barefoot in bombay

Notice how using the same alphabets in the title make the title suddenly so much sexier. egs - sleepless in seattle, bookless in baghdad...

So that’s pretty much how I landed in Mumbai – barefoot. Incidentally, the renaming of Bombay to Mumbai has been quite a success. Calling it Mumbai comes naturally to the tongue. Maybe cos that was the real Indian name of this city, so it was already on the tongue of local people. Coming back the point, someone stole my as good as new Rs3600 running shoes from the train. That really hurt me. I mean this is simply the worst time for such a thing to happen to me. My back is literally to the wall. I don’t even know how I will pay next month’s rent, or for that matter how I will fund this trip to Mumbai, and then this goes and adds on to my woes. Makes me think that I am being sorely tested. Well, nothing to do but to face it head on.

Tried to get an FIR written for the shoes. One guy just dismissed me straight away – we don’t write FIRs for stolen shoes. Another said go there. Third said go to the police station outside the station. I mean how much running around can I do barefoot? Most people didn’t even notice that I was walking barefoot among them. I felt a bit funny to start with, but got used to it soon enough. Then I got on an auto to go to sandy’s home. The auto guy was a nice helpful chap – took me to a place for me to buy new sandals. Chatted away throughout the ride – his father had come here from Gujrat, and he settled here. He could even speak a smattering of English. Told me he preffered to drive an auto rather than do a business or a job. Said it was honest work – earn as much as you work. No credit. And more freedom.

Well, here are some observations about the city so far.

The Buzz: that is always the thing that I notice about Mumbai each time I come here. Sure delhi also has a lot of activity and hustle bustle, but there is just some kind of buzz, some kind of energy vibe that this city gives off. People working hard, and enjoying working hard. People out at the end of a hard day’s work. Out to enjoy, to have a good time, to enjoy the fruits of their labour. Mumbai works hard, and parties harder.

The street food: Mumbai has undoubtly the best street food of anyplace that I’ve visited till date. In most other places street food is food for the lower income category, for the manual labour, and the rickshaw puller etc etc. And they don’t seem to be very quality conscious, going by what is sold at such places. But in Mumbai the street food is equally for the quality conscious consumer. You get the healthiest of foods at amazing prices. I just had a kind of desi sundae for 15 bucks. Before that I had puchkas/golgappas filled with steaming hot boiled chana dipped in sweet and spicy water. Again the boiled chana makes it an almost oil free food snack – very healthy. Even the ubiquitious Mumbai snack – vada pao is so much healther than samosas or aloo tikki, which are the ubiquitious north Indian snacks. Other healthy snacks that are ubiquitious in Mumbai include grilled sandwitch (filled with vegetables), dosa-idli-vada (better than chole bhatture – the cheap meal option in delhi), and fruit juices. Most people here seem to love fruit juices, and you get pretty good juices start at Rs5 a glass – unimaginable in delhi.

But not to say that Mumbai rocks and delhi sucks. That would be too much of a generalization and possibly a Mumbai cliché. A lot of people in Mumbai seem to have this opinion. Delhi is uncomparable in green cover, parks, big wide roads – I guess space is a disadvantage the Mumbai has to live with. Maybe that is what makes it's people so feisty. The lack of natural resources like land etc. forced the city to compete with the one natural resource it did not lack – people. The people in Mumbai have the best work ethic that I have seen anywhere in the country. Right from the street vendors to the man at the metro ticket counter - everyone is serious about their work. Well, nothing is 100%, but in Mumbai the percentage is quite high.

Well, that’s it for day one. More later.

These are a few of my favourite blogs - II

The next series of blogs I am gonna talk about is the entertainment related blogs. My favourite and first blog that I started reading regularly in this category is Poonam Saxena’s Small Screen. It is a weekly roundup of what happening on TV. This blog conclusively proves that a woman’s worst enemy is another woman. While poonam has a razor sharp sarcasm and uses it to shred to pieces a lot of shows/channels, her worst is saved for Simi Garewal and Ekta Kapoor. She hates both their shows with a vengeance and is not afraid to show it. Her column is overall a delight to read simply because of her wit and the beauty with which she criticises the stuff she does not like. She has a chatty style of writing, the way a friend might talk to you.

Next are the movie review blogs. My favourite in this category is Ziya Us Salam’s blog on the Hindu on Sundays. Ziya is not a movie critic but rather a movie connoisseur. He very clearly loves movies and sees them not as entertainment for the masses but as an art form. He is fairly unbiased and likes all types of movies from racy action-special-effects-packed-thrillers to slow romantic love stories to children’s movies. His review is more on the honesty of the artist towards his art, and not on entertainment value of the movie alone. It was on his suggestion that I actually watched a movie like James and surprisingly found it to be a memorable movie. While he invariably finds something good in just about every movie, he does not shy away from telling the reader which movie should be avoided at all costs. The unique thing about his blog is that he does not follow the normal practise of giving a rating to the movie, but rather talks of what kind of person will like the movie reviewed.

The other two movie review blogs I read are Vinayak Chakravorty on HT and Nikhat Kazmi on TOI. Of the two, I generally tend to agree with Vinayak’s ratings more than Kazmi’s. Both however look at movies from the entertainment point of view, and not as an art form. Which I guess is what most of the masses look for while reading movie reviews. They want to know which movie will entertain them the most.

Besides this Abhilasha Ojha writes in Business Standard on Saturdays about the entertainment world. He does not write specifically about movies, but the whole gamut including TV, reality shows, music trends, Oscars etc. He picks up a topic related to the field and writes on it every week.

Business Standard on Saturdays is incidentally a veritable goldmine of good blogs. There is People Like Us by Kishore Singh who pokes fun at himself and his extended family with all their typical Indian mannerisms and Indian problems. Then there is People Like Them normally by Geetanjali Krishna on people living in Bharat – i.e. the rural agricultural/ labour class. This is a very interesting blog which reveals many facets of the lives of the rural poor which those of living an insulated city life don’t even realise.

Aditi Phadnis writes Plain Politics which as the name suggests is about political developments in the country. Her blog is by far the most insightful political commentary that I have read. I decided a long time ago that if I were ever to start a political outfit, she would be the first person I would try to recruit. She has an insight into politics which only an insider can have, and reading her blog is an educational experience. Lucy Kellaway writes for the financial Times in London and Business Standard syndicates her column and presents it in its Saturday edition. Kellaway writes a personal blog with her ruminations about life as a journalist, as a woman, general trends that she observes etc. Overall the focus is more on humour than any serious issue, and she has a way of being witty and still making a point.



A few other blogs on BS Saturdays - T N Ninan, who is probably an economist writes Weekend Ruminations, a blog on politico-economics issues. Somewhat similar to Swaminomics in scope, and he has written couple of brilliant pieces, but does not have that consistency which Iyer has. TCA Srinivasa Raghvan writes on political issues, both domestic and international. Again has written a few brilliant pieces, but lacks consistency. Devangshu Datta writes Smartshare, on stocks, derivatives and other financial instruments. A very good blog if you’re interested in that sort of thing. Then there The Wine Club by Alok Chandra on wine – both from a consumers perspective as well as the challenges facing producers and the country in general. Then there is a motoring page which is a team effort and is again very educating. This is not just for car freaks, but for anyone who drives a vehicle and is interested in knowing more about what the market holds in store for him. The best part is ‘Which Car’ in which they answer people’s queries on which car they should buy – good for daydreaming!

Besides this, HT Brunch has a couple of good blogs. There’s a small blog by Shikha Sharma who is dietician and writes about u guessed it – diets and lifestyle. Bhaichand Patel, who is an ex-diplomat and has travelled the world extensively writes about alcohol – yes, it is a wonderful blog and again ideal for day dreaming. He talks about different types of liquors, cocktails, types of beers, how to drink various liquors, the origin of different types of cocktails and liquors, and general trends in the drinking world. A most educating blog! Then there is Seema Goswami who writes Spectator. This blog could be called a late chick blog – basically the perspective of a single woman in her thirties. She raves and rants against just about everything from annoying children to over indulging parents to stay at home moms to fashion victims. Now normally for such a blog to be successful the criticism has to be very witty and clever for the reader to snicker along with the columnist at the object of her scorn. But unfortunately in this case Seema’s sarcasm rather comes along with a bit of moralistic superiority which takes the fun out of reading it.

So folks that brings me to the end of my favourite blogs. There might be one or two I’ve left out, but have covered most of them. Now if u read any of these blogs, then share your views about them with me.

These are a few of my favourite blogs - I

Now if u think that a blog a recent phenomenon, a phenomenon of the 21st century, then you are mistaken. What is a blog after all? It is basically an airing of a personal thought or viewpoint on a public forum where it can be read and commented on by many. The internet part of it is immaterial – it is merely the medium. The oldest bloggers are the good old newspaper columnists whose columns are basically their personal viewpoint or thoughts and readers write in to post their comments. But of course the comment moderation is more strict due to paucity of space.

Well, here I am going to list out a few of my favourite blogs in the good old medium of newspapers. The first and my favourite, most revered blogger is Vir Sanghvi. Vir writes for HT and us faithful readers normally get two blogs a week. One is the main editorial piece on Sunday on a topical issue – reservation, Pakistan, politics and politicians – the usual staple of edit pieces. But reading Sanghvi is like watching a beautiful woman speak. It doesn’t matter what he is talking about, it’s a beautiful experience just to read his writing. He has a mix of a chatty personal style where he actually connects with the reader and yet suitably impresses the reader to leave the reader in awe. His other piece is in the Sunday supplement – Brunch. There he writes a piece called rude food guide about all matters related to eating. He is not a chef nor does he claim to be a food expert, but writes as a food lover, as a demanding customer, as a food historian, and as an observer of food trends and what they say about us. Reading rude food is like entering into a whole new world of fine Italian dining and Thai food from street vendors in Singapore and the best chefs in the world and why the French cuisine is the worlds finest, and the unique blend of Punjabi and Chinese cuisine that is found in India. He truly makes Sunday reading an experience!

My second most favourite blog is swaminomics by Swaminathan Iyer. Swaminomics, as the name suggests is essentially based on economics, but Iyer does not restrict himself to boring economics topics, but merely uses economics as the base for his arguments. My favourite swaminomics blog was a piece where he suggested that the govt try to alleviate poverty by throwing 5rs coins from a helicopter. The only people who would scamper and try to collect the money would be the ones who were the most desperate for it – i.e. the poorest. With this the entire chain of bureaucracy through which govt doles reach the so called poor would get eliminated and the aid would directly reach the most needy. This man is truly a genius and I often think of how his genius and creativity is wasted by him not being in the govt as a part of the decision making group. Swaminomics appears in the Sunday TOI.

Two other blogs that I like in Sunday TOI – Gurcharan Das’s Men and Ideas and Indiaspora by Chidanand Rajghatta. Gurcharan Das is like a moral philosopher, he talks about morality of our collective decision, the way forward for India, comments on our value systems and beliefs, personal anecdotes etc. His blog in not issue specific but rather a more general sharing of ideas and views. He writes well, and makes a good point when he chooses to. Indiaspora is a very informative blog about India and the US, and Indians in the US. Rajan is again a good writer, but what I like about his blog is that it is very educating. This week’s blog for instance talks about Indian Taxi drivers in the US. He raises a lot of issues that I’d never thought about, presents startling information, makes insightful analysis, and gives a good idea about the goings on of the globe in general.

Sunday HT also has two other blogs that are also pretty decent. The first is Karan Thapar’s Sunday Sentiments – in which Karan tries to stick to theme of his blog – sentiments. It seems that he’s been given a brief by the paper to not go into Vir Sanghvi territory of current affairs, because otherwise he is a brilliant political commentator and interviews people on all the latest issues in news channels all the time. He is essentially a good writer, but possibly because of the above mentioned constraints his columns are often quite vapid and devoid of any serious content, though he does manage to churn out one or two good pieces nonetheless every month. The second is Kushalrani Gulabo’s Chick Click. This piece, again as the name suggests is about a chick’s online explorations. And Kushalrani plays the role of a chick to perfection. She is invariably obsessing about her excess weight or lamenting her lost youth (even though she’s only 25) or ranting about her boss, the colleagues, Mumbai’s municipal corporation or the world in general. Very funny column – she has a rare ability to not take herself seriously, and is generally quite witty.

Phew! I’m all tired out for today and I’ve only just begin. So I think I’m gonna stagger out this blog into parts. So End of Part 1 folks. Wait for part 2 now.