Ponto de Vista

Fish massage (or “FiMassaa” in the patois spoken by the guys trying to tempt you into getting one) is quite a popular thing for tourists to try in South East Asia. In Cambodia, at the night market, we were accosted by a FiMassa guy. Sure enough, there was a white dude sitting on the lip of this inflatable swimming pool with tiny fish nibbling away at his feet. He merely smiled, albeit wryly, in response to my inquiring look. This poster almost made me sign up for a 5 minute session 😉 But then I guess I still ‘felt confused matter of me’ even after dinner so I didn’t.

Think I could have gotten the daily tour (good use of space, no?) for less if I’d gotten Dr. Fish at my heels? 😉
Click the image for a larger, clearer picture.

My mother said after she’d visited the Louvre, she felt this sense of satiation and then faced a big question mark: a lifelong dream had been realized. What on earth came next? That’s how I felt. 🙂

Thanks to: Kwantu game reserve, The Fantastic 5 contest at Web18, Blish for the online support,& South African Tourism for making it happen.

I am, I mean. Cos I’m in South Africa. And you can follow my adventures (and vote on what daily tasks I have to perform) on http://f5southafrica.in.com 🙂

In March, I visited Rani Baug, which houses both Mumbai’s zoo and the Victoria & Albert Museum, now the Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Byculla. We had such perfect timing, we chanced upon the albino peacock just as he unfurled his beautiful tail and tried to get the attention of the very coy peahen (visible on a perch on the left.) It was gorgeous! Very soap opera-esque. Yeah! Someone told me it’s all happening at the zoo 😉 We saw sleeping rhinos, a python, gazelle, neelgay, sambar, beautiful birds, including one of paradise – all with bad or no signage. The bird of paradise, an unusual red and green specimen was identified as a “mynah” – a terrible travesty.
The only decent sign we saw, however, was … audacious in its sheer stupidity. Click on the peacock picture to see the only sign of explanation 😉

I didn’t know until very recently that Mumbai is one of the very few places in the world that hosts flamingos within city limits. (Nairobi and Miami are two others.) So of course I wanted to go see. And with a video journalist friend and an expert ornithologist friend, I went off to do a piece on them (hey, why not share with the world?) The flamingo photos I took are not worth publishing, they were too far away, but, on one of the quays, against the backdrop of an oil refinery and a thermal power plant blurred by grey wisps of smog and a flock of flamingos rocking gently like rose petals on oil, were these rotting, abandoned boats. Sewri was nothing like I expected. But these boats just grabbed me. Quite poetic a metaphor, aren’t they?(If you’d like, you can listen to the story and see Nitin’s photos)

I haven’t been to Crawford Market in forever. Actually, I’ll have to check with my mother to find out if I’ve ever been at all (I’m acutely wary of implanted memories based on my mother’s stories of a time gone by). Today at lunch, Tan and I whizzed by two storefronts that were completely bedecked with flower wreaths (“All the better to drown you with, Sheranwali“) for Navratri, we presume. Ramzaan and Eid just finished, now it’s Navratri and Durga Puja and next up is Diwali. I LOVE being back. All this exuberant color is instant seratonin!
Oh and a sehra is the headpiece of flowers worn by the bridegroom when he’s up on his white mare, fetching his new bride with the baraat, unable to see a damn thing, at least in Punjabi 😉

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!

Uh, so this post’s title ran away from me …but never mind. What you see in close up is a Japani Samosa. We read about this in the paper – this store run by a Sikh has been selling Japanese samosas for the last 60 years, so 4 days before I packed up my life in Delhi, we went scouring the streets of Chandni Chowk and Chawdi Bazaar for all the old-world treats. (we also bought jewelry on Dariba Kalan, the silversmith street, but the food really was the biggest draw). Here, across Moti Cinema, is Manohar’s Japani Samosa stall. The samosa is shaped like an accordion fan (think deep fried, stuffed, fanned phyllo.) The chhole, though, were to die for. (And after two helpings each, we were close.)

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!

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 Sonologue.
4 Movies I Could Watch Over and Over: Dr. Strangelove (or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb), (more…)