Straying Around

WSD - Best Friends- Calendar 2012

2011-12-28T18:47:00.000+05:30

You will be happy to know that the WSD calendar(Wall and Desk) for 2012 is now available. The theme of this year's calendar is Best Friends. It is a celebration of the bond that street dogs have developed with other living beings … be it other dogs, cats, and of course…people.

The calendar is available at various outlets in Mumbai. (Please see given below). It can also be couriered to various cities outside Mumbai(check with us on the courier costs depending on the no and type). It is priced at Rs 150 (Wall and Desk) as a donation towards WSD's sterilisation, immunization and health care programmes.

The WSD Calendar for 2012 is inspired by Julie from the Oval Maidan. Julie’s life truly epitomized what friendship is all about. Providing a gentle haven where the other can be relaxed and feel safe. Being together without needing to pretend. Loving another person in spite of flaws and imperfections.

Julie got along famously with the pets that came to the Oval and the strays that lived there. She did not distinguish between the pedigreed and the pariah. She embraced them all with the joie de vivre that was so characteristic of her.

As you flip through the pages of this calendar, you will be moved by the uplifting stories that tell of the unconditional love and devotion shared among friends (on twos and fours!)

So come, join the Best Friends as they sing their “Song of Friendship”

The photos have been taken by Rohan Mukerjee. Rohan has been a dedicated volunteer with WSD for several years. His passion for animals is clearly evident in the poignant images that have graced the pages of the current as well as all previous WSD calendars. Rohan holds a Master’s degree in Ecological Economics from the University of Edinburgh and is presently working for Samrakshan, an NGO dedicated to preserving the forests in Meghalaya. Rohan’s commitment to WSD continues with the annual trips that he religiously makes to Mumbai to shoot for the WSD calendar every year

To order a calendar, E-mail: wsdindia@gmail.com or you can buy them from the list of outlets given below.

Mumbai

South Mumbai

Colaba and Kala Ghoda

WSD Office: C/o Mr F. Broacha, 2nd Flr, Yeshwant Chambers, B.Bharucha Marg, Near Fab India, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai – 23 Tel : 64222838
Rhythm House : 40, K. Dubash Marg (Rampart Row), Kala Ghoda, Mumbai 400023. Tel: 4322 2727
Greenfields : Army Navy Building ( back entrance), Behind Westside, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai – 23. Tel : 22853784

Churchgate
Dr Leena Dalal’s Clinic :Green Fields, Opposite Oval Maidan, Churchgate, Mumbai – 21 Tel: 66153497

Kemps Corner
Ibrahim’s Pet Shop : Kemps Corner, Mumbai – Tel: 23806278

Tardeo
Pawfect : Shop no AS 10, Forjett Street, Anand Nagar building , Tardeo, Mumbai. Tel : 64463129

Central Mumbai

Blue Frog : Mathuradas Mills Compound, NM Joshi Marg, Lower Parel, Opposite Kamala Mills Compound, Entrance From Tulsi Pipe Rd Mumbai, Maharashtra 400013 Tel : 40332300
Dr Makrand Chavan’s Clinic : Shop No 1, Matoshree Tower, Kohinoor Mills Lane, Shivaji Park, Dadar – Mumbai- 28 Tel: 24380756

Kings Circle

NADS, Room12,Shanti Niketan, Opp Kapol Nivas, Dr B A Road, Near Kings Circle,Mumbai. Tel : 24171984

Western Suburbs

Bandra
Paws and Furs : Shop No 3, Kailash,156, Waterfield Road, Bandra, Mumbai. Tel: 66990858
Tailwaggers : 16th Road, Behind Hawaian Shack, Bandra, Mumbai. Tel: 9820127572

Khar
Dawgz : B4, Snowhite CHS, Ground Floor, 18th Road, Opposite Fabindia on Khar Danda Road, Khar (W), Mumbai. Tel 26056810

Vile Parle

Pet Range : Shop No 4, Saroj Building, Opposite Grasshopper Restaurant, Near Nanavati Hospital, Vile Parle, Mumbai 400 056.

Happy Diwali 2011

2011-10-27T11:58:00.000+05:30

Cycle for WSD on April 24, 2011

2011-04-21T09:08:00.000+05:30

Cycle for WSD in the BSA Hercules India Cyclothon on April 24, 2011 (Sunday) to be held at the Bandra Kurla Complex. You can fill the form to cycle for charity on April 22 and 23, 2011 ( Fri and Sat) from 10 am to 7 pm at the MMRDA grounds, Bandra Kurla Complex or call the Charity Helpline on 9833601068 for more details and tell them you want to cycle for WSD.

The whole entry fee of Rs 1000 would go as a donation to WSD. Look up the charity registration form at http://www.bsaindiacyclothon.com/documents/Website-Charity-Registration-Form.pdf

There are three categories for individuals

Junior Ride (8 to 13 years) Non - Competitive 06km
Amateur Ride (18 years and above) Non - Competitive 20km
LG Green Ride ( 14 years and above) Non- Competitive 10km

The Mumbai Twestival 2011

2011-03-23T14:59:00.003+05:30

The Welfare of Stray Dogs(WSD) has been chosen as the NGO from Mumbai in the Twestival Local 2011 - an annual event that encourages local groups of Twitter users to raise money and awareness in aid of their favorite charities.

Twestival was born out of the idea that if cities were able to collaborate on an international scale, but work from a local level, it could have a spectacular impact. Since 2009, over 200 cities have participated by hosting offline events raising close to $1.2 million for 137 causes; most notably education and clean water.

Now, we need your help to spread the word and raise funds. GiveIndia, the online fundraising partner, will be offering additional money to the city/NGO that raises the most and has the most donors. So far, over Rs.10,000 has been raised but we can do more.

You can donate as little as Rs.110 or as much as you’d like. Here’s the link: http://www.giveindia.org/give/pledgepage/MumbaiTwestival

What else can you do?

1. Put the link and this message as your Facebook status:

Help the Welfare of Stray Dogs win the Twestival by donating Rs.110 today!

2. Tweet the link to your followers http://www.giveindia.org/give/pledgepage/MumbaiTwestival

3. Write a blog post about the Twestival.
So, donate now and spread the word so that we get the maximum support for the Welfare of Stray Dogs. Let’s reach out and help the stray dogs of Mumbai!

Also do come for the Mumbai Twestival Event

Venue : Wtf, Khar, Mumbai

Date : 24th March,2011. Thursday.

Time: 7pm - 10 pm.

Entry fee is Rs 300 and above. So pay it to http://bit.ly/giveMumbai or you can pay it on the spot. Get a guest or two along.

Here are the links.

On facebook : http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=198610060159079

On twitter : http://twtup.com/MumTwestival11

Show us your support and be there.

If you still want to help us out, send a shout out to @mumtwestival or an email to rashiv@gmail.com

And big Woof here and see you there.

Photo Credit : Rohan Mukerjee for The WSD-Strays of Mumbai Calendar 2010

First Aid Sundays with street dogs and humans

2011-01-02T23:57:00.004+05:30

For almost close to the past 15 years, The Welfare of Stray Dogs(WSD) volunteers meet outside Eros theatre to group and split up... to treat various cases of street dogs and cats that require basic first-aid as a part of WSD’s on-site first aid programme. I must have been there on eighty percent of the Sundays in the last fifteen years after having initiated this programme.

Though to the non-animal loving world, this seems to be an activity involving street dogs; it is much more than that. It also becomes a long term association with the people who look after the street dogs. These are all kinds of people; the boot-polishwala, the driver, the street-dweller, the traffic policeman, the housewife who feeds dogs, the hawker, the rag picker and thousands of Mumbaikars who live on the Mumbai streets. Whilst treating dogs, we peep into their worlds and become privy to their sadness and joy.

Today as I was about to start on my first case at the Oval Maidan, I felt sad with the phone call I received. The person on the other side asked me if I knew a driver called Karunakaran Pillai. I thought it was a wrong number and as I was going to tell him so when another person came on the line and identified himself as a Police Inspector. A man named Pillai had just died and my number was found in his telephone book. They were calling up people listed on his telephone book to search for his relatives. I then realised that it was the Pillai I knew and I was confused because of the name Karunakaran. He used to be a driver and used to call us for help for strays that he used to look after. Abodh Saar is how he addressed me. He used to liberally hand out our number to others like him who needed help for street dogs in distress or himself report them to us. He used to live near the Old Customs House and must have called us scores of times. In fact, I had run into him about a month ago in the by-lanes of P M Road. He had a favourite dog called Soorya who passed away some years ago.

There are so many like Pillai who we have been fortunate to know because of the street dogs, many of them who live alone and then the street dog becomes their only faithful companion and someone they can interact with in this busy city. Many like Pillai pass away unknown and unsung, to be recorded as just another death amongst the lakhs in this city.

Coming back to Eros theatre, we started meeting here because of Arvind, a shoe shine man(boot-polishwala) who used to live and work outside on the footpath of the theatre. He loved street dogs and used to name them after the movies that were playing at that moment at Eros. He had a James (James Bond), a Pretty (Pretty Woman), a Hritik and an Amisha (Kaho Na Pyar Hai). Everyone around Eros knew him well and used to call him Bangali. He too died some years ago, again with no relatives and after many trips to the J J Hospital. All his dogs had died before him, other than the Pomeranians left in his care by a lady who took them back after he died.

So we continue to meet at Eros theatre every Sunday morning and are greeted by Mini aka Julie, a white and brown dog that needs to go on a diet. She is the friendliest dog I have seen and has a severe attention seeking disorder. She loves being patted all the time and if you stop she will nudge you to carry on. She hangs around the area, is looked after by another shoe shine man and on week days I spot her sitting outside the new French restaurant opened in place of Sundance.

Sallu from Oval Maidan

We split up after areas have been allotted to the various volunteers and I along with other volunteers generally do the V.T.-Fort- Colaba circuit. The cases attended are follow-ups of cases that we have attended on week days after receiving a call for them on our helpline. My first case Sallu, a brown dog from Oval Maidan who has a gash on the side which was healing. He and five others are looked after by the Oval grounds man Rohidas. Rohidas too loves the dogs and they follow him around the Maidan as he is rolling a roller or water the pitch. We had to duck a few cricket ball strokes as we reached the middle of the maidan to treat him.

Next case was Orange, looked after by the watchmen of the now closed Shellys Hotel diagonally opposite the Radio Club, close to The Gateway Of India and Taj Mahal Hotel. She has a skin problem and when we call out Orange, she will come and stand before us so as to say, “get on with it” and will hang around even after we have finished applying the skin ointment.

And then we came to Kalu, a fat obviously black cat which we never find on Sundays as he would be in hiding. He is looked after by the Kapoor Lamps people at Kala Ghoda and you will find him on week days sprawled across its entrance. He wanders around the lanes between Fab India and Rhythm House and ask the newspaper vendors, food and other hawkers, they would all know about Kalu and tell you that his majesty just passed by.

And then was Rambo who lives in the open compound in the Great Western building. near the Apollo Gate. A toughie in his younger days, he used to give me a tough time treating him. He used to run into the pump room when he had a bad maggot wound and growl away. Today, age has caught up with him and it was easier as I could just catch him and treat his ear and leg which was maggoted but now is a wound that is healing. An old Gujarati lady, who is very fond of him, directs us to where he would be. She is generally always sitting on a charpai in the compound and will talk in Hindi with a predominantly Gujarati accent assuring us that Rambo will not bite, which of course he doesn’t.

Next, were four dogs in the vicinity of the Sterling theatre. The first Rinku looked after by Tulsi Akka who lives on the footpath opposite New Excelsior theatre. She calls me Abodh baba and I know her for the past 15 years having looked after all her dogs (past and present). See Ramesh in this link. Rinku too had maggots in the ear and she starts running at my sight and smell. The others cases in the vicinity are Chowpatty and Byculla named such as they were brought by the kids from Chowpatty and Byculla.

We then come to treat Rajan’s dog Tiger who we had found after a girl reported finding a pup in a local that had just pulled into CST station. We knew Rajan was looking for a dog as his earlier dog Ronnie who was a Pomeranian had just passed away. Rajan and his wife live in a little hut surrounded by recyclable material. Rajan is a rag-picker. When we have to treat his dogs, we would be sitting amongst sacks of segregated paper cups, glasses, plastic, newspapers, bottles and what not. Rajan too has a sad story; he named his dog Ronnie after his son who died in tragic circumstances when he was just two. He used to always tell us that the Pomeranian Ronnie is now his son. He was very upset when the Pomeranian Ronnie who was around ten years old died after getting Ascitis. His wife too passed away last year (2010) and that really changed him. I seldom see him smile now and you can see it in his eyes that he misses her and thinks about her all the time. He now lives alone with two dogs, another Ronnie and my good 'friend', the barking Tiger.

Then was good old’ Brownie who lives outside Lakshmi building on P M Road. He has a maggot wound near the anus and today, I could treat him without having to chase him as he was fast asleep when we approached him. Once, many Sundays ago, to the delight of other WSD volunteers, he had made me chase him all around P M Road right past Bombay Store upto the French Bank building and back. And remember he is fifteen years old.

As we were treating him, a crowd collected and one of the street dwellers who were busy playing a Sunday card game on the Lakshmi building steps screamed out to the crowd “Yaha pe shooting nahi chal raha hai, Shooting dekhana hai to Horniman Circle garden jao, waha chalu hai” (There is no show on here, if you want to see a show, go to Horiman Circle garden where there is a film shooting going on). The poor old fella patiently allowed us to treat and deworm him.

The last case was a severe skin problem on Gunbow Street. The person who had called was a gentle Gujarati housewife who held the dog while I treated it. She said that her daughter has named the dog, Yellow and I remarked how we had treated an Orange earlier.

I am sure that I will continue meeting and building relationships with many such Arvinds, Pillais, Rohidas and Rajans who never in my past fifteen years of treating street dogs have asked me “ Why are you doing it for the dogs”, Why not us ! They understand why, some others don’t. And those who don’t are never the underprivileged!

Towards Hope and Change

2010-12-12T20:33:00.004+05:30

Hindustan Times asked me to write for a column on the second anniversary of the 26/11 attacks. This appeared in the HT edition of 28 November, 2010.

Little did I know as I was vaccinating stray dogs around Nariman House on November 22, 2008, that it would go through such mayhem four days later. In fact, little did I know of Nariman House at all.

A year later, I went in when it was opened to the public, to pay my respects. I was pained to see the walls riddled with hundreds of bullet holes; ‘live’ television images of a petrified nanny bravely clutching baby Moshe flashed in my mind. How could she have had the courage to do what she did? But there were stories of such bravery across Mumbai during the attacks.

Some of these heroes lived to tell their tales; sadly, many did not. They left behind families and friends whose pain could be sensed by others, but not entirely. The survivors, too I’m sure, were forever changed by the trauma of those horrifying nights.

What could the common man do to show that he cared? We turned out in large numbers at Gateway of India on December 3, 2008, a week after the attacks began.I was one of nearly a lakh people who congregated there to express their rage and demand changes.

In the crowd were youngsters and senior citizens, college students and office-goers, homemakers, celebrities and everyday Mumbaiites, people from far and near, children, even some toddlers… it was democracy at its most vibrant.

The protest was vocal and yet peaceful, with candlelight vigils and placards huge and small honouring the memory of those lost. Signature campaigns and T-shirts made their declarations; there were spontaneous renditions of the national anthem.

Two years on, sceptics might ask if it was enough — all the meetings, functions and prayers. I think it was a good start. Every meeting and memorial is not just a tribute to those we lost but also a push for political change, maintaining pressure on the powers that be. Just like the RTI, a single Act, changed how the average citizen interacted with the government.

I think it was due to all the citizen-led movements that there have been at least some improvements — like us getting a more proactive home minister at the Centre, new bulletproof vests for our policemen, modern weaponry and security equipment, a more mobile NSG, better disaster management cells, a more secure coastline, Force One commandos, armoured vehicles and so many more metal detectors.

Of course, the ultimate vindication will probably come only when we see a fast-tracked judgment against the perpetrator(s) as per India’s legal and constitutional framework.

WSD - Lucky Dogs Of Mumbai - Calendar 2011

2010-12-02T23:32:00.005+05:30

The Welfare of Stray Dogs calendar 2011 celebrates the many individuals and families who have opened their homes and their hearts to street dogs.

These wonderful people have understood the significance of adopting a loving animal from WSD rather than buying one from dubious breeders. In some cases, the families wanted to buy a ‘pedigree dog’ but found true love when they met one of our kennel dogs. These dogs of the Indian Pariah breed are hardy, intelligent, good-looking, affectionate, and make instinctive watchdogs.

The WSD Adoption programme was started in 1994 to promote the adoption of street dogs and abandoned pets. WSD behaviorally assesses each dog and matches his/her temperament with that of the prospective owner. We also screen the owner to ensure that the dog goes into a responsible and committed home.

All the dogs featured in the calendar - although once living the hard life – are now the embodiment of ‘happily ever after’ stories in their new homes. In spite of being adopted as adults, they have adjusted beautifully to their new surroundings, shattering the myth that only pups make great pets.

We hope that these success stories will result in many more such beautiful bonds.

The calendars are available at the following places for Rs 150. All photos taken by Rohan Mukerjee.

Mumbai

South Mumbai

Colaba and Kala Ghoda

Rhythm House : 40, K. Dubash Marg (Rampart Row), Kala Ghoda, Mumbai 400023. Tel: 4322 2727

Dr Padam’s Clinic: Ground Floor, Mohini Mansion, Opposite Strand Cinema, Colaba, Mumbai – 400 005 Tel : 22834842

Greenfields : Army Navy Building ( back entrance), Behind Westside, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai – 23. Tel : 65157507

WSD Office: C/o Mr F. Broacha, 2nd Flr, Yeshwant Chambers, B.Bharucha Marg, Near Fab India, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai – 23 Tel : 64222838

Churchgate

Valhalla : Eros Theatre Building, 42 Maharshi Karve Road,, Churchgate, Mumbai 400020 Tel : 67353535

Dr Leena Dalal’s Clinic :Green Fields, Opposite Oval Maidan, Churchgate, Mumbai – 21 Tel: 66153497

Kemps Corner and Warden Road

Celebrations : Cymroza Art Gallery, Warden Road, Mumbai Tel :32953043

Ibrahim’s Pet Shop : Kemps Corner, Mumbai – Tel: 23806278

Tardeo

Pawfect : Shop no AS 10, Forjett Street, Anand Nagar building , Tardeo, Mumbai. Tel : 64463129

Dr Tina Rustomji’s Clinic :Gamadia Polyclinic, Gamadia Colony, Tardeo – Mumbai - 34 Tel: 23519105

Central Mumbai

Blue Frog : Mathuradas Mills Compound, NM Joshi Marg, Lower Parel, Opposite Kamala Mills Compound, Entrance From Tulsi Pipe Rd Mumbai, Maharashtra 400013 Tel : 40332300

Dr Makrand Chavan’s Clinic : Shop No 1, Matoshree Tower, Kohinoor Mills Lane, Shivaji Park, Dadar – Mumbai- 28 Tel: 24380756

Western Suburbs

Bandra

Paws and Furs : Shop No 3, Kailash,156, Waterfield Road, Bandra, Mumbai. Tel: 66990858

Tailwaggers : 16th Road, Behind Hawaian Shack, Bandra, Mumbai. Tel: 9820127572

Khar

Dawgz : B4, Snowhite CHS, Ground Floor, 18th Road, Opposite Fabindia on Khar Danda Road, Khar (W), Mumbai. Tel 26056810

Vile Parle

Pet Range : Shop No 4, Saroj Building, Opposite Grasshopper Restaurant, Near Nanavati Hospital, Vile Parle, Mumbai 400 056.

Andheri

Dogaholics : Shop No 6, Garden View, Shastri Nagar, Lokhandwala , Andheri(W) – Mumbai. Tel : 9819004010

Eastern Suburbs

Chembur

Dr Deepa Katiyal’s clinic : Ghatla Village Rd, Opp.Ratna Supermarket, Chembur 8, Pushpanjali Co-op Housing Soc.Ltd, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400071. Tel : 25503887

Kolkata

Anokhi, 6, Russel Street, Kolkata - 700 071

Earthcare Books, 10, Middleton Street , Kolkata - 700 071

(Please telephone the respective outlet for their timings and availability)

Mumbai's Bird Man

2010-08-18T16:26:00.008+05:30

The first time I met Pradeep was some fifteen years ago when we were vaccinating street dogs against rabies in the Fort area. He was playing cricket on an empty Sunday street, on the otherwise busy P.M. Road and he suddenly came up to me and muttered in Hindi. “I will help you in the vaccination”. That was to be a very long association and he still helps us not only with his passion- the birds but also with other animals .

Had written this for the Outlook magazine some years ago…..this is the unedited version….

Pradeep D'Souza - ducking the camera

You will have to go round and round a spiral wooden staircase that winds up four floors, come to a open to the sky terrace, enter a little room, climb onto a steep ladder, go through a little window and finally you would have entered into Mumbai’s birdman, Pradeep D’Souza’s little bird haven, a shelter cum hospital ‘nestled’ on top of a small terrace in the heritage Queen’s Mansion in the Fort area of South Mumbai.

Pradeep had a passion for birds since his childhood days as his older brother used to keep pigeons as pets. When they fell sick and as there was no vet who was specialized in the treatment of birds, all he could do was see them die. Determined to save his birds, Pradeep started reading books on bird care and medication. He learnt about preventive vaccinations for Ranikhet or Newcastle disease and treatment of various bird ailments.

A rescued masked booby

Thus in 1997, he started treating injured and sick birds brought by other people and till date must have treated over 3000 feathered flock of different species. From the common ones like parrots, pigeons, crows and kites to the rarer ones like eagles, falcons, mask boobys and night herons; they have all passed through his healing hands.

Pradeep treats more than hundred birds a month. His name as a bird savior has spread far and wide and people bring injured birds to him from all over Mumbai, even from far flung places like Virar and Nala Sopara. There is a cage kept in the compound of the building where people can deposit the birds. He is currently housing more than 250 birds that include thirty parrots, eight owls, thirty kites, hundreds of pigeons, a duck, a mask booby, a night heron and crows. All these are housed in cages weaved and built by Pradeep himself. As soon as a bird heals up he lets them free depending on their original habitat.

He says that his birds always remember him. A kite that he housed for two months due to injury and was set free after it healed, refused to go away and kept coming back. His family has played a big role in supporting his passion. His mother helps out in the feeding and his brothers have always helped out financially. One of his brothers, Donald who runs a cable TV business and is a partner in a fast food joint called Fido’s near Sterling theatre has helped him with the costs he incurs on building bird cages and buying medicines. There are also some individuals who fund the feed expenses.

But the soft spoken, shy and humble Pradeep says that it does not cost too much to maintain birds as medicines are not very expensive. He never charges anyone his services and in fact is shy when it comes to accepting any money. He adds that his neighbors have been very supportive and never complain as his birds have never been a disturbance to the people around.

Pradeep's little bird haven

His dream is to have a large terrace which has plenty of sunlight; some where in South Mumbai so that he can treat thousands of birds and release them more easily. Terraces anyone …. For the bird cause!

And Mumbai's lifeline is being pulled by an engine !

2010-05-04T10:18:00.001+05:30

These photos taken by me at 8:30 am today of a local train running slowly and is being pulled by an engine. This is between the Grant Road and Bombay Central stations on the Western Railway during peak commuter hours and it sums up "The Motormen's Strike' which paralysed Mumbai yesterday and would continue to do so today unless it is called off.

Read reports about the strike which is the biggest since 1974 , here here and here.

Kipling at the J J School of Art.

2010-03-05T21:40:00.012+05:30

When I was in school, I used to go into the dean’s bungalow in the campus of the Sir J J. Institute Of Applied Art and collect ‘gunja’ or the red beads that fell into its compound from the red sandalwood / bead tree also referred to as Ratangunj in Marathi. In olden times, it is said that goldsmiths used to use these red beads as weights.

My visits were because of the fact that I studied at the next-door St Xavier’s High School and used to visit my sister who was a commercial arts student at the J.J School. Many years later as I developed an interest in Mumbai’s history, I came to know that the dean’s bungalow where we collected the red beads was historic as the well known Scottish born author and poet Rudyard Kipling was born here on December 13, 1865. Of course, the bungalow in which he was born was pulled down and another (shown below) was built in its place.

Rudyard’s father, John Lockwood Kipling was the first Principal of the J.J. School of Art. The J.J. School was funded by Sir Jamshedji Jeejeebhoy, designed by George Twigge Molecey and opened in 1857 with additional buildings constructed between 1878 and 1907. Eminent architect, George Wittet who also taught at the Architecture school designed the School Of Architecture building. He has designed other Mumbai buildings like The Gateway of India, Prince Of Wales Museum (now Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya), G.P.O., Institute of Science, The Small Causes Court and Wadia and K.E.M Hospitals.

Here’s what Kipling wrote about Bombay in his ‘To the city of Bombay’

The Cities are full of pride,
Challenging each to each --
This from her mountain-side,
That from her burthened beach.

They count their ships full tale --
Their corn and oil and wine,
Derrick and loom and bale,
And rampart's gun-flecked line;
City by City they hail:
"Hast aught to match with mine?"

And the men that breed from them
They traffic up and down,
But cling to their cities' hem
As a child to their mother's gown.

When they talk with the stranger bands,
Dazed and newly alone;
When they walk in the stranger lands,
By roaring streets unknown;
Blessing her where she stands
For strength above their own.

(On high to hold her fame
That stands all fame beyond,
By oath to back the same,
Most faithful-foolish-fond;
Making her mere-breathed name
Their bond upon their bond.)

So thank I God my birth
Fell not in isles aside --
Waste headlands of the earth,
Or warring tribes untried --
But that she lent me worth
And gave me right to pride.

Surely in toil or fray
Under an alien sky,
Comfort it is to say:
"Of no mean city am I!"

(Neither by service nor fee
Come I to mine estate --
Mother of Cities to me,
For I was born in her gate,
Between the palms and the sea,
Where the world-end steamers wait.)

Now for this debt I owe,
And for her far-borne cheer
Must I make haste and go
With tribute to her pier.

And she shall touch and remit
After the use of kings
(Orderly, ancient, fit)
My deep-sea plunderings,
And purchase in all lands.
And this we do for a sign
Her power is over mine,
And mine I hold at her hands!

Gillian Tindall in her book, 'The City of Gold' clarifies the reason why Kipling used the words “between the palms and the sea”. “When Kipling was born land – reclamation was only just beginning and the bay beyond the railway lines wasn’t yet filled up by the then Alexandra (now Indira) docks. The railway itself was a newcomer. The V.T.Terminus (now C.S.T) was not yet built and instead there was a small station called Bori Bunder named after an old wharf. So the Kiplings’ bungalow, with the trees of the maidan behind it could literally have been described as ‘between the palms and the sea’.

Another Rudyard Kiplings’ Mumbai connection is that of the beautifully sculpted marble panels in bas-relief on the Crawford market and the decorative panel of tutelary animals and the Indian River Goddess on the fountain inside the Crawford Market. They were crafted by Rudyard Kipling’s father, John Lockwood Kipling.

Coming back to the bungalow, currently it is lying vacant and there was some talk about it being converted into a Museum but not naming it after Kipling. Hope they preserve the bungalow and if you have the time take a stroll into the beautiful J.J. School campus and look it up like so many foreign tourists who come clutching a copy of The Lonely Planet asking for directions of the Kipling bungalow.

WSD - Strays Of Mumbai Calendar 2010

2009-11-24T12:59:00.014+05:30

The Welfare of Stray Dogs(WSD) has brought out the “Strays Of Mumbai” WSD Calendar 2010. This year, WSD has come out with 'wall' as well as 'desk' calendars. Both the calendars have a collection of photographs of street dogs that we come across in our daily commute through the city of Mumbai. Each dog has a unique character and some hidden quirks just like the people they live amongst. Both the calendars have distinctly different photographs taken by WSD volunteer, Rohan Mukerjee

Wall Calendar - Cover

Wall Calendar - March page

Desk Calendar - Cover

They are available for Rs 150 at the WSD- Kala Ghoda office and other outlets/vet clinics listed below who have been very kind and generous to stock them.Proceeds from the sale of calendars go towards WSD’s sterilization and other programmes.

South Mumbai
1) Rhythm House : 40, K. Dubash Marg (Rampart Row), Kala Ghoda, Mumbai 400023. Tel: 4322 2727 2) WSD Office: C/o Mr F. Broacha, 2nd Flr, Yeshwant Chambers, B.Bharucha Marg, Near Fab India, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai – 23 Tel : 64222838 3) Dr Leena Dalal’s Clinic :Green Fields, Opposite Oval Maidan, Churchgate, Mumbai – 21 Tel: 66153497 4) Ibrahim’s Pet Shop : Kemps Corner, Mumbai – Tel: 23806278 5) Dr Tina Rustomji’s Clinic :Gamadia Polyclinic, Gamadia Colony, Tardeo – Mumbai - 34 Tel: 23519105 6) Dr Padam’s Clinic: Ground Floor, Mohini Mansion, Opposite Strand Cinema, Colaba, Mumbai – 400 005 7) It’s A Dog’s Life : Shop No 1 and 2, Pushpa Vihar, Opposite Colaba Post Office, Colaba, Mumbai 400 005. Tel : 22834842
Dadar
Dr Makrand Chavan’s Clinic : Shop No 1, Matoshree Tower, Kohinoor Mills Lane, Shivaji Park, Dadar – Mumbai- 28 Tel: 24380756
Bandra
1) Paws and Furs : Shop No 3, Kailash,156, Waterfield Road, Bandra, Mumbai. Tel: 66990858 2) Tailwaggers : 16th Road, Behind Hawaian Shack, Bandra, Mumbai. Tel: 9820127572
Khar
KPS My Pet Shop : Shop No 5, Shivanjali, Dr Ambedkar Road, Khar, Mumbai. Tel : 65913333
Juhu
Dr Sunita Patel’s Clinic : 3, Kartik, 12th Rd. New India Society, j.V.P.D. Scheme, Juhu, Mumbai 400 049 Tel : 26125790/26154082
Andheri
Dogaholics : Shop No 6, Garden View, Shastri Nagar, Lokhandwala , Andheri(W) – Mumbai. Tel : 9819004010
Chembur
KPS My Pet Shop: Shop No 27, Opp Wasan Motors, Sion-Trombay Rd, Chembur- Mumbai 71 Tel: 6591444

(Please telephone the respective outlet for their timings and availability)

Happy Diwali

2009-10-16T20:52:00.003+05:30

Mumbai Birds - The Crow

2009-07-06T13:11:00.011+05:30

The baby crow sat in my hand and clutched onto to me. His disproportionate huge head to his little body did not take away his defense mechanism in opening his big beak wide open, every time I petted him on the head. After a while he got used to me and sat quietly in the taxi-ride from opposite Mani Bhavan at Gamdevi to Fort.

I was attending one of the hundreds of calls in the year that WSD receives to rescue city-birds….mostly crows, pigeons, cuckoos, owls and kites, sometimes parrots, sparrows, egrets and herons. I am not a bird-enthusiast and cannot distinguish a heron from a magpie …but yes I love our everyday city birds.

The Indian House Crows are a subject onto themselves. You will see them all over Mumbai…. cawing away, sitting coolly on top of BEST buses - single and double-deckers, following garbage trucks and riding on top of the fisher folks baskets. Look around, especially before the rains and you will see them toiling away gathering twigs, wires and anything they can get their hands… err … beaks on to build that little nests on top of trees right in the middle of traffic and busy streets. You will also of course see them gnawing at all kinds of stuff including dead rats flattened by cars in the middle of the street and hovering around dust-bins clearing up a huge amount of garbage that we have created. Come evening and you wonder where they all disappear.

It is said that if a crow sits and caws at your door or window then you will be getting a visitor at home. Well, with the boom of crows cawing all over, all of us should be getting a regular flow of visitors. But myths apart, I had encountered a bizarre story many years back revolving around a particular crow which I too had difficulty in believing. This was maybe more than seventeen years ago when my grandmother was alive. One day she told my mom that she has been hearing a crow come everyday, sit on the window and call out ‘Abodh’ Abodh’. My mother pretended to believe this till she heard the crow letting out an ‘Abodh’ Abodh’. She related this to me and I laughed and thought it was a figment of their imagination. Till one day I heard him. It was definitely not a normal caw. It was something that sounded like Abodh and maybe it made us believe that it was Abodh. I made a friend hear it and he too was shocked. Even bizarre was the fact that I would hear him all the way through the Parsi colony short-cut I used to take to the railway station which was five hundred meters from my home. He used to be hopping on various windows on the way making this ‘Abodh’ sound. He used to sit by the window sill and eat out of my hand. I saw and heard him for around five six years till he stopped coming one day. This fellow used to love chakli just like my paternal grandfather who loved me a lot and there were suggestions that it must be his soul come, in the form of the crow! This comes from the Hindu belief that the spirits or one of the spirits of the dead pass into crows.

After that we had a stream of crows coming and sitting by the sill and eating the food. Some scared to eat out our hands and some bold .They still come and sit at my dining table window sill and eat out of my hand. Some have seen have preferences. Some love fruits, some farsan, some dal- rice, some will eat the middle of the bread and leave the sides. After this it is a joy to see them clean their beaks. They would take some time off and just concentrate on rubbing their beaks and cleaning them against any object for minutes together and then fly away.

Crows can also be mean to other creatures including sparrows, kittens, cuckoos and monkeys WSD gets rescue calls about other birds and the person many a times adds, “The crows are trying to attack the owl”. A recent story blamed the crows for the disappearing sparrows. Unfortunately nobody seems to be blaming us, humans and our garbage creation for the increase in the crow population. Only the koels(cuckoos) seem to have outsmarted the crows. They lay their eggs in crow nests , the crow hatches them and feeds them till I guess she realizes that they are not ‘crow’lings.

They say crows don’t forget. I remember a story reported in the newspapers years ago of a lady at Khar who had pulled down a crows nest on the tree near her window. The crows teamed up and did not allow her to leave her building for almost a year! Every time she stepped out she was swooped down upon by the crows and attacked. Another story reported by CNN-IBN was about a gentleman named Treekambji who is known as the Pied Piper of Crows. He lives in Mulund in Mumbai’s eastern suburbs and has been feeding these crows for nearly thirty years. When asked how this all started, he said “I used to whistle out to stray dogs so I could give them food every day. A friend challenged me to try it on crows. When I started, nearly five hundred of them responded to my call."

Many people have found crows a very interesting subject to draw or write about. Mark Twain has written about them when he stayed at Watson’s Hotel at Kala Ghoda in 1896. In his book “Following The Equator”, he calls them Birds of Birds and four pages of this book are dedicated to the Bombay crows. They also find a mention in all Mumbai centric books including in the chapter “ Arriving in Bombay” by Aldous Huxley from the book, Mumbai Meri Jaan edited by Naresh Fernandes and Jerry Pinto and in other books like The Maximum City by Suketu Mehta , Anita Desai’s Baumgartner's Bombay‎ and Thirty Umrigar’s Bombay Time.

R K Laxman’s fascination for crows is also very well known. He told this to Gowri Ramnarayan in the book Past Forward by Oxford University Press, “At age three I began to sketch crows. I tried to draw their antics. My mother saw this and encouraged me. She told me that Lord Shanisvara used the crow for his mount. He was a very powerful God, she added, "If you draw His crow, surely He will send you good luck." I have never grown out of this childhood fascination for the crow. I have painted hundreds of crows, singly and in groups, from near and far, and in many moods. Sometimes I put crows into my cartoons. My crow paintings have gone to many countries -- one of them hangs in faraway Iceland now! He also thinks that crows are “immensely intelligent and are unfairly dismissed by fretting people as a nuisance”.

I am sure all of you have a story to ‘crow’ about. Do share yours.

Will continue this series with posts on other Mumbai birds and her birdman.

Now Open - Finally ! The Bandra-Worli Sea Link

2009-06-30T18:45:00.015+05:30

Update : July 1, 2009 : Happened to go on the Worli Bandra Sea Link in the morning at 9:00 am. Waited for two-three minutes to get onto it from the Worli side. Drove at 50 km/hr and managed to get a glimpse of Worli Fort from close quarters and the Mumbai skyline of Shivaji Park and Mahim. Nice smooth ride.... Reached the Bandra Reclamation side within ten minutes BUT as traffic was crawling and lined up on the other side, I decided against using the Sea Link back to Worli. Thus took the regular Mahim causeway/Dargah/Cadell Road route and it was a breeze. Reached Worli in ten minutes. I am sure all those who were using the Sea Link to go to Worli must have taken 40 minutes. All this without the toll collection. Hope these are teething problems else it world be better to use the normal route in peak hours and Sea Link in non-peak.

Picture courtesy - HCC

Years ago in 2002 when they built the Love Grove flyover which is parallel to the Atria Mall (which did not exist then), I wondered what purpose it was going to serve as it just went up and down towards Worli Naka above a very non-descript T-junction leading to Worli Sea face. After seven years of its construction, the construction of this bridge might seem justified due to the opening of the Worli-Bandra Sea Link today inaugurated at the hands of Sonia Gandhi.

After many years of delay and escalation of costs by hundred crores of rupees, I hope India's first Sea Link will ease Mumbai traffic woes. Touted as the third corridor from Worli to Bandra , an alternative to using Tulsi Pipe Road and Cadell/L.J.Road , it remains to be seen if it will not cause problems at the two ends of Worli and Bandra. See this report. The bridge will also consume 1000 kW of power on a daily basis.

The opening of the bridge will throw up many questions which only time will answer like … Will the regular traffic on Cadell Road and L J Road go down?, Will traffic through Bandra Reclamation and Bandra Junction go up?, Will the traffic on Pochkhanawala Road and the Worli Circle where the South Bound traffic to Worli will have to U-turn go up?, Will Haji Ali be clogged more than it already is?, Will the Sea Link be a blessing in disguise and all of the above won’t happen?

I am not an everyday commuter from South Mumbai to Bandra but at Rs 50 for a single trip and Rs 75 for a round trip , I wonder if car owners who travel to and fro everyday will prefer using this bridge. A monthly pass is available for Rs 2500 and multiple entries on the same day are allowed for Rs 125. A Bus/Truck will be charged Rs 100 and a mini-bus Rs 75. Bus tickets will be price one rupee more than the normal fare.

The distance will reduce from 8 kms to 5.6 kms and they say that instead of forty minutes you can travel the distance in ten minutes. If you calculate @ 50 kms per hour(speed limit), it should take you just 6.72 minutes on the bridge plus the extra time coming onto Worli Sea Face to Love Grove junction.

Last year when I was on Worli Sea Face, HCC had put up these boards marketing various aspects of the bridge including that the height of the cable–stay tower is equal to a forty storied building. You will be able to see the tower from any high rise. In fact I could see it from top of the Elephanta Caves hill. I also had a closer view of the bridge one Saturday this month when we were vaccinating dogs against rabies on a hilly slum between Mount Mary and Bandra Reclamation.

Here is an official blog that takes you through the long journey of the construction of the bridge. An You tube link here takes you through the technicalities of the engineering aspect of the bridge and a virtual tour which is posted much before the completion. Another one from Discovery Channel is here.

The bridge would definitely have everyone including me taking a ride, it being a tourist attraction of sorts. Unconfirmed reports say that it will be free for the first five days.(July 1 to 5) The BEST is also going to have an open-bus joy ride going up and down the bridge starting from Bandra-Kurla and going upto Worli. But after the tourist attraction wears off the 1634 crores had better translate into savings of time and fuel for this city.

Mumbai Names 4

2009-06-30T00:13:00.004+05:30

Another long gap and I am continuing my series on Mumbai names. The history behind the origin of the names of various Mumbai localites. Check out my earlier posts on Mumbai Names 1 , Mumbai Names 2 and Mumbai Names 3.

Antop Hill

In S.T. Sheppard’s book on Bombay place and street names, Rao Bahadur P B Joshi, a city historian says that Antop Hill derived the name from the name of the Hindu or Portuguese owner or proprietor of this hill. It may have been Antoine or Antoba. Thus the hill was Antob’s hill and must have been corrupted to Antop Hill. The Hill was surrounded by salt pans and currently a locality with a lot of construction of building complexes.

Ambroli

This is a corruption of an old name of this locality in Girgaum. Umbar in Marathi is the name for the fig tree and Ali is a lane, so the original area was called Umbrali/Umbarali. It is said that as Ambra in the Sanskrit word for mango, the natives might have changed it to Ambrali or Ambroli. Today, the only relevance to this name is found in Ambroli Church at the corner of Wilson Street near C.P. Tank.

Bhoiwada

Bhoi’s were one of the recognized castes in Raja Bhimdev’s (A.D. 1300)kingdom. They were palanquin bearers and thus the legacy of their name has been left behind in the locality in which they made their home. Bhoiwada is located in Dadar (East), nearer to Parel.

Chikhalwadi

A lane near my house, knowing what it means in Marathi, I always thought that this lane was named in recent times. But just like today even 100 years ago this lane used to be filled with ‘chikhal’ which is ‘mud’ in Marathi during any heavy rainfall. This was because the storm water drainage here was defective. Chikhalwadi is now called Tukaram Javji Marg and is the lane adjacent to Bhatia hospital and joins Sleater road near Grant Road railway station.

Chira Bazaar

I always wondered why this locality was called Chira Bazaar. S.T. Sheppard enlightened me. Chira in Marathi means flat stones or flagstones (Remember Wada Chirebandi). Thus this area was paved with flat slabs of these stones and was thus called Chira Bazaar. Chira Bazaar is located near Thakurdwar and is populated by jewellery stores.

Dongri

Dongar in Marathi is hill. Unfortunately, the hill did not survive but the name did. Also mentioned as Dungaree or Dungrey in 17th century English writing, Dongri had a fort which was blown up in 1769 to make way for the new Fort St George. The hill too was leveled as it was considered a menace to the Fort of Bombay in the hands of the enemy. Dongri is located near Umarkhadi.

Kala Chowki

The name came about because of the Police Chowki which is situated at the east end of the road. As this Chowki (Police stations) was dammered (black tar put on it) from the outside, it looked black and thus was called Kala Chowki. This police station still stands in the same place. Kala Chowki is very near Cotton Green station on the harbour line.

Madanpura

This area was named after Madan or Madovo, a well known Mohammedan from Allahabad who settled here for two generations and owned land. Madan was of the ‘julhar’ or the weaver caste and was a weaver by profession. Madanpura is located near Agripada.

Thakurdwar

This is a generic name for the door of an idol or here a temple. Thakur – Dwar (door) The Thakurdwar temple here is dedicated to Rama and was built before 1836. Thakurdwar is located near Charni Road station.

Nikadwari Lane

This lane is called Nikadwari lane as in the olden days was lined with plants of Nirgundi or Nikadwari (botanical name: vitex negundo) These plants are used for fumigation. This lane is in Girgaum off Khadilkar Road.

Cheetah Camp

This was told to me by my friend CSM-Fanaa who found it out from James who lives in Cheetah Camp near Trombay. No, there were no cheetahs living here but this area are must have been named due to the many crematoriums that existed and still exist in this area. Chitah means pyre in Marathi. It used to be a marshy land before and the people who occupied Cheetah Camp were oustees from the BARC area which was cleared to accommodate BARC personnel.

Mumbai World Environment Day Celebration

2009-06-02T15:30:00.006+05:30

A mail received from WSD volunteer and friend Swati. Please be there in droves to show your support towards the environment if you don't want photos like this one to remain only on picture post cards.

June 5th is World Environment Day and the Indian Youth Climate Network and Sanctuary Asia are joining hands to organise a demonstration on Marine Drive on Friday, 5th June from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

Our vision is to symbolise the effect climate change will have on various aspects of our life, from our food and water security to our health and our city through the use of art installations made from recycled materials. The purpose of the event is to spread awareness in a fun, lighthearted manner and also to pressurise our government to actively push for effective climate policies at the upcoming COP 15 (Conference of Parties) at Coppenhagen in December this year.
We will be meeting opposite Jazz by the Bay by 5:00 p.m.

Stand up for right to a secure future. Join us on the 5th to make this event a success and show our government that we want a clean, green and vibrant future.

Swati Hingorani

E: swatihingorani@gmail.com, swati.hingorani@iycn.in
M: 9820107204

Vote Mumbai Vote

2009-04-29T22:34:00.010+05:30

The D-Day has arrived and hope that all Mumbaikar's are getting geared up to vote on April 30, 2009. (7 am to 5 pm)

For Mumbaikars , here is a link of a list of candidates standing in the various parliamentary seats.

Mumbai - South
Mumbai - South Central
Mumbai - North East
Mumbai - North West
Mumbai - North Central
Mumbai - North

If you do not know your election roll no and polling booth , go to Election Roll Helpline here

Carry out the following steps

1) Select the district - Mumbai City/Mumbai Suburban/Thane

2) Type your Surname in first textbox, First name in the second textbox. First name may not be complete, you can type partial name also.

3) Type Father/Husband/Mother's name in the third textbox.

4) If you know your Legislative Assembly area , Select the same else let it remain on Entire Mumbai/Suburban

5) Click on the search button. Matching names are displayed in the result window. Click on the Part no. and it will open a PDF file with a list of names in Marathi... go to your Sr No in the PDF file and you will find your name and details about the polling booth. For e.g. Here is a list of the rolls of my constituency.

This search is a little complicated and the site is also very slow but if you remember the name as it was entered into your election card(well, why should it have been entered any different from your actual name) , it should be easy to find...... I found mine.

Else you can dial 1290 and get information about your polling booth. ( I have not tried this)

Happy Voting !

Added P.V. (Post Voting) - Do carry an I-card. They accept PAN Cards,Passport, Voter I.D. They said they have added the ration card too in the list of accepted documents.

Doordarshan, Mumbai and I

2009-04-12T02:03:00.012+05:30

This blog post was prompted by two programmes that I attended in the past fortnight. The first was the preview screening of the film Harishchandranchi Chi Factory which is feature film biography on the life of the pioneer of Indian films, Dadasaheb Phalke. This was being screened at the Yeshwantrao Chavan Auditorium by the Prabhat Chitra Mandali.

The second was the Vinod Doshi Smruti Mohatsav, a festival of plays in Hindi and Marathi, held at the Ravindra Natya Mandir at Prabhadevi in the memory of the late Vinod Doshi, who was an eminent industrialist and Chairman of the Premier Automobiles Ltd., now known as Premier Ltd. Mr. Doshi had a huge passion for theatre.

At both these venues, I ran into people from the theatre world that were big in the T.V. world in the olden days when there used to be only one channel, the government run Doordarshan. This brought back fond memories of the good old Doordarshan days when one used to sit in front of the only channel available and see everything that it used to dish out.

When we were small, owning a television set was a rarity and I don’t remember when but my grandfather ordered my father to go and buy a television in order to avoid my siblings going to our neighbor’s house to watch T.V. So it was Dyanora a black and white T.V. with a sliding door that came into our house. In days of cable TV and DTH , today’s youngsters and kids would laugh at the bullock cart age we were in where an antenna which was on top of the building terrace/roof had to be adjusted all the time during the rainy season or there was a shake even when a crow sat on it!

Coming back to the people who I met/saw that revived my Doordarshan memories were Girish Karnad who I remember for his role in the serial Khandaan. In fact in his speech he remembered Mr. Vinod Doshi as a person who was very humble and never made them feel that he was a big industrialist helping them. Once when he asked them (Girish Karnad and Arvind Deshpande, who used to run a theatre company) how he could help, he immediately satisfied their big need of a rehearsal space. He gave them a whole floor… around 3000-4000 square feet of space in Walchand Terraces on Tardeo Road, opposite the A.C. Market which they used without any interference for many years.

One more person from the serial Khandaan that I met was Sunila Pradhan. Many will remember her as the wife of the industrialist whose character was played by Sreeram Lagoo. I ran into Chitra Palekar of the Marathi movie Mati May fame which starred Nandita Das and remembered that she and Amol Palekar had directed the serial Kachi Dhoop (Amol had acted in it too) which also starred their daughter Shalmalee. Then there was a bearded gentleman that I couldn't place but later realized that he was the guy who was the newsreader for years in the Marathi ‘Batmya’. His name is Anant Bhave. And sitting in the auditorium I chanced upon Meena Naik who used to host a Marathi children’s programme called KilBil and also Sulabha Deshpande who starred in Choti Baadi Baatein and a host of other serials and Marathi and Hindi movies.

A little history about Doordardhan....Doordarshan was established in India in 1959 but was a part of All India Radio till 1976. Mumbai Doordarshan started transmission in 1972. The color T.V. was introduced in 1982 during the Asian Games and that is when we switched from our black and white Dyanora to the GOI Undertaking produced E.C. T.V.

As watching T.V. was a fascinating novelty, we used to watch everything that came our way. Children’s programme like the Marathi ‘Kilbil’, the Gujarati “Santakukdi’ and the English ‘Magic Lamp’ were very popular amongst us. Then programmes like Amchi Mati, Amchi Manse for farmers, Phool Khile Hai Gulshan Gulshan, a talk show in the seventies aka today’s Coffee with Karan hosted by Tabassum, Chhayageet a programme with a medley of Marathi/Hindi film songs that later became Chitrahaar, the famous Chimanrao starring Dilip Prabhavalkar of Munnabhai fame which was a show based on C V Joshi’s short stories, the Baban Prabhu-Yakoob Sayeed comedy show and ‘Gajra’, a Marathi entertainment programme. There would be one Marathi and one Hindi film shown every week in the evening either on Saturdays or Sundays. Then there was Sports Round-Up hosted by Fredun Divitre.

My grandfather used to watch Batmya everyday at 7:30 pm. I remember Bhakti Barve, Pradeep Bhide and Anant Bhave who were regulars at Batmya. It is said that Smita Patil too started her career by giving the Marathi Batmya. It was preceded by Udyache Karyekram, a schedule of the programs that would be held the next day. Saptahiki used to show a schedule of programmes for the next week. I wonder if they still show Aapan Yaana Pahilat Ka, a flash of people who went missing. This must have done a great service to the families of missing people and I wonder if any of the channels today would do this community service. Lots of shows used to be shown featuring classical programmes. There were also some English shows like What’s the Good Word with Sabira Merchant, Fire Ball XL5 and Der Alte – The Old Fox. These were days before the arrival of the T.V. serials or soaps.

The first serial that became a huge hit was Hum Log and later Buniyaad. I remember that when they were airing the last episode of Buniyaad, we had to go for a wedding at the Taj Mahal and hurried back to catch the episode wondering on the way why there were no lights anywhere on the way home. We realized that we had foregone the ice-cream at the Taj for nothing as Bombay had no electricity and was blacked-out due to the tripping of some grid. Then there were hundreds of serials that you would remember as they became very popular. Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi directed by Kundan Shah with Kishore Kumar’s title song and starring Shafi Inamdar,Swaroop Sampat, Rakesh Bedi, Satish Shah and Tiku Talsania and the dialogues “thirty years ka experience’ and “yeh kya ho raha hai’ were on everyone’s lips. Two other serials that I remember very well were Chunauti and Subah which were shot in my college, the Wilson College at Chowpatty. Many of my college mates had acted in them as there were auditions held at the college itself. The serials were on college life.

Ados Pados, a serial directed by Sai Paranjpe of Chasme Baddoor/Katha fame was truly hilarious. It was about life in a housing colony and I remember a family had six kids whose names were A, Ba, Ka, Da, and E like the first five letters of the Marathi Barakhadi. Then the carrot chewing Karamchand, a detective serial with his assistant Kitty starring Pankaj Kapoor and Sushmita Mukerjee. Nukkad, the serial with a medley of characters touched upon issues faced by the common man and Rajani made Priya Tendulkar immortal when she took up various civic and social issues. Kachi Dhoop which featured a young Bhagyashree Patwardhan had Ashutosh Gowarikar as her boyfriend in the role of a tuition teacher! Khandaan was a good drama series on an industrial family and starred Sriram Lagoo, Sunila Pradhan, Mohan Bhandari, Girish Karnad, Neena Gupta, Rohini Hattangadi, Shekhar Kapur and Jayant Kriplani. Quite a full house. Surabhi took you on a travel and cultural. journey with Siddhartha Kak and Renuka Shahane.

I loved a Marathi serial called Shwetambara that ended very abruptly, another one called ‘Gotya’ and Ek Shoonya Shoonya based on crime. Of Course, Ramayan and Mahabharat brought life on the streets to a standstill. The World This Week on Friday nights hosted by Pranoy Roy (NDTV) was very popular as he showed a snippet of news and information from around the world.

Then there were so many others that I will just list like Idhar Udhar, Mr Mrs, Ek Do Teen Char, Wah Janaab with Shekhar Suman and Zarina Wahab, R.K. Narayan’s Malgudi Days which till date is a popular ring tone, Star Trek, Choti Baadi Batein, Udaan which made Laltaji urf Kavita Chowdhary very popular, Gul Gulshan Gulfaam, Wagle Ki Duniya starring Anjan Srivastava and Bharati Achrekar, Bharat ek Khoj based on Nehru’s Discovery of India, Chanakya , Dekh Bhai Dekh, Isi Bahane, Jaspal Bhatti’s flop show, Bikram aur Betal, Paying Guest, Mr. Yogi with Mohan Gokhale, Zabaan Sambhaal Ke,

Lastly there were English Serials mostly British which one can see on BBC Entertainment. I loved serials like Fawlty Towers, Are You Being Served, Some Mother’s Do Have’Em, Different Strokes, Mind Your Language, Remington Steel, Spider-Man, He-Man, Body Line, Sandokan (Kabir Bedi) and all the cartoons and one that I hated was the Didi’s Comedy Show.

Many of the actors in the above mentioned serials have become big stars and well known character actors in Bollywood and some sadly passed away, many prematurely. These include Priya Tendulkar, Mohan Gokhale, Bhakti Barve, Smita Patil, Arvind Deshpande, Dilip Kulkarni, Manorama Wagle, Shafi Inamdar, Chandrakant Gokhale, Shankar Nag, Sudhir Joshi, and Laxmikant Berde. Gone are the Doordarshan days with their passing.

Amaltas

2009-04-07T23:42:00.007+05:30

This was the first Amaltas (Cassia fistula) blooming that have I sighted upon this year. This beautiful tree is located right at the middle of the Mint Road junction not too far from Ballard Estate. Amaltas is one of my favorite trees and I long to see them bloom at this time of the year. It is also called the Indian laburnum, not to be mixed up with the Laburnum trees of the famous Laburnum Road at Gamdevi. It is also called the Golden shower tree and is indigenous to India.

The first time I had seen an Amaltas tree was many years ago in Pune, near Kothrud and it had shed all its leaves and was in full bloom. It was not a very big tree and so looked very delicate with beautiful golden-ish yellow flowers that resemble grapes hanging from the branches. The tree remains leafless for a period between March and May. You may not even notice this tree at other times of the year when it is not blooming.

I guess the Amaltas has a lot of fan following. Here is a detailed post from another Amaltas fan. Like this one, everyone thinks that Gamdevi’s Laburnum road is lined with Amaltas trees but they are not the Amaltas but Laburnums imported from England. The Amaltas tree is said to a cousin of the English Laburnum. It is believed that Gandhiji used to gaze at these Laburnum trees from the Mani Bhavan which is located on Laburnum Road at Gamdevi. If you want to know more about Laburnum Road, read Windy Skies excellent post on the same.

Historian, Sharada Dwivedi too had an excellent tale to tell. She has been quoted in the Indian Express, “A few years ago some of the wiser citizens had decided to rename the famous Laburnum Road near Gamdevi, under the impression that it was named after some Englishman. Only at the eleventh hour the BMC came to know the road was named after the Laburnum tree that used to grow in that area, and a big bloomer was averted.''

I have seen many Amaltas trees all over Mumbai including one near the Eros theatre and at the B P T Park at Colaba. If you spot any others around, do let me know.

Lest I forget

2009-03-10T23:29:00.020+05:30

Last year, many strays that I knew passed away. Most of them were dogs that were old and had lived a good life on the street. They were looked after and cared for by someone. It becomes very tough when you lose a pet and for me it has always been tough to lose so many that I have known over the years. All these were strays that I had interacted very closely with and grown very fond of. This blog is dedicated to all of them.

The Nariman Point Kalu: The Sunday after the 26/11 terror attacks, I was in Nariman Point administering first-aid when a man who recognised me came running shouting "Doctor, Doctor ... Kalu mar gaya”. I asked him what had happened and he said “terrorist’s ne mar diya” and went onto describe how it happened. As I wondered how the terrorists could have been at Nariman Point… I realised later after reading newspaper reports about the terrorist attacks, that the man was telling the truth. I pieced together the man’s inputs with the newspaper reports on what could have happened.

After the terrorists had hijacked the police van from Metro and driven towards Nariman Point with a burst tyre, Kalu started chasing the vehicle as it was making a terrific noise. This happened at the traffic circle near the Mittal Towers. This was when the terrorists gunned him down, proceeded ahead and later took over the Skoda. The man, who met me told me that Kalu died instantaneously, had suffered bullet injuries and that they buried him near the sea.

The WIAA Kalu: I have known him ever since I started doing first aid in 1996. He died on January 23, 2009 at the WSD kennels of old age, when I was in Delhi for our Supreme Court case. Kalu was one of the most happy and resilient dogs I have known. He used to live in the Indian Merchant Chambers building at Churchgate where Irani Café, Stadium Restaurant is located. He was called the WIAA Kalu as one of the WIAA (Western India Automobile Association) drivers had brought him as a puppy sixteen years ago and all the WIAA drivers and staff used to love him and feed him. He was friends with Raju another reddish brown hairy dog who used to live here and died some years ago. Kalu was very affectionate. You would see him lying down near the 123 bus stop or on the footpath outside the IMC building. He used to make these bawling sounds on seeing me and wanted to be petted continuously. In his hey days, he would follow me to a point and then go back. Kalu has been through many maggot wounds, a liver problem, an accident where he was paralyzed but he came out strong. Whoever knew him, loved him including WSD volunteer Urvi Desai who had taken the photo that I have used alongside. Kalu was not very happy when they brought Rani,a bratty puppy to his 'ilaka' and used to act snooty with her at the beginning. He of course accepted her in some time. Rani still lives there but has glaucoma and must be missing Kalu like all of us.

Altamount Road’s Jimmy: I had known Jimmy for atleast twelve long years. Jimmy used to live in some tenements opposite the Washington House on Altamount Road. He was looked after by Rakesh who worked with Smoking Joe’s Pizza. I must confess that Jimmy was one of the few dogs that has bitten me. He used to hate me from the bottom of his heart for all the rabies immunization pokes and the maggot wound and other treatment given to him. It used to be easier to treat him when Rakesh was around , so we used to visit Jimmy during Rajesh's off-duty hours. During one such visit for a rabies vaccination, he must have though that this was his chance to take ‘badla’(revenge) and gave me a small bite on my leg when I turned around to leave.

Little did we know that when WSD volunteer,Rohan Mukerjee photographed him for the WSD 2009 calendar, he would not be around when it came out. Though he was street smart, I was very shocked to know that he was run over. He was one of the oldest dogs on this street and shared the tenement with Junior, a young reddish hairy dog.

The Rhythm House Kali: Kali too was very old, around sixteen. She used to live outside the Rhythm House at Kala Ghoda and used to be looked after the street dwelling family living on that foot-path. Kali used to be loved by all the street kids who also used to lovingly sit on her and she used to never protest. She too used to try and slink away when she saw me or when we had to treated her for any ailment; she used to give us a little chase upto the Kala Ghoda parking lot. She was the last of the many dogs that this street dwelling family has and younger ones had passed away before her. This photo was taken when one of the street kids wanted to put some X'mas decoration over her and she was getting ready to dart off on seeing me. The other one is of her, feeling at 'home', outside Rhythm House.

The ‘D’ Road Moti: Moti was a favorite with all the residents of Vishnu Mahal on D road at Churchgate and he used to take turns of going to different people's houses on various floors of the building for a hearty meal. You, thus would not have been surprised seeing his size. He was really huge. He used to be a good guard dog in the building and always watched me suspiciously when we used to go to give him his annual rabies vaccinations or treatment. Moti was atleast fifteen and died of liver failure and was given a tearful adieu by the Vishnu Mahal residents and me at the animal hospital crematorium.

Fashion Street Rocky: He used to live on Fashion Street not very far from The Bombay Gymkhana. He was brought there thirteen years ago by the street dwelling family whose one son still runs a cutting chai outfit on the foot-path at the entrance to Azad Maidan. Rocky was black with ‘dobe’eyes. He used to go berserk on seeing me and used to jump up and down literally trying to reach upto my chin. A volunteer who was doing a photography project had clicked a photo of him jumping in mid-air at me. Rocky has had his share of maggot wounds and the bald patch on his head was due one such terrible maggot wound which WSD’s volunteer from Germany, David Murphy had cured. Rocky was like a cat with nine lives. Some years ago, one day whilst passing by, I found him in a terrible condition, listless, not able to get up and with a very bad maggot wound. He was taken to the WSD kennels and over time, he healed and was happy to be back. Rocky would generally be lazying around on the edge of the Bombay Gymkhana grounds, on the Azad Maidan or between the parked motorcycles on the Fashion street foot-path. When ever I am passing his hide-outs, I wish that he would mysteriously appear from some where and greet me with his signature jump. Here is a photo of Rocky and his Maidan friends.

The Parsi Kua Rani: She was the gentlest dog that I have ever known. She used to live at the Parsi Kua or the Bhikaji Behram well, near Fountain. She has been living there for the last fifteen years and she was a very gentle dog loved by the Parsi worshippers who visit this holy place and of course the attendants who doted on her. They were always very concerned about her and used to call WSD very promptly if she was suffering from any ailment. She used to either be sitting at the door under the photograph of Zarathustra or on one of the green wooden benches or somewhere near the well. She was a very willing patient, be it for her tick infestation or her rabies immunization. She will be truly missed by all of us.

To be continued.....

Photo Credits :

Jimmy: WSD Volunteer,Rohan Mukerjee...taken for the WSD 2009 Calendar.

WIAA Kalu : WSD volunteer, Urvi Desai

Strand's Shanbhag passes away

2009-02-28T00:41:00.008+05:30

Mumbai sure will be left with a vacuum in the world of book sellers and books with the passing away of Mr. T N Shanbhag, founder and owner of The Strand Book Stall at Fort. Mr. Shanbhag expired yesterday(February 27, 2009) at 1:30 pm and was cremated at the Chandanwadi crematorium at 11:00 pm.

Many know that Mr. Shanbhag started his book stall as a kiosk in the erstwhile Strand Cinema (thus the name) in Colaba on November 20, 1948 and moved it to its present location in 1954. Geeta Chadha who has written a chapter "Mirroring the Precinct", in the book Zero Point Bombay on The Horniman Circle precinct writes: "Having been humiliated in a reputed bookstore of the time for touching a book, the young Shanbhag wanted to start a bookstore where the access to ‘Saraswati' would not be restricted to the elite, but would be open to a wider section of the people. Shanbhag approached Keki Mody, the owner of Strand Cinema with his idea, and that is how the Strand Book Stall came into being on the premises of the cinema hall." Ths idea came to him during the screening of "Cheaper by the Dozen" at Strand Cinema.

Ask any book lover, reader, aficionado,buff,bookworm and he would have many names for the Padmashree Award winner of 2003 … favorite book seller, saint of books, twinkle eyed gentleman, humble book man of Mumbai and so on….

I knew him from all the frequent visits, over the years to the Strand Book Stall and also because his wife’s sister who we lovingly called ‘Mau’ was our next door neighbor. I remember him telling me that he was the first one in the world to sell a book at a discount (that too of 20%).

I have seen him, many a times forego much more than 20% for students and others who did not have enough to cover the bill. The additional book was always thrown in. This would never have happened in any other book store. He always used to say that Saraswati can never be bought or sold. He had in-depth knowledge of any book that you wanted which made you feel that he must have read each and every of the lakhs of titles in his store and I am sure he must have.

People used to throng and look forward to The Strand Book Festival at Sunderbai Hall held in January of every year, where discounts used to be higher and one could get ‘real’ deals on many books(Strand Specials). This was the first year that I did not see him at the Book Festival and his wife mentioned to me that he was at the Cumballa Hill Hospital but was recovering.

Last week, I had attended a lecture by Dr Frank Conlon on the Books Sellers and scholars of Bombay and any such discussion would have been incomplete without the mentioning of Mr. Shanbhag. In fact, the Mumbai book scene is going to be incomplete with the passing of Mr.T. N. Shanbhag. Mumbai has lost a city institution and a precious part of itself. Mr. Shanbhag will truly be missed by the city especially by those like me who have spent hours browsing in the little book store wth a soul.

Read Ranjit Hoskote's article"Honouring the bookman" written for the Hindu in 2003 here

The whole slum knows Gachkya

2009-02-26T10:08:00.005+05:30

I have known Gachkya for the past twelve odd years. The first time we got a call for a dog with a skin problem, the caller said “woh, mutari mein baitha hoga”. (He will be sitting inside the Urinal*), aur uska naam hai Gachkya”. (And his name is Gachkya).

He was called Gachkya because of his skin problem. The first time I remember being overpowered by the ammonia smell, having to carry out Gachkya who was sitting in the corridor of the Urinal and treat him. Promptly after being treated he would run back to occupy his position.

So it became a ritual if Gachkya was on the first aid list to go to Nariman Point, checking first in the toilet where he would be always sitting, being overpowered by the ammonia smell, carrying him outside, treating him and seeing him trot back right into his toilet. This carried on for years and recently he has thankfully moved into the narrow gullies of the slum behind the toilet.

He has always been a very sweet and quiet dog allowing us to carry him around for want of a better position for his treatment. He always does a little run of the criss cross gullies just to tease us, wagging his tail in tow. It is a game that he has mastered over the years. People never ‘shoo’ him away no matter where he is sitting, inside the Urinal or in the slum gully.

Gachkya is a resident of the slum opposite Tulsiani Chambers in Nariman Point and last Sunday when I saw him, he was as patient, as quiet, as friendly and as sweet as ever. Gachkya must be at least fourteen years old.

* Urinal here means a toilet with only urinal facilities.

Also cross posted on Mumbai Street Dog Photos

Shere Khan

2009-02-23T00:16:00.005+05:30

In Marathi, a cat is called ‘Waghachi Mavshi’ or a tiger’s aunt. Well, here is a white cat that is true to his name. Shere Khan hangs around with some hawkers who sell shoes and socks on the P M Road footpath. He loves sitting on the cycle seat and will pose for you when you flash your camera. According to one of the elderly hawkers there, Shere Khan appeared one fine day, five years ago and took to all the hawkers who dote on him and feed him.

So next time if you are on P.M. Road in Fort, look out for this white ‘tiger’ who would be sitting on a bicycle allowing you to pamper and admire him at the same time.

Bombay's Book Stores - Old and New

2009-02-18T00:10:00.008+05:30

Today, when I saw Dr Frank Conlon at the Durbar Hall at the Asiatic Society, I remembered where I had seen him last. It was at the St Xavier’s College in February 2007 where he was giving a lecture on The Tramways of Mumbai. This time, he was talking about “Bombay’s Book Sellers and scholars”, a talk organized by The Asiatic Literary Society.

Dr Frank has written many Bombay centric articles including "Dining Out In Bombay", "Industrialization and the Housing Problem in Bombay, 1850-1940” and the book, "A caste in a changing world : the Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmans, 1700-1935".

He first came to Mumbai in November 1965 and frequented many book stores and libraries. He remembers book stores like Taraporewala and Sons and New Book Company on D.N. Road, Thackers and Chetana on Rampart Row, Alavi Book Depot and Kokil on Mohammed Ali Road, N.M. Tripathi on Princess Street, New and Second Hand book store at Kalbadevi, Popular Book Depot on Lamington Road and Bombay Book Depot at Prarthana Samaj and the Strand Book Stall in Fort.

He says that the above stores were started by people who had genuine appreciation of books. Real books shops are an ‘endangered’ species today and various compulsions have closed down many including Popular, Bombay, Thackers, Alavi and Kokil.

He added that today’s bookstores like Crossword might be fancy, have sofas, carpets, air-conditioners and coffee shops but the people working there have ‘no engagement with the product’ and going to such stores is not the same for those who feel and have a special affection for books.

Strand Book Stall

He spoke about some of the people behind the stores. Everyone knows about Mr. Shanbhag of the Strand Books Store. He didn’t go into the details but here is an extract from my post on the Strand Book Festival. “It all started when Mr. T. N. Shanbhag (recipient of the Padmashri in 2003) put up a little stall which sold books at a discount. It was located near the erstwhile Strand Cinema (thus the name) in Colaba and opened on November 20, 1949 and was moved in 1954 to its present location. Mr. Shanbhag was telling me all this and added that he was the first one in the world to sell a book at a discount (that too of 20%)”

Popular Book Depot

He then spoke about the Popular Book Depot and G.R. Bhatkal and his son Sadanand. The Bhatkals were seen as the pioneers of the book and publishing business.

I have had the good fortune of knowing Sadanand kaka as I call him and remember going to the green painted Popular Book Depot on Lamington Road as a kid. The store had a long counter and perpendicular to it, at the back were rows of shelves full of thousands of books. I remember going past these rows to the back and climbing onto a steep ladder to go to Sadanand kaka’s office.

Popular book depot was started by Sadanand Bhatkal’s father Shri Ganesh Bhatkal in 1924. Eminent jurist , the late Nani Palkhiwala in a speech rendered for a G.R. Bhatkal Memorial lecture in September 1995, says that Shri Ganesh Bhatkal helped him in three inestimable ways. He used to allow Mr. Palkhiwala to treat Popular as a public library. During his career as an arts student(1936-1942), he was allowed to sit and browse through books at the shop for hours together and also take home books ‘on approval basis’. He also remembers that he would at times continue reading even after the front door had been closed and later coming out by the back door.

I was truly saddened when Popular closed down in the eighties and so did Bombay Book depot which was a leading Marathi book shop. In fact, Sadanand kaka’s brother Ramdas kaka that ran Popular Prakashan, a publishing house was present for Dr Conlon's lecture.

Dr Conlon ended his lecture by mentioning scholars and institutions that have made a big difference in researching various subjects on Mumbai and feels that today there is an upsurge on the number of people who want to research on Mumbai.

Stores that are still around

Mumbai has various books stores where you can satiate your literary appetite. The new age book stores like Crossword with their flagship store at Kemps Corner and many branches all over,Granth at Goregaon and Juhu, Oxford at Churchgate and the newly opened Landmark at Andheri. All these and the various neighbourhood book stores

There are niche book stores like Marine Sports Books Store at Dadar for sports books, Computer Book Shop on D.N. Road for computer books, Sterling Book Shop at V.T. for management books,Gandhi Book Centre at Nana Chowk for books on Gandhiji,Hindi Granth Karyalaya at C.P. Tank for Hindi books , Ideal book depot at Dadar and Majestic at Girgaum for Marathi books, Lakhani Book Depot at Girgaum for text books and Bhavan's Book stall at Chowpatty and Andheri for Religion,History and Phlosophy.

Single books stores which have been around for a long time like Danai at Khar(which also has opened a branch at the Taj Land's end), Nalanda in the Taj Mahal Hotel at the Gateway of India, Shankars outside Cafe Mondegar on Colaba Causeway and Causeway Book Store which sell books left behind by foreign tourists at over-rated prices.

And the old age ones like the Strand , off P.M. Road, FBH ( Fort Books Distributors) at V.T. who supply a lot of books to all the Mumbai book stores and regularly hold exhibitions all over the city. You would get new and second hand books at the New and Second hand books shop at Metro, Smokers Corner at the Ballard Estate end of P.M. Road and of course the road side book-sellers around Fountain, Churchgate, King's Circle, Bandra and at 'raddiwalas' all over the city. All these stores would always give you discounts on the books.

But in the sea of the Crosswords, Oxfords, Granths and Landmarks … the Strand remains my favorite.

Janfest 09 and Strand Book Exhibition

2009-01-25T07:01:00.004+05:30

The Janfest 09 conducted by the Indian Music Group (IMG) at the St Xavier’s College is going on from January 24, 2009 to January 26 2009.

The IMG was set up to promote the rich Indian heritage of classical music and to encourage youngsters to carry forward this tradition.

Janfest has seen stalwarts from the classical music field like Pt. Bhimsen Joshi, Zakir Husain, Shubha Mudgal, Parveen Sultana, Kishori Amonkar, Rajan and Sajan Mishra and many many more.

This year performances would seen the following musicians

24th January (Saturday) 7:00 pm

Taal Vaad Kacheri

Shri Vikku Vinayakam(Ghatam)
Shri V. Selvaganesh(Kanjira)
Shri Dilshad Khan(Sarangi)
Shri Fazal Querishi(Tabla)
Shri Sridhar Parthasartyh(Mridangan)
Shri Bhawani Shankar(Pakhawaj)

25th January (Sunday) 5:00 pm

Shri Rupak Kulkarni(Flute)
accompanied by

Shri Aditya Kalyanpur(Tabla)
Shri Kalinath Mishra(Pakhawaj)

Pt Channulal Mishra (Hindustani Vocals)
accompanied by

Shri Guruprasad Hegde(Harmonium)
Shri Lalit Kumar (Tabla)

Pt ShivKumar Sharma (Santoor)

accompanied by
Shri Yogesh Samsi (Tabla)
Shri Bhawani Shankar (Pakhawaj)

26th January (Monday) 6:00 p.m.

Ustad Nishat Khan(Sitar)
accompanied by

Shri Yogesh Samsi (Tabla)

Smt Kishori Amonkar (Hindustani Vocals)
accompanied by

Shri Vishwanath Shrodkar (Harmonium)
Shr Suyog Kundalkar (Harmonium)
Shri Milind Raikar (Violin)

The Tall Vaad Kacheri was a rendition of percussion instruments and was very beautiful with the first half having the Hindustani Music , then the Carnatic and then all of them together n a jugalbandi. The ambience of the St Xavier’s college stone building with a cathedral backdrop makes it more enthralling.

Tickets were still available, so do go if you like Indian Classical Music.

Don't miss the Strand Book Festival

The Strand Book Festival is currently going on and will end on January 28, 2008.(10.00 am to 8:00 p.m.) Like every year, the venue is Sunderbai Hall, near Churchgate Station. Don’t miss it.

And Mumbai ran again

2009-01-18T14:50:00.012+05:30

Every year in January, Mumbai runs in the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon. This year too, WSD volunteers and supporters ran along with hundreds of young and old who were running for various causes and companies.

The Dream run which chugs or walks along the V.T. – Fountain-Marine Drive-Flyover-Metro stretch always attracts the maximum participants. There were people running for various causes for NGO’s like Akanksha, Aseema, Unmeed, Magic Bus, Unmeed, CRY, Friends Of Tribals, Asha, Nanhi Kali and many more.

It was a quiet moment when we passed the Trident and the runners applauded the staff that was standing outside for their courage during the Mumbai Terror Attacks.

Every year, our Regalwala Kalu gives us company. We have spotted him at various places during the Marathon. He really likes people and this year one of our volunteers who was at Chowpatty running the Half Marathon called and told me that Kalu was giving her company.

Luke Kenny, who starred in Rock On lent WSD his support and ran in the Dream Run.

The WSD - "Strays Of Mumbai" Calendar 2009

2009-01-09T21:48:00.009+05:30

The Welfare of Stray Dogs for the first time has brought out the “Strays Of Mumbai” WSD Calendar 2009. The calendar features strays from various parts of Mumbai and catch them in different moods that show what an inseparable part of our lives they are. All the photographs have been taken by WSD volunteer, Rohan Mukerjee.

They are available for Rs 150 at the WSD- Kala Ghoda office and other outlets/vet clinics listed below who have been very kind and generous to stock them.

Proceeds from the sale of calendars go towards WSD’s sterilization and other programmes.

South Mumbai
1) Dogy Articles, Shop No 4, Daulat, Near Colaba Post Office, Colaba, Mumbai Tel: 22162869
2) WSD, C/o Mr F. Broacha, 2nd Flr, Yeshwant Chambers, B.Bharucha Marg, Near Fab India, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai – 23 Tel : 64222838
3) Dr Leena Dalal’s Clinic – Green Fields, Opposite Oval Maidan, Churchgate, Mumbai – 21 Tel: 66153497
4) Ibrahim’s Pet Shop, Kemps Corner, Mumbai – Tel: 23806278
5) Tog Dog, 45, Husain Manor, Petit Road, Breach Candy, Mumbai- 26 Tel: 9820070992
6) Dr Tina Rustomji’s Clinic – Gamadia Polyclinic, Gamadia Colony, Tardeo – Mumbai - 34 Tel: 23519105
Dadar
Dr Makrand Chavan’s Clinic – Shop No 1, Matoshree Tower, Kohinoor Mills Lane, Shivaji Park, Dadar – Mumbai- 28 Tel: 24380756
Bandra
Paws and Furs, Shop No 3, Kailash,156, Waterfield Road, Bandra, Mumbai. Tel: 66990858
Tailwaggers, 16th Road, Behind Hawaian Shack, Bandra, Mumbai. Tel: 9820127572
Khar
KPS My Pet Shop, Shop No 5, Shivanjali, Dr Ambedkar Road, Khar, Mumbai. Tel : 65913333
Chembur
KPS My Pet Shop, Shop No 27, Opp Wasan Motors, Sion-Trombay Rd, Chembur- Mumbai 71 Tel: 6591444
(Please telephone the respective outlet for their timings and availability)

Datta Temple at Chowpatty – A Dabholkar Family Heritage

2008-12-12T11:16:00.019+05:30

For many years whilst passing Gamdevi towards Chowpatty in a double decker bus, I used to see this old heritage house just before the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and wondered who it belonged to. Many years later, I knew that it was not somebody’s home but a Datta(Lord Dattatreya) temple belonging to the Dabholkar family and that it was kept open to the public once a year on Datta Jayanti day.

For years I wanted to visit it and finally, yesterday when I saw the lights and open windows, I asked the watchman standing outside and he said that Datta Jayanti was today and to come early at 7 am to beat the rush.

I am glad that I went there today at 7 am as not only I got to see a 110 year old temple but also had a long chat with Mr. Sachit Dabholkar, the grandson of Shantaram Narayan Dabholkar who built it in 1898 for family use and not for the general public.

The history goes as such… Narayan Dabholkar (the same gentleman after whom a road has been named off Nepean Sea Road where the rich, famous and our ministers live) came to Mumbai from Vengurla with his parents and lived at Sardar Griha, opposite G.T. hospital. (The same place where Lokmanya Tilak used to live). The family was not very well off and after he lost his father to the plague, he had to earn a living. He loved horses and so he started training people on horse riding. He was helped out by a British woman who he was training. Her husband was a Captain in the British army. He got him a job at P & O shipping company where after a lot of hard work and dedication rose up the ranks. Later he started supplying material to the shipping companies and thus became very rich. He used to own a lot of property in Bombay including the place where Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan stands today(their family bunglow was at this very place), bunglows in bhuleshwar and hundreds of square meters of land in Matunga. He also bought a house for 60,000 rupees at Nepean Sea road (on the same road that has been named after him). He had a premonition that he would die at 41 and thus made a will. He died when he was 41 in the same Narayan Dabholkar road house during an inspection of its restoration and repairs when it collapsed on him.
Due to the immense wealth left behind and due to his immense faith, his son Shantaram Dabholkar built the temple in 1898. The exterior of the temple is built with soft Porbunder stone (now covered with white-wash) which was ideal for carving. The interior has Italian marble floor and Burma teak wood doors and windows. The nine feet tall Devhara (main shrine holder) was ordered from Italy and is made of grey Italian marble. This was ordered by Shantaram Dabholkar in 1897 based on the architectural design made by him in Mumbai. It had to be shipped in nine parts and assembled here.

This temple was restored in 1998 in its centenary year and was awarded an urban Heritage award (for religious places).

Mr. Sachit Dabholkar who is seventy six years old has been looking after the maintenance of the temple for many years. He estimates that around 14,000 people come on the Datta Jayanti day and he remembers that one year when there was so much rush, even his wife (who is no more) had to wait in the line to get in. He attributes this to the absence of too many Datta temples in the city and also to the immense ‘shraddha’ that people have for Lord Dattatreya and the temple. He knows that there have been many regulars who have been coming there every year for the past 30-40 years and also from far and wide.

When I was chatting with him, I could sense that people had huge respect for this humble gentleman, who was an advertising professional having worked with JWT. He seemed to know everyone who was lining up. They were bowing down at him and he kept telling them pointing towards the Devhara, “bow at Him and not me”.

And Mumbai Came Onto The Streets

2008-12-06T12:56:00.020+05:30

On Wednesday, December 3 , 2008 at 6pm, lakhs of Mumbaikars congregated at the Gateway of India to protest about the Mumbai Terror Attacks and also to vent their anger against the politicians…. to convey that Enough Is Enough

There were young and old, college students and office goers, homemakers and senior citizens, common Mumbaikars and celebrities, people from far and near, children and toddlers …. All their doing their own thing. It was democracy at its best and may be my father's generation would have been reminded of the freedom struggle when people would congregate to demonstrate against the British. There were vocal protests and candle light vigils, huge placards and small ones, signature campaigns and T-shirt declarations, spontaneous Jana Gana Mana renditions and Vande Mataram chants, politician bashing and Pakistan bashing.

The spontaneous outburst was overwhelming and it was amazing to see everyone come there and show that they cared.

The photos below speak more than what I have written above….

Will Mumbai Be The Same Again?

2008-11-29T09:33:00.020+05:30

As Mumbai woke up today, to a Saturday morning, ‘Operation Black Tornado’ was almost over. The NSG chief had announced that the TAJ was under their control. Three terrorists had been gunned down and all the rooms were being sanitized. At the same time at the Hindu Colony in Dadar and in Bangalore, the funeral processions of Hemant Karkare and the NSG commando, Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan were under way. The ATS Chief Karkare and Major Unnikrishnan fought valiantly and unfortunately succumbed to the terrorists bullets. Top Cop, Julio Ribeiro had written about Hemant Karkare in the TOI on the November 28, 2008. Read it here.

Many others like APC Ashok Kamthe, SI Vijay Salaskar, Inspector Shashank Shinde, PSI Prakash More, PSI B Durgunde, and many other constables died in the operation on November 27, 2008.

As you are aware, all this was a fall out of a very bloody, gory and never seen before aftermath of terrorists carrying out fidayeen style attacks at various places in Mumbai including the heritage 1903 built Taj Mahal Hotel near the Gateway of India , the Trident and Oberoi hotels at Nariman Point, the UNESCO heritage listed CST ( formerly VT) railway station, Leopold Café on Colaba causeway, Nariman House which was a Jewish Centre and the adjacent petrol pump and Cama Hospital near CST/Metro. Two taxis laden with bombs and ammunition also exploded at Vile Parle and Wadi Bunder near Mazagaon.

T.V. Channels have been covering the ‘Mumbai Terror Attacks” live and on Thursday and Friday, Mumbai came to an almost standstill. More than 150 people have been killed and this figure is bound to go up. Mumbaikars felt helpless, numb and dejected whilst sitting at home and watching the gruesome killings. A lady not very far away from Nariman House had to be hospitalized after a heart attack due to the stress she went through hearing the constant gunfire in her neighborhood.

The Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai- in happier times

The channels beamed heartfelt stories of employees of the Taj and the Oberoi, the General Manager of the Taj who lost his wife and children, relatives who lost their loved ones and ordinary Mumbaikars who rose above their line of duty and helped others.

When I went to work on Friday, the 123 bus route which goes all the way to R.C. Church via three of the places that were attacked (Taj, Café Leopold and Nariman House) was curtailed till Hutatma Chowk. There weren’t too many people in the bus. At Churchgate too hardly anyone got in. On a week day there are long lines as this routes takes the morning office goers to Fountain, Kala Ghoda and Colaba.

Some of the shops in out office lane which is at Kala Ghoda were open. We were getting many calls on our helpline for injured animals from around the city.(not connected to the attacks) At around 1 pm, all of the shops in the lane started downing their shutters as news came in that there was fresh firing happening at CST station. Then more SMS’s and calls that firing was happening at CST, HSBC, BSE, Reserve Bank, Nana Chowk, Tardeo and Chira Bazaar. We thought they must have been rumors but stay put in the office. We got confirmed reports that they were rumors and later knew that a cop had accidentally misfired his gun.

We left office early at around 4 pm. The roads behind the University looked deserted as on a Sunday. I walked towards the Regal circle. As I approached it, I could see the new Taj building at a distance. I knew that the operation there was not yet over and wondered what must be going on. Many people were heading towards the road leading to the Gateway. Many people were standing looking towards the TAJ direction. Both the Colaba Causeway and the road leading to the Gateway of India were blocked for traffic. A lone three legged stray was hanging around wondering what was happening.

As I left the Regal Circle behind and walked towards the Marine Drive via Mantralaya, I saw the flag at half mast, the police were at red alert positions at the gate of the Mantralaya. I passed Gandhiji’s statue and a guy dressed in ragged clothes looked at me and remarked. “Dekho, Gandhiji ke desh mein kya ho raha hai”... I nodded in agreement and moved ahead.

As I reached the Air-India building, I heard some commotion. Some body told me that the hostages had been rescued and one of them was being escorted out. The media was in frenzy and was following him with cameras and mikes to get sound bytes. I also heard a relative shielding another who was crying inconsolably and screaming at a reporter to show some sensitivity. The TV reporter too burst into tears and adjusted herself and got ready for her shot. There were many reporters from different channels taking up various positions and reporting about something that had just happened (rescue of hostages). At Marine Drive, just outside Air India building, there were scores of cameras trained towards the direction of the Oberoi. I could see black cat commandos at the distance and other personnel from the fire brigade and the Rapid Action Force. A politician suddenly made his way through the barricade and went towards the Oberoi.

I heard some one call out my name and saw a journalist friend who was covering the attacks. He told me that the operation at the Oberoi was over but as in the case of the TAJ and Nariman House, there could be something more happening inside. He told me how he was there at V.T. on the first day when it had all started...

As I walked towards Chowpatty passing the various O.B. vans, foreign television crews, I wondered weather Mumbai will be the same again. Mumbai spirit et all withstanding!

Also read some other blogs which have been listed on Desipundit about the Mumbai Terror attacks, a list of dead and injured on Mumbai Help, reactions on Blog Bharti, Annie Zaidi and Falstaff.

Happy Diwali

2008-10-28T09:28:00.002+05:30

WSD Photography exhibition

2008-10-17T00:42:00.009+05:30

From The Welfare Of Stray Dogs(WSD)

The Welfare Of Stray Dogs and Cymroza Art Gallery would like to invite you to an exhibition of photographs titled " Stray Snapshots" by Rohan Mukerjee at the Cymroza Art Gallery between October 27, 2008 and November 1, 2008 between 10 am and 8 pm.

Rohan Mukerjee, a WSD volunteer and photographer has beautifully captured these thirty one stray dogs and cats in their natural surroundings in Mumbai, Kolkata , Shanti Niketan and other parts of India.

WSD spends about Rs 3 lakh per month on all its activities for strays which include mass sterilization and immunization, on-site first aid and immunization, adoption, education and awareness. All proceeds from the sale of these photographs will be used for funding these activities.

The WSD 2009 'Strays of Mumbai' calender will also be available at the venue.

Please find above an invite to the exhibition and we look forward to seeing you there.

The Music Room

2008-06-24T09:48:00.014+05:30

The Music Room is written by Namita Devidayal, a Princeton graduate and a journalist with the Times of India. The book takes you through 'her plunging into the world of Indian Classical music at the age of ten' and the stage is set for the story of her teacher, Mumbai based Dhondutai Kulkarni (b. 1927) and Dhondutai's gurus, Alladiya Khan (1855-1946) of the Jaipur Gharana and the great Kesarbai Kerkar (1892-1977).

The book predominantly focuses and takes us through Dhondutai's life from her Congress House residence near Kennedy Bridge to Shivaji Park and finally to Borivali where she currently resides.

The Music Room is an unputdownable book which I really liked and read cover to cover.

A book reading, interspersed with recordings, of THE MUSIC ROOM will be held at the Crossword Book Store at Kemps Corner on Saturday, June 28, 2008 around 6.30 pm. Srila Chatterjee will be "in conversation" with the author Namita Devidayal.

You will also be treated to the enthralling voice of Dhondutai Kulkarni through a recording of her performances. So be there.

Mumbai rains prediction and MRF

2008-06-05T01:43:00.006+05:30

Around 8:30 pm yesterday, it poured in many parts of Mumbai. These were pre-monsoon showers as confirmed by the weather bureau in the DNA and Indian Exp ress.

MRF, the tyres company has been releasing an advt. every year predicting MRF rain day and telling Mumbaikars to switch to MRF tyres. And mostly every year they have been wrong with the prediction. They then follow up with the release of another advt. telling us that the MRF rain day has been extended so that we could switch to MRF tyres. Here are the dates of MRF rain days for the past five years….

June 6 - 2008
June 6 – 2007
June 4 – 2006
June 7 – 2005
June 2 – 2004

Either every year they get their information from the weather bureau else have the same two advertisement inserts. This year they have predicted June 6 as rain day in Mumbai and I am sure they will issue the second advt. on June 7 if the monsoon does not arrive in Mumbai.

And not only MRF but other people are trying to predict rain and even making money on it. Here is a story about people betting on not only when it would rain in Mumbai but also the quantum of rain that Mumbai will receive.

Though the weather bureau has predicted monsoon to hit Mumbai on June 10, it has this forecast for today. So what's your prediction ?

Sol Kadhi review

2008-05-27T10:57:00.005+05:30

Had reviewed Sol Kadhi served in some of Mumbai's restaurants sometime back for a website

Sol Kadhi

THIS kadhi is truly for one’s soul. With the advent of coastal food especially of the Malvani variety, sol kadhi has started getting the recognition it truly deserves. Known earlier only to households that lived along the coastal areas of Maharashtra and Goa, sol kadhi has now become very popular with everyone.
Sol Kadhi is made from kokum which is readily available at any grocery stores. The ideal sol kadhi needs to have a coconut milky consistency, a baby pink colour (neither overtly red nor white) and the correct taste (refreshingly sour)

Goa Portuguesa : This restaurant located at Mahim serves Goan and South Indian (Culture Curry) specialities has the best Sol Kadhi in town coming close to the one prepared in GSB (Gaud Saraswat Brahmin) homes. The kadhi priced at Rs 29 has a good consistency, baby pink color, the right amount of chilly and garlic and does not smell rancid.

Color ****
Consistency *****
Taste ****
Rating: 8/10

Casa Soul Fry : This newly opened restaurant near Fountain serves Goan specialties. The sol kadhi here priced at Rs 40 has a good consistency. The color too is perfect but is too garlicky. The kadhi also smelled rancid as it may have not be fresh and kept in the fridge for a long time, thus imparting an offish taste to the coconut milk.

Color ***
Consistency ****
Taste **
Rating : 5/10

Anant Ashram : This no-frills eating place serving Konkani coastal cuisine is located in the very quiet heritage quartier of Khotachi Wadi in Girgaum. The sol kadhi here is very watery and nothing much to talk about. The color is white with the absence of the astringent kokum taste. The served free with the food or priced at Rs 3 if ordered separately.

Color *
Consistency *
Taste **

Rating : 3/10

TRADITIONAL RECIPE FOR THE PERFECT SOL KADHI

Soak three-four kokum in three tablespoons of warm water. Extract coconut milk (one cup) and grind in two-three flakes of garlic. Once the kokum extract is red, add the coconut milk, chopped green chillies and salt to taste. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves. Be careful not to leave the kokum soaked in, as it will make the kadhi sourer than normal. Ignore all recipes that add ginger, cumin or mustard. A quick fix sol kadhi is also called ‘futi kadhi’ or ‘tival’ (in Konkani) and is made in coastal Maharashtra or Maharashtrian fish-eating households. The recipe of this is similar to the one above, but instead of coconut milk, one uses water.

See my earlier post here for more on the Sol Kadhi

Children Welcome

2008-05-09T01:19:00.005+05:30

A sign in a Mumbai restaurant ...

Children Welcome
Only if they sit at their assigned table.
No compromise
No bothering other guests
No Noise

Guess which one ?

and no it is not Anant Ashram in Khotachi Wadi

Rani aka Julie aka Rowdy Ranga.- R.I.P.

2008-04-05T09:14:00.004+05:30

Rani died yesterday. She had ascites which is an abnormal accumulation of fluid in the abdominal cavity, a condition that I have not seen any dog come out of. She was admitted to the WSD kennels when someone called about a very fat dog with a very fat belly lying motionless near the Gateway of India. We instantly knew that it must be Rani.

We brought her, treated her and kept her for a month. It was amazing that she got better and went back to her home at the Gateway of India where she must have lived for over 13 years. I saw her a week back sitting near the police chowkie on the footpath next to the Taj Mahal Hotel. She recognized me, wagged her tail and made a few noises. I patted her and was happy that she was back to her normal self.

Fifteen days after she went back and a week after I saw her, the same condition recurred and she was again admitted to the WSD kennels two days ago but unfortunately did not make it.

Rani was a favorite with every one at the Gateway of India. All the policemen, the photographers, the Taj Mahal hotel staff, the street dwellers and urchins knew her as Julie.

I used to see her every year when we used to immunize all the dogs in Colaba and around the Gateway against rabies. She was quite boisterous and used to accompany us whilst we were vaccinating all her Gateway friends. It used to be as if she was either poking her nose at every vaccination or checking on what we are doing to her friends. Else I used to see her at the Gateway on my way to Elephanta or Alibag and she would always greet me with a nice wag.

If you had visited any WSD stall, you would have seen her photo on the poster(shown above) which featured Cyrus Broacha. She is sitting on top of his head and looking straight into the camera. She has pushed the stray dog cause by featuring in WSD’s adopt a street dog campaign along with Cyrus. She was called Rowdy Ranga in it.

She was not the same slim dog that you saw in the Cyrus poster and had put on quite a bit of weight. She used to look very roly poly. I had told Cyrus that both the models (him and Rani) had put on tremendous weight over the years.

As I reflected on Rani’s life, I realized that we have never had to treat her in her entire life for any ailment. This meant that she had lived a very healthy life and never had injuries, wounds and basic first aid ailments that most stray dogs suffer sometime in their life on the street.

I will really miss Rani when we go vaccinating dogs at the Gateway or on my next visit to Elephanta and Alibag. She was one of the sweetest and happiest strays I have ever known.

The Modern Hindu Hotel

2008-03-11T22:13:00.004+05:30

Little did the late K.S.N. Hebbar know that more than eighty years after he started the Modern Hindu Hotel, office goers , businessmen, tourists and hundreds of other Mumbaikars would line up at his boarding house in South Mumbai to eat simple South Indian’ meals on the banana leaf .

Hebbar came to Mumbai after leaving the Vishakapatnam hotel he used to work in when the owner refused to give him his monthly four annas salary. Using his brother’s savings, he set up Modern Hindu Hotel in 1926. It used to cater to the lodging and boarding needs of the textile traders who frequented Mumbai from Chennai, Tirupur, Cochin, Erode and towns in Andhra Pradesh during the cotton textile boom.

Modern is nestled on the fourth floor of the 1900’s built Apeejay Chambers on Wallace Street close to the Sterling and New Excelsior theatres in Fort. It would be better to take the high wooden steps than the lift as you can build an appetite and do justice to the meal that you are about to experience. You will pass by their lodging facility on the third floor and see a television belting out a south Indian channel being keenly watched by the lodgers... After you have taken a coupon from the counter you will pass the spotlessly clean kitchen to your left and come to two rooms with old style wooden chairs and tables which can seat twenty two people at a time. Take a seat by the verandah and through the grill you will be able to see the old and heritage building tops of the Fort area.

Modern serves simple South Indian meals on the banana leaf at a very affordable Rs 45. A typical meal consists of unlimited dal, vegetable, sambar, rasam, chapattis, dahi or buttermilk, papad, pickle and a mountain of rice which the regular South Indian clientele lap up with relish. .

Although Hebbar hailed from Kattingeri, a village near Udipi in Karnataka, he incorporated cuisines of the various South Indian states in the food. They vary the vegetable preparation, the rasam and sambar style on a daily basis. The sambar is made in the Tamilian style with shallots or with raw masala or fried masala and sometimes with or without coconut. The rasam could be with any one of these flavorings… horsegram, tomato, pepper, green chilly,ginger or simply the normal rasam. Amongst the vegetables you will be able to eat Avial, Morkootan, Koot and many other varieties or any popular vegetable prepared with coconut in the Manglorean style. Be sure to take an extra rice papad which is crisp and light and sourced specially from Chennai.

Modern feeds more than 225 people daily on week days and don’t be surprised if you have to wait in a line to have your meal during peak lunch hours. Regulars like Sudhakar Shetty; an insurance investigator who resides in Mira Road, a distant Mumbai suburb has been coming here for the past twenty five years. He likes the food as it is simple, light, tasty, hygienic and very homely. Prashant Chopra, a corporate executive who has come here once before liked the food so much that he brought his colleagues along this time. “Awesome” he says and adds “ This place is clean and has simple food seeped in old tradition, something that we are losing in today’s modern and fast world”.

Though there is no sign that says “The owner eats here”, A. K. Hebbar has been having his afternoon lunch at Modern ever since he took over the running of the place in 1966 from his father.” You will see me eating my meals here at 2:30 pm every day”. This is because he wants to know what his last customer has eaten to ensure that the same quality is being maintained. He says that Modern will be around maybe for maximum of five or ten years more. The business is loss making due to the high taxes and rising prices of ingredients and as his father had started the place with the objective of ‘community service’ , he does not want to drastically increase the price of the meal. Secondly his well settled sons are not interested in carrying the business forward.

So hurry and go to Modern Hindu Hotel for a simple South Indian Meal seeped in tradition before it is too late.

Modern Hindu Hotel
12,Wallace Street, 4th Floor, Apeejay Chambers,
Wallace Street, Fort, Mumbai 400 001
Tel: 22072992/22072778

Timings: Lunch: 12:00 – 2:30 p.m.
Dinner : 7:15 to 9:00 pm
(Had written this for Touchdown Mumbai)

Happy New Year - 2008

2008-01-01T22:12:00.000+05:30

Bhaji Galli

2007-12-17T09:28:00.000+05:30

Bhaji Galli takes its name from ‘Nana’ Jagannath Shankersheth’ who owned large areas of land in this neighbourhood of Grant Road (W). It is named Shanker Sheth Lane and Jagannath Lane but, of course, nobody would remember these. They would simply know it as Bhaji Galli. You would be able to buy all types of fruits and vegetables here. Bhaji Galli has three hundred plus licensed vegetable and fruit vendors. Some of them will keep only specific kinds of vegetables. Ten vendors sell only tomatoes, four vendors sell tuberous roots and tubers , more than twenty vendors sell fruits , three vendors sell sprouted pulses , around ten vendors sell ‘kanda batata’ and the rest sell a mélange of vegetables.

So how did this little lane become a vegetable market, popularly known as Bhaji Galli? Well, the genesis lies within the confines of a very big chawl towards the Grant Road station end called Bhalchandra building. In the 1930s, the white Gandhi topi wearing vegetable vendors from Vasai, popularly called ‘Vasaiwale’ used to sell vegetables in the chawl’s courtyard. They used to procure home grown vegetables from the weekly markets of Virar, Vasai, Nala Sopara, Bolinj, Holi and Nirmal, arrive here in the afternoon and go back after selling off their wares. This would ensure that the vegetables sold by them were fresh. Slowly over time more and more people started setting up their shops till they were spread across the whole lane.

Though the “Vasaiwale” coming here have dwindled drastically, one such Vasaiwala, Babu Jeevan Naik has been coming here for the past fifty years. The vegetables he sells are always very fresh and lush green. He says that twenty five percent of the people now telephone him and opt for home delivery. He has customers who come from Colaba , Haji Ali, Walkeshwar and Malabar Hill, apart from the office goers who pick up vegetables on their way back home.

Jerestin Sidhwa , a Colaba resident has been visiting Bhaji Galli for the past 15 years. She says that she prefers this place as many of the seasonal vegetables are available here but not at the Colaba market. “The vegetables here might be slightly more expensive but are better and fresher and I just love the shopping experience here”, she adds.

In one of the arms of the lane, you can identify the East Indian women from Vasai in their traditional maroon sarees who sell specific home grown produce. Jacinta Augustin Burbos is one of the few East Indians left and she sells fresh but small quantities of pumpkins, village grown aubergines, flowers, lemons, snake gourd, lemongrass, ‘alu’or colacasia leaves, bitter gourd, kelful or banana flower and even the wild ‘gavthi’ mushrooms in season.

One more interesting vendor is Kamlakar Karande popularly known as KK. He introduced what he calls ‘Continental’ vegetables to Bhaji Galli in 1982. This was when these exotic vegetables were not as commonly available as they are today. He was the only vendor who stocked basil, thyme, celery, parsley, broccoli, Chinese cabbage, bell peppers, pak choy, avocados (from Ooty),cherry tomatoes,babycorn,leek and mushrooms and sell them at reasonable rates. He was one of the few vendors who called out to you in English “ Want to take some celery or parsley sir” he used to shout out at every passerby. His grandmother Kandabai Khade was one of the four original vendors who set up shop or benches as they were known then in Bhaji Galli in the 1930s.

Octogenarian , Shashikala Dalvi will never forget Bhaji Galli. She resided in this area before she got married and moved to Dadar. “For many years after my marriage, I used to take back ‘fresh vegetables’ from my ‘regular’ vendors whenever I used visit my parents’ home", she reminisces.

If you visit Bhaji galli in the evening, you will find it crowded with hundreds of people buying their vegetables with shouts of ‘Tomato daha rupaye kilo, Batata aathra rupaya kilo’ in different nasal twangs, renting the air. It truly is a one-of-a-kind shopping experience.

Mumbai's Irani cafes and a blog

2007-12-03T20:17:00.000+05:30

My first tryst with Irani Cafes was with the one opposite my house. It used to be called Sassani and I can still place the Irani gentlemen who used to run it. He was tall and lanky, bespectacled and always used to nice to us, ‘kids’ when we used to regularly go there to have ice cream or cold drinks priced at Rs 2 then... We used to keep buying lots of Kwality ice-cream (it used to be only Kwality and not Kwality Wall’s) from Sassani as they were running a contest of completing a collection of little pictures of aircrafts (given with each ice-cream bought). I used to also like the big Jujups and the jelly biscuits. All this stuff was more special to us kids than the bun- maska and chai that one reveres now.I also used to be awed by the big ‘barnis’(bottles) filled with biscuits, cookies and other items which used to be lined up at most of the Irani cafes.

As time went by I encountered other Irani cafes... Persian at Grant Road where my grandfather used to take me to buy bread (bun, ladi paav, brun and sliced) on a daily basis. Kyani, Sassanian and Bastani as they were very near my school. And then as years went by I visited many of them because of the stray dogs or cats that they used to look after and call WSD for the treatment or just to have a chai and bun-maska. Over the years I went to B Merwan at Grant Road, Koolars at Matunga, Kyani and Bastani at Metro, Yazdani at Fort, Café de la Paix at Girgaum, Byculla Restaurant and Bakery at Byculla, Stadium at Churchgate,Military at Kala Ghoda and many others. Will write a blog on Irani cafes and their strays later.

All Irani cafes were the traditional chai bun maska places but better business sense prevailing converted into eating joints (Britannia, Ideal) or beer bars. (Brabourne)

Many articles have been written on the Irani Cafes which you can read here , here and here. Busybee wrote some here and here in his Round and About. I always wished that some one would document the Irani cafes before it is too late. It is already quite late as many of the Irani cafes have closed down. I wished I had the time to do it.

And then I happened to meet Bruce Carter, a local historian from Australia who started collecting information on the Irani Cafes. In a Bombay street directory of 1947, he found more than 300 Irani cafés listed. Today, there are only around 20 left. When I asked him why he chose to document Irani Cafes, he had this to say....

“I use a lot of oral history in my work. Oral history has the ability to bring the past alive in a way that documents cannot. There is also great power in the spoken word. Two stories that particularly struck a chord with me were the story of an Irani arriving in Mumbai in the 1940s, during the monsoon. He had traveled for days, overland, and arrived to this strange city, with pouring rain, spicy food and a language he did not speak. Yet he made Mumbai his home, and has given the city's people something that, on the face of it, is so 'everyday' it may not be thought about too much. This is typical of migrant stories the world over - the self reliance and want to carve a future typifies the migrant experience”.

“Coming from Australia, we are a land almost exclusively of people from 'other places' - I am first generation, the child of migrants. So I relate to these stories of packing up, taking a step outside the familiar, and finding a new future in a new land”.

He continues “Another story that sticks in my mind is that of a young Irani boy starting junior college. The master was reading the roll. He came to the name IRANI, the master stopped, looked up and said to this young boy "ahh, your father must be a chaiwalla, yes?” The whole group of boys burst into laughter. The young Irani was embarrassed, not understanding what was so funny about his parents running a cafe. After all, they were giving their community a service, providing not just chai, bun maska and omelets, but also provisions such as soap, pens, toothpaste etc. Surely this was something good? He thought. Nevertheless, for the rest of his years at the school, the master always called him "chaiwallas son"...”

He says that he tried to do some research but there wasn’t much information on the Irani cafes available. – “I was taken by the ambience of these cafes, and was keen to know more. Beyond fairly superficial 'nostalgic' news pieces I couldn’t find anything written that seriously examined the people who have given Mumbai what are, today, an institution in the city. The exception to this was a short film by the organisation, PUKAR done a few years ago. Looking at this film, I thought 'wow, there are many stories to be told here, lets start talking to people”

He then began by visiting as many Irani cafes as he could find, and over time started doing oral history interviews with Irani cafe owners and their families. Almost without exception, these people were open and welcoming and very keen to share their histories with him.

He then started a blog which you can find here . He adds that the aim of the blog is to get people to contribute, and start to 'map memories' - in this sense using communication technologies as a preliminary research tool, and see what pictures emerge and how, if at all, they differ from the other research that he is undertaking. Keep checking his blog for more as he has already conducted 15 in depth interviews which he will keep updating on his blog. He has already written about Brittania and Co and Sassanian.

Happy Diwali from WSD

2007-11-10T00:33:00.000+05:30

Small World

2007-11-10T00:08:00.000+05:30

Diwali is not a good time for animals especially dogs and cats, both pets and strays. Accident cases go up during this time as strays are running helter-skelter due to the noise of the crackers (their hearing five times more than humans). Animal welfare organizations like WSD also get calls for dogs that have suffered burn injuries due to fire-crackers and pets that have got lost.

We got a call today in the morning about a Dalmatian which had rushed into the house of a Lamington Road resident and entrenched himself into their bathroom. A volunteer who stays nearby called us to report this case. The dog was in a good condition so we guessed that it was obviously lost, traumatized due to the fire-crackers and bolted out of its owner’s house. We told the volunteer to ask around or even walk the dog to see if it led them to its owners. The poor fellow refused to budge and moved from the bathroom to under the sofa of the living room. He was so traumatized that he just shivered away. We were just going to send some WSD personnel over to bring him to the kennels that I received an SMS from another volunteer…. “Black and white Dalmatian ran away from home.Charles. Call so and so on *** if u have seen him”.

We immediately called the number on the SMS and gave them the number of the person whose house he was occupying. They told us that he had run away from their home at Altamount Road due to the crackers and was missing since yesterday afternoon. They had been trying to search him out ever since and had even made announcements on radio about him.

They went to Lamington road and it turned out to be their 'Charles'. A happy ending to this tale in a small world of the animal network in the city.

Madhavashram and Modaks

2007-10-29T08:53:00.000+05:30

Little did Dhondu Vishnu Savale and Parshuram Pandurang Mahajan know that hundred years later Madhavashram would be the only ‘khanaval’ serving ‘brahmani’ style’ pure vegetarian Maharashtrian food in South Mumbai. Others like Narayan Bhojanalaya near Mangalwadi and Puran Poli House at Mugbhat closed down years back. Vinay Health Home, B.Tambe, Panshikar and Kolhapuri Chivda are not ‘khanavals’ but restaurants that serve snacks or meals.

Madhavashram was opened in 1908 by these two gentlemen who hailed from Are, a village in the Ratnagiri district of the Konkan region. They started a small place in Zaoba Wadi at Thakurdwar, moved into an one storied lodging and boarding place at Mohun building near Majestic and finally settled at their current location on Parekh Street near the Girgaum Court in 1917 where the third generation continues to run this lodging and boarding place.

Ramesh Parshuram Mahajan remembers the long struggle that his grand uncle and father went through to establish and successfully run Madhavashram. As they wanted to use only fresh ingredients, they purposefully set up a farm at Saphale near Virar and all items were made by using home grown vegetables and milk from this farm. Mahajan continues to monitor the food cooked by checking on the taste of each item prepared. His daughter Mrs Gauri S. Velankar has already been inducted into the day to day running the place.

Madhavashram serves unlimited meals at Rs 45 with two vegetables, varan, rice, chapati or puri. Don’t miss their Modak meals (also unlimited) priced at Rs 80 which are available only on Sankashti Chaturthi days which come by once in a month. On Sankashti Chaturthi one is supposed to fast for the whole day and break it only after moon rise.

Today is Sankashti Chaturthi and Madhavashram for the first time will host a buffet meal on their terrace where people can see the moon rise and break the fast. A typical Sankashti Chaturthi meal here would not contain any garlic or onion and comprises of two vegetables,varan, rice,masale bhat,amti, farsan (batata wada or alu wadi), buttermilk, chutney, papad, pickle, koshimbir and ukdiche modak. Ukdiche modak are sweet modaks with a coconut and jaggery filling. They are made from rice flour, steamed and are best eaten with dollops of ghee on top.

Behram and Rekha Shroff have been regulars for the Modak meals. “The food at Madhavashram is very homely and not spicy or oily. Mr. Mahajan makes you feel at home as he personally goes around serving modaks like a good host. I end up eating at least 5-6 modaks as they are really very delicious” says Rekha.

If you want a simple yet tasty and homely meal with lots of ukdiche modaks thrown in, head to Madhavashram today and you will be able to enjoy it on an open terrace in the moonlight and that too on the auspicious Sankashti Chaturthi day in Madhavashram’s centenary year.

Address and timings

Madhavashram. 18, Parekh Street, Near Girgaum Court, Girgaum, Mumbai – 4
Monday closed. Open for meals at night only and Modak meals on Sankashti Chaturthi. Time : 8:00 to 10:00 pm

Important Sankashti Chaturthi dates -October 29, 2007, November 27, 2007 (Angarika) & December 27, 2007.

Tyre in a cat !

2007-10-10T08:39:00.001+05:30

The One Rupee Enterpreneur

2007-10-08T11:08:00.001+05:30

Before MTNL was set up in 1986, the city’s telephone company was known as Bombay Telephones (BT) run by the department of telecom (DOT) and earlier the P &T. In those days, the coin operated public phone was not a very common phenomenon. In fact, having a phone at home was not common and many gave out a neighbour’s care-of number. When the home phone was dead and that used to happen on a regular basis, one had to rely on the coin operated public phone which were not very common as they are today. I remember walking a good ten minutes to the Grant Road post office just to make a phone call.

The instruments used in those days were operated very differently. Firstly it was that black bulky iron vertical instrument with a long metallic wire for the handset. You had to lift the handset and dial (literally dial the round dial which went kut kut kut) the six digit Mumbai number. It was only when you had heard the voice at the other end that you dropped the coin. And as there was no limit to which you could talk for a rupee, you could jabber on for the entire day in that one rupee.

I remember the post man at the Grant road post office complaining that some smart alec used to try and save even the one rupee by punching a hole in the coin, tying a string to it and merrily using it to make umpteen number of calls till one day the string got stuck and he had to leave behind his ‘prized’ coin. The result was that the post office had to call the BT people to repair it and became more vigilant about people trying to make ‘free’ calls.

Some days back, I chanced upon this old telephone instrument at the Jaihind Hotel at Kala Ghoda. Krishnanand Tiwari who owns the hotel paid his homage to this now defunct piece which had served thousands of customers ever since his uncle had BT install the PCO some where in the late sixties. He adds that this was the only PCO in the whole of the Kala Ghoda and Dalal Street area. His restaurant’s PCO was so popular that when it went dead, he did not bother to complain as many of his customers would have already called up BT and registered the complaint saying “Jaihind can phone durust karo, kaam nahi kar raha hai”. His telephone had a stream of people making a beeline especially during lunch time. He also remembers how some people were cheeky enough to give out this telephone number to conduct their share market business and hang around the restaurant awaiting that incoming call.

The public pay phone has come a long way since then and you will be able to aptly see that in Chirodeep Chaudhuri’s exhibition of photographs titled The One-Rupee Entrepreneur dedicated to that all important red coin operated phone. These phones were photographed by him over a period of one year against different Mumbai backdrops such as an instrument kept on suitcases and trunks, in a travel agents booth, under a little temple on the wall, in the midst of a cold drinks rack, on a chaat counter and many more.

Chirodeep calls this instrument, the one rupee entrepreneur which according to him promotes enterprise. He explains that in a city like Mumbai where every one wants to maximize the returns from each square foot of land, he was awed on seeing how different kinds of businesses started installing the pay phone. This ‘side business’ generated an additional income without them having to pay any additional rent for the space utilized by this red box.

Chirodeep’s favorite is the one which he clicked outside a hair cutting saloon at Nagpada where the pay phone is kept outside against the drawing of a film star with hair style like Amitabh or Anil Kapoor.

So visit this exhibition and you will be able to see the red box that we pass by and use on a daily basis in a very different light.

The One Rupee Entrepreneur – Chirodeep Chaudhary
Till October 13, 2007. 11 am to 6.30 pm at Project 88, BMP Bldg., N A Sawant Marg, Near Colaba Fire Station, Colaba, Mumbai 400 025.

"Take me Dobby, home.. Sir"

2007-09-28T08:53:00.000+05:30

From the Welfare Of Stray Dogs(WSD)

If there's ever a Bollywood remake of the Harry Potter movies, one thing is certain. The part of Dobby the elf is taken.Meet Dobby the pup. Pale eyes, tiny delicate frame, enormous flappy ears. There's even been quite a bit of magic in her little life. She's made a complete recovery from an injury which had left her unable to walk. She's transformed from scared and shy to friendly and frisky. She's playful without being boisterous. Active without being noisy. Now four months old, she's looking for a nice family to live with. Meanwhile she spends her days racing around the kennel trying to play with anyone and everyone.

If you want a one-of-a-kind puppy, come to WSD. Dobby's waiting to cast her spell on you. You can call on 23733433 or e-mail wsdindia@gmail.com

Food with a Mumbai 'chaap'

2007-08-25T19:34:00.000+05:30

Many years ago when the dosa wala near August Kranti Maidan was sprinkling soya sauce and noodles onto a sada dosa calling it Chinese dosa, I could believe it as this is what Mumbai does to its food. She invents it here, hands it over to the others and doesn’t even patent it. This is just what happened to Nelson Wang’s Manchurian and we have many examples of Mumbai introducing quintessential food and leaving a Mumbai chaap to it. And that is more than our Vada Pav, Pav Bhaji and Bhel which has got its due and is dished out in many towns as Bombay Bhel or Bombay Pav Bhaji.

The Iranis might have brought the know how of baking from Iran but the Bun Maska ( soft , sweet bread with butter), Brun Maska ( hard bread with butter) and Khari would still remain Mumbai brands. Bomi Hormusji Irani whose grandfather started B. Merwan and Co at Grant Road confirms this and says “ You will find the Brun , Bun and Khari ninety percent in Mumbai only” He says that these must have been introduced somewhere between 1910-1914 when Irani café’s were being set up. .

One more drink very distinctive to Mumbai and to Pune is Raspberry which was introduced by Parsi owned beverage companies like Dukes, Rogers and Framroze & Co in the early 1900’s. This is a dying brand whose availability today is restricted to Parsi weddings and some Irani Cafés.

Juices like Ganga Jamuna , a mix of orange and sweet lime juice and Mara Mari, a mix of sweet lime and pineapple were introduced in Mumbai in the seventies says Ramesh Sondarva, one of the oldest employees of Bachelor’s at Chowpatty which claims to be the oldest juice centre in Mumbai. These were introduced long after the juice outlet opened in 1940. Shekhar Pujari of Sukh Sagar Juice centre adds that it was due to ‘public demand’ that they started serving these two cocktails. The name Ganga Jamuna might draw a parallel from the confluence of two rivers as both the fruits come from the same Citrus family. Mara Mari might have been due to mixing of two fruit juices from different fruit families.

And lastly good ol’ Cutting chai which may be another name for tea but has a unique Mumbai chaap to it. The road-side tea stall in Pune would serve you Amrutulya chaha but the consumption of Mumbai’s cutting chai which actually means cutting one chai into two, not only makes it lighter on the pocket but also lets you finish it off very quickly so that you can get hurriedly refreshed and set off to keep up with Mumbai’s rapid pace.

Mumbai's 'gaons'

2007-08-22T07:48:00.000+05:30

A little history, lest we forget three Mumbai neighborhoods which were villages that have long been integrated with Mumbai’s urban present and the only thing gaon-ish about them today is their ‘gaon’ tag.

Mazgaon: Mazgaon was an ancient Portuguese township and the name was either derived from Maza gaon which means my village in Marathi or from Maccha Grama which means a fishing village. It was also one of the original seven islands that Mumbai comprised of. Not many would know but Mazgaon was also famous for its mango trees which used to bear fruit twice a year. The Mazgaon mango was a celebrated commodity and finds a mention as the ‘Mangoes of Mazagong’ in the epic poem Lallah Rookh written by Thomas Moore in 1817. Mazgaon was home to many old stone houses and wooden bungalows, built in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries which were inhabited by mostly the Britishers and Parsis. Gunpowder Lane near Matharpacady was so called as a result of the armoury being moved to this area. Prominent landmarks in Mazgaon today are the Sales Tax office, the Mazgaon court and the Matharpacady village, a heritage ‘quartier’ with quaint, old houses struggling to survive amidst the skyscrapers in the neighbourhood.

Girgaon: The name literally translates into hill village. Giri in Marathi means hill. Thus, this was the village that existed at the foot of the Malabar Hill and is said to have been inhabited in the mid-nineteenth century. Girgaon comprised Girgaon woods and also boasted of coconut and mango groves and vast areas of plantations called wadi in Marathi. Today the Girgaon wadis may not be cultivating any of the produce that they used to but names like Mugbhat, Phanaswadi, Kelewadi, Kandewadi and Ambewadi would suggest the kind of plantations that must have existed there. Likewise, Zaoba Wadi, Vaidya Wadi, Khotachi Wadi & Jitekar Wadi may suggest who they belonged to. Gai Wadi was so named because of the large presence of cow sheds. Girgaon still has retained some of the villagish charm with its narrow lanes and old houses but times are changing. Many chawls in Girgaon with long wooden balconies are making way for multi storied buildings. Some old Maharashtrian restaurants like Kulkarni famous for its batata bhajiya, Virkar, Tembe Vishranti Gruha and many khanawals have shut down. Others like Chhatre‘s Kolhapuri Chivada, Vinay Health Home and B. Tambe have changed with the times and got renovated.

Goregaon: One version says that Goregaon was named after the Gore family who were active in politics. Another, which seems more accurate, says that the meaning translates into ‘white village’ in Marathi, as it was a large milk-producing centre since olden times. The Goregaon (E) area has still remained one of the few Mumbai’s green lungs in spite of the fact that the Aarey Milk Colony was set up in 1949 by acquiring 3000 acres of forest land. This was one of the world’s largest dairy farms and would be used to organize the supply of pasteurized bottled milk to the city. Many cattle from congested parts of the city were shifted here. The Film City was also set up here in 1978. Goregaon has now become another Mumbai suburb with a burgeoning population and various colonies or ‘nagars’, many high rise buildings, malls and multiplexes.

Strays gone by

2007-07-24T10:15:00.000+05:30

You may love them or hate them but strays have always been a part of Mumbai’s urban life. They are mostly pets of the poor and are looked after by them. They too have names and individual personalities, which go unnoticed by most of us. Here are five of the hundreds of such stray dogs that are no more but have lived a colorful and full life, did not harm anyone and died peacefully of old age. All of them are very much missed by the people who looked after them and if you had known them you would have missed them too.

Champi: A brindle colored stray, she lived outside the Oval Maidan (Cooperage side – South end footpath) and was brought there as a puppy by Mauryaji, the sugarcane juicewala. She had gone frail with age, had one bent leg due to an accident. You would have hardly noticed her, as she would be quietly sitting under the tree by the side of the footpath.

James: In his hay days, he did have the personality of James Bond 007 but was named by Arvind, the shoeshine man outside Eros theatre for other reasons. Arvind loves dogs and whenever he got a stray, he used to name them after the movie that was released at Eros theatre at Churchgate. So when he brought a black pup, a Bond movie was playing and thus a James was ‘born’. Arvind already had a “Pretty” (she passed away some years ago), who was obviously born when Julia Robert’s Pretty Woman was released in 1990 and was James companion.

Ramesh: Ramesh died when he was seventeen years old. He lived near the New Excelsior theatre and was looked after by Tulsi Akka who lived on the street in that area. Everyone loved Ramesh, as he was the best looking dog in the area. He was white and was hairier than the average street dog. He used to have a fancy for foreign cars. Thus, in the nineties, during his younger days when there weren’t too many foreign cars, if you had to find Ramesh, he would be perched on top of the nearest foreign car parked near the New Excelsior theatre.

Babu: He was a dog in the Bombay High Court campus and due to him no other dog could venture there. All the policemen loved him and they used to call WSD if he was in need of first-aid. Ask any policeman about Babu and they would readily remember him. Though the policemen used to keep getting transferred Babu’s care used to be ‘handed over’ to the next incumbent.

Tamatar: If anyone heard you asking “ Tamatar, kaha hai”, they would think you are out of your wits but yes, he was called Tamatar as he used to love eating tomatoes. He was a handsome, grey and white dog with a scar on the head left behind by a deep maggot wound. It was natural that he was named Tamatar because if you held a tomato in your hand, he would follow you till you gave it to him and swallow it at one go. He lived on the main road just outside ‘Ghetto’ the pub, near the Mahalakshmi mandir. He used to be looked after by the vegetable vendor and known to everybody in the area.

Banganga Bird !

2007-07-18T14:12:00.000+05:30

She was peering into my camera at Banganga

Have you been here, Mumbaikar ?

2007-05-28T08:38:00.000+05:30

Most of these places are on Mumbai’s tourist circuit or listed in the Lonely Planet. They are popular with tourists but Mumbaikars have no time to visit them due to their busy and hectic life in the city. Here are ten such places and if you have not been here, it is still not too late as all are worth a dekko.

Banganga Tank and Temple Precinct

Banganga located at Walkeshwar is a rectangular water tank surrounded by stone steps. It was originally constructed during the era of the Silhara dynasty (810-1240 A.D.). It is located within a temple precinct with eight temples like the Walukeshwar, Venkateshwar Balaji and Rameshwar temples. Go here and you will be far away from the city noise with just serene water and occasional quacking of ducks and geese for company.

Borivali National Park

Mumbai’s biggest ‘green lung’, this forest covers 140 sq kms and is home to more than 1000 species of plants, 40 species of mammals and 251 species of birds. Kanheri caves that date back from the 1st to 9th century are also located in this forest.

Khotachi Wadi and Matharpakhadi

Walk around these heritage precincts located in Girgaon and Mazgaon before they vanish. Both these ‘quartiers’ have some quaint 19th century built houses with beautiful balconies, verandahs and wooden staircases. Wander around through the narrow lanes and the quietude will make you feel that you are not in Mumbai.

Haji Ali Dargah

You must have seen this early 19th century shrine from the bus on your way to work or home but have never visited it. Built in the Indo-Islamic style, this is the tomb of the Muslim Sufi saint Hazrath Haji Ali. A narrow walkway through the sea not accessible during high tide would lead you to the dargah which is on an island in the middle of the Arabian Sea.

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya.

The Museum located near Kala Ghoda was designed by George Wittet in the Indo-Saracenic style. It was built in 1914 but formally opened in 1923. The museum has a vast and rare collection of antiques, Indian miniature paintings, sculptures, a natural history section, Nepali and Tibetan art, decorative art, bronzes, textiles and much more. You might need more than a day to see this place thoroughly.

Mani Bhavan

Mani Bhavan is located on Laburnum Road at Gamdevi. The residence of Shri Revashanker Jhaveri, it served as Gandhiji’s headquarters in Mumbai from 1917-1934. It is now converted into a museum that houses a research library, a photo display gallery, an exhibition in mini-figures on Gandhiji’s life called Glimpses of Gandhi, an auditorium and Gandhiji’s room.

Afghan Church

This church consecrated in 1858 was built in the memory of the British soldiers who died during the Sind and Afghan wars of 1838 and 1842-43. It is located beyond Colaba towards R.C. Church. It has been restored recently and has some beautiful stained glass windows. It remains shut most of the time but would be open on Sundays.

Maharashtra Nature Park

This lush green park located at Dharavi on the banks of the Mithi River was created from a garbage dumping ground. It was opened to the public in 1994. You will find more than 14,000 plants, 115 species of birds and scores of butterflies. It also boasts of its own water harvesting project.

The Gate of Mercy Synagogue

Also called Juni Masjid, this 1796 built synagogue located at Samuel Street lends its name to Masjid station. It is the second oldest synagogue in India and go here to find out the interesting history behind its name.-‘ The Gate of Mercy”.

Mahakali Caves

Yes, all of us have heard of the Mahakali Caves road or gone to SEEPZ using it but must have seldom visited the caves. This could also be because of the poor roads and the filth around these caves which were formerly known as ‘Kondivita’. These Buddhist caves date back to the 1st century.

So how many places have you been to...

Take a look at me now !

2007-05-26T21:02:00.000+05:30

This cat is looked after by the inhabitants of a Parsi building opposite Bhatia Hospital. She whiles her time lolling around in the building foyer or hanging out with the banana seller. She also is a regular visitor to the laundry on the ground floor of the building and lets out a 'meow' whenever she sees familiar people or anybody who will give her some attention.

Let sleeping dogs lie 'inverted'

2007-05-21T21:22:00.000+05:30

This stray was fast asleep in this peculiar position near the Andheri(E) railway station ticket counter. A clear indication in the trust that this stray places on people around him. I was tempted to wake him up but thought that it was better to let sleeping dogs lie 'inverted''.

Champi - R.I.P.

2007-05-16T10:10:00.000+05:30

Champi the stray belonging to the Sugarcane juicewala on the Cooperage side of the Oval Maidan at Churchgate passed away yesterday early in the morning. She was in kidney failure with a creatinine of 5.1. She was sixteen.

Some days ago the sugarcane juicewala's son called to tell us that she had not been eating for some days. She was taken to the WSD kennels and with treatment had started eating. One good thing was till the end she ate and used to wag her brindle tail when she saw me.

Her presence will truly be missed and if you passed her footpath when she was alive, you would have hardly noticed her as she would be quietly sitting under the tree by the side of the foot path.

One consolation is that Champi lived a good and long life on the street. She was looked after well by the sugarcane juicewala.

Read more about Champi in my earlier post here.

Naya Sterling – Je Te N’Aime Pas

2007-05-13T21:11:00.000+05:30

The new Sterling Cineplex opened finally to Spiderman 3. The ‘opening shortly’ banner hung there for almost a year. I used to see it every Sunday week after week when I went to treat Jerry one of the geriatric stray dogs that lives opposite Sterling. (Will write about him sometime).

Sterling Cineplex opened officially on May 4, 2007 to Spiderman 3 and Gautam Ghose’s Yatra but unfortunately with technical problems. There was a power failure and some friends told me that they had to go without seeing the movie they came for at one of the shows on the first day. Someone also told me that, the premiere of Spiderman on the earlier day which was being simultaneously screened on all three screens was a disaster as they had only one reel which kept getting relayed from one screen to the other. Thus the audiences of Screen 2 and 3 had to wait till the audience of Screen 1 had finished seeing the first reel.

A little history of Sterling is that it opened in 1969 and though it was not as old as some of the other theatres like Regal and Eros, it was still one of the few theatres in those days that showed only English movies. The 10:45 late night show was also very popular and created a niche slot for itself.

I went to the new Sterling Cineplex yesterday to see Paris, Je t’aime. It is a French film with a collection of 18 short stories made by renowned directors and an impressive cast. The theme revolves around the romantic city Paris and love. Check the NY Times review here.

When you approach the booking counters, you remember the old Sterling’s ticket windows which were separate for Balcony/Dress circle & Stalls and also for Current & Advance booking. They have now been replaced by a big glass window with BOX OFFICE written on top. The white marble steps which everyone used to sit on before the movie either waiting for the person accompanying them or for just whiling away their time, have been replaced by fewer black steps. I wonder if Raju the stray who died in June 2006 and who used to love sitting on them would have liked them now.

The tickets are now not checked at the entrance of the theater but inside on the steps which lead you upstairs. The lobby has been converted into a restaurant which was packed with people eating from the Blue Foods outlets of Bombay Blue & Noodle Bar, Subway, Gelato and Wraps and Rolls.

Do double check the correct stairs that will take you to your Screen. We took the right hand side stairs showed the tickets for screen 3 and went up to the second floor only to realize that Screen 3 was on the left hand side. The erstwhile Balcony/Dress Circle has been converted into Screen 2 and 3 and the Stalls into Screen 1.

The cafeteria on top has been handed over to Coffee Day. I ran into a friend who was debating with the CCD guy on how her Cold Coffee glass was only half filled. He claimed it was 220 ml in a glass of capacity 250 ml. No amount of principles of volume or physics could convince him that he was wrong. Anyway moral of the story is that now you won’t get that cup of ordinary chai anymore.

The Screen 2 and 3 have obviously smaller capacities but were not that small. Screen one should be better with a larger capacity and the management claims that the size of that screen is as big as the old one. Unfortunately, all single screen theatres would go the Sterling way some day due to the financial non-viability due to low occupancy.

Of course the Jai Jawan stall opposite is still the same and must be very happy that Sterling has finally opened as he must have taken a beating on his 'dhanda'.

So don’t go by my not liking the new Sterling as I am biased against multiplexes for various reasons.

1) The size of a multiplex theatre is smaller compared to the single screen ones. The whole charm in seeing a movie on the ‘big screen’ is gone. There are some multiplexes in Bandra that can accommodate only fifty people. See a movie at Eros and then go and see the same one at Gem in Bandra and you will know what I mean. It would be better to be at home and watch a movie on the DVD.

2) The good old colored and manually stamped cinema tickets are gone. Gone will be the days when you can collect the blue, yellow, green and pink colored tickets, write down the name of the girl who you went with and save it for posterity. The new machine generated tickets on facsimile paper will fade away in some time.

3) The prices have gone up drastically. All Sterling tickets are priced at Rs 120. Earlier, they used to start from Rs 60 for Lower stalls, Rs 80 for Upper stalls, Rs 100 for Balcony and Rs 120 for Dress Circle. Sterling might be the cheapest of the multiplexes in South Mumbai. If you go to INOX, you will have to shell out a minimum of Rs 180 going up to Rs 240. (Unless you want to see a movie at ten in the morning at Rs 130). Even a theatre like Kohinoor at Dadar which catered to the common man in the area has become a mall and the theatre in it called Fame Nakshtara prices tickets at Rs 80 onwards. (Kohinoor had rates of Rs 20 and Rs 40)

4) Prices of stuff that you would like to eat during the interval would also go up. So forget the Rs 15 wala Punjabi samosa or the Rs 15 popcorn. Of course, you can convert your movie expedition into a supper theatre experience by going early and having dinner at the various ‘outlets’ serving various cuisines at the multiplex.

5) Nostalgia and heritage: You always love what you have been doing when you were a kid. The various times you went to Regal, New Empire, Eros, Citylight, Opera House, and Hindmata with that special someone be it family, friend or sweetheart. Just the support that you would give to something old in the city, a landmark which has been around for years.

6) You will have to adhere to multiplex manners (whatever that means). A columnist wrote a whole article recently in the HT on multiplex manners.

Sterling photo courtesy: CNN IBN

Bhau, Nana & Rajabai

2007-05-12T06:46:00.001+05:30

Many places in Mumbai have been named after Indians who have contributed to this city’s infrastructure. We have heard, passed through or visited these places but may not know who the people affectionately called Nana or Bhau were. Here are three such places.

Bhaucha Dhakka

Bhaucha Dhakka or Ferry Wharf was built by Lakshman Hari Chandarjee Ajinkya. (1789-1858). He belonged to the Pathare Prabhu community (one of the original inhabitants of Bombay).He was affectionately addressed as Bhau or big brother by the local people. His family had estates at Naigaum and Parel and he worked as Chief Clerk in the Gun Carriage Factory in Colaba. Information given in the Govt. Archives and in the Marathi book ‘Pathare Prabhuncha Itihaas’ by Pratap Velkar reveal that Bombay did not have a regular pier or wharf till 1835 for either goods or passengers. The government started leasing out land on the Bombay frontage to private individuals to build wet docks and basins. Laksman Hari Chandarjee Ajinkya alias ‘Bhau’ was the first local to take this opportunity. He thus constructed Bombay’s first wet dock in 1841 for the convenience of the passengers and incoming ships to load, embark and berth. These included Carnac and Claire bunders. Today, the passenger terminal at the Bhau-Cha-Dhakka is still used to ferry people to Mora and Rewas for their onward journeys to Uran and Alibag.

Nana Chowk

This very busy traffic junction which has six roads converging into it is named after Jagannath Shankersett alias Nana. (1803-1865). He owned large areas of land in the Nana Chowk area including a ‘wada’ which now has been replaced by high rise buildings, the recent Sunkersett Palace and another Sunkersett Mansion built decades ago. This area also has an old privately restored Bhavani Shankar temple built in 1806 associated with the Sunkersett family. JSS was born in a wealthy family of goldsmiths and contributed in many ways towards this city including donating land for the Royal/Grant Road theatre and endowing schools. In 1845, along with Sir Jamshejee Jeejeebhoy, he formed the Indian Railway Association which was eventually incorporated into the Great Indian Peninsular Railways (GIP).They were the only two Indian directors out of the other ten in the GIP railways. He was also the first Indian member of The Asiatic Society and you will find his full size marble statue at the Asiatic Society Library. The erstwhile Girgaum road which extends from Opera House upto Princess Street is also named after him. A postage stamp was also issued in his honor in 1991.

Rajabai Tower

Rajabai tower located in the campus of the University of Mumbai at Fort including the library was built at a cost of over six lakh rupees donated by Premchand Roychand (1831-1906). Both these structures were designed by Sir Gilbert Scott and completed in 1878. The 280 feet high tower with a clock was a tribute to his mother, Rajabai. Premchand Roychand was a prominent banker and philanthropist of the 19th century who supported many schools especially for the education of girls. The schools included J.B.Petit High School, Bombay Scottish Orphanage School, Alexandria School and Cathedral Girls School. The Premchand Roychand gallery at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (Museum) has been named in his memory and it recently hosted the Bombay Bonanza exhibition to commemorate his 100th death anniversary. It must be noted that there is no statue of him in Mumbai nor any Mumbai street bears his name.

Gungun

2007-05-06T20:50:00.000+05:30

This very sweet, young & tiny mixed breed stray was brought to the WSD sterilization centre by a volunteer from Vakola. In the picture above, you can see her peering out of the WSD Stray Dog Van. Gungun(pronounced goongoon) lives in a slum near Kadam Wadi at Vakola and is looked after by Deepak. She was born in one of the buildings in the locality and Deepak offered to look after her. She roams around the slum and in and out of his hut. She has been sterilized and will go back to her neighborhood in a few days.

Dog's Eye View

2007-05-03T08:57:00.000+05:30

Two abandoned Pomeranians ( Shane & Pepper) and two amputee cats loll around on a hot afternoon in the corridor at the WSD sterilization centre at Mahalakshmi.

A slice of Konkan in Mumbai

2007-04-28T07:54:00.001+05:30

“Powder madhe pikawle ki zaadawar”, a lady was asking the man selling Alphonsos if they had been ripened chemically or on the tree. This was at one of the twenty-two odd stalls that are selling Hapus and Paayri mangoes at the Amba Mohatsav 2007 which is being held at Prabhadevi till April 29 from 10 am to 10 pm. It has been organized by the Konkan Vikas Pratishthan. Rajendra Tawde, secretary of the organisation said that this was the fifth year that they were organizing such a festival. “The objective is to give small-time mango growers and entrepreneurs from the Konkan region a platform in Mumbai to sell their wares as they do not have the necessary marketing skills and it also eliminates middlemen”. Mangoes come here straight from the districts of Devgad, Vengurla, Ratnagiri, Rajapur and Malwan.

Devgad Hapus

The mango crop has suffered this year giving them only a twenty five percent yield. This gets reflected in the prices as the Alphonso is available from Rs 100 to Rs 325 a dozen depending on the quality and the size of the fruit. Ravindra Bhadsale, one of the stall owners has come from Jamsunde in Devgad. He has around 300 trees which yield him 800 petis throughout the season. He picks the first fruits on February 25 which are sold to the wholesale market at Vashi and the last on May 8. He says that his fruit is superior as it is from Devgad, a region where the trees grow between the red laterite stone called ‘jamba dagad’. If they have to plant a mango ‘kalam’, the stone has to be blasted and soil added around the sapling. The roots then go digging through this stone. The iron content in the stone adds the red color to the fruit and giving a better and sweeter taste to the mangoes from this region.

Not Just Mangoes

If mangoes are not your scene, there are more than fifteen stalls selling many other Konkani specialities. You can buy buttermilk dried chillies which make an excellent accompaniment with curd rice. They have various masalas like the Malvani masala, goda masala, special garam masala and the spunky coconut garlic chutney. Various mango products like amba vadi, mango pulp and saata, a preparation of pulped mango, rolled and dried under the sun. Buy the fansacha saata (Jackfruit saata) and jackfruit chips to give you a true flavour of the Konkan region. Also available are cashewnuts and khaja – a kurkure look-alike made of jaggery, besan and ginger.

Kokum

Kokum is synonymous with Konkani cuisine. But do you how kokum is made? Kokum is made from Ratamba (Garcinia indica), a fruit from the plum family. The pulp and peels of the Ratamba are separated. The peels are soaked or smeared in its juices and sun dried. This is repeated often till the skin shrivels up but retains the red/purple colour and the slightly astringent flavour. This is now kokum, which is used as a souring agent in cooking and for making sol kadhi. Ratamba is used to make kokum sherbet. At one of the stalls “ Devi Sateri Amba Vikri Kendra”, you will be able to buy the Ratamba fruit at Rs 40 per kilo and kokum at Rs 80 per kilo.

Papads and Pickles

Go to the Grihani Papad Udyog stall and you will get to see home-made papads and pickles of all kinds. Papads made of palak, nachani(ragi), tomato, poha, methi, potato, corn, garlic, sabudana and a speciality “thecha papad” which is made of grounded fresh green chilly. Pick up the poha and nachani papad or the kurdai (made from rice flour they look like round vermicelli) which is traditional to this region. There were an equal assortment of pickles from the regular garlic, kaccha mango, lime, amla, to karvanda, gajar and karela. Lakshmi Kamble of G.P.U. says that she makes all the pickles at home and the most popular is the garlic one.

So go to this festival for a slice of Konkan with lots of luscious mangoes thrown in and you might be tempted to visit this beautiful coastal belt. If you are, on your way out you just have to contact the Kokan Tours stall who would give you a choice of tours for this region.

You can visit the festival this weekend at the Nardulla Tank Maidan, Next to Ravindra Natya Mandir, Prabhadevi till 29th April 2007. 10 am to 10 pm. It then shifts to Borivali and Thane.

Forty winks !

2007-04-26T11:14:00.000+05:30

This stray dog was fast asleep amidst the din and dirt in a slum on the road outside the WSD kennels near Dhobi Ghat at Saat Raasta. He is sleeping outside a hut under the ladder which takes you to another kholi above. The traffic on this road has gone up drastically due to the diversion taken place because of the the ongoing TADA court at Arthur Jail. Yet he is able to grab his forty winks in the middle of the afternoon.

This stray belongs to the family which lives in the kholi outside which he is sleeping. Thousands of slum dwellers keep stray dogs like him as pets in hundreds of slums all over Mumbai.

Sardar

2007-04-11T22:09:00.000+05:30

When Vivek Prabhu’s grandfather opened Sardar (named after a title which was conferred on his father) in 1932 in the heart of Girangaon to cater to the mill workers little did he know that the fabric of the area would change 75 years later and the mills would be replaced by corporate parks and high rise residential buildings. However painful it might have been Sardar had to keep up to the changing times and adapt to become what Vivek calls a true Bombay restaurant.

Sardar (not to be confused with the Tardeo Pav Bhaji serving namesake) is located at the junction of the Kala Chowki signal near the Voltas building on the main Babasaheb Ambedkar Road at Lalbaug. It is a simple, no frills moderately priced place and is open from 6 am to 9 .30 pm. Like all old restaurants, they too opened a mezzanine section for ladies and family in the sixties.

They have some very good Maharashtrian dishes on their menu. Try the vangi bhajiya (brinjal pakoras), kanda and batata bhajiya, masale bhat, alu (colo leaves) wadi, kothambir wadi, batata wada, sukha usal, batata poha, sheera, bhatsal (a mixture of batata wada and misal) and ofcourse misal. Vivek boasts that he serves the best misal in town. His misal still follows the recipe handed down by his grandfather and its masala consists of a concoction of more than eighteen freshly ground spices, dals and an ingredient that no one else adds to their misal… onion bhajiya that is fried, ground and added to the masala which lends the misal its unique and different flavor.

Modern culinary tastes of executives from neighbouring corporates like Voltas, P.N. Writer, Khandelwal Laboratories, A. C. Nielsen and Tata Tele Services and NGO's like Akanksha who started frequenting Sardar during lunch time compelled Vivek, a chartered accountant by profession to innovate his largely traditional Maharashtrian menu to a broader one. He introduced a range of ‘garlic’ dishes like various Dosa variants with Garlic such as Garlic Sada and Masala and Garlic Rava Sada and Masala. He also introduced Chaats and bread based items like Burgers and Sandwiches. Try the cheese and garlic grilled sandwich named ‘Sania’ and the cheese garlic baked bread named Navin. Their tossed American corn with butter and garlic is also a favorite.

They keep pretty busy during lunch time and sometimes you might have to wait to get a place. Their lunch time mini meals are light and complete. At Rs 25 you will get three chapatis, unlimited dal, one vegetable and chaas. They also have various sabzi’s on the menu. Their just launched next door take-away outlet “Viva Kitchen” will also serve you Oriental and Punjabi cuisine.

Upwas snacks are popular on fasting days and you can have Sabudana wada. Sabudana khichadi, Rajgira Puri Bhaji, Upwas Kachori and Upwas Misal.

You can also beat the heat with the range of fruit juices, faloodas,milk shakes, lassis,chilled fruit milk kokam sharbat, and limbu pani. Vivek will impress upon you to spend only Rs 17 on a similar but more concentrated Iced Tea you would get elsewhere for Rs 50.

Today, Sardar may not get any mill clientele for obvious reasons other than the retired mill hands that still drop in for a misal of nostalgia. But it has still managed to retain the principle of serving food from the heart. You will notice it when you see Vivek wander around chatting with his clientele who he knows on a first name basis. He says “we do not have any customers, only well-wishers”.

Cafe De La Paix

2007-04-10T00:13:00.000+05:30

Did you know that we have a little Irani café at Girgaum whose name was inspired by the famous 1862 opened Café De La Paix (pronounced – pay) located at place de l'Opéra in Paris and designed by architect Charles Garnier. The story goes that when the owner, Mr. Irani opened this café in 1932, the landlord of his building had just been to Paris and had been greatly impressed by the Café De La Paix there. So he requested him to give this name to the Irani café he was opening. It is located at the corner of Avantikabai Gokhale Road, which has the bustling auto spare parts market. And don’t worry; our Café De La Paix will serve you bun maska and chai at much more affordable rates than its Paris namesake.

Can we go home now !

2007-04-05T08:29:00.000+05:30

Rani

Suresh Jadhav is a BMC worker who loves dogs and lives in a chawl nearby the WSD kennels at Mahalakshmi. Rani, his 10 year old mongrel was brought to the kennels as an OPD patient for an eye and ear infection that she is suffering.

Suresh’s friend found Rani as a puppy and Suresh readily kept her. She has been an integral part of his family much before he got married. His wife too accompanied him to the kennels and has grown fond of her. Rani’s attachment to Suresh is so evident that as soon as he went into the kennels to understand the medication which has to be continued, Rani barked the place down. She was happy when he emerged out with the medication, looked at him and it looked like she told him with a little stern grin , “ Can we go home now”.

Rani barking

Bogie

2007-03-21T23:15:00.000+05:30

She had an unwilling free ride from Borivali to Churchgate on the 6:19 am Churchgate slow from Borivali. We get a call early morning when she must have reached Khar about a dog which must have been hurt and was moaning in the ladies first class compartment. We take down the details as in the train no and also calculate the ETA at Churchgate and rush to Churchgate station. We think it would be better taking the injured dog down out at Churchgate station than in the middle for want of time as the suburban train would halt very briefly at its various stops. We inform the Churchgate station master who is very helpful and checks on the whereabouts of the train. It seems that the train is just outside Churchgate station and is expected to arrive any moment on platform number two.

We rush onto the platform and wait at the point where the first class ladies compartment would be coming. The train comes to a halt. We check the train no on the compartment; it is the same one that the caller had given. We search the ladies compartment thoroughly… there is no dog. We then check the next compartment, yet no dog. We go back to the first one for a double check and she is sitting under the seat. We had missed her earlier as we had a grown up injured dog in our mind and not a two month old puppy. She lets out a whine and wags her tail. We take her out. She is very scared and confused but continues to wag her tail. We walk down the platform with her and show her to the station master, thank him and are off in a taxi and she sleeps soundly, tail wagging on the lap.

We thus decided to name her Bogie. She is too small to have climbed onto the train by herself. She must have been put in by some crazy person who had no empathy of what she would go through, in the journey or where she would end up.

Bogie is being temporarily housed by a WSD volunteer and is looking for a good home and if you know anyone who would want her do call WSD on 23733433. She is brown with a black snout, has floppy ears and is adorable. She wags her tail all the time and should we say that she is used to traveling on a Mumbai suburban train?

Croissant's Cat

2007-03-16T18:04:00.000+05:30

I know her as the Croissant's cat as she used to hang around outside the Croissant's outlet just when you come out of the Churchgate subway going towards Eros theatre. She has been around for at least ten years and at a time when Croissant's used to be very popular with the college crowd. I remember that she would greet the college students and Croissant's patrons with glee, rushing towards them and they invariably used to end up giving her something to eat.

Vijaybhai who used to sell socks on the streets loves her and says he has not named her. He adds that she is lucky for everyone who she makes friends with and that she is the oldest cat he has seen around in that area. She used to keep littering and has kept a count of the number of times she had littered (six times!) till she was neutered some years ago. He demonstrates how much she adores him by calling out to her and she responds by immediately rushings towards him.

Some years ago she had a terrible accident and she lost her eye. She was in hospital for quite some time. Her eye had to be removed but that has not changed anything for her. She is now found hanging around just outside the subway with the guy who sells shaving blades and FM radios. She will allow you to pick her up and also cuddle and snuzzle against you if you call out to her. So if you are at Churchgate, ask any of the hawkers around and all of them would know and point out this one-eyed Croissant's cat.

Sniffer Mac

2007-02-24T14:33:00.000+05:30

The above photo is that of the three year old Labrador 'Mac', a sniffer dog who has been trained to sniff out bombs and is on emergency duty at the Mumbai airport. It is sad that the life of a sniffer dog is not very long due to them sniffing out all kinds of stuff but they carry out an immense service to the nation. I asked Balbir Singh, Mac’s handler if he had ever sniffed out any bombs. The answer was thankfully no which meant that no one had managed to take a bomb in, but he did say that during Diwali he had caught a few people who were trying to carry fire-crackers in their baggage.

Mac was patiently sitting at the entry-gate where passengers and visitors go into the terminal and he had just come after taking a round on the terminal. He looked up at me and shook hands and would be soon zooming off to attend to some other emergency call.

Walk into Mumbai's past

2007-02-11T08:45:00.000+05:30

Bombay's past on an image with the reflection of the present outside

This Sunday, take a different kind of a heritage walk. You won’t be walking around the streets of Mumbai but would be comparing the archival Philips Images of Bombay to the South Mumbai of today from the roof-top of the Ambassador hotel. A walk back in time! This walk has been organized by the Bombay Heritage Walks founded by city architects Abha Bahl and Brinda Gaitonde who started these walks in 1999 to raise the awareness about the city’s architecture and heritage monuments.

Look out of the window towards the east and you will see what is still known as the Fort area. The Fort was built in 1716 and housed many residential and commercial buildings. It had three gates Apollo, Church and Bazaar and a moat with a wide stretch of open space towards the west known as ‘The Esplanade’. Today you will hardly see any traces of the Fort other than its name. The names of the demolished gates have also been retained but by the station (Churchgate) and the street (Bazaar gate). The fort was demolished in the 1860’s, a bold move by the then Governor, Sir Bartle Frere, a visionary and master planner who wanted to make Bombay, the first modern urban city of India. He had a list of 14 buildings that he wanted to build including a high court, the secretariat and many of the magnificent Gothic buildings which one can see in this area.

Look above at the old photo of the headquarters of the Western Railways(then BB&CI),the magnificent stone building opposite Churchgate station built in 1899 and you will see that the sea is almost touching it and there are vast open spaces around it. Look across the sea in the photograph and notice the densely forested Malabar Hill inhabited then by the Malabaris (thus the name) who were supposed to be pirates and thus kept people away from this place. Now look out and in place of the forest is Mumbai’s skyline, numerous skyscrapers dot Malabar Hill. At the southern tip, you will see the Governors house (Raj Bhavan) which was earlier inside the Fort, then moved to Parel (Haffkine Institute) and finally moved here in 1820.

Look closely at the same photo and you will see a very tiny Churchgate station designed in the Swiss chalet style (built in 1876) with the railway tracks going further south. They would have run from under the existing Eros theatre and parallel to the today’s M. Karve Road, all the way upto the Colaba railway station (built in 1869 and demolished in 1930). The Art Deco buildings that you see today opposite the Oval would come up later on this railway line with the lines then terminating at Churchgate station.

Chowpatty in the olden days

Then look at the old photograph of Chowpatty and you will see benches facing the sea at the edge of the beach. You will recognize the Wilson College, the other buildings around it and naturally notice the absence of Kulfi Centre and Café Ideal. Do notice the small round about at the junction of the road which comes from Sukh Sagar onto Marine Drive.

Move ahead to the photograph that shows Marine Drive with its Art Deco buildings (built in the 1920’s) and the absence of the fly-over. Now,look out from the roof top and you will not only see the beautiful Art Deco buildings but also notice how the Mumbai skyline has changed with tall skyscrapers emerging out from the Nana Chowk and Girgaum areas.

So if you want to see and hear all of the above and many more stories including the one of the Hornby’s Vellard and others about Bombay’s past, head straight to the roof-top of the Ambassador hotel on February 11, 2007 at 4:00 pm at the event which is a part of the Heritage Walks section of the ongoing Kala Ghoda festival and have a blast with the past.

All pictures of old Bombay are from Phillips images.

Afternoon Siesta

2007-02-07T00:44:00.000+05:30

A street dweller taking a siesta with his companions in the by-lanes of Fort.

Mumbai's Outdoor Performance Venues

2007-02-07T00:18:00.000+05:30

Mumbai has its regular venues for plays and musical concerts. Amidst Sharmukhananda, Prithvi, Chembur Fine Arts, Andrews, Sophia and NCPA, it also has alternative venues where you can see a play or a concert in the outdoors. All these places are mostly heritage structures and you can watch the performance in an old world setting. Here is the list

Banganga: Banganga is a rectangular water tank constructed in the 13th century within a temple precinct with around eight temples that surround it. Thus, you would be sitting around this sacred tank on the stone steps (covered with a carpet) and watching a musical performance during the two-day Banganga Festival conducted by MTDC in January every year. You will be enthralled by the classical vocal and instrumental performances in the ambience of the serene water, quacking ducks with temples and old buildings in the background.

St Xavier’s College: The three-day Jan Fest has a charm of its own and is hosted by the Indian Music Group run by students of the college. The classical music performances are held in the college quadrangle, amidst this gothic stone building with gargoyles and the chapel with beautiful stained glass windows makes an amazing backdrop. Kishori Amonkar, Bhimsen Joshi, Zakir Husain, Parveen Sultana and many other talented and upcoming artists have performed here. You can also buy daily tickets for the ‘baithak’.

Elephanta: The Elephanta festival will be held this year on the 23rd and 24th of February and you will not only get to see a good performance in the tranquility of a woody and leafy island also known as ‘Gharapuri’ but also a ferry ride back and forth. The festival is the only time when you can come back from Elephanta as late as 10 pm. Call MTDC on 22024482/22024522 for more information.

Bandra Fort: Performances are held here generally as a part of local festivals like the Bandra Festival or corporate sponsored programmes open to the public. This 17th century fort built by the Portuguese is also known as Castella De Aguada. Amjad Ali Khan and Shubha Mudgal amongst many others have performed here in the past with the Arabian Sea forming a beautiful backdrop.

Horniman Circle Gardens: You can go and watch a play or a musical amidst trees and shrubs in this well maintained garden overlooking the Asiatic Society Library. There are regular performances held by Prithvi Theatre on the first weekends of every month. (barring the monsoon). Go here during the ongoing Kala Ghoda festival (Feb 3rd – Feb 11th) and you will be able to watch film screenings, photo exhibitions, rock concerts and theatre performances. For more information check here.

Go Vote !

2007-02-01T09:04:00.000+05:30

Mumbai goes to the polls today where the corporators of the richest Municipal Corporation in Asia will be elected. So go vote for a better Mumbai . See the candidates with rankings here.

Jay Jay Maharashtra Mazha

2007-01-26T12:39:00.000+05:30

The Maharashtra Mazha festival which is a part of the Mumbai Festival was on at the Bandra Reclamation grounds till January 26, 2007 from 11 am to 9 pm.

As soon as you passed through ‘The Gateway of India’, the first stalls were of India Tourism and Maharashtra Tourism who were distributing leaflets and information of various tourist destinations in India and Maharashtra.

The festival showcased traditional arts and crafts with 100 odd stalls and craftsmen from all over India were selling and displaying sarees, jewellery, chappals, paper mache products, paintings, metal artifacts, cane stools, products made from bamboo from the North-East, floor mats, terracotta, candles and lanterns from Pondicherry, papads from Andhra, jute bags from Calcutta, traditional crafts from Saharanpur, wooden toys from the South, Madhubani and Warli paintings. The stall from the Konkan region of Maharashtra was selling cashew and cashew products, kokum (you can make Kokum or Sol Kadhi), saat (mango and jackfruit), mango pulp, tirfal (a spice used in curries), pohe and batata (potato in Marathi) papads and kurdaya. A wooden chess set with brass was available for Rs 3500.

There were food stalls with the usual shev puri, chaats, etc but a Maharashtrian entrepreneur called Dalvi was dishing out nice Maharashtrian fare like ‘Ukdiche Modak’- as steamed modak with coconut and jaggery filling, pohe, batata wada and chivda. You could also taste some wines from Chateau India in the next stall.

There was performances held everyday both at the venue itself (street performances) and on the main stage. These included typical Maharashtrian folk dances and forms from all over the state including Powada, Striyanche Khel, Lavni, Songi Bharud, Rombat, Gazal Sandhya, Tamasha, Vasudev and Marathi Abhangvani.

And Mumbai Ran

2007-01-22T09:50:00.000+05:30

Mumbai runs everyday. It runs to catch its BEST buses and the 6:11 Virar fast. It runs home to fill up water and it runs to work, school and college. It runs in the morning, in the afternoon, in the night and through out the night. But on Sunday it ran the Mumbai Marathon for a cause, for its ‘place of work’, for its spirit, for ‘just like that’, for sending out a message and for itself. It ran in the Dream Run and competed for the Half and the Full Marathon.

Around 30,000 Mumbaikars ran for what they believed in. From the 96 year old Charushila Mohte who ran for Harmony to the 12 year old Vani Jhaveri who ran for WSD. Many who were physically challenged but with lots of grit and determination took part in the 3.5 km run in wheel-chairs and crutches. Many were fancily dressed –as the Air India Maharaja, in a Navvari saree with a ‘nuth’, as Gandhiji, as demons and as a lone Shah Rukh Khan at the KBC show. Many ran for the NGO’s that they support and sported T-Shirts of the NGO. The CRY, Salaam Balak Trust and WSD yellow and black, the Akanksha green, the Magic Bus white with the red bus, the Harmony yellow and blue and many many more. Thousands ran for their companies. I could spot DHL, Shiamak’s VAF, Colgate Palmolive, Mahindra, Citigroup and others in the crowd.

The Dream Run started at 9:10 outside the C.S.T. Terminus with all of us having to walk till we got to almost the Khadi Gram Udyog junction on D.N. Road due to the sheer number of runners. The route went on via the Veer Nariman road turned left at Jazz By The Bay onto Marine Drive and then a U-turn at the Oberoi all the way to the Marine Drive fly-over. Everyone mostly walked up the fly-over and then down to Princess Street and the run ended its six kilometers at Metro.

There were lakhs of people old and young who had lined up the streets to cheer the runners. They were chanting ‘Run Mumbai Run’ and motivating the runners. . I spotted Dilip D’Souza with his children on the fly-over near Marine Lines station cheering people. The organizers and sponsors had arranged for ‘cheer leaders’ who were at different spots dancing to the tunes of Kajra Re and other popular Hindi numbers.

The Marathon always lifts up your spirits and till the next Marathon; Mumbaikars will get back to their everyday running.

Here are some more photos of the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2007

The Air India Maharaja

Run WSD Run

Marine Drive packed with runners

Past the Cowasji Jehangir Hall

The Strand Book Festival - 2007

2007-01-19T00:52:00.000+05:30

All book aficionados don’t have to be told either about the Strand Book Stall or the Strand Book Festival which is held in January every year at the Sunderbai Hall at New Marine Lines (walking distance from Churchgate Station).

If you go to the Festival, you will run into the Shanbhag family who own the store, Mrs. and Mr. Shanbhag and their daughter Vidya Virkar who is based in Bangalore and runs four Strand Book shops there. (One near M. G. Road on Dickenson Road, two in Infosys and one at Wipro)

Coming back to the Strand Book Stall, it all started when Mr. T. N. Shanbhag (recipient of the Padmashri in 2003) put up a little stall which sold books at a discount. It was located near the the erstwhile Strand Cinema (thus the name) in Colaba and opened on November 20, 1949 and was moved in 1954 to it's present location. Mr. Shanbhag was telling me all this and added that he was the first one in the world to sell a book at a discount (that too of 20%)

At the Festival, you will be able to pick up books at a huge discount (40% to 80%) and you can browse around through rows and rows of books neatly stacked in different sections of Health, Cookery, Science, Management/Business, Self-Help, Reference, Art and Architecture, Literature, Fiction, Design, Photography, a huge Children’s section, a Penguin Books section and Strand Specials. Strand Specials had varied books from In The Line Of the Fire – Parvez Musharraf’s autobiography at Rs 675 to a Coffee table book on The Parsis by Sooni Taraporewala and many others. The Classic section had a 50% off sign. As the exhibition had just begun, there were not too many people but go there in the evenings or on the weekends and the hall is filled with book lovers jostling around to get hold of their favorite book at a huge discount. Every city has a unique book store which is small but has a soul. Strand is not only Mumbai’s book store with a soul but also an institution by itself and if you have never been there, you have missed something. So rush to the Strand Book Festival which is on from January 18 to February 4, 2007(10 am to 8 pm) and if you still cant make it, drop into the Strand Book Stall at P.M. Road in Fort and browse around for your favorite book, order them if they are not available and leave with a feeling of having been to a book store with a soul.

And somewhere near Banganga !

2007-01-15T16:22:00.000+05:30

Banganga Festival 2007

2007-01-07T16:37:00.000+05:30

I kept going to Banganga since my childhood days as my aunt stayed in the building opposite the temple tank. Though I have not been to Varanasi, I feel it must be like the city next to the Ganges from whatever I have read of the city.

Banganga is said to have as legend goes formed because of the ‘bana’ (arrow) shot by a thirsty Lord Ram while passing through. It is a temple precinct with around eight temples which are surrounding a rectangular tank with stone steps. It is situated at Walkeshwar. You have to go down from Teen Batti and then take the first lane on the right as you go away from the bus stops towards the Governor’s residence and then follow the stone steps down. Will write more about Banganga and the temples around it in a later blog but yesterday I went to attend the Banganga Music Festival.

The Festival started in 1992 and is a must-see for classical music enthusiasts or for people who need a reason to visit Banganga or for those who want to hear music in an amazing environment. I am sure many first timers to the festival were also first-timers to Banganga. The stage for the performance is erected in the middle of the tank and the place is lit up. People watch the performance sitting on the stone steps (carpeted for the festival) around the tank. The tickets this year were priced at Rs 200 and Rs 75. The money raised would be used to conserve and restore the tank and the temples around the precinct. Previous concerts have seen performers like Shubha Mudgal, Rajan and Sajan Misra, Kishori Amonkar, Bhimsen Joshi, Gundecha Bros, Ustad Imrat and Nishat Khan, Pt Shivkumar Sharma, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Veena Sahastrabuddhe, and many others.

There was no festival held in 2004 due to the court order passed by the Bombay High Court on loudspeakers not being allowed in certain designated areas. Thus, the organizers started using ‘diffused sound’ from the festival of 2005. Philips radios were spread out around the periphery of the tank and became a source of the ‘alternative’ sound distribution without the use of loudspeakers.(As seen in the adjoining photo). This year, the same technology was used but because of some technical problems, the sound quality was not good and mid-way they had to turn off the transistors. The silence in the area allowed the audiences to hear the music very well.

Yesterday was the first day of the festival where Rahul Sharma enthralled everybody by his santoor and ended the concert with a Pahadi tune. He was accompanied by Anuradha Pal on the tabla.

So if you want to see a live classical music performance in the serene ambience of an ancient site, head there today as the second day has Vasundharatai Komkali and Kalappini Komkali performing a Sahagaan from 7 pm to 9:30pm or if you miss it, you can still go sometime to the Banganga area and absorb its serenity and heritage!

Traffic !

2007-01-06T11:32:00.000+05:30

For a change,the name 'Traffic' has been given to this stray by me and for a reason.. He sits at one of the busiest junctions in South Mumbai at Fountain and is loved by the traffic cops. In fact, it is very scary as you will find him precariously sitting almost right in the middle of the road as if he is managing the traffic. (He must have been a traffic cop in his earlier life). Else he would be taking a break,curled up on the pavement outside the High Court (opposite the Central Telegraph office), where the pavement book-sellers used to be located before they were moved out.

The traffic cops love him and speak very fondly of him. They feed him biscuits many times a day and he follows them around. In fact they were telling me that he is so intelligent that whenever they blow the whistle to ask someone to pull over for a traffic offence, he immediately runs towards the vehicle and waits near it's door as if he is on guard.

So if you are coming from Churchgate or V.T and going towards Regal theatre or Kala Ghoda , look on to your right at the T-Junction bang opposite the Flora Fountain and you will see the brown and white dog, ‘Traffic’ seemingly helping the traffic policemen manage the traffic.

Diva Maharashtracha

2007-01-02T23:28:00.000+05:30

The literal translation of Diva Maharashtracha is ‘Light of Maharashtra’. You don’t have to think too much on what I am talking about as it is the new Maharashtrian restaurant opened on January 1, 2007 by “Maharashtra Ratna”- Dr Suhas Awchat and “Maharashtra Gaurav”- Mrs. Deepa Awchat. Like a movie’s first day first show, we were eating here on the restaurant’s opening night.

Diva Maharashtracha is located at Mahim near City Light Theatre, opposite the Mahim Post Office just next to Goa Portuguesa and Culture Curry run by the same “Marathi hosts”. The facade is made to look like a Wada belonging to the Peshwa and is painted silver. It would have been better if it was painted brown to give it a wooden feel as in a Wada. The trees on the road on the either side of the restaurant have ‘mashaals’. A lady dressed in western clothing greets you and asks you if you have a reservation (We had called earlier to book and they had said that they don’t take any reservations??).

You are ushered in with a traditional ‘Namaskar’ by the same Captain who you would have seen before in a tie-shirt-trouser at Goa Portuguesa who now wears a Kurta/Pyjama with a khadi jacket. You pass by sketches on the wall of famous Maharashtrians ( some recognizable and some not ) like Sachin Tendulkar,Mahatma Phule, V Shantaram,Senapati Bapat,Smita Patil,Bal Thackrey,Dada Kondke,Sharad Pawar, Lata Mangeshkar and others. There is a Paithani saree flowing down a wall and all the waiters are wearing the traditional ‘mavali’ dress of a blue kurta-pyjama with a red waist band.

The introduction in the menu says that Diva Maharashtracha wants to go beyond what people think is Maharashtrian cuisine which is limited to Vada pav, Sabudana Khichadi, Missal and Malvani food. Thus they decided to serve Maharashtrian cuisine from Vidharbha, Marathwada, Khandesh, Western Maharashtra, the Ghats, Konkan and Greater Mumbai districts. CKP, Pathare Prabhu, Saraswat, Maratha, Bhandari, Koli, Brahmin and East Indian cuisine would also be served here. The food is Veg and Non Veg but I would cover the vegetarian fare here.

Welcome Drink

The welcome drink we had was a traditional Panhe – a drink of raw mango pulp and as it was not the season for raw mangos was not very refreshing. You can also have Shahaleche Limbu Sarbat (Tender coconut water with lime), Kokum Sarbat (digestive drink made from Kokum) and of course my favorite - Sol Kadhi. The Sol Kadhi here is one of the best served in Mumbai.

Soups

The only traditional Maharashtrian soup on the menu is the Tomatoche Saar made from tomato pulp, coconut milk and tempered with chilly, cumin powder and coriander leaves. It was very tasty with a good texture and consistency. The other soups were an extension of the Saar or non traditional soups like Pumpkin Soup, Tomato Beet Saar, Saar Pineapple, Green Peas and Spinach Soup.

Appetizers

Appetizers available are known ones like Kaju Kothambir Wadi, Thalipeeth (but with cheese?),Aluchi Wadi(Colocasia leaves rolled in chick pea flour, steamed and then stir fried), Sabudana Wada, Batata Wada and others like Steamed Hirva Watana Ani Kajuche Modak, Mushroom Modak(with cheese again?),Manik Painjan ( dumpling of wheat and besan with onion, ginger-garlic and spices) and Kolhapuri Sukhe Paneer.

Main Course

You can order Batata Sukhi Bhaji,Watana Batata Flower Sukhi Bhaji,Bharali Wangi ( Stuffed Brinjal), Wangyache Bhareet ( Baingan Bhartha without tomatoes),Dalimbi Usal ( A Koknastha Brahmin dish with vaal(type of a bean) with onion, coconut and goda (sweet) masala. They also have Sukhi (dry) and Oli (wet) Usals and Amtis (Curries) which can be made of peas, masoor, chavali, masoor or moong. (All pulses). They have Pithale (gram dal cooked with onion, green chillies and tempered with mustard seeds and curry leaves. Simple Dal (with just haldi and hing) which is called Varan is available and so is a variation called Ambat – God (sour and sweet) Varan. The Rice dishes avaiable are Masale Bhat with Katachi Amti. Katachi Amti as I understand is made from the Puran which is leftover after making Puran Polis. Sabudana Khichadi has also been listed as a rice item.

Etc

Try the Khamang Kakadi which is cucumber and groundnuts with coconut and tempered. The Aambe Dal will taste good in season with raw mango mixed with green gram powder and tempered. They give you the fiery Kolhapuri Thecha which was not at all fiery. You can choose between Bhakri (Thicker chapati made from Jowar or Bajra atta) and Amboli (pancakes made from fermented rice flour and udad dal)

Desserts

Try the Appe with Ice-Cream which were more like the south Indian Sweet (Uniappam). They also serve Doodhi halwa, Narali Bhaat (sweet coconut rice), Sakhar Bhaat (Sweet rice), Puran Poli and Coconut Karanji.

I didn’t feel very ‘trupta’(contented) with the meal as it did not taste very authentic (other than the Saar and Sol kadhi) and only a Ray of hope of improvement should take me again to the Light of Maharashtra.

Happy New Year !

2007-01-01T17:21:00.000+05:30

Mumbai’s School Sports Day Ground

2006-12-31T22:41:00.000+05:30

Everyone who went to school in South Mumbai will definitely remember coming here for their school’s sports day. I am talking about the University Ground officially called the University Sports Pavilion which is located between the Wankhede stadium and the Hindi Vidya Bhavan School on ‘F’ Road. If you commute by the Western Railway you will see this ground just before you reach Churchgate station after you have passed the Marine Lines flyover.

I had gone there today (after many many years) to treat a stray dog who lives there. He saw us and promptly ran into the ground. Being there brought back memories of my school days and I remember spending one day every year out here, cheering class-mates who were taking part in different sports activities an running around on the wooden bleachers carefully avoiding the bigger gaps which had been caused because of the broken bleachers.

The ground is huge and has an athletics track around it. It has the old wooden bleacher seating for spectators’ on one side of the ground. The ground has a nice approach road as one has to walk through a tree-lined path for one length of the ground to get to the spectator stand. The canteen is located behind the stands. The watchman told me that it is busiest in December with Sports Day’s of various schools being held here and is also given out for college and corporate sports events. It is naturally not used during the monsoon.

Today, the stadium needs desperate attention as most of the bleachers were broken in one whole section on the stand. I remember reading reports in the press that a business house was going to sponsor the renovation of the stadium. I just hope that they keep the bleachers and not replace them with concrete seating.

We left the place after leaving medicine for the dog with the watchman in a most appropriate container found lying around. A broken tennis ball!!

James - R.I.P.

2006-12-29T18:55:00.000+05:30

James was named so because of Arvind – the boot polishwala whose habit was to name all the strays that lived with him on the footpath outside Eros theatre after the movie that was running at the theatre when he acquired the stray. So James was named after the James Bond movie that was running there and this was sixteen years ago.

James was jet black and his aging grey hair showed prominently on his face. He was one of the lucky few that would have escaped the BMC dogcatchers as he was born much before the BMC stopped the inhumane practice of electrocuting stray dogs. James lived with his companion’s -Pretty, Tipu, S. Raj, Hritik, Amisha and the recent additions of the two Pomeranians. Though all these dogs came into Arvind (and thus James)’s life at different points of time, James was the second eldest in the group after Pretty.

James had a very docile temperament and if you happened to walk down near the Eros theatre at Churchgate, you would see him sleeping on the footpath or trotting back and forth between Eros and Satyam Collections or crouched between the cars parked on the road and the pavement or chasing the crows or following Arvind wherever he went.

James died last week. Though he was old, had lost weight and slowed down, he was still quite fit with good heamoglobin levels, a good kidney and a slightly bad liver. He died after being run over by a car. Arvind who brought him up as a puppy was devastated and still cries remembering him. Now he has only Tipu and the recently acquired Pomeranians left.

James, of course will be dearly missed by everyone including me as I knew him for the past ten years and saw him every Sunday at 9:30 am, as his home is the meeting point of the WSD South Mumbai on-site first aid team.

Nilambari-The Open Double Decker Bus Tour

2006-12-15T16:14:00.001+05:30

Photo - Courtesy : Rohan Mukherjee

Though the double decker BEST bus has become obsolete, you can still enjoy a ride on an open double decker bus and see the buildings around South Bombay by going on MTDC’s Nilambari, the Open Deck bus service, which leaves from The Gateway of India. The tour is an hour long and is conducted only on Saturdays and Sundays throughout the year (barring the monsoon). It has two services at 7 pm and 8:15 pm.

It is a nice ride and apt for tourists who do not have much time to see the city, for people who like open bus rides and also for Mumbaikar’s who would like to see South Mumbai from around 15 feet high and would like to know about the different illuminated buildings and areas along its route.

The bus commences the tour from the MTDC booth at the Gateway of India (the place where tickets for Elephanta are sold), passes the statue of Shivaji Maharaj, moves along the Gateway of India road past the Taj Mahal hotel and turns onto Colaba causeway towards Regal. It then takes you via the Mantralaya towards Marine Drive, takes a U-turn at the NCPA, past the new Oberoi and runs along a little bit of the Queens Necklace to turn at Jazz by the Bay towards Churchgate station. It turns right at Churchgate round the Oval Maidan, past the University of Mumbai, The Rajabai Tower and the Bombay High Court (all magnificent buildings). It goes along the road behind the Bombay Gymkhana, past the Tata House (now Deutsche Bank building). At the end of the road you see the World Heritage notified V.T.Station (Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj terminius). It then runs along Dadabhai Naoroji Road past Fountain and turns onto the road, which leads you to the State Bank building past Bombay House (The headquarters of the TATA’s). It passes Horniman Circle, the Asiatic Library and heads back towards the gateway via the Naval Docks road.

You can listen to the guide who gives you a running commentary on the different aspects of the buildings along the route, the history of Mumbai, anecdotes on incidents associated with Mumbai and a little bit their own stuff like “ There across the harbor you can see Malabar Hill, it is said you can buy your mother or father in Bombay but you cant buy a house there, heh heh heh” OR a story on why the Marine Drive is called the Queen’s necklace OR his or her interpretation on which is the better hotel between The Taj and The Oberoi OR he would be pointing towards the BSE and doling out advice on not to buy any stocks as it had reached 14,000 and is definitely going to fall OR how a ‘business house’ painted the ‘Fountain’ and that’s why it has turned green with the moss growing over it. Else you can just ignore the guide and look out and absorb the city. If you are standing up on the Upper Deck, do watch out for the tree branches that might hit you.

Do go early in tourist season as all the Upper Deck seats get taken. The tickets are priced at Rs 90 per person for the Upper deck and Rs 40 for the Lower deck. (No half priced tickets for children and children sitting on the lap are not charged for) It is better to go onto the Upper deck as you can hardly see anything from the Lower deck and you may as well go onto any BEST bus which runs along South Mumbai instead.

Starbus in The City

2006-12-04T22:36:00.000+05:30

As a true blue Mumbaikar, I want to try anything that is new in the city. Thus when the BEST launched their new STARBUS, I wanted to get onto it pronto. But, it deluded me for six months as it ran on routes that I never took or never passed through my house, office or kennels. One also could not just jump into it at a signal like other BEST buses as its doors are shut while it is moving. So finally some days ago, I was happy to see a Starbus waiting at the signal outside the Esplanade Court building at Kala Ghoda and as its doors were open, I promptly jumped into it.

At the next stop (opposite the High Court), I heard commuters banging on the door and realized the reason for the doors being open when I got in. The driver had forgotten to shut the door at the earlier stop and thus pressed the button at the bus stop to let the passengers in, only to shut the open door.

The Starbus has two levels and it reminded me of the trailer buses that Bombay had years ago. (Route nos 1, 70, 74) The lower level which is really low almost touches the floor (okay, about one foot higher than the floor) and it can seat 12 people with 3 seats on the side that are foldable and first-timers like me are left wondering how to operate them.

If you are tall, mind your head while climbing the two steps that take you to the higher level. A sign in Marathi, Savdhan, doke aaptel will warn you anyway. The higher level seats 14 people but avoid the last row, as it is terribly hot because of the engine at the back. The bus seats less people than other buses but if you happen to be standing, see that you are holding on dearly to whatever you can get your hands on, as the Starbus is very very unsteady.

Well now for the positives… One big one is that it takes care of the physically challenged. It has a foldable ramp and a place for the wheel chair to be strapped. Another first was that they were playing songs, which I have heard only on public buses and private buses in the South. I though they were playing “In the Summer Time”, only to realize that they were playing a Marathi fusion of Summer Time, They also played some nice old Marathi numbers like ‘he chinche che zaad’, ‘maalyacha malya mandi’, ‘ye jawal ye laju nako’ and ‘aaga ye na, jawal ye na.’ which unfortunately had Jhankar beats.

The bus driver and the conductor were not too happy with the bus. The conductor said that it was used only on short routes and is too shaky. Poor fellow! Must have to put on quite a balancing act. The driver was unhappy that he could not cruise with it through the narrow Jagannath Sunkersett Road in Girgaum as he though it was bulkier than the regular buses.

If you do intend to take a ride on this bus, do read the “In Emergency Instructions for passengers” written there.

1) Press red knob provided near door and open manually.
2) Remove the flap and press handle to open rear door.
3) “Fire extinguishers” near drivers seat at rear end.
4) ‘Break’ rear glass with hammers nearby.
5) Operate “battery cut-off switch’ near driver seat and rear end engine.

So the STARBUS may be suave and foreign looking but the good ole single and double-decker buses are best suited for the hustle and bustle of this city.

Diwali – Then and Now !

2006-10-23T13:40:00.000+05:30

Over the years, the way Diwali is celebrated has changed as I see it. Here are some random notings.

Gone are the days when our ‘wadi’ used to have Diwali festivities. Soon gone will be the days when we would have ‘wadis’ left as they would be replaced by some ‘tower’ but that’s besides the point. When we were small, we used to look forward to Diwali, not only for not having to go to school but also for the wadi festivities. They were so popular that all the cousins and relatives of people staying in the ‘wadi’ used to come and spend time with the wadi relatives and participate. The wadi used to be flood lit and a host of events used to be organized. There would be different sporting events arranged including Badminton, Table Tennis, Cricket, Carom and Volleyball tournaments. A play would be staged with the youngsters participating. The highlight of the festivities was arranging an open-air movie show on the ‘parda’. Thus, a white screen used to be put up and a Hindi movie(in black and white) used to be projected on it. Everyone used to sit on chairs or on ‘satranjis’ laid out on the ground and watch it. Our Parsi colony neighbors also used to come into the wadi to watch or watch it from the other side of the screen. I remember seeing Kishore Kumar’s ‘China Town’ on the parda one of the years.

Unfortunately, for many years now these festivities do not take place as many of the wadi youngsters have migrated to the US or are too busy with their own lives.

Diwali at home also meant putting some ‘uttan’ on the ‘pahli anghol’ day and breaking a ‘karit’, putting up lights, making a ‘kandeel’, putting a rangoli and diyas. Faral – the sweets and savories distributed and eaten during Diwali used to be made at home. So one gorged on chiroti, balu shahi, besan, rava and motichur laddoo, karanji filled with a coconut filling, chakli, shankar pali, chivda, shev, kadboli and anarse all throughout the Diwali week. It also meant going out and buying new clothes for yourself and family. On Bhau Beej, my sisters used to perform and Aarti and I had to give them a gift. This custom was carried out to honour the brothers for taking care of them and protecting them, and pray for their well-being. Today, all this has also changed. The faral is home made but bought from some one who makes it at his/her home and is not eaten with as much fervor. As sisters are not in the country, there is no aarti and no gifts to give. The lights are still put on but the kandeel is bought from the market.

Diwali in the city has changed too. If you took a bus from V.T. thru Girgaum thru Parel to Mahim, you would see many chawls and buildings having similar colored kandeels(lanterns) put up in a row on the long balconies. Today, many of these chawls have been pulled down. In fact our ‘wadi’ too had this uniform code as far as the Diwali lights were concerned. There would be nine ‘zero’ bulbs with a set pattern of colors. Red at one end, then green, then yellow, then orange and white in the middle and the same repeated on the other side. Thus all the flats in the wadi used to have the same kind of Diwali lights put up on their balconies. Today barring a few nobody follows this code. The kandeels too have changed. Unfortunately, more and more people have started buying plastic kandeels which not only are bad for the environment but also look terrible and tacky.

If you go to Marine Drive, the sky is lit up with firecrackers. It seems that the whole of Bombay descends on Marine Drive to either burst the crackers or to see the fireworks display. I remember one year on Diwali day as I was waiting for a 123 BEST bus, I was pleasantly surprised that the 123 was an open-top double decker bus and when it went onto Marine Drive, one could see the firework display right above you. Though, I am sure Marine Drive residents must be having a tough time during Diwali.

Of course, over the years with people becoming more aware of noise and air pollution and the judiciary stepping in, one hears fewer crackers than 15 years ago. This is a welcome sign not only for us but also for the animals – stray dogs, cats, and pets etc that all have a bad time during Diwali. They go through immense trauma because of the crackers and every year the number of road accidents, burn cases and pets that get lost are very high

I wonder what further changes would happen twenty years hence in the way people celebrate Diwali, maybe it would be celebrated on the net only and through blogs ??

Happy Diwali !

2006-10-21T12:55:00.000+05:30

Gandhiji and Bombay

2006-10-02T09:58:00.000+05:30

The above photograph of Gandhiji was taken on his return to Bombay from South Africa in 1915. Thus, on Gandhi Jayanti day, if one has to remember places that bring out Gandhiji’s association with Bombay, the most important would be Mani Bhavan,now a memorial museum at Laburnum Road, Gamdevi that served as his headquarters from 1917-1934.

Bombay, a city in the forefront of the freedom struggle had attracted Gandhiji often and he used to stay in the city at the residence of Shri Revashanker Jhaveri’s Mani Bhavan. It is a two-storied building, with the ground floor housing a library and the first floor has a picture gallery and an auditorium. On the second floor, you can see the room where Gandhiji worked out of and also various photos, memorabilia and letters. It also has an exhibition on his life called Glimpses of Gandhi, which shows the important events in Gandhiji’s life in a mini-figures format. Mani Bhavan attracts many tourists but I wonder how many Mumbaikars have visited it.

Gandhiji's room at Mani Bhavan

These are some of the activities that Gandhiji carried out in Bombay

# In 1917, he took the first lessons in carding from a carder who used to pass Mani Bhavan every day.
# He learnt spinning here.
# The Satyagraha movement against the Rowlett Act was launched from here in March 1919.
# He took over the writing of two magazines Young India and Nava Jeevan in 1919.
# He lent support to the Khilafat movement from here in 1920.
# He participated in the funeral procession of Bal Gangadhar tilak from Sardar Griha to Chowpatty in 1920. His words " A great among men has fallen" are remembered by all.
# The decision to collect one crore rupees from the Tilak Swaraj Fund was taken and its start made here in 1921.
# He organized the boycott and bonfires of foreign cloth from here on July 31,1921.
# He was arrested from his tent on the terrace of Mani Bhavan on Jan 4, 1932.
# His last stay at Mani Bhavan was on June 17-18 1934.

Various statues Of Gandhiji exist in Mumbai, the most prominent being the one at Mantralaya. As all cities Bombay has an M.G. Road, in fact more than one. The most prominent being the one from Metro to Kala Ghoda. The others are in Goregaon (W) and Ghatkopar. Various organisations like the Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal at Nana Chowk spread his teachings and sell books on Gandhiji.

As I was leaving Mani Bhavan, I smiled seeing a banner on the opposite side on the road “Use Gandhigiri, For Peace and Harmomy”. Gandhiji is also being remembered at many of the theatres in Mumbai that are playing the film “ Munnabhai”.

Pujo in Mumbai

2006-10-02T08:30:00.000+05:30

The multicultural and multilingual ethos of Mumbai is seen by the various Durga Puja’s organized by the Bengali community in Mumbai and is a worth a visit. In Mumbai, Pujo’s are mostly held at the Tejpal auditorium at Gowalia Tank, Shivaji Park, Lokhandwala in Andheri, Powai, Chembur, Vashi and Patwardhan Baug at Bandra

I have been to the Puja’s at Tejpal, Chembur, Shivaji Park and Bandra. The Puja’s start on the sixth day (Maha-Shashti) and go on till the tenth day (Maha-Dashmi). It symbolizes good winning over evil. The Tejpal Pujo has a beautifully decorated idol with an Arati carried out in the midst of playing of the dhak.They also have a musical programme everyday with jugalbandi, dance drama, bengali songs and a theatrical musical being performed in the evenings. The committee which organises the Bandra Puja organises a Marathi play every year. The Shivaji Park Puja has a bigger idol and has many stalls, which sell Bengali foodstuff (sweets like kheer kodom, payesh, gulab jamun, rossogulla etc), Sarees and handicrafts from Bengal.

I ate the traditional Durga Puja meal (Bhog) at the Bandra Pujo this year and it was wonderful. Hundreds of people stand in a line and volunteers dish out a hearty meal of khichadi, potato and paneer subji, begun bhaja, tomato chutney, payesh and gulab jamun.

The photos here are from the Tejpal and the Bandra Puja. For more information on Durga Puja see here and here.

Bahubhashik Bahurangi Natyotsav

2006-09-30T09:59:00.000+05:30

A five-day theatre fest is currently going on (September 28-October 2, 2006) at the Mumbai Marathi Sahitya Sangh at Girgaum, near Charni Road station. This festival organized jointly with the Saraswat Co-operative Bank in memory of the late Dr Shrirang Adarkar, a theatre enthusiast and an ex-director with the Saraswat Bank.

The festival has quite a mélange of plays in Marathi, Malvani, Hindi and English. The first one called Bin Baykacha Tamasha, as the name suggests has no women but men dressed as women. It was wonderful to see the men dancing in the tamasha form and the male singers who were singing in both male and female voices. Look at this link here and you will find it difficult to identify that the actors are all men.

Then there was Sangit Swayamwara, the Natya Sangeet form of theatre in which the plot was of Rukmini’s Swayamwara with Lord Krishna, Rukmini, Rukmini’s brother Rukmi, her father Bhishmaka, the King of Vidharba all part of the plot and were emoting out scenes through dialogues and moreover through classical singing. The photos that appear here are from this play. This form of theatre was made popular by the legendary Bal Gandharva.

The other plays that are going to be staged are Magni Taso Puravtho, a play in Malvani by the famous comedian Macchindra Kambli, Katha Collage II directed by Naseeruddin Shah and Tamasha Mumbai Ishtyle, a comedy by Bharat Dabholkar.

Do pay a visit to this old theatre, which used to be an open air theatre in the 1920’s and for many years now is an enclosed auditorium named after Dr Bhalerao who was responsible for reviving Marathi drama in the 1940’s when the audience for plays had thinned out after people started turning towards films.