And then, just like that, I stopped writing. There was increased pressure from work, the twins took up some time and I guess I also lost interest. And then, again, just like that, it all re-started, when I received a call from Mumbai Mirror. They had somehow managed to find me out and Meenal asked me if I would write about Matunga in their "Writer's Bloc" column. Without wasting another second, I took up the offer and here I am…back.
Over the last two months, I have rebuilt the site using Movable Type 3, thanks to Ajit and Jigs. Unlike many other amazingly prolific blogs like Uma's and Dilip's, I don’t think I will update more than once a week and the focus, as before, will still be on the writing itself.
In the meantime, I am shifting all my old work to the new blog, one or two pieces at a time. This will probably take the whole year to finish, but then, who's in a hurry! ________________________________________________________________________
December 13, 2006
Storm in a coffee cup
This has appeared in today's Mumbai Mirror.
Expresso in my childhood days meant a frothy coffee with milk, halfway between a cappuccino and latte, that used to be served in movie halls and theatres. At home too, this was made on special occasions as a treat and like the new Bru ad, the fun was in getting the froth all over your face. Growing up, I then learnt to appreciate the dark decoction that Amma used to make, with milk and sugar, at least 10 shades better than similar stuff available in the Udipi joints in Matunga.
Traveling abroad in the mid-90s brought me in touch with Starbucks and I slowly learnt to differentiate my espresso from a ristretto. My all-time favorite drink however, remains the caramel macchiato, a signature Starbucks drink. Though, all the coffee I otherwise drink is black, without milk and sugar, the caramel macchiato, with vanilla, milk and caramel is the one exception.
Somewhere down the line, heavily influenced by Starbucks, came the Barista chain. The outlets were an immediate hit, with well-trained baristas who knew their coffee intimately. The Shivaji Park outlet has been my favorite. Sitting out, watching the world go buy, while sipping one Doppio after another, used to be a favorite past-time. This was the nearest Barista, until the one at Sion came up, a few buildings ahead of Sion Hospital. Despite this outlet being so near, it never had the ambience of the Shivaji Park outlet and the baristas were also less knowledgeable and though it hoped to be a coffee pit-stop for those on the way to the suburbs and beyond, it was never open early in the morning, when you were going to Lonavla or Pune and the take-away coffee, in any case, came in horribly thin cups, often too hot to hold properly, with lids that didn’t fit…I’ve spilt coffee on my lap at least twice.
A few years ago, on a trip to Dubai, I saw a Starbucks outlet and right next to it, a Barista outlet. It was a proud feeling, much like seeing a Jet Airways plane at Heathrow or Changi.
But, Barista never came to Matunga. CCD did. And how! When it started, it was the new kid on the block, loud (it still is), but with attitude, and obviously aimed at the college crowd. The coffee was cheaper, not as as good, especially the espressos, which were bitter and yucky. The service was slow and the food passable, and yet the college kids loved it. The juke-box was a hit, as was the outside seating, which also allowed girls to smoke.
And then Barista screwed up. It dropped its prices and started playing loud music. Instead of aiming higher, at the 40plus generation, which felt CCD to be too loud, they tried to become like CCD. And the last few times, I’ve been there, there seems to be a distinct deterioration of services…the baristas are undertrained, the espressos are bitter, granitas have not been unavailable and a couple of times, even the air-conditioning wasn’t working.
On the other hand, CCD has become more and more vibrant. Their espressos have improved, as has the food. They now sell their own brands of chips and cookies (my daughter loves their eggless chocolate chip ones). And most importantly, they sell specialty coffee powder (which, as I have earlier mentioned is far superior to the stuff locally available in Matunga), and now we even get single estate (like single malt) coffees, some of which are excellent, especially the new dark roast. It’s a pity the Monsoon Malabar is no longer available.
What does this have to do with Matunga? Most big brands don’t come to Matunga, because they don’t see potential. Barista didn’t see potential and CCD did. One is doing great and the other, at least for me, is no longer happening. Maybe there’s a lesson in there somewhere?
Posted by bhavinj at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)
December 03, 2006
Realty bites
This has been published today in the Mumbai Mirror.
I am still trying to recover from a shock I received last Sunday, which I still can’t stop talking about and really need to put in words as well. We had a meeting with a realty agent, when we overhead him talking with someone on the phone about his inability to arrange a flat for that person, at the earlier agreed upon rate of 20,000. After he finished his conversation, I asked him, whether he also handled flats in South Bombay. He looked at me quizzically and then explained, “Last month, a premium property in Five Gardens was quoted at Rs. 20,000 per sq foot and the owner has now upped it to Rs. 30,000 and my client is angry at me for this. What can I do?” he shrugged.
Thirty-frigging-thousand? 30 thousand…per sq. ft. …in Matunga? You have to be effing joking! But apparently this is not a joke! It seems that for some premium properties, these prices have become real. Its as if living in Matunga has achieved the same kind of status symbol for some people, as living on Peddar Road.
The exuberance of the stock-market and the subsequent real-estate boom would be able to explain some of the increased valuation. But in an area, where average prices have hovered around 10-12,000, to suddenly talk of 30,000 per sq ft, seems to be too big a jump to make sense.
Unless, Thomas Schelling is more right than even he would know. Last year around the same time, I had written about him and his game theory, which predicts that similar people tend to live together, thus explaining the formation of ghettoes and pockets based on religion, race or caste. Within a year, this has become even more pronounced in Matunga, which is now all about Gujjus and Kutchhis. Though I don’t have official numbers, it wouldn’t be a stretch if I were to put the Gujju/Kutchhi population in Matunga and the Greater Matunga area (parts of Sion, Wadala & Dadar) at around 90%.
So think about this! If you are an upper middle-class Gujju/Kutchhi living in the suburbs, and wanted to live in a place with PLUs (people like us), where would you want to shift to? Obviously…Matunga!. If you have lived your whole life in Matunga and now need a new house, because you and your brother have grown up and each of you wants his own space, where would you continue to live? Most likely, Matunga! Kind of like my sister and other people I know, who were born here, grew up here, studied here, married here and now even go to work here. In Matunga…the classic big village.
Where else would you have at least six good schools that would make any top 25 list in Mumbai, which makes it relatively easy to get admissions, unless of course you want to go to outside-Matunga schools or live in South Mumbai with its limited schools? Add 4-5 good science and commerce colleges, one medical college and two top-rated engineering colleges, all within a radius of about 2km and you get a combination that no part of Mumbai can beat.
With Sahakari Bhandar, Matunga Market and Chheda taking care of the shopping issues and Five Gardens, Maheshwari Udyan and a couple of other places giving us the open spaces that we need, the only things missing are, a large mall with good brands, a couple of fine-dining restaurants (though ITC Parel is almost our own backyard hotel) and a good multiplex with parking, which hopefully Aurora will become in the not-too-distant future.
The big brands have still not taken over the frontages on King’s Circle, but that is just a matter of time. And honestly, the reason Café Coffee Day rocks today and Barista is in suspended animation, can easily be traced to the fact the CCD has an outlet in Matunga and Barista doesn’t. And more about this..next week!
Posted by bhavinj at 10:52 AM | Comments (0)
November 26, 2006
Games kids play
This is in today's Mumbai Mirror.
Bouncing in the Jumping Jack/Moonwalker – Rs 10. Getting tattoos painted – Rs. 25. Swinging wildly on free swings – Priceless.
Young children are really funny. You can get them expensive toys, gift them Xboxes or PSPs or fancy, robot-like, multi-functional dolls, and yet they will often play for hours with just simple “vati-chamchis” or be happy kicking a cheap ball around. As happened this weekend, when we went to my daughter’s school, J B Vachha, which is in Five Gardens, for a fun-n-fair, which was interestingly called “Food Fiesta 2006”.
We first spent some time playing small table games, which were run by volunteers and students – small tests of skills involving throwing rings over soap bars and chocolates, or holding a wet brick with two fingers for a minute as well as games of chance, where you had to snare a hidden potato in a bowl of sand using fondue-like sticks (which the kids loved since they had just had their first taste of fondue a week ago), and black-jack like card-games. They eventually won three games’ coupons, which got them one small prize, and they promptly started fighting over this single item.
The Jumping Jack/Moonwalker has to be among the top-ten toy inventions ever. However agitated or uncontrollable the kids might be, whatever crazy mood they may be in, one look at these monstrosities and everything dissipates in the anticipation of being able to jump up and down with abandon. As a kid, I never had a chance to go into one of these (I am sure they didn’t exist) and as much as I would like to experience them, I know that at this age, no one is going to let me. After a little shoving and pushing (small kids really have no concept of queues), they managed to get their three-minutes tryst with the overblown balloon and had a blast.
We then made our way slowly from one end of the fair to the other, past stalls selling everything from clothes to glass baubles to fortune cookies. I actually bought two fortune cookies, trying to explain the whole concept to the kids. They loved the act of breaking a cookie, finding a piece of paper within, and then eating the cookie, but the fortunes were completely wasted on them. The tattoo-girl was also a great hit, but within minutes of getting them done, the tattoos were smudged by the clothes and bodies of the ever-increasing crowd.
And then there was food… frankies, chaats, pani-puris, kababs, corn, chicken-rolls, bhel, etc..., including Sabina with her gorgeous cakes and a divine banana tart.
We were having a great time, when we reached the end of the concourse. We were wondering what to do, when my daughter pointed out to the swings and slides, which are permanent fixtures in the school-ground, behind the cloth boundary of the Fiesta, which we promptly went past. The kids have finally learnt to swing on their own, without the need of an adult push (which was a pleasant surprise to me) and they kept swinging, as high as possible, competing with each other, sometimes in synchrony, sometimes off-sync, for a good 10 odd minutes, until I had to physically stop the swings to make them get off.
After we reached home, during the post-mortem, I asked them what they had liked the best…was it the games, the Jumping Jack/Moonwalker, the tattoos, the balloons (all of which had cost money), and without hesitation came the answer…the swings! (which had been totally free). Go figure!
Posted by bhavinj at 12:54 PM | Comments (0)
November 08, 2006
Bottlenecks to Progress
This appeared in today's Mumbai Mirror.
As Matunga becomes more and more crowded, with the insane increase in high-rises and cars, traffic is getting to be completely chaotic, with an exponential increase in travel times.
To understand this, let’s see how many bottlenecks now affect a simple route…say from Matunga gymkhana to the area behind Aurora theatre.Warning: Unless you are a hard-core greater Matungaiite, you might want just want to skip directly to the last paragraph.
Outside the Gymkhana, you can either take a right or a left.
If you turn left, the first bottleneck is at Matunga Market, which of course, is expected as always. Then, a little ahead, comes the new bottleneck, at the Post Office junction, due to the traffic coming from the Bhaudaji road extension. Past this, you then get stuck getting onto the Circle, where you often have no choice but to wait until the Amar Mahal signal turns red, to be able to ease into the consequent reduced flow of vehicles. Then comes the right turn on the Circle itself at the Anand Bhuvan signal, after which you have to quickly take a left turn onto the small Circle-to-Khalsa road. Sometimes, if the traffic is backed-up at the Adenwalla road signal, this can take a good 1-2 minutes. Once on this small road, idiots trying to go to the Natural ice-cream parlor can create another bottleneck, on your way to Rasna Panjab, where you then have to take a left.
Once here, the rest of the road is common even for the route described below.
If you turn right from the Gymkhana, you take a left at Ruia college upto to the main-road signal, where there is usually a wait of upto 7-8 cars, which can sometimes make you miss one turn. Past the signal, you have two choices. You can take a left at Adenwalla road and then drive past the no-entry VJTI right turn and take a right into the small lane, just before the Circle, to reach the Circle-to-Khalsa road. But since this small one-car-at-a-time lane is not a one-way street, if there is a car coming from the opposite side, you can get stuck for quite some time trying to negotiate your way.
The other choice is to go all the way straight upto the St.Joseph’s circle and take a left, where there is often a gridlock. If you manage to get past this, you then immediately hit the Wadala East signal, where unlike in the past, all the cars now want to take a right turn (due to the crazy township development in Wadala East) which leaves very little space to go straight. Once this is negotiated, it is then a nice, quick drive to Rasna Panjab, as in the old days.
Past Rasna Punjab, irrespective of how you’ve reached there, you again get stuck because of the double-parked cars outside Café Coffee Day and Classic. Past these, you take a right and then a left and again get stuck at Sahakari Bhandar, due to all the cars trying to either park there or leave from this new “Walmart of Matunga”. Only then are we home!
Bottom line: The price of progress seems to be increased travel time. Till the last couple of years, we always used to discount the time it took to travel from anywhere to anywhere, within Matunga and Wadala, since it never took more than 5-7 minutes. Now, it can take upto 15-20 minutes! I guess, we’re no longer a village, and progress just doesn’t seem like such a great thing anymore!
Posted by bhavinj at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)
October 26, 2006
Matungaiites Everywhere
This was in today's Mumbai Mirror.
How things have changed! Just a few years ago, Diwali was all about Chopda Pujans, fire-crackers and the rounds of Saal-Mubaraks on Bestu-Varas day, to my kakas, nana-nani, mamas, etc. all of whom thankfully live in the Greater Matunga area, in Wadala, Matunga and Sion.
After the Finance Ministry killed the relevance of Chopda Pujans, when April-March was compulsorily made the financial year for all businesses, things started changing. More and more, Diwali time became “holiday time”, even during the Diwali and Bestu-Varas days, with many families opting to stay away from the city.
The problem unfortunately, is that if you go to hill-stations like like Matheran or Mahabaleshwar or even beach-resorts like Goa, you are sure to find “half of Matunga” in these places. Honestly, it is very likely that your neighbor in the next room is from Matunga or has lived there or has in-laws there.
This Diwali, we split up our Diwali holidays into two short trips year, to areas we were absolutely sure would be devoid of all Matunga flavor.
The first trip was sans-kids, to the Maldives, where we landed up being the only Indian couple at the Taj Coral Reef and unlike the experience in most other tourist places, we were actually over-pampered by the predominantly Indian staff, as compared to the British, Italian and Japanese tourists. Talk of reverse discrimination! And of course, the corals and snorkelling were awesome.
Then, during the Diwali days, we decided to go off to Ahmedabad (at the airport alone, we met two Matunga families on their way to Goa...jeez!). On Sunday, the “dhoka” day, we went to Goyal’s water park (apparently better than Water Kingdom), which was virtually empty and the kids had a blast. In the evening though, we found Vishala to be very crowded, I guess, because locals just love eating out, Though fun, Vishala is now obviously a tourist-focused experience, with the puppet-shows, the "garba" area and of course the cross-legged eating on leaves with earthen crockery, but with average Gujju food. With another “average” experience at a very popular “thali” place on Monday, I realized that though people love eating out, this city still has a long-way to go in terms of the quality of the food and the fine-dining experience.
Overall though, Ahmedabad has become an amazingly vibrant city, both in the inner-city “pol” areas, as well as in the newer parts. And despite our views about him in Mumbai, the locals think the world of Mr. Narendra Modi and give him full credit for this development.
The last evening was topped off with Don, which we all unanimously thought, (despite Khalid Mohamed and his colleagues) is far better than the old Don, which we had all seen the night before, both to refresh our memories and for the kids. The old Don honestly is a B-grade, badly edited and directed film, but is great fun because of AB, Pran and the dialogues, while the new Don…well, it just rocks! I wish I could write a review for all the contrarians.
So, once in a while, it is nice to be away from Matunga, both column-wise and physically. And the trick I’ve realized, is to either go away to really exotic destinations or to other big cities, which are themselves a little “empty”, because their inhabitants too have decided to go away to other touristy places, and yet are large enough to make it unlikely that you’ll meet another Matungaiite!
Posted by bhavinj at 10:58 AM | Comments (1)
October 16, 2006
Injured? You must go to Sion
This was published in today's Mumbai Mirror.
A certain percentage of reader feed-back has always focused on the frivolousness of my writing. “I am sick of your rasam-idli. Do you know the plight of those who have been scammed by the South Indian Co-op Bank? Can’t you write about them?” And so on and so forth. Apart from the fact that what I write about is really nobody’s business, it is amazing how presumptuous people can get.
Having said that, when my dear friend Nobs Roy mailed me some stuff about Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in Mumbai (or rather the lack of), I thought I could use this opportunity to get serious.
Question: If you were to get seriously injured in a road-traffic accident, where would your best chances of survival lie?
a. Public hospital (Sion, KEM, etc)
b. Private hospital (Hinduja, Lilavati, etc)
The answer is (a). The public hospitals have round the clock services including emergency diagnostic and blood facilities, easy handling of police and legal inquiries and no risk of being denied treatment due to non-payment of bills. Virtually all specialties required to handle emergency care (orthopedic surgeons, general surgeons, neurosurgeons, anesthetists, radiologists) are available at all times. And among the public hospitals, Sion has perhaps the best EMS, simply because of the vision of the previous deans and surgeons who worked hard to make the EMS a well-oiled machine.
The problem in Mumbai, unfortunately, is of reaching the EMS services. A common medical fraternity joke is that the only difference between an ambulance and a hearse, is its color. In a city choked with vehicles and the complete absence of civic sense, it is virtually impossible for ambulances to reach any hospital in time. And even if ambulances are given way or are allowed to break signals, it is not uncommon to find a couple of cars behind the ambulance availing of this advantage as well! And so, the study conducted by Arvind Vatkar, Poonam Vaishnav, Pragnya Supe, Ritam Chowdhury and Sandeep Patil, found that only a third of emergency cases were brought in by ambulances. The rest came in police vans, taxis, private vehicles and some even on stretchers by foot.
It is a pity that a country that is supposed to be the next superpower and a city that is the financial capital of that country does not even have a basic EMS for the public. There is no single number to call and no coordinating authority to work with. If a person reaches the hospital in time, it is usually due to the timely arrival of a complete stranger, either the police or a passerby. And contrary to popular belief, the police were actually able to rescue people in about a quarter of accidents and then transported the victims in police vans to the hospital.
With the virtual absence of any kind of civic training in first-aid as well as trained paramedics (even if an ambulance manages to come to you, it is actually just a transportation mode with no trained personnel to handle accidents), about half of the victims receive no first aid on the way and the other receive inappropriate care, which is even worse.
Despite all this, the EMS at Sion Hospital does a great job. And though, as with most things in our daily lives, the authorities are completely useless in terms of providing pre-hospital care during accidents, it is a public Municipal hospital that provides perhaps the best accident care, if you manage to get to it…alive.
Posted by bhavinj at 10:19 AM | Comments (1)
September 17, 2006
South Indian cuppa vs the French press
This was published in today's Mumbai Mirror.
My first memories of coffee are of drinking Mom-made, cold Nescoffee at home. Expresso in those days was the frothy hot coffee you got at fun-n-fairs, from “Expresso” machines. And black coffee, was what I used to make, using two table-spoons of instant Nescafe powder, in boiling water, trying to stay awake at night before important exams.
My favorite filter coffee though, was brewed by Jamuna aunty in her kitchen, where a decoction using filter coffee from Mysore Concerns (MC) was always ready, the added milk and sugar, yielding perhaps the best cuppa in town.
Over the years, I have now learnt how to use a coffee-maker with paper filters, how to differentiate between espressos and ristrettos as well as between lattes, cappuccinos and macchiatos. And, for some time now, I have been using a French press, to make my own cup of wake-me-up morning coffee.
A French press needs a medium-to-course grind, which I’ve always been able to stock up on, during my travels abroad or thanks to traveling relatives.
Three weeks ago, I ran out of coffee for the French press.
Assuming that I could always find coffee powder in Matunga, I made my way to MC. Though MC is one of the four pillars of Tamil Matunga, the only time I’d been there earlier, was about 5-6 years ago, when I had tried to get them to grind some coffee beans I had bought abroad. The person at the counter flatly refused, without any explanations and I finally had to use the grinder at home.
This time around too, I didn’t get much help. MC makes a very fine grind coffee powder, which is not appropriate for a French press. No amount of cajoling, asking them to make a more medium to coarse grind, worked (honestly, how difficult could that have been). I still bought their smallest packet, hoping against hope.
Still, knowing it wouldn’t work (which it didn’t, when I tried it at home that afternoon), I decided to drown my sorrows in a mocha at the local Café Coffee Day (CCD) opposite Don Bosco. While placing the order, I saw a tin of “Dark Forest”, a specialty coffee, on sale. When I asked the barista whether this would work in a French press, he was emphatically negative. The coffee was expensive (Rs. 120 for 200gms) as compared to the Rs. 20 for 100gms at MC, but I decided to give it a try anyway.
After a disappointing attempt with the MC coffee, I opened the Dark Forest tin and made a glass of coffee. The aroma was enticing and the cup turned out great. I then went through the literature that had come with the tin, which apart from all the self-praise, including comments from a famous coffee expert, had this line… “Best used with a French press”. Methinks, the CCD baristas need a wee bit of extra training.
So finally, I did find the medium grind coffee that I wanted…and in my own backyard. But the times…they-are-a-changing. Instead of finding what I wanted, from the local famous David, it was actually the multi-chain Goliath, who came through.
Posted by bhavinj at 06:04 PM | Comments (0)
September 08, 2006
Aamchi Mumbai
This appears in today's Mumbai Mirror.
The two photographs that I invariably turn to, when I am showing off Jehangir Sorabjee’s aerial photo essay of Mumbai, “Above Bombay” (photos courtesy Eminence publishers), are the ones on pages 162 & 163. I had first written about these photographs last year, when I couldn’t help but describe my visceral reaction to the picture on page 163 showing a Beybladish, multi-pronged Maheshwari Udyan (King’s Circle), shot from a helicopter hovering above Don Bosco, as well as the one on page 162, showing the Circle as if it was the face of a wrist-watch, the two limbs of Ambedkar road forming the strap of this watch.
Its amazing how the green Circle has been planned, with its seven arms radiating unequally in multiple directions. If you are facing north, Ambedkar road makes up the 6 and 12o’clock positions with the other roads occupying the various other o’clock positions; 7, 9 & 10 towards the West and 3 and 5 towards the East.
This imagery specifically stands out, because in both these photographs, there is a virtual absence of traffic, except for a few cars facing northwards on the wrong side of the Circle, but with a huge preponderance of people, lining both sides of Ambedkar road and the entire circumference of the Circle. There is one truck, seen opposite Amar Petrol Pump, with an orange statue-like structure jutting out from it. From the height that the photograph was shot, it just about faintly resembles the idol, whose final day this was, the truck on its way to its Shivaji Park destination, where the idol would be laid to rest.
Jehangir couldn’t have chosen a better day to shoot King’s Circle, perhaps the only day, when people-power takes over the roads and the pavements. The photograph does full justice to what the Circle looks like on the evening of Anant Chaturthi. What it is unable to capture though is the energy at ground level.
Last year, we took the kids to be part of this jamboree. At all times, I had one or the other kid on my shoulders (Ganapati-bapa style), trying to make sure they wouldn’t miss the fun. The number of eating carts had doubled, no probably tripled, and there was everything from pav-vada to Chinese American chopsuey, to “golas”, “buddhi-ke-baal”; kulfi and ice-cream vendors with any number of people selling cheap plastic Chinese toys and a variety of balloons.
There were people and people and people everywhere. One image stood out. Outside Monarch, was a bunch of kids, sitting silently on the pavement, with their legs dangling onto the road, probably from the neighboring BJ Home, eating ice-cream cones. Towards Dadar, Ambedkar road was clogged, with Ganpati-laden trucks and hand-carts, trying to make their way through the throngs of people crowding them, with intermittent cries of “Ganpati Bapa Morya” along with the latest “dhin-chak” music, interspersed with people blowing horns, for no reason whatsoever. An equal number of people were settled on the large divider, some enterprising women having brought their plastic chairs and stools to sit on…the mistresses of all they could survey.
As on all Anant Chaturthis, the Circle was throbbing with an indescribable energy, drawing from and then in turn enveloping everyone present, as if part of a huge orgy, in honor of Mumbai’s favorite deity.
I am sure there are other pictures in this book, which invoke similar visceral responses in other people. But for me, its all about pages 163 and 162.
Posted by bhavinj at 10:54 AM | Comments (0)
August 25, 2006
The Power Is Ours
This was in today's Mumbai Mirror.
On Monday night, my Mom called up to ask whether our TV was working, because all she was getting on her TV was snow. For a moment, I thought her cable had been disconnected as well, but we soon realized that the cable operators were on strike.
I thought her cable had been disconnected, because just a couple of days before, I had asked my cable operator to remove ours. Having obtained a Tata-Sky dish connection last week, I finally had the guts to do so, and it felt great to be able to free myself from the clutches of the “Great Indian Cable Conspiracy”.
Matunga, like all other parts of the country, has been carved out into monopolistic territories by the cable operators, and they have complete control not only over our connections, but also the programs that we get to see. Though my local cable operator is actually a nice guy, the fact remains that all cable in India is geared to the lowest common denominator, where we have to suffer poor quality video and audio, a general lethargy for English language channels and to top it off, channels like National Geographic and Disney in Hindi.
In the last week, since I’ve had the dish put-up, I’ve suddenly realized what I’ve been missing out on. I finally have signal quality that makes the 42” plasma really worth the effort, along with a stereo audio signal, which actually sounds good when routed through the sound system.
One really neat thing is the online program guide, which tells you what is currently playing on all channels and the schedules for the next 24 hours. This literally means that we never have to look at a paper program guide again. The bigger revelation however was when I found that many channels, especially the kiddie and sports channels, transmit audio in multiple languages and you can actually choose your language.
The big issue is of choice and power. The choice to see the programs that you want to, in the language that you want to, with a certain quality of video and audio, preferably DVD-like. And eventually, the power to use a DV recorder to record programs that you might want to see later, just as we used to do with VCRs. Thus, I could record all the Desperate Housewives’ episodes, which airs at the ridiculous 10.00PM time slot on Sunday, and then watch four or five episodes back-to-back, on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon…and at the same time skip all the ads and so finish viewing these episodes in almost half the time.
The cable guys have had us by our balls for a long time, but thankfully, no longer. For those who are happy with the current situation, there is nothing further to be said. But for those, who in today’s day and age, want a little more, at least now, there is a choice. And not only a choice between cable and satellite dishes, but even between multiple satellite dish providers.
The power to choose, of course can have funny consequences. Having been forced to watch Power Rangers in Hindi, on the Jetix Toon Disney channel, I thought my kids will immediately switch to English. On the new satellite television, Power Rangers airs in four languages – English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. So guess what my English and Hindi-empowered, Gujarati-born daughter does?...she watches entire episodes of Power Rangers in Tamil…apparently because that language has the most punch. Go figure!
Posted by bhavinj at 05:51 PM | Comments (0)
August 13, 2006
A Chinese Tale
This appeared in yesterday's Mumbai Mirror.
A couple of weeks ago, we were returning from a “jagran”, in Bandra/Khar. Luckily, “jagrans” don’t go on through the night anymore and we were able to leave within an hour. It was a Sunday and we thought of eating out in the area…as we cruised along Linking Road, we could see every eatery packed to the gills and with our six-year olds with us, we just didn’t have the courage or energy to wait in line to be fed.
We were discussing our options, when suddenly my wife, in a conspiratorial tone, confessed to a craving for American Chopsuey. And suddenly, as if a partner in crime, I felt the urge to pig out on this dish as well.
It was already past the childrens’ bed-time, so we decided to do a take-out. For people like us, living in Matunga, there is but one logical place for American Chopsuey. Nestled between Koolar and Kamal Towings, in a tiny 100 sq. ft place, with four tables, which at the most can hold fifteen people, Fu-Yong has been around ever since my graduate college days, and therefore at least for the last twenty years, if not more. And John, who oversees the place, seems to have been around for that much time at least. Add in one more waiter, and a cleaner boy and the picture is complete. Though how the waiter is able to serve when the place is full, is one for Ripley’s Believe It or Not.
While growing up, Chinese food was all about American Chopsuey, vegetable spring rolls and sweet corn vegetarian soup. It was only much later, when we first went to China Garden, then at Om Chambers, that I learnt the truth…that American Chopsuey was neither Chinese nor American, but an “Indian” concoction with a “Chinese” taste. I can still remember the supercilious look I got from the maitre, when, in all my junior college confidence, I asked for American Chopsuey, which I then found was not even on the menu.
Years later I also realized that “American Chopsuey” is the one dish you never ask for when traveling abroad. In some places, it could mean a mash of chops (a meat dish), in some other parts, a mash of pasta and in Chinese places on the west coast, a bland mix of vegetables, which some people believe is a corruption of “chopped sewage”. Which may not be a bad term to describe the possible ingredients of some of the variants of American Chopsuey dished out by the roadside Chinese stalls that have sprouted all over Mumbai. After all American Chopsuey is just a mix of vegetables, with soya and hot and sour sauce and crispy, fried noodles, thrown in on top, the most important part being its look…as red as possible.
Over the years, Chinese cuisine has amazingly evolved in Mumbai and we get a phenomenal variety of exotic dishes…with bamboo sprouts, mushrooms, black beans, asparagus, tofu, etc, all with fancy names, such as “Buddha’s delight”, “whatever, whatever, Hunan style or Peking style”, or at the end to make something sound really authentic, “Chef’s Delight”. Along with dim sums, lettuce wraps (kind of like bhel in a rotli) and a terrific variety of bean curd based starters.
And yet with all the Lings and Royal Chinas and Shanghai Clubs, once in a while, it feels really nice to just forget all this “authentic” Chinese stuff and to go back to simpler times…to “Fu-Yong’s American Chopsuey”.
Posted by bhavinj at 08:33 AM | Comments (0)
July 28, 2006
Old, but Distinctive
This was published today in the Mumbai Mirror.
Three weeks ago, a close friend of mine invited me to her small house-warming party. She had moved from her house on RAK Rd in Wadala to a new tower, Dosti Elite, on the road behind CineMax, built in one of the industrial compounds that used to exist there alongside the Premier Automobiles workshop.
Till then (and till now) I had only seen a couple of towers in Mumbai, one in Hiranandani and one in Kandivali (E), and so didn’t really have much to compare with. My friend’s place was impressive. We went in after dark and the swimming pool area was shimmering. We saw a gymnasium, a lovely jogging track, gardens, ample parking and pretty nice apartments and it was difficult to believe that we were just a 5-minutes walk away from the blusteringly busy Sion Circle.
Living as most of us in Matunga do, in our 1 by 3s or 1 by 2s (i.e. 3 or 2 storied plus ground floor), this seemed really nice. For a short while, we kept thinking, how nice it would be to move to such a self-contained residential complex with its own facilities and avoid having to go out to stand-alone clubs or gardens. Apart from being self-contained, they also seem better maintained.
As against that, the older Matunga places offer larger areas for the same price, based on carpet areas and not on super super built-up concepts. The families are more cohesive and as we recently experienced during the summer vacations, the kids really get to form their “gangs” much more easily. But most buildings being landlord-owned, aren’t all that well maintained.
And then Shameem Akthar’s piece, two Tuesdays back, stopped me short. Can it really get that bad living in a cluster of towers? I can completely understand being a “nobody”, getting sucked into a quagmire of insensitivities, such that you start questioning your very being and existence…but I thought this only applied to ICICI internet banking and not to tower homes. And just as I increasingly find that we are better off with our “friendly” neighborhood nationalized banks, who with their “human touch”, prevent us from sinking into the “nobody” syndrome, I wonder if our small 1 by 3s and 1 by 2s are not so bad after all. So what if you have to go Matunga Gymkhana for swimming and listen to a gaggle of mothers in the afternoon besides the swimming pool discussing the best fashion designer in our area. Maybe that is how we retain our sanity and remain “somebodies”.
The sad thing however, is that if you are in the market for a new apartment, you really don’t have a choice, but to go “tower-size”. And if you do decide that you want to live in a small building, these properties are not readily available, unless you buy pre-owned older apartments, which are often rentals, which means you have to pay “pagdi” and you don’t land up owning those places. Yet, the demand for these “old” apartments isn’t really going down, and in the last few weeks, I’ve had at least three colleagues asking me to lookout for any “old” apartments that I might know of that are for sale or rent.
I have now identified my new profession if things go wrong with the current one: Real-Estate Agent for Old Properties in Matunga.
Posted by bhavinj at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
July 19, 2006
Living with Terror
This was published in today's Mumbai Mirror.
Like a lot of people, I always remember precisely what I was doing at times like these. In 1993, I remember, we were in Bombay Hospital, when the first casualties from Dalal Street started pouring in, with head injuries and blood-splattered clothes, accompanied by their broker friends. Those days, without the kind of information dissemination we have now, it was all about rumors and for most of us, that was our first experience with terror of this kind.
On July 11, I was sitting and working at home, when someone casually mentioned some bomb blasts. For at least another half hour, we didn’t think much of it, until we put on the news-channels and saw the mayhem. And they kept mentioning Matunga as one of the sites of the blasts, when in reality that was Matunga Rd station in Matunga West, just before Mahim, not the Matunga we live in.
Matunga in reality, has rarely been affected during either the riots or the blasts. The worst that has ever happened was a major train derailment at the Raoli camp junction, on the harbour line, some years ago. During the 92-93 riots, though adjacent Dharavi was burning, Matunga was a sea of tranquility. We spent most of our time playing cricket on the roads and even the ice-cream parlors opposite Don Bosco were open. The big scare in our lives had been a truck we saw left discarded in one of the bye-lanes, which we thought may have harbored a bomb, but had only been left there for safe-keeping, by a scared truck-owner.
Maybe it’s the homogeneity of the population, maybe it’s the location, but in times of crises, Matunga seems an oasis of peace. Unless of course the crisis we are talking about involves the rains, in which case your sense of well-being completely depends on which side of Gandhi market you live in.
And all this is only true provided you’ve managed to get home to Matunga, in the first place. Which is not always an easy thing to do, when the city is hit.
As the face of terror becomes more and more visible in our lives, as terrorists from conflict areas around the world step up their activities, often without any reason or sense, we also will need to start accepting the presence of terror in our midst and then to get on with our lives. Which is what most of us did the day after, returning to or staying on at work …and thus deny them any sense of victory that the terrorists might have otherwise felt if they had succeeded in disrupting our daily routines.
Posted by bhavinj at 10:51 AM | Comments (0)
July 09, 2006
Concerts in Contrast
This appears in today's Mumbai Mirror.
Last Sunday, despite my protests, I accompanied my family to a Sonu Nigam concert, a the Shanmukhananda Hall. Honestly, if it wasn’t the fact that the hall is a four-minutes walk from my house, I doubt if I would have gone. Let’s face it; no parking facilities, a screwed up approach road and a concert by a singer whose only song I really know is “Har Ghadi” from “KHNH”…the deal didn’t seem all that great. And with my past experience with “Musical Nights” and “Voice of Mukesh” and “Voice of falana dhikna”, I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic.
And things didn’t get better. It rained heavily during our short walk to the auditorium. Then, the musicians had gotten late, so until they were ready with their instruments, we were made to wait out in the hot and humid foyer…which wasn’t so bad in retrospect, since I got to meet quite a few of my professional colleagues. Then the show started an hour late, because everyone was waiting…as we all do all the time.
Anyway, finally, after some felicitations, a forgettable opening act by an upcoming female singer, but a nice ensemble rendering by his musicians, Mr. Nigam came on stage.
And all I can say is that I am glad I was there.
Mr. Nigam is a consummate entertainer. He has a great voice and is supremely confident of his ability to handle it. He also has a great self-deprecating manner and is not above making fun of himself and last Sunday he used all these abilities to the hilt. He bantered with the audience, kept drawing them in and his words of “wisdom” to the crying infant at the very beginning of the show, made all us warm to him immediately. It was fun seeing an “Indian” singer entertaining the audience, in a manner more reminiscent of rock stars rather than the sedate “Hindi” singers of yore.
Just as Ian Anderson had done in February during the Tull concert. Having grown up with Tull and having missed his previous concerts in Mumbai, I had made sure that I had the time and tickets to be there on the second day, at Shanmukhananda Hall. Again, everything started late, and the opening act by Alms for Shanti was a bit of “pseudo – sopho” patchwork, but once Mr. Anderson was on stage, it was a different story. He held his audience by the palm of his hands. And though he couldn’t really hit the high notes and the music at times felt desultory, it didn’t matter. It was good fun.
I wish I was a classical music aficionado, because then Shanmukhananda Hall would have met my “live performance” needs with ease. Unfortunately, though in my distant “thelawala” past I tried to “understand” classical music, all that ever happened was that I woke up at the end…refreshed and ready to go home.
Hopefully though, we should see the Hall being used for more “popular” entertainment, so that when it rains and the entire city is flooded and you are stuck at home, you can go someplace else apart from Aurora and watch something else than Krrish, though in all fairness, watching Krrish wasn’t a bad use of 2 ½ hours last Monday evening.
Considering though, that even if Shanmukhananda Hall had something, there would have been no way of reaching it, through all that water that always collects around it during the rains.
Posted by bhavinj at 11:00 AM | Comments (0)
June 16, 2006
Thoda hai, thode ki zaroorat hai
This appeared in today's Mumbai Mirror.
Stanmore is a suburb in North London, where I was vacationing last month. My niece and her husband had moved into their new home just a fortnight back and still hadn’t gotten around to knowing the area well.
The holiday was a lazy one, but like a fool, since I had brought my running shoes along, and that too, after a lot of struggle and acrimony over their presence, especially with the already over-loaded baggage, there was no way I could escape not using them. Which meant I had to go out running in the mornings, whilst everyone else was sleeping away till as late as possible.
I ran thrice on alternate days for about 45 minutes each, until I finally (thankfully) fell down while playing football in a parking lot and injured myself enough to have an excuse to avoid running for the rest of the holiday. Each of those three times though, running in different directions within a mile’s radius from the house, I found a new park. The first was a school-ground, belonging to a regular middle school – the ground was larger than Don Bosco, which we proudly claim to be the biggest in Matunga and Mumbai. The other two were community parks, each larger than all the gardens in Five Gardens combined.
Three large parks in a radius of 1 mile from the house. And just was one small part of Stanmore, which still had other parks and gardens further away as well. Typically, as one of my uncles told me, it is unlikely that you would have to walk more than half a kilometre to get to a park, anywhere in London.
Open spaces make a difference. On multiple levels. Whether they are for kids to play in or for adults to run and walk in, or for grand-parents to have a place to congregate in or just to fulfill our need for greenery and openness – their presence determines the quality of the area that you live in.
People crib about the high taxes in London. But those high taxes get you gardens, clean pavements, good-quality roads, uninterrupted electricity, regular waste pick-up…you get the picture. Small things that make living easier and less of a struggle.
We also pay our taxes in Mumbai…which go mainly towards the salaries of the BMC employees…who then convert our gardens and open spaces into shopping malls or parking lots or building complexes or open toilets…and leave us with cratered roads and pavements.
Yet, despite the apathy among the authorities and the lack of planning in the past, Matunga is still one of the few places in Mumbai, with decent open spaces. And this is one of the reasons that Matunga is still a popular place to live in. We have Maheshwari Udyan and Five Gardens, other smaller gardens nearby in Parsi Colony, gardens such as the one near Nappoo Hall, the Cosmopolitan grounds, the ground opposite Ruia and Poddar and the one outside Indian Gymkhana, apart from the many private grounds of all the eight or ten schools in the area as well as the colleges such as Khalsa, VJTI and UDCT. Which isn’t such a bad tally, when you think of it!
So though Matunga can never be Stanmore, very few places in Mumbai can be like Matunga as well. Which is actually a shame...both ways!
Posted by bhavinj at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)
May 26, 2006
Water, water everywhere, but not a tissue to dry
This appeared in today's Mumbai Mirror.
Two Mondays back, this paper ran a hilarious story on the absence of water in the wash-rooms of some of the five-star hotels in the suburbs. Apparently, the individual concerned had filed a complaint with the BMC and there was a graphic description of how people who needed to wash rather than use tissue might have to climb up on the basin to fulfill their water needs. I wonder why Morparia hasn’t done a cartoon on this – I just can’t get this picture out of my head.
His biggest grouse of course was that we Indians are water-based people and to provide only tissues and no water for cleaning goes against the “Indian” grain and therefore is not acceptable. Many years ago, Mrs. Maneka Gandhi had also commented on this, finding the use of tissue paper abhorrent, but I presume, more from the environmental paper-conservation issue than anything else.
Both of them will love Matunga. Specifically, the restaurants in Matunga, since Matunga in any case does not have five-star hotels and the nearest one at Parel, the ITC Grand, also is water-less in its toilets.
A good number of restaurants in Matunga don’t have rest-rooms anyway, so there is no problem. But there are some, which do have toilets. And these are the ones that have only water for cleaning, with absolutely no tissues at all.
Picture this. You’ve had some awesome fiery pav-bhaji or mysore masala and suddenly you feel the urge. You rush to the restroom, do your business and then clean yourself with the water. And then you’re stuck. With no tissues, how do you wipe yourself dry? Do you just wait for your underwear/panty to absorb the water, or do you wait till natural drying occurs.
The absence of paper manifests itself at the wash-basins as well. After eating (and don’t tell me you have dosas and idlis with a fork and knife), you need to wash your hands. Washing is fine, because there is ample water. But after that you need to dry them. And that’s where the problem arises. Most provide a towel for wiping your hands on. But this towel has been used a good number of times by people before you and unless you can find a corner which is still dry and therefore has not been wiped on before, you’re stuck.
Most of the times, you then land up using your handkerchief or the front of your jeans, if you are wearing one. Which is ridiculous. The best option here would be to provide paper napkins from dispensers, like the ones from Kimberly-Clark, which are ubiquitous now at airports, in malls and in those famous rest-rooms of the five-star hotels.
Which of course brings us right back to the use of paper and its many critics. But honestly, give me hygiene and disposable material for wiping and cleaning anyday over having water dripping from all parts of your body or having to use a towel or napkin that someone earlier has used.
Of course, the best solution would be to have the all-in-one, no-touch Japanese toilets, which dispense water for cleaning, provide air jets for drying, warm your exposed skin and also check your urine for sugar and alcohol. The only problem then would be that you might not want to leave the toilet room at all. Which on a bad day may not be such a bad idea…especially if the toilet came with a DVD viewer as well!
Posted by bhavinj at 11:15 PM | Comments (1)
