mumbai in terror - save my city

As I watch flames engulf whole wings of the magnificent old Taj hotel and hear surprisingly level headed media reports talk about more casualties, encounters and in a way the entire city being held hostage by kids with guns & grenades I feel only thing. What the hell am I doing?

As someone who has always proudly claimed Mumbai as the best city in the world ever since I was a kid, as someone who claims to be ‘raised by the city’, what have I ever done for Mumbai? If I claim to be some kind of writer, if I claim that ‘great lines can change the world’ what have I ever written to influence or make people think about mobilizing themselves to push for better security , better governance , and a safer way of life?

It seems like no civilian can really do much right now, but could this in some way have been prevented by civilian and community initiatives? Could this not have been a better, well equipped, secure city if all of us so called Mumbai loving citizens had raised our voices, demanded it and helped our government achieve it? Instead what we do is complain, crib, or serenade the ‘spirit of the city’ as we sip coffee and get our cheap thrills from all the events unfolding on TV.

Yes of course i am outraged, and saddened. But what happens tomorrow when the nightmare is over? Business as usual? Who has the time right? Just living in Mumbai is tough enough right?

I feel shame. And anger at myself. There will always be some kind of terrorists, whether religious or otherwise, but surely I could be more alert, more proactive, more concerned, more sensitive. more involved in my city's progress and less cynical of its problems

It’s time for me to ask myself how I can save my city. I am inspired and captivated once again by Ratan Tata who says every inch of the Taj will be rebuilt. I would like to offer my services free of cost to anyone who has a good plan to rebuild the morale, the spirit and the glory of this city. This is hopefully just the beginning for me

GOGOLA

from the youth curry blog, here are some brilliant examples of great mumbai ingenuity

bangkok, 5 things to love

1. the airport is lovely. ive been to dubai and people will probably say that dubai airport is better/ richer looking but i love bangkok airport. the view is awesome and you instantly get a flavour of the city with the strange food places lining up for you when you're exiting.


2. fried chicken bones. i ate a lot fo weird things there but to make even chicken bones an incredible meal by itself takes imagination and a real love for the bizarre. im a sucker for the bizarre :)


3. everyone's smiling. they have a few rules. like you dont touch a thai person on the back of his head, it pisses them off majorly and anyway why would u do that? but most of the time they're all in a good mood. dosent mean they are always being nice. they could give you the broadest smile and cheat you happily out of everything youve got. hehe but its endearing.


4. theme park malls. this is a universal faviriote. five floors of street fashion shops, no fancy showrooms just hundreds of tiny shops selling the best and cheapest clothes you can find anywhere.
intersperse that with bag shops, cheap dvd fellows, bra sellers who have piled up their tiny wares somehwere in the middle, a t shirt guy with some brilliant manga/ anime prints, a huge food court with the MOST BIZARRE looking food, a giant blue chirstmas tree up front , and you have a theme park to explore instead of a mall.


5. Siam niramit - Bangkok's very own variety entertainment show (not like but as big as the moulin rouge- 150 performers, 500 costumes) takes place every evening in a theatre so stunning that its an experience just being there and seeing the awesomeness of it. And i had the pleasure of doing an event inside it! unfortunatley i never saw the show myself which is an absolute shame but the theatre with the crazy ceiling heigh, the stage thats big enough to accomodate elephants , and the built in water bodies was just magnificent


Next trip: see the siam niramit show, go boating in the floating bazaar, explore chinatown more and take an off bangkok trip to kosamui!! anyone wanna come along?

gurF**kinggaon!

sun sets on the concrete empire.

this is a city that i have come to despise. not just because its completely devoid of any kind of chaos but also because its succeeded in killing the spirit of everyone who came to live here in search of a better life. Oh im sure there are people who 'love' the 'clean streets, the peace and high rise apartments with service quarters'. But really your only form of entertainment or community life is the MALL!!! And the promise of a better life seems to come at a big price.

the women still cant go out after 8 on their own, kids especially teenagers have no places to discover and the men can either play golf or you guessed it - take their family to the mall. there is NOTHIN ELSE TO DO. and if you dont have a car or a bike well you might as well be under house arrest unless you can spend 400 bucks on a cab journey even its only to the chemist and back about 3 kms away.

!!!! is this our 'shining new indian city?' i dont think they built a city, more like a dwelling. very nice looking dwelling but definitely not a city. nothing puslating, heaving or even shifting here. hell even the trees look thoroughly bored.

however, there IS hope. the metro is coming to Gurgaon from Delhi which means migrants, which means new cultures and ideas and HOPEfully someo of that ingenious indian entrepreneurship. Gurgaon needs some hawkers desperately.

and not everyone toes the line.

Calling themselves V for Vandalism, some deliciously evil delinquents have nicely made a dent in the trademark gurgaon indifference with political slogans (noone fucks with my democracy), personal shout outs (love you Mom) and other such insights expressed in public places in blood red. You see their handiwork in secret places, on a pillar holding up the vast jaipur highway, on the basement walls of a commercial car park or on some gola sellers cart.

here is something that i stumbled upon which curiously enough speaks of an advertising guru who's founding agency has a reserved parking space right here in the place of 'vandalism'

{ CITIESCAPE }

bought the first of 10 books i intend to collect. courtesy lonely planet.
small square books with colors 2.0BRIGHT :)

note to tiger cub

walk free, head up high

i used to walk around a lot when i was younger. all around the city.
i remember walking from churchgate station to colaba almost everytime i went
there. friends thought i was insane. but i guess i fell in love with this city like that. Just walking around looking at things and talking to myself about them in my head.

i think if a city permits you to walk freely inside it, its worth living there.
delhi , you cant do that too much. first its the weather and then of course its not terribly safe. but bombay is brilliant. as it usually is:)

try walking through the city during ganapati. its complete utter madness, like a giant circus has spilled out on the roads. this was the first year i did this. walked around in the midst of all the loudspeakers, drunks, gulal streaked kids, aunties dancing on the roads with wild abandon, and other bizarre creatures that seem to only emerge when its a 'mob gone wild' moment.

of course its all nto really about the festival. its just that time of the year when normal people can be outrageous and rebel against the despair, struggle, constant strain that the city puts on everyone of us. that time when you can do all the things you cant right there in front of everyone on the street. but the best part is really being the spectator and watching what i love calling it - "the spectacle of release"

even ordinarily though, walking in bombay is pure fun. honest to god i discover something new about this insane place every single day. and every 2 seconds the scene changes, somehting happens, something shifts. once while walking to work, at 10 am , a twelve year old girl comes up to me in a rickshaw and asks me "shahid kapur ka ghar kidhar hai?" jeez. moments like these make me wanna hug bombay.

how did it get this mad? err.. could it possibly be that people from all over the world come here and bring their own special version of madness thus creating the biggest rave party in the world called mumbai? hmmm.. maybe a certain tiger cub should consider this. but of course, one cant expect reason from a power hungry animal.

but im not too alarmed. if bomb blasts, riots, and worst of all the BMC cant shut us down, one more voice of stupidity is not going to achieve jack.

i think a poster campaign for the city is forming in my mind will post soon