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

cosplay

from wiki

Cosplay short for "costume play" is a type of performance art whose participants outfit themselves, with often-elaborate costumes and accessories, as a specific character. Characters are usually sourced in various Japanese and East Asian media, including manga, anime, tokusatsu, comic books, graphic novels, video games, and fantasy movies.

Other sources include performers from J-pop, J-rock, Visual Kei, fantasy music stories (such as stories by the band Sound Horizon), novels, and objects from cyberspace or the real world that are unique and dramatic (especially if they have or can be given an anthropomorphic form

Possibly the single largest and most famous event attended by cosplayers is the semiannual doujinshi market, Comiket. This event, held in summer and winter, attracts hundreds of thousands of manga otaku and many thousands of cosplayers who congregate on the roof of the exhibition center, often in unbearably hot or cold conditions.

this last line is the best : "While some japanese do attend cosplay functions that are held in districts such as Akihabara, most Japanese people find cosplay to be rather silly"

i love the japanese.

Unnati's take on Mumbai

Mumbai, the melting pot of cultures, or so say they say. Mumbai is known as the New york of India. It is probably the most developed city in the country. A horde of young men and women come to this city everyday, from all over, in the hope of making their dreams come true.

They say that the city welcomes all with open arms. But there is a marked difference between what they say, and what the stark reality is.

Why do I say this? Well my statements stem from my experience. My friend and I, both single working women, have been residing in this city for the last 3 and 10 years respectively, and we can both vouch for how modernization is just a myth when it comes Mumbai.

We are looking at emerging as the strongest and a highly advanced economy, but how is this possible when the thought process of individuals living in the so called metros is closed to any kind of adaptation or change.

Doesn’t the youth drive the economy of any country? Then why is there so much oppression existent within the Indian society as far as the youth is concerned.

It’s been 30 whole days since my friend and I have been looking at renting an apartment in the suburbs of the city. Innumerable houses, and something that I can only call a wild goose chase later, we are still looking!!

And why has our hunt resulted in such a disappointment?? Simple, housing societies in Mumbai look upon single people as an uncivilized lot, incapable of adhering to the norms set by the society. So something as basic as finding a house, has become a nightmare in this day and age. Things were so much simpler 3 years ago, so is the country progressing or regressing?

Even reference letters from the company we work in & from our ex landlord, which were a proof of our credibility, haven’t managed to help us get a decent house. So where do we go and who will help us? Is the city really this closed minded??

Isn’t it enough that the real estate rates are sky rocketing, and the youth has to worry about how to make ends meet in the city? Do we really need the additional burden of worrying about how we are going to find shelter in this concrete jungle? Can no one come to our rescue, and highlight how ridiculous these rules are?

Just because there have been unfortunate instances in the past, where singles have been involved in some sort of scandal, is it fair to generalize that every unmarried person is going to turn out like that? Mishaps can occur with anyone, irrespective of their marital status. Why is this city so ‘YOUTHIST’?

I am not writing this to create a controversy, nor am I trying to pinpoint fingers at anyone. The only reason I’m writing this is so that the day to day turmoil that the young men and women go through in this city comes out in the open. In the larger scheme of things, this might seem like an irrelevant problem, but it’s these small things that really matter in the end. If the country cares about it’s future, then it becomes essential that it makes things easier for its citizens.

I appeal to all those people who have been through similar problems, and to those who create these problems………it’s time to look at things from a different perspective, its time to live up to the true Mumbai spirit, it’s time to welcome one and all with arms wide open!!

A room of one's own

a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved.
- Virgina Woolf

So the advertising copywriter decided to find herself a room of her own to write, think and work in. but she was surprised to find that years later in the Great City, the true nature of women and fiction remained unsolved.

No one could quite grasp the meaning and connection between room and woman, it was ironically 'fiction' to most people. For a room of one's own was a legitimate need for a couple or a man or a woman with a 'real job'. But a woman writer in the 'media'? Images of late night debauchery of an inebriated femme fatale luring their men with her creative superpowers gave most landladies sleepless nights. The copywriter was flattered first but soon lost her good humour after being turned down for choosing the wrong occupation.

Soon she gave in to the machine. Clothes were changed to portray a 'conservative' image. Smiling came easy especially to brokers who could make or break the deal. regional roots and 'good family background' became the buzzwords. Money was displayed openly in an effort to appeal to greed. At the end of it all, her room was ready. but men were still strictly not allowed.

"Oh well". The advertising copywriter sighed. "At least it came with a TV"

overheard in new york

The Republicans' New Anti-Immigration Video Is a Little Over the Top

Hipster girl: What's that?

Salvadorian guy: My benefits card, like food stamps. You could get one!

Hipster girl: Really?

Salvadorian guy: You should! We could barbecue non-stop! For free!

--Starbucks, Astor Place

born urban, raised by the city

female, born urban, raised by mumbai city.
a love for citylife in general. this is the place
i pay respects, shower abuse, serenade and in general
indulge the city.

will fix blog up properly first.