do’s and dont’s
Posted on July 18, 2008
Filed Under Bombay, Desh, Experience, Funny, Photo | 6 Comments
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!??
dabeli, baby.
Posted on July 12, 2008
Filed Under Bombay, Desh, Experience, Food, Photo | 10 Comments
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 
barbershop octet
Posted on June 28, 2008
Filed Under Blog, Bombay, Desh, Experience, Friends, Funny, Nature, Photo | 7 Comments
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??
crash courses
Posted on June 25, 2008
Filed Under Bombay, Experience, Food, Funny, Photo, Travel, Words | 8 Comments
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!
tagged
Posted on June 24, 2008
Filed Under Blog, Bombay, Delhi, Experience, Food, Movies, Nostalgia, Photo, Travel, me, myself & i | 6 Comments
Since I got tagged by aditya, I’m doing a random post that doesn’t quite fit ☺
To be true to my own blog, the photo is of a place I have lived in. This cool dude used to show up and hang out in my balcony last year in Delhi 
4 Jobs I’ve Had (in chronological order): Girl Friday at King College, News producer at boston.com, producer at an Indian radio station, & freelance radio content producer at my company News Radio India.
4 Movies I Could Watch Over and Over: Dr. Strangelove (or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb), Read more
masosas!
Posted on June 4, 2008
Filed Under Delhi, Experience, Food, Photo, me, myself & i | 7 Comments
We used to know a pair of lhasa apsos called Samosa and Moongphali 
Anyway, this is not about them. This is about where your samosas come from Behind the halwai, in a dingy, cavernous room is where the raw samosas - still tender in their doughy skins - await their flash in the pan. So, I’m romanticizing Sue me. But the contrast was too stark to not post. Enjoy your next samosa… Oh and the post’s title? I knew a kid who couldn’t say “samosa”
fabric!
Posted on May 31, 2008
Filed Under Delhi, Desh, Experience, Photo, me, myself & i, → Desi | 5 Comments
India, shining, rising and ever colourful. The travel guides gush about the vivid colors everywhere (hmm, actually, so does every book on India ever, no?)
Of course, it’s true. We do colourful very well here. We sometimes leave vivid way, way behind and move into the territory of garish and outlandish with some dexterity.
Anyway, this is the inside of a teensy tailoring shop that is owned by a lower middle class sharp-talking, tobacco-chewing lady who employs three ‘masterjis’ to do the actual tailoring. At the outer edge of this tumble of color and texture you can see one hunched over an old-timey sewing machine.
the sea (link)
Posted on May 25, 2008
Filed Under Bombay, Desh, Experience, Nature, Nostalgia, Photo, Travel, me, myself & i | 5 Comments
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
space monkeys
Posted on May 20, 2008
Filed Under Bombay, Desh, Experience, Friends, Movies, Photo | 4 Comments
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?)
Kala, not work!
Posted on May 15, 2008
Filed Under Delhi, Desh, Experience, Friends, Funny, Photo, me, myself & i | 5 Comments
I’m such a gavaar, I did not know that the Triveni Kala Sangam (~ arts center) in our capital city has a lovely garden cafe. I was quite pleased that someone in community radio suggested meeting here one spring afternoon. Ironically, we were seated right beside this sign and it totally tickled me. Apparently art and work are mutually exclusive. And maybe meetings, they think, kill - just like cigarettes do. It’s a distinct possibility, no? ;D
(In case it’s not clear enough to read, the sign says: “Right of entry reserved. SMOKING or MEETINGS Not Permitted”)
keep looking »