Ponto de Vista

no, not the band, but the drink! While it’s not available anywhere except in our childhood memories, here’s a restaurant in Matunga that hasn’t updated its board in years. Perhaps this should have been a tip off about the quality. There wasn’t much attention to details. We had really unhappy utthapams. But a Gold Spot would really have hit the sweet spot … Sigh. I remember drinking it more because there were Jungle Book characters under the bottle cap but every memory of it is pleasant. As they said, “The taste goes to your smile.”

and you thought I was making it up…
Only 80 rupees for any variant. In case the second one isn’t clear, it says ESPRET… 🙂

(see blog post a’pos’tro’phe)

Another post from Kochi – these are the Chinese Fishing Nets, or Cheenavala, so called because, well, the nets come from China. They work on a unique pulley system with rocks and are fixed on the shore. Reminded me of principles demonstrated by da Vinci (when he wasn’t being used to concoct random conspiracy theories about the descendents of Christ.)
This is a throwaway post. I had to share because it’s just as pretty as the picture 😉 Meanwhile, up the shore there are men who will cook the fish for you. I thought they were actually trying to come home with me along with the raw fish, I had no idea they were cooking them on the spot! 🙁

… of paan.

Really. All that loveliness with rose petals and other things like “chuawara” that I don’t know how to translate (are they dates?) beautifully laid out in a 2-foot-radius! Yes, we’re talking 4-feet of thaal with only sweet-paans.
The paan-wala said his meetha paans don’t get left over – they’re all “buy and sale” the same evening. (Colaba, Mumbai)

This one’s from Fort, Mumbai. (The area formerly known as the Kala Killa, I believe). The same fort had four gates and Churchgate is a hangover from that. Today, Fort is teeming with small shops selling electronics, dildos (yes!), “watche’s” (which must be the code name for the Isprit, ESPRET, SPRIT, Ralex and other fine variations I see there) and more for buy and sale 😉