic on their faces before they realised where the sound was coming from. Then when they realised what the sounds of explosion really were everyone became instantly relaxed and some of us even started laughing.

I cant imagine the scene a few weeks later, at resturants and cafes, people relaxing over their meals, unaware of what lay in store for them, daily commuters making their way back home, patients and families at the hospital. Innocent people just going about their lives... No one deserves to die this way. I hope it will all end soon. Too many lives have been lost already.

i finally reached here yesterday. i had so many things i wanted to write about in detail.like the fact that the flight took a different route this time so i saw the Palm Jumeirah from the air at night. or the fact that after 22 years of flying Air India they did not give the bread roll and butter packet with the meal, something that's never happened before, something that i always looked forward to, my one indulgence of eating the whole packet of butter with the bread, even if i left the rest of the food.

When we were flying over Mumbai and i said goodbye to the twinkly city lights i could not even imagine the horrors that were occurring at that very moment down below. there was an unusually high level of checking going on at the airport yesterday. they were checking our passports and boarding passes at multiple points. they even re-introduced the plastic ziplock bag to keep all our liquids like perfume and lip gloss in. usually when I'm traveling with mum i carry the hand bag and she handles the travel documents. Usually when we show them to a guard for those periodic checks in between i tend to walk ahead a couple of steps. this time all of them stopped me right there and insisted i stay put till they finish their check. This when i look exactly like my mum. Another first. They've even re-introduced metal cutlery in the flight after so many years of plastic.

In hindsight all the sudden checking and the airport swarming with officials and all the brand new protocol was strange considering the fact that the terrorist attacks across Mumbai started later on. Our flight was delayed by half an hour but that was nothing new, and nothing was said about what was going on outside. its only when we landed a couple of hours later and spoke to Dad that we got the news.

These sort of attacks in Mumbai are unprecedented and frightening. We've been constantly following the news since last night. There are curfews in certain areas and the whole thing is still not over, even after over 19 hours.

I pray for the safety of the people still trapped inside the hotels, and also of the police who've lost a lot of their men, and i hope everyone i know back home is safe. i cant even imagine the state of all those people who've lost family or friends in this.