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!
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” 🙂
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”)
Aight, when I was a pimply adolescent in Delhi, infatuated with boys on bikes (damn, not much has changed, eh?) my friends and I would walk over to Defence Colony Market to flaunt our stuff and check out the boys. The market was very ‘happening’ by those days’ standards. A veritable teenage meat market where you looked, made comments on, but didn’t touch. 18 years later, not much has changed! The youth ogling are even younger than we were, but they’re indoors, in Barista and other coffeeshops. Def Col even has two ‘clubs’ (RPM and something else I can’t recall), three bakeries, lots of clothing stores and this:
Woohoo baby! Check out the headless, legless mannequin on the curb. Can you imagine a Def Col babe wearing THAT? Wowsers!
Which brings me to wonder out loud – how is the new lingerie store “Straps” doing? I never even see any women in there, let alone <gasp> men! Hmmm. It’s such a brave new world out here in the markets of saadi Dilli
Outside New Market in Kolkata, we were greeted with this menagerie lined up along 6 cars. The dudes in the car had nothing to do with the animals. They were just parking/waiting. The enterprising vender told me he just moves his stuff around when the cars need to leave. Tusha, in full journalist style, went up to talk to the driver on whose car the gorillas, lions, boxers, teddies, and polar bears were hanging out. He tried to hit on her. I dragged her away.
“What a nice smile you have. Wow! And you’ve definitely lost weight. You are looking so fabulous! My god, these jeans make you look HOT! And curvy in all the right places. You look perfectly marvelous in this color, too. You simply must wear it all the time. It brings out your eyes so well. We really don’t see you often enough, you know. It’s lovely to have you here, you make the place light up. Really…” 😉
Tiny kiosks selling “American Corns” have become both cottage industry and franchise opp nearly everywhere in metropolitan India. I see them in every market and every mall and movie theatre.
The other day, near a stall that sell the steamed “corns” (in masala – yum, Chinese – too salty, Italian – too much oregano, and American – absolutely bland flavors) I found the discarded packaging of the frozen kernels.
It gives me the absolute heebie-jeebies every time I see it written down as corns (plural).
I always, always get a mental visual that grosses me out. In fact, a simple google search will show you exactly what I mean.
Ick, ick, ick, ick.
Long gone are the days when posters and billboards were painted by a human being, lovingly and sometimes with hilarious results. But some of us can’t help deface the photographic posters that adhere to every single surface, I guess. I found this ‘improved’ Titan ad featuring an even more ruffianesque Aamir Khan utterly brilliant. I wanted to juxtapose the original but, alas, was unsuccessful in finding the image online. If you spot the original, in Delhi or anywhere, do email me a photo!
Incidentally, I’m far from being the only person documenting this. Check out the poster-art by the very funny, very talented Annu Palakunnathu Matthew (whom I interviewed for the now-defunct Masala magazine eons ago).
As pretty much anyone who will listen long enough to hear me complain knows by now, I fell down the stairs last week and got pretty severe whiplash. I finally succumbed and got myself a stupid neck brace (also called a ‘collar’) (Please. I’ve already heard all the jokes) and, to my chagrin, it does help support my neck and prevent extra strain.
The brand of my brace is “MGRM.” In cursive, the acronym is spelled out below the trademarked logo: “May God Rehabilitate Mankind“. I was rather hoping the manufacturers of the brace would step in there, honestly…
There are several of these dudes who criss cross our neighborhood on these decked out bikes, crying “jhadoo, mop, wiper” in their sing song voice. I just love the sight, though I confess I have yet to give any one of them business… but when I lived in the States, I often yearned for an old fashioned stoop-and-sweep ‘jhadoo’. I never got the hang of the witch-type brooms.
I think I like the Rastafarian feather dusters best, though the red halo type rings are very intriguing, too.
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