Mar 25

Leaving Maximum City aka Mumbai aka Bombay

There is a silly line which I mutter every time I get down on the VT station (okay! CSTM for the MNS and SS) with my friends. Watching the crowd, I’d quote innumerable hindi films:

ये है मुंबई शहर. सपनो का शहर. यहाँ सबको जल्दी है. खाने की जल्दी. ऑफिस जाने की जल्दी. पैसे कमाने की जल्दी. जीने की जल्दी. रोज़ यहाँ हजारो लोग आते है अपने सपनो को पूरा करने..

I arrived in Mumbai around 6 months ago, for my job required me to. I had always believed that if one could survive in Mumbai one could survive anywhere. I had been here before, but always as a visitor, an outsider just for short trips. But this time, I was meant to stay here and live the place.

Within a week of my landing here I ended up living in Dadar. Oh yeah! I was living in the townside as a Mumbaikar would say. For them anything ahead of Sion is a part of the suburb! I guess I had well avoided the most stressful activity for any newcomer, of finding a ‘decent’ place to stay, thanks to an old friend.

Like Morgan Freeman once talked of life being institutionalized my life started oscillating between the 8.41 AM Thane Fast from Dadar and the 6.27 PM CST Slow from Thane back home. Within 15 days I was the champion of the Central Line with a good awareness of surviving Western and Harbor too. I could tell you how much time in exact minutes it takes between point A to point B. I could lounge myself or squirrel through crowds to get in the trains. You could quiz me for any station sequence and I’d ace it!

In between work and trains, the endless stream of people and constant acitivity at any time of the day made it so alive…nothing like the sleepy towns I have been to. Between the extremities of lavish homes at Khar and the people living off the city streets I was amazed by the ‘in your face’ nature of life here.

Hundreds of Mani’s Dosas(What! you never been to Mani’s Cafe in Matunga?) and Filter Kapi fueled my mornings enabling me to be a corporate labor each day, with Mani never realizing how he was fueling India’s GDP through an able manager like myself!

Marine Drive and Nariman Point

Our weekends were sprinkled with our Foodie desires and frequent visits to the Marine Drive. That stretch of Queen’s Necklace would continue to be one of the favorite places of the city, almost an oasis of peace in bustling city. It was a part of my first evening here and I hope it shall be a part of my last evening here too.

Did I love the city? Do I want to leave it? These questions keep coming, but I feel they are irrelevant…afterall the choice has been made, my preferences do not matter. But, I do know for sure that this city allows one to dream and pursue them…it is both kind and ruthless to people….Like Sinatra once sang:

“This town is a lonely town…Not the only town like-a this town…This town is a make-you town…Or a break-you-town and bring-you-down town…This town is a quiet town…Or a riot town like this town…This town is a love-you town…and push-you-’roundtown”

I survived Bombay…and I know I can now survive anywhere.

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Posted in India, Life, Thoughts

Mar 11

Hair strands falling off my head….

Yep! Like the French army fled against the British in the Battle of Agincourt, my hair strands have decided the give up and flee from my scalp. Needless to say it just takes away a bit more of the already low levels of self confidence I had about my looks.

If looking at the stranger in the mirror wasn’t enough, there are always infrequent observers(aka cousins and relatives) and the visits to barber which serve as a cruel reminder that I may be going bald.

A few months ago, on a visit to my home for a family event, a cousin observed, “Arre you have lost so much hair!”. Not only did i want to retort back by saying,”Oh yeah! When did this happen, they were all there like last night when i checked! Strange, I didn’t know!” I also wanted to top it off by boxing him in the face.

A few months later, a visit to the hair salon(the frequency of these trips have already dropped now!), the barber giggled and said,”Arre Sir! What happened, you have so little hair left on the scalp!” I just muttered,”You that means less revenue for you and more savings for me!”

Last month my sister send me a big bottle of shampoo from the US(yeah imported shampoo!), and it struck me…it could very well be the last bottle of shampoo I’d ever need!

Even dad now looks weirdly at me, I know he’s looking at the scalp and its last few battalions. I know that he is thinking, how could this egg-to-be ended up in my family of good haired people. Frankly, I haven’t gotten a clue, maybe its genetics or maybe its water…all I know is that with each passing day my head is getting smoother.

I know everyone would reach there in another decade, its just that I am reaching there first! I always liked to get attention, but being the only egg in the house doesn’t do me much good. Of course I’d expect the ladies to look beyond the obvious in me(while I may not be reciprocating that!)…and yes research says that balding is also a sign of virility!(Okay my only selling point!)

Neither is it controllable, nor did I bring it upon me! But my hairs have decided to flee.

PS-Did you ever notice, that the MD of Marico(of all hair products like Parachute etc…) is bald! ;-)

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Posted in Health, Thoughts, funny, story

Feb 21

Installing Nokia Ovi Maps and the nightmare!

Installing/Upgrading Nokia Ovi Maps on my Nokia 5230, and then downloading India Maps data on it was not an easy job. This deserves a DIY post.

I believe this installation process would atleast help Nokia 5230, 5530, 5800 XpressMusic users, maybe others too.

Before we begin, the pre-requisites for this are:

  • Microsoft .NET 3.0 framework or higher must be installed on your computer
  • Nokia PC Suite must be installed
  • Data Cable (needless to say here, but you’d need that) for your Nokia model

A lot of readers would tell me that the process I mention below is longer, and I could have done the updates via the Nokia Ovi Suite instead (which I did try to do, but the India map data would never download properly, even after 5-6 attempts).

So here’s are the two applications you need to download, and everything shall be fine:

  • Nokia Maps Updater – Download this to install latest version of Nokia Maps on your phone
  • Nokia Maps Loader – This one is critical to download the Map data for your country on your Nokia phone (the advantage is that you’d use less of your data bandwidth while using GPS now, as the map data would already be on your phone)

Once you are done installing the above applications, do this:

  • Run Nokia Maps Updater, connect your phone to the computer, download the latest version of Ovi Maps. Let it sync and install on your phone.
  • Keep the phone connected, now Run Nokia Maps Loader, Select your country and click on download maps. It’ll download map data from the web onto your computer and then sync it up on your phone.

Only disadvantage is that your phone needs to be connected all the time, and it screws up when you get a call in between the updates! Hope this posting is of help.

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Posted in Reviews, Technology

Feb 15

When Terror came calling – German Bakery, Pune

It was just two days ago I was in Pune for some work. It was nice to be back in the same place where I spent two years as a student…visited all my favorite joints on the FC Road. Relished the breakfast at Good luck, dosa at Vaishali and what not.

Incidently had crossed German Bakery but just didnt get the time to stop by and grab a bite, it was the perfect western eating joint at KP. A day later, on Saturday 13 February evening, we got the news about the blast at German Bakery.

I was shocked at the news, recalling that I had wanted to visit it. But the real shock came after an hour when we got the news that 4 of my college friends’ were amongst the injured in the blast and that one of them wasn’t traceable.

What followed was an agonizing hour of waiting for any news with networks being jammed his phone was not reachable. Thankfully he was found and had escaped with minor injuries. Thankfully all of them were safe with no severe injuries, but 9 people had already lost lives there!

I for one, had never imagined this could happen to any of us. I never felt that terror could hit people I knew. Had I stayed back in pune for the weekend, I would have been a part of the meetup too!

Maybe we focused too much on the movie release that police couldn’t focus on other things which mattered.

I don’t know the answers, but it has made me realize that this is real…any of these days we could just become a statistic….a casualty. With that our dreams and hopes to make a mark on this world could just end, for no fault of ours, for reasons we cannot comprehend.

Fear wouldn’t solve it, only action would.

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Posted in India, Life, Thoughts

Feb 11

Kala Ghoda Arts Festival 2010

3D Artwork at the Kala Ghoda arts Festival

A few months ago, a friend of mine, a Xaverian (hope thats how they are known as) told me not to miss the Kala Ghoda Arts festival. I was less than enthusiastic about it, afterall Mumbai has its fair share of concerts, theatre and art events. What I didn’t realize was that no other event could blend all of this together and cook it into a delicious offering served to you within a few square miles in South Mumbai!

This is the 10th year of Kala Ghoda Arts Festival (or KGAF), it is a week long street festival where visitors can be a part everything for free! I visited the festival area on the first two days, and cannot wait to go back this weekend for more. There is so much happening there that you cannot be bored…concerts, workshops, film festival, plays, photography, street plays, heritage walks…okay thats all I remember.

Handmade accessories at Kala Ghoda Arts Festival 2010

There there, enough of advertising, I’d just summarize what all I did and missed too! I missed being a part of a literature workshop on getting one’s work published…well, was waitlisted for the workshop, I couldn’t go for the heritage walk, missed the plays as well! :-(

I did go for the Heritage bus ride across South Bombay(Mumbai!) which had a dash of history, architecture, British India and of course heritage. Never knew that Nariman Point and the likes is on reclaimed land, or that VT Terminus was built over 10 years at 16 lakh bucks!

I absolutely loved the photo exhibits right next to Jehangir art gallery and Museum Gallery. The pictures of Project Dharavi, Blind Photographers, Diti Kotecha and Shekhar Sidaye were absolutely amazing. I wish I could take pictures like that.

The festival has plenty of visual art as you move around in the Kala Ghoda area, the themes are focused on nature, water conversation and education for children. Unfortunately, I did witness extremes right there in the vicinity which took away the true essence of the messages.

I’ll just add up the pictures below, for words cannot describe the atmosphere…the colors and the creativity which flow freely during Kala Ghoda Arts Festival.

Used a bit of my camera's defect for this image

Odd one Out!

Its on till 14th Feb 2010, do visit.

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Posted in India, Reviews, Tourism, Travel

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